Cryptocurrency Markets Lost $18 Billion Overnight (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes CryptoCoinsNews: Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has recorded a loss of $18 billion, as major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, EOS, and Bitcoin Cash dropped by 4 to 13 percent. While Bitcoin ended the day with a 4 percent decline in its value, Ether, the native cryptocurrency of Ethereum, plummeted by 13 percent against the US dollar, becoming one of the worst performing major cryptocurrencies alongside NEO. Tokens recorded the steepest drop in their value on August 11, as most Ethereum-based tokens such as Theta Token, Aion, Pundi X, Aelf, DigixDAO, WanChain, and VeChain recorded a drop of around 14 to 18 percent

For the first time in 2018, Bitcoin, the most dominant cryptocurrency in the global market, has obtained 50 percent of the market share, securing its year-to-date (YTD) high on the dominance index. The sudden increase in the dominance index of Bitcoin which coincided with the spike in the volume of Tether have demonstrated that investors have become reluctant towards taking high-risk and high-return trades, mostly due to the lack of confidence in the short-term trend of the market. Over the past few weeks, tokens have lost over 50 percent of their value against Bitcoin, which has also fallen by more than 20 percent since late July.
"During this 13-day stretch, the total market cap for all cryptocurrencies has fallen $70 billion," reports MarketPlace, in an article headlined "Bitcoin looks 'very sick' and the pain is not over, says analyst."

Comments

Slow painful death

[Anonymous Coward]

Because their adepts refuse to accept that bitcoins and other coins like it, were a bubble that's slowly deflating and only the ones who got in early made any sort of money worth talking about. Also the ones who are doing "pump and dump", who btw are responsible for raising the price so high in the first place.

Re:So?

[Registered Coward v2]

reader poll: Is he joking? Serious? Are there really such people?

Yes. The technical term for them is fools; they are very important part of a well functioning market as they provide a steady stream of money for the taking.

Who Cares

[Anonymous Coward]

We are in it for the technology!

Manipulation

[JBMcB]

Bitcoin prices increase = it's a bubble
Bitcoin prices decrease = it's collapsing
Bitcoin prices are stable = it's a dead market

Re:Manipulation

[Hallux-F-Sinister]

Bitcoin prices increase = it's a bubble
Bitcoin prices decrease = it's collapsing
Bitcoin prices are stable = it's a dead market

The problem. You have oversimplified it.

It's not that it's boom and bust, just like everything else has ups and downs. It's the REASON WHY it's going up and down. Let's say we're talking about a pharmaceutical company. They are worth a billion dollars. They have a new drug that will sell for a lot of money in testing. Tests go poorly, the drug probably will have to be withdrawn before it even goes to market. The stock goes down. They have another drug that they're in the middle of a patent lawsuit over. They win. The stock goes up. Traders understand why it happens and are comfortable in investing in such stocks because there are good and bad signs that tell them how a company, and therefore how a stock, is likely to perform.

The board of directors fires a half-dozen executives whose titles start with "C" (such as the CEO, CTO, CFO, etc.) This likely will drive the stock price either massively down or massively up, depending on WHY they fired them. IF the company had been in trouble, this could be a positive development, and stock value goes UP. Or, if they'd been doing incredibly well, (in the literal sense, doing so well it's hard to believe it's possible, seems to good to be true, etc.,) and they sack the leadership, it's probably the harbinger of bad tidings at that company, and for all people holding their stock.

It would only be weird if that action had no impact on stock prices at all, and they remained consistent with other, similar companies.

With Bitcoin, who the fuck KNOWS why it goes up or down? Or maybe it's because the "currency" doesn't DO anything, unlike a company that makes... oh, widgets or something, or a different company that perhaps sells consulting services on the installation and use of... oh, widgets or something. The value allegedly arises from the facilitating of trade itself. It would be if I got a stack of sticky notes, and put a little doodle on each one, and tried to tell people that because my doodles are unique, (let's pretend for a second they are,) that these stickies can be traded as if they're money, and they're therefore worth something, and what would you give me for one? Oh, or a stack of a few. Or a million of them? The entire trading ecosystem for cryptocurrencies is based on a perception of value without ties to reality. It's interesting, as a study in psychology, but I won't be putting real, actual money into it.

For those who ARE, you just about might as well be playing the damned lottery. The only real difference is that the lottery isn't contributing nearly as much, (according to what I've heard, dunno if it's actually TRUE or not,) to rising costs and cratering availability of good graphics cards, or to all the heat generated by computers around the world mining something that doesn't really have a demonstrable objective reality.

(I'm kinda against the idea of Bitcoin and the like. Is it obvi?)

You fools!

[DontBeAMoran]

Meanwhile, everyone who has Dogecoins can still rely on the one and only 100% reliable 1:1 trade ratio of Dogecoin-to-Dogecoin.