8 ms·

Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000, Reaches Another Milestone

87 points by sndean 9y ago

do5 9y ago
This is just speculative but the Bitcoin fork was probably the best thing to happen to the price of bitcoin. http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/08/07/bitcoin-cash-bch-hard-fork-blockchain-usd-coinbase/?source=dam http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/08/07/bitcoin-cash-bch-h...
- solotronics 9y ago
  weird question but why not fork more and people will trade it for BTC. at what point would it not work anymore?
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    A fork has to be an idea about what Bitcoin is. This fork worked because some people saw Bitcoin as a settlement layer for a wider system of credits. Other people saw Bitcoin as a monolithic currency. The distance between those ideas caused the split. Similarly ETH saw Ethereum as a beta prototype, and ETC saw it as a final contract. Those two ideas were each strong enough to support a community. But this doesn't work arbitrarily. If I see Bitcoin as a currency primarily for selling ice cream cones and I fork IceCreamCoin, which responds to the seasonality of ice cream sales, there's no guarantee other people will see value in that idea, and mine blocks on my chain, or pay for coins transacted in those blocks on exchanges. This is key to understanding cryptocurrency: there is no central reality. There are as many realities as you want. There are incentives to participate in some of them, but it's voluntary. You can walk away from whoever you want, and decide their money doesn't even exist for you, for any reason.
    - mikejarema 9y ago
      This is a fantastic philosophical summary of what a cryptocurrency fork represents. Thank you for sharing.
  - rrobukef 9y ago
    At the point BTC isn't under pressure anymore. Both forks have value because people give them value. But two forks are worth more than one because it was under immense pressure to scale. It could be that the growth was stunted until the split but I think the fork gave people confidence and became more than the sum. Forking again will probably not relieve any pressure. It wouldnt take off.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
frik 9y ago
The same news got posted on HN 1h ago, got flagged after 36 up votes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15001403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15001403
Temasik 9y ago
What's Bitcoin use case besides speculation? Buying $10 worth of namecheap domain and pay $5 on fees no thanks!
- tpallarino 9y ago
  You could currently pay a fee of about 5 cents and be confirmed likely within 3 blocks. https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ https://bitcoinfees.21.co/
  - nickporter 9y ago
    This. I just bought 0.007 btc and sent it to a friend, and it cost less than 10 cents in fees overall.
  - pieguy 9y ago
    Not sure how you came up with 5 cents but I get $1.36: 4000 dollars/btc * 10^-8 btc/satoshi * 150 satoshi/byte * 226 bytes/transaction = $1.356 per transaction
    - tpallarino 9y ago
      If you wanted to get confirmed in the very next block you could probably use 25 satoshi/byte at this point in time. Personally, if I were sending a non critical/time-sensitive transaction right now I would use about 5 satoshi/byte.
- sxv 9y ago
  a decentralized, unseizable, cross-border, deflationary store of value. it's next-gen gold.
  - noitsnot 9y ago
    unstable and unusable. next-gen pyramid scheme
    - 9y ago
senatorobama 9y ago
Is it too late for the average joe Software Engineer to invest in Bitcoin?
- fourstar 9y ago
  This is exactly what keeps moving the price up.
  - matt_wulfeck 9y ago
    Last one out holds the bag.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - honestlyreally 9y ago
      The finite bag of 21m coins? Vast majority of which are likely lost from when it was worth a few cents? If bitcoin has utility, its price will reflect that.
- reefoctopus 9y ago
  It is not, but you might want to dollar cost average in.
- yclopediaen 9y ago
  I'd also look at quality ICOs if you can do the technical due diligence on them e.g. https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of-the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2 https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of-the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2
- marcell 9y ago
  There is an interesting discussion between Hal Finney and Satoshi in 2009 about the possible value of bitcoin. This is back when it was just a random software project, and had zero value: http://diswww.mit.edu/bloom-picayune/crypto/142207 http://diswww.mit.edu/bloom-picayune/crypto/142207 As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With 20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million.
shams93 9y ago
Can you get an IRA portfolio based on cryptocurrency? It would be nice to be able to invest in btc with the same kind of tax benefits you get with a traditional stock based IRA.
- icelancer 9y ago
  Not yet. Winklevoss twins ETF got denied after four years. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/business/dealbook/winkelvoss-brothers-bid-to-create-a-bitcoin-etf-is-rejected.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/business/dealbook/winkelv...
- asn0 9y ago
  This company lets you set up a self-directed IRA and buy Bitcoin or Ethereum with your IRA https://bitcoinira.com https://bitcoinira.com I don't know if this is legitimate or not.
- naveen99 9y ago
  You can buy gbtc, but it's at a premium to buying bitcoin directly.
- taysic 9y ago
  It way too volatile and uncertain. It literally depends on a decentralized network that no one can control exactly so that why it keeps getting shut down
andy_ppp 9y ago
I sold mine a few days ago around $3100 which is slightly annoying. I did buy most of them at about $500 though. At this price there is definitely going to a be a sell off and I'll get in again then.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- andirk 9y ago
  Why did you sell it? If you needed the cash that makes sense, but else if you've believed in it for a couple years, then why now?
  - andy_ppp 9y ago
    I was tired and thought it had reached a maximum for a while. I was very wrong.
granaldo 9y ago
Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin combined at almost $4500 now. https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin-cash/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin-cash/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd Split ended up bringing the potential forward for both camps and able to move on

87 points by sndean 9y ago

do5 9y ago

This is just speculative but the Bitcoin fork was probably the best thing to happen to the price of bitcoin. http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/08/07/bitcoin-cash-bch-hard-fork-blockchain-usd-coinbase/?source=dam http://amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/08/07/bitcoin-cash-bch-h...

solotronics 9y ago
weird question but why not fork more and people will trade it for BTC. at what point would it not work anymore?
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  A fork has to be an idea about what Bitcoin is. This fork worked because some people saw Bitcoin as a settlement layer for a wider system of credits. Other people saw Bitcoin as a monolithic currency. The distance between those ideas caused the split. Similarly ETH saw Ethereum as a beta prototype, and ETC saw it as a final contract. Those two ideas were each strong enough to support a community. But this doesn't work arbitrarily. If I see Bitcoin as a currency primarily for selling ice cream cones and I fork IceCreamCoin, which responds to the seasonality of ice cream sales, there's no guarantee other people will see value in that idea, and mine blocks on my chain, or pay for coins transacted in those blocks on exchanges. This is key to understanding cryptocurrency: there is no central reality. There are as many realities as you want. There are incentives to participate in some of them, but it's voluntary. You can walk away from whoever you want, and decide their money doesn't even exist for you, for any reason.
  - mikejarema 9y ago
    This is a fantastic philosophical summary of what a cryptocurrency fork represents. Thank you for sharing.
- rrobukef 9y ago
  At the point BTC isn't under pressure anymore. Both forks have value because people give them value. But two forks are worth more than one because it was under immense pressure to scale. It could be that the growth was stunted until the split but I think the fork gave people confidence and became more than the sum. Forking again will probably not relieve any pressure. It wouldnt take off.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

frik 9y ago

The same news got posted on HN 1h ago, got flagged after 36 up votes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15001403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15001403

Temasik 9y ago

What's Bitcoin use case besides speculation? Buying $10 worth of namecheap domain and pay $5 on fees no thanks!

tpallarino 9y ago
You could currently pay a fee of about 5 cents and be confirmed likely within 3 blocks. https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ https://bitcoinfees.21.co/
- nickporter 9y ago
  This. I just bought 0.007 btc and sent it to a friend, and it cost less than 10 cents in fees overall.
- pieguy 9y ago
  Not sure how you came up with 5 cents but I get $1.36: 4000 dollars/btc * 10^-8 btc/satoshi * 150 satoshi/byte * 226 bytes/transaction = $1.356 per transaction
  - tpallarino 9y ago
    If you wanted to get confirmed in the very next block you could probably use 25 satoshi/byte at this point in time. Personally, if I were sending a non critical/time-sensitive transaction right now I would use about 5 satoshi/byte.
sxv 9y ago
a decentralized, unseizable, cross-border, deflationary store of value. it's next-gen gold.
- noitsnot 9y ago
  unstable and unusable. next-gen pyramid scheme
  - 9y ago

senatorobama 9y ago

Is it too late for the average joe Software Engineer to invest in Bitcoin?

fourstar 9y ago
This is exactly what keeps moving the price up.
- matt_wulfeck 9y ago
  Last one out holds the bag.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - honestlyreally 9y ago
    The finite bag of 21m coins? Vast majority of which are likely lost from when it was worth a few cents? If bitcoin has utility, its price will reflect that.
reefoctopus 9y ago
It is not, but you might want to dollar cost average in.
yclopediaen 9y ago
I'd also look at quality ICOs if you can do the technical due diligence on them e.g. https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of-the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2 https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of-the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2
marcell 9y ago
There is an interesting discussion between Hal Finney and Satoshi in 2009 about the possible value of bitcoin. This is back when it was just a random software project, and had zero value: http://diswww.mit.edu/bloom-picayune/crypto/142207 http://diswww.mit.edu/bloom-picayune/crypto/142207 As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With 20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million.

shams93 9y ago

Can you get an IRA portfolio based on cryptocurrency? It would be nice to be able to invest in btc with the same kind of tax benefits you get with a traditional stock based IRA.

icelancer 9y ago
Not yet. Winklevoss twins ETF got denied after four years. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/business/dealbook/winkelvoss-brothers-bid-to-create-a-bitcoin-etf-is-rejected.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/business/dealbook/winkelv...
asn0 9y ago
This company lets you set up a self-directed IRA and buy Bitcoin or Ethereum with your IRA https://bitcoinira.com https://bitcoinira.com I don't know if this is legitimate or not.
naveen99 9y ago
You can buy gbtc, but it's at a premium to buying bitcoin directly.
taysic 9y ago
It way too volatile and uncertain. It literally depends on a decentralized network that no one can control exactly so that why it keeps getting shut down

andy_ppp 9y ago

I sold mine a few days ago around $3100 which is slightly annoying. I did buy most of them at about $500 though. At this price there is definitely going to a be a sell off and I'll get in again then.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
andirk 9y ago
Why did you sell it? If you needed the cash that makes sense, but else if you've believed in it for a couple years, then why now?
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  I was tired and thought it had reached a maximum for a while. I was very wrong.

granaldo 9y ago

Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin combined at almost $4500 now. https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin-cash/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin-cash/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/bitcoin/usd Split ended up bringing the potential forward for both camps and able to move on