4 ms·

By the way, what is up with Bitcoin? Why did it rise 10x this year?

by TekMol 9y ago

thaumaturgy 9y ago
Because I haven't had any money in it for most of the year. The couple of times I did have money in it -- for up to two months at a time -- it either fell slightly overall or stayed fairly flat. As soon as I sold, it jumped back up again. I'm currently accepting offers from Bitcoin investors to prevent me from buying back in again.
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  The trick with Bitcoin is to do fuck all. Buy and forget. Come back in 10 yrs.
kakarot 9y ago
It's been doing that for years.
rplnt 9y ago
Higher general awareness would be my guess? Regular-money people start to invest. Too bad it only works as an investment and not something useful (considering how much energy is wasted on it).
- wolco 9y ago
  A lot of people are using it for payments.
  - rplnt 9y ago
    For other currencies, sure. But minority of moved value would be used to pay for goods/services. Also, isn't the fee extremely high right now?
    - wolco 9y ago
      It's around 10 dollars. A lot of retailers offer a discount (because each credit card transaction costs them 5%). If your purchase is high enough it makes sense. Would not make sense for micro transactions
      - solotronics 9y ago
        not true currently
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  It would be cool if all those miners were also solving a puzzle that incidentally would help cure some disease, or figure out how to beat the speed of light.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Or figure out how to make faster DRAM. (Cuckoo Cycle algorithm.) Incidentally, faster than light communication might increase speed of memory, right?
fastball 9y ago
As an outsider looking in, it seems like every time something negative happens to BTC, if the ramifications weren't as bad as everyone was expecting the market resurges twofold. In the case of this year, there was the major shenanigans with the hard fork from just BTC to BTC / BCH, as well as some heightened cryptocurrency crackdowns in China.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  Because Bitcoin holders, psychologically (not politically!) are like Trump supporters before the election. The more negativity/naysers there are, the more stubbornly they continue to hold to prove the elite financial world they are wrong.
pmorici 9y ago
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactions.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactions.ht... Massive transaction growth, a proxy for user adoption, since the Dec. 2013 crash. That lead to steady growth until this spring when Core's no block increase ever policy stunted adoption but by then the bubble had already started to form. you are seeing a bunch of clueless new folks fomo into the crypto space right now. I would be surprised if we aren't entering the blow off top phase. There was just a ~50% movement in a matter of a week. Bitcoin Cash is probably the true Bitcoin long term that is where I'm moving my money. * Also significant unease over USDT Tether scheme among the wider community could lead to a second Gox like situation
nathan_f77 9y ago
I would really like to read a well-researched answer to this question. I've heard various theories around instability in Puerto Rico, and people using it to move money out of China. I have no idea if there's any evidence to support those theories. I really want to understand some of the economics behind the value of a Bitcoin. Some people say that it's actually worthless, but that can't be true. It lets people move practically unlimited amounts of money anywhere in the world for a relatively small fee. It also provides immutable data that can be used to verify records. I actually spent this weekend adding blockchain verification to my document generation service [1]. It was actually pretty amazing to look at a Bitcoin transaction [2], and realize that this data has so much authenticity and permanence. Not only does it guarantee that my document existed at a certain point in time, but that hash will probably be preserved in the blockchain for the rest of human history. That one bitcoin transaction cost a lot of money (0.000846 BTC, or $6.95 USD), but it verifies a large number of records by using a merkle tree. [3] I have no idea how these fees relate to the fiat price, but that must be one factor. Also the price of electricity around the world. There's a lot of speculation and "tulip mania" too, but even if you ignore all of that, I think it's a very interesting thing to research. [1] https://formapi.io/ https://formapi.io/ [2] https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/4dc1ef829128355fdbbf3afbf0de854778e0e027481e9a5ff53a64d9ab39a78c/ https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/4dc1ef829128355fdbbf3afb... [3] https://chainpoint.org/ https://chainpoint.org/
- asciimo 9y ago
  The fee size is relative to the amount of competition to get transactions into the next block. Because the block size has been capped at 1MB, not every transaction in the preceding 10 minutes will fit. So miners sort by the fees attached to the transactions when selecting them. (I think the block size is supposed to be increased to 2MB shortly, if it hasn't already.)
- solotronics 9y ago
  yesterday I did a transaction in one 10 minute block with a fee of $0.70
rb808 9y ago
Dont ask questions - just buy more!!! (which is also the answer)
uberrr 9y ago
It’s in no small part due to massive ICO events where spin-off coins with no utility and no actual value generate millions and millions of dollars in imaginary value through pump and dump schemes, because there’s no realistic way to short sell them and everyone involved has a vested interest in the price rising.
ohhhlol 9y ago
This is a pretty major reason lately - http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/bitcoin_contract_specifications.html http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/bitcoi...
equalarrow 9y ago
Simple: institutional validation. CME is just the beginning. Big players with billions are now just waiting for the right time to jump in. We’re at that time.
tboyd47 9y ago
More or less continuous increase in demand along with constant supply.
NicoJuicy 9y ago
Because it emulates gold somewhat, scarcity ( not much BTC left ) and a high demand.

By the way, what is up with Bitcoin? Why did it rise 10x this year?

by TekMol 9y ago

By the way, what is up with Bitcoin? Why did it rise 10x this year?

Because I haven't had any money in it for most of the year. The couple of times I did have money in it -- for up to two months at a time -- it either fell slightly overall or stayed fairly flat. As soon as I sold, it jumped back up again. I'm currently accepting offers from Bitcoin investors to prevent me from buying back in again.

quickthrower2 9y ago
The trick with Bitcoin is to do fuck all. Buy and forget. Come back in 10 yrs.

kakarot 9y ago

It's been doing that for years.

rplnt 9y ago

Higher general awareness would be my guess? Regular-money people start to invest. Too bad it only works as an investment and not something useful (considering how much energy is wasted on it).

wolco 9y ago
A lot of people are using it for payments.
- rplnt 9y ago
  For other currencies, sure. But minority of moved value would be used to pay for goods/services. Also, isn't the fee extremely high right now?
  - wolco 9y ago
    It's around 10 dollars. A lot of retailers offer a discount (because each credit card transaction costs them 5%). If your purchase is high enough it makes sense. Would not make sense for micro transactions
    - solotronics 9y ago
      not true currently
AznHisoka 9y ago
It would be cool if all those miners were also solving a puzzle that incidentally would help cure some disease, or figure out how to beat the speed of light.
- jacobush 9y ago
  Or figure out how to make faster DRAM. (Cuckoo Cycle algorithm.) Incidentally, faster than light communication might increase speed of memory, right?

fastball 9y ago

As an outsider looking in, it seems like every time something negative happens to BTC, if the ramifications weren't as bad as everyone was expecting the market resurges twofold. In the case of this year, there was the major shenanigans with the hard fork from just BTC to BTC / BCH, as well as some heightened cryptocurrency crackdowns in China.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
AznHisoka 9y ago
Because Bitcoin holders, psychologically (not politically!) are like Trump supporters before the election. The more negativity/naysers there are, the more stubbornly they continue to hold to prove the elite financial world they are wrong.

pmorici 9y ago

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactions.html https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactions.ht... Massive transaction growth, a proxy for user adoption, since the Dec. 2013 crash. That lead to steady growth until this spring when Core's no block increase ever policy stunted adoption but by then the bubble had already started to form. you are seeing a bunch of clueless new folks fomo into the crypto space right now. I would be surprised if we aren't entering the blow off top phase. There was just a ~50% movement in a matter of a week. Bitcoin Cash is probably the true Bitcoin long term that is where I'm moving my money. * Also significant unease over USDT Tether scheme among the wider community could lead to a second Gox like situation

nathan_f77 9y ago

I would really like to read a well-researched answer to this question. I've heard various theories around instability in Puerto Rico, and people using it to move money out of China. I have no idea if there's any evidence to support those theories. I really want to understand some of the economics behind the value of a Bitcoin. Some people say that it's actually worthless, but that can't be true. It lets people move practically unlimited amounts of money anywhere in the world for a relatively small fee. It also provides immutable data that can be used to verify records. I actually spent this weekend adding blockchain verification to my document generation service [1]. It was actually pretty amazing to look at a Bitcoin transaction [2], and realize that this data has so much authenticity and permanence. Not only does it guarantee that my document existed at a certain point in time, but that hash will probably be preserved in the blockchain for the rest of human history. That one bitcoin transaction cost a lot of money (0.000846 BTC, or $6.95 USD), but it verifies a large number of records by using a merkle tree. [3] I have no idea how these fees relate to the fiat price, but that must be one factor. Also the price of electricity around the world. There's a lot of speculation and "tulip mania" too, but even if you ignore all of that, I think it's a very interesting thing to research. [1] https://formapi.io/ https://formapi.io/ [2] https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/4dc1ef829128355fdbbf3afbf0de854778e0e027481e9a5ff53a64d9ab39a78c/ https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/4dc1ef829128355fdbbf3afb... [3] https://chainpoint.org/ https://chainpoint.org/

asciimo 9y ago
The fee size is relative to the amount of competition to get transactions into the next block. Because the block size has been capped at 1MB, not every transaction in the preceding 10 minutes will fit. So miners sort by the fees attached to the transactions when selecting them. (I think the block size is supposed to be increased to 2MB shortly, if it hasn't already.)
solotronics 9y ago
yesterday I did a transaction in one 10 minute block with a fee of $0.70

rb808 9y ago

Dont ask questions - just buy more!!! (which is also the answer)

uberrr 9y ago

It’s in no small part due to massive ICO events where spin-off coins with no utility and no actual value generate millions and millions of dollars in imaginary value through pump and dump schemes, because there’s no realistic way to short sell them and everyone involved has a vested interest in the price rising.

ohhhlol 9y ago

This is a pretty major reason lately - http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/bitcoin_contract_specifications.html http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/equity-index/us-index/bitcoi...

equalarrow 9y ago

Simple: institutional validation. CME is just the beginning. Big players with billions are now just waiting for the right time to jump in. We’re at that time.

tboyd47 9y ago

More or less continuous increase in demand along with constant supply.

NicoJuicy 9y ago

Because it emulates gold somewhat, scarcity ( not much BTC left ) and a high demand.