4 ms·

Bitcoin is living up to it's reputation as digital gold. The Chinese are running away from RMB and buying bitcoin, Venezuelans are running away from Bolivares

by kneel 10y ago

Bitcoin is living up to it's reputation as digital gold. The Chinese are running away from RMB and buying bitcoin, Venezuelans are running away from Bolivares into Bitcoin. And to a lesser extent some Indians are escaping the Rupee. It'll be really interesting to see how governments try to deal with decentralized currencies if they really take off. Governments lose a lot of control when they can't control money.

smokeyj 10y ago
Makes me wonder what other essential functions of society can be digitized, decentralized, and put out of reach of irresponsible government entities.
- jacobush 10y ago
  Into the reach of irresponsible private entities
  - stale2002 10y ago
    The difference being that irresponsible governments use force to require you to use their services. At least if a private party screws me over, I can stop doing business with them.
    - jacobush 10y ago
      You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars/bitcoins
      - firebones 10y ago
        Bravo. It's time to watch "Network" again! https://sfy.ru/?script=network https://sfy.ru/?script=network
        jacobush 10y ago
        This movie is so quotable it's almost scary.
        firebones 10y ago
        I thought about creating a syllabus of essential biz/capitalism/media movies for new grads tonight. "Network", "There Will Be Blood", "Office Space", etc. Let's build this thing...
        jacobush 10y ago
        Fork it on github
cperciva 10y ago
The Chinese are running away from RMB and buying bitcoin Not just bitcoin. Chinese money is buying whatever assets they can get their hands on; purchases of real estate in Canada alone last year significantly exceeded the entire market capitalization of bitcoin.
nikolay 10y ago
That's not true at all - just paid marketing via questionable news sources. When you look at the volumes, which haven't increased much, this is all speculation so prepare for a sharp dump soon!
- kneel 10y ago
  Curious where do you view total volume? I'm guessing blockchain.info but which chart are you referring to?
  - pmorici 10y ago
    https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ That site has some numbers as far as exchanges go but there really isn't any place you can go to see a definitive trading volume number. You also can't rely on volume numbers for any exchange that offers trading at 0% fees. The big three exchanges in China all have inflated volume numbers. You could also look at value of Bitcoin transacted on the blockchain itself. Transaction volume had been steadily growing until it hit the current theoretical maximum in the last half of this year. The thing to look for now is increasing total transaction value. Hopefully the blocksize gets raised soon so total transactions can continue to grow again.
    - nikolay 10y ago
      Well, I am looking at the exchange volume, which is not increasing - even with 0 fees! The blockchain volume is really hard to interpret.
      - pmorici 10y ago
        Volume denominated in what? If you are looking at volume denominated in BTC then in an environment of rising prices that means your volume is actually going up if the volume stays the same.
pg314 10y ago
It's hard to get reliable numbers of the number of Venezuelans having bitcoin. According to [1], surbitcoin.com had 85,000 users in November 2016 (on a population of 30 million). Quartz reported in November 2016 a weekly bitcoin volume below 400 bitcoin on localbitcoin.com. That is not bad, but I would not call it Venezuelans running away from Bolivares into Bitcoin. One of the problems is that you would have to be crazy to want to sell bitcoin for Bolivares if you can't immediately spend them. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/venezuela-bitcoin-economy-digital-currency-bolivars https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/venezuela... [2] http://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei-eliminates-the-need-for-lifehacks/ http://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei-eliminates...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
h1d 10y ago
Everytime the price fluctuates, people tend to provide whatever the likely cause but do you have any solid proof that those are really the cases? If they're all right they could certainly voice before prices move but usually I hear nothing while the price is flat.
vivekd 10y ago
A part of me wishes I had bought back when it was still only a few hundred. At the same time, I still really don't see a future for bitcoin. Sure it can be good for hedging against currency falls, but that's not a good long term prospect. For it to succeed on the long run it needs to be a currency which needs stability and the willingness of a large group of people to exchange it for goods and or services. Progress in that area has been slow. Not to mention the community debates over hard forking which threaten the future of the currency entirely.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
tdb7893 10y ago
But isn't governments having monetary policy a good thing? I thought government control of currency leads to more stability and ability to help the economy without having to use fiscal policy

by kneel 10y ago

smokeyj 10y ago

Makes me wonder what other essential functions of society can be digitized, decentralized, and put out of reach of irresponsible government entities.

jacobush 10y ago
Into the reach of irresponsible private entities
- stale2002 10y ago
  The difference being that irresponsible governments use force to require you to use their services. At least if a private party screws me over, I can stop doing business with them.
  - jacobush 10y ago
    You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars/bitcoins
    - firebones 10y ago
      Bravo. It's time to watch "Network" again! https://sfy.ru/?script=network https://sfy.ru/?script=network
      - jacobush 10y ago
        This movie is so quotable it's almost scary.
        firebones 10y ago
        I thought about creating a syllabus of essential biz/capitalism/media movies for new grads tonight. "Network", "There Will Be Blood", "Office Space", etc. Let's build this thing...
        jacobush 10y ago
        Fork it on github

cperciva 10y ago

The Chinese are running away from RMB and buying bitcoin Not just bitcoin. Chinese money is buying whatever assets they can get their hands on; purchases of real estate in Canada alone last year significantly exceeded the entire market capitalization of bitcoin.

nikolay 10y ago

That's not true at all - just paid marketing via questionable news sources. When you look at the volumes, which haven't increased much, this is all speculation so prepare for a sharp dump soon!

kneel 10y ago
Curious where do you view total volume? I'm guessing blockchain.info but which chart are you referring to?
- pmorici 10y ago
  https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/ That site has some numbers as far as exchanges go but there really isn't any place you can go to see a definitive trading volume number. You also can't rely on volume numbers for any exchange that offers trading at 0% fees. The big three exchanges in China all have inflated volume numbers. You could also look at value of Bitcoin transacted on the blockchain itself. Transaction volume had been steadily growing until it hit the current theoretical maximum in the last half of this year. The thing to look for now is increasing total transaction value. Hopefully the blocksize gets raised soon so total transactions can continue to grow again.
  - nikolay 10y ago
    Well, I am looking at the exchange volume, which is not increasing - even with 0 fees! The blockchain volume is really hard to interpret.
    - pmorici 10y ago
      Volume denominated in what? If you are looking at volume denominated in BTC then in an environment of rising prices that means your volume is actually going up if the volume stays the same.

pg314 10y ago

It's hard to get reliable numbers of the number of Venezuelans having bitcoin. According to [1], surbitcoin.com had 85,000 users in November 2016 (on a population of 30 million). Quartz reported in November 2016 a weekly bitcoin volume below 400 bitcoin on localbitcoin.com. That is not bad, but I would not call it Venezuelans running away from Bolivares into Bitcoin. One of the problems is that you would have to be crazy to want to sell bitcoin for Bolivares if you can't immediately spend them. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/venezuela-bitcoin-economy-digital-currency-bolivars https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/venezuela... [2] http://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei-eliminates-the-need-for-lifehacks/ http://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei-eliminates...

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

h1d 10y ago

Everytime the price fluctuates, people tend to provide whatever the likely cause but do you have any solid proof that those are really the cases? If they're all right they could certainly voice before prices move but usually I hear nothing while the price is flat.

vivekd 10y ago

A part of me wishes I had bought back when it was still only a few hundred. At the same time, I still really don't see a future for bitcoin. Sure it can be good for hedging against currency falls, but that's not a good long term prospect. For it to succeed on the long run it needs to be a currency which needs stability and the willingness of a large group of people to exchange it for goods and or services. Progress in that area has been slow. Not to mention the community debates over hard forking which threaten the future of the currency entirely.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tdb7893 10y ago

But isn't governments having monetary policy a good thing? I thought government control of currency leads to more stability and ability to help the economy without having to use fiscal policy