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Bitcoin Prices Surge Past $5,000 Three Weeks After Passing $4,000 (fortune.com)
Less than three weeks after surging past $4,000, Bitcoin reached $5,000 on Asian exchanges Friday. An anonymous reader quotes Fortune: The idea of Bitcoin breaking the symbolic milestone of $5,000 would have been unthinkable to most people at the start 2017, when the price topped $1,000 for the first time. If you're keeping track, the digital currency is up 500% this year, and nearly 2200% since mid-2015, when it was in the doldrums at around $220. There appears to be no single reason for the recent run-up. Instead, it can likely be explained by the same factors driving this year's cryptocurrency bull run: Publicity-driven speculation; New financial products creating unprecedented liquidity; Trading surges in Asian markets; Institutional investors treating digital currency as a permanent new asset class.
"Magical Internet Money Hits $5k" writes Bitcoin News, adding "so far in 2017 bitcoin has outperformed all government issued tender and a vast majority of stocks and commodities."
While the head of the Bitcoin Foundation has urged people to invest "no more than they can afford," Bitcoin now has a market capitalization of $82.6 billion.
"Magical Internet Money Hits $5k" writes Bitcoin News, adding "so far in 2017 bitcoin has outperformed all government issued tender and a vast majority of stocks and commodities."
While the head of the Bitcoin Foundation has urged people to invest "no more than they can afford," Bitcoin now has a market capitalization of $82.6 billion.
Bitcoin is not an investment, it is a gamble.
Hope is not an investment strategy.
Nasdaq hits 5000, everyone started piling in, and then came the big crash. This is no different because many bought stock in companies that are gone or worthless. It's a sham.
It's basically one big ponzi scheme, let's wait and see who's left holding the bag. Can always jump in you think the game will be played a while longer, but when it ends, it will end quickly.
...one of those things in life you'll either stand idle by and watch it like it was a show, you'll think "oh why - oh why did I not invest when it was new and cheap", and when it plummets down, you'll sigh a relief and think to yourself - oh, I'm glad I didn't do that, those fools - or you'll be a part of it, getting free money if you pump it out at the right time.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
All investments are an "educated" gamble
The belief that there is always someone out there willing to pay more and bug it off you.
Currently, it's Bitcoin, Tesla, and Amazon flying to new highs for no reason.
In the case of bitcoin, it is used to trade with. exchanges like Bittrex trade everything against bitcoin. All money has to funnel through bitcoin either directly or indirectly. All other arguments and benefits aside, as long as bitcoin remains the de facto gold standard backing the entire crypto world, and as long as money goes into the crypto world, the price of bitcoin is not going to go down (volatility aside).
They are getting rich by cashing out while others put their money in. Bitcoin is like a stock with no inherent value, but which is pumped in a pump and dump scheme. The only difference is that the people buying into it KNOW that the stock is a pump and dump, but are hoping to get off before everybody else stops piling in. Because it has no inherent value with which to compare it to, nobody can say that it is "overpriced", unlike a pump and dump stock however, so keeps going up. People will say "all currency has value simply because people trust it has value" but most currency is used to actually buy and trade for goods and services. Bitcoin, while it has SOME value for goods and services, is generally traded against other currencies. You get rich because the price of bitcoin goes up, vs. currency, you don't get rich just because you have Bitcoin.
That said, I expect that it will continue to go up, as people pile on the hype train, but at some point, the train will have a last stop, and everybody left on it at that time will realize that the last stop is just a cliff. Consider this--what happens if someone realizes there is some inherent flaw in the bitcoin blockchain system, and can corrupt it? How much value would be left?
Free fuckings for all the latecomers!
Blockchain technology will survive and likely be incredibly important to the future of banking and finance. However that is something completely different from bitcoin. Bitcoin is just one of many users of the technology.
For Wall Street, the blockchain is the future, bitcoin is just a current speculative instrument. Wall street has played a large role in the current price spike, if their attention moves elsewhere a huge crash is likely.
Keep in mind that bitcoin has already gone off plan. It is no longer under the control of the masses, ordinary people and their computers, with respect to maintaining the public ledger. The ledger is maintain by an ever more concentrated group of people who can afford the expensive hardware necessary to "mine". The is absolutely contrary to the design and security of bitcoin.
Merchants who accept bitcoin often never see or touch a bitcoin and are largely unaffected by volatility. They can do their account and pricing in USD, EUR, etc as normal. If a rare individual shows up offering BTC they use a BTC payment processor. This processor converts the USD/EUR price to BTC in real time and provides a BTC price and payments address to pass on to the customer. If coins show up at the address the processor informs the merchant and credits the merchant's account for the USD/EUR originally specified. The processor takes on the risk for the minutes the transaction took to verify. The merchant is out nothing more than a processing fee, much like when they accept credit cards.
They've been well over 1000 for years. I've been invested since 2013, where is TFA getting its info from?
No. BTC was $1,000 in 2013, $450 in 2014 and $250 in 2015. 2013 had an incredible vertical spike like the current spike to $5,000 (which has pulled back to $4,500 by the time this article made it to slashdot), and not surprisingly it popped. Wiser investors than you who don't trust vertical spikes and expect bubbles to pop purchased in 2014 and 2015 and made two to four times as much money as you. Well, assuming they cashed out. If you or they are still holding, you made nothing.
Firstly, let's clear things up.. I consider crypto currency a highly speculative and highly risky thing to invest in. However, I think a lot of people don't fairly it. I was a sceptic at first and still remain one, but I think it needs to be described more accurately. Statement: Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme. Fact: No it's not. It is open and it's not fraudulent. A ponzi scheme by definition is fraud. Statement: Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Retort: Bitcoin is a brand name. Brand names can have intrinsic value through brand recognition. High liquidity is also another intrinsic value, and so is anonymity (particularly with coins like Monero). It also has intrinsic value to the unbanked. People are willing to pay for things like that.. but how much is the risky speculation part. Statement: Bitcoin will never replace cash because it's too slow and can't scale to tens of thousands of transactions a second like the Visa network can. It also has high fees and takes a long time to confirm. Fact: Very true. This is where the speculating about technologies like Lightning Network (no fees, instant transaction) can have a big influence over the price of a coin, the possibility that the surge in the value of litecoin was tied its LN integration is one example. Statement: Bitcoin will never replace cash or card because there's no reason to change, particularly given its price instability. I don't think grandma will ever pay by bitcoin. Fact: That's why it has been seen in a similar light to trading precious metals. For it to have worldwide adoption, it will require a stable price, the banks or a major currency to collapse, most people to become IT literate and many people to be using it for day to day transactions. In other words.. that's probably a very, very long time away.
And that's what is scary; bitcoin and other "block chain" currencies GUARANTEE traceability of every financial transaction you have ever made. Even worse than credit cards do (in that you can get credit cards with different names, addresses, and even anonymously). Bitcoin is an absolute dream for Governments and big business in that they can completely record and reconstruct everything you have ever bought or paid for. That kind of data isn't just a dream for the IRS, but for companies that thrive on your personal information.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Does anybody know how to short bitcoin?
Buy dollars.
"His name was James Damore."
The problem is that a 500% increase in value in 8 months makes it completely unsuitable as money.
Would you sign a 2 year phone contract that was denominated in bitcoin when you have no idea what the agreed amount would be worth in 2 years time?