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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.
why didn't I buy 1,000 bitcoins when they were $50 a few years ago!!!
... then Bitcoin is like rat poison.
Seriously, its your protection against money printing.
Nope, he's old school, pickax and wheelbarrow. The black lung is a bitch though.
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.
Oh, so he plays Minecraft too?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
.Seems like March 1637 all over again.
Does anyone think that the rise in price might be a result of the new demand for Bitcoins due to Cryptolocker outbreak?
There is no ulterior motive or even sour grapes, just pure speculation at this point. Even most bitcoin "investers" believe that bitcoins are over priced. An they would be correct.
People are hording them like stocks hoping the value will keep going up and up. While bitcoins maybe be a virtual currency and not subject to the whims and regulations of any government they are still affected by the laws of economics, human greed, and insecurity.
The higher the value that bitcoins go the more people will start to get nervous about it and start wanting to sell. When this happens more people will sell and then the market will become over saturated with sellers and not enough buyers. Then the value will crash, free fall is a better word for it.
An since bitcoins are not regulated by any government there are no safety nets in place to stop a bitcoin freefall. I don't even know if it can be stopped because of the way they work.
I'm not just pulling these theories out of my ass ether. There is precedent for just such a collapse. The stock market collapse in the late '20 and early '30 that brought on the great depression. The things that caused it are currently all in place to cause a "great bitcoin depression."
Now I'm not saying that a bitcoin free fall will cause any kind of global economic collapse. Bitcoins are not that popular or even well known to cause that. In reality a bitcoin collapse will probably be barely noticed by most people.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I recently had a discussion about whether or not the spike in BTC is a bubble or not and came to some interesting conclusions.
From what I can tell, essentially a bubble burst occurs when prices have become so inflated that people are priced out of buying in. This creates a lack of buyers, causing the sellers to dramatically drop their prices. For example, if I buy a house for $100,000, and then sell it for $150,000, then they sell it at $250,000, etc, etc. Eventually the price gets so high that people just won't buy the house. Leaving the last buyer to take the hit and sell at a loss (if he chooses to sell).
BTC is somewhat different though. It is divisible to 8 decimal places (infinitely divisible in theory, just need to update the clients). So people can never be "priced out" of the market, they can just buy a smaller slice of the pie if they desire. This is unlike a house where I (typically) can't buy just a fraction of it.
So the only thing I can say for sure, is that we cannot be sure whether or not the rapid rise in BTC value is a bubble which will burst or not.
Money is a commodity. Money markets and foreign exchange markets prove that it is.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
I wish I had mod points ^_^ but yeah, that is an element that differs from classic bubble mechanics.
We might encounter other problems though such as traders making BTC unproductive for people using it for goods and services. It could also crash if some large (or simply enough) players cash out and deplete various exchange's ability to convert BTC into other currencies, which could cause exchanges to close shop and thus reduce the utility.
Though historically there are plenty of examples of bubbles of easily subdivided items, even including things like gold. So you can not get a housing-style bubble with BTC, but that does not make it immune from the general pattern.
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.
I do ATM
You might want to spell out the acronym in that context.
file:
If you buy a commodity, or any item with a static underlying value, with the expectation that you will profit from appreciation, you are a speculator. Having a years-long time horizon, or a moral commitment to the commodity, does not significantly change your status.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.