6 ms·
Bitcoin Tops $50USD on MtGox
- ohashi 14y agoTime to sell
- baddox 14y agoYes, it seems like people are willing to sell their bitcoins at that price.
- gojomo 14y ago$500 will be a better time.
- BrianEatWorld 14y agoIt seems funny to assume that. I mean I haven't been tracking the underlying fundamentals, but the nature of most currencies today is that because they are managed, they tend to go up and down. If the fundamentals are solid for Bitcoins, as in there is actually increasing demand (which seems feasible given all the new services advertising their acceptance) and the supply is increasing in tune with expectations (which seems feasible given that it can be forecast with a fair amount of accuracy), this may just as well be the time to buy as it is to sell. I guess human psychology could also play a part in thinking this is the time to sell, but do the fundamentals actually seem questionable to you?
- Helianthus 14y agoI don't believe that you actually have any understanding of the supply/demand economics of booms/busts necessary to be skeptical of parent. Increasing demand of a finite resource drives the price up. This drives the demand up even more. The real value of a Bitcoin is still in USD, of course, so at some point it's going to cross over a line where the people holding Bitcoins want to get rid of it. Decreasing demand of a finite resource drives the price down. This drives the demand down even more. The fact that the price is accelerating so quickly indicates a runaway effect. What, do you _really_ think the real-world USD value of all the Bitcoins in the world has doubled in two weeks?
- BrianEatWorld 14y agoYour analysis holds true if you are treating bitcoins as purely speculative. You are correct that I don't fully understand supply/demand economics, because as an Austrian theorist, my concepts relating to booms and busts use dynamic models and not the statics you are using to prove your point. In a static situation, increasing demand of a finite resource does drive the price up, which can drive up demand even more, but thats if you ignore the effect of substitutes, which for both the exchange and speculative value of bitcoins, there are several. Do I really think that it has doubled? No. But I don't think that people expecting a large crash like before are doing so because they understand the fundamentals. I think, as in any market, you do have speculators, but I also think that the legitimate demand for bitcoins as a means for exchange has gone up since the previous crash providing a more solid basis for the higher price.
- Helianthus 14y ago>Do I really think that it has doubled? No. Then it sounds like the speculative bits are driving, even if there are other passengers in the car.
- polshaw 14y agoEveryone holding Bitcoins is a speculator. If they believe the price is only going down, they will sell and crash the market, just like before. Notice i did not say everyone using bitcoins are speculators.. but if you are say a merchant with goods available in bitcoins, (and you don't wish to speculate) you will peg your price to your local currency, and after selling your goods will sell your bitcoin immediately for local currency. Which means you are no longer holding bitcoin or having any impact on bitcoin demand.
- trg2 14y agoAre bitcoins in a position to have a crash as tumultuous as last time, or is the currency more stable now overall?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- anonfunction 14y agoI would say a crash is almost guaranteed, the question is when and at what price. A few weeks ago people were having this conversation when it peaked $30.
- lwat 14y agoThere are still many people holding large amounts of bitcoin (because they mined them in the early days) and just one of them selling everything would cause a pretty large downswing.
- pokpokpok 14y agohow many is a large amount? 1000?
- oscilloscope 14y agoHere's a list of the top 100 large wallets from Dec, 2011. The biggest wallet then had 447785 BTC. Anyone have an updated list? http://bitcoinreport.appspot.com/ http://bitcoinreport.appspot.com/
- modeless 14y agoWow, this is a fascinating list. So we know there are at least 25 bitcoin millionaires (bitcoin wallets with value > $1,000,000 USD).
- icebraining 14y agoFor such large amounts, you can't simply calculate the number of bitcoins * price per bitcoin, since the act of selling such large amounts would itself affect the price.
- arasmussen 14y agoIt's literally doubled in a month. This is out of control.
- patejam 14y agoAnd it is terrible for legitimizing them. Why should someone adopt Bitcoins as a currency if there's not a stable value? Bring in all of the security issues that have been popping up as its popularity has increased and I see a decline in Bitcoin adoption coming soon. I don't think Bitcoins are the answer to the problems they are trying to solve.
- Helianthus 14y agoBitcoin hasn't been legitimate for a long time. The last boom-bust they went through proved that and nothing has changed since. If you still have Bitcoins, sell'em and don't buy more, except as an intermediary exchange for your discreet transactions.
- zwtaylor 14y agoIf everyone took your second piece of advice and only used it for discrete transactions, then Bitcoin would be worth exponentially more than it is now, which would invalidate your first piece of advice. The number of bitcoin users is still exceptionally small.
- Helianthus 14y agoImplicit in the advice is the (strong) assumption that not everyone's going to take it. -_-
- oscilloscope 14y agoBecause the cost of accepting them and converting them to currency is less than the transaction fees of credit cards or PayPal. If you don't need to convert to cash right away, then the transaction fees are very low indeed.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- habosa 14y agoIs there any exchange where I can short sell bitcoins? Besides the fact that this will almost definitely be a profitable strategy in the near future, it would seem that allowing both short and long positions would create market stability. Most securities exchanges allow both short and long positions.
- MichaelApproved 14y agoIt would be great for the system by creating more liquidity.
- Permit 14y agoShort selling Bitcoins would be an incredibly risky move on your part. There are no financial regulations in place to prevent market manipulation. You used to be able to short sell on Bitcoinica and there were some really questionable margin calls that took place.
- habosa 14y agoCan you elaborate? I'm not too familiar with the bitcoin market, just viewing it from a normal (amateur) financial perspective.
- nikcub 14y agoif you didn't understand what he said then you shouldn't be short selling
- jfoutz 14y agoRead up on the hunt brothers and the silver markets. Essentially, they would buy up contracts with brokers to buy 1lb of silver on july 1st for $10 (or whatever the specifics happen to be). Then, in June they bought all the silver, like some ridiculously huge fraction of all the silver in the world. When it comes time for that broker to find that pound of silver he owes the hunt brothers, the hunt brothers get to set the price, because they're the only ones with silver. So this broker, he has to come up with how ever much the Hunt brothers demand, he is really over a barrel. Just one memorable example of market manipulation and unlimited exposure.
- cstrat 14y agoI originally put about $500 dollars into Bitcoin to play with. Have withdrawn about $2000 cash and still have about 35 BTC worth left. Would have loved to get in on this back in the early days...
- unix-dude 14y agoReally interesting stuff. I was expecting a crash or at least "return to normal" in that period where the price jumped to around $25 (before a mini-crash to like $16, and then the subsequent takeoff to the 40s). Personally, I dont think they're worth $50, but heck, thats a horrible reason for you not to buy them. A more objective reason not to buy now is that there are people holding thousands of bitcoins. If a few of them (or maybe even one big player) sells tons of them, it could cause a crash like last time, when the price fell from $33ish to almost 0. Interesting times for bitcoin either way.
- mrb 14y agoYou are incorrect. When the "price fell to zero" in June 2011, it was the result of bogus trades from a hacker: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=55 http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=55 No one had enough bitcoins to crash the price that low for real. As of today there are so many bids on MtGox alone that selling 100k bitcoins is barely sufficient to crash the price to the low $30s. Anybody owning that much is obviously long on bitcoin. It will take a lot more than a "few large holders" to crash the price to $30 or below. It would take a massive market panic.
- obiefernandez 14y agoIf 500 million people were to embrace Bitcoin to the point where they own on average $100 worth, then it would represent $50 Billion in value (500 Million x $100). With only 20 Million Bitcoins in circulation, each Bitcoin would be worth $2500. That's discounting other deflationary factors. I think it would be nuts to put all your savings in Bitcoin, but as a hedge against fiat currencies and interesting place to put play money: time to buy!
- josephagoss 14y agoI Speculate on Bitcoin by holding a few, but be-careful! First if you read the forums a lot there are a lot of scaling issues happening at the moment (Max block size) that mean Bitcoin cannot handle a large amount of transactions and this will put a big dampener on the BTC being worth thousands of dollars. Second, time to buy is never when the price is sky-rocketing. Bitcoin is not perfect and we need to see what the devs do over the next year to decide if Bitcoin will ever be allowed to scale because at the moment Bitcoin cannot scale up beyond 2-4 times its current usage and adoption.
- zwtaylor 14y agoThis recent spike may have a lot of do with this just-issued repot from the Treasury department. http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G...
- eric_bullington 14y agoThis 100%. The U.S. Government just effectively legalized Bitcoins and other virtual currencies in the document posted above. This is a huge development, much more important than Bitcoin going over $50.
- frisco 14y agoDon't listen to the "it's out of control" or "is very due for a crash because it's rising so quickly" stuff. It comes down to a very simple test: do you think that there are significant reasons Bitcoin would or would not gain acceptance as a mainstream currency? A few reasons I can think of why it would: * The current banking system is inherently insecure. If you have an account number and a routing number (written on the bottom of every check), you can pull money. Bitcoin is potentially much more secure. * It's way too difficult to send money today, especially internationally, and fraud is a huge issue. We shouldn't need something like PayPal. Bitcoin solves this. * If you don't have faith in banks or central governments, Bitcoin doesn't require trust in any third party to function. You aren't dependent on any bank. A few reasons it might not: * It requires too much technical knowledge to use and is unapproachable for mainstream users. * It's too tied up with illicit interests and won't break out of that image, leading it to an untimely demise in culture. A fax machine is no use if no one else has one. * There are lurking fatal flaws in the underlying technology. Maybe a blockchain fork is much more possible than currently assumed, or there's found to be an error in the cryptographic scheme. * Mining power ends up concentrated in the hands of few when ASICs are in full swing and transaction fees aren't enough to keep individuals at it, giving power over the blockchain to a few (potentially malicious) actors. There's no guarantee transaction fees will actually pick up the incentive slack. If you think that Bitcoin will ultimately be widely adopted, buy now. $50 / btc is very cheap in that world. If you think Bitcoin will fail, then any price is too much. Any mumbling that "it's doubled in a month and therefore is set up to come back down to earth" is just hand waving.
- josephagoss 14y agoI think the "max block size" issue is one of the biggest ones at the moment. Oh and the censorship of S.Dice sets a terrible precedent too.
- gojomo 14y agoDo you have a reference link about what you mean by censorship of Satoshi Dice?
- stcredzero 14y agoWhat is the proportion of BTC volume due to speculation vs. due to buying transactions?