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Bitcoin Surges 10% To All-Time High Above $2,700, Has Now Doubled in May (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In another intraday jump of more than $200, bitcoin surged to a record Thursday on strong Asian demand overnight. Bitcoin jumped more than 10 percent to an all-time high of $2,752.07, more than twice its April 30 price of $1,347.96 according to CoinDesk. The digital currency last traded near $2,726. At Thursday's record, Bitcoin has now gained more than 45 percent since last Thursday and more than 180 percent for the year so far. "There is no question that we are in the middle of a price frenzy," said Brian Kelly of BKCM, in a note to clients Thursday. "There will be a correction and it could be severe, but it's unclear if that correction will start from current prices of $2700 or from some place much higher."
"but it's unclear if that correction will start from current prices of $2700 or from some place much higher."
I wish I had a job like this. There will be a correction, but it might happen today, or 10,000 years from now.
Anybody that jumps in now is a speculator and not an investor. It will drop. But to what? I don't think it's going below $1000 again and certainly won't hit 500.
If you told me a year ago that BTC would be at $1000 today I would have nodded and have been happy.
It spiked up because Japan legitimized it a couple of months ago and shot up 1500 over the last week because China took away some of their restrictions.
BTC is here to stay. As is Eth.
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Can someone actually sell (or exchange depending on whether you believe it to be currency or not) a couple of million in bitcoins without the price crashing?
I'm sure someone said the same thing when it passed $1k. If you bought in at $1k, you'd be feeling pretty good right now. With that said, I'm not buying any right now.
I don't think it's going below $1000 again and certainly won't hit 500.
I'd like to hear your reasoning for this. As far as i can tell, the price of bitcoins is tied to emissions of neutrinos given off by the sun.
Nah, there's still a lot of upside left. Human greed is phenomenal. When you see people mortgaging their houses to buy bitcoin THEN you get out.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Nobody really asks why bitcoin is $2,700. The answer is simple: Because people think it will be worth more than $2,700 later. They're all speculators.
The difference between "investment" and "speculation" is how people feel about it.
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... you sell NOW. Right now.
Thanks Narendra Modi!
I think the Indian move to eradicate cash and push everyone to the banking system has a lot more to do with this. Honorable mention to Xi Jinping because China is on their way as well.
Have gnu, will travel.
Same as your USD and Gold.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
... Mystico and Janet, and flats built by hynosis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
(of course, most of the world's current currencies are the same, but bitcoin and its ilk just exaggerate the effect)
Good point. As governments are actively seeking to discourage cash transactions, I think electronic currencies will continue to become more and more popular
When the economy crashes and the US becomes a post-apocalyptic wasteland, I'm gonna be sitting fat and happy on my bitcoins while the rest of you scrounge for caps and Nuka-cola.
That's why I've been keeping my bitcoins in my mattress since 2009. To protect them from ransomware.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nobody owns a couple of millions of bitcoin. The way those are distributed at the fixed rate per time, earlier adopter had more but they worthless, today they worth a lot but received also less. If someone right now has let's say 100,000 BTC (worth 200 million) he probably acquired them a couple years ago and probably believe in the currency... little chance he will sell them all at the same time. If it's case that would crash the price instantly because there is no such liquidity. The same concept can be applied to stocks or gold.
bitcoin is not only a speculation bubble, it's an idea, a concept, just like torrent or the internet itself. While bitcoin price can surely go down, the concept is out forever. It's an experimental currency and we live right now its birth and rise. It's an incredible piece of technology that worth learning.
No, it is not the same as USD and other government-backed fiat currencies. USD is backed by lots of guns and nuclear weapons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
I think it's pretty clear that BTC - and ETH, for that matter - is in a bubble right now, but due to the relatively low trading volumes it's such a volatile entity that does not mean it's too late to buy in; you just won't have the same return as those who got in at a lower price while facing exactly the same risk of a wipe out. The trick - as with any investment bubble - is to sell before it pops and, as I doubt anyone can confidently say when that will occur, "$2,700 or from some place much higher" is probably about as good as it's going to get. Even then, there's no telling what the correction will be or (more importantly, for those that don't get out in time) how long it will take BTC to recover - if you're prepared to play the long game then riding out the correction and eventual recovery is a viable route to a profit as well.
If you're not already onboard by this point though, the smarter option might be to just wait for the all but inevitable correction, buy in during the panic selling as the price corrects, then ride the next price bubble to profits. Just be sure to sell before that bubble pops too.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Rule of acquisition #10: Greed is eternal.
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Please to refer to Bitcoin as the following:
Internet Drug Tokens
PedoPesos
Math-Based Beanie Babies
Internet Fun Bux
and always remember....
Satoshi Nakamoto is an anagram for "So A Man Took A Shit"
Your ability to get a dollar out of the BTC market today for a dollar put in yesterday depends heavily on the participation of others putting their dollars in today. If you examine the data behind the charts https://blockchain.info/charts... and https://blockchain.info/charts... it is very clear that speculative trading has repeatedly driven BTC values up followed by a market value collapse of BTC. People stop putting their money in and instead pull it out and the amount of time it takes to get their money out goes from minutes to days. If there is no speculation and all BTC coins are used for ephemeral transactions, then the total amount of hard currency backing BTC would be around the daily volume of BTC transactions in a day: $1 Billion dollars. However people are behaving as if all of the BTCs are worth $40 Billion dollars. The speculators are the "long-term" holders of BTC, however only a small fraction of their holdings can actually be converted to hard currency before the entire BTC system collapses ... in the 2% range. Everyone is depending on everyone else not to blink, historically not a good bet.
One cannot invest in a number on someone's computer, just as no one can invest in baseball cards or comic books. Unlike money, bitcoin has no intrinsic value - no government will adjudicate public or private debts using it.
The current rise in bitcoin value is due to market manipulation... expect the manipulators to cash out VERY soon and send the value under $1000 almost overnight...
PMs (Gold, Silver, Platinum..etc) are limited only by what's in circulation. Fiat can be printed or digitally float the decimal point (Hyper inflation). Crypto currencies are not limited. There's nothing preventing me or anyone else creating their own standard. Too much wealth NOT too. But, the human race has yet to figure out how to create new elements and/or convert lots of energy into mass, specifically the element Au.
The only problem with PMs is that they're heavy and not liquid in electronic form. But basing fiat to a Gold standard does prevent inflation. IE, it keeps government spending in check. THAT is why we are off the Gold standard to this day, regardless of the fact getting off it it helped with international commerce. Even Alan Greenspan voiced his regret to that effect. And that man is a financial GOD. So when he speaks, YOU listen!
Life is not for the lazy.
There is bitcoin acceptance and there is bitcoin usage. The two are not the same, although when you a scrappy itty bitty currency fighting for recognition, the difference may not seem so important.
Bitcoin can be accepted and be beaten out by competing currencies. There will definitely be digital blockchain competitors in the future. Plus once we accept that bitcoin is a currency is suddenly is compared directly with the big boys, for both good and ill. Consider the USD has approximately 100% "acceptance" across the entire globe, yet no one assumes that global economic growth guarantees anything about the price of the USD.
Which is to say, there is no intrinsic floor to the price of the bitcoin, which is a huge problem is you are a rational actor that views volatility negatively. Not all rational actors put a significant negative on volatility, but most of us do.
In comparison, the USD does have a practical floor -- short of an apocalyptic event, the likelihood of the USD dropping more than 50% in my lifetime is approximately zero. Of course, in any apocalyptic scenario that hammers the USD more than 50%, bitcoin is very likely to go down to exactly zero value.
False equivalence. There is no perfect "currency", but all currencies being imperfect does not make them all the "same" in any meaningful way.
Intrinsic value in anything is subjective and a product of utility, demand, and scarcity. Bitcoin has left the speculation only phase a long time ago and now has a healthy circular economy of inelastic users who need it to survive: Gamblers, Prostitutes/Johns, Drug Dealers/Users, Ransomeware victims, Money launderers/capital flight are some important use cases.
IMO the idea of the public blockchain is very powerful, and that is an idea that will not die, until we meet our internet security apocalypse in the form of quantum computers destroy all known practical encryption.
Bitcoin itself could plausibly be replaced by a competitor that has enough of its positive points, and a different mix of negatives.
Ha!!!!
Of course I don't know for sure. Obviously it's not going to keep going up. It will come down in price - but to what. When Japan made it a legitimate commodity to hold, buy and sell BTC entered a new stage in its development. It was no longer a store of value, or a means of transferring funds for places like Greece or Venezuela.
The latest rise from 1200 - 2700 is from China removing restrictions. There most certainly is a bubble but I don't think my buy orders at 990 are ever going to be met. I would be ecstatic if they do though.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
which is a huge problem is you are a rational actor that views volatility negatively.
While volatility in a currency is indeed negative. There are plenty of rational reasons one prefers volatility. Day Traders (I don't recommend this hobby) or simply people who don't mind balancing currencies(BTC is down 20 % I Use USD fiat, BTC up 20 % I combine 18% discount from purse.io for 38% off anything from amazon) .
Bitcoin has been increasing becoming more stable year after year but still has a long way to go and is more akin to gold asset than currency however.
the USD does have a practical floor -- short of an apocalyptic event, the likelihood of the USD dropping more than 50% in my lifetime is approximately zero.
I wouldn't suggest this is accurate as fiat currencies fail all the time. The USD has already had some past failures- confederate dollar, 100% gold backed dollar, partial gold backed dollar.
I think the price is going to drop in the short term but long term I think BTC is just scratching the surface of where it will end up. (And I'm using BTC as a catch-all for crypto-currencies. BTC may not end up surviving. It may be another currency that hasn't been created yet.)
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
But money is limited. Hence the inevitable bust that comes with the boom.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Anyone investing now should be prepared to hold onto it for at least 2020 (next halving) http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.co... but this is an acceptable risk for many to diversify their portfolio with a few % of BTC.
Will you accept gold? (Assuming you are absolutely positive it is gold?)
BTC is a technology. It's value is based on the fact that you can send money from place A to place B using a P2P network and without a central authority. In the very near future this technology will be used to facilitate real estate transactions, authenticate ownership of intellectual property and much, much more. The more this technology is used the greater the value of BTC.
You're focused on the speculation over the immediate value of BTC - you should be interested in the technology and its potential for growth. It the technology isn't adopted then BTC will not have utility and the price will plummet to zero. If the technology is adopted the price will sky rocket.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
By the end of the year, the price will higher than $10,000 per BTC. Also, BTC will shoot up every time there is some financial disturbance. Finally, in 10 years the value of BTC will be one million dollars per coin. Why such wild predictions, you might ask? Isn't it a redo of the Tulip mania? The answer is: no. 1. In Netherlands, there is an almost unlimited supply of tulip bulbs. 2. BTC can never be regulated (well, you can switch off the internet, or can ban by law) 3. You can actually exchange easily your BTC to some other assets No, this is not an advocacy of BTC. This is merely a confirmation of the fact, that the world is witnessing a new phenomenon, only limited by the number of participants that are living on earth.
Can you give us 2-3 situations where USD would fall 50% or more?
No, it is not the same as USD and other government-backed fiat currencies. USD is backed by lots of guns and nuclear weapons.
Yup. Every currency backed by a government-sponsored army has a higher chance of survival. Have you ever heard of Liberty Dollars? Or any other independent currencies?
Money is limited, but Bitcoin is currently dividable to 8 decimals, unlike say the U.S. dollar which is only divisible to 2 decimals.
We could get to the point where 1 satoshi equals 1 U.S. cent in market/trading value, so there's a long way to go before you can say "money is limited" when talking about Bitcoin.
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Sure, if by "same as" you mean that you can place them along some common continuum. In particular, the relevant continuum here runs from "medium of exchange" (US Dollars) to "asset" (Gold).
Currency is something you own to buy things with. An asset is something you own because you think it will appreciate in value.
That doesn't mean you can't buy things with assets; you could in principle walk into a dealership and buy a car with your baseball collection, if the collection were good enough and the dealer knowledgeable about such things. But that doesn't make baseball cards currency.
Currency is managed by central banks to have a predictable value over the short-to-mid-term. This takes an element of timing out of purchase and sale decisions. If I want to buy something, I neither wait because I think my dollars are going to be worth much more in a few months, nor do I hurry to get rid of them because I think they'll be worth much less. The slight bias towards long term value loss (inflation) over years in most currencies is meant to keep you putting your money to work rather than stuffing it in a mattress for years.
So news of a dramatic spike in Bitcoin value doesn't really validate the concept of Bitcoin as a currency, although it doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't invest in Bitcoin. I suspect that any cryptocurrency system which takes a central authority out of the picture will necessarily have volatile value over the short term. Maybe we could learn to live with that though.
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Can you give us 2-3 situations where USD would fall 50% or more?
I did better than this. I gave you an example where it fell almost 100% - confederate USD. Look through most of history , fiat currencies come and go. The average lifespan is around 27 years for fiat currencies before they get a major "reboot" . We are seeing incidents of this right now in countries with hyperinflation, currency/gold confiscation, and national bailins where everyone gets a massive haircut.
You're missing the point entirely. Money in the world willing to chase after dreams of a Bitcoin jackpot is limited. When money stops flowing in and begins flowing out, it will be the proverbial time of "wailing and gnashing of teeth". The problem with this kind of thing is that people who are buying in today are expecting to get out with a profit, not because they have any particular use or need for Bitcoin.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If you are an American and have a decent number of USD in the bank you can almost certainly pay your taxes and avoid bankruptcy or worse at the hands of the state.
Whether bitcoin or gold will have an exchange rate sufficient to do the same is much less reliable.
Well, I'm old enough that the USD has lost about 50% of its exchange rate, and probably 80% of its value during my lifetime. And I'm only 50.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
no government will adjudicate public or private debts using it
That seems to be changing.
file:
Define limited. The US Federal Reserve can create and destroy US dollars at will. Are dollars still money?
file:
... There are huge issues with scaling the Bitcoin network, there has been a long-time Civil War among the hard-core fanatics on this issue, and while there have been many advancements in the technology over the years, these years have seen nothing but stagnation in the deployment of those advancements.
The price is going up not because Bitcoin is working well, but rather because most of these know-nothing speculators have no clue that there are serious technical problems—hell, they don't even understand how the technology in which they've invested even works. If they come out on top, it won't be due to their shrewdness, but rather their luck.
There is not enough PMs in the world to back a single year of world trade, perhaps not even a month.
This is why all currencies became fiat currencies.
You ever watch the olympics? Swimming? All gold in the world does not even fill an olympic swimming pool.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
2% annual inflation over maybe thirty or forty years? An online CPI calculator says that $100 in 1954 dollars is worth about $900 in 2017 dollars, so that's about a nominal 90% fall over my lifetime.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
If the technology is adopted, there's still no guarantee that BTC is going to be worth anything. There's lots of ways to use blockchains that don't involve BTC.
Moreover, BTC isn't a very practical currency for general use, since it's hard to transfer from one person to another.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
USD is backed by the US economy, and the fact that it runs on USD. USD are used in all payments to and from government, and in all judicial transfers of money, so everybody needs some, and everybody needs to do accounting in USD. The US military has nothing to do with it other than as part of the economy, and as a guarantor that the US government will continue to run things here.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You're absolutely correct. BTC may not be the winner. It will be remembered (at worst) as a proof of concept.
BTC is excellent as a store of value and transfer. It may not the best for buying cups of coffee and packs of gum from the local store. But it is a good way for the store to send end of day transactions to the bank. There may very well be numerous currencies. Some may be better (read faster) for tiny transactions where the effort to double spend is too great to bother for a $5.00 transaction but not secure enough for a $5,000.00 transaction, let alone a $5,000,000.00 transaction.
There are many potential combinations. I don't think there is a question that there will be multiple cryptocurrencies that are not controlled by a central authority. BTC may, or may not, be among those cryptocurrencies.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I wouldn't suggest this is accurate as fiat currencies fail all the time. The USD has already had some past failures- confederate dollar, 100% gold backed dollar, partial gold backed dollar.
Depends what you call a "failure". If we use too loosey goosey a definition, then bitcoin has already failed ten times more than the USD ever has in a much shorter time span. The worst horrors of 70s stagflation are really nothing compared to the volatility of bitcoin.
The fact is that volatility is a big negative for most people. For some sophisticated people with a largish chunk of capital that they can balance out with a long term view, maybe it hardly matters. The reason you can actually do that kind of balancing is because you have access to excellent liquid assets like the USD. Thus you are implicitly using a double standard, measuring the USD against a very high bar because you know it is real money, and measuring bitcoin against a very low bar because you know it is not.
If you stuffed you money in a mattress and forgot about it, yes, you are right. But there are many ways to lose 50+% of your value over the long haul. We have excellent banks in this country, that can at least hedge against inflation for effectively zero risk, and can do a bit better than inflation for most decades for a very small risk. For bitcoin, we have MtGox and similar, right?
That's not what people mean by a currency losing value... By that metric there isn't a currency in the world that won't become worthless given time. The only resolution of which is to bankrupt it, cancel all obligations, and start all over.
Losing value to worthless is usually meant by a prolonged period where people will not trade in it.
PS, the dollar's long term inflation rate is usually 3%. Which is really good. A healthy inflation is considered by most to be around 2%. Which the US attempts to get to but historically killed the average up with brief periods of high inflation.
Your ability to get a dollar out of the BTC market today for a dollar put in yesterday depends heavily on the participation of others putting their dollars in today.
Sounds like you are characterizing BTC as something of a Ponzi scheme. Is that about right?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
BTC is currently too volatile to be a good store of value, and its usefulness for money transfer is directly dependent on what banks do. A BTC transfer is deliberately made to be expensive in computrons, while a bank transfer is simple. As long as banks insist on excess profit from money transfers and currency conversions, BTC will have an advantage, but not otherwise.
As a consumer, if bank transfers and conversions become cheaper, I benefit, even if I never have a BTC wallet and never use a BTC exchange to transfer money. I'm interested in seeing how this plays out.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"BTC is too volatile" - today it is. Increase market cap by a factor of 10,000 and it won't be. :) That's pushing it (of course) but the greater the market cap the less volatile it will be.
If banks bring down the cost of money transfer to pennies on the dollar and it's as easy to send money as to send an email then you're correct. There will not be an economic utility for BTC.
At that point it's only value will be that it's not fiat and not controlled by a central authority. This value will not be important under "normal" economic times.
BTC's last selling point - relative anonymity can be created by other means. Money from wallet (say Chase) goes to an anonymizer which then goes to store to buy coffee.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Many countries are forced to buy and sell goods in US dollars creating an artificial demand for the US dollar. If the US tries and fails to create new international trade deals then there would be less reason to purchase US dollars.
I don't know about 50%, but if some some US leaders try to renegotiate international trade and is incompetent, then the US dollar will suffer.