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Bitcoin Tops $1,000 For the First Time
An anonymous reader writes with this bit from The Next Web "Bitcoin hit a new milestone today, passing the $1,000 mark for the first time. The virtual currency is currently trading above the four-digit figure, with its highest at $1,030 on Mt. Gox, one of the largest exchanges. Last week, Bitcoin's high for the day was $632. That means its trading value has surged 62.83 percent in a week, assuming we're looking at just its high points. That figure could of course rise even further if Bitcoin continues to push further up throughout the day."
The price may go up a little more, but all indications are sell now before the crash.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Bubblicious!
why didn't I buy 1,000 bitcoins when they were $50 a few years ago!!!
It'll keep climbing forever. Trust me.
... then Bitcoin is like rat poison.
Seriously, its your protection against money printing.
Man, when this cash cow comes crashing to the ground its going to make a huge ass hole. Yes, it will come crashing down and I think it will be soon.
Bitcoins are a nice idea but people are not treating them like money. They are treating them like stocks and commodities. They are not commodities, they are coins and coins are supposed to be spent.
So when the fall does happen, and it will, then maybe we can start using them for what they are supposed to be used for. An not hording them like bunch of fucking dragons.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
They have 1% of the supply per wikipedia in 4/2013.
A good speculation for them with their FB winnings I would say.
Not too shabby. It's most interesting to watch people I know who started kicking themselves for not getting into bitcoins when it had skyrocketed to $600. Kudos to all those who got in sub $200.
This is just a hyper-volatile investment which can be bartered against goods from people who are either gamblers or clueless.
All currencies are volatile to some extent, but this thing has no fundamentals to back it up.
Presumably, people want Bitcoins for some reason, otherwise the price wouldn't go up. I can think of 2 reasons that could be driving it...
1. Pure speculation in a rising market and wanting to make money by investing.
2. BTC actively being used for something so they have actual value.
I've seen some minor gambling sites. And a handful of sites that accept them for services/products. There was silk road, but that's gone. With the bust, I have to imagine that people are skittish about the new silk road, so I have to believe those volumes are way down. But all that just doesn't seem to be keeping up with the extreme increase in value. Make me really think #1 is the more likely scenario.
What am I missing? How are these being used?
Side note... I've got 0.34 BTC from when I played around with it a year ago. Wasn't worth cashing in then and forgot about them. Glad I didn't lose the keys.
Seriously, isn't it mainly being used to support criminal and terrorist activites? Aren't the rest of you, who aren't criminals and terrorists, just "Useful Idiots", unwittingly facilitating crime and terrorism?
You realize the same argument has been used by proponents of abolishing cash, right? Oh, and the anti-oil types, although in their case they're actually correct.
Sometimes being able to buy stuff without being fucking tracked is not only perfectly reasonable, it's a damn good idea.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
With the high profile shutdown of Silk Road the number of things you can buy with Bitcoin would be considerably less. While it's true that there are other services available, it seems strange to me that so much money is being dumped into the system now. Maybe someone is trying to buy up enough coins for a trip to space? Or maybe someone is laundering a crapload of money and is having trouble on the outbound side (converting the money back into real life currency) and is creating a backlog?
Or it's an attack on the system itself, maybe someone figure out a way to race the market and make money?
I read the internet for the articles.
.Seems like March 1637 all over again.
The USD is used for more criminal activity in a day than Bitcoin is for several years. The argument is tiresome.
What about people who don't have bank accounts? Believe it or not there are many people in the world (hell, here in the U.S. even!) who are poor and don't have a bank account, living their lives entirely on cash basis. What about them? Also most banks charge fees to someone (the consumer, or the business) for EFT transactions; I see very often smaller, independent retailers won't even be set up to accept EFT or even credit card transactions, because banks are charging them too much to make it viable for them, and as we all well know, prepaid credit cards are a morass of tacked-on, hidden fees that often effectively cancel out any cash value loaded onto the card. Banks would have to be brought to heel by federal regulations, prohibiting them from charging fees like they have been, and since they have the money, they'd fight it for decades to come. Nope, I don't see cash being phased out anytime soon, and considering how public awareness of governments tracking of our everyday lives is on the rise, I'd expect more people to be using cash whenever possible in an attempt (futile as it might turn out to be, anyway) to preserve (or take back) their privacy.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I wish I'd bought some when they were $100. Maybe I will after the next crash.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Does anyone think that the rise in price might be a result of the new demand for Bitcoins due to Cryptolocker outbreak?
Sometimes being able to buy stuff without being fucking tracked is not only perfectly reasonable, it's a damn good idea.
Like elections.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
That's totally unfair, singling out criminals like that.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
based on valueless commodities: tulip bulbs and diamonds are the first ones that come to mind. Good luck to all holding bitcoins- you're going to need it.
I mined a few Bitcoins last winter using my GPU. I needed to heat my house a bit, so the cost for me was basically nothing. Today I sold the last Bitcoin - total profit: USD 6500... Happy, but I think I'll spend the coming week second-guessing my decision to sell today.
My guess is that you are right. However, you have to get out sometime. I'm sitting on quite a lot of unrealized gain myself. At some point, I will cash out just to cash out, but it probably won't be because I think it is peaking.
There are something like 20,000+ vendors accepting bitcoin now. I would like to cash out by purchasing some stuff. As more vendors accept bitcoin, the temptation to spend will increase.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The arguments that bitcoin mining is wasteful are without merit. Ripping apart the earth's crust to get gold or minting coins and notes of physical currency is wasteful. A little perspective please.
I think the dump part is coming real soon
Forget CPU and GPU already. The mining difficulty has risen so much recently that what you can mine with them today won't event offset the power costs.
ASICs are the only viable option today for at-home mining, but I'm pretty sure they'll also be rendered useless soon by hosted mining services (CEX.IO already has 25% of the whole Bitcoin network mining power) that are able to consolidate costs and run their mining farms in countries with cheap electricity.
Isn't it interesting how quickly we see comments decrying bitcoin, instead of marvelling at its technological ingenuity?
For a nerd news site, there sure are a lot of people blind to the future. Scratch that, blind to what's happening right now, let alone the future.
There are other uses for bitcoin that haven't even ramped up yet. For example, sending money internationally to relatives, an $850 billion market, has an average fee of 9% from places like Western Union. That market is just begging to be undercut by bitcoin. However, it takes time to set up a network of currency exchangers, something Western Union already has. Give it a few years.
I remember a lot of argument on old bitcoin posts about whether bitcoins were a deflationary currency or not. It is certainly looking that they are right now. The value of them is increasing with time allowing one bitcoin to buy more and more with each passing day. So with the current market, why would someone spend bitcoins? They can wait a day and spend less coins for the same goods, or wait two days and possibly spend even less. This will kill it as a currency. Bitcoin will be solely used as an investment for speculation soon.
Aww bitcoin is a big boy now... you deserve it!
Sometimes being able to buy stuff without being fucking tracked is not only perfectly reasonable, it's a damn good idea.
Like elections.
Except that several websites keep a running tally of who has donated to whom, and how much.
Sadly, the people buying elections have so much money and power that fear of discovery doesn't even cross their minds; hell, some of them are proud to be subverting the democratic process.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
What about people who don't have bank accounts?
The oligarchs have accounted for this, which is why many large corporations are now replacing non-direct-deposit paychecks with what are essentially pre-paid VISA cards.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/business/as-pay-cards-replace-paychecks-bank-fees-hurt-workers.html?_r=0
http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2013/07/23/are-hourly-workers-being-short-changed-the-truth-about-payroll-cards/
http://consumerist.com/2013/07/01/here-is-why-employers-and-banks-love-putting-wages-on-prepaid-debit-cards-and-why-employees-are-keeping-their-money-in-shoeboxes/
You might not be able to get blood from a turnip, but that little fact won't stop those in power from trying.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Buy Price $968.80 Sell Price $963.76 (Coinbase).
Coinbase prices are real, because if you sell there, you get the money. Mt. Gox prices are higher, but you can't get US dollars out.
Not sure why this was modded down. It's a simple econ question.
If virtually no one is willing to buy, then people who want or need to sell have to offer a price that the people who ARE willing to buy will pay. In other words, the price falls.
Yeah, but there's no "asinine" rating. "Overrated" sometimes doesn't do it justice.
True to form, slashdot is sceptical as ever.
We had the same baseless naysaying when it spiked to $200, and the same smug "told ya so's" when it crashed back down to $100
There is something bitcoin has that diamond and tulip bulbs don't, and even if crypto isnt your bag, I' expected more insight from such and otherwise smart crowd.
Don't be stupid, they aren't remotely similar. You can't sleep nekkid on top of a pile of bitcoins in an old cave.
Not that I have tried.
Don't judge me.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The deflationary nature of Bitcoin and the fact that transactions can't be reversed pretty much guarantees that it will never be used as a currency, but those two features could be strengths if you think of Bitcoin as virtual gold.
BC is deflationary in the sense that there are a fixed number of BC that can exist, and as time passes more are revealed. They are used by humans, who have been growing at an (low,and variable, but) exponential rate, causing an increasing demand for them. I am going to say that the growing number of humans interested in BC will exceed the 'production' of new BC, so I am not sure that calling the currency 'deflationary' is quite accurate. Technically any currency is only inflationary or deflationary if the production of it is out of skew with the units of man hours of work that are being added or subtracted from the work pool at any given time.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If you use a HSBC bank account, you can freely transfer between your own multi-national accounts for free and then do a transfer at the cost of a 'local country' transfer (in some countries, a local bank transfer doesn't cost anything). If you are a smart person, you would use these accounts for transferring money to relatives.
This is probably less expensive than the conversion fees and cuts that Bitcoin exchanges would take and any additional payment provider system to get that money to the person would (since it appears most Bitcoin exchanges don't handle currency themselves, but instead use payment services).
Bitcoin needs to undercut decent banks like HSBC, I don't see that happening unless people are paying everything through Bitcoin.
I suspect by then, many of the international banks would have duplicated HSBC's offerings which would compete well against this. I also suspect Western Union will take different business approaches to counter this as well.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
It costs me $0 to transfer dollars to relatives electronically, bank-to-bank. No fees at all.
Also, perhaps you are unaware, but Western Union has been losing business for two decades now. Many immigrants now send money home by opening a bank account and mailing a physical ATM card to their relatives, which can cost as little as $0 if the relatives withdrawal the cash in $ (which many can), and can be as little as 1% if a currency conversion is involved.
Even using a non-network ATM typically has a fixed charge, e.g. $3/$300 = 1% charge to get a hard currency in one's pocket.
Bitcoin cannot do better (people who think they can transfer BTC for free are ignoring both the exchange spreads and the time/volatility factor).
-Matt
Why would the world population want to do that when they could be using BTC2 or BTC3 or ... BTC (each with a slight tweek of the algorithm) instead?
There are tons of virtual currencies already in existence, and no barrier to entry for creating more (including no barrier to entry for creating clones of Bitcoin that use a different cryptographic base).
-Matt
Why would the world population want to do that when they could be using BTC2 or BTC3 or ... BTC (each with a slight tweek of the algorithm) instead?
There are tons of virtual currencies already in existence, and no barrier to entry for creating more (including no barrier to entry for creating clones of Bitcoin that use a different cryptographic base).
Because Bitcoin has a huge first-mover advantage over all other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is a grand experiment that could succeed dramatically or fail utterly. The other current attempts at cryptocurrencies are also-rans that more often than not are simply Bitcoin clones with some minor tweaks that add nothing of significance when compared to the magnitude of Bitcoin's dramatic breakthroughs.
What's the barrier to entry of creating a new credit card, VISA2, VISA3, etc? Merchants accept bitcoin because they trust it... and because merchants accept it people pay a premium for it. A new alt-currency has neither, and with no benefit over bitcoin will have a hard time establishing trust. Maybe a few currencies, LTC, NMC may survive just as we have Discover, AMEX and Mastercard, but as things gel over time, the barrier to entry will be there already is a currency out there that people trust a lot more. Not to mention the security of the huge collection of miners preventing a double spend attack (which new alt currencies will not have).
All the people that say "You can't buy anything with it, it's worthless" or "it's too volatile to be of any value" are missing the forest for the trees.
The simple fact of the matter is that even on the most fundamental level, bitcoin takes Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover/PayPal and all of the associated fees out of the equation. If you buy something in bitcoin you're saving the merchant anywhere up to 5% of the cost of goods sold which, in turn should reduce the price you pay. The price may be volatile at the moment, but it is certainly by no means undervalued given the size of the potential market. Buy some coin by transferring money into an exchange and buying them (might cost you up to 20 bucks and 0.5% in fees) or buy them in cash for "free" with localbitcoins.com and just don't spend them any time the price is lower than what you paid for them. Alternatively, provide a good or service and accept payment in bitcoin yourself.
The fact that bitcoin is peer to peer and run by the community should be enough reason for any Slashdot user to take a serious look at it now that it has received enough scrutiny to know that the math is safe.
Arbitrary thing passes arbitrary number. http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/11/27/142234/nasdaq-4000-this-time-its-different
Film at an arbitrary number between 10 and 12
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Bitcoin with an automatic devaluation if not spent within a month or so is desirable because Bitcoins are limited to 21 million.
Casteism
Cash = Unlimited demand and unlimited supply
Bitcoin = Unlimited demand and limited supply (21 million)
Casteism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
-- 29A the number of the Beast