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Bitcoin Just Surged Past $4,000. TechCrunch Explains Why (techcrunch.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the developers-vs-dollars dept.

Saturday night TechCrunch reported the following about Bitcoin: 24 hours ago the cryptocurrency was trading below $3,700. About an hour ago it surged passed $4,000 and has no signs of stopping. It's now trading around $4,135.00. For reference, a week ago Bitcoin hit an all-time high as it passed $3,000 for the first time... So the million-bitcoin question is, why now...?

Two weeks ago Bitcoin went through a hard fork, and came out essentially unscathed... A few days later Bitcoin locked in SegWit, a code modification that fixes malleability issues and frees up space in blocks, allowing for more transactions to be stored in each one. These two code-related developments have helped boost conference in Bitcoin's future. Another reason -- the ICO frenzy. The amount recently raised via initial coin offerings have now (at least temporally) topped amount raised via early stage venture capital. Just last week Filecoin raised $180 million in a few hours. Most investors have to convert fiat currency to bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies to participate in ICOs, which could be driving up the price (and providing some investors with their first taste of bitcoin). Another reason -- Wall Street's new obsession is bitcoin.

84 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Because people are idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Simple.

    1. Re: Because people are idiots by Kiuas · · Score: 1

      It's decentralized you idiot, no government can stop it.

      Decentralization protects the technology behind bitcoin from being attacked by some random state actor. The infrastructure of bitcoin is pretty safe from the intervention of governments, but that does not mean that the value of bitcoin is equally untouchable. Bitcoins derive their true value from being exchangeable into fiat currencies and the governments know this, which is why they are taxed and regulated, which means their value can be affected by governments.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    2. Re: Because people are idiots by Khyber · · Score: 1

      If it's decentralized, explain why the majority of processing power is currently in Asia and pretty much in the hands of a few companies.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    3. Re: Because people are idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      My pets.com stock will peak any moment now.

    4. Re:Because people are idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So, same reason we elected Obama, basically.

      In 2008 I realized that in investment, fashion, social justice, or politics, it doesn't matter what you know or how smart you are. If everyone else goes the opposite direction, you either gotta follow them, or you lose.

      Actually, probably the only place where being "right" actually matters more than being in the majority, is in some obscure academic areas on arxiv (mathematics of multi-dimensional manifolds?)

    5. Re: Because people are idiots by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      The nodes are more important than the miners, and the nodes are spread out over the world.

    6. Re: Because people are idiots by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

      I'm a big bitcoin proponent but government can stop it. They can shoot everyone who promotes bitcoin or possesses bitcoin; then they can kill everyone who they think promotes it or possesses it. That would do the trick.

      Of course, the zombie apocalypse would end bitcoin as well. No electricity. No internet. No bitcoin.

      Outside of draconian circumstances though - BTC is here to stay.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    7. Re:Because people are idiots by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Yes. That's a problem for starting a node on your machine. It will take a while to fix that. However, you needn't install a full node in order to use bitcoin.

      Second, the malware that would steal the keys to your wallet would also steal your banking information.

      Concerned about your btc wallet? Good. Have a brain wallet with a paper wallet backup for your family regarding your primary storage. Simple. Come up with a c

      ryptographically secure password (Every_Good_Bitcoin_Deserves_Some_Fun) ; reduce the chance that a keylogger is on your box and you're all good.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    8. Re: Because people are idiots by Khyber · · Score: 1

      You just clearly demonstrated how little you know about bitcoin.

      The mining power determines your ability to control the currency. China may have very few nodes but those nodes contain the bulk of the processing power. They can manipulate the currency (as the wealthy are doing right now in trying to move their currency out of China) as they control the majority of the actual network power.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    9. Re: Because people are idiots by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Can you give an example of how a miner would manipulate the currency ?

    10. Re: Because people are idiots by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      I'm a big bitcoin proponent but government can stop it. They can shoot everyone who promotes bitcoin or possesses bitcoin; then they can kill everyone who they think promotes it or possesses it. That would do the trick.

      Of course, the zombie apocalypse would end bitcoin as well. No electricity. No internet. No bitcoin.

      Outside of draconian circumstances though - BTC is here to stay.

      It's here to stay as a toy currency, that's it. Until it can scale up to millions of transactions per second instead of the sub-100 right now (it was 7 pre-split), it's not useful as a general currency because you can't, well, use it. People don't want to wait days or months for their transaction to be posted. Even back when 10 minutes was the average it was still pushing it.

      And yes, networks like Visa and Mastercard are doing that volume.

      Yes, the big problem might be blockchain technology because millions of transactions per second would ramp up the blockchain size quite rapidly - if each blockchain entry was 100 bytes, 1 million transactions would add 100MB to the blockchain in a second. If you scale up to the 7 million or so per second Visa does, that's the better part of a gigabyte per second of blockchain growth.

    11. Re: Because people are idiots by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Bitcoin is one tool in a huge toolbox. It doesn't have to do everything. Furthermore it's a proof of concept - blockchain + decentralized mining leads to a safe, secure means of exchange.

      Other coins can handle small - coffee sized transactions. BTC can be a clearing house for end of day transactions by stores and other businesses.

      Furthermore there will ALWAYS be a need for Paypal and credit cards and other services which have a third-party arbiter for consumers. It's not an either or sort of scenario.

      BTC does not need to be able to handle millions of transactions per second to have value.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    12. Re: Because people are idiots by brunes69 · · Score: 1

      People who believe this are deleuded and somewhat ignorant of how block chain technology works.

      BTC transactions are VERY public and EASILY traceable by organizations like nation states. If BTC ever gained any amount of real traction, it would be regulated up the ying yang.

    13. Re: Because people are idiots by Khyber · · Score: 1

      The blockchain works by basic majority confirmation. Thus, those with the majority of the processing power hold the majority confirmation, and can write whatever they want to the blockchain. This has always been the problem with permissionless distributed databases, besides the insane log over exponential growth rate that happens with bandwidth and energy requirements to keep an ever-growing decentralized database going and fault-tolerant.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    14. Re: Because people are idiots by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Wow. Nice add to the conversation. And this internet fad - it's going away soon too. Right?

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  2. Hisotry repeating? by istartedi · · Score: 2

    ICO frenzy? Dot-coin bust? I have to be honest. I didn't think it would run this long. Well-played, guys; but nobody rings a bell at the top. However, we probably haven't hit the stage yet where we have Uber drivers giving hot ICO tips. If there's a counterpoint to the "nobody rings a bell" claim, it's the ol', "got out when the shoeshine boy offered a stock tip" story.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:Hisotry repeating? by jtara · · Score: 1, Informative

      However, we probably haven't hit the stage yet where we have Uber drivers giving hot ICO tips

      One of the parking valets in my building (get over it! We have parking valets because we have unassigned tandem parking...) gave me a hot ICO tip (Etherium) that I shoulda coulda heeded.

      I think he made enough to make-up for his past online gambling losses.

      Indicators of the 2001 stock-market bubble that I caught:

      - personal trainer giving stock picks
      - walked past two rows of cubicles at work on the day of the market top. Every singe screen was displaying a brokerage or stock-quote page
      - fattest issues of Wired and Red Herring ever

      OK, so we can use 2 out of 3 of these indicators...

    2. Re:Hisotry repeating? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. Last time, the crash involved somewhat viable companies and ideas that were vastly overfunded and overvalued. This time round, I see nothing but tulips and outright scams. Just look at that filecoin thing. I wonder if, in a few weeks, they'll have part of their supply of coins "stolen by hackers" as well, or if they'll syphon the money out in other ways and simply fold. Or perhaps some other idiot will buy them.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:Hisotry repeating? by istartedi · · Score: 1

      Oh, that's jogging my memory: TIME magazine cover. Bull on the cover? Sell. Bear on the cover? Buy.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    4. Re:Hisotry repeating? by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      You used to be able to buy a house for a tulip. We have a long way to go yet... there is a lot of greed out there.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    5. Re:Hisotry repeating? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      History doesn't repeat but it rhymes. Last time, the crash involved somewhat viable companies and ideas that were vastly overfunded and overvalued. This time round, I see nothing but tulips and outright scams. Just look at that filecoin thing. I wonder if, in a few weeks, they'll have part of their supply of coins "stolen by hackers" as well, or if they'll syphon the money out in other ways and simply fold.

      Yes. If you've been paying attention, a very large percentage of Bitcoin exchanges have gone under after losing some/all of their bitcoins to "hackers", or, they just disappear and take everyone's money with them.

      In order to make money from bitcoin/filecoin/ethereum/whatever, you have to be able to sell it for real money. And that's the problem. When the FBI shut down Silk Road a couple of years ago they seized 144,000 bitcoin (then worth $122 Million). Today, it would be worth $576 Million. Except nobody is going to give you half a billion dollars for your bitcoin. Just finding someone willing to give you $4000 for one bitcoin is not all that easy.

    6. Re:Hisotry repeating? by bigfinger76 · · Score: 1

      Just finding someone willing to give you $4000 for one bitcoin is not all that easy.

      This is an attempt at humor, I assume?

    7. Re:Hisotry repeating? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      I think he made enough to make-up for his past online gambling losses.

      Pursuing the dream of making money for nothing - sounds like Bitcoin mining in a nutshell.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    8. Re:Hisotry repeating? by ncc74656 · · Score: 1

      Just finding someone willing to give you $4000 for one bitcoin is not all that easy.

      Umm...Coinbase, perhaps? They probably don't even have the absolute-best pricing; they're just easier to deal with than many.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
    9. Re:Hisotry repeating? by gumbi+west · · Score: 1

      So, the last bubble was houses, not stocks.

    10. Re:Hisotry repeating? by gravewax · · Score: 1

      However, we probably haven't hit the stage yet where we have Uber drivers giving hot ICO tips

      I think we actually have hit that point. I see people everywhere (gaming forums, investment forums etc) saying buy bitcoin and you are guaranteed to be 40x or 100x better off in 12 months times. They perceive no possibility of a permanent downturn or collapse and believe it can only go up. This is the same thinking that happened prior stock market crash in 2000 as well as the housing bubble.

    11. Re:Hisotry repeating? by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Bitcoin miners help secure the network, so it's money for a service.

    12. Re:Hisotry repeating? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      Just finding someone willing to give you $4000 for one bitcoin is not all that easy.

      Yes it is, just go to Gemini (or any other trading platform and you can buy and sell BTC to your hearts content. I do. Each time I sell - someone else is buying my overpriced, worthless bitcoin. Each time I buy I purchase the other person's overpriced, worthless bitcoin.

      It's very, very easy. Just as easy as buying APPL, GOOG or MSFT.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    13. Re: Hisotry repeating? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1

      It's meant to be like gold - where the new supply is tiny compared to the existing horded amount.

      BTC does not need to replace every other currency to have value, anymore than email needed to replace USPS or UPS to have value.

      --
      If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
      Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
    14. Re:Hisotry repeating? by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Over a long enough term it can realistically only go up. It is deflationary after all. Bitcoin is used to actually transact and exchange value and every day there is less actual bitcoin in circulation as people throw away temperatory wallets with small bits left on them and lose passwords and hard drives, etc. That doesn't prevent speculation bubbles that soar and pop though. People who bought during the last bubble at $1200 were hurting when it crashed back down to $600 and didn't recover until a few months ago. They are kicking themselves if they "took a loss" now. People panic, or they need those funds to be accessible in the event of an emergency. The risk of a life situation forcing you to sell an investment at an inopportune moment is almost never factored into the risk but is real for normal humans.

      Will bitcoin be worth more in 6 months? I could be worth 25% of what it is today. Will it be worth more at some point in the next 10 years? It is a near certainly it will be worth double the current price at some point in that timeframe.

    15. Re:Hisotry repeating? by gravewax · · Score: 1

      Over a long enough term it can realistically only go up. .

      absolute bullshit. It can totally collapse to be worth nothing from which it would be unlikely to recover with so many competing offerings, a single vulnerability or large enough scam could easily trigger that or it could continue to grow, at the moment it is still pretty much an each way bet.

  3. Still owned by the 1% by Sebby · · Score: 1

    just different group, this time it's geeks (though the Wall Street gang is getting in on things I see).

    --

    AC comments get piped to /dev/null
  4. Tulips by jtara · · Score: 1

    Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

    No affiliate link, just a public service!

    1. Re:Tulips by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 1

      MacKay's book is old enough to be out of copyright. You can download it for free from the Internet Archive:

      https://archive.org/details/te...

    2. Re:Tulips by avandesande · · Score: 1

      These tulips are 10 years old and haven't wilted yet, contrary to popular opinion.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    3. Re:Tulips by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      Or Project Gutenburg
      http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook...

  5. Why now? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because the world is fucking coming to an end. The guys with nuclear launch codes are waving their dicks at each other, the bees are all dead and Nazis are marching in the streets with tiki torches from their moms' backyards.

    So why shouldn't wealth be made out of nothing? Me, I'm holding out for TrumpCoin.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Why now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      trumpcoin is going to be amazing. it'll be the best coin, it's gonna be tremendous. tremendous;

    2. Re:Why now? by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      So why shouldn't wealth be made out of nothing?

      Aside from currencies not being actual wealth themselves, most modern currencies aren't any more substantive than bitcoint. They're all essentially commodities with the only real advantage over bitcoin being that they're legal tender. Ask Zimbabwe or more recently Venezuela how much something their currency is made out of.

    3. Re:Why now? by jtara · · Score: 1

      trumpcoin is going to be amazing. it'll be the best coin, it's gonna be tremendous. tremendous;

      • Obverse: dual silhouettes of Putin over Trump
      • Reverse: tiny hands

      ... with a beautiful golden finish.

    4. Re:Why now? by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 1

      > Me, I'm holding out for TrumpCoin.

      Already exists: https://coinmarketcap.com/curr...

      Predictably, it is pretty worthless :-).

    5. Re:Why now? by nnet · · Score: 1

      made of coal huh....

    6. Re:Why now? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      https://www.coingecko.com/en/p...

      I wouldn't exactly say "worthless" at over 2000 satoshi per coin. That's a lot higher than Dogecoin, Mooncoin and dozens of other alt-coins.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    7. Re:Why now? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Will you be apologizing for being wrong next week and next month and every month after that when things turn out ok, like they always do?

      This scholar is of the "things always turn out OK" school of history. Who but someone living in their mom's basement could possibly believe that things always turn out OK?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    8. Re:Why now? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I think we can all relate to being angry if a group of people decided to destroy our new car.

      The new car that he drove from Ohio to Virginia in order to be in a Nazi Trump rally? No, I'm not sure we can all relate to that.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    9. Re:Why now? by helga+the+viking · · Score: 2

      Bitcoin is not a currency its a commodity.

      http://www.win-vector.com/blog...

      Why don't you read up on what drives hyperinflation. Hint its not 'printing money' its what money in circulation can buy. Printing money is false cause of hyperinflation wrongly associated because its the wrong response to an underlying problem. 'printing money' is a bulls**t non-specific term that does not really mean anything. (Can cover one or more scenarios which can be quite similar but also quite different).

      Zimbabwe: give modern farms to war veterans during some of the worst drought years on record and you'll find what a unit of currency buys is a lot less. Then give corrupt government officials large loans which they don't have to pay back which they immediately exchange for other currencies and you get ingredients for hyperinflation.

      Venezuela: archaic unavailability of modern currency exchange in 2012, and again in February 2013, the government sharply reduced the availability of foreign exchange. It was during this time that shortages of basic goods accelerated, along with inflation and the black market price of the dollar. The official exchange rate, at which the government sold the vast majority of dollars earned from oil sales, was at 6.3 Bolivares Fuertes per dollar. But a parallel market already existed, and the shortage of dollars at the official rate drove the parallel market sharply upward. At the same time, the higher parallel market price of the dollar increased inflation, because it increases the price of imported goods.

      http://bilbo.economicoutlook.n...

    10. Re:Why now? by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      The world ends every day, it's just the number of people for whom it ends that varies.

    11. Re:Why now? by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      trumpcoin is going to be amazing. it'll be the best coin, it's gonna be tremendous. tremendous;

      • Obverse: dual silhouettes of Putin over Trump
      • Reverse: tiny hands

      ... with a beautiful golden finish.

      It's something the likes of which the world will never see.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  6. Wall Street's obsession by MMC+Monster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wall Street's obsession isn't BitCoin. It's blockchain technology. They're seeing it as a cure for thousands of unrelated issues.

    BitCoin isn't even their focus. The software is freely available. They're looking to make their own forks (multiple) of LiteCoin and go from their.

    Source: Friend is a Vice President at a Wall Street firm. I can't talk to him for five minutes before he moves the conversation to blockchain technology.

    --
    Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    1. Re:Wall Street's obsession by JoeyRox · · Score: 2

      Actually, Wall Street's obsession is in enriching themselves from the next greater-fool bubble. Bitcoin serves that role nicely.

    2. Re: Wall Street's obsession by jmcvetta · · Score: 1

      Corda is way more interesting tech than any of these "me too" crypto coins.

    3. Re:Wall Street's obsession by gumbi+west · · Score: 1

      you do realize VP at a Wall Street firm is everyone above entry level, right? I mean that literally.

    4. Re:Wall Street's obsession by MMC+Monster · · Score: 1

      My friend told me as much. He said he's got three levels between him and Jamie Dimon.

      That being said he also has a 3 acre property with a 7000sq foot house in Long Island, so I'm thinking he's just being modest. He's a nice guy once you get him to talk about anything but blockchains.

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
  7. Still waiting... by namgge · · Score: 1

    One Bitcoin is still only about 10% of the value of a single tulip bullb in 1636/7. Got someway to go yet.

    1. Re:Still waiting... by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that money is significantly easier to come by today than it was in the 17th century. There is a heck of a lot of money out there. Too much, according to some. I expect one day you'll be able to buy a small central american country for one bitcoin before it collapses.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Still waiting... by MangoCats · · Score: 1

      But you could actually eat your tulip bulbs (or plant them and get a flower) no matter what their price in Guilders.

      When Bitcoin goes away, it will leave the way it came in: nothing but imagination.

    3. Re:Still waiting... by helga+the+viking · · Score: 2

      Monetary Base = Reserve balances + vault cash + cash in circulation.

      M1 = Cash in circulation + Private-bank checking accounts of non-banks, non-federal, non-official foreign economic units.

      Best to question by what measure is money "significantly easier to come by today than it was in the 17th century"

      A currency issuer (government) drives use of currency by spending (issuing) and taxing (deleting) in said currency (enforces this by all legal and ultimately military means) and has not changed since 17th century (or before).

      The people who say "There is a heck of a lot of money out there. Too much, according to some" probably don't understand basics like reserve balances don't EVER circulate in the non-bank part of the economy as an asset on the private sectors balance sheet. (They cant be found in a persons bank account balance rather how banks settle their own reserve balances). The of course there are all those people living in poverty who cant find jobs or have enough money. *at some point the people saying there is "too much" don't understand basic accounting and are out of touch with reality of the 99%.

      Bit coin is not 'money' its a 'commodity' and one for that matter that does nothing better than act like a currency (in the way homeopathy cures cancer). When people work that out guess how much it will be worth. ;-)

    4. Re:Still waiting... by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      In that sense, a tulip bulb is more useful than a bar of gold. Still, bars of gold have been able to retaining their value for thousands of years.

  8. Tulip err cryptocoin mania? by DatbeDank · · Score: 1

    These coins are in massive bubble right now from speculators and are on rather shaky ground legally as they enjoy legislatures ignorance on how the whole thing works.

    As a store of value, cryptocurrencies are trash. As a speculative investment vehicle, you can damn well be sure some of us are flipping each leg up for profit.

  9. Hard drive with 2 bitcoins in a box in my parking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I mined two bit coins about 7 years ago on my workstation at the office. When I quit my job, I took my non-work hard drive with me. It's in a box sitting in the garage.

    If I dig it out, I still remember the password of my wallet. If I recover those coins, are they still valuable or has the currency changed in some way that would render the wallet obsolete?

  10. Drugs & Ransomware by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    are holding up the price. It's funny to think that if drugs were legalized the value of bitcoin would probably halve and if (when?) the governments get around to cracking down on ransomeware that'll take the other half.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  11. Re:Hard drive with 2 bitcoins in a box in my parki by JonnyCalcutta · · Score: 1

    They're worthless. A liability in fact. Luckily for you though I'm destroying some of my own later. If you chip in, say, 30 bucks for gas and expenses, I'll take your as well.

  12. Corporations are stockpiling by DalM · · Score: 2

    Corporations, government agencies, hospitals and more are stockpiling Bitcoin because of Ransomware attacks. That's 100% the explanation for the rise in value. This is why we need to make owning, buying and selling bitcoin illegal. If we made it illegal, these organizations would be forced to sell destroying it's value. If it's valueless, and no one is legally able to buy it, then the Ransomware attacks will go away. Cash is much, much harder and more dangerous for Ransomware writers to collect.

    1. Re:Corporations are stockpiling by MangoCats · · Score: 1

      I think making bitcoin illegal is tantamount to making ideas illegal.

      It may need regulation, public education about what it is and is not, you don't want people getting defrauded by common perception. But, if people want to pay money (an imaginary construct itself ever since moving off the gold standard) for a imaginary construct/concept, why should that ever be made illegal?

  13. Liquidity by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    How easy is it to turn bitcoins into Euros, Pounds or Dollars? A cursory search shows limits of around 3000K $ per day, so even 300K worth would take about 3 months, and 3 million $ around 3 years. It would seem to be a forced buy and hold investment with a lot of downside risk if it crashes; or even if a lot of people start cashing out which would drive the price down. Is there an easy way to turn say 1 million of bitcoin to Euros, Pounds or Dollars? You want to get out before a large sell order drops the price significantly. can exchanges cover say 1000 people pulling out 3000k at once? Will they commit to the price at the time of the request or recalculate the value due to a price drop?

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    1. Re:Liquidity by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure if I'm reading this many digits correctly, but I'm seeing a market cap of 68 billion dollars for it right now.

      That may not define the ability to pull money out quickly but my understanding is, it can be pulled out quicker than it used to.

      Also some may be opting to pull it out into gold or other things, there are now gold for bitcoin places, I know someone who buys his bitcoin mining stuff with, you guessed it, bitcoins.

      Agree entirely however that the simple act of pulling it out, does reduce the value. Anyone who thinks they have 5 million US$ in bitcoin, I'd be surprised if they could pull out more than 3 million over the course of 6 months. (note: totally wild guess)

    2. Re:Liquidity by JcMorin · · Score: 1

      You can convert them to USD and Euro pretty instantly, the issue would withdraw it as exchange have daily/monthly limit. Tips: you can trade on more than 1 exchanges. The same rules would apply if you try to withdraw 1 millions $ in cash from the bank. The problem is not Bitcoin, it's the legacy system.

    3. Re:Liquidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      easy is it to turn bitcoins into Euros, Pounds or Dollars? A cursory search shows limits of around 3000K $ per day

      Duh - you're looking at pleb-tier retail services. Do you think Wall Street cashes out at Coinbase?

    4. Re:Liquidity by Kjella · · Score: 2

      According to some market volume data I found >100k Bitcoins or $3-400 million change hands every day on all the exchanges in total, so the market should have no problem cashing out a million in a day. If you can find an exchange that'll let you place a single million dollar order is another story, but if you really want to they'll probably let you.

      Will they commit to the price at the time of the request or recalculate the value due to a price drop?

      Any price you get from the exchange will be the last traded price. It is not an offer and there's no guarantee you can trade at that exact price. A market order is done at unknown price "I want to sell 1 BTC (at the highest possible price)" and the exchange will match it with the highest buy order(s). If there's a flash crash it'll still be sold, no matter how low the price goes and then your price becomes the last traded price.

      The alternative is a limit order "I want to sell 1 BTC at no less than $3000", which may be filled (or partially filled) if there's offers above $3000 but will remain unfilled (that is, unsold) if the price would dip below $3000. It's pretty standard for stock exchanges but if your order is small relative to the trade volume and the volatility low compared to the latency it doesn't matter. Even if Bitcoin can crash in a day it doesn't usually swing that much in the milliseconds it takes your order to reach the exchange. It's the $1000 you can lose overnight not the $1 you can lose between clicking sell and actually selling you should worry about.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:Liquidity by powro79 · · Score: 1

      3000 K$ / day = 3,000,000.00 $ / day? :)

    6. Re:Liquidity by Dorianny · · Score: 1

      Assets staying within an exchange are not the issue here. As long as they are staying within the exchange's ledger then it is all just numbers being transferred from one line on the exchanges accounting books to another. The question is how much liquid assets does the exchange have to cover monetary withdrawals. As Greeks found out during the banking crises, numbers on account are meaningless if you can't actually make withdrawals. Daily withdrawal limits of a few hounded EU were placed on the entire banking system to stop them from collapsing until they could be recapitalized by the Greek government. Nobody is going to recapitalize a Bitcoin exchange

    7. Re:Liquidity by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      3000 K$ / day = 3,000,000.00 $ / day? :)

      Gotta love typos....

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  14. exactly why its not a good investemtn. by helga+the+viking · · Score: 2

    Its not a 'currency' never has been does not in any way fit the definition of a currency its a virtual commodity. Get over it. http://www.win-vector.com/blog... If anything the last 6 months has shown why its too volatile for normal people to contemplate getting into. Of course welcome wall street ponzi-scheme into the mix, its like a big homeopathic cures conference, no shortment of excited con-artists. Eventually the gig will be up. This will happen when some governments legislate, taxes it in some form and the special interest from the community most interested in the technology will be circumvented. (was to avoid tax wasnt it ;-) If i wanted a commodity that's virtual and takes big oh NP complexity to mine it would have been good if all that energy mining the blocks also cured cancer, looked for ET or some other things . (Hint did something useful)

  15. Re:Hard drive with 2 bitcoins in a box in my parki by namgge · · Score: 1

    Why bother? They belong to your ex employer anyway.

  16. I can explain some of it too, with some graphs. by AbRASiON · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's some data which essentially completely confirms a lot of it is money laundering.

    News from late Nov 2016
    https://www.google.com.au/sear...

    Reaction to said news (click 1 year on the chart)
    https://www.worldcoinindex.com...

    .
    .
    .

    Now, see this news also, Feb 2017
    https://www.google.com.au/sear...

    See the reaction in other digital currrency markets (again, click the 1Y chart)
    https://www.worldcoinindex.com...
    https://www.worldcoinindex.com... -- *(!!)

    Now, finally look at your local property prices, especially if you live in Vancouver, Toronto, London, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland.
    Any way money can be gotten out of China, it will be by the wealthy / ultra wealthy. The change to my city in the past 5 years, is .nothing. short of utterly astounding. I repeat, *utterly astounding*, to the complete and utter detriment of the locals under 40 / 50 who don't own a place, they're boned. no chance now.

    *
    Regarding litecoin, this one is .particularly. telling, that coin was the "b tier" coin to bitcoin, the silver to gold if you will. Like bitcoin, it had a big run several years ago and then, it died off to a stagnant level, logically so too, why should there even be more than 1 digital currency?
    So here's a coin which has settled to a flat, sensible price, then due to talk of China making some moves against BTC exchanges in Feb 2017, is suddenly .booming.insanely. in Mar 2017.
    Most of the world buy their goods from there, we're sending our money to China en-masse, immense amounts of it, the wealthy there, are in turn getting out of the country and picking up the premium property around the world. Can't blame them to be honest, devastating for some of the locals though (myself included)

    1. Re:I can explain some of it too, with some graphs. by AbRASiON · · Score: 1

      NOTE: I forgot to mention,

      My post does not imply it's the only way people are getting money out of China, nor does it imply that it's the only reason BTC and digital currency is booming. I do however strongly believe it plays a big, big part in it.

  17. Re: Donald TRIMP supported RUSSIANS at work, Actua by dougdonovan · · Score: 1

    bitcoin is...$ in the bank :)

  18. Gold + Bitcoin (Re:Liquidity) by lannocc · · Score: 1

    Also some may be opting to pull it out into gold or other things, there are now gold for bitcoin places

    There is even a gold-backed blockchain (you can read my little write-up about it here).

    Bitcoin may be in a bubble. But honestly most of the hype is not around Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin is not a store of value, and offers little utility. Other blockchains are doing more useful things. The Ethereum blockchain is finding many powerful uses, but as its price as a coin as somewhat settled recently, people are less interested in trading it.

    The Bitcoin bubble will eventually burst. The best blockchains, those that provide real utility, will live on.

    --
    -IOVAR Web Dev Platform
    1. Re:Gold + Bitcoin (Re:Liquidity) by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      The Bitcoin bubble will eventually burst. The best blockchains, those that provide real utility, will live on.

      Bitcoin is not static. The software can be upgraded to include new features. In fact, later this month, some features will be added to increase utility. On the other hand, bitcoin is a bit more conservative, which also adds value and security. Other blockchains can try out new ideas quickly, and if they turn out to be working great, the bitcoin blockchain can "steal" them.

  19. Where are those Bear BTC ETFs? by ayesnymous · · Score: 2

    Need to short this thing.

    1. Re:Where are those Bear BTC ETFs? by stinerman · · Score: 1

      You'd think, but the market can stay irrational longer than they can stay solvent.

  20. Easy money creates bubbles by Spy+Handler · · Score: 2

    I'm starting to think the Fed is largely responsible for fueling the current bubbles, including Bitcoin. Artificially low interest rates, expansion of the money supply, Quantitative Easing in its various iterations (version 1, 2, 3, and now 4 coming).

    Ever watch the movie Big Short? It explains the 2007 housing bubble but puts the blame on evil bankers and their subprime loans + mortgage-backed securities. Well yes the bankers are greedy and probably evil, but the movie misses the point -- the ultimate driver of the bubble was Fed flooding the market with easy money. If the cheap money wasn't there, bankers wouldn't gamble so recklessly. Then once the housing bubble took off and home prices just kept going up, loaning more of the cheap money to low-income people with no hope of ever paying it back seemed OK because house prices were rising so fast that the equity in the house would cover everything. Of course they didn't consider the possibility that housing prices might fall...

    Fed should not have the power to set interest rates, interest should be determined by free market forces. Note how they *never* set the interest rate above what would be a reasonable market rate, it's always below.

    1. Re:Easy money creates bubbles by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Well, I guess it would be nice to have an alternative form of money with a hard cap on the amount of coins, so you can store your wealth without having to worry about the Fed making it worthless.

  21. Important question by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

    Before bitcoin or the small central American country collapses?