• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Bitcoin prices hits new high of $5829, value doubled in 5 mos (Update: now over $6k)

Ri'Orius

Member
difficulty in mining new bitcoins is causing the demand to outrun supply -- as demand continues to grow, supply will never improve. speculators see this now and are pricing in forecasted demand.

But why is there any demand? Like, I can see using bitcoin in the short term for making purchases, but what's the demand for keeping them instead of immediately converting it back into real money?

Speculation is the only explanation that makes any sense IMO.
 

Cipherr

Member
And you are a fool to put your eggs in this basket because of its inherent deflation. It's a bubble just waiting to pop.

the value of tulips shot up really quick once too. This will end the same way.

Honestly its great to get out and see these sort of perspectives really. After all this time, they almost come off as people standing on the side, shouting at the people walking away with bundles of money in their arms like: "YOU'RE A FOOL! NONE OF THAT WEALTH YOU KEEP GENERATING AND CASHING OUT IS REAL!"

Year after year after year after year. The talking points never change, the hostility gets stronger though.
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
But why is there any demand? Like, I can see using bitcoin in the short term for making purchases, but what's the demand for keeping them instead of immediately converting it back into real money?

Speculation is the only explanation that makes any sense IMO.
Because it's being marketed as a libertarian panacea to central currency and banking.
 

Xe4

Banned
Honestly its great to get out and see these sort of perspectives really. After all this time, they almost come off as people standing on the side, shouting at the people walking away with bundles of money in their arms like: "YOU'RE A FOOL! NONE OF THAT WEALTH YOU KEEP GENERATING AND CASHING OUT IS REAL!"

Year after year after year after year. The talking points never change, the hostility gets stronger though.
It's a bubble based on nothing. If you want to ride it, that's up to you, but let's not pretend it's not going to crash spectacularly. Bitcoin's worth is only in people buying it so they can sell it for more later. Anyone with a high school economics level education can tell you that's untenable.
 

element

Member
And you are a fool to put your eggs in this basket because of its inherent deflation. It's a bubble just waiting to pop.
in BTC or cryptocurrency in general? People have talked for the last 10 years about BTC bubble popping and it keeps going strong.
 

CrunchyB

Member
So someone help me out here. If I had bought 100,000 Bitcoins in 2010, where would the money even come from to pay me if I decided to sell them now?

There are exchanges like Bitstamp, Coinbase or Kraken where you can trade them with other people. Offloading more than about 1000 bitcoin a day will probably depress the price considerably, but that means you're cashing out $5 million every day.

For instance, on 14 September 40,000 bitcoin were sold at Bitstamp (and more at other markets), causing the price to drop about 16% that day.

New crypto currencies are also easily grown.

The idea that a btc is unique like a precious work of art by Picasso falls to pieces when you consider that the world can generate as many identical or better bitcoin systems as it needs.

Mostly correct, but no other currencies have the same developer support, let alone existing infrastructure and user base.
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
Honestly its great to get out and see these sort of perspectives really. After all this time, they almost come off as people standing on the side, shouting at the people walking away with bundles of money in their arms like: "YOU'RE A FOOL! NONE OF THAT WEALTH YOU KEEP GENERATING AND CASHING OUT IS REAL!"

Year after year after year after year. The talking points never change, the hostility gets stronger though.
We've seen entire exchanges just vanish overnight. GBL. BitCurex. MCXNoW. MyCoin. There's no accountability. The value of the currency fluctuates wildly. What is the point of currency which is unreliable? I'd rather barter.

Yeah, you can make easy money with bitcoin. But all you are doing is gambling by an unknown set of rules. The reason why you should stay away from bitcoin is because any investment vehicle should have value. And money, by its very definition, is a thing which has no inherent value, that we assign an arbitrary value to, as a standard unit of barter and trade. No one is trading in bitcoin, they're trading in X dollars worth of bitcoins. And that changes way too often.
 

Cipherr

Member
Is that just it? I figured that it's use for ransom malware and other criminal activities would have had a significant benefit towards the value.

Nah, bitcoin isn't nearly as anonymous as it was lauded to be all those years ago. Monero is a very private crypto that could be used for stuff like that, but using BTC is asking for an enforcement agency with actual bodies and resources to throw at blockchain explorers to track you down.

Even today, stuff like people who hacked all those Bitcoins YEARS ago are still being tracked down, arrested and prosecuted.


Alrighty.
 

bounchfx

Member
every time i see news about bitcoin i just remember my friend telling me about it in 2010 and how i thought it was neat but was too lazy to figure out the wallet system and how to buy, so I never did. FFF.

rinse and repeat over the last 3-4 years, with the same results
 

vesp

Member
This is gonna pop back down to 4K after the fork, people are just moving out of alt coins to get their free bitcoin gold and then will rediversify.
 

Genocyber

Member
Most people are buying and holding so they're speculators in the true sense of the word.

I'm just happy in the knowledge that my mining equipment has paid for itself many times over and that my offline digital wallet is still safe.
 
Other than for speculating and treating them like stocks, do people use bitcoins for the typical purposes of money (trading for goods and services)?
 

FyreWulff

Member
So people know the first person to attempt and try to liquidate their BTC is going to crash it all down, right?

Ain't worth much if you're not willing to be the first one to sell your stash.

Honestly its great to get out and see these sort of perspectives really. After all this time, they almost come off as people standing on the side, shouting at the people walking away with bundles of money in their arms like: "YOU'RE A FOOL! NONE OF THAT WEALTH YOU KEEP GENERATING AND CASHING OUT IS REAL!"

Year after year after year after year. The talking points never change, the hostility gets stronger though.

Because currency trading, outside of bare luck, is one of the most stupidest ways to invest money.
 

Cipherr

Member
This is gonna pop back down to 4K after the fork, people are just moving out of alt coins to get their free bitcoin gold and then will rediversify.

Yep, I mean, a correction is normal after every spike. Always happens. Nothing goes up infinitely, but its still newsworthy as we will likely see a new higher baseline/support form after the correction here. Then when the eventual next rally happens it goes that much higher.
 

Nipo

Member
Honestly its great to get out and see these sort of perspectives really. After all this time, they almost come off as people standing on the side, shouting at the people walking away with bundles of money in their arms like: "YOU'RE A FOOL! NONE OF THAT WEALTH YOU KEEP GENERATING AND CASHING OUT IS REAL!"

Year after year after year after year. The talking points never change, the hostility gets stronger though.

The point isn't that bitcoins won't keep gaining value. I wouldn't be shocked ot see them reach $100k per BT. My point was that average people shouldn't have short term speculative investments. You can see similar returns option trading or forex margins. Both of those are also incredibly risky... just like bit coin. Most people should max their 401k, max their IRA, and if available HSA. After you've invested that 30k a year if you want to put the rest short term investments like bitcoin? Sure go ahead at that point you're making enough that if the market does crash the loss won't hurt that much.
 

vesp

Member
Yep, I mean, a correction is normal after every spike. Always happens. Nothing goes up infinitely, but its still newsworthy as we will likely see a new higher baseline/support form after the correction here. Then when the eventual next rally happens it goes that much higher.

Yea, but this will be a much larger correction than you normally see after a bull run based on news. This surge has nothing to do with people thinking bitcoin is more valuable and everything to do with everyone hoping for another bitcoin cash situation where billions of free dollars entered the market.
 

Munter

Member
I invested a little bit into bitcoin last year, it's now more than triple my investment. The only problem is, I don't know how to sell it or get it transfered to my bank. In the UK.
 

Nipo

Member
Honest question. What do people do with these besides buy and sell them?

They were commonly used to get around currency regulations on investment in China for awhile. Quick check looks liek it is still the case.

"The share of the cryptocurrency that's traded via China's mainland currency escalated over the past few years, overtaking the US dollar as the dominant currency. From less than a 10% share in January 2012, the yuan now makes up nearly 100% of all bitcoin trading."

The bitcoin crash will come when the Chinese economy overheats.
 

FyreWulff

Member
It's very easy to sell and people do it all the time.

only 566 million dollars in bitcoin were traded in the past 24 hours.

For comparison, Satoshi alone owns 8.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoins.

Anyone smart has all the Satoshi addresses monitored and has hardcoded a sell as soon as any activity moves on them.

Hell, if anyone has a large amount of coin, you literally could not sell it fast enough because all those addresses are monitored and have programmed sells based off them.

Anyone actually notably wealthy via bitcoin cannot sell their bitcoin because it'll cause an auto-programmed runaway sell frenzy. They'll set off the manual monitors and then everyone on exchanges with sell limits set up will keep it going.
 
Honestly its great to get out and see these sort of perspectives really. After all this time, they almost come off as people standing on the side, shouting at the people walking away with bundles of money in their arms like: "YOU'RE A FOOL! NONE OF THAT WEALTH YOU KEEP GENERATING AND CASHING OUT IS REAL!"

Year after year after year after year. The talking points never change, the hostility gets stronger though.

Eh, I think it's more then fair to point out that Bitcoin's long-term viability as either a speculative commodity or (especially) a currency is questionable. That being said the people who keep predicting a definitive death every year are getting tired.
 

Cipherr

Member
^^^ China doesnt have that large a portion of the BTC market anymore, Sept 1st they backed far off of crypto, shuttered the exchanges and will allow it back but with regulation. Thats what Septembers BTC dip was about. China fell below US and Japan for BTC volume last month and hasnt recovered, BTC is still hitting ATHs regardless.

It's very easy to sell and people do it all the time.

only 566 million dollars in bitcoin were traded in the past 24 hours.

For comparison, Satoshi alone owns 8.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoins.

Anyone smart has all the Satoshi addresses monitored and has hardcoded a sell as soon as any activity moves on them.

Hell, if anyone has a large amount of coin, you literally could not sell it fast enough because all those addresses are monitored and have programmed sells based off them.

Anyone actually notably wealthy via bitcoin cannot sell their bitcoin because it'll cause an auto-programmed runaway sell frenzy. They'll set off the manual monitors and then everyone on exchanges with sell limits set up will keep it going.

You haven't proven anything he has said wrong. And 566 million every 24 hours is a shit load of money from a market the vast majority of the worlds population views as 'magical fairy coins' that they hear about on the news here and there.

Doesn't matter how much Satoshi has in those accounts, people literally cash out and in Millions a day, billions a week and have been for YEARS.

Cashing out is easy.

Period.
 

oon

Banned
Anyone actually notably wealthy via bitcoin cannot sell their bitcoin because it'll cause an auto-programmed runaway sell frenzy. They'll set off the manual monitors and then everyone on exchanges with sell limits set up will keep it going.

Wealthy people just sell their bitcoin in chucks so it doesn't tank the price, since that outcome obviously isn't conducive to their goals. You could sell 5 million a day and it'd have no effect.

I've cashed out my original investment in cryptocurrency and have made a lot on what was left. It's an exciting, emerging market - some of these services may very well be the next Apple or Amazon, though the majority are certainly pets.com-tier.
 

qcf x2

Member
This is gonna pop back down to 4K after the fork, people are just moving out of alt coins to get their free bitcoin gold and then will rediversify.

Exactly. I decided to sit it out because people are a little too comfortable considering we only have one example of how this might play out (BCC). Well, that and because I don't like Bitcoin. It's old, it's slow, the community needs to pick another champion IMO.
 

oon

Banned
yes, this is a thing you can do, but is too slow for pretty much everyone

Pretty much everyone in crypto has wallets holding less than 1 btc, and they have no problem selling - wealth distribution here is like anywhere else. This is as much a problem as what would happen to the stock market if every wealthy investor decided to sell everything.
 

grumble

Member
It's a bubble based on nothing. If you want to ride it, that's up to you, but let's not pretend it's not going to crash spectacularly. Bitcoin's worth is only in people buying it so they can sell it for more later. Anyone with a high school economics level education can tell you that's untenable.

To be fair, gold is fundamentally worthless (except for being shiny) and that has been a store of value for millennia.
 

FinKL

Member
Absolutely nothing. It's pure speculation on a currency that is deflationary by design.
Couldn't you argue the US Stock market bullish sentiment is driving it? At least that's how I feel. I mean there's no reason stocks should this high but they are...
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
only 566 million dollars in bitcoin were traded in the past 24 hours.

For comparison, Satoshi alone owns 8.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoins.

Anyone smart has all the Satoshi addresses monitored and has hardcoded a sell as soon as any activity moves on them.

Hell, if anyone has a large amount of coin, you literally could not sell it fast enough because all those addresses are monitored and have programmed sells based off them.

Anyone actually notably wealthy via bitcoin cannot sell their bitcoin because it'll cause an auto-programmed runaway sell frenzy. They'll set off the manual monitors and then everyone on exchanges with sell limits set up will keep it going.
On that same token, anyone with that kind of money in bitcoin would be willing to take a temporary hit to stop the value from going to near zero. I think it will continue to be propped up for the foreseeable future even if the fundamentals don't make any sense. Barring a technical issue that undermines the entire blockchain.
 
Mostly correct, but no other currencies have the same developer support, let alone existing infrastructure and user base.

So buying and holding BTC as an investment is rather like betting that league of legends will remain the number 1 most popular online game for at least as long as you need it to.
That seemed almost a persuasive idea until PUBG came out.
 

Afrodium

Banned
So buying and holding BTC as an investment is rather like betting that league of legends will remain the number 1 most popular online game for at least as long as you need it to.
That seemed almost a persuasive idea until PUBG came out.

If LoL and PUBG were cryptocurrencies my LoL-coins would still be worth more than the majority of others, and I would have had plenty of time to see PUBG growing in popularity and could have moved by holdings there if I wanted to.

But videogame playerbases don't really act like cryptocurrencies so this comparison doesn't really work.
 

shira

Member
only 566 million dollars in bitcoin were traded in the past 24 hours.

For comparison, Satoshi alone owns 8.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoins.

Anyone smart has all the Satoshi addresses monitored and has hardcoded a sell as soon as any activity moves on them.

Hell, if anyone has a large amount of coin, you literally could not sell it fast enough because all those addresses are monitored and have programmed sells based off them.

Anyone actually notably wealthy via bitcoin cannot sell their bitcoin because it'll cause an auto-programmed runaway sell frenzy. They'll set off the manual monitors and then everyone on exchanges with sell limits set up will keep it going.
Plus huge flags on your bank or whever you get the money from.

You would need your own bodyguards or PMC or something.
 
Top Bottom