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Bitcoin, Ether Sink as ‘Sense of Panic’ Grips Crypto Investors
- lerie82 8y agoI will also be glad when this craptocurrency nonsense is done. It was never meant to be a long term investment or to be used in the way people are trying to use it. Once people stop thinking it's a cash crop maybe cryptocurrency can start being useful again.
- madeuptempacct 8y ago"Bitcoin could be on the verge of breaking through as a mainstream currency. At least that’s the goal of a startup that is soon to be launched by one of the most powerful players on Wall Street, with backing from some of America’s leading companies. This morning Intercontinental Exchange—the trading colossus that owns the New York Stock Exchange and other global marketplaces—announced that it is forming a new company called Bakkt. The new venture, which is expected to launch in November, will offer a federally regulated market for Bitcoin. With the creation of Bakkt, ICE aims to transform Bitcoin into a trusted global currency with broad usage." http://fortune.com/longform/nyse-owner-bitcoin-exchange-startup/ http://fortune.com/longform/nyse-owner-bitcoin-exchange-star... So, you guys really think this doesn't matter? A bit one-sided imo.
- tw04 8y ago>Bakkt plans to offer a full package combining a major CFTC-regulated exchange with CFTC-regulated clearing and custody, pending the approval from the commission and other regulators. I think that they're about the 4th "major player" to announce they're going to introduce a regulated exchange. And every other time it's been "pending regulator approval". And every other time the regulators told them to pound sand. Besides the fact they run the NYSE, what's changed? The US has absolutely no incentive to hand over controls of their monetary policy, and I see no reason why they'd be anymore eager to approve this.
- madeuptempacct 8y agoI think the only thing that changed is in fact that they are NYSE.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> The US has absolutely no incentive to hand over controls of their monetary policy The regulators who approve these proposals have nothing to do with monetary policy. Their concern is with the breathtaking volume of scams in the space.
- tCfD 8y agoGiven that one of the fundamental objectives of the cryptocurrency movement is to devolve the power of monetary policy, issuance and supply leverage from the state to various 'decentralized' (weasel word of this century) groups, and thereby deprive the state of its power of taxation, I would think it in the interest of these regulators to pass the word along to those who do control monetary policy.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> one of the fundamental objectives of the cryptocurrency movement is to devolve the power of monetary policy Nobody at FINRA or the SEC cares about the power of monetary policy. The former being an industry group, it is actually somewhat in favor of letting banks sell Bitcoin (and related derivatives) to their clients. The people at the Federal Reserve, who actually control monetary policy, are mostly ignoring all this.
- SI_Rob 8y agoAre FINRA truly 'regulators' (with access to state enforcement apparatus) or just a professional standards-setting body of license gatekeepers?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
- largefarva68 8y agoThe problem is that they are trying to create a federally regulated market, which goes against the original idea of Bitcoin.
- madeuptempacct 8y agoYou still have the ability to put your BTC in a cold wallet and "transfer" it internationally without physically moving anything. I think there is value in that.
- krig 8y ago"Still, anyone expecting Bitcoin to provide a haven from turbulence in global markets will have been disappointed." No judgment on the future of cryptocurrencies (I'm not prescient), but wouldn't you have to be incredibly naive to think that bitcoin or ethereum would be stable, either in the long or short term? If nothing else, this is a space that is so new that a lot of countries haven't even had time to figure out how to legislate around it.
- Nursie 8y agoIt had been one of the cryptocurrency promoters' talking points for some time. BTC and Ether were supposed to be a store of value, and some pointed to research that showed a lack of correlation between general market movements and valuations in the cryptocurrency space, arguing that this made it a good hedge. The extreme volatility would seem to count against that idea though.
- dlubarov 8y agoThe volatility isn't a problem if crypto is a small part of a diversified portfolio, though. In theory, if a portfolio has many small investments in volatile but uncorrelated assets, the overall portfolio won't be volatile. I haven't done any empirical analysis, but I wouldn't be surprised if investing 1-2% of a portfolio in crypto actually reduced its risk.
- 1ba9115454 8y agoBitcoin and other crypto currencies are very volatile. Seeing a 5% movement in the market and giving it a title 'Sense of Panic' is not really great journalism in my opinion.
- radarsat1 8y agoIndeed, I get so confused when seeing headlines like this, then I log into my kraken account (I only have like $100 worth of bitcoins but it's fun) to see what's up, and I see a graph like this https://i.imgur.com/kVW7XYx.png https://i.imgur.com/kVW7XYx.png which basically just shows that it's "plummeted" back to the same level it was a month ago, which it was at for two months.. I don't see a reason to sell. I originally bought bitcoin when they were $12, so when I see the articles about how much value it's losing my reaction is just kind of... well, it's still 100x higher than it was 5 years ago, and 10x than 2 years ago.. Anyways if you look at the global trend https://i.imgur.com/1w1X5bN.png https://i.imgur.com/1w1X5bN.png I would say that the rate of falling from its ridiculous speculative high last year is decreasing, so maybe it's flattening out for a while..
- adventured 8y agoThe argument is that Bitcoin is still in a lower lows, lower highs move. That a sustainable bottom has not been put in yet, rather than that it's just bouncing around a bit. I.e. this move will breach below $5,774 and continue further down.
- tim333 8y agoBitcoin has held up quite well - down only about 13% over the last week but ETH is down about 35% and a lot of the ICO tokens are very low. I started crypto speculating in October 17 and have been at it until a month or so but have stopped and sold out because there just doesn't seem much buying going on at the moment. I think people have kind of given up. Bitcoin I think is different because it seems kind of manipulated with the price held up by the Chinese miners or the Tether folk or similar.
- sgt101 8y agoWell 8% on the Turkish Lira made the front page of the FT as a record movement yesterday.
- sillysaurus3 8y agoTime to buy. Every time an article like this comes out, crypto shoots up shortly after. It's like a perfect negative signal. And how could it be otherwise? The worst time to buy is when everyone else is buying.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoYou're telling people to buy when the price is low? I think you might be on to something here...
- briatx 8y ago> The worst time to buy is when everyone else is buying. It's also when everyone is selling. Nothing says this can't go lower.
- r32a_ 8y agoAnother day another Bitcoin obituary. Surely these articles are click baits at this point.
- jobigoud 8y ago> fell as much as 6.2 percent to $5,887, the lowest level since June The lowest level since June? 2018? That's a few weeks ago... Why is this even a news?
- at-fates-hands 8y agoI'm still waiting for the environmentalists to start going after the miners who seek out cheap energy and then gobble up tons of it just mine their crypto: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-mining-energy-prices-smalltown-feature-217230 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/03/09/bitcoin-m... Today, a half-megawatt mine, Miehe says, “is nothing.” The commercial miners now pouring into the valley are building sites with tens of thousands of servers and electrical loads of as much as 30 megawatts, or enough to power a neighborhood of 13,000 homes. And in the arms race that cryptocurrency mining has become, even these operations will soon be considered small-scale. That is INSANE.
- nonbel 8y ago>"That is INSANE." Is it? What have you compared that to? At least some people like bitcoin/etc, who likes the new reddit layout that requires transferring 60x more data than necessary (using HN is an example of an environmentally friendly text-based site) just to track all their users clicks and mouse movements? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17671695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17671695
- onion2k 8y agoWhat have you compared that to? The utility of using half a megawatt of power for something else would be a reasonable comparison. That's the power required for ~300 average sized homes. That sounds like a lot to me.
- nonbel 8y ago>"That sounds like a lot to me." It sounds like a lot because you are adding up energy used by many, many people all around the world. Lots of things "sound like a lot" when you do that. Why not do the same calculation for a few other things that people enjoy (gaming, porn, cat pics, posting to facebook/twitter, bars/drinking, holiday decorations, lawncare, etc)? All those activities are totally unnecessary wastes of energy.
- Grangar 8y ago
- LargeWu 8y agos/investors/speculators/
- xutopia 8y agoHow does an investor invest if he doesn't speculate?
- brokensegue 8y agobuy for the long term. buy things backed by current value. buy with diversification.
- LargeWu 8y agoTypically when you think of "investment", you are exchanging resources (typically money) for some sort of increased or improved production capacity. For example, buying a new truck so you can increase delivery capacity, or buying a new machine so you can produce more things faster. Speculation, which is a very, very, very high percentage of all crypto transactions, is merely buying some asset with the intent of selling it later at a higher price. There's a name for this, the "Greater Fool Theory", which is so called because you hope somebody else will buy at a higher price and you won't be the fool holding it when the price declines. It should be noted that buying stocks on the open market is more akin to speculation than investment, although historically it has provided fairly reliable returns in the aggregate over the long term. It also has the effect of providing liquidity for original investors, so that they can take their gains and invest again elsewhere, which is a trait crypto doesn't necessarily share.
- ArtWomb 8y agoCould be tied into "$usd strength" narrative. As historically there has been a correlation between EM currency market weakness and crypto flight to safety. Such was the case with Greece and Spain. But now with Turkey, South Africa, and others seeing 5% moves per day. That correlation seems to be broken in favor of the Almighty Dollar. Be careful out there. August volatility can be especially fraught in illiquid markets as traders are away from their desks and out on the beaches in East Hampton ;)
- dandare 8y ago> “Most cryptocurrencies have been overvalued for a very long time,” said Samson Mow, chief strategy officer at blockchain developer Blockstream Corp. This reminds me of the "Not Even Wrong" attribute of String Theory. How can something be overvalued, if it's only value is derived from the price people are willing to pay for it?
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- raverbashing 8y ago"its only value" It can be overvalued if the transaction volume reduces, even if it the price doesn't reduce much. Some things will sell more if the price goes down, some others won't.
- Synaesthesia 8y agoI think bitcoin only proves that financial markets can be highly irrational, a fact that has been proven repeatedly. You could say the same thing about any currency, future or derivative.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> You could say the same thing about any currency, future or derivative Not really. Derivatives have intrinsic values. There are fundamental properties that push their prices into certain equilibria. Currencies are more complicated. But between interest rates, which all modern currencies natively support, and characteristics of the underlying economy, here too one can derive boundaries. Cryptocurrencies don't have this because (a) they don't natively support rates and (b) have a poorly-defined exclusive economic base (if it exists at all). So you end up with a number that jolts around pretty much purely on animal spirits.
- Retric 8y agoNational currencies are backed up by needing to pay taxes in them. Sell a car for bitcoin and the IRS still needs it's cash.
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- crunchlibrarian 8y agoThe sooner all this nonsense ends the better, too many people have already been scammed for waayyyyy too much money. And I personally know five or six people who are trying to start their own coins around <insert any noun> and "make billions". They all seem to think their coin will replace all currencies and commodities forever. It's the perfect fictional scam for our fictional times.
- raverbashing 8y agoGiven the amount of "free giveaway" scams in twitter there's still an endless supply of gullible people with money to spare
- XorNot 8y agoAlso GPU prices going down would be great.
- baybal2 8y ago>Also GPU prices going down would be great. Yes! I haven't had a gaming PC for a while. Been looking for GTX1080 for an ITX case, but ... it appeared that small form factor graphic cards were particularly popular among those miner guys I think I will take GTX1170 once it out there. People expect 1080 baseline performance at a saner power budget.
- crunchlibrarian 8y agoI completely forgot about that, I've been sitting on a 970 for years now, I stopped checking prices for video cards early last year and haven't even thought about it in months. It's quite bizarre to effectively be unable to upgrade your computer for a year or two. I had forgotten how regular that process was for me.
- Nursie 8y agoAFAICT graphics card prices are dipping a little right now, but at least part of that is fairly strong anticipation of nvidia announcing a new generation in a few days. Guess we'll see....
- rashomon 8y agoAs someone who does have a large investment in it. I'm genuinely happy that's happening. Way too much marketing + pump-n-dumpness occurring for anyone to make some real solutions out of the blockchain. Maybe now that the fervor has resided, the quiet minds can get to work.
- wyldfire 8y agoHa, this post seems to mark the "this is good for bitcoin" meme.
- eiurafhlfie 8y agoOne more bitcoin bubble poppin'. Does HN think it's the last one, or will the pattern repeat in a few years again?
- pjc50 8y agoBitcoin is surprisingly resilient; getting to the last bubble would imply running out of dumb retail investor money. Plus the darknets and ransomware seem still to be in business with cryptocurrency. I'd expect repeating smaller bubbles every few months.
- guildenstern 8y agoThe question to ask is where will the money come from? The last bubble was all over TV, it was a constant part of the news cycle and everybody knows somebody who bought at least some crypto currency based on promises of wild riches. Most of those people have lost at least some (or even most) of the money they “invested”. When the layman has already been burned, where can money come from? People often make the mistakes more than once so perhaps there’s room for “this time it’s different!” but I’m not convinced. I don’t see the crypto market ever exceeding the previous all time high. There’s certainly room for individual cryptocurrency projects to succeed from their own merit as projects that happen to be crypto currencies so I don’t think all crypto currencies are dead forever but crypto as a growth market almost certainly is.
- 0x4f3759df 8y agoI expect the money will come from Wall Street once adequate custodial / regulatory framework is in place.
- anotheramala 8y agoWall Street wants to trust it's money to miners in China? The whole mining concept is ridiculous, but they have probably done stupider things so it could happen.
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- 394549 8y agoGood. Serves them right for making the layman more likely to associate "crpyto" with get-rich-quick schemes rather than important privacy-protecting technology.
- Barrin92 8y agoI never understood the privacy point either. crypto technology to me seems like the opposite of privacy respecting. The entire ledger is public, so all my transactions are public and traceable through history. If someone ever figures out which wallet belongs to me, I'm done for, which is a horrible single point of failure. The same thing for smart contracts really, by advertising them as doing away with trust and middlemen and calling it a feature, they are demanding that key parts of transactions are made public, traceable and constantly measured. All of it seems to me panopticon like rather than focused on privacy. It has obfuscated the only good thing (the identity of the person I buy from, which I care about), and made transparent all the bad things (my and their personal history)