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Bitcoin Plunges Below $12,000 To Six-Week Low Over Crackdown Fears (cnbc.com)
Bitcoin plunged to a six-week low Tuesday after comments from South Korea's finance minister renewed worries about a crackdown in one of the largest markets for digital currency trading. In a radio program interview, South Korean Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said that "the shutdown of virtual currency exchanges is still one of the options" the government has. CNBC reports: Bitcoin dropped more than 17 percent to a low of $11,182.71 on Tuesday, falling below $12,000 for the first time since December 5, according to CoinDesk. CoinDesk's bitcoin price index tracks prices from cryptocurrency exchanges Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Bitfinex. As of 12:13 p.m. ET, bitcoin was trading more than 13 percent lower at $11,759.73 a coin, according to CoinDesk. Trading in South Korean won accounted for about 4 percent of bitcoin trading volume, according to CryptoCompare. U.S. dollar-bitcoin trading had the largest share at 40 percent, the website showed. Other major digital currencies including ethereum and ripple also fell significantly. According to CoinMarketCap data, ethereum was trading at $1,051.83, down more than 20 percent in the last 24 hours, before lifting slightly to $1,117.72. Ripple fell almost 27 percent to $1.33 a token before recovering slightly to $1.36.
The Bitcoin rate isn't stable.
What a load of reductionist crap.
If the price is BitCoin is falling over fears of crackdowns, doesn't that mean that it's no longer primarily used by criminals?
If so, then obviously BitCoin has just gained a lot of respectability, ensuring its future rise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You were saying "it's going to crash any day now" when each bitcoin was $1.00
You were saying "it's going to crash any day now" when each bitcoin was $10.00
You were saying "it's going to crash any day now" when each bitcoin was $100.00
You were saying "it's going to crash any day now" when each bitcoin was $1000.00
You were saying "it's going to crash any day now" when each bitcoin was $10000.00
Geez, why isn't it 100k yet? Isn't bitcoin perfect and immune to crashing?
lol bitcoin lol
What the hell does this have to do with people's political views? The comments on this site are awful, and are getting worse. Do we really need political flamebait in every story?
The issue here is governments don't like having no control over cryptocurrencies. People don't know to what degree the governments will eventually regulate them or ban them, leading to the increased risk being priced in. People aren't willing to gamble as aggressively when there's an imminent threat of a government crackdown.
What the hell does this have to do with people's political views? The comments on this site are awful, and are getting worse.
Well, if Slashdot would actually let me save my preferences, then I could filter out 0 and lower comments.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
The main purpose of bitcoin was stated as 'avoiding government capital controls'.
Pushing it underground will help, no tracing your wallet because you used it to buy coffee. Just a pure 'fuck you' to the government.
They can't keep drugs out of maximum security prisons. They will fail at controlling bitcoin. Yeah, people. Boo, government.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
All the big currencies are down, but still way up from where they were months ago.
Coinbase shows it's at $10K (as of 15:30 MST on Tuesday). Down 28 percent in one day.
Hope all you speculators have iron nerves!
I should have bought when it was $7 a BC, but I would have sold it at $14
Quote: https://www.gdax.com/trade/BTC-USD
How much does it cost now for 1 transaction?
It's UNDER 9000!
Bitcoin dropped from ~5k to under 3k on September 15 (only 4 months ago). The high this time was 20k to 10k now. How's this much different? There's panic buying as well as panic selling. It's not going to go to zero because of panic selling. That's how it work.. people are greedy.
Wheeeeee!
No sig today...
Time to buy everything at a discount. Please, keep selling.
The truth hurts, but it has to be said...
Kids, this is what we call "profit taking".
In a previous thread I asked, how does a public blockchain die? More exactly what are the 'death throes' as one reduces in popularity?
For people, what happens when a blockchain falls in popularity because 'all' the fools have moved on to the next big 'coin', and there is no reason to keep using this particular token because it has already failed as a currency due to ridiculous transaction fees and times?
When a blockchain has all of its arbitrarily predetermined tokens mined, what keeps the miners from moving on to the next big 'coin'? Well heck for that matter when the rate of newly mined tokens falls below some rate or if its even getting close to the end of the number of tokens would some already start to migrate?
Lots of other possibilities, this is just what I was thinking about for 5 minutes.
It's somewhat ironic that everything folks cited that was a plus to BitCoin is turning out to be the exact oppose:
1. No government or central body control.
Except when countries decide to ban it causing market crashes.
2. Good currency for goods.
Except when it yo-yos so badly that no sane vendor will use it because they can't predict prices.
3. Good for investing.
Except that it's so unstable it's closer to gambling.
4. Needing control of more than half the bitcoin network to take over means the rich won't be able to get to it.
Except they can and do by putting a lot of money (which I assume they can afford to lose) into the market in a bid to control it. The sad truth is very few people control almost the entire market.
5. Low resource overhead.
Only the computational network that's running bitcoin is blowing more resources than some small thou admittedly "poor" countries.
At the end of the day, it seems if you were there early and out at the peak then you won. But overall the whole system seems worse or more world wrecking than country issued currency. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin crashes badly or dies someday leaving a sour taste in crytocurrency.
In a couple weeks, I'll be able to buy a 1080 Ti for less than the cost of a decent used car.
Bitcoin is a risky investment.
You called it "gambling". But you aren't "a gambling man".
Analysts in the media have stated that Bitcoin's price is largely the result of 4 promoters of the currency. This is another way of saying it is a MLM or a game of musical chairs, last one holding the currency gets burnt.
Congrats to the 4 guys who have managed to skyrocket the currency in the last 12 months --- possibly because it is nice a vehicle for money laundering in Asia (particularly China). Warren Buffett says the currency offers no long term benefits over government currencies, is difficult to sell or conduct transactions in and he doesn't expect it to be around in 5 years.
I'm not against cryptocurrencies, they are a nice concept, but I am against bubbles and scams. When bitcoin was around $400 to $800 it was probably priced appropriately.
Just killed all my cows and have plenty of those beefcoins!
Is really all I have to say about that....If anyone was so stupid to jump on cryptocurrency....
Is it fair to say "crackdown"? It is collapsing because of fear, but not crackdown fear but rather ponzi scheme / bubble fear.
The issue here is governments don't like having no control over cryptocurrencies. People don't know to what degree the governments will eventually regulate them or ban them, leading to the increased risk being priced in. People aren't willing to gamble as aggressively when there's an imminent threat of a government crackdown.
For a lot of people, governments having no control over cryptocurrencies was a desirable feature of them. If they actually thought things through, they'd have realised that this means their use would sooner or later be banned or regulated in some way, which severely limits - if not eliminates - whatever usefulness they actually have as currency, which was always a bit iffy to begin with.
"But with cryptocurrencies, governments can't fuck with their value or prevent you spending on what you want," was a common claim, but proving absolutely untrue.
If so, then obviously BitCoin has just gained a lot of respectability, ensuring its future rise.
The market has never responded so strongly to threats of regulation before. This on again, off again promise of Sth Korea to ban crypto-collectables simply isn't the main reason for this drop, that explanation is just people struggling to come to grips with the basic fact: "Bitcoin is over," which is to say the days of Bitcoin's meteoric rise is over, the bubble popped, and the ride-catching speculators are moving on. They're only there for the sharp upward curve, but with bitcoin sitting around $14,000 for too long, slowly falling instead of rising ... why bother sticking around?
What we are seeing is simply people wanting to cash out before BTC falls below $10,000. It turns out $14,000 was not the foot of the mountain, or the last great buying opportunity. From our limited vantage point, it looks a lot more like the shelf from which Bitcoin has now fallen. I'm surprised by the speed at which this is happening, but the pattern is well established.
And they say history never repeats ;)
"But with cryptocurrencies, governments can't fuck with their value or prevent you spending on what you want," was a common claim, but proving absolutely untrue.
I don't see that many of the serious claims made about Bitcoin's potential are in any way unwound by recent events. In the grand scheme of things, this is early volatility. Caught up in recent hype, huge numbers of statists have been buying cryptocurrencies under the illusion that their owners would permit it. Recent news has them scared and they've turned to selling. Early Bitcoiners have been enjoying the opportunity to sell some of their cryptocurrencies to more comfortably meet near-term expenses. This will keep happening until world leaders take a strong anti-Bitcoin stance.
The stability comes when this stance is taken and we've settled into a decades-long war against cash. During this time, governments will lose power and the people will gain power as individuals slowly adopt a radically more free-market way of achieving their goals. The black market, so easily underestimated or overlooked, will continue to grow thanks to the advantages provided by this technology to become the world's dominant economic force. The effect will be similar to the end of feudalism and the beginnings of the industrial revolution.
A few central banks trying to clamp down on Bitcoin trading is only the very beginning of a radical change in the political structure of the world. Over the next 50 years we'll see the end of social democracy and high-tax, high-regulation governance.
So no, the early claims are not "proving absolutely untrue".
Uhh there's significantly more left-wing anarchists running around than right-wing libertarians.
They're the morons punching and macing women, burning down their college, and whining about Trump on Slashdot.
Well, there goes the equality, respect and maturity the left ever had. And you wonder why Trump won?
Besides if BTC was a left / right thing it would continue to boom since we have Republicans in office right now. Undoing a lot of the terrible mess the Obama administration inflicted in the first place.
You mean comments like yours? That would surely be awesome... for slow people.
Isn't 0 hidden by default?
I think anyone who has a enough sound understanding of the technology and actually took the time to understand Bitcoin could see the flashing red lights. I think everybody else just buys the propaganda perpetuated by the media. One day they say BTC is good, the next its bad. This created a market based on the speculation and not on merit. Bitcoin needs to function on merit not what people "might" think it's worth in the future.
But when we live in an era where seemlessness is all people want and then you sell them on a concept which has significant technical limitations then add the odd exchange crash and print stories about Bitcoin getting stolen then it takes the wind out of the sails a little bit.
But moving back to the red lights I mentioned before.
First was the concept of decentralization and hard forking. I read about these concepts well before the Bitcoin Cash fiasco and I felt bank then that it was not a good demonstration of decentrailization as all it showed to me was a calis from of centralization. Bitcoin Cash just proved me right. Think about it logically, just because Bitcoin is run by a bunch of servers then all you really need is the popular voted strategy. All the hard fork does is push those who didn't play ball out. The overall cost to people running Bitcoin is just redepoly a bunch of new servers and move on, not a big cost at all if you think about it.
Then we take the Blockchain technology itself. So what? I didn't see this anything "special" about a lightweight databasing tool there literally are dozens possible solutions. Databasing transactionally and securely didn't need to be reinvented, it just needed to be done properly. But the transaction delays when it came up was just confirmation of this.
Last but not least, the mining. Stupid. That's all that needs to be said here. Moore's law and Stupid.
Can we please move on from crypto, please???
Uhh there's significantly more left-wing anarchists running around than right-wing libertarians.
Yes, and I marked the libertarians who obsess about "fiat currency" as right-libertarians exactly to distinguish them from left-libertarians (aka anarchists) who have other concerns.
I trust there wasn't some cleverly hidden point to your comment?
Just shows how full of shit you are. Ron Paul and Peter Schiff to name perhaps two of the most prominent libertarians are massively opposed to Bitcoin.
They do agree that Gold is the way to go but also believe that ANY form of currency that is not tangible is unworthy in the long run. As for Bitcoin they labeled it as bubble from day one saying that it is definitely not the solution to the world's economical problems.
The truth about this is, they're right. The world economy crashed in 09 which is the proof of this. But their nay-saying is considered unpopular because there hasn't been another crash. But in reality you only have to look at the sheer amounts of debt on pretty much all nations books to see that there has to be a day of reckoning and that the Kaizen economical mess we created for ourselves need to be corrected just look at the fall of the USSR as a "possibly this could be us" scenario.
Says the AC with no possibility to fact-check him in the future should he be proven wrong...
Surely only a fool would publicly commit themselves to testable statements such as the price last week (around $14k) was "the base of a mountain... " or that "people a while from now will look back on this as the last good buying opportunity."? ;)
Why even you yourself were unable to put those as falsifiable statements. Instead you felt the need, unfoolishly to hedge your position with "you can't tell" and "could be." If your own position amounts to the observation that the price could go up or down, you can hardly complain about the lack of "possibility to fact-check ... in the future." Yes?
I may write as AC, but my statements are testable against the future. When BTC broke $10,000, I insisted it would go above $15,000. In the event I was only half-right, I was surprised by how much higher it went. Last week I said BTC was on the post-bubble shelf and would soon enter a decline as speculators ran away leaving the true believers holding the baby. The future (what little we've seen) is looking good so far.
So you are saying that the $11k price BTC is now at, is the natural floor... got it.
However did you get that? No, quite clearly, I'm saying the price will continue to degrade from here and remain low for several years at least (in the specific case of Bitcoin, Altavista comes to mind). Remember I was making a comparison to the silver bubble a few years back. But I already agreed with you that I could be wrong, which while rare, isn't entirely unheard of.
I hope you managed to liquidate of the majority of your BTC holdings at above $15,000. A friend of mine who got himself fried to the tune of several 100k with sliver, this time borrowed against his house to buy BTC. He'd learnt from experience, recognised the situation, and got out at just about almost the best time. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes. Stupidity consists of repeating them.
In the long run, Bitcoin is deader than dead, crushed by newer and technically superior competitors. Perhaps they will last. Or not. We are still proving out the true value of blockchains and whether this money thing is so important is not yet known.
It turns out that stability against inflation is not intrinsic to vapor backed currencies, at all. Because while the gold fetishists loved talking about every gov't being a future Zimbabwe, the unfettered free market will "print" more and more cryptocurrency faster than a gov't ever could. We are only seeing the beginning of competition to Bitcoin.
A few central banks trying to clamp down on Bitcoin trading is only the very beginning of a radical change in the political structure of the world. Over the next 50 years we'll see the end of social democracy and high-tax, high-regulation governance.
Gov't might perhaps have to shrink a bit, in the face of cryptocurrencies. But they will just tax physical assets more directly. Property taxes on homes, offices, vehicles. Payroll taxes. Sales taxes. All in gov't backed lucre -- pay it or go to jail. That may work out well for the oligarchs, but it is not going to be any kind of anarchist uptopia.
If I were a gambling man, I'd be tempted to invest now. Seems a big overreaction to cause this to make it drop 50% of value.
If I remember a recent Ars Technica article correctly, bitcoin has had 4 hyperbolic spikes in prices similar to the current one. After each there was about a 75% drop in price. The last one was in 2014, up to $1,100, then down to $250-300 and staying there for years until the current spike to $19,000 occurred.
But now we have a new variable. Those past spikes were when bitcoin owners were largely geek speculators who were also true believers in bitcoin. This current spike coincided with wall street speculators getting involved and soon followed by speculators from the general public. These "newcomers" may not be as forgiving as the preceding "true believers".
A suggestion to those new to all this. Don't conflate blockchain and bitcoin. Blockchain technology is likely to be part of our future. Bitcoin is just one user of blockchain technology, it may or may not be part of our future. "Not" is a serious possibility given that bitcoin has deviated from its design and its assumptions about its blockchain security are no longer valid. Its security required a global distributed community of miners who are regular individuals using their own computers and this has not been true for years. Bitcoin is plausibly vulnerable to mining cartels and government intervention due to the current state of affairs where we have a relatively small number of miners using expensive specialized ASIC hardware that is geographically located in a single country and reliant upon inexpensive government supplied electricity. Are cartels or the government likely to subvert the bitcoin blockchain? Probably not, but it remains plausible, and bitcoin security is based on the assumption that such things are not even remotely plausible.
Bitcoin is entirely replaceable by a another coin with better security, new features and/or better performance. Before anyone makes a "network effect" argument, keep in mind that a network effect needs high switching costs to be effective. There is little to no switching cost to move from bitcoin to a different coin. Before anyone makes
I tend to call them 'muricunts...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
So long, be seeing ya, don't forget to write. New stuff to worry about now.
But it will be soon at 40.000, because that is why I invested everyting I had and maxed out my credit cards and loaned money from "Friendly Tony". FYI, I think that name is not really how he is. Quick poll, right knee or left one? At least he gave me as much choice as the US political system. SELL. SELL. SELL. SELLLLLL...
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
South Koreans have to own less than 1% of actively traded and cold wallet bitcoins. So if they all were legally obligated to sell them off at the same time within 24 hours, it wouldn't tank the price this hard even. So really it's just stupid people overreacting while I'm sitting here re-buying at $11,000.
It's pleasing to see it is so openly admitted to being gambling.
Trash investment buzzword with zero fundamentals. At best a scam.
It might be a water landing, but you just have to have faith that the plane will pull its nose up underwater and take to the skies again. Don't be tempted to cash out, or you'll lose your house!
HODL, and go down with the ship with some dignity, you glorious imbeciles. HODL like your mortgage depends on it!
The same kind of dip was experienced last year, and the year before that, and the year before that...Noobs man, noobs.
Way to feed into big media, governments and business.
Bitcoin and digital currencies are beyond their total control. So, n ext best thing is to make people believe it's failing.
Just keep making scary announcements then buy low!
What the hell does this have to do with people's political views? The comments on this site are awful, and are getting worse. Do we really need political flamebait in every story?
The issue here is governments don't like having no control over cryptocurrencies. People don't know to what degree the governments will eventually regulate them or ban them, leading to the increased risk being priced in. People aren't willing to gamble as aggressively when there's an imminent threat of a government crackdown.
Having a blanket view of "governments" is in itself a political viewpoint.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
governments will lose power and the people will gain power as individuals slowly adopt a radically more free-market way of achieving their goals
I, for one, welcome our new Robber Baron overlords.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If a government does not like cryptocurrencies, it is against individual freedom and pro central government control.
As the current US mis-leadership is against that freedom, why is every redneck and Wall Street parasite not out to remove it?
It is pretty obvious why China does not like Bitcoin. How come the US, UK, South Korea and Japan (to name a few) are in bed with them in this attempt to stop the spread of the next stage of the growth of the free market?
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Ron Paul promotes competing currencies, is not opposed to Bitcoin and is the spokesperson for promoting Bitcoin through Coin IRA. His commercials for Bitcoin have been featured on Fox News.
.. said no rational being, ever. Those jumping in at $15k+ thinking they were going to make a killing did - only they killed themselves. Bubbles are for chumps.
Organization? You must be joking..
The Onion called it in December Bitcoin Plunge Reveals Possible Vulnerabilities In Crazy Imaginary Internet Money
playmoney.me - The free alternative to paper board game play money
Just shows how full of shit you are. Ron Paul and Peter Schiff to name perhaps two of the most prominent libertarians are massively opposed to Bitcoin.
OK Einstein, you explain why OP associated bitcoin with "Right Wing Trash" then? Also explain why, when I texted my friend yesterday jokingly asking if he'd managed to sell his bitcoin when they were worth $20k he replied "do I look like a libertarian?!"
But I guess since "perhaps two of the most prominent libertarians" are not on board ... ooops make that one prominent libertarian ... it must follow that there are no libertarians who own and promote cryptocurrencies as an alternative to official currencies and by force of this logic we are compelled to ignore libertarians actually promoting cryptocurrencies as an alternative to official currencies. And you think I'm full of shit?!
They do agree that Gold is the way to go but also believe ...
Not relevant.
Could the market of nigh end graphcis cards be flooded with cheap used ex-bitcoin mining cards?
What I want to know, is if the price of used Nvidia 1070 or 1080 cards, along with some of the better AMD cards, will drop to "cheap" prices while theya re still considered current higher end cards?