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.

Comments

This makes no sense

[Ecuador]

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.

Re:This makes no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

“The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” -- JM Keynes

Re:This makes no sense

[Anonymous Coward]

People who think bitcoin is a pyramid scheme also don't understand how the current financial systems work. They have no idea about interest rate, fedbank, bond prices, bond yields, QE, currency control, etc.  A friend even thought the dollar is backed by gold. lol

Re: Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" po

[Khyber]

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.

Re:buy now or regret it later

[Coryoth]

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.

Even if I completely buy into that line of thinking it in no way justifies the current price of bitcoin. The current market for bitcoin used as a currency just isn't big enough for that sort of valuation. And the current spike only makes things worse: given the volatility its value as a currency decreases due to the uncertainty in exchange. The fact that its a fundamentally deflationary currency just exacerbates the problem. Why buy anything with bitcoins? If you just hold on to them they'll be worth twice as much next month, and a thousand times as much next year ... which just leads to a deflationary spiral where their only value is not as a currency but as a speculative investment.

When bitcoins value is based on their actual utility (and actual usage) as a currency or means of exchange I might be interested: there is some good technology and ideas there. But that is not at all what the current valuations are based on -- they are based on bitcoin as a speculative investment vehicle and are spiralling out of all relation to any actual value.