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Bitcoin Exchange Coinbase Reportedly Valued At $1 Billion (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters:
Bitcoin exchange Coinbase Inc. is in talks with potential investors on a new round of funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. It is not clear which investors are committing to the round, which was described as targeting around $100 million or more, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter... Demand for crypto-assets has soared with the creation of new tokens to raise funding for start-ups using blockchain technology. Coinbase said in January it raised $75 million from several major financial institutions including the New York Stock Exchange, USAA Bank and Spanish banking group BBVA.
Though Bitcoins were selling for $892 in January, they've nearly tripled in value over the last five months. Despite the fact that Coinbase "suffered outages" last week, the price of Bitcoin still rose 13.6% over the next nine days to $2561.
Though Bitcoins were selling for $892 in January, they've nearly tripled in value over the last five months. Despite the fact that Coinbase "suffered outages" last week, the price of Bitcoin still rose 13.6% over the next nine days to $2561.
This is a bubble built on criminal activity. Once law enforcement starts cracking down on ransomware authors and terror organizations get disrupted again, the bubble will collapse and there will be a rapid decline in Bitcoin valuation. Caveat emptor.
1849.
In other news all Bitcoin miners have a real world net worth of $0.00
If they're doing so well, they must be making good money. So why, exactly, do they need to raise another $100 million?
The valuation they're talking about is nuts. Truly, the next Internet bubble is not far from bursting...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
has something to do with it. The value of Bitcoin's always been tied to the illicit drug trade and the current administration has signaled a shift away from legalization or even a hands off approach to let the States do their own thing. Then there's all the ransomware going around that's paid in bitcoin.
After all, a currency is only as valuable as what you can buy with it.
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I would say it's the ghost of Jordan Belfort in action, but he's not dead.
Bitcoin did crash in 2014. It went from $1,000 to $200 in a few weeks.
Yes it's recovered, but how many of those millionaires converting their coins to real currency would it take to cause it to crash again?
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Congrats. You are gifted with incredible foresight and analytical capabilities. You ought to consider investing some of your millions in the stock market. I'm sure you'll do even better.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Bitcoin and related crypto-currency is bullshit and this will all end in tears. Governments are trying to clamp down on cash but haven't worked out that this is easier to manipulate and even better for criminals. Some governments are trying to tax it with goods and service taxes as if it's a product. Do they also tax money exchange at 10%-20%? This makes it undesirable for criminal and legitimate trader alike. While they're busy trying to regulated criminals will continue to laugh and use the unregulated version, and everyone else will steer clear. Distributed ledgers and the idea of a cryptographic chain between events may survive as it's a clever idea. But even that has an incredible amount of overhead.
Meanwhile, the people who bought in 2014 and held are now millionaires.
Meanwhile, people who bought in 2014 or earlier, and held, lost all or most of their Bitcoin when the exchange holding all their Bitcoin folded suddenly** (Mt Gox, FlexCoin, TradeHill. BitStamp, etc., etc., etc.)
**Typically claiming that they lost all their Bitcoin because they were "hacked" but more likely just theft by the owner of the exchange.
So I post about something that happened ten years ago, and you sarcastically accuse me of incredible foresight?
The retard midi-chlorians are strong in you. Thanks for bringing balance to the Internet.
As for my investments, yes, I've done way better than Madoff's investors.
I also did way better than people who trusted Mt Gox and bitfinex.
I sold all my REIT's in early 2006 even with the 10% early-sale penalty. But it wasn't foresight. With foresight I could have waited deeper into the run-up. It was having seen this shit before. If I had foresight, I would have dumped my stocks as well at that time. But it wasn't obvious in the stock market what was going to happen.
But it was obvious in real estate back then, and it's obvious in bitcoin now.
So it went from $200 to $2400 in about 3 years. Not bad! Cash out and be done. Shift to bitgold.
Here we go again with the full retard "people lost all their Bitcoins because everyone stored their coins on exchanges".
As if wallet applications and paper wallet do not exist and people are obligated to store their coins on exchanges.
#DeleteFacebook
Criminality is as old as laws, and blackmail and terrorism are certainly much older. It boggles the mind that you could think a "cracking down" will make it go away and cause the "bubble" to break. I'm no portfolio manager, but I've got to think that the smart money is on criminality going strong for as long as there are people. A less safe bet is on whether criminals will continue to favor bitcoin over other transaction methods. But consider this: if their presence adds value to bitcoin, and their absence is basically inconceivable, we have the start of a pretty convincing argument that bitcoin will do just fine.
No one is "storing" its bitcoins on an exchange service.
They are on my hard disk, on my back up and on several USB sticks/drives.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
1% of the US population owns most of the wealth. What would happen to the dollar if they all tried to withdraw "their cash" at the same time?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
None, because first, none of them will do that, second all the smaller people will still be snatching them up to hold and spend amongst themselves.
Nice try though.
Won't happen. Everyone knows dc's are better to provide income and small purchases and eventually a pure dc life, rather than bulk reinvestment back into fiat.
1% of the US population owns most of the wealth. What would happen to the dollar if they all tried to withdraw "their cash" at the same time?
You probably meant to say liquidate their assets, because their wealth is not held in banks. It is in the form of owning most of everything that has value, e.g. land and buildings as well as owning the bank you have your money in.
You are gifted with incredible foresight and analytical capabilities. You ought to consider investing some of your millions in the stock market. I'm sure you'll do even better.
Well, my foresight tells me to keep the bitcoins I have, thank you.
At some point in time, you can't convert everything to cash.
Cash is a vehicle for money exchange. It isn't valuable in itself, it is valuable in what you can get with it.
If you have a large amount of wealth, there is difficulty trading it. First you must find someone with a large amount of items you want, and they must want what you have. A lot of times this amounts to a barter, but the barters can be uneven, so this amounts to a large amount of cash. Even then the cash is a number in a bank ledger, and not piles of bills.
A good example of this is the debit card. Nobody exchanges bills when one exchanges cash to buy groceries with a debit card.
The reason all of these items have value is simple, people demand them. I want to be paid in cash, the grocery store wants cash, etc.
A crackdown in crime would greatly devalue the bitcoin market because there would be few suppliers to accept the bitcoins. Basically those with bitcoins would have collectors items, where there isn't enough scarcity to actually make them high value collectibles.
It is not full retard to state facts. Many people did lose their BitCoins in BitCoin exchanges. Some didn't have their BitCoins in exchanges, and didn't lose their BitCoins in that manner.
Just because something exists doesn't mean that people use it. There's tons of items out there of dubious utility that might provide utility to someone but not to all. The world shouldn't be hampered by forced use of such things.
BitCoin was very popular among the "Gold is a great investment" crowd. Gold is valuable, but not easy to verify for purity. Exchanges serve to hold Gold so it isn't lost, or more importantly, is verified to not be tampered with (can't tamper with it if you never took possession of it). If you buy Gold and take it home, when you sell it you face a few challenges. You need to sell it to a person who knows how to test it for purity, you need to pay for the testing, and you need to accept that some small portion of the gold could be lost to the testing. This is because if you don't pay these transaction costs, you'll get a lower price on your gold to hedge against the possibility it might be impure.
So, a BitCoin exchange was not a dumb idea, it was a bland but good idea. Many people lack the knowledge of how to properly backup anything, including bitcoins. Fewer people know how to exchange their BitCoins for cash outside of an exchange (or their cash for BitCoins).
That most of the BitCoin exchanges were ran by people even less responsible than the depositors was a telling reminder of what happens when a government doesn't regulate a currency. If the same thing happened to US dollars in a US bank, the people would have received their money back (even if it was made up for in tax dollars) and the bankers would be in jail.
It's like a thing with this guy. He says angry stupid shit and lashes out incoherently. Then gets his ass handed to him, goes and cries, then comes back actually posting normal things. Clearly someone with autism or aspergers who goes on and off their pills.
You have the understanding of life of a teenager, much like your complete lack of control of your emotions. You are not a man, but a stupid little kid in an aged body. "Withdraw" - do you even know what you're saying? That wealth is in things like real estate. It doesn't get "withdrawn" - it stays where it is you stupid moron.
So, i'll take your "look at me" anecdote and raise you another.
I used both Mt. Gox and Bitfinex. I doubt you've done better than me. Bitfinex has paid all my money back anyways.
Like the person you were responding to said, "don't go full retard and keep all your money on exchanges".
I used to support bitcoin, but the fees have become so high that it's not viable for many of the original purposes of bitcoin. I bought a physical bitcoin when the price was just $60, but redeeming it would result in more trouble than its worth so it's just a piece of metal. Even altcoins are getting swallowed up in fees now.
After fees, that "billion" will more likely be monopoly money.
remember - they are founded and based in the U.S., and they will do _exactly_ what any U.S. court orders tell them, and they will reveal exactly _nothing_ about it.
Bitcoin speaks of control over your own money, but when you let a company in the U.S. handle that money for you, that privacy and control is severly diminshed. Look to the services in the EU instead, they will guarantee your privacy and control.
You probably should put some thought into why I put quotes around "their cash".
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Close. There is never any time when everyone can convert everything to cash. That's the point.
This is simply a claim you pulled out of your ass. It is a proof that holds only if the thing you are trying to prove is true.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Dear creimer. You should probably try to figure out why "their cash" is in quotes. Get an adult to help you.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Meanwhile, people who bought in 2014 or earlier, and held, lost all or most of their Bitcoin when the exchange holding all their Bitcoin folded suddenly
If You knew what you were doing AND bought with intent to hold, then chances are your coins were in an Offline wallet, and not lost during the Mt.Gox issues.
On the other hand: If you bought and were intending to trade, so kept your BTC with the Exchange, then you were screwed.
No one is "storing" its bitcoins on an exchange service.
Don't say No One. People who didn't understand the counterparty risks before buying BTC and how to mitigate them may have.
You probably should put some thought into why I put quotes around "their cash".
I did notice the quotes around "their cash", but you placed it after the word withdraw.
I considered the possibilities: that you are inarticulate, or perhaps lazy, or typing on a phone while in a meeting, or perhaps drunk/high, or even that you are actually stupid.
In any case, what you typed was stupid. We can only go with what you actually said, and you used the words "withdraw" and "their cash" in the same sentence. No one can conclude that you have any idea what you're talking about from what you actually typed. It needed to be corrected.
You suck at trolling
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
We know "cash" is in quotes. The whole point of the post is that you don't withdraw "cash" when "cash" is in quotes. Even with an example, you're still too dumb to get it. So retard, how do you "withdraw" a skyscraper?
The angry kid trapped in a man's body still hasn't figured out the difference between creimer, cdreimer, criemer, and creinner. And by the way, that AC was me posting from my phone. I'm not fat enough to be creamer.
You shouldn't use lead foil for your balding head - it's doing brain damage. Time to take your pills. Maybe once the emotions come down a bit you'll be able to think logically and comprehend words.