4 ms·

It broke 9000 yesterday, didn't it? That's more than 10% in a day. Is there any reason it is up, other than speculation?

empath75 9y ago
Tether hyperinflation. Edit: I should clarify. Bitfinex printed 95 million worth of tether in the last two days, and used it to buy btc. When your prices are denominated in Monopoly money, the sky is the limit.
- zenlikethat 9y ago
  This is the story that's missing here. When one of the major exchanges is starting to look insolvent and USDT is getting scarier and scarier by the day, a flight from USDT into Bitcoin is not surprising...
  - dahdum 9y ago
    Tether is being issued because institutional money is coming in through USDT. https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7fsfwl/daily_discussion_monday_november_27_2017/dqfwq33/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7fsfwl/dail...
    - heartbreak 9y ago
      Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.
    - QML 9y ago
      That makes no sense; if institutional money were to come into cryptocurrency (that is, fiat to crypto) -- which is a taxable event -- why would they be going into USDT when the main goal of USDT is to be stable? Essentially, that means people will be losing money.
  - deorder 9y ago
    Indeed. When that happens the people that did not exchange their USDT for BTC on time, while BTC and other cryptocoins are crashing as well, will be the ones holding a worthless USDT not backed by actual dollars.
    - zenlikethat 9y ago
      Yep. That’s called holding the bag
- QML 9y ago
  This wouldn't be the first case that Bitcoin's market volume has been artificially inflated (i.e. Mt. Gox), but doesn't Tether only have a $700MM market cap and $900MM 24H volume? How is that able to affect Bitcoin with its $175BN market cap and $8BN 24H volume? Sidenote: With all this talk about cryptocurrencies, I find it strange that Tether is the only coin whose volume exceeds its market cap; strange in the way that cryptocurrencies should be having way higher velocity rates IMO.
  - deorder 9y ago
    According to (and many others): https://mobile.twitter.com/sLabunsky/status/935641867097649152 https://mobile.twitter.com/sLabunsky/status/9356418670976491... "To raise market cap. by 5B, you basically need to raise price by ~3% (%_delta = [(cap_delta / btc_count + current_price) / current_price - 1] * 100%). The total usd amount to change price by desired delta is pretty small, for BTC it is usually around 8M for 1% (easy to check)"
prawn 9y ago
I wondered if some of it was Thanksgiving discussion of Bitcoin leading to a huge upswing in small-time investors. As well, any "Bitcoin reaches $x" milestone articles pique the interest of more regular readers. I've had more and more non-tech people asking me how they can buy some.

empath75 9y ago

Tether hyperinflation. Edit: I should clarify. Bitfinex printed 95 million worth of tether in the last two days, and used it to buy btc. When your prices are denominated in Monopoly money, the sky is the limit.

zenlikethat 9y ago
This is the story that's missing here. When one of the major exchanges is starting to look insolvent and USDT is getting scarier and scarier by the day, a flight from USDT into Bitcoin is not surprising...
- dahdum 9y ago
  Tether is being issued because institutional money is coming in through USDT. https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7fsfwl/daily_discussion_monday_november_27_2017/dqfwq33/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7fsfwl/dail...
  - heartbreak 9y ago
    Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.
  - QML 9y ago
    That makes no sense; if institutional money were to come into cryptocurrency (that is, fiat to crypto) -- which is a taxable event -- why would they be going into USDT when the main goal of USDT is to be stable? Essentially, that means people will be losing money.
- deorder 9y ago
  Indeed. When that happens the people that did not exchange their USDT for BTC on time, while BTC and other cryptocoins are crashing as well, will be the ones holding a worthless USDT not backed by actual dollars.
  - zenlikethat 9y ago
    Yep. That’s called holding the bag
QML 9y ago
This wouldn't be the first case that Bitcoin's market volume has been artificially inflated (i.e. Mt. Gox), but doesn't Tether only have a $700MM market cap and $900MM 24H volume? How is that able to affect Bitcoin with its $175BN market cap and $8BN 24H volume? Sidenote: With all this talk about cryptocurrencies, I find it strange that Tether is the only coin whose volume exceeds its market cap; strange in the way that cryptocurrencies should be having way higher velocity rates IMO.
- deorder 9y ago
  According to (and many others): https://mobile.twitter.com/sLabunsky/status/935641867097649152 https://mobile.twitter.com/sLabunsky/status/9356418670976491... "To raise market cap. by 5B, you basically need to raise price by ~3% (%_delta = [(cap_delta / btc_count + current_price) / current_price - 1] * 100%). The total usd amount to change price by desired delta is pretty small, for BTC it is usually around 8M for 1% (easy to check)"

prawn 9y ago

I wondered if some of it was Thanksgiving discussion of Bitcoin leading to a huge upswing in small-time investors. As well, any "Bitcoin reaches $x" milestone articles pique the interest of more regular readers. I've had more and more non-tech people asking me how they can buy some.