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

Posted by msmash on from the for-the-record dept.

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.

13 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. No, few people are, thus dropping half its value by raymorris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nope, few people are buying Bitcoin anymore. That's why the value has dropped in half in the last six months.

  2. Not news. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Informative

    All widely traded cryptocurrencies have been trending downward since the crazy peak last December. There have been multiple larger events where values dropped precipitously without definable causes. Bitcoin and it's associated cryptocurrencies are a racket wherein people want to get rich by merely transferring money from others to themselves. There is no investment behind purchasing, it's all just taking.

    Tell me when it really crashes and who's left holding the bag. Until then, shut up with this crap.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Not news. by MikeDataLink · · Score: 2, Insightful

      All widely traded cryptocurrencies have been trending downward since the crazy peak last December. There have been multiple larger events where values dropped precipitously without definable causes. Bitcoin and it's associated cryptocurrencies are a racket wherein people want to get rich by merely transferring money from others to themselves. There is no investment behind purchasing, it's all just taking.

      Tell me when it really crashes and who's left holding the bag. Until then, shut up with this crap.

      Replace Bitcoin with "Precious Metals (Bullion)". Investments are risky. Don't invest if you don't know how to. Don't invest what you can't afford to lose. People don't get rich without taking educated risks.

      --
      Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    2. Re:Not news. by symes · · Score: 3, Informative

      Are you comparing rare elements dug out of the Earth with bitcoin? One has limited supply, the other is unlimited. When it gets too difficult to mine one coin, just go and invent a new one. When you've dug all the gold out of the Earth then that is that.

    3. Re:Not news. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

      Replace Bitcoin with "Precious Metals (Bullion)".

      Wrong. Most precious metals are actually useful, so they have real value. Gold and silver are great conductors which copper can be used for a magnitude of things. Even platinum is useful because it's biocompatible. Matter is a real thing but numbers are conceptual.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    4. Re:Not news. by rgmoore · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --

      There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

    5. Re:Not news. by rgmoore · · Score: 2

      There was just enough innocent traffic to mask the transfers***

      This is the key, though. The criminal uses of cryptocurrency depend on there being enough legitimate uses to provide effective cover. If those legitimate uses dry up, the cover is blown. If only criminals use cryptocurrency, then using cryptocurrency is enough to get the police to investigate you.

      --

      There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

    6. Re:Not news. by MikeDataLink · · Score: 2

      None of what you describe are investments. You are talking about speculation.

      You are correct. The point I was trying to make is that we speculate on many things. Gold, natural gas, oil, etc. No one gets up in arms over speculation on those things (well some do, but you get the point).

      --
      Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    7. Re:Not news. by Khyber · · Score: 2

      "There have been multiple larger events where values dropped precipitously without definable causes."

      Anyone that actually watched the buy/sell/hold orders during those times knew exactly what was going on - pumping and dumping from China and South Korea.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    8. Re:Not news. by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      Tell me when it really crashes and who's left holding the bag.

      "You are . . . Number 6 . . ."

      This will be just like the sub-prime mortgages bust:

      The folks who bought houses way beyond their means couldn't bail it out. They were flat broke.

      The rich banks and bankers couldn't bail it out. They were "Too Big To Fail". That would have expanded the financial crisis.

      So . . . I guess that left the taxpayers . . . who had nothing to do with the sub-prime loan shenanigans . . . to bail it out.

      So . . . who will bail out the mess left by a Bitcoin Bubble Burst . . . ?

      The Bitcoin speculators will have no money. They won't be able to bail it out.

      The banks and bank speculators who have been messing with Bitcoin quietly are still "Too Big To Fail" . . .

      . . . so I guess that leaves the taxpayers . . . who have not speculated with Bitcoin . . .

      The old-time government birthday party game:

      "Pin the bill, on the taxpayers!"

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    9. Re: Not news. by Khyber · · Score: 2

      "Cryptocurrency has some value in the fact that it has an immutable"

      That was proven bullshit very recently, too, when Vitalik reversed some transaction for some company that mistakenly dumped a bunch of ether. Immutability is BULLSHIT.

      Meanwhile, you don't see that happening for anyone that was trying to figure out the convoluted system and lost ether by mistake. Nope. Fuck the small person.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  3. Re:In before by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Forget claiming they are like tulips, cryptocurrencies are worse than tulips. You can plant a tulip and it can reproduce with no additional effort. Cryptocurrencies and their network have to be maintained with other resources. Not only that but 51% attacks actually happen so your cryptocurrency may just vanish one day.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  4. Re: In before by LordKronos · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nope, Ripple is only susceptible to something MUCH stupider.

    The whole bitcoin craze was quite pointless IMHO, but at least they thought they were solving some problem...namely eliminating the need to trust in a government fiat currency and banking system and it's inherent downsides (inflation, stability, vulnerability to government confiscation, bank failure which is only partially mitigated by FDIC for people with large balances, etc).

    But now with Ripple, the whole design is founded on having trust in a "bank" who holds your value. If that bank is deemed not trustworthy, then your dollar equivalent worth of Ripples isn't even equivalent to a dollar anymore. Thus we have the downsides of a banking system, without the benefit of FDIC to insure your value, government regulation to keep the Ripple banks accountable, or the decades of actual use to help expose the flaws in the system.

    So no, you aren't vulnerable to 51% attacks, just single-entity attacks. Yeah, so much better.