42 ms·
Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto
- seibelj 6y agoBitcoin still isn’t worth $1 trillion, which is the value of one large tech company. I think bitcoin is useful and important enough to be worth several large tech companies. Therefore, not selling! Onward to 100k.
- warrenmiller 6y agoWhen it hits around $54k it will be worth a trillion so give it a few minutes :)
- warrenmiller 6y ago...also worth more than Tesla currently
- rawtxapp 6y agoIt has been climbing pretty nicely: assetdash.com.
- orange_tee 6y ago> I think bitcoin is useful and important enough to be worth several large tech companies. My thought experiment to verify this is simple: Tomorrow bitcoin disappears. What happens? Tomorrow FAANG disappears, what happens? I don't think it is controversial to say that Bitcoin is NOT as impactful as you are stating. Of course lots of money will be lost, but practically no industry is dependent on Bitcoin so the rest of the world will not notice. So then I am not sure how you can say Bitcoin is so valuable.
- beervirus 6y ago>useful >Bitcoin ...
- eterm 6y ago> many crypto investors to believe the latest bull run is different "This time it's different" isn't an argument I find compelling for why something that is known to have bubbles and manipulation isn't in a bubble.
- seibelj 6y agoI agree, GME was bad enough but no way I’ll touch TSLA.
- saalweachter 6y agoI am as skeptical of TSLA as the next fellow, but at least the company can capitalize on its rising stock price to convert it into physical infrastructure that provides a certain floor to the company value.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoTSLA is high now, it might go higher but it's past peak hype at this point so even if you jump in now, you might end up with 2x your investment if it keeps going, but not 10 or 100x.
- 1996 6y agoFor 12 years, just bubbles? First it was over 1 cent, then over $1, over $1000, now over $50k.... when will you consider the possibility you may have been wrong? At $100k? At $1M? (which most models indicate as a plausible target price in 10 years) Let me give you my favorite quote, pulled from another HNer comment: "I enjoy reading comments about Bitcoin here because even without any venture backing, it achieved a bigger valuation than all of the Y Combinator companies COMBINED, yet people still think it is unstable and has no future."
- 1996 6y agoI'm patiently waiting for the dismissals (it's just a fad like tulips or beanie babies), the negative permabulls (it's evil because people can use it to buy drugs / not pay taxes, it can't do as many TPS as Visa, it's bad for the environment...) while laughing all the way to the bank. Crypto is the HN equivalent of what the ipod was to Slashdot: "lame" to the people who think they are the typical user, who declare there is no product-market fit. Maybe after 12 years of being constantly proven wrong, it's time for the old guard to stop being luddites and concede it has been very wrong?
- seibelj 6y agoBoth nocoiners and coiners are locked into their positions so hard it’s “I’ll go down with the ship” at this point. At least one side gets to be rich though!
- 1996 6y agoI know. I'm retired thanks to crypto. I'm glad I eventually saw how HN was wrong and learned from my mistakes. It did cost me bit of time-opportunity, but there's a point where you have "enough" and it's not worth chasing more money anymore.
- seibelj 6y agoI considered retiring but it’s too boring so I just keep working in crypto. I’m a workaholic by nature. Not having a boss is great though as it allows me true freedom and the ability to work strange hours.
- 1996 6y agoSame thing here: I don't have to work anymore but I chose to, with a bit of VC on the side. There are many interesting projects, and having full freedom is priceless! I try to favor project that only take crypto, not fiat, and price their products in crypto. I see that as an indicator of "understanding" the new wave.
- 6y ago
- Geee 6y agoWe're truly witnessing an extraordinary paradigm shift in human history.
- onepointsixC 6y agoHow so? Bitcoin's excitement comes entirely from its value in fiat, as opposed to regular usage in daily life.
- BLKNSLVR 6y agoBitcoin as the gateway to Ethereum and the possibilities opened up by smart contacts such as the currently embryonic DeFi market. Paradigm shift isn't too strong a terminology.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoWhile ETH is cool technology, I haven't seen it impact my personal life in any way yet. That might just be my sheltered life though.
- bhupy 6y agoI've only just begun to wrap my head around all of this, and I tried playing with some of the DeFi lending platforms built on top of Ethereum. It has its kinks, but I think on the net it's a remarkably cool thing. I was able to lend $50 (overcollateralized) at 12% APY without any central institution. The only real wrinkle has been the insane transaction fees: it cost me about $80 to execute the "smart contract" for the $50 12% APY loan. That said, this is a flat cost, and I can very much see the value in paying $80 in transaction costs to be able to lend $50,000 or $500,000 at 12% APY. It also very much feels like "mainframe" days of computing where everything was expensive and impractical, but it was just the beginning. For the time being, I continue to keep my money safely parked in index funds, but one can get a first hand look at the potential for Eth/DeFi by testing small(ish) transactions out.
- 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- luxurytent 6y agoHow much of this Bitcoin wealth is centralized to the top %?
- majani 6y agoSatoshi owns $54 billion worth of Bitcoin at this point.
- chrononaut 6y ago~ish. I imagine it would be probably quite a struggle for them to even get a billion back to fiat given how impactful selling that many coins would be to the current price, combined with the fact that I suspect if coins in their wallet start to move in any capacity, that will likely cause some reaction by other people. (I have limited cryptocurrency knowledge so that may be all hogwash)
- rawtxapp 6y agoLots of early holders have either sold at local maximums or lost their keys all together. It's estimated that 3-4M BTCs are permanently lost. There's certainly some concentration, but I'm willing to bet it's much less than current fiat currencies.
- jordigh 6y agoI just wanted internet money, not a speculative financial instrument. :(
- sphix0r 6y agoYeah, that's what bitcoin should have been. Too bad it also consumes an insane amount of energy and isn't able to process a lot of transactions per second. Hope that a good cryptocurrency gets more traction and will be the next decentralized "paypal / digital currency".
- vbezhenar 6y agoWhat about Lightning network? AFAIK it works right now, it's instant and scalable.
- teachrdan 6y agoDoesn't relying on the Lightning network compromise Bitcoin's promise of no-trust finance?
- rawtxapp 6y agoNope, you're still benefiting from the base layer's security while being able to transact much faster and cheaper on layer 2.
- lawn 6y agoYou still need one slow and/or expensive Bitcoin transaction to start using it, while having enough funds for a justice transaction. You can't use it trustlessly on your phone and it's also not scalable (no decentralized route finding that scales exists and is an intractable problem). Just use another crypto if you want to pay for things. 0-conf are just as instant as credit card payments are.
- bouncycastle 6y agoDAI is your friend - always pegged to the USD, non-custodial stablecoin.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- superbcarrot 6y agoDoes anyone else feel like: - they've missed an opportunity to get rich with minimal effort from crypto - still have absolutely no interest in jumping in at this point?
- luxurytent 6y agoWhen everything is going up, you can feel like everyone is winning but you. There's many get-rich-quick-schemes available right now and if you put in the effort to know where to go, you can get "rich" quick too. Or, you can continue enjoying your life the way you are without worrying what others are doing. Many times, they are only projecting one side of the story.
- suifbwish 6y agoBut the meth voices say to keep browsing for patterns
- kungito 6y agoWhat helps me sleep at night is that even had I entered all this time ago with BTC I would have exited 100 times by now. There have indeed been many 2x,3x,5x multipliers with BTC but there have been so many instances when it was unclear how everything is going to turn out which would personally prompt me to consider exiting with what I had. As my friend nicely put it: only way we could have gotten rich from BTC is had we bought it when it was pennies and forgotten about it up until last year
- ur-whale 6y agoAKA : no risk, no rewards.
- petercooper 6y agoThat's exactly my attitude towards it too. But this has also given me a strong lesson for the future. If I get in on the ground floor of anything and decide to sell out, always keep a little skin the game that you don't touch.. because you never know if it'll go big. If the GP had sold 99% of his 3650 coins and kept 1% till now, that would still be $1.8m.
- akmarinov 6y agoSo does it make sense to put in some money that I’m okay with losing now or have I missed it?
- tomcooks 6y agoPut in some money you'd use for Netflix, Amazon prime and a few other extras you can happily do without. Mark the amount you paid and its BTC value on the calendar and completely forget about it for one year until some out of the loop person (i.e. uncle at Thanksgiving) asks you if it's a good time to put some money into it.
- BLKNSLVR 6y agoPut Netflix money in per month. Dollar cost averaging. (Not a financial planner, funny invest anything you're not willing to lose, do your own research, etc.)
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoYou probably missed it, since the hype around it has been going on for a while now. If the cycle continues like it has a few times now, there will be a big crash / correction, things will be very quiet around BTC / Crypto again for a few years, and then the next surge will happen. Not financial advice, but if you have BTC, sell now - or sell half, whatever. At least make sure you have your investment back. If you don't have BTC, don't expect to earn 10x your investment. I'd wait for things to settle again, buy, and hold for a few years. Then if things go crazy again, sell off a part. And of course, don't be hard on yourself if the price keeps going up; you cannot know if it will. Take what you can. Greed is what makes people lose all their money.
- ur-whale 6y agoI've read this exact same advice now easily 5 times in the last ten years. Draw what conclusions you want, just an observation.
- 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- HelloFellowDevs 6y agoAnyone know when transaction fees will get cheaper?
- rawtxapp 6y agoLightning network is currently functional if you plan on making lots of transactions, you pay the fee once and use it as much as you want.
- TeeWEE 6y agoBitcoin itself has its value, but the current price surge is a bubble, it can be easily explained why the growth is exponential: 1. BTC price increases 4. There is media attention about the price raise 5. More people buy BTC, because FOMO 6. Back to point 1, but now a bigger group This loop is a pump, increasing the price as long as the loop isn't broken. The same pump can reverse, very quickly. Once the loop is pumping there is no way out. 1. BTC price drops 2. There is news out that that the price drops 3. More people sell bitcoin 4. Back to point 2, but now a bigger group The fact that there is a limited supply will ensure the prices keeps raising, because nobody can "make more bitcoin".. But this part of the BTC system causes it volatility, it's inherently baked into the system. It's not the underlying performance of bitcoin, or the profit the system is making. Its pure viral loops logic that cause pumps and dumps. You can impact it, if you hold a lot of assets. Just PUMP or DUMP a lot. It triggers a pump in the direction of your choosing. Next to that, ETH is a factor better in design and utility, and still the price is lower. Why? Cause there is less news about it. Not because BTC is a better product.
- audunw 6y ago> The fact that there is a limited supply will ensure the prices keeps raising, because nobody can "make more bitcoin".. This is a common claim, but nothing is ensured here. Almost everything else we put a value to has a more real underlying value that's also growing. Gold has uses in technology, with stocks most companies have real assets that could be sold off, even with art I think most people would be willing to buy an art-piece for the right price. The value of a Monet for me might be a tiny fraction of its valuation, but it's there. But nobody has any underlying interest in a Bitcoin. Its value as a currency for paying for products and services seems to be diminishing as well. You can't make more Bitcoin, but you can easily make more cryptocurrencies, all with the same limited supply (which according to some people means the value MUST increase). And they're all equally interesting. The one exception with Bitcoin is that it was first. You could say it has a tiny bit of underlying historical value. To me, I think it implies that it's inevitable that Bitcoin will have a crash that's very deep and very long lasting. It's impossible to predict when though. In the very long term it'll probably increase due to hits historical value. But by that point I doubt it'll significantly outperform other investments. I also think there's a very high likelihood that many governments will regulate cryptocurrency exchanges to death at some point. A rally against Bitcoin specifically can easily be justified as part of the fight against climate change, since it wastes so much energy.
- BenoitEssiambre 6y agoIt's a bit worrisome that we are inching towards the scenario where companies may be tempted at an economy wide scale to reduce investment in production in order to hoard cryptocoins instead. It caused the great depression when businesses switched to hoarding gold tied currency instead of producing in the 1930s. Now I'm not sure that crypto coins without being jacked up by central banks (like gold was during the great depression) are a powerful enough force to cause the type of havoc that gold did. Then again, the potentially stronger network/memetic effects of cryptocoins, along with the amplification factor from markets being synchronized through instant all-encompassing global communications nowadays might make them dangerous to the economy even without central bank involvement. We saw how much people can get hypnotized by these things during the Gamestop episode. I don't think unsophisticated investors' hoarding is enough to cause big problems but it is a bit unsettling that Tesla and other companies are jumping on the cryptocoin train. If enough businesses follow suit, you get into scary territory (It would also be worrisome if companies widely moved to add billions in gold to their balance sheet but I thought the lesson had been learned in the 1930s with gold). In theory, if central banks stay stimulative enough through all this, you can have growth in both crypto and businesses. As long as these central banks don't blink at the sight of what may look like crypto bubbles.
- ur-whale 6y ago> It's a bit worrisome that we are inching towards the scenario where companies may be tempted at an economy wide scale to reduce investment in production Yes, fully agree. But then ask yourself: aside from COVID, who created the economic conditions that lead corporations to decide that stashing treasury as Bitcoin is better than investing in the "productive" part of the economy. QE, interests rates at near zero, corporate bonds near worthless, stock market at stratospheric 2000-like levels, real estate easily taxed to death ... how do you protect your treasury other than stashing it in hard assets (crypto, gold, commodities)?
- BenoitEssiambre 6y agoThe important thing for the aggregate economy is that when people want "hard assets", that these assets can tangibly support future consumption, not just something everybody hopes to trade later for consumption but real stuff such as businesses, inventory, production capacity etc. When too many people hoard pure financial promises or crypto tokens and all believe that it's true wealth, bad things happens. People indirectly owe each other all their savings.
- noneeeed 6y agoI only keep half an eye on bitcoin, so I'm a bit out of the loop. Was there some thing (or things) that happend in October/November that started the most recent growth in price? It seems to have bounced around $5-10k for over a year and then in early october just started to take off and is now 4-5x that and not showing any signs of stopping. I heard about the Tesla thing, but that was very recent. What did I miss?
- Geee 6y agoThere was halving event last spring, when the Bitcoin supply was cut in half, which happens every 4 years. Historically, Bitcoin price has been following the stock-to-flow model https://digitalik.net/btc/ https://digitalik.net/btc/ In the fall, Paypal adopted Bitcoin in their payment network.
- noneeeed 6y agoThanks, I'd missed the PayPal news.
- ur-whale 6y agoHalving. Paypal announces you can buy and sell BTC IOU's (not real Bitcoins) on their platform. Microstrategy declares they want to stash a sizable chunk of their treasury into BTC. Elon makes a few grunts vaguely favorable to Bitcoin via twitter and stashes 1.5B of his Tesla treasury in BTC. Mastercard makes vague claims they are going to "support" "some" cryptocurrencies. A number of finance world pundits switch attitude from poo-poo-ing Bitcoin to "it's an interesting asset to watch". A general feeling that "institutional money" (whatever that actually means) is coming to Bitcoin.
- m3kw9 6y agoBitcoin at this stage in all practical purposes is functionally is like a stock. It may go up to 10 trillion dollars? Which is 10x. A lot of stock have that potential in the long run.
- azinman2 6y agoSo it sounds like lemming group think. It seems like someone one should hold “just in case,” but no real valid reason to do so yet (that I’ve heard). We know transactions are slow and expensive, so it’s not a good replacement for ordinary commerce. It can be used to transfer across borders, but there often is asymmetry in capital movement that makes this difficult in the places you need it most (poor countries with rapid inflation, who aren’t buying Bitcoin but rather only selling), and it’s often regulated such that it needs to be fully declared (removing the whole anti-gov part). It also lacks a lot of the controls that traditional banks have for good reasons, so fraud becomes harder to tackle, and things like refunds are just at the mercy of the other side of the transaction (making commerce even harder, as well as basic banking). So then it becomes a digital store of value, one that is only as valued as the market gives it, and typically markets eventually correct when there’s no underlying true value proposition (as we can see with $GME). It also pushes only towards deflation, so it’s terrible as a wide spread value store because it removes an important tool that governments have to handle the economy (dealt with debt via inflation aka printing money, which can be executed “well” (US) and really poorly (Zimbabwe)). What am I missing?
- exabrial 6y agoPretty hard to take "green" companies seriously when they're promoting the environmental disaster that is Bitcoin. At some point, someone needs to step in and say "no more mining".
- doggosphere 6y ago73% of mining is renewable energy https://pd.coinshares.com/EN-Mining-Whitepaper-December-2019 https://pd.coinshares.com/EN-Mining-Whitepaper-December-2019
- abiogenesis 6y agoStill we could have used the same energy for other things that are currently running on non-renewable energy.
- SilverRed 6y agoCould we have? There is no way to determine that mining didn't create the demand for renewables that would have not existed otherwise.
- doggosphere 6y agoThat would require transferring the renewable energy to the areas where non-renewable energy is consumed. Energy transmission is expensive, and this would only be economically feasible within certain geographic limits. Otherwise they are both independent economies; a rural hydroelectric dam that serves miners isn't taking anything away from population centers, given the appropriate distance.
- abiogenesis 6y agoAre you suggesting that all miners with renewable energy resources are located in the middle of a desert? Even then, we could have used the equipment (solar panels, wind turbines, etc) for something else. Unless the world is running on 100% renewable energy it doesn't make sense to say that something that requires energy doesn't cost (the world) anything because it's running on renewables.
- ffggvv 6y agothe saddest thing is people see it as a success because its price has gone up. But the entire idea behind it was to be a decentralized currency. Its absolutely failed at that. What its succeeded at is being a speculative gambling instrument like beanie babies or tulips. So yes, it's "successful" currently in that its price is going up, but no, no one actually uses or cares about using it as a currency or buys it for any other reason than they think they can sell it to a greater fool sometime later. wonder what satoshi would think
- tippytippytango 6y agoA failed currency and successful store of value. You win some, you lose some.
- ffggvv 6y agoit’s not a successful store of value. it’s volatility is way too high. the gold price changes but it’s actually not very volatile at all intraday. the volatility of btc isn’t decreasing as the price goes up either. it’s just a succesful speculation instrument as of the current date because it’s at all times high. we’ll see if it stays that way perpetually but that’s not a good store of value.
- yawaworht1978 6y agoI have some satoshis and some ripple on an exchange, but the exchange seems to be gone?? I suppose I can write those off?
- jlhonora 6y agoI hate to break it to you, but you're probably out of luck. This is why the common "not your keys, not your coins" phrase exists.
- abiogenesis 6y agoIf it's not your private key, it's not your money. So yes, if the exchange doesn't come back up you can pretty much write it off.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoYeah, one of the problems with the BTC model. You either get convenience or security but not both. I had a similar problem where bter disappeared with 137k of doge[0] in my account. [0] about $20 when I put it in IIRC.
- djschnei 6y agoThat's nonsense. It's incredibly easy and convenient to move BTC out of an exchange account to something you control (hardware or software wallet). Hell, some hardware wallet GUIs even have the ability to buy crypto baked right into the app (trezor suite for example).
- abiogenesis 6y agoThat's what the OP says. It's either security (your wallet) or convenience (exchange).
- djschnei 6y ago> Yeah, one of the problems with the BTC model. You either get convenience or security but not both. No, it's not what OP says... He's saying security and convenience are mutually exclusive in BTC. I'm saying that is not the case... You can use an exchange and transfer or use a hardware wallet with built in exchange capabilities. Making it seem like there is some inherent issue with the design/architecture that makes this impossible is extremely misleading.
- bobm_kite9 6y agoWhat about the 51% attack problem? Why doesn’t this matter? Can someone explain how this currency is a good bet when there is this seemly huge gaping hole in the system. Honest question!
- hawk_ 6y agothat's right i wonder the same. a motivated state actor with access to hydroelectric dams, nuclear power and large datacentres can still easily take over the network.
- caseysoftware 6y ago> can still easily take over the network How much compute power and electric would that take?
- WealthVsSurvive 6y agoHow many miners are in China?
- rawtxapp 6y agoIt would be extremely costly and if you were to already invest all that money, your incentive is to make money from it, not cause a very short term disruption.
- amatic 6y agoIf I understand correctly, at the moment if someone would want to do the 51% attack, they would need to spend energy for proof of work that would overpower the rest of btc the network, which is equal to expenditure of Argentina in kWh. A lot of people complain about this expenditure.
- coinward 6y agoIf you have enough hash power to 51% attack Bitcoin at all, your potential for rewards by instead mining honestly are significantly higher, at least that's how the game theory generally plays out
- osrec 6y agoI believe Bitcoin is the experimental precursor to proper distributed money. For some reason, even though BTC was meant to be "money", it is now being treated as an asset (at a basic level, an asset is something you hold onto, as it produces additional value, unlike money, which tends to devalue if not put to work). It's almost as if the next big idea in distributed money will be around disincentivising "asset" like behaviour. Assets are terrible things to use for everyday transactions, which is why I don't quite consider Bitcoin "money" just yet.
- ertian 6y agoThe eventual distributed money could be bitcoin-associated without being bitcoin itself. For example, DAI[1] is (AFAICT) a derivative of Ethereum, but pinned to USD. It relies on the underlying store of value that Ethereum represents, but isn't tied to the value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_(cryptocurrency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_(cryptocurrency)
- realdense 6y agoDAI isn't so much a derivative of Ethereum, rather it is a dApp (decentralised app) that runs on the Ethereum smart contract technology. ERC-20 tokens are the magic that enable second-layer "currencies" such as DAI and others to work on top of Ethereum. There are other tokens, even WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin). DAI itself is backed by a basket of token-based assets such as WBTC, WETH, USDC, USDT etc. The Ethereum dApps are definitely a fun rabbit-hole to dive into, e.g. UniSwap, Synthetix and other DeFi applications. The main problem as I see it is the transaction costs are very high (I looked into using UniSwap but it was going to cost > $50 to transact what I wanted). However, in the next few years the Eth2 improvements will help scale the network and hopefully see transaction prices fall.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoIf we're just passing money around, why do we need a separate currency at all? Stablecoins already exist, but they're not popular because all of the speculative value has been removed. Bitcoin's real invention was censorship resistance, by incentivizing distributed miners to arrive at consensus about transactions in a way that no single miner could control. Sadly, that same distributed incentive is responsible for Bitcoin's ever-increasing energy usage.
- Aunche 6y agoThere are 1.2 trillion US Dollars in circulation right now. Meanwhile, the "market cap" of BTC is more than $900 billion, yet it's still entirely a vehicle for speculation.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoTotal wealth of the United States is on the order of $100 Trillion USD. Cash gets way too much emphasis in Bitcoin discussions, while ignoring the fact that investors aren't investing in cash anyway.
- perfmode 6y agowould it be valid to state that Apple is 1% of United States total wealth? Are the lines blurred because of multinationalism? Am I looking at apples and oranges?
- mrfusion 6y agoWhy is it so popular compared to other coins?
- vbezhenar 6y agoIt was the first of its kind. And it does not have any major flaws.
- Clewza313 6y agoAside from, y'know, being way too slow & expensive to function as its originally stated goal of being decentralized currency.
- rawtxapp 6y agoLikely trust, security and network effects.
- lawn 6y agoBecause the primary use is speculation combined with a pinch of ignorance.
- frongpik 6y agoI'm thinking if the bitcoin's future is wire transfers between countries. In that case all 21M btc will be comparable with 100T of the world gdp and 1 btc will be worth 50M. Also, it will be illegal for peons to touch real btcs.
- meowkit 6y agoI agree with the sentiment, but wouldn’t say its so simple as just wire transfer. Its very possible Bitcoin will become a reserve currency/asset for macroeconomic exchange. If its not controlled by any one country or bank, it removes the effects of currency hegemony we have seen across the centuries. Countries will still maintain their own currencies for legal tender/monetary policy purposes, but they will likely be in the form of CBDCs and have interoperability with public and private blockchains.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- moralsupply 6y agoYou are completely right: Bitcoin is an absurd piece of technology and its value is based completely on speculation by people who want to make you buy it and then pull the rug. Congratulations for the incredible insight. Now you can short Bitcoin in a futures market and make a huge amount of money with your brilliant observations.
- ExcavateGrandMa 6y agoSEND me some BTC: bc1q5jw0dsgc4x96l0um6vqexp5kq7wthlfvz944uc :Ð
- kerng 6y agoBitcoin has been around for a while now and it has been down talked quite a bit on HN whenever it comes up. It now has a larger market cap as Facebook - so the market sees more value in Bitcoin than Facebook. The sentiment on HN seem still be mostly against it whenever it comes up. I wonder why that is? I'd imagine 10 years from now Bitcoin will still be around and likely much larger than today - I'm less positive about Facebook outlook and posture in 10 years actually. I wonder what will change the opinion of the skeptics?
- soared 6y agoUneducated hot take: Bitcoin is facebook. For anything you want to do with btc|fb, there is something else that does it better. But not enough people use those other things, they aren't trustworthy, they're more difficult to use, too fragmented, I already use x why would I use y, nobody knows about them, etc.
- giantandroids 6y agoThere are often arguments (with merit) over Bitcoins wasteful use of energy, but I expect a lot of it is from hindight of 'why the hell did I not buy some'.
- whelming_wave 6y agoOne can think both that it's a shame they aren't rich because of Bitcoin and that it's a horrific waste of energy, I don't think one really takes away from the other.
- kerng 6y agoThe energy usage (and its side effects to the environment) seems like a problematic and valid aspect, and it seems that is the price to pay to have truly permissionless, decentralized system (proof of work). But I imagine there is also a lot of opportunity for innovation in that realm to move to clean solutions for instance.
- trident5000 6y agoJust virtue signaling. If bitcoin replaces gold it would be a net win for the environment. And btc uses mostly renewables and excess energy. Also there are many other random applications that use more energy than btc like HFT, gaming, video rendering, but we dont persecute individual liberty, expression, or advancement. A society moving forward simply takes more energy. The solution is to tackle the entire energy space, not persecute energy users which is a band-aid "solution" and counter to a progressive society.
- ChrisRR 6y agoThis volatility is why it will never be a useful currency.
- kart23 6y agoTransaction fees are horrendous right now. I wanted to transfer about $30 to a friend, but the cost of the transaction would be ~$20. Its sad to see the intended use not be practical anymore.
- nikolay 6y agoTo the boom! ┗(°0°)┛
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- steve_taylor 6y agoIt’s going to crash again, just like it always does. My guess is that it will sit around 30 for a while, dip to the low 20s, and fluctuate around that range for a couple of years until the next bubble. I’d be checking which companies (e.g. TSLA) and ETFs (e.g. ARKK, given their TSLA holding) are exposed to BTC risk and putting your money elsewhere.
- tippytippytango 6y agoThis is the expectation from virtually every long term holder of BTC. Some plan to trade this price action, some will ignore it and just keep holding.
- tehjoker 6y agoDon't dig for gold, sell shovels.
- pontus 6y agoI'm confused about the scaling issue. It's not like every time I buy a cup of coffee, I initiate a wire transfer to Starbucks. I buy these things on credit and the issuer of that credit charges me and Starbucks a fee for the service. Then I settle up at the end of the month. Looking at my bank account, I only have a few transactions per month (salary, mortgage, credit cards etc). Why couldn't something similar work for Bitcoin? I recognize that it's not a completely decentralized system anymore at that point, but it's still much less reliant on banks and the fed than our current system. It seems like something like this would be the obvious solution to the scaling issue. Basically, if we think of Bitcoin as a replacement for cash, then why is there so much discussion of what effectively is the credit market?
- anonisko 6y agoThat's exactly what's happening. Decentralized, trustless version is the Lightning Network, https://www.lopp.net/lightning-information.html https://www.lopp.net/lightning-information.html
- mlyle 6y agoThe transaction fee right now is $18. Even if you only go to the ledger rarely, that gets expensive fast. (And, if you go to the ledger rarely, there's all kinds of complicated creditworthiness and double spend issues).
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoAnd the entire Bitcoin blockchain can only support just 7 (yes 7) transactions a second.
- trident5000 6y agoNope. Transactions are pooled in each tx. Theres many signatures in each one.
- mlyle 6y ago
- TeeMassive 6y agoThat 50%+1 attack is gonna hit hard. There should be an ability to have trusted nodes, that is, you can trust the old lady next door not being a the front of a 50%+1 attack.
- subsaharancoder 6y agoone weird upside of the bitcoin frenzy is that garbage altcoins are also rising in price, a rising tide lifts all boats..
- SubiculumCode 6y agoSell before the bubble pops.
- d--b 6y agoFor those who are surprised by this: Bitcoin has shifted in the mind of investors from a currency to an “asset class”. What this means is that to investors it is more like gold than dollars. Gold’s value is not linked with its usage in the industry or jewelry. Holding gold doesn’t yield interest. its value comes mostly from people scared of devaluation. While the interest rates are still low and the economy is not doing great, it makes sense to diversify one’s cash in various “refuge” values. That Bitcoin is becoming a refuge value while its volatility is still insanely high is somewhat weird. It mostly indicates that there are many cash-rich people/companies out there who dont really know what to do with it.
- akra 6y agoThis. There is a wide wealth inequality gap and a lot of excess savings that even at close to zero interest rates people don't know how to invest it. IMO this says a lot about our technological progress rate; which despite what many here might believe has been declining and bar a few outliers has been mostly evolutionary barely keeping pace with the world's increased population growth. Its like the low hanging fruit of engineering has been picked, or we are waiting for the next big technological breakthrough to come about. I look at even the lifestyle 30-40 years ago, and despite more efficient engines in cars (which isn't a problem with cheaper fuel anyway), the mobile phone and the internet (which isn't all good news IMO) not much has changed lifestyle wise. In some measures such as food prices, house prices, deep social connections, and other more base needs its gotten worse for the average middle class worker in a typical Western country. IMO it feels like we've hit a stagnation which is reflected in investor preference to hoard value.
- usehackernews 6y agoIt’s not just your opinion, we are in a technological productivity stagnation and have been for years. https://youtu.be/_93CXTt2K7c https://youtu.be/_93CXTt2K7c - There is an associated research paper on this Ted talk.
- phs318u 6y agoRound and round and round she goes. Where she stops nobody knows. Like most financial crazes, when the clueless hoi-polloi start jumping in, it's time to grab the popcorn.
- mancerayder 6y agoBanks in 2017-18: speculative frenzy, dangerous, don't buy, it's heavily manipulated. BTC from high of 20K down to below 10 as regulators in the US make noises about investigations and crack down on exchanges. Bloomberg opinion pieces destroying it as tulips. Banks in 2021: amnesia. Maybe it's worth it as a hedge. Our clients want it. Mainstream adoption. Regulatory interest to make it easier. Price goes to 50K. New funds being set up by hedge funds and banks. Bloomberg talking about it daily. I never owned any BTC. But that sequence of events makes me very angry.