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Bitcoin Price Jumps 21% Over 4 Days, Reaching a 21-Month High (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader shares a TechCrunch report: Bitcoin is back! Or at least, there are positive signs indicating that bitcoin might not be as dead as everybody thought. Bitcoins are now trading at $547.40 on Bitfinex (the largest USD/bitcoin exchange according to Bitcoinity). And it represents a big 21.4 percent price jump over just four days. Today's price represents a 21-month high. Surprisingly, bitcoin prices had been relatively stable for the last two months before this weekend's jump. What's the reason behind this jump? It's hard to say. Huobi and OKCoin, the two dominant Chinese exchanges, have seen many new sign-ups, as well as many buy orders. Increasingly, bitcoin's price variations are correlated with macroeconomic trends in China. These trends tell us that China still fears a deflation.
The Feds are planning to raise interest rates at their next meeting in June.
The rationale behind Bitcoin is to ensure that everyone/everything, regardless of jurisdiction or position, have access to a common economy. What matters is its penetration to everyday lives.
Market price is irrelevant. It could go sky high and still fail in its mission.
We've seen a uptick in ransomware infections over the same time frame. Coincidence? I don't think so....
It's not hard to say, over there weekend there was a currency devaluation in China.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
If you knew that the cash that you saved will buy less than it does right now, how would you protect it? Buying bitcoin is one possible answer. By the way, the fear is not deflation. Deflation would mean that your cash can buy MORE in the future. This is a devaluation, where your currency will buy less. China fears that they will need to print up large amounts of cash to bail out several bankrupt industries, and is attempting to devalue now to prevent a massive crash.
Bitcoin isn't really designed for investment, in the buy-and-hold sense where you hope the value goes up.
What it's designed for is making transactions, so you can buy and sell regular goods over the internet with lower transaction costs than credit cards or PayPal, and so you can buy and sell (ahem) less regular goods over the internet with much less traceability than credit cards or PayPal, even though you don't get the advantage of being able to cancel the payment or limit it to $50 if the seller defaults.
Of course, what it's really not designed for is storing in a bank where somebody you don't 100% trust is holding it for you, because it's also an extremely convenient transaction methods for embezzlement, either by the bank's managers or employees or other insiders, and digital safecracking lets you become an insider without all the noise and dust of using dynamite or the risks of using guns.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Because let's be honest--who doesn't want a currency whose value is 20% different than it was last week?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The Feds are planning to raise interest rates at their next meeting in June.
From a previous post, you seem to be in touch with economics and financial matters. Here's a question for you, and I'm not trying to be snarky.
The fed lent out money at 0% interest for the last 7 years or so, in an attempt to kickstart the economy.
The loans went out to big banks, and I remember at the time that a lot of the loans were going to foreign banks, especially in Germany.
Question 1:
Many of those banks turned the money around and lent it back to the US at higher interest. This just about doubled the national debt over that period.
If we were giving out 0% loans, why couldn't we have repurchased our own debt with 0% loans? The amount of money would have been the same, but instead of profits going to the banks, we could have reduced our debt burden and increased net revenue for government spending.
Question 2:
We're told that social security will go bankrupt in a few years, in our own lifetime, due to a temporary glut of baby boomers retiring. We have to adjust by accepting smaller payouts and working longer.
Why can't we just give the SSA a 0% interest loan to cover the shortfall for a few years? Social Security has almost always taken in more than it spends yearly, and if it can work through the glut it would become solvent a few years later.
I'm trying to understand economics, but I don't have the benefit of the standard curriculum.
Can you tell me why these things aren't just that simple?
Volatile currencies are only good for people who trade currency. People who are trying to get things done want a nice stable currency so they don't have to play day-trader on the side while running their business.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
USD against EUR changed 10% in the last 6 months, and nothing particularly unusual is changing in either currency at this moment.
https://www.oanda.com/solution...
20% in 4 days is rapid, sure, but fuck - an iPhone can change in price that much if there's enough demand, and it's still up in the air whether Bitcoin is a currency or a commodity like that.
10% is less than half of this change, and that was over half a year. I stand by what I said.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
I think the question is what is: A 21% change compared to what?
Take, for example, Canada's dollar. It fell about 25% in around three months at the start of 2016 compared to the US dollar. But the US dollar was going up while Canada's dollar was dipping a little. Nothing really changed in Canada. Prices stayed the same, the job market was about level, there was no social change happening. It's just a fluxuation that happens about once a decade here when currencies travel in opposite directions (value-wise).
Canada's dollar is now clmbing (slowly) against the US dollar and the economy is still stable. A 20% fluxuation really is not all that unusual, when compared against other currencies.
The reason why the federal government has budget deficits is [...]
That wasn't the question.
When the music stops the people left holding the bitcoin will be the losers because Bitcoin is the pay-to-play version of musical chairs.
It's never been worth anything and still isn't worth anything let alone $545, $525, or even $500.
It's a VERY-TEMPORARY right-to-sell that keeps getting transferred from last week's sucker to next week's sucker.
This is "timely /. news" in the same sense that Prince's hard drive may be auctioned off at some price.
E
The value that a USD will buy inside the US has moved less than 2% in the past year. One buys most of their stuff from within their own country. Suppose your mortgage fluctuated by 21% in four days. Would you be happy with that? What if it fluctuated the "wrong" way? Would you be donating your house to your bank?
Bitcoin was only way to buy in. A bunch of eager Chinese bid price up. I suspect something similar.
"what it's really not designed for is storing in a bank"
Actually, a lot of people with more than just a little bit of Bitcoin print out an encrypted private key on paper and get a lock box at a regular bank. That does work.
New things are always on the horizon
"Bitcoin isn't really designed for investment, in the buy-and-hold sense where you hope the value goes up."
Just like any other currency, but they also get traded. Probably more than Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is still a small economy.
New things are always on the horizon
Bitcoin is dead. The Chinese control the majority of power and network.
There is now a central majority holder. You people fucked your currency up, big time.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
So.... Since gold costs $1,000-$1,200 per ounce to mine, the actual value of gold is $0 to $200?
BitCoin is, by definition, deflationary currency. Because MOST people, including economists have no working knowledge of a deflationary currency, most people don't understand the value in human liberty. By working hard, accumulating currency that grows in value over time (rather than lose value) it allows people to be free from government manipulation of nominal fiat currency. And that is what you are seeing in China, and why you are seeing it.
You can have a Yuan that can buy an egg today, but require two Yuan's tomorrow, or you can get BitCoin, and buy two eggs for a BitCoin tomorrow. Which one do you choose?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.