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

Posted by EditorDavid on from the not-so-magic-internet-money dept.

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."

13 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Let's all buy Lambos with crypto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Using the money I got from shorting TSLA.

  2. Excellent by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Funny

    Excellent, I'm in the market for a good video card.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  3. Re:So? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    How much have fiat money market losts? WAY MORE. This is a good thing for the Cryptocurreny

    What the fuck are you talking about?

    I know I'll be buying more and more every day because I make A LOT of tax free money already. Guaranteed.

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

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  4. Re:So? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  5. Who Cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We are in it for the technology!

  6. Manipulation by JBMcB · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Manipulation by Ramze · · Score: 2

      Actually, if prices remained fairly stable, it would be a currency.

      That's what it was designed to be. These booms and busts are what prevent it from being taken seriously by all the major players in the financial sector.

    2. Re:Manipulation by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?)

      --
      Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
  7. I don't trust the blockchain hype. by Qbertino · · Score: 4, Informative

    I see problems with long-term feasiblity. Power consumption is through the roof, as is ineffciency in validation/resolution.

    Digital currency is a very, very good idea, but a massive simple one-dimensional set of tokens managed by a single trusted service is way more likely to offer real-world advantage over bitcoin and Co. I believe digital currency will take off when we get one that doesn't require obscene amounts of processing power to handle and transfer via transactions. When you can have an app on your cheap-ass asian semi-feature-phone and transfer 50 cents with a push of a button and the guy selling you his fruit can see if on his phone in 3 seconds. This isn't going to happen at a global scale with any of the current cryptocurrencies. Hence their real-world usefulness is notably limited and thus they won't succeed as currency IMHO.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  8. Bitcoin is a great story by GovCheese · · Score: 2

    It's always a fascinating story when connected communities come up with an idea, especially when "connectedness" might provide an opportunity for transforming wishful thinking into currency, or anything else. But goddamn I'm impressed by work they've put into it and the energy of their unusual convictions.

    --
    "He's using a quantum encryption scheme! That'll take hours to break!"
  9. You fools! by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  10. Blockchain has three use cases by jdoeii · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Blockchain exists for ~10 years and still there are no mainstream use cases where it replaced the incumbent tech, other than illegal activity. There is a fundamental reason for that.

    BCh offers a single unique feature: distributed trusted transaction (DTT). DTT competes with a centralized transaction == transaction with a trusted third party (T3P). DTT is by definition distributed and as such is *always* more expensive than a T3P all other things being equal: reaching consensus with multiple parties is harder than with a single party. In order for DTT to be competitive with the old tech T3P, the distributed nature of DTT must offer some advantage for people to be willing to pay the required premium. So far the only use case where people or willing to pay this premium is circumvention of regulation, when the trusted third party does not exist. This brings us to this list of use cases:

    1. Circumvention of regulation.
    This is the only meaningful use of DTT.
    China has capital flow controls which effectively bar companies and individuals from moving money out of China. To get around these regulations people buy video cards and electricity in China for CNY, mine cryptocoins, sell them in the States for USD. That's the largest market right now, much bigger than buying drugs on the likes of Silk Road. This use case also includes ICOs and other pump and dump schemes.

    2. Selling picks and shovels.
    Derivative of (1). If 1 goes away, 2 will go away too.
    https://finance.yahoo.com/quot...

    3. Marketing & FMO
    Add blockchain to the company name and see your valuation pop.
    "We must work on blockchain because it's the future".
    All kinds of blockchain projects in banks, etc which are going mainstream "any time now". All of them can be done easier/cheaper/more reliably with a T3P, no exceptions.

  11. Re:Slow painful death by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except Bitcoin has unmitigated issues in the near-term. We're looking at 6 years at most until quantum computers can run Shor's Algorithm. At that point the signature schemes used in Bitcoin are dead. Before that happens (by a few years, at a minimum, to ensure the blockchain is irrevocably altered) everyone needs to convert to post-quantum protocols on a wallet-by-wallet basis (as in, initiated by every single Bitcoin holder individually.) The issue there is that smallest secure post-quantum protocols have signatures on the order of 30KB per transaction. That means a blockchain on the order high-TB to low-PB growth annually. That means mass centralization (at best) because there's no way every user (or even most non-exchanges) can afford that within the next decade given anticipated hardware developments.

    TL;DR: Bitcoin is already dead due to hardware constraints, it exists purely as a pump and dump campagin: the same applies to all cryptocurrencies.