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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.
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
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.
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'
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
No it is not.
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.
But I'm not a gambling man. Yes, I was born a rambling man.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Results"
No sig today...
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.
Here's a rather interesting and relevant hypothesis about a contributing cause to the recent downturn: https://www.reddit.com/r/Crypt...
?The TL;DR from the post: The cause of today's chaos is likely large hedge funds using expiring BTC futures contracts as safety nets to exploit the only sure-thing in this market: a large amount of new/overextended investors who are easily moved to panic sell during a flash-crash.