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Bitcoin Nears $17,000 After Climbing About $4,000 in Less Than a Day
As economists attempt to make sense of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency rocketed above $17,000 for the first time moments ago, adding about $4,000 to its price in fewer than 24 hours. Security reporter Brian Krebs tweeted on Thursday, "Closing in on $17k per bitcoin now (mind you, it was almost at $16k less than an hour ago. This is totally fine." Late Wednesday, finance author Ben Carlson wrote: Bitcoin has achieved something I've always wanted to see in the stock mkt - a reverse 1987 (20% gain in a single day)
"Rational"? Really? I do not think it means what you think it means.
This is going to crash hard, and probably fairly soon, and people will react with "We could not have foreseen this at all!"
And I will be over here, laughing at them.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
This is excellent to see! Now when it crashes out in the near future it will affect even more people, and it will be even more painful! This is exactly the kind of lesson that people need to experience to truly learn about the danger of speculative bubbles! They'll be better off for it.
In 3...2...1. Then, watch the currency go into free fall.
will doop when some trys to cash out a big chunk also even just 1 coin will trigger lot's of IRS paper work.
Ah, the old Cliffhanger game.
I'm buying popcorn stocks. Everybody's going to want to grab some when Bitcoin crashes.
As the increase is exponential, the moment I am going in is now. Just put all my belongings into it as well as maxed out my cards and took several loans. This is my ticked to become rich.
With my calculations it will reach 150.000USD in two weeks. There is no way I can lose money. Right?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
it seems the expense of transactions is making them useless for their actual purpose. for the hundredth time I'm declaring that the end is nigh :)
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I had a difficult time trying to explain bitcoin to a non-techie, such as how it's used and the value behind it. And it was a struggle beyond laundering money and that was a stretch. Isn't this all just virtual value? How does one go about cashing in a bitcoin to collect said $17,000? It's not like I can take my computer to the bank and show them I have x amount of bitcoin now give me some money.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
Why do I picture Tiny Tim singing 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' whenever I read a story about bitcoin?
Then the trust was exploited and misused for political gains by Republicans using long smears talk radio etc.
And the internet breached all barriers and allowed crooks who know how to exploit trusting people from all over the world to come in.
Did we win the cold war? Or is Russia having the last laugh?
With Russia hacking everything connected to the net in sight, who in the right mind would "invest" in bit coins? All this money is going to make the Russian hackers even more powerful.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
the latest tulip bulb variant. Good luck with that.
Late Wednesday, finance author Ben Carlson wrote:
Bitcoin has achieved something I've always wanted to see in the stock mkt - a reverse 1987 (20% gain in a single day)
Whoever wrote that is an idiot. No we do not want to see that kind of volatility in the market, positive or negative. That is NOT a good thing. Any time something skyrockets that fast in price it is pretty much invariably because something weapons grade irrational and/or criminal is going on. This is what happens with pump and dump schemes and those rarely end happily.
My mining profits were stolen, and all I have left is an electric bill and worn out GPUs.
I guess my question is this...how much of the increase is driven by people trying to throw money at anything that will get them a huge return? Or, when do financial advisors start recommending Bitcoin futures for Grandma's lump-sum pension payment?
I can't see this ending well because all it is is a speculative bubble. There's real money tied up in it, that's for sure, but in the end you don't even own stock in a company or a valuable commodity. All the cheerleaders are saying that the stock market is a casino anyway, but even if the market drops 30%, you still own stock. If Bitcoin drops 30%, you'll have to hope that it comes back so you can get your money out. Since it's not really based on anything, it's purely driven by having enough people pouring money in to keep the price high.
With the inordinately low volume of bitcoin and its inherent instability, I can't see it gaining a foothold anywhere significant. Its value is fluctuating so widely, any major business would be crazy to accept it now. How are you supposed to budget and forecast against a currency that fluctuated 65% in a week?
To big businesses, it might as well be monopoly money. Trying to work that against cost of goods sold, operating expenses, etc is in now way worth the effort.
*insert gif of MJ eating popcorn*
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
Watch here: https://www.gdax.com/trade/BTC...
It's crazy
Sell NOW!!! It's useless as currency at this price with high transaction fees. This bubble is going to pop hard and fast and probably before Christmas.
This is really concerning. The https://www.identitypi.com/ team thinks that this cryptocurrency will crash as fast at it rises.
Capital gains taxes aren't that complicated.....
(sale value - (purchase value + trading fees)) * tax rate.
I’m gonna lol when Bitcoin reaches $10,000,000.00 a coin, but the transaction fee is $100,000.00, cash up front, final settlement months out, or whenever the “exchange” is “hacked,” whichever comes first.
Keep this number handy:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Call 1-800-273-8255
Available 24 hours everyday
People don't pay attention to the paperwork. There was a guy on reddit just yesterday showing the new car he'd gotten. Someone asked him about the taxes he paid. "I still need to figure that out." Most of these people are not used to any sum of money and are not consulting tax attorneys.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have two friends that cashed out yesterday with no problems. I've bought and sold several times without a hitch.
Stupidity is infinite
just wait for that IRS audit
Please come back and comment after April 15th...
Seen this before.
Sadly I was hoping to jump on before the crash but likely the crash is imminent.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- George Santayana
Fucking useless. I can build my own rig with TWO specialized ASICs for half that cost and get 30x the hashrate at 1/2 the power consumption. Go the fuck away you ignorant fuck.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
its from the 60mil NiceHash heist, injected into the BTC market as new coin positions.
Last I checked it was over 19,000 dollars. Come on now guys.
E Proelio Veritas.
(title) - we've been here before.
You're an AC. Your anecdote is worthless.
And?
Bitcoin is a recipe for epic financial disaster.
Why do we have to be subjected to these stories? By the time anyone sees them the price you state is already completely different so you're just wasting our time.
Awesome news! So where can I cash mine in and turn it in to cash??? Anyone? Anyone??............Is this thing on???
Nice try at affiliate marketing, but nobody here is that gullible.
Future headline: Pop!
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
The paperwork will include explaining what all your other proceeds were when IRS demands records from the exchange.
... and after the rise you can cashout of BitCoin and invest in tulip bulbs....
Capital gains apply to all property that doesn't have a special carve out, that is why they are called capital gains and not investment gains.
Where the IRS smells money they will come after you. All they need to do is require the exchanges to report all accounts with proceeds in excess of ~$10k for the last n years, and they will send you a bill for everything you sold. (They don't deduct the cost of the bitcoins in that bill.)
It is a very stressful letter to get. Got one back in 2003 and it scared the living shit out of me.
Why ? Bitcoin is not a stock, and the Bitcoin exchanges don't function like stock markets.
If you are buying bitcoin hoping it will appreciate in value relative to the dollar then it is a secondary market and as such it functions almost identically to a stock market as a practical matter. Bitcoin is just an asset like gold or beenie babies or pork bellies or frozen concentrated orange juice. Any discussion about the "value" of bitcoin is by definition in relation to how many dollars you can get for it which is no different than asking what the current price of a stock is in dollars. Stocks are assets and so is bitcoin.
No there isn't. Businesses mostly use payment gateways that sell the BTC immediately. There's no risk of price fluctuation to the business.
"Immediately" doesn't mean what you think it means. We're talking minutes to hours here which in the financial world is a far cry from "instant" and that means substantial exchange rate risk. On an asset that is fluctuating by double digit percentages within a few days that can mean a very substantial difference in value from the start of an exchange transaction to the finish. Saying there is no risk of price fluctuation is quite simply wrong.
Lightning Network should allow it to be used as a currency.
Doesn't work if the exchange rate moves too quickly.
But even without use as currency, it can still be a good investment.
If you have a high tolerance for risk then maybe. You might have better odds in Vegas though.
Nobody uses gold as currency, but still they invest in it.
Gold has tangible uses aside from serving as an investment vehicle and it isn't generally very volatile relative to the dollar over short time periods. Hard to say the same about bitcoin.
I guess my question is this...how much of the increase is driven by people trying to throw money at anything that will get them a huge return?
All of it. This is a bunch of people trying to Get Rich Quick. That much is obvious. WHO is driving it is a different question. My guess would be some combination of irrational exuberance and criminal enterprise. In financial terms bitcoin is a small and thinly traded asset and moving a market like that is child's play in the world of finance.
Or, when do financial advisors start recommending Bitcoin futures for Grandma's lump-sum pension payment?
Probably never unless they are trying to rob grandma.
http://pixa.club/en/the-simpso...
You have a chance to win up to $200* worth of Bitcoin every hour, for free!
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Ben Carlson is either nuts or only cares about the short-term gain of his own stock holdings. In terms of the big economic picture, nobody should want to see a 20% gain in the stock market in a single day.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com...
The main argument against is __something that didn't happen in reality__
The best realistic scenario for bitcoin holders right now is a correction back to the $8-10K range and a saner move forward. This is looking like a flameout if not a supernova at the moment. I'd bet the developers are on their knees praying for a correction while simultaneously trying to decide how to rush a solution to the energy problem.
Is there a betting site that take bets on when Bitcoin will crash?
What can go wrong with Bitcoin? It's unregulated. It's not actually used for anything of significance. Brokers crash resulting in losses. Brokers can go bankrupt resulting in losses. And brokers can be hacked resulting in losses.
I think it's amateurs gambling and professionals manipulating a market.
Concurrency probably has a future, but I don't think it will be Bitcoin or any one coin for that matter. It will exist as a mature technology with standards and probably be directly tied for national currencies.
This is the Dutch Tulip Mania Bubble all over again. No question. http://www.thebubblebubble.com...
There is no basis for the inflated price. It's like junk bonds now; no rational thinking. I wouldn't be surprised if a government was behind it. The price will obvious self destruct and go down below market at witch time I probably will buy some for shits and giggles. I wouldn't be surprised if it went down to $200 per coin. The true value of bitcoin is in the number of people that hold onto them and won't sell them.
Where the IRS smells money they will come after you. All they need to do is require the exchanges to report all accounts with proceeds in excess of ~$10k for the last n years, and they will send you a bill for everything you sold. (They don't deduct the cost of the bitcoins in that bill.)
It is a very stressful letter to get. Got one back in 2003 and it scared the living shit out of me.
Capital Gains taxes are only stressful in that they aren't withheld and if you're not diligent you may have spent the profits long before that letter comes and don't have enough left to pay the taxes. However it isn't hard to be smart and calculate your gains tax at the time of the transaction and set that amount aside in savings for tax time.
I love all the people saying "man if I'd bought them when they were a few pennies!"
Yeah, if you had actually done that, you would have sold them when Bitcoin hit $1, figuring you had made a fortune.
Pretty soon, pop goes the weasel!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I had some residual left in Bitcoin from early 2016 (note I use the singular). I'd forgotten about this until the recent boom publicity and realised that just like Tulip Fever, it is based on nothing and may not climb much further. Anyway, I'm a happy bunny with the payout (x34). It will probably climb a bit further but many will lose in the crash.
Is it possible to short bitcoin so I can make money when it does crash?
It is not overbought if it is the most common method of exchange for the dark web,
and the dark web happens to be the largest and fastest growing segment of
the unregulated economy.
Setting aside the meaninlessness of your 'darkweb' narrative, bitcoin is overbought if there are cheaper alternatives that function better for many purposes. If there aren't alternatives at this point, you need to ponder that in depth.
The dark web and bit coin are linked, and this is capitalism without government meddling for now.
I expect a crackdown when they realize the "FULL" implications of what I said above.
The rigged economy is being bypassed.
Yes, bitcoin (as it is today) I suspect is rather dependent on a kind of network neutrality towards it. Russia I believe has outlawed it. China I believe has tremendous leverage in controlling its citizen's usage of it. With net neutrality passing, I see U.S. ISPs as eventually cluing into how they can leverage their power to effectively tax it. And the U.S. gov will get its bits, recent story about 14k accounts being supoenad or whatever.
Facebook is 'the dark web' by any technical definition you understand? And the rest of 'the dark web' is disingenuous narrative spin from authoritarians and sensationalist journalists. Terrorists and pedophiles have always had PGP and SSH to play with. The net has always been a well populated space of variously public and variously private/secured/'dark' communications channels.
There's a piece of software that pulls all my data from exchanges / wallets, and creates a tax file I can put into Turbotax that generates all those forms...
Takes a total of 10 minutes.
In other words, what sustains its price if there aren't any tangible assets supporting it? I guess you could claim that it's value is whatever somebody is willing to pay for it but that's awfully close to sounding like a ponzi scheme. It may be me but this feels like the dot com bubble earlier this century when companies with no sales had ridiculously high valuations based on forward looking sales estimates or other such nonsense, big words meaning nothing. Pets.com, any one?
Companies typically have tangible assests and sales to support their stock prices. What is supporting bitcoin's valuation. I suppose one could argue that it's price is whatever somebody is willing to pay for it but that seems awfully close to being a Ponzi scheme. This feels like the dot com bubble that blew up at the beginning of the century when internet companies had ridiculously high prices without having any sales. Pets.com anyone?
Except bitcoin doesn't represent debt at the moment, US cash does. Cash is a debt instrument right now, not money at all. It is a lot of lies.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fractionalreservebanking.asp
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system/
remember this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/11/china-will-compel-saudi-arabia-to-trade-oil-in-yuan--and-thats-going-to-affect-the-us-dollar.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/24/petro-yuan-china-wants-to-dethrone-dollar-rmb-denominated-oil-contracts.html
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/m3.asp
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system/
It's a charade right now. The DJIA over 24k too?! Fake. The Jews are behind the inflation and media "thought shaping" as well as a bunch of other things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzXI_ApY4dY
The moment the governments decide it's time to regulate this stuff, the value will hit the ground so hard it will leave a crater.
The difference is, the stock markets represent people's monetary investments in businesses, who actually do employ people, manufacture things and provide services of value. When you buy Bitcoin, it doesn't put capital into business ventures.
Yes, I completely agree.
The problem is people not being prepared. My situation was in the dot.bomb I had a massive (for me) capital loss covering 2000 and 2001. The IRS sent me a bill for all the sales I did to cover margin calls. Since I didn't file a return covering the capital gains, they assumed that my basis was zero, so I owed $$$.
I imagine much the same kind of thing happening to other inexperienced investors, some of whom might actually pay the bill. (I was going to run for the hills until I actually got an explanation of what I needed to do by calling the IRS.)
Huh? I've been filling out a Form D for the last 20 years and never got audited for cap gains, even with thousands of stock trades each year.
Sounds like you need a new tax guy. Or, more likely, you're plainly an idiot for not pushing the right buttons in Turbotax and triggered an audit that way (and any dipshit like you should get audited for not paying your fair share in taxes).
Wrong. Stock market is a legalized gambling. And just like gambling it carries no tangible value besides entertainment.
https://www.nicehash.com/
"Bitcoin: $64m in cryptocurrency stolen in 'sophisticated' hack, exchange says"
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/07/bitcoin-64m-cryptocurrency-stolen-hack-attack-marketplace-nicehash-passwords
Then this happens? But bitcoin hacked or just the exchange? is the 64 mil. gone? or erased? how soon to cash in ? ...
Many questions to this will it rock the market?...
Napervillian
Depends if you define drugs and illegal arms trade as "business".
Fuck you, hippy.
The greedy will lose big, and greedy are those who can't afford to lose.
Was the actual purpose to replace every transaction in the world, or to provide the foundation for a new system to replace the existing banks, and especially the SWIFT system for interbank transfers?
The difference is, the stock markets represent people's monetary investments in businesses
Yes and no. I draw a distinction between investing in, and being invested in, a company.
Example: If you buy stock in Smidge Industries LTD, that means someone is selling that stock. If SIL is selling that stock, then you are investing in that company. Your money goes to the business.
If, however, SIL is not selling stocks at that time, then you're buying from someone else. Your money does not go to Smidge Industries LTD, and they do not tangibly benefit from the transaction. However, you still own stock in SIL, so you are invested in the company.
But in the second case, your financial transaction means nearly nothing to the company. I say nearly, because with enough activity it can affect the price of the stock which, in turn, helps or harms the company's ability to raise more money by selling more stock if it chooses to do so. And since the vast majority of the stock market is transactions that don't involve the companies that issued the stocks being traded, I'd argue that the stock markets don't truly represent people investing in companies as much as they represent people being invested in companies.
=Smidge=
Tell me more about Smidge Industries, Iâ(TM)m looking to invest.
...you are Bitcoin's bitch. Nuff said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0o50d9NXWw
Looking at how quickly the price has inflated I wouldn't be surprised if a government actor(s) were printing money and funneling it into Bitcoin for a planned demolition of the currency. Could have easily been done covertly by placing micro transactions with a planned sell date. Should be interesting to watch.
Posting this as a Public Service Announcement
https://www.investopedia.com/news/short-bitcoin/
Even for beginners
https://support.bitfinex.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004555165-The-basics-of-Margin-Trading-on-Bitfinex
https://www.investopedia.com/news/short-bitcoin/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-27/calling-a-bitcoin-top-here-s-how-you-can-short-the-digital-coin
https://www.thestreet.com/story/14414500/1/what-to-know-shorting-bitcoin.html
https://coincentral.com/short-bitcoin/
https://99bitcoins.com/short-sell-bitcoin-make-money-on-bitcoin-price-drops-thourgh-bitcoin-short-sale/
https://themerkle.com/top-7-ways-to-short-bitcoin/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/gold/can-short-bitcoin/
Hit a nerve.
Stocks can create value, both by representing the value of a company and control of that company, and by paying dividends. Even a stock going down pays dividends. Does a Bitcoin going down represent anything of value? Will a falling Bitcoin pay you anything?
EVERYONE is WAITING for HINDSIGHT to SOUND SO SMART
to see what some people say: "I will be there laughing when it crashes". But I like more the profits I have being making with BTC. In less than a month already recovered my initial investment, took up my dividends and am using to pay for many things around my home. So, for me, it's just great and I invite everyone to get in. Due to the volatility risks are high and profit is high so it's your decision... Or you can just laugh like the dude said. :)
My dealings with the IRS and letters have been very smooth. The one time the mistake was theirs, I explained it. They sent back a letter saying that I was right, they were going with my figures, and how to appeal that decision.
If you sold bitcoins and made a profit, file that in your income tax return. If not, they've got a legitimate beef, and you need to correct them.
Keep records, like you should for all investments. If you don't try to pull a fast one on the IRS (never recommended), you'll be fine.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
On 8 December 2017 at around 01:54 UTC, bitcoin was over US$17,147. Less than 11 hours later -- 8 December 2017 at around 11:35 UTC -- it was less than US$14,100. That is a drop of 18% or 1.84% per hour.
As economists attempt to make sense of Bitcoin
Some try, and succeed.
Some try, and can't even get a good understanding of the facts, before publicly embarrassing themselves by expressing ridiculous conclusions and opinions.
And some might even understand it well enough to know that what they're saying, good or bad, is not supported by facts. But that doesn't stop them.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
To play devil's advocate here, by buying stocks second hand, you are providing liquidity, which makes a lot more people invest in original companies on stock market, because they know they will be able to get out of position in case of financial need. So, you are not investing in SI LTD directly, but you are, in indirect sense, enabling investments in all companies on the market.
It gets considerably more fuzzy with various derivative products. Still, I like to think that pure stock market is 'good', even if you are trading stocks which are already present on exchanges and all the 'lets get rich by moving empty money around' things are more on derivative markets (possibly also FX?).
The very notion of "Liquidity" is bullshit, especially in this situation.
Either someone is gonna buy the stocks you're trying to sell or nobody will. Buyers and sellers are essentially commodities. A stock doesn't become more "liquid" if A sells to B, or if A sells to B who then sells to C, or if A sells to C directly.
=Smidge=
Are you for real? What a dipshit. That is in no way a ban of bitcoin. To claim it is shows your ignorance in the matter. Those things were unregulated 'token offerings' definitely not bitcoin.
Guess what many other countries have also done the same things.
I don't give a shit about bitcoin, it's in an obvious mania bubble phase. But to just continue to make up shit like you do, you need to be called out on it.
So you claim the lie, but deny the truth...Are you Republican by any chance? He should have said the more general, idiots like you. All you anti-China fools are all reading from the same playbook and repeating the same lies.
And proves your trolling what? Trolling idiots, trolling republicans, trolling people with no understanding of China, or perhaps you meant 'you are trolling'. In that case we can add trolling people with little understanding of English to the list as well.
The very notion of "Liquidity" is bullshit, especially in this situation.
Either someone is gonna buy the stocks you're trying to sell or nobody will. Buyers and sellers are essentially commodities. A stock doesn't become more "liquid" if A sells to B, or if A sells to B who then sells to C, or if A sells to C directly.
=Smidge=
Sorry, I disagree here. Stock where 1000 units is traded each day (A->B->C->D->E....->Z) is a lot more liquid that one which where 1000 units got traded once during a month (A->Z).
You do know that you can spend bitcoin in other places than China...
You do know that you can use exchanges in other places than China...
You do know that you can mine bitcoin anywhere you can get electricity... including China...
Did you read the links...Using bitcoin isn't banned, just exchanging Yuan to bitcoin and ICO's are banned. Some exchanges are still and will be still open to convert any bitcoins back into Yuan for the foreseeable future. They are just cracking down on sending Yuan outside China by exchanging them to bitcoin first.
you are clueless
The latest restrictions are more draconian, with cryptocurrency exchanges now shut down. But once again, workarounds have emerged. Some people have turned to online and offline peer-to-peer trading. People can also buy and sell digital currencies on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, which is blocked in China but can be accessed by virtual private networks (VPNs) that get around the Great Firewall. People who already own coins can just go online and trade them on an exchange that is based overseas. There was even some trading on WeChat, China’s massively popular but heavily monitored messaging app.After all, China did not ban Bitcoin itself, nor did it explicitly prohibit peer-to-peer trading. And importantly, China hasn’t banned the mining of bitcoins, in which people have their computers race to solve difficult mathematical problems in exchange for coin rewards.
It's cute how you insert an arbitrary time base.
Liquidity is about how easy it is to convert an asset's value, not how often. Frequent trades are not necessarily a good indication of liquidity; If at any given time there is no buyer for your stuff, then it's not liquid at that moment. You might think that frequent trades means more opportunities to sell, but it can also be that the market is saturated and any one specific seller might have a hard time finding a buyer.
All frequent trades like what you're describing can really tell you is it's not something worth holding on to for very long, which would be worrisome.
In either case, however, this does not help the business that issued the original stock unless and until they issue more stock of their own, and in absolutely no case are you investing in that business if you don't buy the stock directly from them.
=Smidge=
Hey look, America banned bitcoin too, same as China. https://news.slashdot.org/stor...