Bitcoin Tumbles Most in Two Weeks Amid South Korea Hack (bloomberg.com)

Bitcoin extended losses for a third day, tumbling as much as 6 percent Sunday as South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail said there was a "cyber intrusion" in its system. From a report: The largest cryptocurrency declined 4.6 percent to $7,277 as of 10 a.m. time, the biggest drop since May 23, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from Bitstamp pricing. That widens Bitcoin's losses for the year to 49 percent. Peer cryptocurrencies Ethereum and Ripple fell 5 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.

Comments

Re:Not news.

[rgmoore]

The difference between precious metals and cryptocurrencies is that precious metals have some practical uses. Apart from their use in jewelry- which in many cases is ultimately a form of bullion- they have industrial uses. Admittedly, those uses alone would result in a lower price than the current one, but they do provide some kind of absolute price floor. In contrast, cryptocurrencies have no use except as a medium of exchange, and their price will fall to zero if people decide to stop using them that way.

And yes, you can say something similar about any fiat currency, too; there's no inherent value to dollars, euros, or yen. The practical difference there is that governments demand you use their currencies to pay taxes, which provides a real world use for them that isn't going away any time soon.