Bitcoin Hits $10,000 Because Ceilings Are Just a Construct, Man (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: On Tuesday, the trading price of the most prominent cryptocurrency hit $10,000 for the first time. And that nice round number will almost certainly have the kind of psychological effect that brings in new traders. Based on analysts' recent predictions, the $10,000 milestone could be the beginning of the end or just the beginning. Some thought that $2,000 would be the point at which we'd see a reversal of Bitcoin's ascent. Others predicted it would top out at $4,000. Then, $4,000 became the floor. These days, analysts with decent reputations have predicted the cryptocurrency's trading price could go as high as $50,000, $100,000, and even $1 million.

Comments

5 bucks

[Danathar]

I bought 5 bucks worth of bitcoin last year... It's now worth $80 bucks (as of this writing). I'm simply floored by how much its gone up!

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, man, you're making coffee money. Quit your day job, right now.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

You can pat yourself on the back after you get the ca$h for it. Otherwise you got ripped off. Amazing.

Re:5 bucks

[Danathar]

Nah...I'll see how high it goes. One prediction is 1M a coin...I think that will net me 200K off of my 5 dollar investment. ;)

Re:5 bucks

[Oswald McWeany]

Good grief! You're loaded! It's time to think about hiring a butler!

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure speculation. It is not used (and can not be used) as currency. Somebody is just pumping the price to lure in suckers. Ironically crypto is propably most manipulated market in the world. And people just buy it with no other intention than to sell it later to somebody else for higher price. This can not and will not end well. Remember, value is not generated out of thin air, just transfered from one to another, in order for one person to get a "bitcoin millionaire" there MUST be thousand people who lose 1000$. There is no way around it.

Re:5 bucks

[bobbied]

Good grief! You're loaded! It's time to think about hiring a butler!

I'll bet the Butler won't take bitcoin for payment.. But that's just a guess..

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought 300 hundred bitcoins years ago for a few bucks, sure wish I could remember my private keys.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin can be exchanged for cash, though, no?

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa, sounds like I better give all my money to Bitcoin so I can Bitcoin a Bitcoin Bitcoin! Bitcoin Bitcoin! I am a real person with this real opinion and not pumping Bitcoin.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a bad guess. I've never had anyone turn me down when I offered to pay them in Bitcoin. Not. One. Person. Some of them are pretty rich now.

Re:5 bucks

[Oswald McWeany]

I'll bet the Butler won't take bitcoin for payment.. But that's just a guess..

That's what Doge Coins are for.

Re:5 bucks

[gnick]

I've never had anyone turn me down when I offered to pay them in Bitcoin. Not. One. Person.

Have you tried it with cashiers?

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Your math is a bit off. Based on what you said, you'd gross over $60K. Still pretty good, though. :)

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I did similar only 180 like 3 year ago, I've been funneling of the profits as of late by buying gold. tulips smell nice once a year and then the next passing fancy comes along. If anything major happened(i.e. Financial meltdown) bitcoin would probably become unless.

Re:5 bucks

[gnick]

And people just buy it with no other intention than to sell it later to somebody else for higher price.

That doesn't describe my Bitcoin transactions at all. Many things cannot be bought easily with Bitcoin. Other things can only be bought easily with Bitcoin. AlphaBay & Hanza are gone, but those were only two heads of the hydra.

Re: 5 bucks

[Danathar]

I only got ripped if it goes below the price I originally paid, or it becomes impossible to do a currency conversion.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure speculation. It is not used (and can not be used) as currency. Somebody is just pumping the price to lure in suckers. Ironically crypto is propably most manipulated market in the world. And people just buy it with no other intention than to sell it later to somebody else for higher price. This can not and will not end well. Remember, value is not generated out of thin air, just transfered from one to another, in order for one person to get a "bitcoin millionaire" there MUST be thousand people who lose 1000$. There is no way around it.

Value is nothing more than a perception.

Value is defined by what anyone is willing to pay for it. We've seen paint sloppily smacked on a canvas sell for obscene values pulled out of someones ass.

The mass perception of bitcoin values it at around $10,000USD, which is a comparison to something than can and is used as currency. And the way it's trending, there will be bitcoin billionaires, which means the "losers" will merely be millionaires.

Oh, and crypto is hardly the most manipulated market in the world. The US stock market has held that title for decades now.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for you! I bought $5000 and now it's worth half a million dollars. Jealous much?

Re:5 bucks

[deltaromeo]

He was taking into account the transaction fees.

Re:5 bucks

[religionofpeas]

in order for one person to get a "bitcoin millionaire" there MUST be thousand people who lose 1000$. There is no way around it.

Yes, there is a way around it. As more fiat money is created out of thin air, you can have a scenario where everybody can sell his bitcoin for more than he bought it for.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard you like Bitcoin so much that I put Bitcoin in your Bitcoin.

Re: 5 bucks

[gweihir]

The second one is pretty much assured when it crashes, as the Bitcoin blockchain is slow and will get much slower during a crash. 10k/coin just means that people are doing a pump&dump scam. Most people that buy now will not even recover their investment.

Re:5 bucks

[aliquis]

Well, if it actually did go to one million USD / BTC the losers aren't those holding bitcoins but those holding USD.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

At 5 bucks, dude basically bought a scratch-off lottery ticket. As long as you aren't trying to get rich quick by buying a whole bunch, I would not consider that getting ripped off.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in 1635, the sale of 40 tulip bulbs reached 100,000 florins.

Re:5 bucks

[Bucky24]

In that case it's the exchange that loses the money. So you're right, there don't have to be a thousand people losing money, but it does have to be someone.

Re:5 bucks

[DontBeAMoran]

If it's worth $80 with a Bitcoin value of $10K, wouldn't it be a gross of $7995 if Bitcoin hits one million?

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

"And the way it's trending, there will be bitcoin billionaires, which means the "losers" will merely be millionaires."

But you have to ask yourself, from where will this value come from. People can not get to be billionaires and millionaires out of thin air. In real world the value HAS to cone from somewhere. Bitcoin does not produce anything nor has it any value other than "perception". This is a zero sum game, in order for someone to win with bitcoin, someone(s) MUST lose exactly as much with bitcoin. Its like any other pyramid.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Much jealous. Very giving to 17Yvsma9tfiuqVP7QhsFE2VmsFpTEMy17P. Thank you.

Re:5 bucks

[religionofpeas]

In that case it's the exchange that loses the money.

It's the people that are holding fiat that are losing the value of their money

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, any price can rise in sync with inflation. But are you saying that we have had 1000's % inflation in recent years in fiat currencies? Of course not.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

This user is a Pedobear Troll. Extremely toxic. Please ignore for your own safety!

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, it is used as a currency a lot, especially for shady transactions across borders.

Re:5 bucks

[viperidaenz]

So can horse manure. Is that a currency too?

Re:5 bucks

[religionofpeas]

But are you saying that we have had 1000's % inflation in recent years in fiat currencies? Of course not.

No, this process is price discovery. If bitcoin existed thousands of years ago (like gold), it would only have appreciated a little bit in recent years. But because it was introduced just a few years ago, starting at 0, it needed to catch up with many years of inflation.

Re: 5 bucks

[gnick]

Most people that buy now will not even recover their investment.

I think you're right, but people have been saying the same thing for a long time now and have been mistaken.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure speculation, just like tulips, gold, and the trust in the US dollar, except with bitcoins there are limits as to how fast they can be generated, and how many, and by who. Also, for something "the most manipulated", it seems to be way more regular in it's rising value than the stock market for the last few years.

Yeah, it's possible that it's a pump and dump, but it's also just as possible that it's not that really the value of Bitcoins that are going up, but the confidence in the Dollar and the Euro that are going down. Thanks Obama!

Move a large amount of cash around and it will be taken away from you, for any number of pretenses. Use a check or credit card and you've got a trail, and the feds looking for a cut. Move an insane amount of Bitcoins around on an encrypted thumb drive, no one would ever know, and you can keep a backup copy in a safe back home. If someone steals the thumb drive, you're out a couple dollars at most. If you make a large purchases, no institutions are in a place to narc you out to the feds.

As long as there is there is a growing amount of goods and services that can be traded for bitcoins, their value in the long term will continue to go up. Unlike the Dollar which thanks to insane unchecked government spending ("controlled" inflation) continues to lose value. You put $100 in the bank today, what's it value in traded goods in 10 years. I make more in a month than my grandfather made in 10 years, but housing costs, gas, food and taxes are hundreds of times more than they were back then as well.

Good luck with your tulips.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that it's any of your business, but I do, in fact, have a debit card attached to my Bitcoin wallet. Works just like any other debit card except I basically get a huge discount on everything.

Re: 5 bucks

[gweihir]

They misjudged the size of the pool of fools. The sharp rise of the last few months is a sure sign the crash is near. At the moment, those that have invested are frantically trying to get more to invest, because a $10'000 coin is worth nothing if nobody buys it. But the remaining pool of fools is dwindling fast.

Re:5 bucks

[Jzanu]

So, which scammer got your credit card number? You can usually report that to police anywhere.

Re:5 bucks

[war4peace]

Um... let me simplify.
John has 1 BTC. It's worth a dollar.
Jack wants that BTC and is willing to play John 2 dollars.
John now has 1 BTC worth 2 dollars, but Jill wants to buy it for 10 dollars.
Fast forward through 10, 20, 50 subsequent buyers, end up with 1 BTC worth 10K dollars and rising. Money (as in dollars) wasn't lost, they simply exchanged hands between various people for the same product.

Value was not generated out of thin air, it was a product of the ancient demand/offer balance. As long as people want BTC and are willing to play hefty sums of money for it, its value would increase.

Also BTC can be and is used as currency. It has a slow transfer rate, that's for sure, but it works. Here in my 3rd world country I can buy a variety of legal products with it, such as IT hardware, software and general goods.

Re:5 bucks

[war4peace]

Amazingly, yes it is.
Anything can be used as a currency, including but not limited to horse manure. But in order to be a successful currency, it needs to fulfill some other requirements.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct. I plugged the numbers in wrong...how embarrassing!

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

https://blockexplorer.com/tx/fe8d095eee34b1fabc5cbf968686ced30298d774b8e237565b061fc3dbd60871

That guy just sent $4.5 million and paid a .2 percent fee. not used, you say?

It's used... by people considerably smarter than you.

https://blockexplorer.com/

Re:5 bucks

[Bucky24]

In that case it's the exchange that loses the money.

It's the people that are holding fiat that are losing the value of their money

It's true that if you assume bitcoin is actually worth what the exchange pays for it (and it would be, because some entity is willing to pay for it), then the exchange has not actually lost any value, just exchanged one form of it for another. But from what I gather, GP wasn't counting the value of bitcoin as an actual value. With that assumption, then the exchange is rapidly losing money because they are paying out something of value (USD) for something of no value (bitcoin).

And if you assume, as GP did, that bitcoin is a closed system, and the only way to get bitcoins is to buy them from the exchange (not technically true but for most people entering the market at this point it might as well be), then people are giving USD in exchange for bitcoins, putting money into the market, then it's possible for one person to sell a ton of coins that have gone way up in value, and be paid out all the exchange's USD reserve. In that case, since the exchange can't print more money, they have essentially lost the ability to buy anyone else's bitcoins. At that point the people who still own bitcoins technically haven't lost value either, but as there's no entity (we assume only one exchange in this scenario) that can pay them for their bitcoins, the coins essentially become worthless outside of the bitcoin system.

So in the end I guess it depends on your definition of money. I don't personally consider bitcoin to be money, though it's getting a lot closer. But if it is money, then the exchange never loses value at all, since it's essentially just a money changer. On the other hand, if bitcoin isn't money, then the exchange is almost guaranteed to lose money if the currency becomes more valuable.

As with all things, its just down to a point of view.

Re:5 bucks

[gnick]

I do, in fact, have a debit card attached to my Bitcoin wallet.

Did the cashier ring you up in Bitcoin? No? You didn't pay the cashier Bitcoin. You spent Bitcoin. You paid the cashier. You did not pay the cashier Bitcoin.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Value is definitely created out of thin air if you're the one skimming off the top. As the old saying goes, the best risk is when you're not risking your own money. Just ask Trump what that means.

Re:5 bucks

[Jzanu]

That does a great job of explaining how the predictable run on a bank compares to the inevitable run on an exchange. Any institution, and I use the word loosely in the case of bitcoin exchanges, is either insured by a larger central bank or other larger more well funded agency, or is limited to the reserve it personally holds. There is some flexibility if the exchange is funded by illegal trade in the background then it can float a little based on its income, but because it is not insured by any larger entity you face the absolutely non-zero risk that all your millions are really nothing. Whoever owns the most and cashes out first, cashes out last. Now, there is the option also that if a state government is supporting bitcoin for any reason they may funnel some currency into supporting the exchanges, but then it is limited by how much they are willing to spend and how long they can spend it.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

If it hits $5 you got ripped off. At the moment we can probably safely say that if you sell your bitcoin for anything less than $5.05 you got ripped off.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Horseshit.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

no. that is a gambling analogy.

a bitcoin millionnaire is someone who has millions in "value". it has appreciated as people have bought into it.
a lot of people hold.

if everyone sold at the same time, like a run on a bank, then the price would plummet.

but people are holding. for now.

the crypto-economy, crypto-ecosystem is getting bigger, more usable. bitcoin is the current "head" as it was first in that space. there are other techs much more useful but there's a bunch of money there already. unless jpmorgan makes their own coin, and happens to get enough governments onboard to value it at one trillion, then you might find bitcoin drop in value.

the odds of that happening though....high, but not to the point where central banks would risk losing their power to an unknown number of innovators. it will take a generation, and by then, the early innovators will be the sergey/page/ellison/gates kind of people and early adopters will be the heads of business in an ever increasing and outputting economy.

Re:5 bucks

[SCVonSteroids]

Bitcoin hitting one million would be gross alright.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever.... I'm loading up $100k worth of hardware for my research and 100% all of that is bitcoin speculation... and that's not even 1% of my bitcoin holdings. Jealous much?d

Re: 5 bucks

[swillden]

But the remaining pool of fools is dwindling fast.

I don't know. There are a lot of fools. A sucker is born every minute and all that.

I'm sure the bubble will burst. I haven't the foggiest idea how far we are from that, and neither do you.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

>the remaining pool of fools is dwindling fast.

I don't think you could be more wrong here. I've been a fan of Bitcoin for a long time, and have told many non-techies about it, and a common refrain I hear is "I'm not interested until it goes mainstream." I'm starting to get more inquiries from non-tech friends asking for help to invest. Some who believe it's not yet "mainstream enough" are still waiting but they're trickling in at a constant pace. There are billions of people who DON'T own Bitcoin, and have yet to join the party, and they are, and the price will continue to go up as long as there is such a stream of newcomers. It could last years before the flow stops and at that point there would be so many people trading that any dips will result in traders new and old jumping in to get deals, preventing an overall crash.

At least, this is what I tell myself at night. I have thousands of dollars in it, and I'm confident enough in its stability that I value my sleep over having an alarm to wake me if it drops by >$500 while I'm sleeping. I set the alarm to $1000 lol.

Re: 5 bucks

[Goragoth]

Bitcoin is 100% a bubble and will eventually crash but I'm not so sure that we are near the tipping point yet. It is ridiculously easy to invest in (any fool can create an account with an exchange and buy some BTC), and the pool is vast (anyone in the world with Internet access can theoretically buy in). A lot of people still don't know about BTC and it is only just starting to get some mainstream attention (just because people that visit Slashdot have been bombarded with BTC news doesn't mean everyone else has). I expect the real fools (people with not even a cursory understanding of how cryptocurrencies work) are only just beginning to buy in. I wouldn't be surprised to see BTC skyrocket to $100,000 in a year or so, maybe even more before crashing spectacularly to basically 0 in the span of days. Cautious people tend to underestimate just how irrational the market can go, while the idiots think it will go up forever.

Re: 5 bucks

[dj245]

They misjudged the size of the pool of fools. The sharp rise of the last few months is a sure sign the crash is near. At the moment, those that have invested are frantically trying to get more to invest, because a $10'000 coin is worth nothing if nobody buys it. But the remaining pool of fools is dwindling fast.

I'm sure there are a lot of fools who own bitcoin, but I'm also sure that there is hidden wealth being moved around and money laundering. Bitcoin isn't the be-all-end-all money laundering cure, but it is a good addition to any decent money-hiding scheme. And as long as that remains the case, it will have value.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Jelly beyond jelly. They're just whiny idiots that missed the boat. Too bad for them. Idiots! and I mean that in the purest sense! I used to mine bitcoin on my lowly CPU, 50 coins per (that's $500 million per in today's dollars) ie... Cry all you want, you missed the boat and just now you realize how stupid you are. Cry all you want, you're still a moron!

Re: 5 bucks

[itamihn]

> and the price will continue to go up as long as there is such a stream of newcomers

If only there was a name for something like this.

Re: 5 bucks

[networkBoy]

I'm just wondering if it will go away completely or not.
Looking at a job with a crypto company and the offer is very well tuned to my needs (telework, schedule flex)... but will the company survive the pop?
That it is a bubble is painfully obvious, but even when the tech bubble popped people still bought plenty of tech. When the housing bubble popped people still bought houses.

When the crypto bubble pops, will people still buy crypto?
I got out of BTC *years* ago because I made enough money to be happy with my return and because even then I felt it was a bubble.

Re:5 bucks

[networkBoy]

IIRC bird/bat guano outpriced gold at one point, and was used as a tradable asset... e.g. currency.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

The perceived value on an illiquid asset comes from the suckers who didn't buy in at a lower price before the peak and collapse. You don't want to be a sucker do you? Better put everything you have into it now, in case you are only the second biggest sucker.

Re:5 bucks

[networkBoy]

but that implies inflation of the fiat currency, so to really assess this you should convert all fiat currency values into their equivalent gold ounce at same time point as the fiat currency was traded to/from BTC. This also allows you to normalize across HKD, EUR, USD easily.

Yes it's not exact, but it is a pretty darn good approximation.

Re:5 bucks

[networkBoy]

I was thinking the *same* thing.
Define BTC crash:
    See "Bank run"

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah you suckers are just jelly of my fabulous bitcoin funded lavish lifestyle where I get to spend my days trolling Slashdot...

Re: 5 bucks

[phantomfive]

I'm just wondering if it will go away completely or not.

No, it won't go away completely: as long as there is one person who still is willing to compute transactions on an old 486 computer, bitcoin will still be around. So even if it's only Satoshi himself in a room somewhere, lit by the light of a single bare bulb..........

More practically, it's the only good option for making payments on things like malware, so it's likely to stay around for a while even if it drops drastically in value in the interim. At current transaction costs, it's only worth using for very large transactions, though (people are doing it: I don't know who those people are, but for some reason it's worth it to them).

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, trolling Slashdot is just for fun. The fact that I have enough bitcoin to own everything you have ever done in your entire life? Bonus! Maybe so sad... for you :(

Re:5 bucks

[war4peace]

Yes. Anything can be a currency as long as enough people:
- are willing to use it
- trust it enough to use it

That's it, really.

Re:5 bucks

[LostMyBeaver]

What do you thin the stock market is?

Stocks work exactly the same way as bitcoin does. Once a company issues new shares and sells them, there is absolutely no difference between bitcoin and stocks unless the company with the stocks pay a loyalty fee called a dividend to shareholders. Unless you own a considerable portion of the shares in the company, there is absolutely nothing different between bitcoin and stocks.

Re:5 bucks

[LostMyBeaver]

I bought a AMD GPU for $200 7 years ago and mined coins for 2 months at about one bitcoin a month.

I now have 3 drives which were once in a RAID holding my bitcoin wallet. I haven't tried getting the coins back yet because :
    a) I don't really need the money... though now they're worth enough that I should try to get it just for the sake of responsibility
    b) I figure that the bitcoin frenzy is far from over and I'm wondering is the numbnuts driving the prices up will make it hit $50,000.
    c) I know I'll be thoroughly disappointed if I go through all the trouble of performing a RAID recovery when I don't even remember what kind of controller I used just to find out that I had done something stupid and just deleted them because the bitcoin market had tanked and they weren't worth the effort at the time.

But at $10,000 I think I'll take the time to at least make images of the drives and experiment with RAID recovery tools. I don't care for gambling, but if I risk $100 on stuff I can use otherwise like a 4 slot USB to SATA dock... I don't think it counts as gambling.

So... Let's assume I spent $200 and a negligible amount on electricity 7 years ago and now I have $20,000...

Since I don't count this as real money... I think I'll ride it out. If gets to the point which it can pay off most of my house, then I'll cash in.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone making payments on malware deserve what they get.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

except not very many people are using bitcoin as currency, they are just buying and holding.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

A fat man is desperate
no one ever liked him
His name is Chris

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Retard, try paying your capital gains tax in BTC, then say hi to Bubba your new cell mate!

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol - if I had a bitcoin for every sucker that said bitcoin is a scam, bubble, etc... I'd be rich. Oh wait - I do and I am. Lol with all seriousness bitcoin is actually a really good technology that is going to change things for the better. True digital asset that can't be manipulated - sounds like a great idea to me.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know. There are a lot of fools.

NO. The fools are obviously the people who didn't buy BC. If you had bought as late as the start of October you could liquidate to the amount of your original investment and still be holding more value in BC than you originally purchased (locked in profit). This was the opportunity of your lifetime and you missed it. And you call other people fools?

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah it's called cynical morons that are jealous they couldn't see the importance of this new currency. I'm sure the same schmucks said this when they moved from chattel to fiat. No way will I trade in my 10 cows for 100 gold coins! I can't eat coins!

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone making payments on malware deserve what they get.

You think people should only ever steal malware? And I though the malware users were morally deficient!

Re: 5 bucks

[reanjr]

It should be pointed out that if the network drops rapidly down to a single 486, it will take a looooooooong time to start processing transactions at any reasonable rate. Block difficulty is recalculated when new blocks are created, so new blocks have to be created before the difficulty drops far enough for a 486 to be able to run the network. But the 486 will struggle to mine those first blocks. (it might be only one block; I don't remember. But that one block will still take a long time)

Re: 5 bucks

[reanjr]

Money laundering gets thrown around as a stereotypical use case for BTC, but I'm not sure it's very good at that, given the public ledger. Do enough money laundering in BTC, and you're likely to get caught. Even remixing services are subject to heuristic analysis attacks if your host nation decides it's worth it. Note how many of big BTC frauds have resulted in piles of BTC sitting in a wallet with no way to pull it out without risk of the BTC community tracking them down.

Avoiding capital controls... now THAT is a killer feature.

Re: 5 bucks

[gweihir]

Bitcoin will not. Its only use was as a currency, and that requires reasonable stability. Other blockchains may survive, but I have yet see a _credible_ use of of the technology that has not already been covered by hash-chains like git and revision-proof storage which you can buy as just "a box". The only actually new idea in this whole hype was the currency-angle.

Re: 5 bucks

[gweihir]

Top be fair, when transactions start to take years it will technically be "around", but useless.

Re: 5 bucks

[gweihir]

Bitcoin is not suitable for anonymous large-value anything. Basically, as soon as you buy more than a few things from more than a small number of vendors, you are not anonymous anymore. Just takes an attacker with enough resources (not that much) and an interest in identifying you.

Re: 5 bucks

[aliquis]

Suck if capital gain taxation is 100% ...

Also I would rather not pay it.

Re: 5 bucks

[phantomfive]

If it's an immediate drop off, it will, but if it's over a few months, it'll be fine.

Re: 5 bucks

[phantomfive]

If that happens transaction fees will go up, and people who are unwilling to pay the high fees won't transact. Bitcoin won't ever replace cash, it's something that exits along side cash.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're being funny, but it's not far from the trailing 5 year return.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

So everybody then? Because you do realize that bitcoin is a fiat money, just like USD. Every time I hear a bitcoin fanboi speak, I always get the feeling that they're small children who really don't understand economics very well. They've gotten lucky, and because they're lucky, they now believe their "wise" and "no what I'm talking about". You see it in sports stars and celebrities a lot as well.

Re:5 bucks

[war4peace]

Um... in order for someone to buy it, someone else has to sell it. So: transaction.

Re: 5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when you said this at 700. and 1k. and 2k. and 5k. and 7k. and,....

Re:5 bucks

[houghi]

Reminds me of how we joked how Internet companies where valued in 1995. You start a company. You make 1.000.000 shares. You sell 1 share for 100USD. BOOM, the company is worth 100.000.000USD.

Re:5 bucks

[war4peace]

And the joke was true. The company is not the same as its shares.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us add to the example and explain why BTC is a bubble.

Jack pays John $2 for 1 BTC so 1 BTC is now worth $2

Mark, Harry and Paul did not pay anyone $2 for their BTC they just held BTC from the value of $1.

So now we have $1 from John, $2 from Jack for 1 BTC AND $1 from Mark for a BTC worth $2, $1 from Harry for a BC worth $2 and $1 from Paul worth $2.

The first BTC seems to validate the model, $3 in the "resource pool" for 1BTC. But if we include others we actually have 3 more BTC from Mark, Harry and Paul but only $3 from them. So now we have 4BTC and a total of $6 but our sum of BTC is worth $8 - fast forward a few years and you have a few hundred million in a pool "worth" hundreds of billions. *awkward*

Trading, my good people is about taking money from other people. Let me sell you some BTC for "only" $10 - worth it, right?. Just make sure to pass the buck.

Re:5 bucks

[Anonymous Coward]

that is a commodity, not a currency

Re: 5 bucks

[Gussington]

The sharp rise of the last few months is a sure sign the crash is near.

Yeah I remember hearing the same thing with Apple shares. Glad I sold them back in 2008....

Re:5 bucks

[Gussington]

Also BTC can be and is used as currency. It has a slow transfer rate, that's for sure, but it works.

It's slow compared to cash, but it fast compared to international or inter-bank transfers. So yeah, it has uses.

Parabolic...

[b0s0z0ku]

When the price of something that's not all that useful goes parabolic, it's a bubble. Bitcoin is energy-intensive to create, and not all that useful at present. I suspect a lot of hedgies and techbros will be in for a rude awakening in the near future.

Re:Parabolic...

[Danathar]

Sure...there is a bubble but when will it burst? They have been saying that at 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k....

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure...there is a bubble but when will it burst? They have been saying that at 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k....

Who cares when it will burst, unless you are trying to time your "investment" around it, in which case I will remind you to never try and time the market. Yes, there has been a fortune to be made so far in timing the market on BTC, and there may be a fortune to be made still timing the market, but past performance is not indicative of future results, and there's also a fortune to be lost if you time it wrong.

Re:Parabolic...

[bobbied]

Can you remember 1929? Buying stocks on margin using credit? What a mess that was..

At least there won't be a margin call to deal with when this all goes pear shaped.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the current bubble economy crashes, it won't be a mess. It will be an OPPORTUNITY to pick up assets cheap, courtesy of stupid people who lost their shirts. Same as the foreclosure "crisis" of 2008 and .bomb in 2001 were.

Re:Parabolic...

[lw54]

December 10th. That date will be December 10th.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's a bubble... the key to bubbles though isn't if they are there or not... but when they will burst.

If for instance you know bitcoin is a bubble and it bursts tomorrow, you find a way to short bitcoins today.
If you know it's a bubble and it bursts 5-6 years from now, you buy bitcoin now, and sell it in 4-5 years.

If you know it's a bubble but have no idea when it bursts, there is no value in knowing it's a bubble.

Everyone knows it's a bubble...
It might not burst, we might imbue bitcoin with value by allowing it to be used as currency in a great deal of transactions... if that becomes the case then we might fill that bubble with the value it needs to no longer be a bubble... (at that point the price should stabilize).

I think it's going to burst... but I don't know when.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Many things "are not accepted for most things" but are a great store of value.

I know it is fashionable to be a skeptic and critic on slashdot (not to mention many people are not very technical except in the script-kiddie sense) - even more now than in 1999 or 2005 or 2010 - but just because you are on here and don't see the use for bitcoin, doesn't mean that it doesn't have one that a lot of people can appreciate and use to their advantage.

I suggest that you re-evaluate the use factor of bitcoin. Even if you can't use to to buy coffee everywhere, doesn't mean it isn't useful.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't listen to these fags, bitcoin is real, and you can spend it. Starving and broke? Got bitcoin? There's an app to buy gift cards for everything imaginable.

Re:Parabolic...

[TsuruchiBrian]

Gold's isn't useful either. It is also energy intensive to "create" (i.e. mine). It is useful for somethings, but it's limited uses are not the cause of it's price. U.S. dollars are not useful aside from their ability to be exchanged for goods. Dollars were previously backed by gold making their exchange rate fixed. Now it's variable. Bitcoin is not useful, but it can be exchanged for some goods or dollars (and therefore all goods including gold).

One of the benefits of a good currency is it's lack of utility outside being a medium of exchange and a store of value. This is part of what makes gold and dollars good currencies as opposed to barrels of gasoline. We don't want the supply of the currency to be affected by a sudden demand for traveling or something like the rising utility of the electric car.

The fact that bitcoin is energy intensive to create is by design. If it were easy to create, then it would be worthless. Everyone would simply create a bitcoin rather than paying $10,000 for one. Just like how gold and dollars would be worthless if everyone could easily create gold and dollars in their basement.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU mean "Be stupid, invest now so I can cash out quickly before the bubble pops!"

Re:Parabolic...

[Lucky_Strikez]

I like how you idiots talk about it like it's going to burst. It's not going anywhere.

Re:Parabolic...

[Lucky_Strikez]

The banks and bankers are bursting.

Re: Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what people don't understand about republican policies. The built-in inevitable collapse is not a bug.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought bitcoin could be exchanged for cash...

Re:Parabolic...

[wonkey_monkey]

And the Flanian Pobble Bead can only be exchanged for other Flanian Pobble Beads.

Re: Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought Bitcoin on a credit card, made 5% profit per day, sold and paid 0% interest. Maybe if you were good with investments and money you'd have 0% credit offers too.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how you retarded snake-oil salesmen think people are stupider, when you are the one who paid money for a string of numbers with zero utility.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not useful? Tell me how else you can send $10 million to China in 15 minutes for a $50 fee.

My God, when did the luddites take over Slashdot? This is the future of money. It is going to change the world more than the Internet itself but the dufus cucks around here refuse to see it because their asses are still chained to their cubicle. Feedin' time, boys. You're just dumb pigs getting fattened up for your slaughter. Your refusal to accept the future is not my problem.

Re:Parabolic...

[gweihir]

Oh, it will crash. Bitcoin is not actually worth anything in real-world terms and the current instability wipes out its usefulness as a currency. The only question is how much more fools can be found and when that supply dries up, the crash comes. The "Greater fool theory" applies nicely, and I expect a few reasonable master's theses will be written about it. (This whole thing is to obvious and predictable for a PhD of reasonable quality.)

Re: Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

My completely useless opinion is that the bubble may go on for another couple of years with random dips here and there, followed by a massive crash, then a more smooth stabilization. But I am literally pulling that out of my ass. It could just as easily crash tomorrow or keep going.

I feel like crypto currency has utility as a means of transaction and investment, just not at the rates of growth we are seeing.

That said I bought some when it dropped about $2k earlier this month just for funsies. I am just looking at it as a very risky investment so I do not put in more than I am willing to lose.

Re:Parabolic...

[gweihir]

Actually, Gold is pretty useful and will nowhere drop as low as 10% of its current value. The thing is that if the price of Gold drops, it will be used in more places. Gold is pretty good for a number of engineering tasks.

Incidentally, unlike Gold, Bitcoin is now actually worthless. With these severe changes in value, it has no worth as an actual currency, and that was its only worth. When it crashes, it will crash down to zero. The only worth of Bitcoin is that you may still find a greater fool than yourself who is willing to buy it, in turn hoping for an even greater fool.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, let's do a speed test! Send 1000 Bitcoins to 17Yvsma9tfiuqVP7QhsFE2VmsFpTEMy17P and I'll tell you how much time it took!

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is going to change the world more than the Internet itself

So you purchased quite a lot of it then?

This sounds more like wishful thinking than anything based on fact or precedent.

Re:Parabolic...

[religionofpeas]

Actually, Gold is pretty useful and will nowhere drop as low as 10% of its current value

Steel is more useful than gold, and is less than 10% of gold's value.

Gold is pretty good for a number of engineering tasks.

Most of these require gold in minute quantities. Gold is heavy and soft, which makes it a poor choice for many engineering tasks.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

It literally replaces bank accounts and its completely decentralized and trustless. How is it useless? You can store and send money globally without need of any central authority. Its revolutionary. It's basically turned paper money into 1's and 0's, with a bunch of added features like smart contracts.... The people who invested early saw how useful it was. The people who stood by didn't understand the technology.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

The 10k price is a point of resistance. Any trader knows that these exist going up and down. And yes they are a construct (or a mental, emotional thing) but since people set the price they are real. The headline here seems to imply that bitcoin somehow does not follow the rules of other things that are traded, this is the kind of assumption (ignore conventional wisdom because this thing is special) that gets into peoples heads who are going to lose everything. to make money on buying or selling you need to either be lucky (happen to buy and sell at the right time) or know a reason why it is going up or down to apply your actions to. Bitcoin happens to be going up and all sorts of people have all sorts of reasons, if you have one and are betting on it then good. If you have none but are following the trend then good luck (you need it.)

Re:Parabolic...

[gweihir]

Actually, Gold is pretty useful and will nowhere drop as low as 10% of its current value

Steel is more useful than gold, and is less than 10% of gold's value.

You are severely mistaken.

Gold is pretty good for a number of engineering tasks.

Most of these require gold in minute quantities. Gold is heavy and soft, which makes it a poor choice for many engineering tasks.

There are other uses for metals than making hammers from them. But you just demonstrated your level of "insight" pretty clearly.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Gold is pretty useful and will nowhere drop as low as 10% of its current value

Steel is more useful than gold, and is less than 10% of gold's value.

Gold is pretty good for a number of engineering tasks.

Most of these require gold in minute quantities. Gold is heavy and soft, which makes it a poor choice for many engineering tasks.

Steel is also much more common and easier to mine and recycle. Gold is rarer and great for plating things, you don't use it as a structural component so you don't need much of it.

Re:Parabolic...

[Lanthanide]

"Steel is more useful than gold, and is less than 10% of gold's value."

It's also far far far more abundant.

The things that gold is good at, generally the next-best alternative is quite a bit worse. Hence why gold is so valuable - because it is quite good and not very abundant.

"Most of these require gold in minute quantities."

Actually I think many things would use gold if it were as abundant as steel. But it isn't, so it's reserved for only the things that really need it, and cheaper substitutes are used where they can be.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

> If you know it's a bubble but have no idea when it bursts, there is no value in knowing it's a bubble.

The value is you don't put money into a bubble and thus don't take a loss.

Re:Parabolic...

[TsuruchiBrian]

Gold is not useful enough to warrant actually using it. It is much more useful as a store of value than as an hdmi cable. That's why we keep most of our gold in bars or chains, etc, and not in forms related to engineering applications that would make it hard to reextract. Whatever use gold has is surpassed by it's value as a currency, which is why we don't really use it.

Gold would actually become *more* useful (aside from a currency) if it's value dropped to zero.

Incidentally, unlike Gold, Bitcoin is now actually worthless.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

With these severe changes in value, it has no worth as an actual currency, and that was its only worth.

A currency is useful as both a medium of exchange and a store of value

The volatility is preventing bitcoin from being a reliable store of value (depending on how you look at it), but it is still an amazing medium of exchange.

When it crashes, it will crash down to zero. The only worth of Bitcoin is that you may still find a greater fool than yourself who is willing to buy it, in turn hoping for an even greater fool.

So lets say hypothetically a giant gold meteor hits earth and now gold is more common than iron. All the people who held gold as a store of value just lost that value. The planet as a whole is better off because now we can make sold gold hdmi cables for everyone. Gold's utility is huge now, and it's value didn't drop to zero. It's just just $300/ton rather than $40million/ton. As a person who owned a lot of gold you are really no better off than the bitcoin owner who's bitcoins dropped to literally zero.

So you think there is no inherent value in a bitcoin. I agree with you. Where I think we differ, is that you seem to think that other currencies are fundamentally any different in that regard.

Re:Parabolic...

[TsuruchiBrian]

A. Gold is valuable.
B. Gold is useful for some things for which there is no good substitute.
A and B are both true, but A is not true *because of* B.
If it were, we'd be melting down most of the worlds gold for engineering tasks. What's the point of having a valuable resource if you don't utilize it?

Re:Parabolic...

[networkBoy]

Sure there will be:
Credit cards will demand payment.
Debtors will Chapter11
Houses will be liened to the point of worthlessness; and upon sale the margin call will be collected.

Pretty roundabout call, but same end result.

Re:Parabolic...

[networkBoy]

If you know it's a bubble but have no idea when it bursts, there is no value in knowing it's a bubble.

sure there is. you know not to invest anything you wouldn't be willing to spend on lottery tickets; thus you save the possible (probable even) losses. Once the bubble pops you then take that money you held on the sidelines and buy in at severe discount (whether BTC or assets people lost because of over leveraged positions).

Re:Parabolic...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Not useful? Tell me how else you can send $10 million to China in 15 minutes for a $50 fee.

For $50? I can't do it... HSBC only charges me $15 to wire transfer an unlimited amount of funds from Hong Kong to any destination in the world - including China. I'd have to do at least 4 transactions to reach the $50 of Bitcoin.

Oh, and you can't do it either - Bitcoin is banned in China, so good luck sending it there. But USD, or HKD, or EUR, or GBP, or even RMB? Not a problem. But BC? Nope.

Re:Parabolic...

[bobbied]

Ah, but one thing will be very different because folks where trading options and on margins, not buying and selling actual stocks.. In 1929, people ended up owing more than they had invested when the margin calls couldn't be covered and the assets they controlled couldn't be sold fast enough. In 1929, folks ended up owing debts which where multiples of their initial investment.

Buying BitCoin with credit cards, while stupid, will only end up incurring the initial debt. Folks won't be margined/leveraged and won't end up owing more than they invested.

Re: Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course the guaranteed shared poverty of democratic/socialist policies are so much more beneficial. Can we finally dispense with the left vs right crap and wake up to the fact that those in power will abuse that power to further advance their power, control, and financial position over the rest of us?

Re: Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty good with my investments, but that's a risky gamble to make. It worked out well for you, but what if it had gone to hell right after you bought it? You'd be left paying that debt off with cash and if you exceed your 0% introductory period you wouldn't be interest free anymore at that point.

Re:Parabolic...

[gweihir]

Congratulations, you just failed Economics 101.

Re:Parabolic...

[reanjr]

People aren't looking for credit card BTC purchases to use leverage. They are looking for credit card BTC purchases because that's how people buy things online.

Re:Parabolic...

[reanjr]

Claiming an international, regulation-resistant payment platform is "not actually worth anything" is ignorant.

Re:Parabolic...

[reanjr]

Or you take an opportunity cost and thus you do take a loss.

Re:Parabolic...

[reanjr]

But if gold's fair price compared to steel is predicated on its relative scarcity, then that just shows that BTC's scarcity is intrinsically valuable without utility.

Re:Parabolic...

[reanjr]

Disagreeable people have always been the mainstays of Slashdot. Take a position; someone will be there to tell you how wrong you are.

Q.E.D.

Re:Parabolic...

[reanjr]

There is some serious potential with BTC in the emerging world to make a huge difference. Many nations are plagued by the lack of a decent currency. These places are ripe for BTC to take over the economy. By relying on an international currency, a poor nation can benefit from global economic activity without putting themselves at risk by tying themselves to some foreign currency. BTC could be problematic for an economy that needs to incentivise consumer spending over saving, but for third world nations who are more concerned about capital investment, an appreciating currency (especially an internationally accepted one) can be a game changer by increasing available investment capital over time.

Re:Parabolic...

[reanjr]

It wasn't much of a point of resistance for BTC. What's interesting is BTC analysts seem heavily weighted to Elliott wave analysis, and subsequently the market is weighted towards the Elliott wave analysis, as people look to analysis to make trades. This appears to be a self-reinforcing action, leading to higher volatility in both directions, but it also means trading on Elliott waves without regard to underlying value (technical vs fundamental) can be effective with BTC. It also means the points of resistance tend to be Fibonacci Elliott wave extensions, rather than more traditional psychological barriers of round numbers.

Re:Parabolic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this humor, or is there some potential inflection point coming on that date?

Re:Parabolic...

[TsuruchiBrian]

No rebuttal or counterargument? All you can muster is a re-assertion that you are right? Congratulations, you just violated the rules of civil discourse and therefore lose the argument.

Re:Parabolic...

[gweihir]

The distance between what you think how things work and actual reality is to great. I did indeed fail, but the root cause is on your side.

Re:Parabolic...

[TsuruchiBrian]

When you just know you're right, but you can't seem to articulate how or why, maybe you're just wrong.

Re:Parabolic...

[drsquare]

Gold has inherent value, proven by the fact that every single civilisation in human history has considered it valuable and a tradeable commodity. US dollars are useful in that they are necessary for the payment of taxes, and as legal tender must be accepted for payment of a debt. They are also a reserve currency, accepted all over the United States and many places worldwide.

Bitcoin fits none of these.

Re:Parabolic...

[TsuruchiBrian]

Gold has inherent value, proven by the fact that every single civilisation in human history has considered it valuable and a tradeable commodity

That's not "inherent" value. That is value that only exists in the minds of people.

US dollars are useful in that they are necessary for the payment of taxes, and as legal tender must be accepted for payment of a debt.

Once again, this is not intrinsic value. This is value that is given to the dollar by the US government.

They are also a reserve currency, accepted all over the United States and many places worldwide.

Once again, not inherent or intrinsic value

This sort of argument is "Gold and the US dollar are valuable because people all agree that it's valuable." "Bitcoin is not inherently valuable because it has no value beyond people agreeing that it's valuable".

Also, for your statement of needing to pay taxes in US dollars, this is possible to do regardless of the value of the dollar. If the value of the dollar plummets, my income is going to sky rocket due to inflation, causing me to pay higher taxes in dollars (but not higher taxes in value)

Requiring people to pay taxes in US dollars only requires me to convert some of my % of my income to X dollars (how ever many that is at any given time) to then pay my taxes. This is completely independent of how valuable the US dollar is.

Re:Parabolic...

[drsquare]

Well the minds of people are the ones investing in it, so that makes it inherently valuable. Maybe aliens won't value it, that's not really relevant.

Re:Parabolic...

[TsuruchiBrian]

If the concept of "inherent value" means anything other than "value", than it must mean something that is valuable beyond just it's perception of value in the minds of people. If it inherent value can be value only in the minds of people, then there is no reason that bitcoin can't be inherently valuable as well. All that would be required for this is for some people to think it's valuable (a condition which has clearly been met).

Traditionally the concept of inherent value is reserved for stuff like gasoline, which can be used as a fuel regardless of the perception of value in the minds of people. Presumably even aliens would value things like fuel even if they may not highly value primitive fuels like gasoline.

Except as a curiosity ...

[CaptainDork]

... I don't give a shit about BTC.

I do however, wonder if Lindsay Lohan is in rehab or if Pokemon Go is still a thing.

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[bobbied]

... I don't give a shit about BTC.

I do however, wonder if Lindsay Lohan is in rehab or if Pokemon Go is still a thing.

No and No.

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[Oswald McWeany]

... I don't give a shit about BTC.

I do however, wonder if Lindsay Lohan is in rehab or if Pokemon Go is still a thing.

You can use BTC to buy both Pokémon Go and Lindsay Lohan.

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[viperidaenz]

How many Lindsay Lohan's can I buy with 1 BTC?

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[CaptainDork]

{citation}

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[CaptainDork]

I see what you did there, what with sweeping the spectrum from innocent to matters dark.

Good points.

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd then have to use BTC to also pay for your STD treatment after being near Lohan.

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[bobbied]

Lohan moved to London and is currently not in rehab.. (Google this and see)

Pokimon Go may not be dead, but all four people in a sample group of previous Go users have stopped playing it and unloaded the app.

Re:Except as a curiosity ...

[Oswald McWeany]

How many Lindsay Lohan's can I buy with 1 BTC?

One more than anyone could possibly ever want.

What does this do to mining economics

[SuperKendall]

I have to admit I've not really kept up on Bitcoin mining economics for some time, but about a decade ago I remember reading a lot about how if you were not using custom ASIC processors to mine you were spending more on electricity than you were getting from bitcoin...

With BTC going up and up it seems like at this point there's no hardware that is not economical to mine on any longer. Is that really the case or has mining at this stage become so compute intensive you still need powerful custom hardware to have mining make any sense?

BTW I salute those that had the foresight to purchase those custom mining rigs, assuming you had the grit to hang onto the BTC you managed to mine all this time...

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[chfriley]

A decade ago? Can you share your time machine? ASICs arrived for mining early 2013.

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[Anonymous Coward]

The value of BTC is directly related to the cost of the mining rigs that are necessary to create more BTC. As more expensive rigs are required to mine more coins, the value of the coins necessarily goes up to pay for them. It's simple economics, really, grade school stuff. I'm not sure why this is so difficult for people to understand.

Re: What does this do to mining economics

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how economics works. The cost is the cost and the value is the value, if cost exceeds value the miners go out of business, it has no bearing on the value unless there is demand for more.

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[Narcocide]

I'm still kicking myself.

Re: What does this do to mining economics

[spire3661]

More precisely this is how one philosophy of economics works. Not everyone believes that cost and price should be utterly disconnected.

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[bobbied]

It depends on the cost of electricity... Mostly anyway...

If your landlord is paying the bill, mine away my man... If YOU are paying the bill, then you'd better be careful even at 10K/Coin.

I recall that in Venezuela they are mining BitCoin for two reasons.. First, Electricity costs are unnaturally low due to government subsidies so it pays and Second, holding bolivars is a bad idea due to inflation rates so they escape that by holding BitCoin. Of course, all this is now illegal in Venezuela as is trading in BitCoin...

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[religionofpeas]

at this point there's no hardware that is not economical to mine on any longer.

The bitcoin protocol has a built-in difficulty adjustment algorithm. If there is too much interest in mining (more than 6 blocks per hour found), then the difficulty is increased. If there's not enough interest in mining, the difficulty is lowered. Because the reward stays the same (currently 12.5 BTC per block + fees), the difficulty determines how profitable mine is. At status quo, only the most efficient mine can make a reasonable profit.

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[Oswald McWeany]

I'm still kicking myself.

For not buying early on? Yeah, anyone could potentially have become a millionaire by buying a bunch when it was dirt cheap- on one hand, I regret not being a BTC millionaire now; however, I still think the odds of a scheme like this taking off was pretty low. BTC just beat the odds. If we rewound the clock to 2008 and rolled the dice again, BTC most likely wouldn't be the success it is now.

Bitcoin wasn't the first or last digital currency, it's the one that got the most attention without being completely flawed. There are hundreds of worthless cryptocurrencies and only one Bitcoin (BTC bitcoin).

Re: What does this do to mining economics

[viperidaenz]

Except for the little detail of: If some miners stop mining, mining becomes easier, making mining more profitable.

The cost of mining is related to the popularity of mining. The profitability of mining is a combination of the value of bitcoin and the size of the mining pool, making it not a simple economic problem.

Re: What does this do to mining economics

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that is still a simple economic problem, and the fact you don't understand that is why you buy bitcoin.

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[Anonymous Coward]

I just put a solar rig on my camper. I could run a miner of it for 14 hrs a day depending on weather of course.

Re:What does this do to mining economics

[reanjr]

Don't salute miners. Most of them are idiots. With hardware upkeep and electricity, most miners would have been better off spending their money by buying BTC on an exchange. Even with free electricity, the payback period for some commercial mining rigs can run up to a decade. Those diminishing returns are brutal. Miners can outperform investors typically only by having an unusually cheap source of electricity, and by continually refreshing hardware at just the right time. This is why mining has moved to data centers and has become mostly professional.

It's actually the miners who took an otherwise unused gaming PC and hooked it up to their neighbor's electricity you should be saluting. Those guys made a killing for a while.

Re: What does this do to mining economics

[reanjr]

Communists.

Re: What does this do to mining economics

[david_thornley]

One question is how much they should be connected. Another is how much they are connected. I love arguing philosophy, but I try to manage my investments according to the real world.

DJI - 36,000 !!!!!!

[cahuenga]

Seems like yesterday

Parabolic...

[b0s0z0ku]

Search for "buy bitcoin" on Google's site.

The first suggestion will be "buy bitcoin with credit card."

If ordinary people are leveraging up at 10-20% per annum to buy a currency that's not accepted for most things, you know where this is going.

"Traditional" speculators entered the fray

[rsilvergun]

I don't know what else to call them, but the kind of day trader types that play the stock market noticed the price going up. So now in addition to the drug traffickers, money launders and ransomeware authors we've got those jackals. I'm sure this will all end well.

Re:"Traditional" speculators entered the fray

[b0s0z0ku]

Maybe this is all a government plot to burn the traffickers, money launderers, and ransomware authors. Lure them deeper into the market, then pull the rug out from under them. :)

Re:"Traditional" speculators entered the fray

[DigiShaman]

Flip that bit! Get in, get out, become that rich man you always dreamed of. FLIP THAT BIT **applause applause**

Bad advice, but you know this kinda shit is going to be played all over AM radio now. Once anything goes mainstream as hot, it's generally a good idea to exit ASAP.

Re:"Traditional" speculators entered the fray

[phantomfive]

And there are a lot of them, and they've only just started to enter the fray. So it could actually go up for a long, long time.

Re:DJI - 36,000 !!!!!!

[tripleevenfall]

more akin to the dot-com bubble, IMO

aka

[grasshoppa]

These days, analysts with decent reputations have predicted the cryptocurrency's trading price could go as high as $50,000, $100,000, and even $1 million.

In other words, they have no idea why it's doing what it's doing.

I'm starting to think "expert" is someone who is physically unable to utter the words "I don't know".

Re:aka

[Oswald McWeany]

These days, analysts with decent reputations have predicted the cryptocurrency's trading price could go as high as $50,000, $100,000, and even $1 million.

In other words, they have no idea why it's doing what it's doing.

I'm starting to think "expert" is someone who is physically unable to utter the words "I don't know".

I'm not an expert, but I don't know if you're right.

Re:aka

[Archangel Michael]

They don't know, and there is a valid reason for it. The market is irrational. The market is as much about emotion as it is about fundamentals, maybe even more so. There will be a correction. The problem is, there are no forces that can take any of the irrationality out of the market. The real panic will happen when the BTC is worth 5 or 6 figures each, and corrects down to three or so. That's when people holding fair numbers of coins will start to panic, and sell off just like everyone else, trying to get any part of the profit they missed when it peaked.

And then you'll see it normalized for a while, perhaps even disappear. People mocked when a guy bought a 20,000 BTC pizza, and now many of those same people are mocking $1000 BTC.

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

Tulip Mania!

Re:aka

[gweihir]

I'm starting to think "expert" is someone who is physically unable to utter the words "I don't know".

An actual expert has no problems with that at all. But these are "analysts", not experts. The difference is that an expert has some deep understanding and real knowledge of a thing. An "analyst" is a special form of short-term "futurist", i.e. somebody that was on occasion right by accident and is now revered as somebody that can predict the future by a group of morons of variable size.

Re:aka

[ceoyoyo]

$1 million / coin works out to around 10 trillion dollars, assuming half the bitcoins are lost. That's about 1/6 of all the money (most of it electronic) that exists in the world. It's certainly going to suck when all of the money in the world is in a form that is limited to single digit numbers of transactions per second.

This was a reputable person who made this estimate? Reputed for what?

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an expert, and he is exactly right.

Re:aka

[Deadstick]

An ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure. Ex-spurt.

Re:aka

[swillden]

They don't know, and there is a valid reason for it. The market is irrational. The market is as much about emotion as it is about fundamentals, maybe even more so.

There *are* no fundamentals. The transaction rates/costs make it unusable as a currency for more than a fairly small number of people, and it has no other value than as a currency.

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

It's certainly going to suck when all of the money in the world is in a form that is limited to single digit numbers of transactions per second.

but it will be fun to watch when the value starts dropping and all those digital millionaires panic when they realize it will take weeks or months to liquidate their position.

Re:aka

[reanjr]

I think conservative analyses of BTC fundamentals are largely based on Metcalfe's law. This basically states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users. So what "experts" are doing here is assuming historical BTC price has been largely reflective of Metcalfe's law, and are making reasoned projections of the future size of the BTC network. No one claims to "know" what the future price will be, but that doesn't mean they "have no idea".

Re:aka

[Anonymous Coward]

.I'm starting to think "expert" is someone who is physically unable to utter the words "I don't know".

I used to believe this 100% - because I see a lot of people in my field taking advantage of this phrase - saying their pro but can barely do basic shit despite their 'best' efforts.

Then one day I was labeled as a Master in my field, during a court case, by a Vocational Expert and a DOL Judge in my State.

Do I think I'm an Expert/Master/Professional? I don't think so. All I know is that I'm often the most efficient/proficient I've worked with, especially after a couple of days on the job, and I'm that a really good employee because of that - but I blame prior service, and the competitive nature it instilled in me, for that. I also know that I am still learning - I just don't have many teachers that can answer the questions I ask - at least not near me.

I often say, "I don't know" - but I usually find out soon after saying it lol.

Re:aka

[Donwulff]

But the bitcoin price has no connection to real value. If one Satoshi trades hands at the price of one million per Bitcoin, it could be argue that the price has hit one million. There's no need to guarantee that ALL Bitcoin need to be able to change hands at that price; indeed, as many are lost of thought to be lost, this is provably impossible, to say nothing of the price crash if everybody attempted to "cash out". Since a Satoshi is one hundred millionth of a full Bitcoin, a million dollar per Biitcoin price would come to just one cent per Satoshi, which surely has already happened.
The problem with the "reputable experts" is that according to this, they differ on the correct price by factor of 20. They can't all be right! Take it just as it is though, an anonymous submission of "It's going to hit a million, quick everybody buy so mine go up in value!". As always, the only thing that is certain in stock values is that it is going to go up and down. The thing that is surprising is that it hasn't been prohibited in most countries, and it's actually starting to cross into a point where significant legal restrictions aren't imaginable.

Re:aka

[brunomagalhaeslopes]

I agreee that Bitcoin is not a currency, as the transaction costs are far too high. On monetary theory terms, Bitcoin is not M1, but M2 or even M3.

But pay atention that there *is* a market for "cryptocurrencies". Some people want to make economic transactions completely outside the banking system. Currently they are on a "cash only" basis, but they might want to go eletronic with Bitcoin or any other "cryptocurrency".

But how big is this shadow economy? Nobody knows for sure. Nobody knows how fast they will adopt cryptocurrencies, or if it will be Bitcoin or something else.

Some countries are toying with the idea of eliminating cash to reduce money laundring and tax evasion (even the European Bank will stop issuing $ 500 notes), and that might take some people to cryptocurrencies. Once everyone that wants a cryptocurrency has migrated to that, their price should stabilize.

Re:aka

[Strudelkugel]

Here is a great explanation of how the financial industry looks at Bitcoin. What is not explained is how the exchanges will deal with limit moves, but the contracts are relatively small. If Bitcoin goes up, they will probably reduce the amount of Bitcoin per contract. The power demand curve doesn't look good either considering the the amount of electricity consumed by Bitcoin mining.

I would not be too surprised to see Bitcoin go to $50,000 or $100,000 per coin. But in 5 years it will probably be worth less than $100. Then someone will add a chapter to this book.

Re:aka

[Gussington]

In other words, they have no idea why it's doing what it's doing.

I'm starting to think "expert" is someone who is physically unable to utter the words "I don't know".

I'll assume the irony of that comment is lost on you...

Silly ass bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all it is.

Re:Silly ass bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

Except they started saying that when Bitcoin hit $5... not $5k.. but five bucks.

I said it myself when it was about seven bucks. "Oh that's the dumbest thing ever. Seven dollars for some digital coin that nobody takes? pffft"

Fortunately a friend of mine convinced me to plunk down and buy $1000 worth back when it was about $10. I haven't sold them yet but I have to admit that the prospect of a million dollars is enticing.

Bitcoin, for whatever reason nobody really understands, is worth something to a lot of people - worth a LOT to a lot of people. Is there real intrinsic value? No. Is there tremendous perceived value? Definitely. Right now, the latter is more important than the former.

Re:Silly ass bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

You're sitting on a million dollars worth of Bitcoin, and haven't sold any? Say you sell today. You get $700,000 after taxes, approximately.

You can buy $700,000 (actually more, if you take a loan) of investment property. Rental income will probably be north of $40,000 per year. Not enough for exclusive income, but enough for rents, food, maybe health insurance.

Your day job will become essentially discretionary. You're set for life and don't even know it.

Re:Silly ass bubble

[Narcocide]

I think this is the real question here. Are there entities other than the obvious market forces working to drive up the price of bitcoins for reasons other than the apparent ones?

Re:Silly ass bubble

[Jzanu]

Exactly! The undisclosed force behind this is evading sactions on trade, sanctions imposed as alternatives to warfare to dissuade bad actors from doing tings like committing genocide or using nuclear weapons as actual weapons. The potentially literal fallout of this scheme is frightening, and the fools behind it should be shot.

Re:Silly ass bubble

[gweihir]

Yes. And all the deniers have a transparent motivation: They have Bitcoin and are lying through their teeth in the hopes of driving it even higher.

Re:Silly ass bubble

[gweihir]

There are no market forces behind Bitcoin as it has no value. The only value it ever had was as currency. With its lack of stability that is gone. There are just a bunch of fools that hope to sell to greater fools before the crash comes.

Re:Silly ass bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

I've started to suspect that given the breakthroughs made with block-chaining, and the anonymity of the alleged author, that bitcoins were developed by a group with government level resources, possibly as a means of working around sanctions. Probably Russia, if I were to speculate.

Re:Silly ass bubble

[reanjr]

Most conservative analysts seem to circle around Metcalfe's law, which says the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of its active user base. Now, we don't have a way of calculating some fundamental value to compare against, but the BTC price has been substantially correlated to Metcalfe's law over time. In other words, the "entities ... working to drive up the price of bitcoins" might be largely explained as a result of the growth in its user base.

In addition to the obvious, the network's value - whatever that might be - will be positively affected by its age and by its market capitalization. The longer it goes without significant security holes, the more valuable it is. The larger the BTC market cap, the better secured the network is, and the better it is able to withstand price shocks from some whale moving around some money.

If the fundamental value is non-zero (and how could it not be?), then Metcalfe might explain the rest.

Usefulness

[Anonymous Coward]

It's useful if the native currency in your environment is unstable or inflationary. In that case you can trade energy/money for Bitcoin by mining it. It's a popular passtime in Venezuela, with very subsidized energy prices, which is probably why it's banned.

Seems like you can use it as currency

[SuperKendall]

You can't use BTC for everything but more and more I am seeing people and websites accepting BTC for real goods and services. Although it may not technically be "currency" it's close to making no difference.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

A currency which the value of has increased some 10 times in less than a year is a pretty poor currency. There's no incentive to ever spend it. In fact, anybody who would spend it when the value is going up like it currently is, is nothing but an absolute idiot. And a currency that you'd be an idiot to spend, again is a pretty poor currency. Great investment though.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

No, nobody can run a business accepting such a volatile "currency". Those who "accept" BTC actually do not and accept only your regular fiat (dollats, euros etc), they just use an external service that takes the BTC and gives them dollars instead.

And my commet that it can not be used as currency referred to how slow and inefficent it is.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[TheRealMindChild]

There's no incentive to ever spend it

Sure there is. I need food *now*, and these might not be valuable enough in the future to sacrifice starving right now.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

A currency which the value of has increased some 10 times in less than a year is a pretty poor currency. There's no incentive to ever spend it.

I learned a lesson working in the high-tech silicon valley. If a company gives you stock options, it is best to sell them off rather than hold on to them and hope the stock price goes up. I learned a long time ago to sell off stock options, and never look back a how much I could have made if I kept them longer. If the company goes downhill, and the stock price with it, you are left with worthless stock (which happened to me).

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[nealric]

Most of those websites aren't really using BTC in the sense that they are actually holding BTC you transfer to them like they would hold the USD you transferred to them. Rather, they've simply set up a conversion as part of the transaction where they receive USD in exchange for the BTC you sent them.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

Good currencies are more than just being able to barter for goods and services you need. You also need to be able to borrow against it, and it needs to be able to borrow against itself (why the gold standard doesn't work). Bitcoin has a limited number of coins and lost coins are gone (unlike damaged bills being replaced). So in the long run, the total units available for actual transactions and acting as collateral will be very limited and its total market capital will be capped.

This doesn't make for a currency that can be used as the oil of the economic engine. I don't know why people thought/think it is a good currency. The block chain is very interesting in that its a mathematical consensus on every transaction, but that does not a good currency make.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[squiggleslash]

Not just no incentive to spend it (beyond the absolutely necessary right now) but no incentive to lend (invest) it either unless the returns are so astronomical they outweigh the loss in value of any collateral that the borrower might put up.

Bitcoin enthusiasts are overjoyed about this, because they're suddenly rich, so overjoyed they're missing the part that this entire thing is a disaster for Bitcoin in terms of its supposed use. And if Bitcoin is completely unusable for the purpose for which it was designed then... what's the point of Bitcoin? The world's biggest disorganized pyramid scheme?

Can this last anyway? Will it reach a peak and then start slowly dropping, or will it collapse? If it collapses (again!) then even if it reaches a more reasonable level, will retailers (who presumably will lose quite a bit of money on it) ever accept it again?

Hyperdeflation, to be followed at some point by hyperinflation. This is not what a stable currency looks like. BTC enthusiasts should be thinking "Well, failure never felt so good", not "Woohoo, this is good news for Bitcoin". Because it really, really, isn't.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Lanthanide]

"A currency which the value of has increased some 10 times in less than a year is a pretty poor currency. There's no incentive to ever spend it."

The opposite, actually. The price can only go up so high, and it's far more likely to go up and crash, and it is to go up and stay up.

So better to spend it to day and realise value, than hold onto it and lose value.

Re: Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got friends who got ruined because they had to pay taxes on the full value at the moment they acquired shares which became almost worthless a few months later.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

Economists are, by and large, idiots.

1) Bitcoin will not be the only cryptocurrency. There are others more conducive to spending
2) What happens when people feel rich? They spend.
3) I will bet you that getting rid of all the worthless middlemen (bankers and the like) will be the best thing the world economy has ever seen. The blockchain is the most verifiable ledger ever created. It's going to make everything from voting to stock trading to real estate development FAR more efficient and transparent.

Bitcoin will just serve as a store of value and a means for moving very large amounts of money. The money you spend will be something that you've traded for a bit of Bitcoin. It will be better than the money you now use in every way. It will be something you own and you control, not an IOU from some shady banker.

Re: Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words you claim to have friends that don't understand accounting or economics, then got screwed by their employer as part of the employers tax avoidance scheme.

Because that's not how options work.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[networkBoy]

It won't fall in value gradually.
This feels so much like mid 1999 in tech it's not even remotely funny.
The crash will be an immediate devaluation of 50% with a multi day tail of ever lower dead cat bounces till it's somewhere, but where???
I have no crystal ball into where it ends though... some percentage (25%)? zero?

Re: Seems like you can use it as currency

[MtHuurne]

It differs per country. Here in the Netherlands, the value of the shares at the end of the year is measured and you'd have to pay income taxes over a fictional income you are assumed to generate from it, rather than over the actual profit you generate from selling the shares later.

So if you're under similar tax rules, owning a lot of Bitcoin on December 31st is pretty risky...

Re: Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing close to zero. A lot of people have an incentive to set stop losses, and there's no circuit breakers to stop a crash

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

god damn you are retarded

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

The only retailer of note that holds any coins is overstock.com all the others use third parties to immediately receive US dollars. I'm sure a handful of very small sites also speculate by holding, but its not much.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[reanjr]

It's way better than a currency whose value has decreased to 10% of its starting value in less than a year, which is something real world fiat national currencies are known for on occasion.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[reanjr]

Lending BTC is not that uncommon. Bitfinex allows you do it, for example. They provided short selling and corresponsing lending of BTC to short sellers. They have margin requirements, so as long as you trust Bitfinex (big if), you're money isn't at risk. If the borrower starts losing, Bitfinex will automatically close out their position and pay you back.

Interest rates are pretty low, though this is offset by the expected gains on that interest over time.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[reanjr]

Well, even 25% is just fine if you bought a year ago and have 900% gains before the pop. You're still way outperforming the S&P 500 index. In general, BTC volatility is way down from the last bubble pop. When it does pop, it's likely to pop from above where it is now to above where it was 6 months ago. And it's likely going to take a couple weeks to do so.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[reanjr]

Most sites aren't really using USD. They're actually holding account numbers to merchant accounts which transfer transaction records backed by legal fiat instead of cryptography. It's possible to convert these fiat bits of data into USD at local exchanges called banks.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[thegarbz]

Yes but they are doing that in USD which makes them insensitive to price fluctuation.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Anonymous Coward]

People started accepting tulips as payment at Dutch websites in 1637, but quickly stopped accepting such payments after the value crashed.

Re: Seems like you can use it as currency

[Hognoxious]

Alternative Minimum Tax. It's an actual thing.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[nealric]

The USD isn't just the slips of paper. Those slips are simply one way of accounting for USD (or any other currency). The vast majority of USD simply exist as non-physical accounting entries. You aren't converting "fiat bits" into USD at the bank, you are simply exchanging an electronic accounting entry for a physical record of account.

In theory, a sufficiently trusted entity such as a government or bank could issue slips of bitcoin paper that would serve exactly the same function as paper USD.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[houghi]

It is supply and demand. At some point there will be supply but no demand anymore. If nobody is willing or able) to buy it, that will be the top. Well, just below it.
However what will happen is that people will buy it who can't afford it. They will take a loan to buy something that can't be sold for the cost of buying + the cost of paying back the loan they took. So they will want to wait before selling till their backers want their loan paid.

I am sure almost everybody knows that this will not last. The hard part is to know where it will get to. Could be that it goes to 100.000 and fals back to 25.000 and stays there. It could happen tomorrow and fall back to 0.

This is tulips all over. Or any other bubble.
Kids: do not invest money you are not able and willing to lose.

Re:Seems like you can use it as currency

[Gussington]

so overjoyed they're missing the part that this entire thing is a disaster for Bitcoin in terms of its supposed use. And if Bitcoin is completely unusable for the purpose for which it was designed then... what's the point of Bitcoin?

Sometimes the intended use differs from the eventual use, but it doesn't make it useless. See gold for another example...

The real question is

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the name and address of the person who will crash it when it buys it as an investment.

Cunts.

Fucking scammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is full of them, and the tech-bros are ready to pounce!

Re:Fucking scammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Creimer, Creimer, Creimer, Creimer, Creimer.

Say his name five times fast to see him whip out his giant cock.

Re:Fucking scammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Creimer is being followed by Pedobear Trolls. Extremely toxic. Please ignore them for your own safety!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Don't miss out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Still a long way to go to reach one million! Until then, you can win up to $200 worth of Bitcoin every hour, for free! That's $20K if it reaches one million! Play up to 24 times every day!

Re:Don't miss out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for their reputation for suspending accounts when a cashout is requested.
And only paying out to a few selected accounts to try to look legit.

Re:DIY Cryptocurrency Mining...

[Kenja]

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.

And an extension cord to steal the electricity from your neighbor.

That's not all that's spiking upwards

[timholman]

In related news .... the average BTC transaction fee is now at $6 USD, and climbing fast. Could be worse, however. Two weeks ago, it spiked above $19.

Does anyone seriously think that BTC is being used for anything except speculation? It sure isn't being used for "money". You've got people buying BTC using their credit cards, and converting their savings to BTC. It's a classic bubble.

It's gonna be nasty, and when the bubble pops the transaction backlog will be huge as people try to dump their BTC before they lose everything. Transaction fees will shoot through the roof. Boom or bust, the Chinese mining pools will make money hand over fist.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[religionofpeas]

No, bitcoin is not money. It's digital gold. How much does it cost to transact a bar of gold ?

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[gweihir]

The mining-pool will just be as screwed as anybody else. The only ones that will win is those that get out early enough to actually have somebody buy their worthless merchandise. That point may already be in the past. There are indications that actually selling larger amounts of Bitcoin is already difficult.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[ceoyoyo]

So you're saying it might be a good idea to buy some ASICs or GPUs and wait for the crash?

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[Anonymous Coward]

That and time machine.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[dj245]

In related news .... the average BTC transaction fee is now at $6 USD, and climbing fast. Could be worse, however. Two weeks ago, it spiked above $19.

Does anyone seriously think that BTC is being used for anything except speculation? It sure isn't being used for "money". You've got people buying BTC using their credit cards, and converting their savings to BTC. It's a classic bubble.

It's gonna be nasty, and when the bubble pops the transaction backlog will be huge as people try to dump their BTC before they lose everything. Transaction fees will shoot through the roof. Boom or bust, the Chinese mining pools will make money hand over fist.

Even $100 is pretty cheap for a large international transaction. Arguable $1000 is a cheap for certain transactions that someone would want to hide. You won't be using bitcoin to buy a pack of bubble gum, but certain people will use it.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[Zaelath]

selling larger amounts of Bitcoin has always been difficult.

FTFY

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the killer. I'd actually LIKE to use BTC as a currency. But why would I want to buy into a currency that's deflating so rapidly? If I exchange for $1000 of BTC... why spend that, if next month it could be worth $2000? It makes me (and everyone else) just want to sit on it. And if a currency isn't being spent, then what's the point?

The BEST thing for BTC was if it was semi-fixed (or at least STABLE). Then people like me might be tempted to actually use it as a currency.

I'm still convinced that crypto-coins will have a strong place in the future. But the crypto that wins is the one that finds a way to... you know... actually be used as a currency, not a ponzi scheme.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[swillden]

No, bitcoin is not money. It's digital gold. How much does it cost to transact a bar of gold ?

You don't actually know how BTC works, do you?

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[mmortal03]

The average (mean) BTC transaction fee isn't a very practical figure to reference without context. If you're doing settlement on a million dollars worth of BTC, such a transaction fee is no problem. The median fee is lower, at $3.58 right now, and you can get it significantly under a dollar depending on your urgency. Anyway, people are completely free to bloat another cryptocurrency's blockchain with their coffee transactions for a cheaper fee, and cheaper network security, if for whatever reason they really need that right now. There are second layer solutions being worked on that should lower the cost of smaller transactions. People just buying coffee shouldn't expect to be using (or need to use) the first layer of a trustless, censorship resistant value transfer system that stores the records of all transactions for all time on its blockchain.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[gweihir]

Quite possibly, yes. So this never worked for larger-volume speculation.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[reanjr]

If you are truly sold on BTC growth, you might always convert your USD into BTC, expecting growth over time and dollar cost averaging to earn you some money, then use a BTC or a BTC backed debit card to make daily purchases.

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[Gussington]

No, bitcoin is not money. It's digital gold. How much does it cost to transact a bar of gold ?

You don't actually know how BTC works, do you?

He seems to understand more than you...

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[Gussington]

It's gonna be nasty, and when the bubble pops the transaction backlog will be huge as people try to dump their BTC before they lose everything.

And this is different from cash or gold how?

Re:That's not all that's spiking upwards

[Anonymous Coward]

The other hilarity is the exchanges surely don't have enough cash (US dollars or otherwise) to buy the all coins should a large number of people decide to "cash out". So once the bubble starts to pop and enough people panic, the exchanges are all going to go bust, at which point it will be basically impossible for the remaining people holding bitcoins to cash out. Once there's no one left that will give you dollars for your bitcoins, at that point they'll be basically worthless.

Popcorn

[vladimir.sakharuk]

I did not join the bitcoin race, but I bought popcorn and took comfortable race to see the spectacular show. It will win "Best emotions swings award" of the year.

Waiting for the pop of the bubble.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Grab your popcorn for the big kaboom....

Re:DIY Cryptocurrency Mining...

[zieroh]

Not so anonymous anymore.

conversion

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anybody actually taken their bitcoins and converted them into US currency? Say you've got 50 bitcoin now apparently worth $500,000, and you decide to get out and convert your bitcoin into dollars. Who do you go to for the conversion? Who is paying out large sums for cryptocurrency? Surely banks aren't, right?

Re:conversion

[Anonymous Coward]

Coinbase

Release the Trolls

[thechemic]

This thread will be flooded with people saying bitcoin is just for criminals, that mining isn't profitable, and that if you buy it you can't get your money out.

The truth is, I use bitcoin everyday to buy coffee, gas, pay my bills, take my dates out, and buy every day items such as groceries and electronics. I have several different types of miners, and they all turn a handsome profit. I can walk up to any ATM in the world where a Visa Debit or Mastercard Debit cards are accepted and turn my bitcoin back into cash in about 10 seconds.

It has almost entirely replaced the dollar for me. For me, the only difference between the two currencies is that one of them goes down in value every day, and the other one goes up in value everyday.

Go ahead... call me a liar, say it ain't so.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Baron_Yam]

Liar.

Current transaction fees and times make the activities you describe impossible.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Jzanu]

If you actually use bitcoin even once for anything but investment, meaning you paid the current premium price and then sold it for goods at some fixed quantity, when it increases in price this quickly then you are retarded.... Every day makes you insane. The question of buying bitcoin in the first place makes both outcomes likely, since it has no value outside of the hype and unlicensed "experts" doing the major pumping. There is some financial force behind this, and it is extremely likely to be a combination of Russia, the DPRK, and every other ever-so-nice pariah state using bitcoin to evade sanctions.

Re:Release the Trolls

[gweihir]

At this time, Bitcoin is completely worthless as a currency as that needs stability. You are not only a liar, you are a scammer trying to do a pump&dump.

Re:Release the Trolls

[thechemic]

I appreciate your perspective, though it incorrectly assumes that I purchased a sum of bitcoin and now I'm running around daily consuming/burning that bitcoin when it should be left alone to mature in value. You seem to believe that I should have two stacks of currency: one stack of dollars to live life by, and another stack of bitcoin to leave as an investment.

In reality, all the money received from my 9-5 job, my sideline business, and my miners goes into bitcoin. Therefore, I have no dollars left for daily life. I have a constant stream of finances going into bitcoin, and some coming out of bitcoin in the form of commodities and services needed to live daily life. This model ensures that my entire budget increases in purchasing power as rapidly as bitcoin increases in value. All I have to do is ensure that the stream of finances going into bitcoin is larger than the stream coming out of bitcoin and my nest egg grows at an even more rapid pace than if I only used bitcoin as an investment.

To quote yourself, "when it increases in price this quickly then you are retarded" you would be retarded to NOT put every dollar you have into bitcoin.

Re:Release the Trolls

[thechemic]

I don't know what planet you spend your bitcoin on, but I don't pay any transaction fees. Maybe instead of being a troll running around calling people a liar, perhaps you should fire up the Google machine and find out how it's possible.

Next, you'll probably tell me that my transactions would never complete if I don't pay a fee. LOL

Re:Release the Trolls

[thechemic]

At some point in the past, 1 bitcoin could only buy 1 slice of pizza. Today, 1 bitcoin can buy a brand new motorcycle.

At some point in the past 1 dollar could buy 10 movies tickets. Today 1 dollar can't even buy you 1 movie ticket.

Bitcoin sounds like a pretty awesome currency to me. Each to their own I suppose.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Jzanu]

The difference there is slow inflation in a large self-sustaining market vs inflation measured by the month faster than China grows per year.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Baron_Yam]

Nope, I understand how bitcoin works, and thus I know you're a liar.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

You are lying. You're using dollars, and a debit card linked to a bitcoin wallet with the provider so that they are willing to handle the cash payment immediately because they know they have enough control over your bitcoin access to stop you leaving them short. Now that's all well and good but does it really matter. I could hold gold in an exchange, sell a set value to cash each month and aside from how close the conversion is to the transaction I would just as much be buying with gold as you are with BitCoin (i.e. not).

But the lying is the forgivable bit because it's mostly semantics. The naivety of basing how easy it is to transact off the back of a highly unstable asset on a massive bull rush is the main issue.

Re:Release the Trolls

[networkBoy]

I really hope you are not serious mate!

When guys doing similar enough to what you're doing now encountered 29-Oct-1929 a fair portion of them jumped out of windows...

Re:Release the Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no, you would still be pretty stupid, the least retarded position is to invest an amount of money in bitcoin that you can afford to lose. That way, if it crashes you're not left begging for money on the street corner.

Captcha: imminent

Re:Release the Trolls

[swillden]

The truth is, I use bitcoin everyday to buy coffee, gas, pay my bills, take my dates out, and buy every day items such as groceries and electronics.

You're not a liar, you're just wrong. Or perhaps you're being lied to.

You're using dollars every day, lent to you by a bitcoin wallet provider against bitcoins held as collateral by the provider. This is not a bit different from the debit card I have that draws against my stock brokerage margin account, except that your provider is almost certainly more aggressive about doing "margin calls" than my brokerage.

Well, one other difference is that you're currently in fat city, seeing your BTC appreciate in value far faster than my stocks do. Of course, there will come a time when that reverses, and it'll reverse much, much harder and faster than any stock market crash, because stocks have, at root, something of real tangible value. The only real value of BTC is its use as a currency which, as others have pointed out, has simply broken down as it attempted to scale. Were BTC a better cryptocurrency with better scalability characteristics, then it would be the case that BTC is just for criminals.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

You think deflation is a good thing? Better hope you never learn firsthand why it isn't.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know how that works out for you.

Re:Release the Trolls

[gweihir]

It is a pretty impressive pyramid-scheme, I have to admit that. It is nothing else though, and certainly not a "currency". At least not anymore.

Re:Release the Trolls

[gweihir]

Indeed.

Re:Release the Trolls

[reanjr]

To be fair, you're probably paying a fee somewhere; it just might be opaquely calculated into the spot price of the transaction or monetized as risk on some profitable derivative.

Re:Release the Trolls

[reanjr]

A currency does not need stability. A national currency based on fractional reserve banking (like the USD) needs almost continuous inflation. A reserve currency (like the USD) needs predictability. A third world currency needs flexibility. An international, digital currency needs... who the fuck knows? I've used it as currency. Plenty of other people have too. Currency is a utility; one which BTC offers.

Re:Release the Trolls

[reanjr]

Deflation is a neutral thing. It's a perhaps a terrible thing for a national currency based on fractional reserve banking, like the USD. BTC is not a national currency, and its not backed by debt, like the USD. This means there are no BTC-denominated debts that are getting more expensive with every move deeper into deflation. And as a secondary currency, there's little risk of deflationary spiral, because BTC isn't tied into the production and labor markets.

BTC deflation is arguably better suited to our future world economies, which should be focused on conservation, rather than consumption. BTC rewards the thrifty, not the spendthrift.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, fine, I'll spend one of the two comments per day that ShillDot allows me to post.

I would have to guess that you're somewhere on the west coast. Normally I would include places like NYC in this response but I've been to NYC and nothing there really struck me as being this alien. You IT people out in California just don't have any clue what it's like to live in the rest of this country. It's not your fault, I guess. It's that everything is so slow to trickle down, and when it gets here it's so worn out that it's barely any better than what we had before.

We barely have public transportation, let alone fancy stuff like light rail. I rode an Amtrak train for the first time last year. It wasn't as bad as Republicans always say but it wasn't particularly convenient. I need a car if I want to get anywhere. And it's going to be petroleum, because LNG is a fairy tale (despite being right in the middle of a supposed fracking boom) and don't get me started about electric. I wish you assholes would shut up about banning the ICE because there are ZERO alternatives out here.

I don't know what I would do with bitcoin or etherium if I'd bothered to figure out how to mine them. Using a fucking credit card is shaky and only got shakier with those chip readers that are lucky to work even half the time. I like cash, don't get me wrong, but it's sad that its biggest benefit is that it's unencumbered. I don't have to worry if some hipster idiot is going to break it and require me to repurchase something else to get a portion of the functionality back or that it just won't work because it's Tuesday.

It's like living in the fucking stone age. When something changes, it never gets better. It just changes for the sake of making something difficult. I can't stand it.

So, you know, the fact that you have some machine(s) generating 1s and 0s that you effortlessly turn into real money is simultaneously unbelievable and unbelievably enraging from my point of view.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope your family has a good life insurance policy on you for when the inevitable happens and you rationally commit suicide. We've seen this happen before, there's no way it will end well.

Re:Release the Trolls

[Gussington]

I really hope you are not serious mate!

When guys doing similar enough to what you're doing now encountered 29-Oct-1929 a fair portion of them jumped out of windows...

And for every other year they were owning yachts. Fair enough if you want to play it safe, success doesn't usually come with that behaviour.

Obligatory XKCD

[Anonymous Coward]

https://xkcd.com/1000/ So just 6,384 USD to go until a big round-number milestone!

According to my napkin...

[Anonymous Coward]

Total Global Wealth:
$250 x 10^12 (in 2015 according to credit suisse)

Maximum number of bitcoins:
21 * 10^6 (wikipedia)

Theoretical Maximum value/bitcoin:
$11.9 x 10^6 (~$12 Million)

Re:According to my napkin...

[Jzanu]

Take a look at the history of the South Sea Company; the physical value of all the assets that exist is no boundary for the irrational exhuberance of an ill-informed market fed on hype from targeted manipulations.

Enough already!

[hackertourist]

this is the fifth story in as many weeks with no more substance than "bitcoin hits $x!". Comments from the fist story can be copied verbatim to all the others, there's nothing new to be said on the subject. Can we please find a more interesting subject to talk about?
If I wanted to know the day price for Bitcoin, I'd use a stock ticker.

Re:Enough already!

[smallfries]

The speed with which these stories appear, and the average number of suckers in the comments is fantastic information for people who are closing out their positions before the bubble pops. And for everyone else... grab the popcorn and enjoy.

Re:Enough already!

[null etc.]

It's just a reminder to sit back and enjoy the shit show.

This is great insider info!

[NEDHead]

How can I get in before everybody hears about it?

Re:This is great insider info!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can I get in before everybody hears about it?

Invent a time machine

Didn't happen

[slashmydots]

According to charts on websites that people actually use, it didn't quite hit $10,000. Anyway, this is very uncommon during the winter when people don't have to offset the insane energy costs of mining hardware with cooling. In fact I'm heating my apartment and shop with minres. So I also don't have to play for heat (or electricity for the miners depending on how you look at it). People are willing to sell their bitcoins for a much lower price in the winter because of this so that's odd. Yes I know the southern hemisphere is a thing that exists. They just don't own many bitcoins.

Buyer Equals Seller means fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

I wondering if the price is being pushed up by people buying/selling from themself to theirself?
If you do that, then it really doesn't matter what the price is; only the transaction fee.
So if you are also a miner getting the transaction fee & also the new BTC from mining, then sell/buy price doesn't matter what it is.
Even if you are not a miner, by buying from yourself at a higher rate to push up the rate more than overcomes that transaction fees.

Out of 14 million BTC in existance, only 5,000 or 10,000 are being traded; that is 0.03% to 0.07% volume which is miniscule

Question

[Arkh89]

Ok, I am not well versed in economics but may be someone here can answer these questions :
With roughly 250B$ market cap between the 4 first crypto-currencies, would a collapse of Bitcoin send significant ripples through the "real" economy?
Do we know how much of this value was really invested in the currencies versus how much comes from the speculation?

Re:Question

[orlanz]

If Bitcoin totally collapsed in a short enough time frame (say 2 weeks), it would be noticeable but hardly damaging to the economy at large. Google has $700B as its cap. The SPY ETF from one company that links to the S&P 500 (meaning its a small percent of the total) is ~$250B. A loss of either wouldn't significantly impact the economy*. Bitcoin's collapse would be even more minor.

The primary impacts we would notice would be any highly leveraged hedges that would collapse too and rip out funds from proper investments to cover the losses. Basically people who borrowed to pay interest on loans to buy coins would now have to liquidate stable assets to cover the required payments. If they can't pay, then the lender would need to do the same to cover lost operational cash flows.

It is quite difficult to ascertain between speculation and investment. Society has been trying to do it for centuries to curb bubbles, recessions, in/deflations, gold rushes, etc and hasn't gotten anywhere. Any interventions have resulted in worse outcomes.

* = Thou in Google's case we wouldn't lose the services totally, they would be bought up cheap and serviced by someone else. We would see service degradation and no new stuff, but it would still work.

Re:Question

[ceoyoyo]

The "market cap" is highly misleading. The important number is, how much actual money has been exchanged for bitcoin. Most of those coins were mined or purchased when they were very much cheaper. That is the amount of money that could be "lost" if they crashed.

"Lost" because it's not actually lost, it's just in the pockets of people who were smart enough to sell before the crash.

Re:Question

[reanjr]

Not yet. But large financial institutions in the U.S. are working on it. They are bundling up derivatives as we type. It's only a matter of time before the crypto cap is $1T, with a $10T derivatives market tied up in instruments so complicated their creators won't understand them (some perhaps created by some AI running on the Ethereum network), and then an overnight 30% drop in BTC sends the world economy into a 4 year depression.

The transaction cost is now $75

[FeelGood314]

Kidding, but it did hit $68 USD, on the 18th. There were at the time of writing almost 80,000 unconfirmed transactions. I sold my bit coin a while ago and I'm sure the price could still go higher but at this point bit coin is useless for any common person's day to day transactions. I'll keep to buying my drugs with Monero and cash out of almost everything else.

Re:The transaction cost is now $75

[reanjr]

Currently, the recommended fees are around 170 satoshis/byte with a media transaction size of 226 bytes. This works out to 38,420 satoshis, which is about $4. Those fees are rare. What's also rare is only having access to BTC to pay for something. If BTC is experiencing high fees, most consumers can just use a different payment method. If BTC ever gets to become a primary payment method for people, then it will have grown so large that its price volatility would have dropped precipitously.

Re:DIY Cryptocurrency Mining...

[freeze128]

Bullshit! If you want to mine your own cryptocurrency, you can do it with the CPU you are using right now. If you don't even have a CPU, you can do it by hand.

Re:DJI - 36,000 !!!!!!

[bobbied]

Well, 23,700 is today on the DOW.

It's Entertainment!

[yoey]

I bought $500 worth this summer. Won't ever buy more, can afford to lose it all. Having fun watching it go up, expecting it to burst at any moment. Obviously this is a bubble. When will it burst? At this point Bitcoin can't be used as currency as its becoming more valuable that the product you want to buy with it.

Year?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the year?

So, when will it crash again?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when will it crash again? I'm waiting for it to collapse so I can buy some bitcoins for cheap and sell them back in the next bubble at a humongous profit.

The value is in the expectation

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing that's growing in value faster than Bitcoin that you can spend Bitcoin on. Bitcoin' s entire value is based on the expectation that eventually there will be.

Don't forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the slashdot readers who learnt about bitcoin back in 2010 thanks to an article here and generated a few hundred coins just for fun on their computers (there was even a bitcoin tap that you could type your wallet address into and it would send you 5 coins!). I've been steadily selling them off but since I put zero money in and have got a lot out as far as I am concerned even if it goes to zero tomorrow it will have ended well.

Re:Don't forget...

[reanjr]

That's where I heard about it. I lost my drip coinage and waited too long before starting CPU mining on my laptop, producing just enough coins to be mildly annoyed today that I lost them on an old hard drive. But it did get me researching and paying attention well enough to wrangle some gains more recently, so I still credit /. for the win.

Re:DJI - 36,000 !!!!!!

[bsDaemon]

But the DJI is an index measuring the value of the stocks in companies followed by the index. It represents a weighted value of what owning shares in those companies is worth (oversimplification is simple). This is like people trading commodities and then running the value of the commodity up even though they have no interest in the actual value or usefulness of the commodity -- similar to the oft-referenced tulip situation in the Netherlands, with the pricing being run up by speculators who bought and sold tulips to other people looking to buy and sell tulip bulbs with none of them having any interest in actually planting the damned things and enjoying the flowers.

More asset than currency?

[pelpet]

Maybe crypto currencies are to be seen as a hybrid between traditional financial assets (like stocks) and traditional money (like cash)?

Right now, the total market cap of the 1200 biggest cryptocurrencies are about 0,3% of the global stock market value. Traditional finance are starting to take notice. If value is moved from traditional stocks to cryptocurrencies - say to a 95%-5% ratio, that is a x16,6 increase which places Bitcoin at 166000$ assumed that Bitcoin stays at ~50% of the total cryptocurrency value.

Link: http://www.businessinsider.com...

Re:More asset than currency?

[reanjr]

The IRS agrees. Which sucks, because it makes staying in compliance prohibitively difficult when BTC is used like cash.

Wow, not nearly as old as I thought.

[SuperKendall]

Looking at the history I realize you are not only right about ASIC's, but even bitcoin itself doesn't seem to be over ten years old! So I was really off in that one.

I have to say it FEELS like well over a decade since Bitcoin arrived, It's hard to believe it's only been around since 2010 but there you have it. I would have sworn it originated sometime just after Y2K...

Re:Wow, not nearly as old as I thought.

[SCVonSteroids]

Honestly, I remember having the same conversation with my old employer, almost a decade ago. I'm not sure about the exact hardware requirements but it was pretty much something along the lines of what you said. Without the proper hardware, it wasn't economically feasible to mine them as you were paying more in electricity than you'd be making from the coins mined.

So rest assured, you're not that far off. Thing is I probably would've cashed out when they went over $100, let alone 10k. Anyone who wasn't already well-off, I'm guessing probably did the same.

Remember these bitcoin stories?

[BlueTemplar]

Bitcoin Releases Version 0.3
Posted by kdawson on Sunday July 11, 2010 @09:09PM from the nobody-to-prosecute dept.
Teppy writes
"How's this for a disruptive technology? Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer, network-based digital currency with no central bank, and no transaction fees. Using a proof-of-work concept, nodes burn CPU cycles searching for bundles of coins, broadcasting their findings to the network. Analysis of energy usage indicates that the market value of Bitcoins is already above the value of the energy needed to generate them, indicating healthy demand. The community is hopeful the currency will remain outside the reach of any government."
Here are the FAQ, a paper describing Bitcoin in more technical detail (PDF), and the Wikipedia article. Note: a commercial service called BitCoin Ltd., in pre-alpha at bitcoin.com, bears no relation to the open source digital currency.

WikiLeaks, Money, and Ron Paul
Posted by Soulskill on Sunday December 12, 2010 @01:16PM from the headlines-that-will-make-some-people-mad dept.
Another day, another dozen WikiLeaks stories, several of which revolve around money. PayPal has given in to pressure to release WikiLeaks funds, though they still won't do further transactions. Mobile payment firm Xipwire is attempting to take PayPal's place. "We do think people should be able to make their own decisions as to who they donate to." PCWorld wonders if the WikiLeaks' money woes could lead to great adoption of Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer currency system we've discussed in the past. Meanwhile, Representative Ron Paul spoke in defense of WikiLeaks on the House floor Thursday, asking a number of questions, including, "Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on WikiLeaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?" The current uproar over WikiLeaks has prompted Paul Vixie to call for an end to the DDoS attacks and Vladimir Putin to break out a metaphor involving cows and hockey pucks.

Online-Only Currency BitCoin Reaches Dollar Parity
Posted by timothy on Thursday February 10, 2011 @06:59PM from the computationally-intensive dept.
IamTheRealMike writes
"The BitCoin peer to peer currency briefly reached exchange parity with the US dollar today after a spike in demand for the coins pushed prices slightly above 1 USD:1 BTC. BitCoin was launched in early 2009, so in only two years this open source currency has gone from having no value at all to one with not only an open market of competing exchanges, but the ability to buy r

That's where I was going

[SuperKendall]

If YOU are paying the bill, then you'd better be careful even at 10K/Coin.

That's exactly what I was asking in a roundabout way, how much would the electricity cost to mine a single bitcoin today?

Re:That's where I was going

[bobbied]

Well... The issue is going to require two pieces of information... 1. How much do you pay for electricity? 2. How much power does it take on average to mine a coin using your hardware. If 1*2 is larger than a coin is worth, it's not worth it.

I cannot answer either of those questions for you.... For #1, see your electric bill.. For #2 you will need to do some investigation into your hardware, or do some measurements. I'll warn you though, don't forget the cost of running the AC if you live in a warm location or subtract the "free heat" if you live in a cold place.

I saw a "is it profitable" calculation in a discussion about various crypto currency mining options someplace I cannot find right now. Do a bit of searching, you might find it. If you do this, I suggest you consider more than just BitCoin mining. Other currencies may pay more for the same cost.

In related news ...

[PPH]

... the US dollar dropped to 0.0001 BTC.

Re:In related news ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The real response is that bitcoin is not in a bubble but rather regular currency is depreciating relative to bitcoin.

Re:In related news ...

[PPH]

So I should calculate the loss in USD value from when BTC was $500 until now and write my bank account off against my income when I calculate my taxes next April. I'll see if the IRS will buy that.

I'll let you know how it goes if they have Slashdot in prison.

Who cash out BTC will be hunted by russian maffia.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, Bitcoin is mostly used by criminals (drug dealers, arms dealers, russian ransomware malware gangs). When the tulip frenzy collapses a lot of them will lose BTC-stored money and a whole lot of money at that.

They will be angry, very angry and they will go after those who took their money to claim it back. They have access to arms, they can hire russian ex-paratrooper hitmen, they can pay informants and renegade private eyes to find out about your whereabouts.
They will find those who are now happy new BTC millionaires and make them pay dearly.
People will disappear and be found embedded in concrete-filled oil barrels at the bottom of lakes.
They will hide a lump of isotope in your office chair and you will only learn about that after your bum burned off from radioation. (No kidding that's a well-known assasination method in the former USSR bloc. A lot of nuclear material went missing during the 1991-1995 era.)
It will be the Wild East frontier out there.

I mine Monero

[ASCIIxTended]

I mine Monero with a bunch of computers in my shop that were not doing much else. A couple of fileservers, an email/web server, nextcloud on one, another for downloading, one more as a VM host. None of them had much of a load.

Since I started doing this last February, I've upgraded all these computers to near their max (new CPU's / RAM), and added a couple of fairly high-end video cards to each. These upgrades were completely paid for by what I've been mining. Currently it still isn't quite enough to heat my shop so I will be adding a few more. This means I'm not using any more power right now that what I would have been using with my shop's heaters (at least in winter).

Spending Monero for me means using a coin exchange to get it into my Coinbase account as bitcoin, then I head over to newegg and spend it (they accept bitcoin). Overall I've bought over $11,000 in gear this way, tax free as it was never converted to USD.

I look at bitcoins the same as I do iPhones - they're not worth nearly what they cost, but lots of idiots just want them anyway and they don't care how much they have to spend to get them. Non-miners buying bitcoin as an investment are the ones driving the price up. Some of these people will exchange their coins in time to make a profit, but probably not many. The exchange price will continue to increase until the buyers of bitcoin (not the miners) start to exchange their coins for cash or goods at a large enough rate, then it will plummet quickly. I don't feel like this will happen for quite some time.

Nevertheless, I'm just heating my shop so whatever happens I'm not out anything really.

Re:I mine Monero

[LynnwoodRooster]

You know it was not tax free, right? In-kind earnings or barter or other non-currency compensations/exchanges are 100% taxable events per the IRS. Go ahead - ask your local revenue officer about that, and you'll find yourself with a nice bill for the gains...

Re:I mine Monero

[ImprovOmega]

Tax free in the sense that there's practically zero probability that the IRS will catch him at it. Especially since the cost of enforcement for something like that far exceeds the recoverable revenue.

Re:I mine Monero

[LynnwoodRooster]

Oh sure. You can definitely hope to "get away with it". But one audit, one slip up, and you'll get hit with the taxes and penalties on the amount, with no limit.

Re:I mine Monero

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

The statue of limitations for the IRS to asses taxes is from 3 to 6 years. There's a 10 year limit to collect.

The odds of OP having a problem are pretty low.

Re:I mine Monero

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

statute of limitations

Re:I mine Monero

[LynnwoodRooster]

That time period doesn't count if it's a fraudulent filing. Like willfully failing to report income, like in this case. There is no statute of limitations for fraud. SOURCE

Re:I mine Monero

[LynnwoodRooster]

AND - here you go. The IRS will go straight to the BTC vendors and demand records. They find out you didn't report? Well - fraud charges, penalties, back taxes, Federal PMITA prison...

Buy back in thresholds

[White_FC]

What will be ultimately interesting is the level of committed folk at buy back thresholds when it does start to drop. That is when people will lose the real $$ - if it keeps falling. I remember the day when this was under $USD1.00 and I thought, this is such a rubbish idea... it'll go nowhere. How wrong was I ..!

Re:DJI - 36,000 !!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

But the DJI is an index measuring the value of the stocks in companies followed by the index.

That would be the DJIA . (Its ticker isn't "DJI" either. It's "^DJI" with a caret at the beginning.) It's the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

DJI is Da-Jiang Innovations Science and Technology Company, Ltd. They make fancy quad-copters with decent-ish cameras mounted on them and sell them for way too much money. They're a subsidiary of iFlight Technology Company, Ltd.

Dear Tulip Cowards

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone repeat after me: "Bitcoin is not a currency. Bitcoin is not a stock. Bitcoin is a new thing."

You DON'T know what this is, or why this is happening, or what will continue to happen. Stop applying your ancient models to the new thing. It cannot be analyzed.

I now come to /. to read the bitcoin articles precisely because the "tulip" cowards amuse me (people comparing this to the famous tulip bubble). You think you're so smart for NOT investing, because you won't be hit by the "inevitable" crash. And yet, you can't make any money sitting there in fear.

Meanwhile, every time the price begins to "crash" I sell. When it bottoms out, I buy. I've made several thousand dollars, and bought a new car entirely paid for with bitcoin profits (ok well it's an old Chevy Aveo but still it was free). Soon the price will likely fall again, due to a sell off, and I'll buy more.

I know I'll be modded down as trying to inflate the value of my bitcoin with this post. But maybe just one of you will stop being a coward and risk your money in order to make more. JOIN THE FUN. BE PART OF THE NEW THING.

Re:Dear Tulip Cowards

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck off ivan/pyotr/sven/whatever your name is today

Re:Dear Tulip Cowards

[porges]

Note the existence of this book:

This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

Re:Who cash out BTC will be hunted by russian maff

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG this is the biggest pile of steaming FUD horseshit I've ever seen on this site.

Hey buddy, I feel sorry for you and your fear. Do you analyze every aspect of your life from this sad viewpoint?

Someone please mod this guy down.

captcha: fooled

Re:DIY Cryptocurrency Mining...

[sims 2]

AFAIK there aren't any trading cryptocurrencies that are practical to mine with CPU.

Also IIUC due to the difficulty you can pretty much only mine with the very latest generation of equipment and it be profitable due to the cost of power and equipment efficiency.

So yes you technically could mine by hand but it wouldn't not be cost (money/time) effective.

The bigger idiot theory in practice

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet makes it easier to get to them too. As long as governments keep out of it, it should be an interesting show when the fireworks start. Bigger idiots usually believe in lawyers too.

Re:DJI - 36,000 !!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

similar to the oft-referenced tulip situation in the Netherlands, with the pricing being run up by speculators who bought and sold tulips to other people looking to buy and sell tulip bulbs with none of them having any interest in actually planting the damned things and enjoying the flowers..

sounds a lot like bitcoins

Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad that what began as a beautiful open source project is now just AXA/Blockstream project. This is not Satoshi's Bitcoin. That one is now called Bitcoin Cash

forking dog-e-coin

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't know, and there is a valid reason for it. The market is irrational. The market is as much about emotion as it is about fundamentals, maybe even more so. There will be a correction. The problem is, there are no forces that can take any of the irrationality out of the market. The real panic will happen when the BTC is worth 5 or 6 figures each, and corrects down to three or so.

No, it'll go down to zero. When the panic is happening, people will understand there are many better alternatives.

Dog-e-coin...

Seriously, the only thing scarce at this moment is the forks. That won't last forever.

Re:DIY Cryptocurrency Mining...

[reanjr]

Look for coins using the CryptoNight algorithm. Monero is the big one.

Get your daily Bitcoin price-updates off my lawn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like someone has an interest in making sure Bitcoin news makes it to the frontpage on a daily basis. If I'm interested in the current value of Bitcoin, I'll go to a site that trades it.

Reporting on the daily value of Bitcoin is not News for Nerds. And it does not matter. Now get off my lawn!

Re:DIY Cryptocurrency Mining...

[leftCoaster]

Well, I'm paying to heat the house in winter anyway, I might as well get some work out of those electrons other than making the wall heater warm.

Some news!

[Anonymous Coward]

"could be the beginning of the end or just the beginning"...
News at 11.