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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.

20 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" pos by Entrope · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tulip bulbs are where the money will be at over the next 12 months.

  2. Re:Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" pos by Entrope · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's what they told me about stock prices in 2000 and housing prices in 2006/2007, too.

  3. This makes no sense by Ecuador · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:This makes no sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    2. Re:This makes no sense by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's the poor people who need BTC to pay ransoms or unlock their Macs that I feel sorry for. What was a $250 ransom a few weeks ago is over $1500 now, and climbing. Do the criminals adjust their demands daily to account for the exchange rate?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:This makes no sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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

    4. Re:This makes no sense by DogDude · · Score: 3, Insightful

      it defies my logic, it boggles my mind

      I said and keep saying the same thing about Trump. The explanation is the same: people are, by and large, really really dumb.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
  4. Re:Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" pos by perpenso · · Score: 2

    ..... 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. ;-)

  5. Re:Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" pos by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Bitcoin is not stocks or houses.

    You're right. Stocks and houses actually represent something of value.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. Re:Bitcoin needs to be shut down by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

    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?

  7. Re:No it isnt, you have it the wrong way round by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Renault currencies are going strong on the other hand...

  8. buy now or regret it later by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:buy now or regret it later by Coryoth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  9. Re: Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" po by Mashiki · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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...
  10. Re:Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" pos by nine-times · · Score: 2

    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.

  11. Re: Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" po by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...
  12. Re: Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" po by Khyber · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  13. Re: Queue the bitter "Bitcoin is a bubble/scam" po by LordKronos · · Score: 2

    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.

  14. You have rocks that get you laid? by Rujiel · · Score: 2, Funny

    You sure you want to be sayin this on the internet, buddy?

  15. Re: Set aside technology concerns? by orlanz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But it is a lot more than that. Same was true for the Roman and British empiresâ(TM) currencies. But both were unstable compared to The Dollar.

    The US government doesnâ(TM)t overtly mess with the currency. For example, if they printed a ton of money, it would cause inflation and that would hurt China & India who hold a lot of our currency. Both would look at this as âoecheatingâ and stop accepting dollars, further tanking the value. For the US, it would bring back jobs and manufacturing. Looks like a win win. However, most of the dollars are held by US citizens. Thus the damage would be felt at home too. Domestic investment would dry up, which would mean foreign ownership would go up.

    So the US govt doesnâ(TM)t play much games in the dollar manipulation. They have a lot of credibility in the world financial markets and have gained that through decades of discipline. Even during the WWs, both sides kept gold in the US!

    Of course the US govt does some manipulation in terms of quantitative easing, interest rates, reserves, and printing. But itâ(TM)s relatively minor in comparison to other countries & currencies. The next closest contender is the Euro and it is far behind. The gold medal goes to first place, not the fastest.

    The Roman Empireâ(TM)s currency was fairly close to the US dollar in terms of confidence. But that wasnâ(TM)t really due to their discipline. The currency was basically pegged to precious metals. However the downside was that almost no manipulation could be done that would have provided the empire with financial buffers.