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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.
same ol' shit every thread.
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?
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.
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.