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Bitcoin Plummets Under $6,000 To a New Low For the Year (cnbc.com)

Bitcoin's moment of relative stability ended abruptly Wednesday. The world's largest cryptocurrency hit its lowest level of the year, falling as much as 9 percent to a low of $5,640.36, according to CoinDesk. From a report: Bitcoin had been trading comfortably around the $6,400 range for the majority of the fall, a stark contrast from its volatile trading year. Other cryptocurrencies fared even worse on Wednesday. Ether fell as much as 13 percent while XRP, the third largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped 15 percent, according to CoinMarketCap.com. The rout is likely being spurred by uncertainty around bitcoin cash, according to founder and CEO of BKCM, Brian Kelly.

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  1. Re:Finally, I might be able to buy again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's the worlds most obvious pump and dump scheme, geez.

    Bitcoin has no value, none, zip, nada. There is no physical backing material (eg actual gold, which has industrial uses, not just jewelry) so there is never anything that can be cashed out. Whoever holds all the bit coins in the end is the one who was stupid enough to buy them in the first place.

    Bitcoin has some measure of usefulness if, and only if, it's used as an intermediary with no conversion fees. However that hasn't been the case since BTC was worth $100. It's so overvalued right now, that hanging on to it is foolish. Unless you paid for any of it in the low hundreds, I'd suggest just getting out of it before it crashes back down. There is no floor it will hit, as there is nothing to support it's value at any value.

    Even actual stocks and commodities have a floor value that can be hit by dropping below the NPV of the backing source, with stocks this is the actual equity in the value of the property, machinery, etc. With commodities, this is the physical retail value that can be had for the materials. However even many stocks no longer own the properties of their businesses they sit in, and such their entire value is held up by their sales figures. One massive fuckup and that company is wiped out. See PG&E in California, if it's found that they caused the campfire fire, that company's value goes negative. I'm fairly certain that they do not own enough generating assets and transmission equipment to sell to recover the costs of all the lawsuits. They lost 30% of their value when the insurance company said, "nope, not happening."

    Bitcoin has the same problem, there is nothing backing it's value, so the minute people realize that and get out, it's value rapidly heads towards zero.