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I do mobile software consulting. To give you an idea of the level of crypto currency mania: Every single one of my clients in San Francisco have some kind of sl

I do mobile software consulting. To give you an idea of the level of crypto currency mania: Every single one of my clients in San Francisco have some kind of slack or group chat devoted to crypto trading. I was waiting at the front desk of a client who has a floor in a fancy building downtown. Whilst waiting I overheard the end of a conversation between the door guy talking to the maintanence man: “I put in a bunch of money like you said and it went up!”. The door guy was gesturing at his phone and I vaguely saw a blue and white interface that looked like coinbase. I’m 95% sure this conversation was about bitcoin or etherium. This occurred about two weeks ago. It really made me think of that old story about the shoe shine boy talking stocks promoting a guy to exit the stock market prior to the 1929 crash: http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/04/15/211503/index.htm http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive...

nlh 9y ago
The key moment of bubble insanity for me was overheating the security screeners at Heathrow talking about how they just signed up for “this new app called CoinBase” which was going to make them all rich.
- gthtjtkt 9y ago
  Yeah I knew it was time to get out when my neighbor's dog started telling me about this hot new ICO.
  - strebler 9y ago
    Hey, WoofCoin is going to change the world! Only WoofCoin uses blockchain technology to finally solve the age old question "who's a good boy?"
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - j_s 9y ago
    I was suprised to hear someone mention DOGE's market cap was over 500 million.
    - lmkg 9y ago
      Compared to a lot of other coins, DOGE has been around for a long time and basically counts as an established, respectable institution. It had a very active community, it sponsored a racecar. And unlike most coins, it has a very concise and transparent value proposition of why it's different than the million other coins on the market. That value proposition being "lol memes," which... isn't a scam, at least.
regularhackerer 9y ago
Hopefully this crash scares away the door guy. Cant have poor people around in the big boys market. /s
- nxsynonym 9y ago
  This has got to be one of the most elitist and ignorant comments I've ever seen here.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    I think, rather, the gp was implying that the above was being elitist/classist.
  - hobs 9y ago
    /s indicates a "closing" sarcasm tag.
    - nxsynonym 9y ago
      He edited in the /s after the fact - and besides sarcastic comments don't add any value to the discussion.
      - lucideer 9y ago
        That may be the case for most. In this case, it could be argued it does. If one address the parent is being classist (subjective), this comment does well to highlight it.
      - smileysteve 9y ago
        sarcastic comment added the same value your comment did...
      - skj 9y ago
        The /s was pretty clear before the fact too.
      - 9y ago
mutteraloo 9y ago
They didn't know what they were buying; bits in a database. A very poorly implemented database that was - not scalable - not rare - didn't have any government backing or big institutional backing in case the price dropped from 19,000 to 11,000 - easily hackable (tether, fake trades, scam exchanges, etc) - too expensive to do a single transaction this applies to most crytocurrency
- tanilama 9y ago
  > not rare Interesting. Don't really know how crytos work, but isn't rarity is guaranteed by the BitCoin algorithm itself?
  - castis 9y ago
    In what context are you using rarity?
  - carry_bit 9y ago
    Bitcoin itself is rare, but cryptocurrency as a whole is not because it's easy to create another blockchain.
    - aviv 9y ago
      This right there is exactly why long term it's doomed and cannot be a reliable store of value. You don't see banks and random geeks inventing new precious metals out of thin air. So you have gold, silver, platinum and palladium and that's about it as far as store of values are concerned.
      - stinkytaco 9y ago
        I mean, I suppose anyone can create a currency out of thin air. In fact, I'd wager there's hundreds of currencies, as nearly every sovereign state has one. It's not meant to be a store of value, which is why this bubble will burst, but that doesn't mean it's doomed. It has the characteristics of a currency: 1. scarce. 2. useful.
thisisit 9y ago
And Paul Krugman's barber's brother-in-law is in too: https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/943938735846166529 https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/943938735846166529
api 9y ago
This is a sell signal if I ever saw one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnj0UG9biLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnj0UG9biLc It's been in the silly phase of bubble for a while now.
- BLanen 9y ago
  Overheard people in the train talking about that ponzi.
kochthesecond 9y ago
I got out when I saw the first bitcoin ad in a national newspaper 2 weeks ago. Too many people having no idea what they are buying.

nlh 9y ago

The key moment of bubble insanity for me was overheating the security screeners at Heathrow talking about how they just signed up for “this new app called CoinBase” which was going to make them all rich.

gthtjtkt 9y ago
Yeah I knew it was time to get out when my neighbor's dog started telling me about this hot new ICO.
- strebler 9y ago
  Hey, WoofCoin is going to change the world! Only WoofCoin uses blockchain technology to finally solve the age old question "who's a good boy?"
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- j_s 9y ago
  I was suprised to hear someone mention DOGE's market cap was over 500 million.
  - lmkg 9y ago
    Compared to a lot of other coins, DOGE has been around for a long time and basically counts as an established, respectable institution. It had a very active community, it sponsored a racecar. And unlike most coins, it has a very concise and transparent value proposition of why it's different than the million other coins on the market. That value proposition being "lol memes," which... isn't a scam, at least.

regularhackerer 9y ago

Hopefully this crash scares away the door guy. Cant have poor people around in the big boys market. /s

nxsynonym 9y ago
This has got to be one of the most elitist and ignorant comments I've ever seen here.
- lucideer 9y ago
  I think, rather, the gp was implying that the above was being elitist/classist.
- hobs 9y ago
  /s indicates a "closing" sarcasm tag.
  - nxsynonym 9y ago
    He edited in the /s after the fact - and besides sarcastic comments don't add any value to the discussion.
    - lucideer 9y ago
      That may be the case for most. In this case, it could be argued it does. If one address the parent is being classist (subjective), this comment does well to highlight it.
    - smileysteve 9y ago
      sarcastic comment added the same value your comment did...
    - skj 9y ago
      The /s was pretty clear before the fact too.
    - 9y ago

mutteraloo 9y ago

They didn't know what they were buying; bits in a database. A very poorly implemented database that was - not scalable - not rare - didn't have any government backing or big institutional backing in case the price dropped from 19,000 to 11,000 - easily hackable (tether, fake trades, scam exchanges, etc) - too expensive to do a single transaction this applies to most crytocurrency

tanilama 9y ago
> not rare Interesting. Don't really know how crytos work, but isn't rarity is guaranteed by the BitCoin algorithm itself?
- castis 9y ago
  In what context are you using rarity?
- carry_bit 9y ago
  Bitcoin itself is rare, but cryptocurrency as a whole is not because it's easy to create another blockchain.
  - aviv 9y ago
    This right there is exactly why long term it's doomed and cannot be a reliable store of value. You don't see banks and random geeks inventing new precious metals out of thin air. So you have gold, silver, platinum and palladium and that's about it as far as store of values are concerned.
    - stinkytaco 9y ago
      I mean, I suppose anyone can create a currency out of thin air. In fact, I'd wager there's hundreds of currencies, as nearly every sovereign state has one. It's not meant to be a store of value, which is why this bubble will burst, but that doesn't mean it's doomed. It has the characteristics of a currency: 1. scarce. 2. useful.

thisisit 9y ago

And Paul Krugman's barber's brother-in-law is in too: https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/943938735846166529 https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/943938735846166529

api 9y ago

This is a sell signal if I ever saw one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnj0UG9biLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnj0UG9biLc It's been in the silly phase of bubble for a while now.

BLanen 9y ago
Overheard people in the train talking about that ponzi.

kochthesecond 9y ago

I got out when I saw the first bitcoin ad in a national newspaper 2 weeks ago. Too many people having no idea what they are buying.