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Litecoin and Ethereum buys and sells are temporarily disabled
- sedtrader 9y agoA lot of emotion with LTC. People are downloading Coinbase and buying LTC simply because it is the cheapest on Coinbase. This is definitely a bubble, really cant deny that anymore. All emotional, non-rational behavior.
- jjallen 9y agoDo you have evidence for this or have an idea of how many people have/are doing this?
- leesalminen 9y agoI’ve owned BTC for years, ETH for a little over a year but never had LTC until last week...just a single datum but would not be surprised if this is quite common.
- lopatin 9y agoAnecdotally, this weekend I've seen 4 (non-technical) friends throw $500 - $5,000 into the three CoinBase coins this weekend, all individually. Before this weekend, they were merely familiar with Bitcoin but no interest in investment, and they did not know what alt coins were. All it takes is for someone to see the hockey-stick growth on the coins to want in. It's too exciting to pass up. The atmosphere is "If I lose a few grand, that's OK, if I miss out on 100,000, that is not."
- csbrooks 9y agoI think the really difficult part might be figuring out when to take it off the table. For example, let's say bitcoin goes up 10x. Then do you decide to sell, because it might crash back down the next week? But what if you miss out on another huge increase by selling?
- scurvy 9y agoSell half after it doubles, then hold the rest until you need the money. Selling half returns your initial investment; what remains is pure profit and you can't lose money.
- xocyabencl 9y agoOr sell 1/n after price increases by n, for whatever n fits your risk/reward preferences.
- pm90 9y ago> what remains is pure profit and you can't lose money. Except to inflation ;). But adjust for inflation and selling enough to cover that gets you back the initial investment and also you don't lose money.
- fenwick67 9y agoThis is precisely what I did, so now I have a guaranteed net profit. Yes my potential earnings are lower but it feels good to be out of the group of potential "losers" in what looks to be a zero-sum game.
- panarky 9y agoEconomics and innovation are two of the least zero-sum things I can think of.
- AznHisoka 9y agoI think this is easier said than done. You most likely need to wait until it's close to 3 X the value you bought it because you'll need to pay short-term taxes after you sell it. And once that happens, why sell half of it, vs all of it? 3 times the current value is a LOT of money and that usually takes at least 8-10 years in the equity market. Now that it happens, you're cashing out just to recoup your costs? Cash out everything, or cash out nothing and let it all ride until it's an even larger amount.
- 9y ago
- phil248 9y agoHaving purchased several cryptocurrencies recently, I can attest that I am certainly not acting rationally. But at least I'm having fun!
- VVayneTracker 9y agoIt's all fun and games until the switch is flipped and PetroBTC replaces the Petrodollar. /s?
- karmajunkie 9y agoAgreed, for someone with a relatively small amount invested in the crypto market (<1k) I find myself impersonating Gordon Gecko an awful lot. The only thing I can compare it to is my brief obsession with football stats when I used to play fantasy football.
- MoD411 9y agoThere's a crypto currency for fantasy sports as well: https://nolimitcoin.org/ https://nolimitcoin.org/ Why not combine both? xD
- ReverseCold 9y agoYup, that's all cryptocurrencies investments are right now, a game. Have fun, but don't bet your life on it. Mabye in the future it can be more than a speculation, but right now it's a game.
- wott 9y agoI should start a business selling thin air. Thin air from France, thin air from Japan, thin air from Mexico, and so on, you can collect them all, it is super fun. Then I could introduce cold captured thin air, warm captured thin air, etc. Wet thin air, dry thin air for year 3. More fun every year. Even better, I should sell just a paper (well, an electronic one) stating you own some thin air. Hey, geeks, how cool can this get? I am sure I could find buyers in the same market as cryptocurrencies. PS: This is not directed at you, but you expressed the level of pointlessness and... void that reigns in this 'market', so I picked your message to place my joke/rant.
- maxencecornet 9y agoNothing new, markets are never rational
- gk1 9y agoSome are more rational than others.
- jnagro 9y agobubble or not, emotion plays a big part of the normal markets too
- gxs 9y agoI think a lot of us are aware that we're gambling, purely speculating. I have a high tolerance for risk, so I don't mind going in big (big for me) - if it works out great, if not, it's been a helluva ride.
- kordlessagain 9y agoLitecoin supports the Lightning Network, so some rationality is to be expected in Litecoin's future.
- TaylorGood 9y agoTrending in the App Store right now: "cryptocurrency" and "litecoin"
- j-c-hewitt 9y agoThat's not emotional and non-rational. They were buying in a cheaper market looking to sell in a more expensive one. Unfortunately the cheap market often shuts down trading when volume gets too high so the people who got trapped are screwed.
- nafizh 9y agoI think you meant irrational. Non-rational is different.
- volgo 9y agoSure is. But you can still make a lot of money :)
- matte_black 9y agoI disagree. Buying can be 100% rational as long as you believe some other fool down the line will buy it off you. As soon as the supply of irrational buyers dries up it’s game over. But that doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon, just look around!
- brentm 9y agoIt is as rational as playing roulette. Most of people buying at this point probably can't articulate what they are buying, just that it's probably going to be be worth more money soon. I had to sell my BTC on Sunday, I am waiting to get back in when the exuberance flips around and everyone says it's dead.
- matte_black 9y agoAs a rational actor, buying Bitcoin right now is basically buying a bet that people will continue to be irrational long enough for me to make a good profit and get out. I don’t know how much faith you have in the market, but I predict the irrationality will continue until at least the stock market crashes and causes people to take a cold hard look at just what exactly it is they are doing. By the time people wake up, every rational actor better hope they’ve made their exit by then.
- brentm 9y agoSure I understand that. For BTC at least I am not sure I agree the rally will last as long as the stock market rally. I think we'll probably see a decent amount of selling in January when the gains are moved forward to the new tax year. Litecoin is another animal. I think we'll continue to see a lot of what we're seeing now. People seeing a low price (compared to btc), sad they missed out on cheap BTC and dreaming this one is going to $15k.
- matte_black 9y agoSeeing as how dreamers are basically the only reason Bitcoin rose to $20k, I see no reason why the trend wouldn't replay itself with Litecoin. Great time to buy IMO.
- kombucha2 9y agoIs this the reason why? I've been scratching my head all day as to why LTC would pop today beyond the fact that the BTC rally cooled and people saw LTC as cheaper and thought "hey, thats cheap, let pump it!".
- fullshark 9y agoAnecdotally yes FWIW.
- whoisjuan 9y agoUntil a week or two ago the correlation between LTC and BTC was very loose, but it seems that now that BTC is cooling off other coins are warming up... But LTC has been doing pretty good for a year, so who knows... Definitely seems that people are buying more LTC because is cheaper. Maybe in the hopes that one day is going to be as valuable as BTC (of course that's not happening).
- thudrs 9y agoPeople were getting annoyed with the high fees and slow transaction times of Bitcoin. LTC is much faster, has cheaper fees, and has a higher cap on currency that can be mined. A few days ago Redditors on r/bitcoin (or maybe r/btc I cant remember) suggested people with these complaints switch to LTC. More and more posts started popping up to rally LTC. Some even mentioned that most coins had a tight correlation with Bitcoin, which LTC did not seem to have. If this were true, and Bitcoin were to crash, LTC would have the greatest chance of overtaking it. The next day LTC started to rise. Im not 100% sure of correlation, but I believe these reasons to be a part of the cause. It could also have to do with big name investors starting to research cryptocurrencies after CBOE went live, or something else entirely.
- ikiris 9y agoBecause people are rediscovering why SEC rules exist one at a time.
- zik 9y agoThe cryptocurrency bubble is still attracting a lot of attention and people want to buy into something. Bitcoin's pretty broken right now so people are being told to buy litecoin instead.
- qeternity 9y agoSorry to break it to you, this is not "new" money pouring in. This is a very well orchestrated and calibrated pump.
- twayamznacct 9y agoI'd be curious to see any sort of proof (or, for lack of direct proof, something pointing the finger in this direction) in this. I say that without sarcasm. A legitimate request.
- JonnyNova 9y agoThere has to be some new coming in. Coinbase is rocking #1 spot in the app store for a reason.
- panarky 9y ago> definitely a bubble, really cant deny that anymore You could be right. But I don't understand everyone's certainty that cryptocurrencies are a fraud-bubble-scam-Ponzi-mania. The growth curve fits both exponential and logistic (S-curve) functions. Exponential growth is unsustainable, while logistic growth describes most technology adoption. Halfway through the cycle they're indistinguishable. When there's 98% agreement this is a bubble about to burst, my instinct is that the conventional wisdom is wrong.
- johnwheeler 9y ago> But I don't understand everyone's certainty that cryptocurrencies are a fraud-bubble-scam-Ponzi-mania. When it blows up, you won't understand why the SEC didn't protect you. By then, you'll realize it was a mirage all along, and you'll want someone to blame for letting it get so out of hand. Every piece of news you interpret will tell you that losing money was not your fault, because that's what you'll want to believe. On the flip side, the current price action is causing the same sort of confirmation bias--just in the opposite direction.
- etr-strike 9y agoUnlike people who invest in the stock market, no one buying cryptocurrencies in under the delusion they'll be bailed out.
- narrator 9y agoThat there are still so many haters shows that this cryptocurrency thing has a way to go.
- bushido 9y agoTrue. Only if they have zero leverage at play. No borrowed money, no loan to default on. If not then there is most definitely going to be some element of a bailout. Anecdotal: but in the last month I have come across 6-8 people who have taken or know someone who has taken 2nd mortgages, maxed out their lines of credits, and credit cards to "invest" in crypto. I'm generally a-ok with investment loans (not from credit cards), they are a good resource to reduce portfolio risk - if the loan remain tax deductible. But what is currently transpiring is insanity. Someone will definitely get bailed out (hint: it will likely be the banks that's unknowingly provided the leverage).
- Helloworldboy 9y agoLTC has many advantages over BTC. Namely faster transaction times and waaaaaay lower fees.
- romulus10 9y agoEspecially in light of today's massive price jump for LTC. I was initially happy to see that, but thinking further on it makes me nervous.
- grrowl 9y agoIt's also the best crypto to transfer value between exchanges, if you don't want to use Tether.
- nunez 9y agoJust wait until XRP gets into Coinbase, if it makes it into Coinbase. Many people will make bank! Of course, that's assuming that don't end 2017 (or 2018) with a massive crypto bubble burst!
- wusatiuk 9y agoissue resolved. :D
- maxencecornet 9y agoWow those guys are fast They're pretty good at scaling to meet that crazy demand
- tomduncalf 9y agoLooks like it's back up again!
- ybrah 9y agoCoinbase is rolling in the dosh right now
- ceejayoz 9y agoWith the price spike (Litecoin's up a hundred percent today alone), I wonder if the hot wallets ran out of coins to transact with?
- jjallen 9y agoYou would think they would buy for themselves commensurately with client purchases so they wouldn't get into this situation. Maybe they try to and couldn't keep up? Would be fascinating how this stuff is managed behind the scenes.
- ceejayoz 9y agoThe recent speculation spikes have been pretty remarkable. I wouldn't be shocked if they occasionally exhaust hot wallets. I'd love to know what the process is - do they have coins in cold storage in the offices in safes? Bank vaults? Multi-person signatures?
- Klathmon 9y agoThey don't really talk about it, but I'd imagine it's multi-signature offline wallets that require a few people and an assload of physical security to spend.
- jjallen 9y agoYeah I can't wait to read books about this stuff in a few years, probably soon! Hopefully Brian Armstrong will write one.
- maxencecornet 9y agoSo what ? It's not the first time it happened with Coinbase, and probably not the last
- astrowilliam 9y agoThat's what happens when a business is trying to scale to meet crazy demand.
- scurvy 9y agoCan't they just click the auto scale button in AWS? Isn't that the entire point of cloud services?
- s0rce 9y agoProbably not a infrastructure capacity issue but a limited amount of cryptocurrency in a hot wallet for transactions.
- ihattendorf 9y agoIf that were the case it would be withdrawals that were temporarily disabled. There aren't any on-chain transactions made when you buy/sell on Coinbase, only when you deposit/withdraw.
- dragontamer 9y agoCold wallets don't scale, and that's the entire point of them. "Hot Wallets" can be hacked, because they're connected to the whole system. "Cold Wallets" are offline, and require human intervention to transfer money into and/or out of. Figuring how much money to keep in the "Hot Wallet" is a tradeoff in services, convenience, and security.
- scurvy 9y agoThis doesn't sound like a wallet problem. That would only break withdrawals. They're not doing any transactions at all.
- jliptzin 9y agoWhat is causing the sudden rise in litecoin?
- adsfasdf2332 9y agoIt's a crypto that offers fast and cheap transactions. People are using it to move money around in the crypto space - exactly what it was meant to do. The people saying it is noobs buying on coinbase have no idea what they are talking about, or are mistaken about how big the crypto economy is.
- wuliwong 9y agoMy understanding is that they are making some significant new releases which will allow for very fast transaction times and support for contracts. I have been expecting a big breakout from LTC but then again this all could have happened for other reasons. I'm not sure how I could really prove that this was the cause.
- sosuke 9y agoLTC creator was on the news Monday
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sd_mikey 9y agoMy guess is that the there are a lot of newbies now on Coinbase (#1 app in the Apple AppStore). They are buying the cheapest “bitcoin” without actually understanding what they are buying. This has increased demand for the cheaper of the only three options in Coinbase thus increasing price.
- eliben 9y agoIf this* isn't the very definition of a public bubble, I don't know what is :) * Neophytes buying whatever they can put their hands on, because... mania
- 9y ago
- tabeth 9y agoCan someone familiar explain why cryptocurrencies aren't a bubble? They both seem to exhibit similar characteristics. Clearly, are shown by the site here, these aren't nearly as liquid as fiat currencies, nor are they really used to purchase anything. So... What is it? EDIT: upon thinking about it, MLM wasn't the term I meant.
- ct0 9y agoHaving never been a part of an MLM, I would say the key difference is that there is no obligation to buy product.
- jhpriestley 9y agoThey're not a MLM because there isn't the "pyramid" aspect. If I buy bitcoin at $10 and sell it to you at $100, then I don't get a percent of your sales going forward or anything like that. It's a plain old bubble.
- qeternity 9y agoThat's not what makes MLM a "pyramid". Residuals are part of lots of legitimate business. What makes most MLM a pyramid scheme is the fact that growth is predicated on bringing new members into the scheme, rather than existing members growing their business.
- arkades 9y agoNot growth, but revenues. All asset appreciation is predicated on increases in demand for an asset. Asset appreciation isn’t a pyramid. Pyramids have no source of value - even an ephemeral asset - just dues of new members being channeled into revenue for preceding members.
- xocyabencl 9y agoThey key thing about pyramids/MLM is that the growth is based entirely on getting more investors i.e. people who are putting money in with the intention of getting money out later (this also included MLM sellers who have to buy product upfront). Whereas a non-pyramid grows because it has more non-investor users, or some other source of revenue from people who don't plan to take that money out later.
- jatsign 9y ago98% of their funds are stored offline in a cold wallet. I bet they exhausted their hot wallet supply. https://www.coinbase.com/security?locale=en-US https://www.coinbase.com/security?locale=en-US
- jonknee 9y agoWhy would they need the actual coins to allow trading? Only transferring would require access to a wallet.
- function_seven 9y agoSeems like selling qualifies as a transfer, no? I think you can still receive and send LTC to other wallets, you can't convert to USD.
- JosephRedfern 9y agoNot if it's internal to coinbase -- can all be marked against an internal ledger, right?
- electic 9y agoBuying and selling does not access a backend wallet. Only when it is transferred outside of the exchange do you need to actually touch the blockchain.
- zwily 9y agoSelling doesn't do an on-chain transaction though. It's only on-chain when you withdraw (or deposit).
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jonknee 9y agoCoinbase is an exchange, you're exchanging with other Coinbase users. Wallets only come into play if you're moving crypto in or out of Coinbase. That's a good thing, wallet transfers can be slow and would really make trading a pain.
- qwerty456127 9y agoI've just went by the link (never visited that site before) and it says "THIS REQUEST HAS BEEN RATE LIMITED You're making too many requests to our servers from this computer..." immediately.
- dmoy 9y agoYea probably not the greatest error message. Same error message for individual quota overrun and all global quota overrun.
- nielsbot 9y agoAre you checking from your office? Big company?
- qwerty456127 9y agoNo. From home. And every time I try - I see this error message only.
- Romanulus 9y agoCoinbase is not prepped for the influx of traffic... it's enraging, especially when there is money on the line. Their reputation is tarnishing more and more every day.
- joering2 9y agoTulip Mania comes to mind... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
- LAMike 9y agoTulip mania lasted 9 months. Bitcoin is 9 years old.
- liquidise 9y agoThe most obvious difference between cryptocurrencies and tulips is that tulips existed centuries before their rise. These coins are based on an effectively new technology. If you want to compare it to a bubble, compare it to the dotcom boom. How the tulip argument continues to be peddled on HN escapes me.
- jorge-d 9y agoA big difference is that anyone could grow Tulips; Bitcoin has a supply limit
- Helloworldboy 9y agoCan't go one thread...
- hartator 9y agoI just hope cryto speculators won’t ask to be bailed out when everything will fail.
- kombucha2 9y agoAlready happened basically!
- kss238 9y agoHow? When?
- kombucha2 9y agoTezos wants a bail-out ;) https://coinvedi.com/record-ico-tezos-founders-seek-bail-out-from-foundation/ https://coinvedi.com/record-ico-tezos-founders-seek-bail-out...
- kss238 9y agoSeek = "already happened"?
- kombucha2 9y agoSeek = ask
- kss238 9y agoYes obviously. But you earlier stated that "Already happened basically!" in reference to a crypto bailout. So again, how is "seek" equivalent to "ask" here?
- kombucha2 9y agoParent comment i replied to - "... hope cryto speculators won’t ask to be bailed out... " To which I replied that someone has in fact already asked for a bail-out. Title of Article - "Record ICO Tezos Founders Seek Bail-Out From Foundation" It's only a matter of time before someone in the cryprocurrency sphere asks for a bail-out for reason or another.
- EGreg 9y agoI wonder, what are these exchanges like GDAX, BitMex etc. doing with their dollar/euro/etc. reserves? They obviously need to keep dollars on hand in order to cash everyone out. But what if Bitcoin goes up in price? If there is a run on the exchange later they may have to sell their bitcoins on the spot market to cash people out. Banks reinvest money held into loans and other speculative investments. But what do you do when as an excuange / market maker you stand ready to buy and sell at any time? Here is my concern: while it was just two guys meeting up to exchange $ for bitcoin, the $ kept circulating. But these exchanges may be locking up more and more USD just so they have enough to cash people out on demand. As a result, there is a real transfer of wealth to bitcoin and USD is getting frozen in exchanges. If this continues for 5-10 years more, wouldn't bitcoin become millions of dollars and bitcoin holders would be able to buy up anything vs dollar holders? One bitcoin holder could buy half of NYC already, and who can stop them?
- yebyen 9y agoThe exchange is not the market maker (it can be, but not always.) If Coinbase is making the market prices by leaving large limit orders at certain prices, and Coinbase limit runs out, then the price moves past their limit. It's as simple as that. Nobody can place limit orders with money they don't have (I understand there is a "margin trading" option, but I don't have that enabled on my account and I'm uncertain how many accounts on GDAX do have that feature.) If Bitcoin price goes up, that just means that the supply of Bitcoin at a lower price point has evaporated. Coinbase is not buying and selling coins (let's assume, but also assume that if they are buying and selling, they play by the same rules as everyone else. No imaginary wallets.) The exchange are just playing matchmaker so that Market Order X that crosses Limit Orders Y, Z, P, Q, R... that intersect, are all matched and executed together. Then, GDAX can collect a fee from the person who placed the Market order, and GDAX Limit orders are fee-free. Coinbase-proper is 100% market orders with a slightly larger fee, so they can clean up even more on each transaction there, because Coinbase still does not need to sell some of their own currency for each buy; they are just the matchmaker. Coinbase and GDAX are the same company. If Coinbase needs some of GDAX's liquidity so that it can match Coinbase customers with GDAX's limit orders, they can do that opaquely. The customers do not need to know where their cryptocurrency came from exactly. If all of the liquidity on GDAX dries up, then there will be a problem (but still, the problem/opportunity is not Coinbase's problem, it is the whole market that comes grinding to a halt until someone opens up some more liquidity at a particular price point.)
- yalogin 9y agoThe question is which is the worse bubble Bitcoin or Litecoin?
- igorgue 9y agoYour mom's bubble is worse.
- sctb 9y agoIt seems clear that you won't stop violating the guidelines, like we've asked, so we've banned the account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- moistoreos 9y agoBitcoin has integration into a lot more payment options. But, that doesn't mean the price will come crashing down any time now. I think a drastic correction is due.
- dclowd9901 9y agoIs there really so little else to invest in that plugging money into magic scarcity is the best bet?
- cwkoss 9y agoIf you are a value investor, everything on the S&P500 has been overpriced and overbought for the past several years. Best bet is all relative. I think allocating a small percentage of wealth to an asset with 10% chance of going up 20x, and 90% change of going to 0 (net expected value 2x) is a rational diversification. Crypto seems to be fairly uncorrelated to broad market. (This is actually a more bearish perspective than I hold, but wanted to point out that it can be rational to hold an asset which is likely to fail as long as there exists a significant chance of order-of-magnitude returns)
- anorphirith 9y agoSo much for a "decentralized" currency system. Actually coinbase and the other players are and will be worst actors than banks if this presque monopoly isn't solved
- drcode 9y agoThen use localbitcoin.com, localethereum.com, etc
- anorphirith 9y agoIt's not about what's available it's about what people use, and the power that these companies hold
- toddmatthews 9y agocoinbase is just an exchange, or a way to buy/sell crypto. once you own crypto, you no longer need to use coinbase. coinbase never advertised itself of being decentralized
- anorphirith 9y agoI am well aware of that, the emphasis here is the prevalence of coinbase in an ecosystem that is supposed to be decentralized
- toddmatthews 9y agoand my point is you need something to onboard people from fiat to crypto. it doesn't happen in a vacuum
- zMiller 9y agoThis thread's audience is obviously a 'developed nations' one. From our perspective yes, Crytpo's use case as currency make absolutely no sense (yet), we tap our Visa card to pay instantly with no fees and no fraud liability, hard to beat. As a store of value however there is a very strong use case in the western world. Of the top my head, it is estimated that 10% of our GDP is in off shore havens, think about that infamous 1% moving just half of that 10% into Bitcoin .. I digress.. If you venture your mind a little outside the borders of our empire and think about the 'unbanked' parts of our planet, entire populations whom live under poverty for the sole reason that they do not have access to the equity and efficient markets directly. If you look there, people are DYING for something like Bitcoin and other crypto's. There is absolutely no reason an African farmer to have to sell his Oranges to Europe in Euro then buy it back from there (Sell Euro to local currency) for local use. Currency is an abstraction, an expression of a market, just like language is. Here we tap to pay and need everyone to protect us from fraudsters, pornographers, money laundry , <insert your favorite horse man of the apolocyple here>, in other parts of the world , that far out number the western world in population, they don't care to be protected by the above because quite frankly the price they pay for that 'protection' is insanely oppressive governments that use the above to legitimize the oppression. It is exactly in those markets where you start to see a VERY stong use case as both store of value and currency for crypto and it is exactly that market that will drive the world's demand for good UI for crypto that will eventually usher in mass adoption.
- beebmam 9y agoCoinbase is a joke of a service. They're telling me it will take 8 days to buy a Litecoin. Is this for real?
- pat2man 9y agoBasically it takes 8 days for your litecoin to be available (aka transferable) because otherwise you could just transffer your litecoin to another wallet and reverse the charge from your bank. You still get your coins at the price you paid.
- rishsharma 9y agoUse gdax.com
- toddmatthews 9y agoMy guess is you are waiting 8 days for your bank transfer, not the litecoin. If you had money already in your account, or paid with a credit card it would be there immediately
- jrm2k6 9y agoUse your credit card. Transferring funds between your bank account and Coinbase takes forever.
- beebmam 9y agoI just used my credit card about 9 hours ago. I've had the money taken out of my credit card, but I've yet to see the coins appear in my wallet for sending or selling. It shows in coinbase that the transaction was "Completed", but I have nothing so far. How long does the credit card process take?
- always_good 9y agoIf it seems easy, it surely must be easy. -- HN It's funny because you're actually mad at ACH here.
- 9y ago
- anonymous24 9y agoAs i thought, money is backup by a government. It is represented for a country's power. But for Crypto currency, there is no country backup it. It's kind of scary though.
- amalag 9y agoBitcoin has succeeded in creating a scarce resource backed by computing power. That's about all.
- exabrial 9y agoMan, Coinbase is having major scalability issues... They should hire Peter Lawrey: https://www.todaysoftmag.ro/article/1618/low-latency-fix-engine-in-java https://www.todaysoftmag.ro/article/1618/low-latency-fix-eng... Disclaimer: I am not Peter Lawrey.
- down 9y agowould love to be a bubble, to drop in price so I can get in, but I don't think so, if you compare bitcoin with gold, bitcoin is better, the "gold" brand is stronger still with its history, but not so much among the new generation, unless bitcoin gets to 7 trillions, the gold market cap, I would not wory about being a bubble.
- smileysteve 9y ago> if you compare bitcoin with gold, bitcoin is better If you have access to a computer that has many many gold plated connections. Gold is still superior for restarting civilization after an apocalyptic event.
- polock 9y agoI never felt that. I'm on actively trading Litecoin now.
- Dangeranger 9y agoAn economics professor told me once; > Bubbles grow against walls of doubt. It is when the bubble must stand on it's own that it bursts. If these markets level out, and people stop investing because you can no longer get 20% returns every week, that is when things are going south.
- junk_f00d 9y agoMany here insist it's a speculative bubble. And while I might agree that perhaps BTC is in such a state (this may extend toward LTC, ETH, etc), I'm curious to know your thoughts on the less popular and lower market cap "alt-coins" such as the Y-Combinator backed Request Network and Quantstamp. It's hard to say anything in crypto is truly undervalued at the moment, but I believe if anything is, it's projects with real utility that extends beyond speculation. For those that believe in the technology that blockchain, DAG and smart contracts offer there is a lot up and coming projects that might contribute a lot to the space (and beyond into the real industry world, potentially).
- ryanwaggoner 9y agoMy .02 BTC (now worth $351.44) is that cryptocurrency is here to stay. The runup might be a bubble, might not, doesn't really interest me that much. The long run for this technology feels very strong to me so I'm buying to hold. I think BTC and ETH are the lowest-risk coins right now. 99% of the coins are going to fade away, so that's where the real bubble is. Some random ICO pops up and within months their token market cap is hundreds of millions based on nothing other than a vague buzzword-laden plan?
- junk_f00d 9y agoWhile I agree that BTC and ETH are likely lowest risk long term, I'm not exactly throwing money at crypto for the low risk portion of my portfolio and don't mind doubling down on a more dangerous gamble since I've researched my holds pretty well, imo. Further, I'd argue that BTC and ETH are both extremely overbought at the moment, and reflect more of what a bubble is than many of the lowly alt coins that have real use cases (not that BTC and ETH don't). I feel you're underestimating the potential of some of these smaller projects, the problems they aim to solve and the progress they've made towards solving them.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago"some of these smaller projects" Which ones? There are hundreds of these things, and my personal view is that they're mostly worthless. I really don't think the hard part at this point is coming up with a cool use case for cryptocurrency, or even building the technology that works (though many of these alts have yet to even do that). The hard part is adoption, and my estimation is that almost all of them will fail at adoption. Time will tell, I guess. I'd argue that BTC and ETH are both extremely overbought at the moment You might be right, you might be wrong. It'll only be clear in hindsight. Which is why I don't time the market or trade. I just buy and hold for the long run. It's a small portion of my networth, weighted towards BTC and ETH, but I'm buying some other alts with 1-2% of my net worth (total). In the long run, the cryptocurrency market will be worth $0 or trillions, so I'm not particularly worried about whether I got in when it was $10 billion or $500 billion or how it goes up and down in the meantime.
- garybro 9y agoI've made about $110k profit this year in crypto on a $21k investment earlier this year, and I think this is all a giant bubble. I was at my parents' house for Thanksgiving and a commercial with Ron Paul talking about Bitcoin came on, which coincided with around the time it went to $10k, and it hit me really hard that this isn't going to last forever (and probably will hurt sooner rather than later). I liquidated everything and just entertain myself doing some day trading on GDAX. I don't hodl anymore. The entire thing is absolutely stupid, and isn't going to last forever. People are way too bullish on it. People who have no business investing in it are taking on debt to do so, with no clear exit strategy other than "the moon." A lot of people who don't have any money are going to get absolutely toasted when the pendulum swings the other way. They're in it to get rich. They have no idea what blockchains are. They just think they're buying magic internet money people get rich from. To put a little perspective on how ridiculous this all is: Last night after Coinbase came back from maintenance, there was the (expected) sell-off, so I figured I'd make a quick buck and bought 300 LTC for about $241 each, then sold it a few minutes later for $251 after the instant rebound and went to bed with a nice $3k profit. I woke up this morning and was astonished to see that LTC was about $380. This was in the course of about 5 hours. Had I not sold it last night, I would have made almost $40k. I'm a little annoyed about that, but again: this is a stupid, irrational bubble that makes absolutely no sense. It's entirely speculative. I think crypto and blockchain has a future, but it has to solve a few problems first (transaction fees/time and anonymity). None of the big three currencies do that well enough yet. This bubble is going to pop soon and I'm worried that a lot of people are going to get impacted badly.
- perseusprime11 9y agoFor those on this thread who still think Bitcoin as currency, try flipping this on its head and think of Bitcoin as a store of value and ask why it would not make sense. Like most things in this world, value is perceived- we attribute vakue to Gold, Diamonds, etc. Why wouldn’t Bitcoin be in the same bucket as a store of value?
- rdm_blackhole 9y agoI understand that at the moment it may seem like all the cryptocurrencies are in a bubble but honestly, I don't mind because it is forcing the banks to stop their stupid cash grab and loosen up some of their rules. What about the stupid fees that bank charge you to have the privilege to have you as a customer? What about the fact that at the moment it takes 3-5 business days to make a simple bank transfer to another bank? What about those insane fees when you try to buy another currency through the banks? What about the fact that I have to call my bank and plead my case when I want to transfer an unusually large amount of money to somebody else because of them blocking the transfer and now I have to spend 1 hour on the phone to solve that issue and prove that I am the one who initiated the transfer? What about the fact the bankers have brought the world on the edge of a great depression due to their greed and left millions of people underwater on their mortgages? Bitcoin/LTC/ETH may not solve all the problems that we are facing now, it may not have much practical use at the moment either, but I 'll be damned if I give more money to the banksters.
- paulcole 9y ago>What about the stupid fees that bank charge you to have the privilege to have you as a customer? Pardon my ignorance but don’t banks provide a service? If they charge too much, can’t I find a bank that charges less? What makes their fees “stupid”?
- jachee 9y agoIf I give a bank my cash, it is I who am providing them the service of liquidity, so that they can have money to loan to others (as a service) for interest. The only way I could find a "bank" with lower fees was to abandon banks altogether and switch to a credit union. I swear it's like all the banks collude to determine market rates for how many and how high of fees they can all charge their customers, to the point where—as a regular consumer—they're all indistinguishable. Not only are the credit union's fees lower (or non-existent in some cases) the interest rates are higher and there are no shareholders to appease, except for other members of the credit union.
- 9y ago
- davidgh 9y agoWatching this whole thing really has me scratching my head. Honestly - the value of BTC in a decade is anyone’s guess. For me, I have a modest holding (in terms of its USD value today as compared to my other investments). After much wrestling, I’ve decided to just let it sit and be done with it. If it crashes back to pennies, oh well. If it goes to the moon, I’m glad I had a piece of the action. As much fun as it seems, I’ve made the deliberate decision to not try to game / day trade it. It’s been possible to try to make money like that in Vegas for many years and that’s never been that interesting to me, either.
- acjohnson55 9y agoDefine "the moon"?
- davidgh 9y agoThe “moon” is the value required to have the jaw of your doctor / lawyer neighbor hit the ground when you tell them “I own one bitcoin”.
- acjohnson55 9y agoWhat's absurd about that concept is that it supposes that there's a day coming when people who haven't already bought Bitcoin will want it so badly that they'll be willing to enrich people who are buying in now. I think people who bought in a year ago will be the ones who can claim that sort of reward, at best.
- davidgh 9y agoWhen Bitcoin was $1,000 you could have made the same argument in suggesting it would never go to $15,000. Buyers today are not considering “should I or should I not enrich those who bought earlier”. They are simply making a bet that the value might go up and want to own some if it does. As an asset rapidly increases in value and the underlying driver of that increase is not well understood, all sorts of unexpected things can happen. The question is not how big will the bubble get, but who will be left standing when the music stops.
- rootsudo 9y agoI made $10,000. Wow.
- freeloop3 9y agoI made $3 million :)
- swyx 9y agoholy shit. just on litecoin?
- freeloop3 9y agoNo, I bought in 2013 for $10k at about $7 per BTC. I had about a $300k net worth at the time, so it seemed like a good play. Periodically sold and distributed into several alt coins over the years (eth, dash, monero, bitshares, etc.). I could have made a lot more if I didn't sell so much, but at the time a 10x increase seemed like a one in a lifetime event. When it increased to $80 per btc, I sold 80% of my investment. When it hit $1000, I felt bad about selling so much during the last run up, that I didn't sell at all. I took the crash back to $200 in stride. I was convinced that crypto was following a pattern of boom and crash, and then boom again and that in the coming years there would a final "big wave" as the last market (finance and retail) opened up to it. It appears that that is what happened. I've already sold a lot, avoided taxes by making a CRUT (a tax shelter) but still have about 50%. I plan to sell some more in January, because I think this wave is going to peak rather slowly (because, let's face it, finance and retail are dumb. It will take finance a long time to shift direction, and public perception is going to change slowly, IMO. For example, the housing bubble went on for a year after it seemed obviously to have reached its peak.). Also it works to my advantage considering taxes to wait. My general advice now is if you see an investment you are unsure of but could pay off big time, you should invest a little at least. A basket of risky investments can be a huge windfall even if not all pay out. Also, when you think a risky investment has run its course and is going to crash, it's usually a good idea to not sell all of it and leave maybe 10% just in case.
- 9y ago
- zerostar07 9y agoThis means that people are investing small amounts and going for the cheaper coins using coinbase. which means that cryptocurrencies may be having their facebook moment at this time , and their network effect is about to get a LOT bigger over the next months. While people may only invest small amounts (and coinbase can and should make sure they do), cryptocurrencies will come out of this extremely strengthened if a significant number of people end up owning even a small amount of any coin. Unlike tulips which wither, these people are not likely to sell their bitcoins even if there is a correction. A world scale network of people owning coins can be a giant leap for the world economy, as coins are much more resistant to censorship than the internet itself proved to be, and unless a new kind of gold is discovered , they may prove to be a much better, easier to transfer store of value. This bubble may never burst. All of this is speculation (of course) - I wish coinbase (which seems to carry the bulk of the wave of newcomers) would release statistics about their number of users.
- scribu 9y ago> Unlike tulips which wither, these people are not likely to sell their bitcoins even if there is a correction. [citation needed] Even long term investors in traditional securities often get panicky during bear markets. They sell their holdings, even if the underlying value hasn't really changed.
- zerostar07 9y agoon the one hand bitcoins dont physically wither, on the other hand, it's about the personalities of people who own it. I don't know who pumps the bitcoin bubble, but much of the bitcoin is owned by people who can't quickly cash it out for USD or EUR because it's either illegal, not taxed or going to face big taxes. many of them are also ideologically driven. Sorry i dont have citations, i m (fittingly) speculating over these
- scribu 9y ago> much of the bitcoin is owned by people who can't quickly cash it out for USD or EUR because it's either illegal, not taxed or going to face big taxes. That's certainly an interesting aspect, but I thought you were talking about all the new, smalltime buyers of cryptocoins, which I assume don't fall into this category.
- randomsearch 9y agoBitcoin looks like a bubble to me. The way I think about investment is that you should only invest if you have a clear and rational reason to do so. There is a rational reason to use fiat: you need to pay taxes in it. The government also provides all sorts of guarantees about your cash when deposited in a bank. These are solid, irrefutable arguments. Investment in bitcoin seems to be based on an argument along the lines of “we need to change currency because centralised is bad” or “it’s just another form of gold”, or worse: “because it will keep going up”. None of these arguments make sense. Yes, maybe bitcoin will become a big currency. But why? Can you give a watertight answer as for the value of fiat? Some people answer “it’s decentralised”, but that is clearly untrue. Miners and exchanges are the centralised concentrations of power in bitcoin, but they are unregulated. The idea of cryptocurrency is interesting and exciting, but investing in something purely because it’s interesting or exciting is only a good idea if you’re happy to lose that money. No doubt bitcoin is important as a technological milestone, but that does not make it a good investment. When bitcoin crashes, it could undermine various startups, which will have a knock-on effect to the startup bubble we’re in. Presumably that won’t be enough to crash a stock market, unless bitcoin reaches astronomical levels. Hmm. Maybe I should buy some gold.
- codedokode 9y agoWhile cryptocurrencies are mostly used for trading, I think it is a technology with great potential. There are still several unsolved problems with cryptocurrencies like having to keep a large database on disk and slow transactions (and illegal status in some countries). They are not protected from 50% attack by governments. When they are resolved, it can become really good alternative to card systems. VISA has many disadvantages compared to Bitcoin: - it uses outdated technology and is absolutely insecure (card details are easily stolen and sold in large volumes, they still use unencrypted magnetic stripe) - it can require paperwork and a deposit to accept payments. It is difficult if you do something legally gray (for example, related to porn) - it is difficult to get a card without identification even if you are not going to do anything illegal - transaction cost is high for small payments - US government forbids to use VISA on some territories for political reasons - merchants often refuse to accept cards from some banks or some regions (for example: Digital Ocean doesn't accept some prepaid virtual cards) - companies can collect and exchange customer data when they pay with a card. Because it has your name. - the data on transactions from all countries go through systems controlled by US It is only natural to replace those outdated magnetic card systems.
- dzonga 9y agomy coworkers and their families, who don't really know anything about bitcoin, are buying in like btc is water! when shit like that happens, you know the bubble is about to pop!!