5 ms·

BitCoin was mentioned at nearly every party at the end of 2017. Google Trends showed massive growth in the search term. Many unsophisticated investors poured mo

by nroets 7y ago

BitCoin was mentioned at nearly every party at the end of 2017. Google Trends showed massive growth in the search term. Many unsophisticated investors poured money in solely based on past performance. It was not a single whale. It had all the hallmarks of bubble like tulip mania or Internet stocks in 1999.

ceejayoz 7y ago
That attention was generated by the skyrocketing price, though. No one in the general public or news media really cared until it had already shot up substantially.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  It was a self-reinforcing snowball effect, because news coverage of BTC was pretty constant for a good while. Feedback loop kinda thing. I for one am sure people are being paid to hype up or report on BTC so that the people paying for those "news" reports can profit from the increased price.
  - SI_Rob 7y ago
    It's even more insidious than that. An astonishingly high fraction of people in both the news media (and particularly in the financial news media) as well as in variously leveraged positions of power in government and quasi-governmental bodies, were primed to talk up Bitcoin wherever possible due to having taken some position in it (or in one of its boutique gateway drugs alts) "just to see how it works." This position being facilitated either by direct action or, more frequently, by enthusiastic prompting from a "blockchain consultant" acquaintance who offered to walk them through setting up a wallet (or even a miner / mining contract) and show them how to use it. You know, "just to see how it works." Now that their curiosity has been elevated to, as Bitcoiners love to quip, actual "skin in the game" (both in terms of time/material investment and reputational commitment), they are biased to repeat the pro-bitcoin messaging points they've been spoonfed by what they believe to be a helpful, fashionably libertarian insider geek contact, but is in effect merely this generation's reboot of the garden variety penny stock shill.
- Acrobatic_Road 7y ago
  The study in question is alleging the runup from around 10k-20k was because of one guy. The media had definitely caught on beforehand.
jki275 7y ago
There was certainly hype and hysteria -- but ultimately every time it would look like it was going to turn down, more USDT would magically appear and prop the price up. It's really a textbook study in how to manipulate markets -- and yes, it was probably one entity doing it. Now who that entity is may be a matter of speculation, but it's likely bitfinex/tether, which are really the same company run by the same people.
- lawn 7y ago
  It was actually easy to predict when Bitcoin would rise at that time: shortly after hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Tether were printed.
  - jki275 7y ago
    That is correct as I remember it...

by nroets 7y ago

ceejayoz 7y ago

That attention was generated by the skyrocketing price, though. No one in the general public or news media really cared until it had already shot up substantially.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
It was a self-reinforcing snowball effect, because news coverage of BTC was pretty constant for a good while. Feedback loop kinda thing. I for one am sure people are being paid to hype up or report on BTC so that the people paying for those "news" reports can profit from the increased price.
- SI_Rob 7y ago
  It's even more insidious than that. An astonishingly high fraction of people in both the news media (and particularly in the financial news media) as well as in variously leveraged positions of power in government and quasi-governmental bodies, were primed to talk up Bitcoin wherever possible due to having taken some position in it (or in one of its boutique gateway drugs alts) "just to see how it works." This position being facilitated either by direct action or, more frequently, by enthusiastic prompting from a "blockchain consultant" acquaintance who offered to walk them through setting up a wallet (or even a miner / mining contract) and show them how to use it. You know, "just to see how it works." Now that their curiosity has been elevated to, as Bitcoiners love to quip, actual "skin in the game" (both in terms of time/material investment and reputational commitment), they are biased to repeat the pro-bitcoin messaging points they've been spoonfed by what they believe to be a helpful, fashionably libertarian insider geek contact, but is in effect merely this generation's reboot of the garden variety penny stock shill.
Acrobatic_Road 7y ago
The study in question is alleging the runup from around 10k-20k was because of one guy. The media had definitely caught on beforehand.

jki275 7y ago

There was certainly hype and hysteria -- but ultimately every time it would look like it was going to turn down, more USDT would magically appear and prop the price up. It's really a textbook study in how to manipulate markets -- and yes, it was probably one entity doing it. Now who that entity is may be a matter of speculation, but it's likely bitfinex/tether, which are really the same company run by the same people.

lawn 7y ago
It was actually easy to predict when Bitcoin would rise at that time: shortly after hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Tether were printed.
- jki275 7y ago
  That is correct as I remember it...