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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.
Tulip bulbs are where the money will be at over the next 12 months.
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.
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Renault currencies are going strong on the other hand...
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...
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.
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.
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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.