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One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day
- rb808 9y agoI want to make some money buying bitcoin it just keeps going up! Which is the best exchange I should use? Is Coinbase best?
- mesozoic 9y agoJust mine them. Actually you probably have better odds mining that landfill where the guy lost his hard drive with thousands of them on it.
- h1d 9y agoMining Bitcoin with personal equipments is the dumbest thing you can do. Even with modest ASIC in a pool, you'll get very little.
- keiraarts 9y agoHigh fees, I would search around if you're buying large amounts.
- possiblydave 9y agoI've personally used Coinbase and find it an excellent platform. Great interface, app works well and they enforce 2FA. I'm by no means an "enthusiast" but took a similar attitude to yours a few months ago, grabbed $400 or so of BTC (and some LTC and ETH, the other two currencies on offer by Coinbase) and I'm at around $2,000 in gains now, so can't complain.
- m12k 9y agoI like Coinbase for my personal account, but I've been waiting a month now for them to approve my company account. I don't think they're equipped to handle such an influx of users
- olympus 9y agoTwo tips: 1. Don't keep your BTC in any exchange account for very long, and check the popular forums for people complaining about transactions being held up before transferring BTC into your account. Lots of people got screwed by MtGox, and it can happen on any exchange. 2. Don't spend any money other than money you would be willing to give away for free (totally discretionary money). The bottom has fallen out of markets before, and BTC is not immune. BTC has a lot of similarities to tulips, houses, Beanie Babies, and .com stocks in the late 90's.
- komali2 9y agoHmm, I have a problem with comparing BTC to tulips, houses, or beanie babies, because there never was a powerful and active market for exchanging beanie babies for real world product (i.e. functioning as currency) as we have seen for BTC and buying drugs or software. I also don't like the comparison to .com stocks because those are already an instrument (stocks), which represent company values, and the collapse of an industry doesn't necessarily reflect upon the likelihood of an entirely new investment instrument collapsing. I would think maybe a comparison to other forms of currency would be a better metaphor - i.e. gold or something. Inherently value-less (gold is pretty and historically been used for currency, that's about it - it's not traded as a commodity for its usefulness as a raw good like Oil or whatever) but still valued.
- olympus 9y agoI didn't say they were identical, but there are some important similarities: To tulips and beanie babies: There were direct substitutes (other flowers and other stuffed animals) in terms of the actual utility, but tulip prices shot up in 1637- even investors bought tulip contracts not because they needed them, but because they were speculating on the value. Eventually demand leveled out, and the prices stopped going up. When the prices stopped going up, the speculators got out, and prices went down fast. The premium status of being the preferred flower or the preferred toy didn't help any more. How could this be like BTC? There are cryptocurrencies that are direct substitutes like LTC, but BTC is preferred and has a lot of investors purely for speculation. Once demand levels off (it must, there are a max of 7 billion people that can buy it), the speculators will get out, and prices will come down. Why hasn't it happened yet? BTC is artificially scarce due to block difficulty increases and fixed BTC being added for each block. The limited supply is maintaining price support for now, but like I said, once demand levels off, the fixed supply won't be as big of a price driver. Similar to houses and .com stocks: Houses have real utility (you can use it for shelter). Stocks have real utility (you own a piece of a profit making entity). BTC has some real utility (you can transfer wealth outside of the regulation of governments and banks). However, these bubbles happened because instead of trading on a firm foundation value, people started expecting profits. The castle in the sky theory does work, but only if enough people believe in it. Once confidence faltered (either that people would continue to buy houses or that .com stocks would continue to print money), the castles in the sky fell, and prices fell back to their firm foundation value (a house in Las Vegas that I looked at went from $400k down to $100k- basically the price of raw materials and cheap labor). BTC's price right now is WAY over it's firm foundation utility of being a wealth transfer vehicle. It does have some value, but if enough people decide that a couple other cryptocoins can do the job with less risk than BTC, then prices for BTC will go down to it's intrinsic value- mostly related to the price of energy. It's hard to tell where this will settle, because ASICs are getting more efficient, and the block difficulty changes. But I guarantee you it will be way under $6k. So these things aren't exactly the same, but there are lots of similarities with previous bubbles in the past. I'm not saying to stay away from BTC, but you had better be willing to lose your investment. There are a lot of people in the market that are only looking for a quick buck, and if they get out before you do then you are going to lose most of your investment. If you aren't desperate to make money off your investment, you will be happy with closing a position early instead of riding the crash into the ground. Closing early makes you the person with the quick buck and makes someone else the fool that lost their shirt.
- ddavidn 9y agoGemini is good, but please remember that the value could always go down sharply. It is not usually best to buy at the peak of the chart. (opinion, not financial advice)
- dmckeon 9y agoAsk the guy shining shoes outside J.P. Morgan. He always knows where a market is heading.
- Miner49er 9y agoGemini is better IMO, but I can't use Coinbase in my state, so I suppose I may be biased.
- seanalltogether 9y agoI'd be curious to know at this point what amount of bitcoin transactions are actually retail focused. There was a big push a couple years back by users wanting to make actual purchases with bitcoin and helping to build the infrastructure around that. Does this retail side of bitcoin still exist, or is everyone just mining and selling -> buying and holding?
- synaesthesisx 9y agoWhy would I want to make actual purchases when it's rallying like this? You'd almost always be better off holding instead...
- stefano 9y agoSo everyone is holding and buying it, and no one is making anything useful with it. Sounds like a great allocation of capital! /s
- Omnius 9y agoI am all for bitcoin but you think about it as it is right now. People turn their cash into ether then extract more cash then they put in later only because a bunch of other people are doing it too. This has to pop and when it does i buying a shit ton of it for the next rally. --edit extra should have been extract.
- dragontamer 9y agoThat's the problem. If no one is actually using the coin for practical purposes, you've created a glorified Ponzi scheme. The minute that "better off holding" is no longer the most common opinion, the price of BTC will drop. I dunno how long that will take: it took years for Enron to drop to zero for example. But I do not place much trust in the whims of stranger's opinions.
- apthnz 9y agoAs far as I know, most Bitcoin transactions take ~10mins to get confirmed, so I'm not sure the current infrastructure would work for retail. Admittedly I don't know what would need to be changed to speed up transaction confirmations to the point where you could use it in retail situations.
- purephase 9y agoAs someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price keeps going up-and-up and for most of them, these small investments (some quite large) have paid off for them. When does this bubble burst? And, what is it going to look like? 100k people in a single day is crazy to me as a layperson, but if this was to be compared to a stock run (disregarding dilution) what type of alarm bells should be ringing for those with the most to lose? Or, are we past that point now?
- nickysielicki 9y agoWhy are you so sure that it's a bubble?
- and0 9y agoNot OP but as someone familiar with BTC tech / history I still haven't discovered any real use for it. As in, issues 99% of people in first-world countries have with fiat that it solves, rather than exacerbate (let alone the other massive hassles with using BTC). It seems to only exist for speculation. Its meteoric rise in the face of all this screams bubble to me. (But.. I've also been saying this for a while.)
- komali2 9y agoReally? I often buy drugs with BTC. I have friends that use it to buy software. I guess "but that's illegal!" is a strong argument for those that have a lot of trust in governments. I... don't... so I'm happy to use non-governmental instruments. I still pay my taxes and contribute, I'm not an anarchist, I just like having means to express value that aren't controlled by governments.
- Omnius 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dogruck 9y agoI’ve got my popcorn out. I keep encountering more and more everyday people who are investing serious money in Bitcoin. Uber drivers, barbers, baristas.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoI'm not into FUD because I like the technology and I have money in it -- but come mid-month you might see some heads turn at the 2x fork. I haven't been following closely to what community tone seems to be, but if there ends up being a sudden correction because of the split, it will be interesting to see what happens. It bodes well for the tech itself, but it might shake a few weak hands pretty good. Especially if they're just getting in now...
- yazr 9y agoFor a minute i read this as "I keep encouraging more and more everyday people.." which made me smile ;)
- loki0505 9y agowriting is on the wall gentlemen.
- pjc50 9y agoThat's a lot of users. How many of them are distinct human beings? How would that be verified?
- xapata 9y agoProbably a tiny fraction. I'd guess that an algorithm recognized that buying 100 Bitcoin spread across 100k accounts is better than from 1 account.
- gruez 9y agoDo orderbooks display account information? AFAIK 1 person putting 1000 orders and 1000 people each putting in 1 order looks identical (unless you're the exchange operator)
- xapata 9y agoNot sure. This is somewhat the motivation for "dark pools" in the regular equities markets.
- 6nf 9y agoYou need ID verification to trade on the account, I dont think you can make 100s of accounts for one trader
- xapata 9y agoThat's interesting. I thought the Bitcoin folks were all about anonymity.
- jayess 9y agoI've tried opening a business account. I provided all of the required documentation weeks ago (probably more than a month ago). Still not able to trade. I entered a help ticket a week or so ago and just got a response that they are very busy... Still waiting.
- jhspaybar 9y agoMy dad just texted me today asking if I owned bitcoin and if he should pick some up. I described it as uninsured highly volatile fine art(can be destroyed/lost) with a huge counter-party risk if he doesn't have the technical ability to store his own coins. Does anyone out there have a better analogy to scare family/friends away from it?
- berdon 9y agoJust keep in mind that if the price skyrockets you'll get to field more phone calls from angry family/friends who missed out because of your advice. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- baxtr 9y agoMy sister told me she bought some and that she’ll buy more soon. She also told me that the price will rise and rise. I’m not sure what to say, I’m totally stunned. But I guess that is an interesting signal showing that the pool of people who could potentially buy more and thus drive the price is tremendously big.
- nnfy 9y agoWhy are you trying to scare them? Just explain to them that it is high risk. But there is a strong potential future for btc, and in spite of all the fear mongering, BTC has so far come back from every crash. You're not just throwing away money if you spend a couple hundred of your otherwise disposable income on some btc. Buying at any point in the past would have yielded a payoff today.
- komali2 9y agoCan people elaborate why they are downvoting this? I hold a similar opinion - as long as your other investment instruments are intelligently diversified and filled-out, why not spend a small % on bitcoin? As nnfy has said, any amount in the past would have yielded payoff today. "But a crash!" is not an argument alone. Every single other investment instrument I'm aware of has had a crash.
- 9y ago
- golangnews 9y ago"I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men," - Newton after he lost everything investing in the south sea bubble for a second time, just before it popped. This has gained mainstream attention and no-one knows what they’re investing in any more, there is no there there to justify the price. Consider the trajectory of chain - a bitcoin startup that has gone from being about bitcoin to about block chains to about distributed ledgers to being about distributed applications (note these last things don’t care what they’re denominated in). A founder wrote one of the best write ups of this space I’ve seen, and even he is pretty skeptical: https://blog.chain.com/a-letter-to-jamie-dimon-de89d417cb80 https://blog.chain.com/a-letter-to-jamie-dimon-de89d417cb80 All it needs now is for ordinary people to get nervous and start trying to realise their gains all at once for prices to plummet once again.
- lossolo 9y agoTrading volume of bitcoin from last 24h is almost 1.7 billion dollars. I don't remember to see it that high. Bitcoin just hit 7000 dollars.
- kasperni 9y agoOne bitcoin transaction already now uses as much energy as your house in a week. I really have trouble seeing how this can scale in the long run? https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mining-electricity-consumption-ethereum-energy-climate-change https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mi... Bitcoin - The new coal
- enobrev 9y agoThis has been my issue from the start. I generally feel like I've missed a boat I certainly could have gotten on to early enough, But it's so terribly wasteful, I have a hard time supporting the thing at all. Admittedly I don't follow the subject very closely, but I haven't seen this argument mentioned nearly enough.
- rb808 9y agoCoinbase so dominates cryptocurrency accounts in the US they should just have a way to do internal $ payments between accounts without going through any blockchain. Would be much quicker and cheaper.
- mattpk 9y agoYeah, only apply the transaction to the block chain when it leaves their system, e.g. PayPal.
- synicalx 9y agoI'm curious and I can't work out how to phrase this as a Google search, so I'm hoping someone smarter than me can answer this: At the moment we refer to BTC as being worth $xUSD, but without another currency to compare it to, is it worth anything? Or is it just not designed to be used in isolation?
- mattpk 9y agoI'd rather endure the FOMO when I don't understand its value than lose money when I had my doubts. Feels like it'll be the former for a while...
- bb88 9y agoSo are they truly 100,000 distinct users or just 20 users creating 5,000 accounts each to create a money laundering machine?