Cryptocurrencies Tumble Even More, While One Asset Manager Proclaims 'Bitcoin is Dead' (marketwatch.com)

Cryptocurrency prices "fell sharply on Friday, as another bout of selling took digital currencies to fresh lows," reports MarketWatch, adding that Friday the price of Bitcoin "crashed through support at $3,500, falling more than 10% to a 15-month low at $3,230 on the Kraken exchange."

"What a difference a year makes," CNN Business quipped Friday, in an article headlined "Bitcoin's Epic Plunge Continues": In December 2017, bitcoin prices hit a record high of just under $20,000... Bitcoin is at a 15-month low. But prices have really gotten whacked this week, falling nearly 20% in just the past five days alone. Bitcoin isn't the only cryptocurrency getting hit either. Ripple/XRP, ethereum, stellar, litecoin and numerous other cryptocurrencies have plunged in the past week.

Little tangible news can explain or justify the current crypto carnage. One possible reason is that a pro-crypto member of the Securities and Exchange Commission warned at a conference this week that she's fighting an uphill battle trying to convince the rest of the SEC to approve more bitcoin exchange traded funds.... Nearly two-thirds of money managers surveyed by asset management firm Natixis still thought that cryptocurrencies were a bubble, the firm reported this week.
"In my opinion, bitcoin is dead," wrote the CEO of one wealth management firm with more than $32 billion in assets. It won't go quietly, but the recent precipitous drop may be the beginning of its inevitable and inexorable death spiral. Or there could be a dead cat bounce. Either way, I see bitcoin as a dead man walking. Future generations may read about bitcoin in a finance textbook as a curiosity and wonder what all the fuss was about. There are still some die-hard adherents espousing the virtues of bitcoin, desperate to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Unfortunately for them, the end may not be pretty when it comes.

Proponents of bitcoin tend to focus on the impact of the blockchain technology that drives it, and make no mistake, blockchain is the real deal. Blockchain is fundamentally changing the way industries do business, from traditional banking to supply chain management. But just because blockchain technology is creating a new paradigm doesn't mean that bitcoin shares that same distinction.... Most cryptocurrency transactions are purely speculative. There are no real fundamentals to evaluate; bitcoin doesn't produce any products or services, hire any employees or pay any dividends. The only way profits are generated is when the owner is lucky enough to find someone else who will pay more for the thing...

The minute bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency appears to have even the slightest chance of disrupting national monetary supply, I expect regulation to be swift and decisive. The SEC has already issued guidance around cryptocurrencies that has created roadblocks to gaining the same legitimacy as traditional marketable securities... If you enjoy the thrill of making bets, I suggest you visit your favorite sports book or table game in Vegas where your odds of success are much higher.

Comments

£3500 is not dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bitcoin will never reach $1000

Now, $3500, is dead. The problem isn't Bitcoin it's people's wild expectations. Well, that and the energy use to make the things.

Re:£3500 is not dead!

[fluffernutter]

Wild expectations, like expecting a method of currency to hold the same value from day to day? Like being able to put $5 in a wallet and knowing you'll be able to afford a coffee and a doughnut next week?

Oh my

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

No surprise here- currency not tied to anything but mindset is going to be destructively fickle and unstable.

Re:Oh my

[Joce640k]

Little tangible news can explain or justify the current crypto carnage.

Maybe it's just that people are finally starting to realize its true worth, ie. zero.

It's not much use as a currency (unless you enjoy transaction fees and like seeing your money go down in value), it's certainly not an investment.

Sell while you still can!

(oh, wait, you can't... blockchains only allow a few transactions per second so you have to join a long line of sellers)

Re:Oh my

[JaredOfEuropa]

Not this again. Real currencies are not tied to a resource backed standard, but they are closely tied to the economy in which that currency is used. And governments generally know quite well how much extra cash they can print without setting off inflation: if the economy grows, you can grow the money supply as well. Bitcoin isn't tied to any real economy, the volume of BTC transactions is absolutely dwarfed by the speculative transactions. Bitcoin isn't like shares either, which have a speculative nature but always have a real and objective value underpinning them, not a commodity but a company holding assets, adding value and making profit (or with the potential to make future profit)

No arguments here

[rsilvergun]

They us massive amounts of electricity, they spiked the cost of graphics cards so high that they've only just now come down to the level they were at 2 1/2 years ago and they're completely impractical for purchasing anything except maybe drugs (since they're too volatile and slow for much else). Chalk it up as a failed experiment and move on.

Is there really any difference

[bobstreo]

between buying bitcoin or wall street or penny stocks from an investment point of view?

Both tend to be controlled by rumor, innuendo and flash trading, with the average person left out as anything but a source of income based on payments to provide the services of exchange.

You can of course mine bitcoins, but lacking large amounts of free electricity and computer parts, most of the people I know with bitcoins bought them at some point, some did very well and dumped them for large gains, others just sat on them and are complaining about their current valuation.

As usual, there are people "behind the scenes" making legendary amounts of money in either investment.

Re:Is there really any difference

[vakuona]

Is there really any difference between buying bitcoin or wall street or penny stocks from an investment point of view?

If I buy shares on wall street, or even penny stocks, there is a good chance I will get dividends and make my money back and more that way. People who invested in Apple in 2000 when the whole company was only worth $5bn and kept their shares have received more in dividends and buy backs than they probably paid for those shares initially - Apple has paid out more than $100bn. Yes, you could have made your money by selling the shares as well, but you didn't have to. This is why Apple (and other shares) are investments and not some zero sum speculative activity. You don't need a "greater fool" to make your money with an actual investment.

With Bitcoin, the ONLY way to make a profit is to find someone (a greater fool) to buy it off you for more than you paid for it (by spending I am referring to either by exchanging cash for bitcoins, or by racking up electricity bills mining coins). This is why bitcoin is speculative, and you basically need a "greater fool" to make money off it.

Re:It'll always bounce back, and more and more use

[fluffernutter]

I traded them in for Beanie Babies a long time ago.

bitcoin is dead?

[themusicgod1]

"Oh yeah, it's totally dead" - 2011

2016 to now ...

[Tjp($)pjT]

GE had a market cap of 280 billion, now around 60 billion. BTC had a market cap around 20 and now is around 60. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Just because it was trendy enough to go over 300 at some point doesnâ(TM)t mean that was the meaningful data point.

Blockchain technology

[Dan East]

the blockchain technology that drives it, and make no mistake, blockchain is the real deal. Blockchain is fundamentally changing the way industries do business, from traditional banking to supply chain management. But just because blockchain technology is creating a new paradigm

Wait, are we talking about the same blockchain?

Though Blockchain has been touted as the answer to everything, a study of 43 solutions advanced in the international development sector has found exactly no evidence of success.

Blockchain Study Finds 0% Success Rate and Vendors Don't Call Back When Asked For Evidence

Also, power consumption is not fundamental

[presidenteloco]

to blockchain and cryptocurrency.

It was only associated with the version 1 blockchain and cryptocurrency technology.

Proof-of-stake and other new concepts will replace the energy-intensive proof-of-work.

I wish people would STFU with this particular criticism of crypto/blockchain because it's like criticising houses because you're opposed to bricks.

The good news...

[Applehu Akbar]

People online will now be able to spell hold correctly again. But they will still think that the oppposite of win is loose.

Taxes and all debts. Get dollars or go to prison

[raymorris]

If you don't get some US dollars and then give them to the IRS, IRS agents will eventually show up at your door and remind you that you better get some soon, or they'll be back to take you to prison. Ask Wesley Snipes - even action movie heroes need to have dollars. It might take a while, but eventually they show up.

That means dollars will always have value, as long as the IRS exists. Dollars keep you out of prison.

Additionally, as a bonus anyone who has debt of any kind needs dollars to get rid of that debt, so that the bank doesn't come take their house, car, etc. "Get some dollars or lose your house" is pretty powerful.

Trying sending the IRS some Bitcoins. Not gonna happen. Check your mortgage statemwnt. It's 100,000 DOLLARS you have to eventually pay the bank to keep your house. Sending them a sha-256 hash isn't going to let you keep your house.

How do we know the bank won't switch to denominating mortgages in Bitcoins or Buttcoins or Anonymous Coward Coin? Because the bank needs fifteen million DOLLARS to pay their taxes. So they are always going to want dollars from their customers.

Re:No value? That's a failure in logic

[vakuona]

Modern currencies like the US dollar are not backed by anything tangible either.

This betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what a currency is, and what backs it. Currencies are backed by the economic activity underlying a specific economic area. The US dollar is backed by the economic activity in the USA, the British pound by the UK economy, and so on. Having dollars gives you the right to purchase goods and services from US providers. While the GDP is not "tangible", there is a lot you can buy with dollars.

This again

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Bitcoin has been pronounced dead over 3000 times already yet it costs staggering ~ $3300 at the moment.

Something that has no value whatsoever. Right.

Clearly there's a bias against Bitcoin here at /. but it doesn't invalidate Bitcoin in the slightest. Yes, a year ago it was hyped like crazy, rose like crazy and then subsided but it's still very much alive and kicking.

Shitcoins meanwhile have lost a lot more than Bitcoin because most of them are nothing but shit - "breakthroughs in using blockchain" which solve imaginary problems using imaginary tools. See how Ethereum has lost a lot more than Bitcoin because it's been used as a platform for hundreds of worthless ICOs.