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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.
Buttcoins
Dunning krugerrand
Autism kroners
Currency of the future
Next bubble will be Pokemon Futures.
I like my planet cool and not roasted for monopoly money.
Just a few more dozen forks and it will be there, right?
I was told that this time it was different and the average joe would win :(
Why? It has 5 years (at best) before quantum computing destroys it. The post-quantum algorithms require ENORMOUS signature sizes that can't be mitigated with a lightning-network style hack, and would have to be adopted years in advance such that everyone holding any BTC could transition their account over. The math adds up to about 4-8TB/yr every single wallet holder has to maintain just to verify the blockchain (or convert the whole thing into a centralized system where you just trust what is effectively a bank to verify transactions for you - it loses the whole "decentralized' appeal as a result.) That's to say nothing of the cost of transaction sizes when it costs you a minimum of 31KB just to sign a transaction. Lots of accounts won't even be able to pay to convert to the post-quantum protocols, and in turn you'll end up with a massive quantity of missing/lost BTCs siphoned up by whoever possess the first quantum computer capable of running Shor's algorithm (the ensuing scandal from which will likely yield regulations effectively making BTC centralization get taken over by existing banks anyway.)
I think it will be a lot more than 5 years before the absolutely massive amount of cooling to near absolute zero required for quantum computing to work will be within practical reach of the average consumer.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Most likely BCH has nothing to do with this crash - it has anemic trading and exchange volumes vs. Bitcoin/Ethereum/Ripple and this altcoin alone couldn't have caused the crash. The truth is very few know what really happened but they remain silent. This might be tangentially related but only tangentially. Another possibility is that someone(s) has dumped a lot of crypto-currency on to the market and there's only enough money to keep the exchange rate.
I just want graphics cards to be reasonably priced again
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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.
Bitcoin was the first successful cryptocurrency, if not the first cryptocurrency entirely - and like many things in tech, the first one has staying power even though the technology is inferior to products that try and fail to displace it. Bitcoin is running into scaling and resource use issues.
They were staunch supporters. What that tells me is that the ones that jumped in to speculate and get huge gains are tired of waiting and just getting out. I expect that the real support is around $500. That's the level it was at before the speculators jumped in. $500 is where it is useful for the underground economy.
Chaum's DigiCash was the first "widespread" cryptocurrency. It is primitive by today's standards, but hell... there wasn't even AES out then, and the best out was maybe MD4 for hashes and at best, triple DES for encryption. Keys might be 384 to 512 bit RSA if that.
The currency is well designed, especially with the anonymity built in.
Five years from now, people will have likely been forced to learn the difference between fiat currency [backed by governments with militaries] and fiat currency backed by not a fucking thing except expensive utility bills.