5 ms·

The one thing that surprises me in all this is that the BTC price has stayed at a stable 16k since mid October.

by _hcuq 4y ago

hardwaresofton 4y ago
I don't see this discussed in enough HN threads. Everyone is quick to talk about FTX, Tether being a scam, etc but I rarely hear people discuss how the heck BTC is pegged at $16k this whole time, through it all.
- geerlingguy 4y ago
  Simple: fraud
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    Right.. "everyone talking about Tether being a scam" means people are talking about why the price is still at $16k.
- stusmall 4y ago
  My theory is that a lot of prices in cryptoworld is set more by "vibes" rather that analysis of value and fundamental utility. You often see crypto prices hitting whole number price floors on the way down. I think it is from traders picking buy order prices by their gut feeling which leads to more whole numbers. BTC fell through a few of these whole number price floors on the way down, this is just the one that finally broke the momentum. If it is going to continue to fall then downward pressure will build up until it overwhelms these buy orders and it will crack down to the next floor. Kind of like the 40k to 30k fall, the 30k to 20k fall or the 20k to 16k fall.
  - coffeebeqn 4y ago
    Not to be glib but what else would it be based on? All the great use cases that all the bankrupt crypto companies were peddling?
- rahen 4y ago
  You won't see this discussed on HN, there's an overall hostility toward Bitcoin. A few are interested or sometimes involved with it (whether with development or infrastructure) but don't bother enlightening the crowd since I think it's pretty hopeless here and they would be buried under downvotes. I wonder if that resentment would have been the same toward the Internet in 1997. You know, that useless thing for hackers and scammers that only benefits crime and should be regulated like heck by governments for our safety.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Tech people were hugely enthusiastic about Internet-like things even before the internet existed. I know Arthur C Clarke predicted satellite TV in 1957; I'm sure one could find lots of examples of internet prediction, some positive, some negative (e.g. The Machine Stops, 1928). But 97 was late for the internet. ARPANET dates back to the 1970s .. as a government project! There was a great deal of value in the internet liberating people from monopolist telcos and their billing practices, as well as from borders, and there was nowhere near the same level of scamminess and crime. Why? Because there was no money changing hands.
    - pmcjones 4y ago
      ARPANET dates back to the 1960s.
  - anonymousab 4y ago
    You don't see it discussed because it's not news. "Thing has not changed in the past few months" doesn't get many news articles, and if there's no news articles being submitted, then a news article feed site like HN isn't going to have anything to post about that.
  - def_true_false 4y ago
    HN userbase is older and more American than tech in general. It follows that they are more invested in the legacy financial system than most and don't even encounter the problems crypto tries to solve. Also sour grapes.
- rsynnott 4y ago
  I mean, the primary theory about Tether being a scam is that Tether is allegedly a scam _which is used to prop up the price of delicious bitcoin_, so that more or less tracks.
  - hardwaresofton 4y ago
    Well looks like we'll get a chance to find out! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34333210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34333210 The universe has delivered with impeccable timing.
mrtksn 4y ago
I don’t know but I don’t like that stability in a gambling market. This is not the case of asset being stable because the business is stable - there is no business beyond betting on the price of the asset. For me this is an indication of loss of interest in the casino. Even if there seems to be a trading volume, i’m skeptical of that trading. Maybe it’s just painting the tape? What are those people achieving by trading the thing at about the same price? Are we churning believers? Why would the price be stable?
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  Volume is not that useful. Could just be 10 whales trading with each other or exchanges doing some programmed rotations. When there’s nothing really backing the price then it’s most likely manipulation
redwood 4y ago
It's possible that it's whales selling to themselves or each other to dominate volume and create the illusion of a price
pcurve 4y ago
Yeah, and transaction volume hasn't changed either https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_transactions_per_day#:~:text=Bitcoin%20Transactions%20Per%20Day%20is,36.74%25%20from%20one%20year%20ago https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_transactions_per_day#....
- typon 4y ago
  Zoom out to 5Y - looks like the transaction volume is on average ~10-15% lower than before mid 2021
danuker 4y ago
A lot of valuations show it's very cheap. Maybe hardcore believers start buying below this price. https://hcburger.com/blog/powerlaw/index.html https://hcburger.com/blog/powerlaw/index.html https://twitter.com/DeFi_initiate/status/1576543256627724288/photo/2 https://twitter.com/DeFi_initiate/status/1576543256627724288... Of course, being historically consistent is not mandatory. The models may break, especially now that we have higher interest rates.
- Aperocky 4y ago
  Betting against feds are fun! /s
  - danuker 4y ago
    Against? Is the role of the Fed not to dilute the national currency?
    - Aperocky 4y ago
      2020 and 2021 exist as years, the answer to your question is clearly negative, at least for certain time periods.
      - danuker 4y ago
        Years since 1970 with the inflation rate below the supposed 2% target: 2020 2019 2013-2016 2010 2009 2002 and 1986. For a 52-year period, that's not too many years. Just a fifth. If the Fed were genuinely targeting 2%, I'd expect half. The geometric mean inflation rate of this period is 3.92%, almost double the stated target. I used data from here: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/inflation-rate-cpi https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/infl...

The one thing that surprises me in all this is that the BTC price has stayed at a stable 16k since mid October.

by _hcuq 4y ago

The one thing that surprises me in all this is that the BTC price has stayed at a stable 16k since mid October.

I don't see this discussed in enough HN threads. Everyone is quick to talk about FTX, Tether being a scam, etc but I rarely hear people discuss how the heck BTC is pegged at $16k this whole time, through it all.

geerlingguy 4y ago
Simple: fraud
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  Right.. "everyone talking about Tether being a scam" means people are talking about why the price is still at $16k.
stusmall 4y ago
My theory is that a lot of prices in cryptoworld is set more by "vibes" rather that analysis of value and fundamental utility. You often see crypto prices hitting whole number price floors on the way down. I think it is from traders picking buy order prices by their gut feeling which leads to more whole numbers. BTC fell through a few of these whole number price floors on the way down, this is just the one that finally broke the momentum. If it is going to continue to fall then downward pressure will build up until it overwhelms these buy orders and it will crack down to the next floor. Kind of like the 40k to 30k fall, the 30k to 20k fall or the 20k to 16k fall.
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  Not to be glib but what else would it be based on? All the great use cases that all the bankrupt crypto companies were peddling?
rahen 4y ago
You won't see this discussed on HN, there's an overall hostility toward Bitcoin. A few are interested or sometimes involved with it (whether with development or infrastructure) but don't bother enlightening the crowd since I think it's pretty hopeless here and they would be buried under downvotes. I wonder if that resentment would have been the same toward the Internet in 1997. You know, that useless thing for hackers and scammers that only benefits crime and should be regulated like heck by governments for our safety.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Tech people were hugely enthusiastic about Internet-like things even before the internet existed. I know Arthur C Clarke predicted satellite TV in 1957; I'm sure one could find lots of examples of internet prediction, some positive, some negative (e.g. The Machine Stops, 1928). But 97 was late for the internet. ARPANET dates back to the 1970s .. as a government project! There was a great deal of value in the internet liberating people from monopolist telcos and their billing practices, as well as from borders, and there was nowhere near the same level of scamminess and crime. Why? Because there was no money changing hands.
  - pmcjones 4y ago
    ARPANET dates back to the 1960s.
- anonymousab 4y ago
  You don't see it discussed because it's not news. "Thing has not changed in the past few months" doesn't get many news articles, and if there's no news articles being submitted, then a news article feed site like HN isn't going to have anything to post about that.
- def_true_false 4y ago
  HN userbase is older and more American than tech in general. It follows that they are more invested in the legacy financial system than most and don't even encounter the problems crypto tries to solve. Also sour grapes.
rsynnott 4y ago
I mean, the primary theory about Tether being a scam is that Tether is allegedly a scam _which is used to prop up the price of delicious bitcoin_, so that more or less tracks.
- hardwaresofton 4y ago
  Well looks like we'll get a chance to find out! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34333210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34333210 The universe has delivered with impeccable timing.

mrtksn 4y ago

I don’t know but I don’t like that stability in a gambling market. This is not the case of asset being stable because the business is stable - there is no business beyond betting on the price of the asset. For me this is an indication of loss of interest in the casino. Even if there seems to be a trading volume, i’m skeptical of that trading. Maybe it’s just painting the tape? What are those people achieving by trading the thing at about the same price? Are we churning believers? Why would the price be stable?

coffeebeqn 4y ago
Volume is not that useful. Could just be 10 whales trading with each other or exchanges doing some programmed rotations. When there’s nothing really backing the price then it’s most likely manipulation

redwood 4y ago

It's possible that it's whales selling to themselves or each other to dominate volume and create the illusion of a price

pcurve 4y ago

Yeah, and transaction volume hasn't changed either https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_transactions_per_day#:~:text=Bitcoin%20Transactions%20Per%20Day%20is,36.74%25%20from%20one%20year%20ago https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_transactions_per_day#....

typon 4y ago
Zoom out to 5Y - looks like the transaction volume is on average ~10-15% lower than before mid 2021

danuker 4y ago

A lot of valuations show it's very cheap. Maybe hardcore believers start buying below this price. https://hcburger.com/blog/powerlaw/index.html https://hcburger.com/blog/powerlaw/index.html https://twitter.com/DeFi_initiate/status/1576543256627724288/photo/2 https://twitter.com/DeFi_initiate/status/1576543256627724288... Of course, being historically consistent is not mandatory. The models may break, especially now that we have higher interest rates.

Aperocky 4y ago
Betting against feds are fun! /s
- danuker 4y ago
  Against? Is the role of the Fed not to dilute the national currency?
  - Aperocky 4y ago
    2020 and 2021 exist as years, the answer to your question is clearly negative, at least for certain time periods.
    - danuker 4y ago
      Years since 1970 with the inflation rate below the supposed 2% target: 2020 2019 2013-2016 2010 2009 2002 and 1986. For a 52-year period, that's not too many years. Just a fifth. If the Fed were genuinely targeting 2%, I'd expect half. The geometric mean inflation rate of this period is 3.92%, almost double the stated target. I used data from here: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/inflation-rate-cpi https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/infl...