Bitcoin Boosted by Safe-Haven Demand After Trump Victory (cnbc.com)

Donald Trump's historic victory in the U.S. presidential elections has pushed up prices for the digital currency bitcoin. As the results for the election began to trickle in, the cryptocurrency quickly began to rise at around 2 a.m. London time. From a report on CNBC: The price for bitcoin was around 3.5 percent higher at 11:00 a.m. London time Wednesday at $733.84. Since November 4, the cryptocurrency has been stuck around the $700-709 trading band. The weakening dollar may have added to the rise, but the digital currency is also higher when priced in other currencies like the Chinese yuan, sterling and the euro. Charles Hayter, CEO and founder of Crypto Compare, said that the price is rising on safe-haven demand in reaction to the uncertainty created as a result of Trump's victory.

Comments

Woof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dogecoin much up! Trump lolz!

Re:Woof!

[Anonymous Coward]

I voted for Hillary out of concern for the next generation. I'm pretty much set for the rest of my life, so I'm not concerned with the Trump victory but I feel bad for the people that have to live with this choice for the next 50+ years. On the other hand, the ones that will be hurt most are the ones that put him into office, so I guess you get what you pay for. I know I shouldn't feel sorry for them but I can't help it.

Re:Woof!

[squiggleslash]

On the other hand, the ones that will be hurt most are the ones that put him into office

I don't think white baby boomers are going to be the ones that are hurt most, somehow.

Re:Woof!

[fbobraga]

next 50+

You seem too optimistic to me: a maniac with atomic bombs can shorten this number much :P

betting on bitcoin sounds silly

[Anonymous Coward]

What if Trump will nuke it? That guy will destroy lots of things, i doubt bitcoin is something he'll like. I would stick to gold.

Re:betting on bitcoin sounds silly

[rock217]

I don't think you understand how bitcoin works.

Re:betting on bitcoin sounds silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither do you. There are so many fees to getting your bitcoin that its like a 10-20% loss

If you think bitcoin is an investment or safe they you are an idiot.

Re:betting on bitcoin sounds silly

[Anonymous Coward]

The Russians will have stolen it all before that can happen.

Re:betting on bitcoin sounds silly

[Anonymous Coward]

There are so many fees to getting your bitcoin that its like a 10-20% loss

You fail at tech.

Long time bitcoin user

[Anonymous Coward]

... and this is not a big deal. 3% change is a joke. This title should be more like, "bitcoin stays stable amidst tumultuous election."

Now, if gold or crude spiked, that would be interesting, because someone like trump is unlikely to support laws that severely impact the wealthy.

Re:Long time bitcoin user

[imadeyoureadpoop]

You're right, if there was a 'bitcoin volatility index', today would've been classifiable as stable. The Trump effect on global markets is no joke though. In Australia, where US is the 4th biggest trading partner, the share market has lost $35bn in a day. Also, gold has spiked, it gained over $50 p/ounce, over 4% in the space of 4hrs.

Re:Long time bitcoin user

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, sorry, I should have phrased that as "why aren't we reporting on that".

Re:Long time bitcoin user

[NoNeeeed]

What do you use BitCoin for? Genuinly not being sarcastic or anything, I'm interested to know how easy it is to actually use tor "real world" uses these days. I'd always been put off bothering with it as it didn't seem very useful, but it's been around for a long time now so clearly there are uses.

Re:Long time bitcoin user

[Anonymous Coward]

In my country, they require that we use bitcoin for buying drugs online, gambling online and donating to Wikileaks.

Re:Long time bitcoin user

[Xenographic]

Look at the stories posted by msmash.

Noticed a pattern yet?

Re:Long time bitcoin user

[DanielRavenNest]

I used it as a long-term investment. I accumulated them from 2011 to earlier this year at an average price of $76/btc. Now that it has gone over my price target of $600/btc I'm selling. Unless the current block size logjam is broken, I don't anticipate it will go up that much more in the near term, so I will keep selling until it's gone.

The block size is currently limited to 1 MB/10 minutes. Blocks are sets of transactions which are secured by a series of special hashes that are chained together (hence the name blockchain for the whole transaction record). 1 MB can fit a few thousand transactions, and ~250,000 transactions per day simply can't serve day-to-day uses like coffee at Starbucks. It's fine for my purpose, or things like international payments and remittances, where bitcoin is far cheaper than bank wires or services like Western Union. Unless the limit is changed, it will have to be "second layer" payment services to handle small daily transactions, and bitcoin itself used for settlement between such services. This is similar to how banks use clearing-houses to settle up payments between themselves, on behalf of their individual customers. In other words, your bank doesn't send money to Walmart each time an individual shops there. Instead, they batch together all the payments for the day from your bank to Walmart's bank, and in turn that bank forwards the right amount to Walmart's account. Since Walmart's bank is doing the same thing to pay employees and suppliers, the daily clearing is a single payment between the two banks for the net amount going in both directions.

Bitcoin only reached filling the 1 MB of transactions per block on a regular basis earlier this year. People are working on second layer solutions, but they are mostly not ready yet.

There is also a shortage of sarcasm quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, I'll donate a pair of quotes: the price is rising on "safe-haven" demand

Re:There is also a shortage of sarcasm quotes

[imadeyoureadpoop]

A volcano mid-eruption would be less volatile than President Trump. I mean, we KNOW what will happen with a volcano... Trump though....

Re:There is also a shortage of sarcasm quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

What "will happen"?

Will Trump:

- organize a secret private server to disuss gov. matters on it, against all laws?
- will he keep there state secrets?
- will he leak the state secrets by heaving friends using retarded passwords like "passw0rd" (like Podesta)
- he take 1,000,000 USD birthday gift from Quatar, that in itself is a treason?
- will he take this gifts from Quatar, Saudi Arabia, and other countries that are known to fund ISIS and radical islam, who then murder innocent people?
- will he cooperate to take out entire nations like Lybia?
- will he use his connections in Deparment of Jutice to try to avoid going to jail for all above?

Hint: Hillary Clinton did the above.

I will not even mention bonus points about Clintons like flying the lolita express airplane to the pedo-island, flying 20 times with a convicted pedo? Whom they (clintons) helped avoided bigger penalty in the country from which they took the children (Haiti)?

Re:There is also a shortage of sarcasm quotes

[110010001000]

Christ. Sociopaths/psychopaths all around. Go back to "Lybia".

Seriously?

[110010001000]

Seriously? Who the fuck cares about 3.5% changes in Bitcoin? We just elected a potential psychopath by a landslide. Get a fucking grip, tech people.

Re:Seriously?

[CajunArson]

Well, after the slashdot 'editors' failed in their sacred duty to ensure that Hillary was elected, they had two choices: Sepuku or carry on the torch.

They took the second option and have decided to make damn well sure that Trump's election is the equivalent of the End Times.

Incidentally, I fully expect to see some sort of editorial about the fact that Trump is also required to do exactly what Obama would have done in a third term because being elected president as a Republican means you are legally required to act like a Democrat. Interestingly enough, the same principle does not apply in the reverse direction.

Re:Seriously?

[squiggleslash]

Because it means we all get to say "This is good news for Bitcoin!" and for once not be even slightly ironic.

Re:Seriously?

[squiggleslash]

People don't tell Democratic Presidents they have to act like a Republican because they generally do anyway. Remember Obamacare? That was originally Romney's healthcare system. Remember Gitmo? Of course you do, hard to forget it because it never disappeared, the left (and even the law) wanted it gone, so Obama kept it.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is "psychopatical" in mr President Trump?

How about Killary selling state favours for $$$, illegally heaving secret emails on hidden servers, lying to congress, destroying evidence of this crimes, taking bribes like 1,000,000 USD "bday gift" from foreign gov, e.g. from Saudi Arabia and Quatar? This last thing alone is treason. She will end up in jail, let's hope.

Re:Seriously?

[110010001000]

What you describe isn't psychopathic behavior, that is run of the mill Washington corruption. You should be worried about a psychopath. Everyone knows the Clintons are corrupt. I am more worried about a sociopath/psychopath because they are deadly. The fact that you are even worried about "$1 million" shows how clueless you are. $1 million is small potatoes in DC.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you didn't post any example nor argument. I know it's so racist and all to ask for arguments other they joining Clinton News Network in shouting blind hate, but try.

Re:Seriously?

[TeknoHog]

We just elected a psychopath by a landslide.

FTFY. A lot of political and economic leaders are actual psychopaths, so there's no need for extra political correctness.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL, I always love the U.S. idea of a 'landslide' 48% vs 48%

But this DOES seem rather meaningless, it varies this much depending on weather I think, LOL

Bitcoin as 'Safe-Haven'...I want some of what they're smokin'

Meanwhile the GREAT CRASH OF NOV. 9 IS ON!

[CajunArson]

I mean, as I type this the Dow has lost literally -72.49 points!

Which is to say that it's up 72.49 points because a negative loss is a gain.

OMG APOCALYPSE!

Re:Meanwhile the GREAT CRASH OF NOV. 9 IS ON!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm actually kind of upset about that. I moved some money from low yield mutual funds to cash to prepare to jump at the drop I was sure was going to happen if Trump won. What the hell man? Oh well, at least I didn't lose anything.

No

[jwymanm]

Even before the election night it has been up and down. This is grasping at straws and I really hope that this butterfly effect style news this early on does not continue. Imagine having news coverage like we did up to the end of the election but for the rest of Trump's term. Give it a rest people! More clearer is what happened to stocks thanks to Wall Street speculation so far which could be related to the fact that quite a few were caught off guard. Now if BTC continues to make huge movements then you can bring out your news article. I hope news can start to restrain themselves and stop spewing out garbage or you're going to get even less interested people going forward. Not to mention you play into what you consider the other team's hands. This is not written to support Trump.. I'd write a similar response if everything went the other way as well. Just tired of this crap.

www.skystreaming.cc

[Anonymous Coward]

https://skystreaming.cc per guardare il calcio

So are all the celeb actually going to leave?

[Anonymous Coward]

All those Hollywood celebrities who said they'd leave the US if Trump won?

Are they REALLY going to do it?

One can hope. We'd at least get SOMETHING positive out of this train-wreck of an election.

truth+mercy=justice - universal spiritual axiom

[Anonymous Coward]

cease fire stand down.. starvation & deception still leading killers of us ordinary unchosen citizens.. sing along.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRCgueckAXE in the moms we trust...

Hey SLASHDOT

[Anonymous Coward]

can you finally stop shilling for the corrupt?

Killary is going down, and Soros money will dry out too.

Just stop. Let it go. SJWs, corrupted Clintons selling state services for $$$, leaking money - this all is over. Move on.

curso NR 10

[Instituto SC]

Curso NR 10 online curso NR 10 curso NR 10 online

Repeat after me... Bitcoin is not a safe haven.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's ignore the bi-yearly "Bitcoin Exchange" is ransacked news and focus on the volatility of Bitcoin (which is driven in part by said ransacking). The value of a bitcoin has fluctuated between ~$320 and ~$768 in the past year. The five year chart is much, much uglier. Since it's peak of $1000/bc it's hit a low of $214 before coming back up to the current value of ~$721. Bitcoin is not a safehaven, it's really just one step removed from gambling. Yes, this can be said of a lot of currencies and commodities but Bitcoin is definitely on the riskier end.

Re:Repeat after me... Bitcoin is not a safe haven.

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends where you live. For Venezuelians bitcoin is a safe haven.

Let the Consequences Begin

[JimSadler]

How many investors will be investing in nations that have a sane leadership rather than a Trump led US? Crash and burn may well be the very real and harsh consequence of a Trump led government. This horrid situation is caused by allowing our young to receive really lousy educations. We need to be much more demanding in what we expect from our school students.

Re:Let the Consequences Begin

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what the leading cause of devastating wild fires is? Wild fire prevention. Shaking things up every once in a while isn't a failure of the system, it's maintenance. In the software world, there's a class of algorithms called simulated annealing, where worse solutions are temporarily accepted to be able to reach a better solution.

Re:Let the Consequences Begin

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick question, Jim. How can so many people complain out the one side of their mouth that civility is dead and out the other act like it is completely reasonable for the rest of the world to write-off Donald Trump as someone who they simply cannot work with? How do the liberals live with the cognitive dissonance?

Bah, humbug!

[Feral Nerd]

Now that Trump is emperor of the free world the only sensible investment are guns/ammo, diesel oil and canned foods.

Not really

[jovius]

More likely the price was boosted because of the speculation that it might. Bitcoin is rather unhinged from the fundamentals. The central mass of Bitcoin holders/traders typically just expect the price to skyrocket at any occasion.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course.. it's just funny how there are so many Reasons why Bitcoin behaves like it does, of which some are based fantastical fractal analysis etc.

The others then make their profits by playing with that sentiment or reasoning.

It's still rather unfinished and low scale platform, after all. Really long term holders (rationing the investments) would probably also do fine, if the political and technological risks don't materialize...

Gold, etc.?

[eric_harris_76]

In keeping with Slashdot tradition, I will not read the article when I can instead ask a questoin that reading the article would answer. Or should have.

What happened to the price of gold? Silver? Commodities in general?

If they all had the same kinds of moves as bitcoin, yeah, that interpretation makes sense.