Slashdot Mirror
Bitcoin Prices Surge 26% in November, Pass $8000 (bloomberg.com)
Bitcoin's value has increased more than 26% in less than three weeks, writes Bloomberg. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Bitcoin topped $8,000 for the first time, as investors set aside technology concerns that had derailed its advance earlier this month. Bitcoin rose 4.8 percent to $8,071.05 as of 7:17 a.m. Sydney time on Monday. It's now up more than 700 percent this year after shrugging off a tumble of as much as 29 percent earlier this month. It's been a tumultuous year for the largest cryptocurrency, with three separate slumps of more than 25 percent in value all giving way to subsequent rallies.
..... from those that think they missed out.
Tulip bulbs are where the money will be at over the next 12 months.
I remember when you could click on a button and get one bitcoin for watching a flash ad.
Bitcoin is for suckers and wolves.
Yep, there you are! LOL
That's what they told me about stock prices in 2000 and housing prices in 2006/2007, too.
Nah, I'm good. Playing the "what if" game only leads to madness. I'm happy with what I have.
If Bitcoin is supposedly so valuable, then why is its value always measured in US dollars? If it actually did have some value then we'd be measuring the value of the US dollar in terms of Bitcoin.
Some years ago I was saying how bitcoin's value increase is not something sustainable, apart from having many of the characteristics of a pyramid scheme, it is also a transaction system that by design supports very few transactions per second (and that at considerable cost in energy and bandwidth), so does not have as much real world potential as you'd think. But after it broke $1000 and kept going I ceased commenting on the bitcoin price, it defies my logic, it boggles my mind, so I'll just wait to see how it goes without trying to comprehend.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
If it actually did have some value then we'd be measuring the value of the US dollar in terms of Bitcoin.
That is exactly what we are doing.
Bitcoin is not stocks or houses.
..... from those that think they missed out.
Well there are also the thank you's to buyers from those of us selling at $8,000. We'll talk again at $2,000. ;-)
Sounds like you made a little too much money with this. Don't let it get to your head good sir.
I tend to rant.
That is true. Bitcoin is not stocks or houses. Both stocks and houses have intrinsic value. Bitcoin does not.
You're right. Stocks and houses actually represent something of value.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Fiat currencies are devaluing hugely
If gold is supposedly so valuable, why is its value always measured US dollars? If milk and eggs are supposedly so valuable, why is its value always measured in US dollars? etc ...
Should we outlaw cash too, because it MIGHT be used by criminals? Nah, let people keep their anonymity in a more and more connected and data-mined world.
This being said, Bitcoin is probably a bubble, but who knows?
If Bitcoin is supposedly so valuable, then why is its value always measured in US dollars?
Because the wouldn't have a fucking clue if a website catering to Americans was comparing Bitcoin to the Japanese yen.
You speak to what your audience knows.
Stop lying to yourself and take 1 hour to read the white paper. Then you will know why you should start buying. Its time to take money away from banks and governments.
If the Majority of cash was used for criminal activities, it probably would be regulated more closely. Right now, what are the majority of Bitcoin transactions for? Drug buys? Cryptocurrency scams? Money laundering? I highly doubt that many people are using it to buy groceries right now.
Of course, I'd think that the majority of people with Bitcoin holdings now are speculators who are thinking that the price is going to $10,000. It will be interesting to see what happens when it actually hits that value.
Encryption scams are bad, but easily defeated by good backup "hygiene."
Drug buys? Legalize it for consenting adults, treat abuse as a medical issue.
Assuming that bitcoin trading is an efficient market (hah!) then, in the absence of bubble-dynamics, the price should track slightly higher than the cost.
That is, the cost to make a new bitcoin by mining it. Most of that cost is electricity and/or cost of mining rigs.
So, if it was profitable to mine bitcoin a few months ago at $4000/coin and nothing much has changed in the price of electricity or mining rigs, then unless the difficulty has doubled (as it sometimes does) then it is grossly overprofitable to mine right now for $8000/coin. In which case, miners will find there is money to be had in expanding production., so new mining capacity coming online should drive the price back down at some point... which might not be soon.
= faults in all parts.
Quite appropriate.
Bitcoin is a bubble/scam. Its very design (limited to 21 million bitcoins) means it doesn't have a future.
But like I've been telling everyone who asks me about bitcoin, that it's a bubble doesn't automatically mean it's a bad short-term investment. A lot of people made a ton of money off the tech bubble and the housing bubble. If you want to make a speculative investment in bitcoin, by all means do so. Just be aware that due to its flawed design, eventually it will collapse. Take care to make sure you're not the one left holding the bag when that happens. Basically my standard investing/gambling advice - don't put more money into it than you can stand to lose.
Think of it more as gold. There is a finit amount of gold. As you dig, it gets harder and harder to find new gold. What is the real value of gold? Let the market decide.
Bitcoin has plenty of intrinsic value.
Beacuse the dominant currency US dollar. Hence values of commodities like oil, coal, gas etc are reported in US dollars.
Are doomed to repeat it. This will end badly, it's only a question now of who is the greater fool.
those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. this isn't just some magical thing that is somehow different.
currently 1 bitcoin actually represents $8000 of US dollars. Not sure what your point is.
Bitcoin, over the last month, has shown that it:
1). Can't scale
2). Won't scale since Segwit2x went bust, and BCH isn't much better
3). Still relies on energy-inefficient PoW algorithms
4). Has no real developer support
5). Is prone to scammy forks, e.g. Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Silver
People "setting aside technology concerns" are really ignoring major red flags with the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. It's slow, there's practically no way to get the miners to agree to upgrades (so good luck RSK/Lightning, you're gonna need it), the mining is far more centralized than ever intended in the original whitepaper, and it costs far too much to confirm transactions.
BTC has been reduced to name recognition. It's "first mover" and nothing else. Much of the new money coming into Bitcoin has NO IDEA about any of these problems. To them, BTC = crypto, period. That just don't know.
Both stocks and houses have intrinsic value
Tell that to people in the 1988 condo crash, or the upcoming housing crash here in Canada. That $1.5m house in the burbs that's a hot ticket item right now is only going to be worth $250k in a couple of years at best guess. Especially since they're talking about multiple interest rate jumps. To explain just how *bad* of a crash they're talking? At 0.25% 10% of mortgages could be under water. At 0.5% it's around 25%. If the prime goes up by 1.5% in the next year(a very strong possibility), you could see 50-60% of all mortgages across Canada go under in 60 days and it would be like the hyperinflation crash back in the early 1980's. Speaking of which, my parents mortgage rate in 1981 was 13.5%. And people are worried going from 2-3% to 4-5%.
Om, nomnomnom...
If the Majority of cash was used for criminal activities, it probably would be regulated more closely...
And in a world where most transactions are done via a plastic card, exactly what makes you assume that the Majority of cash transactions are not used for criminal activities?
Houses might lose 50-60% of their value. Bitcoin might lose 99%. There's the difference.
Gold, of course, is a real thing. It can be used in electronics and jewelry. It can't just be forked or replicated by someone who thinks they can make better gold that will be more interesting to gold speculators.
So you may have a point, but on the other hand, it's not at all like gold.
I'm pretty sure that the MAJORITY of transactions worldwide are NOT done via cr@p card. Yet.
No, 1 bitcoin does not represent $8,000. $8,000 is the market price of a bitcoin. A certified check for $8,000 represents $8,000.
I bet you wouldn't have typed this if you bought in cheap at $6000 :-)
http://saveie6.com/
Well, guess why we don’t have $500 & $1000 bills any longer?
Discontinued in the 1940s, long before the Wars on Drugs/Terror/etc became a major issue.
I made some money during the gold boom when the U.S. stopped trying to peg the price of gold. But I was never able to guess where the top was going to be. The gold boom went beyond the price of the intrinsic value of free market gold into a bubble market. In a bubble market the pricing is all psychological. People bought gold for more than gold was worth because they expected a bigger fool to pay even more. I found it impossible to judge what price the biggest fool would pay. So when the price of gold entered bubble territory I celebrated for another week and then sold out completely. The final fool bought his gold for about 75% more than I sold for. I had no way of guessing what the highest price would be.
Bitcoins have no intrinsic value and never have had. So every buyer of bitcoins is expecting to sell to a bigger fool. What price will the last fool pay? I don't know and I have no intention of finding out my ranking among the fools.
In the 1980 coal crash in Alberta, entire communities were wiped-out. The houses, townhouses and so on lost 99% of their value in the span of months. Places that were selling for $60k in 1980($175k today), couldn't be sold for $10 on the market. They were worthless, this happens a lot more then you'd think too. You can see it with the steel crash in the US, or in Hamilton, Ontario. In Alberta's case, the provincial government had to step in and assume liabilities, re-assess entire areas and assume the debt for failed towns.
Om, nomnomnom...
I get your point, however the forking thing (that happened? or unhappened? or the 2nd variant unhappened?) seems interesting. Buy a bitcoin today, and though it may eventually collapse, your original/2017 version partially transmogrified several times over the decades into 31 versions that failed and 13 that won't fail until a century after you die.
Interesting to watch.
Unless it's from Key bank, then it's only worth $7995.
What's interesting about the bubble crowd is that the only example of human history they have to cling on is some obscure reference from 1637. In the following 380 years they can't come up with anything else...
You're right. Stocks and houses actually represent something of value.
Like stocks in Enron, or houses in Pripyat...
..... from those that think they missed out.
Well there are also the thank you's to buyers from those of us selling at $8,000. We'll talk again at $2,000. ;-)
Or $20k. That's the funny thing about the future, no amount smugness will make you any better at predicting it.
Gold, of course, is a real thing. It can be used in electronics and jewelry.
BTC can be used to transfer money across borders without government interference. That is of great use to many people.
It can't just be forked or replicated by someone who thinks they can make better gold that will be more interesting to gold speculators.
So you've never heard of silver, or platinum, or pork belly futures? None of this is new...
So you may have a point, but on the other hand, it's not at all like gold.
It's exactly like gold, or tulips. It is an arbitrary thing that some people associate with value.
That $1.5m house in the burbs that's a hot ticket item right now is only going to be worth $250k in a couple of years at best guess.
Right. So your wisdom is based purely on you guessing wildly? You'll excuse me if I don't base my investment strategy on such flimsy logic.
Houses might lose 50-60% of their value.
Or 100% or 10% or they might gain 20%...
Bitcoin might lose 99%.
Or 100% or 10% or it might gain 20%...
There's the difference.
No there isn't.
Ready... in 3... 2... 1... There goes all your investments in crypto-currencies! Bitcoin promises to make previous Wall Street boom & bust culture look relatively stable.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
When you are talking about regular commodities like copper or sugar, the price is mostly a function of supply vs demand ( I say mostly because the Wall Street "innovation" called the futures markets has introduced some degree of speculation in the price). This is not the case for precious metals. Gold, silver, platinum are wildly used as investment instruments, in fact most people with holdings in gold never actually see that gold, its price respectively is highly speculative. You wouldn't see major moves in the price of copper unless you hear of a major mine closing or some other major news but with Gold often the most predictable indicator is its typically inverse relation with the equity markets (stock indexes). In that respect the one major feature that Bitcoin and Gold share is that the price is highly speculative. What remains to be seen is if cryptocurrencies will have the staying power as investment instruments as precious metals, or will they go the way of sea shell currency
a bitcoin can be divided down to a fraction as small as 0.00000001 BTC. Those who got in early and actually own a whole bitcoin or more will probably be rare in the future, there are more millionaires in existence than there will ever be bitcoin, so even if all those millionaires wanted to own a single one there wont be enough to go around so as the value keeps going up it is going to be more common to deal with them in fractional amounts. There might be some point where someone owning even a single coin is the equivalent to a 1%er
The limited supply and the fact that only so many can be minted in x amount of time is what keeps its value up. Id expect if things keep going good for bitcoin, once that last coin is minted the value will skyrocket since it will then be a limited supply.
There are already names for these fractional amounts
https://blog.blockchain.com/2016/07/01/breaking-it-down-bitcoin-units-of-measurement/
I myself don't even own a whole coin but a little over 0.3 BTC. Bought in back in august, put in $1000. Today it is worth over $2500
Beanie babies. Happy now? Yes, there were actually quite a few people who lost a ton of money on those.
There's plenty more whre that came from, but the reason everyone always mentions tulips is because, of all the many many bubbles that have happened in history, tulips is perhaps the most outrageous example so far. As a bubble, it's probably just as stupid as beanie babies, but a lot more people lost a lot more money (relative for the time) on tulips. And those of us who feel BTC is a bubble choose the tulip example because of how crazy people are going over this. It feels like it has the makings of an event that could displace tulips in history.
And at least tulips could make your yard look pretty if you got caught holding the bag at the collapse. What are you going to do with BTC if the whole thing crashes down and you don't get out?
Someone forked gold to create platinum? Fascinating! I wonder what new elements we will invent next.
By the way, you can transfer money across borders using any of the hundreds of competing cryptocurrencies. Many faster and at a lower cost to boot. Speculators are in charge, not people using it as a currency. Speculators are a fickle bunch, once the grass starts looking greener elsewhere, do you think they will sit on their hands and ignore the chance to make greater returns elsewhere?
Bitcoin has ZERO essential value. You can't eat bitcoin. You can't use bitcoin to make a vaccine. You can't even wipe your ass with bitcoin.
Meanwhile, the global economy could collapse, and I've got enough shiny rocks that would get me laid all I want by various women until I die, because mating rituals for humans haven't changed all that much in millennia. Rocks off the ground have more intrinsic value than Bitcoin.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yes, there are places where there has been that sort of crash, where houses went to nothing. Mostly, those were shit places where people were putting all their eggs in one basket...and if one company or one industry collapsed it took everything else with it because there was nothing else there. There's always big risks in moving into areas like that. It's a very localized and extremely volatile bubble. If you look someplace more reasonable like Detroit, yeah things went to shit there, but there's thousands of companies in hundreds of industries. People lost money on homes, for sure, but most people never even came close to losing everything they had over it. Most homes in most areas have recovered a significant portion of their peak value.
Bitcoin has nothing about it making it inherently valuable and relatively stable like a home in most areas.
Are you fucking illiterate? He's basing it on the inevitable increase in interest rates. Unless you think interest rates will forever be below 1%.
People hate paying taxes. They hate income tax. They hate the banks and the arm of their operations known as 'the government'. They hate being bled dry like cattle. This will not change. So the demand for an alternative financial system will not go away easily.
The potential economy living under a cryptocurrency is limited only by its ability import enough dollars to pay off the tax man.
And guess what will happen when that economy can't import enough dollars?
Revolution. People will feel absolutely forced to do something to protect their livelihoods.
The volatility in the market is due to speculation, yes, but what is the nature of the speculation, what is the ultimate point?
The market is deciding which model of cryptocurrency will serve for the new economy. There will be only one. Yes you might dump $10k into a single Bitcoin and then the market might decide the next day that Bitcoin Cash will be the best and you lose everything. Yes that is going to happen to a lot of people. But ONE of these cryptocurrencies is going to win. The crypto market is not a bubble that is going to pop. The motivation, the necessity, is absolutely there, and there's not a god damn thing the banks can do to stop it short of declaring war (literally) on everyone who uses crypto. This won't be so easy to do as the wars and coups they've stirred up since the industrial revolution. There is no Bitcoinland to destabilize and invade. It's everywhere in the world at once. Undermining people's choice to participate in a crypto-economy undermines the bank's own economy. So it will be very, very difficult for them to do anything about it.
You sure you want to be sayin this on the internet, buddy?
Bitcoin has plenty of intrinsic value.
Bitcoin has intrinsic cost. That's not the same as value. All of Bitcoin's value is based on the belief that it has value. Of course, that's mostly true of all currencies -- including so-called precious metals. But it's truly "pure" in the case of Bitcoin.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Surely it must be time I put all my monies on this magic boat to riches, if only some kindly mod owned a company in this area and would direct me to it!
said no one ever. eat shit /. whoremods.
Beanie babies. Happy now?
So Tulips and Beanie Babies. I didn't even know what hey were and had to look them up. If that is you basis for financial advice I'd find another hobby.
It feels like it has the makings of an event that could displace tulips in history.
It feels like? I'm sure someone said the same thing about the steam engine, electricity, TV and the Internet. Disruptive technology is disruptive.
What are you going to do with BTC if the whole thing crashes down and you don't get out?
The same as if my stocks crash, my real estate crashes or I lose my job. I have diversified investments so that any one failure does not severely risk my position.
Even if BTC crashes, the market will simply to move to the next best coin (ETH, LTC etc), I also have coverage in those just in case.
In short, everything has risk. But no-one ever won the game by not playing.
So Tulips and Beanie Babies. I didn't even know what hey were and had to look them up. If that is you basis for financial advice I'd find another hobby.
No, as I said there are plenty of examples. You set the goalposts, I kicked the field goal just to humor you, now you want to move them. I'm not interested in playing that game.
But no-one ever won the game by not playing.
WOPR would disagree with you.
What's interesting about the bubble crowd is that the only example of human history they have to cling on is some obscure reference from 1637. In the following 380 years they can't come up with anything else...
Say, you must be Albanian!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War
To everyone in the last story's comment section, enjoy your delicious word sandwich. It does have inherent use, inherent value, and is propped up by hardware and electricity cost and availability. How is it a scam if NOBODY is running it? It runs itself! Learn how crypto works before talking out your ass.
..... from those that think they missed out.
Well there are also the thank you's to buyers from those of us selling at $8,000. We'll talk again at $2,000. ;-)
Or $20k. That's the funny thing about the future, no amount smugness will make you any better at predicting it.
Because its only smugness that would make one suspicious of a fast exponential spike in price from $300 to $8,000. Its not like bitcoin didn't have one of those in 2014 where it spiked to $1,000 and then crashed to $250 and sat there for years.
Will it go to $20K, quite possibly yes. Will it go there without a substantial drop between now and then, not likely.
Right. So your wisdom is based purely on you guessing wildly? You'll excuse me if I don't base my investment strategy on such flimsy logic.
My "guess" is based on previous housing bubbles and their massive sharp corrections that happen, along with what the market is doing and what those learned economists think. The condo bubble, especially the Toronto condo bubble saw 80% of their value disappear. The 2008 crash in the US? Depends on where you were, but there were instances of negative devaluation of the property over 120%. Take your pick, but the larger the bubble the bigger the correction. The housing bubble in Canada is massive. The median wage in Ontario is $81k/year. The average wage in most of the province(outside of Toronto) is $43k-51k/year. The average price for a suburban house in Toronto is $1.3m. The average price in the rest of Ontario is creeping over $600k. The house I live in now is around 1900sqft(average 1950's 1.5floor house), in Toronto proper itself I could sell it for over $3m. You tell me, what that says about the market. On top of that, toss in that more PT jobs are created then FT jobs. That the number of people working 2 or more jobs has jumped in the last 4 years as the bubble has taken off.
Out of all G20 countries Canada is set off as the worst and has the highest indicators of a massive correction coming, with the highest number of people that would be insolvent with the smallest amount of movement to prime interest rates. Australia ranks second.
Om, nomnomnom...
I didn't miss out, however I still think it is a bubble/scam, I just was happy to take money from those stupid enough to buy in during the bubble.
Ahhh yes because of revolution is to protect a crypto currency is far more likely than a crash. how fucking deluded are you. yes one crypto currency might win, but none of them as it stands come close to addressing all the issues so investing anything in any of them is short term gambling at best as every single one of the current currency has one or more serious flawes be it transaction rate/time, cost, deflationary instead of inflationary, security, centralisation etc etc. Etherium seems to have come closest but even that has a shitton of problems. People might not like their local government having control of interest rates, inflation/deflation etc, but I tell you now they will like it a FUCK LOAD less when it is whoever is the largest economy dictating prices (i.e. china with Bitcoin).
The places that went too zero is not unusual, it happens all over the world but they all share a common factor, the houses were built in places were nobody would want to live and were only built to support a very specific location based activity, once that activity is removed the house value is zero. classic example is some of the outback mining towns in Australia in recent years where even while the housing market is still bubbling along at an insane rate in those communities there houses aren't worth the cost of drawing up the bill of sale.
No, 1 bitcoin does not represent $8,000. $8,000 is the market price of a bitcoin
If someone offered you a bitcoin for $4000 would you buy it ?
What are you going to do with BTC if the whole thing crashes down and you don't get out?
What are you going to do with a bar of gold if the whole thing crashes down ?
By the way, you can transfer money across borders using any of the hundreds of competing cryptocurrencies. Many faster and at a lower cost to boot.
Speed and cost are not nearly as important as liquidity and security. There's a reason people pay a premium to transfer bitcoin.
Yeah, to work out what size mortgage I can afford I'd assume an interest rate around 6% - even though the mortgage I just cleared was being charged at 0.75%.
The extra cash? Just save it.
No, as I said there are plenty of examples.
There's plenty of examples of things that are in no way related to Cryptocurrency. BTC has nothing in common with Tulips or Beanie Babies other than being popular. If that's the only qualification to be a bubble, then so is electricity, automobiles and the Internet...
When it really gets big some state actor will distribute a virus or disrupt power grids or internet connectivity to become the largest pool of processors and then take it over.
Nullius in verba
What's interesting about the bubble crowd is that the only example of human history they have to cling on is some obscure reference from 1637. In the following 380 years they can't come up with anything else...
Say, you must be Albanian!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Civil_War
Right, here's some more straws for you to grasp. Or do you have any actual connection to that and blockchain technology that you'd like to share with us?
Because its only smugness that would make one suspicious of a fast exponential spike in price from $300 to $8,000.
Nothing wrong with being suspicious. I was suspicious of Apple's growth from near bankruptcy to world's most wealthiest company in less than 10 years. But here we are.
The steel, rail, and electric companies all saw similar growth rates during their infancy. Disruptive technology is disruptive.
Its not like bitcoin didn't have one of those in 2014 where it spiked to $1,000 and then crashed to $250 and sat there for years.
As has gold, real estate, shares etc. If you stopped investing in shares after the GFC you'd look pretty foolish now.
Will it go to $20K, quite possibly yes. Will it go there without a substantial drop between now and then, not likely.
I agree, but if your investment strategy is long term, short term dips are meaningless. .
No, Bitcoin IS a bubble. There is no debate there. Things that surge in pricing well above historic norms and intrinsic value without explanation are considered a bubble.
The question is how big will it get and when will it pop. There are instances where a bubble deflates over time but that is extremely rare and needs a lot of market conditions/controls not present during the up tick.
The condo bubble, especially the Toronto condo bubble saw 80% of their value disappear.
Ok sounds like a localised issue. I'm pretty sure apartments in Manhattan or London didn't suffer similar 'corrections'
The 2008 crash in the US? Depends on where you were,
Exactly. You can't just blanket 'real estate' as one thing. A shitbox subprime purchase in the rust belt is not equivalent in any way to buying house in say Palo Alto.
Economics is just supply and demand. In a lot of places, the demand is real, the supply is finite. Not all high priced things are bubbles.
Take your pick, but the larger the bubble the bigger the correction.
But how do you tell if a high priced thing is a bubble, or actually sustained by real demand? If you had've said ten years ago that the most popular mobile phones would cost $1000USD you'd be laughed out of the room. Yet here we are. Are iPhones a bubble?
The housing bubble in Canada is massive. Australia ranks second.
I can't speak for Canada, but I've heard the same arguments in Australia (eg average income vs average house price). One thing to think about is the formula used to calculate such things. I think the classic formulas no longer apply for various reasons, one is most households now have double incomes, most homeowners now have accumulated wealth that wasn't the case in the 1960's/70's, and urbanisation and population growth has crossed a tipping point in major cities to create a positive feedback loop in the demand curve.
To give some perspective, wages in Australia are high and unemployment and interest rates are low. One or all of these things has to change drastically to affect housing demand, and there is no change on the horizon.
Ultimately how do you calculate the value of a thing? Historically most people didn't own their own house, this changed after WW2 and a lot of people considered this the new normal. But what I believe is that the real normal is going back to prewar where a handful rich people owned everything and regular folks couldn't afford land. As much as this sucks, this could just be the new reality.
The steel, rail, and electric companies all saw similar growth rates during their infancy.
In the infancy of those industries there were many failures and many investors wiped out.
Disruptive technology is disruptive.
Bitcoin is not the disruptive technology. Blockchain is the disruptive technology and bitcoin is merely one user of the blockchain. Its also a quite flawed user. Its design relies on a large diverse group of miners for security but what we have is a small group of miners consolidated into pools that make 51% attacks feasible. In 2014 a mining pool reached 50%. Mining is also geographically centralized in China, about 70% of hashing in 2016, and thereby vulnerable to government influence. Bitcoin fees and transaction verification time make it ill suited for small and quick purchases. Recently technical limitations involving block size have caused transaction verification to take a day, fees ranging from $2 to $9 if one wanted transactions to verify "quickly". "Quickly" not matching a timescale where one might buy a coffee, a burger, etc. There are few users and their switching cost to move to another coin is negligible. Users tend to convert fiat to bitcoin as needed, only holding small amounts of bitcoin at a given time. Bitcoin's current spike in price is largely due to wall street speculation.
The blockchain will be part of our future but bitcoin could easily be displaced by another digital coin.
if your investment strategy is long term, short term dips are meaningless.
If a person delayed purchases at the time of the 2014 spike they could have purchase at 1/4 the price. Today those patient suspicious people have 4x the value of those who purchased during the spike. 4x is a meaningful difference. We are currently in the midst of an even greater spike. You can not time the market in general but "in general" is not including times of fast exponential spikes in prices.
Gussington seems to like demanding more recent examples than the oft cited tulip craze. He then moves the goal posts when people mention Beanie Babies, comics, sports cards, cabbage patch kids, failed industry community real estate, etc.
It's almost like he defines a new, unique set and then demands comparisons to this newly defined, set of size N=1.
So how about this: What BITCOIN specific blockchain tech the winner? Why not LiteCoin, DodgeCoin, AnoymousCowardCoin or any other arbitrarily defined set? If you need to rely on "current market hype and popularity" - then Tulips and Beanie babies are the PERFECT comparison.
I don't have financial advice for you. Instead, I advise that you shove a rusty spike up your nose.
on the other hand, it's probable that house prices will slowly appreciate and bitcoin will quickly appreciate. the dollar will continue to loose value is a sure bet.
What's interesting about the bitcoin crowd is that they rely so heavily on ignorance and lies. Tulipmania is not obscure to anyone with even a passing familiarity with economics. It is the first well-known speculative bubble in a market. My other comment in this thread -- posted almost four hours before yours -- listed two prominent examples of bubbles from 10 and 20 years ago. Is it going to be bitcoin this decade?
The blockchain will be part of our future but bitcoin could easily be displaced by another digital coin.
Not so easy. The problems you've indicated with mining would be even worse for a new coin with a smaller user base/network.
Bitcoin fees and transaction verification time make it ill suited for small and quick purchases.
That's not a bitcoin specific issue. That's a general problem with distributed global blockchain technology. Implementing a trustless network is always going to be less efficient.
Ok sounds like a localised issue. I'm pretty sure apartments in Manhattan or London didn't suffer similar 'corrections'
Yeah they actually did. 70% for Manhattan and 60% for London.
xactly. You can't just blanket 'real estate' as one thing. A shitbox subprime purchase in the rust belt is not equivalent in any way to buying house in say Palo Alto.
Economics is just supply and demand. In a lot of places, the demand is real, the supply is finite. Not all high priced things are bubbles.
"Rustbelt" is now apparently florida which has yet to recover, including large parts of texas, az, and so on.
But how do you tell if a high priced thing is a bubble, or actually sustained by real demand? If you had've said ten years ago that the most popular mobile phones would cost $1000USD you'd be laughed out of the room. Yet here we are. Are iPhones a bubble?
When the number of vacancies in those houses sit empty. In otherwords these are houses, condos, and so on bought on the idea of real estate valuation nothing else. Let's compare a consumable vs building, makes perfect sense! Vancouver for instance the number is estimated to be around 30% empty property with no income, and simply being turned over. That's residential housing. Toronto? Some areas are as high as 45%. One of the reasons there have been foreign ownership taxes, no building residency additions to property tax and so on.
I can't speak for Canada, but I've heard the same arguments in Australia (eg average income vs average house price). One thing to think about is the formula used to calculate such things. I think the classic formulas no longer apply for various reasons, one is most households now have double incomes, most homeowners now have accumulated wealth that wasn't the case in the 1960's/70's, and urbanisation and population growth has crossed a tipping point in major cities to create a positive feedback loop in the demand curve.
Except that Australia is having the same problem. People are actually being priced out of housing, they're sprawling outwards to cheaper property, and being sprawled out more. There is a positive feedback loop, but it's the building and mortgage loop. This is exactly what caused previous real estate crashes in both residential and commercial properties.
To give some perspective, wages in Australia are high and unemployment and interest rates are low. One or all of these things has to change drastically to affect housing demand, and there is no change on the horizon.
Except your perspective is wrong. While "wages are high" the price of housing outstrips that earning. To compare a house in 1980 could be bought for $30k, the average income was around $18k/year. When a combined income family of $100k-300k struggles with mortgage payments on current property and a 0.25% rate hike is enough to put them under water, it's a bubble. Wages have been stagnant since the early 2000's in all of the west, people had better economic growth from the 1980's through to the mid 1990's around 160%. From the early 2000's to this year? It's around 35%. What you're seeing is the classic "cheap credit hog" that creates a bust cycle, after a boom cycle which the housing market is currently in.
Now if you don't understand anything I've written then read this here then read this here. For Australia the crash is already starting, the pace? Well that depends on what the government tries to pull out. The same for Canada, but since Canada borders the US and there's an absolute need to depress the CDN vs the USD by 20-30%, interest rate hikes are on the way. Canada's entire economic system is based on lowering to the USD.
Om, nomnomnom...
bitcoin is not house because you can use house as a shelter even if there is no one ready to buy your house in the market. it is a physical thing you can use.
bitcoin is like a stock, the only value it has is what others are ready to pay for it - demand and supply.
It's still not too late to try and win up to USD$200 worth of Bitcoin every hour, for free!
YM: Dollars have ZERO essential value. You can't eat dollars. You can't use dollars to make a vaccine. You can't even wipe your ass with US dollars.
HTH.
BTC is a currency that can't be printed or added to with QE measures. You are assured that you will have at least the same amount of value in your unit of currency as yesterday, if not more, as there is a limit on the amount of BitCoins out there. The reason this isn't another tulip craze is simple... Chinese interests are putting real value into the currency, and China knows what the hell they it is doing.
Plus, Bitcoin is impossible to corrupt. No way one group can get 51% control of mining, for example.
tl;dr, BTC is like Apple stock. It goes up quickly, or it goes up slowly... but it doesn't lose value.
Not around here, they're not! I'm Canadian and around here we value commodities in maple syrup dollars.
#DeleteFacebook
Things are different now. Where I live, when houses go down in value, some Chinese equity firm snaps them up immediately.
For some people, Bitcoin is a safety net against unstable governments.
In the USA, the government is not even in control of its own currency.
#DeleteFacebook
Yeah! Dogecoin to the moon! Much value! Very future!
#DeleteFacebook
Bitcoin and stocks are high risk. Houses are not.
Baring special circumstances (like a cornerstone factory being closed in a small town) a housing bubble would reduce the value to 25-75% of the current evaluation.
Housing might also continue to increase at 3-10% a year.
For both (individual) stocks and bitcoin the whole value might disappear, so the downside is much larger. But the upside is also much larger.
Depending on the stock (and risk) you might see 100%, 1000% or more return on investment. Same with bitcoin, but the with a small possibility of another hundredfold increase in value.
---- Sig. gone.
If you want mine your own crypto currency, you need a motherboard with 19 PCIe 1X slots to plug in 19 GPUs and a couple of 1200W PSUs.
Yes. Because I can sell it for $8000.
No.
"But you could sell it for $8,000 and make $4,000 profit!" you say? No, I couldn't. There's a reason that this hypothetical person is selling at half of current market value. And you would be smart to turn down this hypothetical person as well.
Maybe if they were selling for $1, but only because at that point, it's basically a scratch-off lottery ticket.
You might've been smart enough to click "Post Anonymously", but obvious self-reply is still obvious.
What are you going to do with BTC if the whole thing crashes down and you don't get out?
What are you going to do with a bar of gold if the whole thing crashes down ?
Well, since I can do zilch with bitcoin, and at least 1 thing with gold, by definition I'll at least be able to do infinitely more.
"And that one thing is?"
Doesn't matter. We're not comparing gold by itself, we're comparing it against bitcoin.
Bitcoin has had an average growth rate of 3.8x per year.
If you buy just one bitcoin today, (about $8000 worth) In just 20 years, it will be worth more than the entire world money supply of $60 Trillion, even if the rest of the economy keeps growing at the average rate of 2.5% per year!
How can that not be valuable?
Don't worry - it's not too late. email me for some bitcoins today at
imasucker@bitcoins4u.com
Bitcoin is an effective means to store value, which is bestowed upon it by a global market interested in decoupling economy from government and centralized control. I can now send relatives money instantly and with zero fee by trading (easy and free) BTC for IOTA. If I want to purchase something privately without worry of ever being associated with the purchase, I can trade my BTC for Monaro. This is not a bubble-it's the birth of an entirely new asset class which has a market cap that has yet to be even close to realized.
A 75% lose is still better than Bitcoin. If/when Bitcoin crashes you can't even say it's not worth the paper it's printed on. So there isn't anything to wipe your ass with.
No not flame bait, I honestly want to know, IF bitcoin is still around in 10 years would you still say it is tulips/scam/etc? If you say, no, by then it will have proven itself, then I ask, how many years of development, adoption, use would be suffice to change your mind?
Is the Apple iPhone a bubble? Phones now cost $1000. They've gone up in price enormously. But they cost that because people perceive their value.
BitCoin, like most currencies, does not have intrinsic value. It has no function, it has no use.
I lol every single time someone uses the phrase 'intrinsic value'. It's a fantasy. Nothing is valuable except in its use.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
That's called money laundering. Its illegal in the US and in most other countries. And its only a matter of time because it gets cracked down on.
The user base and the miners are two very different things, which is sort of the problem with bitcoin since its algorithm is not ASIC resistant and CPU/GPUs can not contribute. Also by the time a coin is in a position to replace bitcoin its not likely to be very small anymore.
Bitcoin's current spike in price is largely due to wall street speculation.
Or popularity. Remember the only thing that counts is supply and demand. Supply is finite, demand is increasing, so there is a tipping point where prices take off which is now. So ask yourself, has demand peaked? It will peak eventually but until we reach man-on-street level of investing there's still lots of room to move.
The other question is supply. BTC might be replaced but that won't happen overnight. Being first mover they have the benefits of incumbency, and if you follow the crypto tech you'll get a better idea of how the competition is faring.
The blockchain will be part of our future but bitcoin could easily be displaced by another digital coin.
Could or could not who's to say. This is the point.
Calling bubble is not a prediction, you have to know when the market will rise and fall to get any value. And right no
What's interesting about the bitcoin crowd is that they rely so heavily on ignorance and lies.
Which ones are those? Maybe you could elaborate? Because you know when you say "the bitcoin crowd" it's like saying "all black people", or "all women"...
If you want to discuss details let's discuss. If you just want to walk around in circles shouting catchphrases at anything that moves I'll leave you to it.
If someone offered you a bitcoin for $4000 would you buy it ?
Yes! And then sell it for $7,999 for someone else.
Yeah they actually did. 70% for Manhattan and 60% for London.
Ok now you're making stuff up. At no point did the average real estate market drop by 60 or 70% in London or Manhattan.
"Rustbelt" is now apparently florida which has yet to recover, including large parts of texas, az, and so on.
*Some* parts, generally the parts that don't have work to support the market. This is not some random thing, there are actually reasons why it happens which are predictable.
Meanwhile every major city is experiencing record growth.
When the number of vacancies in those houses sit empty.
Right but you need to dig deeper before making any conclusions. We have empty properties here to for a couple of reasons. One is foreigners who treat it as a land bank. They don't trust their own banks so hold their funds in foreign real estate. A lot of these people can do this for decades so are not not likely to trigger a mass sale. If all those condos were held by subprime mortgages you might have a point.
This is exactly what caused previous real estate crashes in both residential and commercial properties.
What previous crash? Australia has never has one. Some shit suburbs in the middle of nowhere have fallen a little, but that is normal in any free market. Most in or near a capital city or beach have had continual growth for 30 years.
Except your perspective is wrong. While "wages are high" the price of housing outstrips that earning.
Two points. While wages are high and unemployment low, current owners have no need to sell, so there's no driver for a crash.
And for new owners, you're still stuck in the average wage vs average price mindset. Prior to WW2 regular people couldn't afford land. Rich people owned it all and regular people rented. The idea that everyone owns their own house was an aberration caused by the effects of WW2 and modernisation (ie cars and roads opening up a vast supplies of land). If you go back to the 2000 years prior to WW2, rich people owned everything. It is possible that we're merely shifting back to that model.
Prices will be high and stay high because rich people buy it all and have assets to fund this cycle.
For Australia the crash is already starting
Right. I have three properties all in different locations, and all of them are up 10-20% in the last 12 months. There is some cooling in some areas, but as I said free markets have fluctuations and those areas are generally not demand areas. So yeah I expect the crap suburbs will experience some corrections in the regions of 5-10%, but nothing like 30%+. Anywhere within 15km of the CBD is and has always been strong.
Considering most people use mortgages to buy houses, they are a leveraged "investment" and you can therefore lose more cash than you put in. Bitcoin normally you can lose at most 100%.
Considering most people need mortgages to buy houses, they are a leveraged "investment" and you can therefore lose more cash than you put in. Bitcoin normally you can lose at most 100%.
Ok now you're making stuff up. At no point did the average real estate market drop by 60 or 70% in London or Manhattan.
I didn't say average real estate market. I said condo market. The rest of your post is you going around in circles trying to justify your view that things have changed(when they haven't), rather then realizing that you're on the edge of a crash. The money that's coming to fund all of this is mainly coming from EFT's, which are mainly levered against other currencies in order to "pay the cost" of those building. AKA someone borrowed to build, hoping to sell and make the money back. I'll point out that when the crash was going on in the 1980's, there were plenty of places 'were up' it wasn't until the bubble popped that it all came crashing down.
You believe whatever you want to believe. You'll also likely be the person moaning that they lost everything in a years time.
Om, nomnomnom...
Dig the hole a little deeper.. the prime (sometimes only) differentiating factor between bitcoin and competing altcoins, is popularity. Which is, as you stated, also happens to be the commonality between bitcoin, tulips and beanie babies.
How many altcoins have been hacked? The cost to hack, as a ratio of market cap, stays roughly the same afaik. It just requires more up front capital to hack bitcoin. Specifically, so long as it's not financially viable to execute the attack, it's unlikely to happen, no matter how small. Good luck cashing out your coins after a major hack..
If you're sending $100 overseas, you hardly want to spend a 10% premium for security on such a small transaction. Further, it's not the weakest link. Hacking exchanges is much more effective, and bitcoins liquidity makes it a more lucrative target. It could actually make it a net negative until third party security holes are closed out. Just like marked bills (illiquid) are harder to launder than unmarked ones, making the latter more attractive to criminals.
It is the Bitcoin Network that performs a useful function - enabling financial transactions person-to-person electronically. Since you need bitcoins (the data entries in the blockchain) to use the Network, demand for the first creates a value for the second.
It's hard to claim networks have no value. If you read Slashdot you are using and probably paying for one. We can argue all day long about the *specific* value of the Bitcoin Network. Market price is often wrong about that. But to say it has no value at all I think is misguided.
> Rocks off the ground have more intrinsic value than Bitcoin.
There is no such thing as intrinsic value. All value comes from meeting the needs and desires of people, and what people are willing to give in exchange for meeting them. Since everyone is different, values vary according to who you ask, or even the same person at different times. I used to value books a lot, and still have over 3000 of them. But about a decade ago I nearly stopped buying them, and now mostly get e-books. There are more searchable, and take up less room.
Even in a single transaction, like buying a hamburger, you have opposing values at the same time. I value the hamburger more than the cash in my pocket. The fast food place values the cash more than the hamburger. If those were not both true, the purchase would not happen. But the hamburger can't be intrinsically worth both more and less than the cash at the same time. Each party has different values, so it is not an intrinsic property of hamburgers like mass.
> Bitcoin has nothing about it making it inherently valuable and relatively stable like a home in most areas.
The Bitcon *Network* has value because it performs a useful function for some people (electronic financial transactions). "Bitcoins" are merely data entries in the blockchain database of transactions. But since the only way to use the network is by having some bitcoins, demand to use the network creates a value for the coins.
Think of "1 bitcoin" as 1/16.5 millionths share of the usefulness of the network. Depending what your needs are, that piece of usefulness may be worth the market value, or it may not. Everyone's needs are different. Then speculators come in and buy up fractions of that usefulness, thinking it will be worth more in the future. But they do that with every other commodity on the market.
You'll also likely be the person moaning that they lost everything in a years time.
File-> Save.
See you next year...
Bitcoin's current spike in price is largely due to wall street speculation.
Or popularity. Remember the only thing that counts is supply and demand. Supply is finite, demand is increasing, so there is a tipping point where prices take off which is now.
The popularity is primarily one of speculation, trading, not consumer use.
BTC might be replaced but that won't happen overnight. Being first mover they have the benefits of incumbency, and if you follow the crypto tech you'll get a better idea of how the competition is faring.
Its not quite that simple. First mover is only an advantage if there is some sort of switching cost. Since consumer use involves holding little bitcoin, and any held bitcoins can be easily traded for other coins, there is little to no switching cost.
Gussington seems to like demanding more recent examples than the oft cited tulip craze. He then moves the goal posts when people mention Beanie Babies, comics, sports cards, cabbage patch kids, failed industry community real estate, etc.
It's almost like he defines a new, unique set and then demands comparisons to this newly defined, set of size N=1.
So how about this: What BITCOIN specific blockchain tech the winner? Why not LiteCoin, DodgeCoin, AnoymousCowardCoin or any other arbitrarily defined set? If you need to rely on "current market hype and popularity" - then Tulips and Beanie babies are the PERFECT comparison.
chirp chirp chirp. And I thought it was too cold for crickets!
Are you high on crack?
Just the past 20 years have had great examples, including the worst recession since the great depression, and the dot com bubble and subsequent crash.
Tulipmania is used as a particularly egregious example of a bubble over nothing more than flowers, but no -- you don't need to go back so far to see examples of bubbles popping that caused financial distress.
Rocks that get you laid, laser sight rifles, anything else we wanna add to this bizarre fantasy?
Its not quite that simple. First mover is only an advantage if there is some sort of switching cost. Since consumer use involves holding little bitcoin, and any held bitcoins can be easily traded for other coins, there is little to no switching cost.
Switch to what? Unless you're going to make the argument that BTC is a scam but every other Crypto is ok, then the only option is switching back to fiat. We're already past that point, just like how we're not going back to VHS progress moves forward
In a few weeks they can short it when CME launches Bitcoin futures.
Its not quite that simple. First mover is only an advantage if there is some sort of switching cost. Since consumer use involves holding little bitcoin, and any held bitcoins can be easily traded for other coins, there is little to no switching cost.
Switch to what? Unless you're going to make the argument that BTC is a scam but every other Crypto is ok, then the only option is switching back to fiat. We're already past that point, just like how we're not going back to VHS progress moves forward
Lets try that all time favorite of slashdot, the car analogy. The blockchain is like the internal combustion engined (ICE). Bitcoin is like a particular make and model of car that uses ICE technology. Blockchain technology is the future, it is poised to revolutionize industries as the ICE did in its time. However bitcoin is just one user of blockchain technology, as a particular make and model car is just one user of ICE technology. Sure its popular now, it will likely still be around in a few years, but in 5-10 years people may move to a different make/model car or crypto currency.
Bitcoin has some design failings. Newer coins address these unforeseen problems. Newer coins also offer additional capabilities. If people or industry find these newer coins/blockchains interesting they will switch. There is little cost to doing so. There is no established network effect to keep people on bitcoin. Various "retail communities" switched from bitcoin to monero with no problem, they wanted more "privacy". Etherium is getting a lot of attention from wall street types due to its capabilities. Are these going to replace bitcoin, I don't know. I'm just pointing out that from small specialized user communities to large industry groups there is nothing "sticky" about bitcoin, no network effect increasing the cost of switching. Hence switching to another coin is easy. What it will be, when it might happen, I don't know. I just know there is nothing special about bitcoin, its just the currently popular coin and that can easily change. Especially so given the various flaws mentioned earlier in this thread. Bitcoin's initial success is no more meaningful than the initial success of the Palm PDA or Rio MP3 player.
I bet you wouldn't have typed this if you bought in cheap at $6000
Now is still the time to buy in ... before they get too expensive.
Tulip bulbs are where the money will be at over the next 12 months.
Are you serious?! Why the hell would anyone invest in anything as tangible as tulip bulbs ... they occupy space you know!
The blockchain is like the internal combustion engined (ICE). Bitcoin is like a particular make and model of car that uses ICE technology.
Yeah we know how it works, but it's 1927 and some people are saying Ford is a scam. Ford is here until something else better takes it's place, and when that happens, investors will move with it.
Just hoping it will go away and screaming bubble is not a great strategy.
The blockchain is like the internal combustion engined (ICE). Bitcoin is like a particular make and model of car that uses ICE technology.
Yeah we know how it works, but it's 1927 and some people are saying Ford is a scam. Ford is here until something else better takes it's place, and when that happens, investors will move with it. Just hoping it will go away and screaming bubble is not a great strategy.
You seem to be confusing me with other posters. My argument is that Bitcoin's current dominance is no different than the Ford Model T's dominance in its day. Its transitory. This is why Bitcoin is not a currency, rather it is a high speculative investment vehicle. Its a Wall Street darling for now, and many home investors are jumping on the bandwagon. This is not to say Bitcoin is not useful, its a great way to transfer money, today, if one is in no hurry. On top of this it has design flaws, its a v1.0.0 technology, a modestly successful experiment. Modest? Yes, because success is defined by its use in commerce not what speculators are willing to pay for a coin.
screaming bubble is not a great strategy.
Actually it is an extremely appropriate thing to point out. You think it normal for the value of an investment to go exponential is an extremely short period of time? Last time bitcoin made such a move to $1,000 it dropped to $250 in 6 months. Those who were more cautious and mistrusted that exponential rise were able to buy bitcoins at 1/4 of the price of the true believers who thought the world had suddenly seen the light. It is unlikely $10,000 is the new normal, it is far more likely there will be a significant price drop. That $250-$300 plateau that followed the $1,000 spike lasted years. Spikes like the $1,000 and $10,000 moves are not safe entry points. Hence the "bubble" talk.
screaming bubble is not a great strategy.
Actually it is an extremely appropriate thing to point out.
Only if you don't understand it. Disruptive technology is disruptive. Disruptive things behave differently to regular things, so you can't apply the disrupted model to the disruptive thing. Eg Try explaining the Internet in terms of faxes...
It is unlikely $10,000 is the new normal
1997 thought it unlikely that anyone would ever pay $1000 for a mobile phone
Stop applying outdated models to new things and it might make more sense.
Only if you don't understand it. Disruptive technology is disruptive.
Let me help you with your understanding: Blockchain is the disruptive technology, not bitcoin.
Stop applying outdated models to new things and it might make more sense.
Clue: I am applying cryptocurrency pricing of the last few years, bitcoin 2014 $1,000, bitcoin 2015 $250-$300.
Let me help you with your understanding: Blockchain is the disruptive technology, not bitcoin.
Right and they're not related in any way...
Stop applying outdated models to new things and it might make more sense.
Clue: I am applying cryptocurrency pricing of the last few years, bitcoin 2014 $1,000, bitcoin 2015 $250-$300.
Right. So cherry picking specific examples to suit your case. Let me quote Warren Buffet at you if you need old wise man logic: "markets swing wildly from day to day on the smallest of news, rally, and crash on sentiment, and celebrate or vilify the most inane data points..."
Don't get caught up in the fluff, block chain is a thing and it isn't going away. Bitcoin is first mover so will enjoy a huge boost from that position, but every crypto trader I know has a portfolio of multiple coins. Even if Ford goes bankrupt we don't all go back to riding horses.
Let me help you with your understanding: Blockchain is the disruptive technology, not bitcoin.
Right and they're not related in any way...
Bitcoin is a user of blockchain, just as the Ford Model T was a user of the internal combustion engine. Which is still with us, the ICE or model T?
Stop applying outdated models to new things and it might make more sense.
I am applying cryptocurrency pricing of the last few years, bitcoin 2013 $1,000, bitcoin 2015 $250-$300.
Right. So cherry picking specific examples to suit your case.
So its cherry picking to cite, during the 2nd rapid exponential rise in bitcoin price, the first rapid exponential rise in bitcoin price. That's an interesting opinion.
Let me quote Warren Buffet at you if you need old wise man logic: "markets swing wildly from day to day on the smallest of news, rally, and crash on sentiment, and celebrate or vilify the most inane data points..."
Note that Warren used the term "days". After bitcoin's spike to $1,000 it spent about 11 months in that $250-300 range. That is not the day-to-day volatility Warren spoke of.
Don't get caught up in the fluff, block chain is a thing and it isn't going away.
Progress. You got my first point.
Bitcoin is first mover so will enjoy a huge boost from that position, ...
First movers are often killed by follow on products. The followers learn from the mistakes of the first mover, bitcoin has numerous flaws and mistakes to learn from. A first mover needs a high switching cost to succeed. Bitcoin has no such barrier.
... but every crypto trader I know has a portfolio of multiple coins. Even if Ford goes bankrupt we don't all go back to riding horses.
As I have repeatedly said. Blockchain is the future, bitcoin is just a current user of the technology, its popularity largely driven not by commerce but by speculative investment. A shaky foundation, a user base with no barrier to switching to another coin. No more of a barrier than their switching from one stock to another.
Bitcoin is a user of blockchain, just as the Ford Model T was a user of the internal combustion engine. Which is still with us, the ICE or model T?
Ford is still with us because when the Model T got outdated, they released new models. Or do you think that when Bitcoin's time is over, the entire market will just evaporate?
As I have repeatedly said. Blockchain is the future,
Yes and BTC is currently the leader in that space. Anything other comment is equally speculative, but I'm guessing that the irony of that is lost on you...
Bitcoin is a user of blockchain, just as the Ford Model T was a user of the internal combustion engine. Which is still with us, the ICE or model T?
Ford is still with us because when the Model T got outdated, they released new models. Or do you think that when Bitcoin's time is over, the entire market will just evaporate?
Ford is like the development team behind bitcoin. The big talent on the team will move from the old model to the new model, whether its car or coin.
But that is something separate from the notion of "bubble". I only mentioned the 2013 price crash from $1,000'ish to $250'ish. A recently Ars Technica article mentions four rapid exponential rises over bitcoin's history with crashes of 80%. That's the sort of thing people are talking about with respect to bubbles. And definitely something there is a danger of for the near future.
That's the sort of thing people are talking about with respect to bubbles. And definitely something there is a danger of for the near future.
There's danger everywhere, even empires eventually fall. But the question should be, is Bitcoin going anywhere anytime soon? And if so when specifically?