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The last time China explicitly banned Bitcoin, it dropped by around 45% to around $6000. It went on to $20K from there. But what's different this time is that

The last time China explicitly banned Bitcoin, it dropped by around 45% to around $6000. It went on to $20K from there. But what's different this time is that there are first time investors in millions who joined in the last 2 months. They didn't read the white paper, they didn't invest in technology, they invested for the monster returns. So I think there will be a more sell off this time before it rebounds back to $13K+ or may be the 1000th time is the charm and the bubble actually gets burst.

joering2 9y ago
Just like with dot com burst, it doesnt mean someone will turn the lights off forever. Just like the internet eventually got mainstream and websites are being bought and sold for billions these days, same way BitCoin will never be at 0,001 cent with nobody touch it with a long stick.
- omegaworks 9y ago
  As the blockchain grows ever larger the thing gets more and more useless as a currency. Just look at how long it takes a transaction to confirm.* It's digital Beanie Babies. *https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespan=180days# https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespa...
  - bduerst 9y ago
    Yep, these comparisons between Bitcoin and other successful technologies are like a new type of fallacy (techno-fallacy?) where people assume that because it's technically-complex it is somehow destined to succeed like other technically-complex successes. It's a form of survivor bias because you never see or think about the technically-complex failures, or "not-successes", like the Tamagatchi, Laser disc, WebTV, Webvan, etc. I mean, how come none of it's proponents compare Bitcoin to the Segway? Sure, you can say we have hoverboards now but those are not Segway, the same way Eth and Monero are not Bitcoin.
    - cantrip 9y ago
      The self balancing technology in the Segway, revolutionary at the time, paved the way for hoverboards. The forms are changed but the underlying technology is the same. In the same way, Eth and Monero are further iterations of Bitcoin.
      - bduerst 9y ago
        No, Segway didn't. Hoverboards are specifically based off of a patent made by some guy living in Oregon, and are actually ingenuitive in their own right. There's a good planet money podcast about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episode-666-the-hoverboard-life https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/epis... Bitcoin, Eth, and Monero are all implementations of blockchain. Bitcoin is technically inferior to Eth, Monero, even Dogecoin, but that doesn't stop GP and others from comparing it to the internet's success in saying that Bitcoin is destined for similar success.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      Tamagotchi were actually a success that has rescued Bandai. Millions were sold. Tiny numbers are still sold to this day which is quite a longevity for a fad toy.
  - cantrip 9y ago
    >As the blockchain grows ever larger the thing gets more and more useless as a currency. Just look at how long it takes a transaction to confirm. Blockchain size and confirmation times are two entirely different things.
    - omegaworks 9y ago
      Good to know, what is it based upon? I know you can spend coin to prioritize a transaction, is it formulaic?
      - bduerst 9y ago
        Block size is limited by bytes allowed in the block, usually about 7 transactions a second (on average) for Bitcoin. Increased demand for transactions increased tx fees. The length of the chain can affect processing power and bandwidth, as each block contains all previous blocks.
      - cantrip 9y ago
        No, why are you making claims such as Bitcoin is the new Beanie Babies when you have literally no idea how any of it works?
        bduerst 9y ago
        You don't have to be a carpenter to know if a house is built poorly, just if you try to describe the cause. They were right in their criticism of transaction fees, but were off in what was causing it.
  - averagewall 9y ago
    The blockchain is only growing linearly isn't it? I just downloaded almost the entire blockchain the other day. It was a struggle, but it was also a struggle years ago. It hasn't become impossibly difficult or started to require fancy computers or internet connections.
- craigmi 9y ago
  the internet is far more useful than an alternative currency
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  The internet had a significant use. Bitcoin hasn't really found one yet. And I would say that the proper comparison would be to a company during the .Com bust.
- adventured 9y ago
  Bitcoin isn't the Internet in that example. Blockchain is. Bitcoin may be DrKoop.com or it may be AOL or Cisco, of the dotcom bubble. Wealth is created primarily from productivity gains. Bitcoin generates very little in the way of productivity gains. Services built on top of blockchain or similar tech, will be where most of the wealth will be generated, because those services / products will or might spur productivity gains.
- rconti 9y ago
  Sure, if you cherry pick. What ever happened to the supposed value of "hot" domain names? Right, we got search, and got used to typing in weird strings, and stopped caring about owning car.com or whatever.
  - brucephillips 9y ago
    How much do you think car.com is worth?
  - phil21 9y ago
    > What ever happened to the supposed value of "hot" domain names? Skyrocketed in value from hundreds of dollars in the mid-late 90's to tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars today? Not sure that's the point you were trying to make though :)
    - rconti 9y ago
      There are a lot of very generic domain names out there that were worth millions in the late 90s and never got used, and sit parked today. Businesses are more willing to spend to have "their" domain name, perhaps, but the overall value of a "hot" domain name seems lower.
  - joering2 9y ago
    If you own car.com i would gladly pay $500,000, maybe more. Please DM me.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - puranjay 9y ago
    I'm still kicking myself for getting out of the domain market in 2008. The aftermarket prices crashed following the recession. I remember at one point, I bought out all the remaining 5 number .com names (like 78542.com). Must have been close to 400. I let them all expire since they were worthless a year later. Fast forward to 2015 and they're all selling for a minimum of $200+.
perseusprime11 9y ago
What’s also different is few individuals/entities in South Korea and elsewhere are responsible for driving the value upstream. Anything that is manipulated does not last long. As somebody wise (Buffet) once said this will have a bad ending.
- agorabinary 9y ago
  This is naive of Buffet when his only evidence of a "bad ending" is the existence of a massive rally. The entire near-future automated economy depends on programmable money. There is literally nothing interesting happening in FinTech right now apart from the crypto space.
  - perseusprime11 9y ago
    “entire near-future automated economy depends on programmable money” It also depends on banks and states signing up to that vision. We have seen zero adoption on that front. On top of that, it still does not explain the hundreds of alt coins.
    - agorabinary 9y ago
      "it still doesn't explain the hundreds of alt coins" It's open source. How many Linux distros are there?
    - notsrg 9y ago
      Uber would probably disagree that you need permission for anything.
    - halbritt 9y ago
      Banks are rapidly trying to adopt the use of blockchain.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - 9y ago
komali2 9y ago
I love bitcoin and cryptocurrency as potential solutions to problems with gov-controlled currencies (I've used crypto to buy drugs, for example). But I'm still confused why people refer to purchasing currency as an "investment." Obviously the rates are going up now, but doesn't everyone expect them to just come back down? I don't convert my USD to Yen and call it an "investment."
- vthallam 9y ago
  You would call it an investment, if the USD-YEN prices are so volatile and give you 1000X profit in 6 months. Again, this all goes back to whether Bitcoin is a store of value or a medium of exchange. By now it's very clear, it can't be medium of exchange.
  - josephg 9y ago
    People keep saying that, but the lightning network is in testing at the moment and when it gets widely deployed we should start seeing near zero transaction fees on the bitcoin network. You can say what you want about the philosophy of that - the lightning network will add yet another group of people who collectively have an outsized control over the network. But if the scaling issues get addressed I don't see any reason why it couldn't work as a currency. And it looks like they are being (slowly) addressed.
    - slindz 9y ago
      Any successful Lightning Network (at scale) would require a dramatic block size increase. The last (Lightning Network tech) I saw suggested it would need a 133MB blocksize. Blockstream struck down a modest increase to 2MB in November. They have devs who want to reduce the blocksize. I'm not sure where you're finding hope in LN. Bitcoin Cash forked off to get back to scaling, and it's doing great. Check out how well the mempool stress test went this past week.
      - notsrg 9y ago
        And Bitcoin Cash will need GB or even TB sized blocks to scale to the size of Visa. If scaling the network was as easy as changing 1 variable it wouldn't be that hard to get consensus on a scaling solution.
madshiva 9y ago
The argument about invest on technology is totally wrong used by YouTube famous star the same was BitConnect and we see what is the situation now. Stop propaging wrong info.
jondubois 9y ago
Yes, big drops like this is how the cryptocurrency internet continuously rids itself of infidels and discourages people from investing too large amounts and risking too much - By encouraging people to only invest small amounts, it helps with decentralization.
samnwa 9y ago
No way. Some of them did the smart thing BTFD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4v8rLEI4Pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4v8rLEI4Pg

joering2 9y ago

Just like with dot com burst, it doesnt mean someone will turn the lights off forever. Just like the internet eventually got mainstream and websites are being bought and sold for billions these days, same way BitCoin will never be at 0,001 cent with nobody touch it with a long stick.

omegaworks 9y ago
As the blockchain grows ever larger the thing gets more and more useless as a currency. Just look at how long it takes a transaction to confirm.* It's digital Beanie Babies. *https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespan=180days# https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespa...
- bduerst 9y ago
  Yep, these comparisons between Bitcoin and other successful technologies are like a new type of fallacy (techno-fallacy?) where people assume that because it's technically-complex it is somehow destined to succeed like other technically-complex successes. It's a form of survivor bias because you never see or think about the technically-complex failures, or "not-successes", like the Tamagatchi, Laser disc, WebTV, Webvan, etc. I mean, how come none of it's proponents compare Bitcoin to the Segway? Sure, you can say we have hoverboards now but those are not Segway, the same way Eth and Monero are not Bitcoin.
  - cantrip 9y ago
    The self balancing technology in the Segway, revolutionary at the time, paved the way for hoverboards. The forms are changed but the underlying technology is the same. In the same way, Eth and Monero are further iterations of Bitcoin.
    - bduerst 9y ago
      No, Segway didn't. Hoverboards are specifically based off of a patent made by some guy living in Oregon, and are actually ingenuitive in their own right. There's a good planet money podcast about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/episode-666-the-hoverboard-life https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/27/457404184/epis... Bitcoin, Eth, and Monero are all implementations of blockchain. Bitcoin is technically inferior to Eth, Monero, even Dogecoin, but that doesn't stop GP and others from comparing it to the internet's success in saying that Bitcoin is destined for similar success.
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Tamagotchi were actually a success that has rescued Bandai. Millions were sold. Tiny numbers are still sold to this day which is quite a longevity for a fad toy.
- cantrip 9y ago
  >As the blockchain grows ever larger the thing gets more and more useless as a currency. Just look at how long it takes a transaction to confirm. Blockchain size and confirmation times are two entirely different things.
  - omegaworks 9y ago
    Good to know, what is it based upon? I know you can spend coin to prioritize a transaction, is it formulaic?
    - bduerst 9y ago
      Block size is limited by bytes allowed in the block, usually about 7 transactions a second (on average) for Bitcoin. Increased demand for transactions increased tx fees. The length of the chain can affect processing power and bandwidth, as each block contains all previous blocks.
    - cantrip 9y ago
      No, why are you making claims such as Bitcoin is the new Beanie Babies when you have literally no idea how any of it works?
      - bduerst 9y ago
        You don't have to be a carpenter to know if a house is built poorly, just if you try to describe the cause. They were right in their criticism of transaction fees, but were off in what was causing it.
- averagewall 9y ago
  The blockchain is only growing linearly isn't it? I just downloaded almost the entire blockchain the other day. It was a struggle, but it was also a struggle years ago. It hasn't become impossibly difficult or started to require fancy computers or internet connections.
craigmi 9y ago
the internet is far more useful than an alternative currency
s73ver_ 9y ago
The internet had a significant use. Bitcoin hasn't really found one yet. And I would say that the proper comparison would be to a company during the .Com bust.
adventured 9y ago
Bitcoin isn't the Internet in that example. Blockchain is. Bitcoin may be DrKoop.com or it may be AOL or Cisco, of the dotcom bubble. Wealth is created primarily from productivity gains. Bitcoin generates very little in the way of productivity gains. Services built on top of blockchain or similar tech, will be where most of the wealth will be generated, because those services / products will or might spur productivity gains.
rconti 9y ago
Sure, if you cherry pick. What ever happened to the supposed value of "hot" domain names? Right, we got search, and got used to typing in weird strings, and stopped caring about owning car.com or whatever.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  How much do you think car.com is worth?
- phil21 9y ago
  > What ever happened to the supposed value of "hot" domain names? Skyrocketed in value from hundreds of dollars in the mid-late 90's to tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars today? Not sure that's the point you were trying to make though :)
  - rconti 9y ago
    There are a lot of very generic domain names out there that were worth millions in the late 90s and never got used, and sit parked today. Businesses are more willing to spend to have "their" domain name, perhaps, but the overall value of a "hot" domain name seems lower.
- joering2 9y ago
  If you own car.com i would gladly pay $500,000, maybe more. Please DM me.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- puranjay 9y ago
  I'm still kicking myself for getting out of the domain market in 2008. The aftermarket prices crashed following the recession. I remember at one point, I bought out all the remaining 5 number .com names (like 78542.com). Must have been close to 400. I let them all expire since they were worthless a year later. Fast forward to 2015 and they're all selling for a minimum of $200+.

perseusprime11 9y ago

What’s also different is few individuals/entities in South Korea and elsewhere are responsible for driving the value upstream. Anything that is manipulated does not last long. As somebody wise (Buffet) once said this will have a bad ending.

agorabinary 9y ago
This is naive of Buffet when his only evidence of a "bad ending" is the existence of a massive rally. The entire near-future automated economy depends on programmable money. There is literally nothing interesting happening in FinTech right now apart from the crypto space.
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  “entire near-future automated economy depends on programmable money” It also depends on banks and states signing up to that vision. We have seen zero adoption on that front. On top of that, it still does not explain the hundreds of alt coins.
  - agorabinary 9y ago
    "it still doesn't explain the hundreds of alt coins" It's open source. How many Linux distros are there?
  - notsrg 9y ago
    Uber would probably disagree that you need permission for anything.
  - halbritt 9y ago
    Banks are rapidly trying to adopt the use of blockchain.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - 9y ago

komali2 9y ago

I love bitcoin and cryptocurrency as potential solutions to problems with gov-controlled currencies (I've used crypto to buy drugs, for example). But I'm still confused why people refer to purchasing currency as an "investment." Obviously the rates are going up now, but doesn't everyone expect them to just come back down? I don't convert my USD to Yen and call it an "investment."

vthallam 9y ago
You would call it an investment, if the USD-YEN prices are so volatile and give you 1000X profit in 6 months. Again, this all goes back to whether Bitcoin is a store of value or a medium of exchange. By now it's very clear, it can't be medium of exchange.
- josephg 9y ago
  People keep saying that, but the lightning network is in testing at the moment and when it gets widely deployed we should start seeing near zero transaction fees on the bitcoin network. You can say what you want about the philosophy of that - the lightning network will add yet another group of people who collectively have an outsized control over the network. But if the scaling issues get addressed I don't see any reason why it couldn't work as a currency. And it looks like they are being (slowly) addressed.
  - slindz 9y ago
    Any successful Lightning Network (at scale) would require a dramatic block size increase. The last (Lightning Network tech) I saw suggested it would need a 133MB blocksize. Blockstream struck down a modest increase to 2MB in November. They have devs who want to reduce the blocksize. I'm not sure where you're finding hope in LN. Bitcoin Cash forked off to get back to scaling, and it's doing great. Check out how well the mempool stress test went this past week.
    - notsrg 9y ago
      And Bitcoin Cash will need GB or even TB sized blocks to scale to the size of Visa. If scaling the network was as easy as changing 1 variable it wouldn't be that hard to get consensus on a scaling solution.

madshiva 9y ago

The argument about invest on technology is totally wrong used by YouTube famous star the same was BitConnect and we see what is the situation now. Stop propaging wrong info.

jondubois 9y ago

Yes, big drops like this is how the cryptocurrency internet continuously rids itself of infidels and discourages people from investing too large amounts and risking too much - By encouraging people to only invest small amounts, it helps with decentralization.

samnwa 9y ago

No way. Some of them did the smart thing BTFD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4v8rLEI4Pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4v8rLEI4Pg