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

Posted by msmash on from the aftermath dept.

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.

23 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Long time bitcoin user by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... 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.

    1. Re:Long time bitcoin user by imadeyoureadpoop · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Hanlon's Razor -- Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
    2. Re:Long time bitcoin user by NoNeeeed · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Paul Leader
    3. Re:Long time bitcoin user by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

    4. Re:Long time bitcoin user by Xenographic · · Score: 1

      Look at the stories posted by msmash.

      Noticed a pattern yet?

    5. Re:Long time bitcoin user by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 1

      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.

  2. Seriously? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Seriously? by CajunArson · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    2. Re:Seriously? by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

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

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    3. Re:Seriously? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    4. Re:Seriously? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      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.

    5. Re:Seriously? by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  3. No by jwymanm · · Score: 1

    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.

  4. Re:Woof! by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    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.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  5. Re:There is also a shortage of sarcasm quotes by imadeyoureadpoop · · Score: 1

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

    --
    Hanlon's Razor -- Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
  6. Re:betting on bitcoin sounds silly by rock217 · · Score: 1

    I don't think you understand how bitcoin works.

    --
    Wah Sig!
  7. Hey SLASHDOT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    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.

  8. Re:There is also a shortage of sarcasm quotes by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

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

  9. Re:Repeat after me... Bitcoin is not a safe haven. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

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

  10. Bah, humbug! by Feral+Nerd · · Score: 1

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

  11. Re:Woof! by fbobraga · · Score: 1

    next 50+

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

  12. Not really by jovius · · Score: 2

    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...

  13. Gold, etc.? by eric_harris_76 · · Score: 1

    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.

    --
    There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.