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Just want to point out this bullshit comment at the end, "the currency itself has fallen from a high of $260 to about $130 this morning". The author is trying

by geuis 13y ago

Just want to point out this bullshit comment at the end, "the currency itself has fallen from a high of $260 to about $130 this morning". The author is trying to make it sound like Silk Road dropped the price drastically. No, 260 was the high point early this year. The value has been relatively stable between $80 and $140 since then.

oakwhiz 13y ago
Sometimes it seems to me like people are intentionally causing fear, uncertainty, and denial about Bitcoin just to swing the price in their favor.
- notahacker 13y ago
  There are also many commenters and bloggers that are writing bullish comments on Bitcoin because they happen to own a lot of them, believe in it's mission etc. I would argue many more since it's not even economically rational to spread FUD to depress the current market price of BTC and then buy it when its potential to appreciate in future also depends entirely on confidence since it isn't backed by any tangible assets or income streams. Sure, it would be better journalism to add the detail that Bitcoin has actually risen since "only" falling ~15-20% in response to the Silk Road seizure and explain that the 50% fall from its peak price happened in a few hours on April 10 and had nothing to to with fears over Silk Road, but I don't believe that would leave readers with any more faith in BTC as being generally stable.
- the_watcher 13y ago
  No insight either way on this, but I did buy a (very) small amount of BTC after the initial post-Silk Road fall on the chance that the market was acting too irrationally. I've been curious about Bitcoin for a while, and now seemed like as good a time as any to buy a little bit and give myself some financial stake.
aeturnum 13y ago
If a currency fluctuates 300% in a year, I don't think it's out of line to note that it used to be 100% higher in value. Silk road's closer did drop the price a bit, after all.
- yebyen 13y ago
  It's also worthwhile to note, as long as this thread is engaged, that the value at 260 was a "spike" -- the only people who bought bitcoins at that price were speculators who couldn't bear the thought that the spaceship might fly away even higher without them on-board, and other I'd guess clueless users who didn't notice that what they were paying $260 for today could have been had for a maximum of $100 only two weeks prior to that date, with Bitcoin having never experienced such high valuations on any public market in the history of time leading up to that point.
andyakb 13y ago
No, the author isnt. This is the full quote: "The price after the Silk Road seizure has remained fairly constant but the currency itself has fallen from a high of $260 to about $130 this morning." It is a horrible worded statement as it doesnt specify the time frame within which the price fell from 260 to 130, but they clearly state it has been stable since the SR seizure
- dmix 13y ago
  Because Techcrunch is full of hack writing, as we all have complained about since around 2010-2011 or maybe earlier.
- ajross 13y ago
  It has to be said: geuis appears to have deliberately doctored that quote to provoke argument. The first half of the sentence directly contradicts the claim about the second.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
craigching 13y ago
I didn't read the last paragraph that way and you're taking only part of it: >The price after the Silk Road seizure has remained fairly constant but the currency itself has fallen from a high of $260 to about $130 this morning. I thought it was pretty clear that the SR seizure didn't have an affect but it was mentioning that it is down from a high earlier in the year.
- yebyen 13y ago
  I think that your read is a "rather bullish" interpretation of the charts, too. You can see pretty clearly that it did fall, http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg10ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg10ztgSzm1g10zm2g2..., or another way, the last few days have seen above average volatility and a large spike in trading volume following the news. Now, had you said that only today's spot price, one week after the news, looks basically unmoved by the event from the trades before October, I would have simply agreed with you. But you can't read that chart and tell me there was "no effect."
  - craigching 13y ago
    To clarify, I was only responding to geuis' interpretation of what the article said, not whether the article was correct or not. I honestly have no idea if the article is correct or not, but I also think that geuis was misrepresenting what the article said as written. EDIT: I think you meant to respond to notahacker and not to me.
    - yebyen 13y ago
      I did read his reply and that's where I heard "rather bullish" to quote, but I meant to respond to you; sorry just being pedantic, I realize you were just trying to respond, but I just thought it should be clear: the market moved, even if it bounced back rather quickly. There was in fact a ton of activity and big motion at the time of the announcement. Definitely not moving from 260 to 130 as one might infer, but certainly a lot more movement than the rest of the week (or month?) prior.
applecore 13y ago
In fact, bitcoin was only priced at $260 for a few hours in April 2013. Even then, the price was mostly between $80 and $140.
- erikpukinskis 13y ago
  And it was only above $150 for six days.
GrinningFool 13y ago
If we limit ourselves to when things got stable in Mid-May, we see that the price has indeed drifted down from ~90 to ~70 then back up to 140, then bounced around between 120 and 140 over a period of weeks[1]. "Relatively stable" is not the same thing as "stable". That's ~40% variance, perhaps more (glanced, didn't do the math.) While not as bad as 260-130, it still ain't pretty. [1] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgCzm1g10zm2g25 http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgCzm1g10zm2g...

by geuis 13y ago

oakwhiz 13y ago

Sometimes it seems to me like people are intentionally causing fear, uncertainty, and denial about Bitcoin just to swing the price in their favor.

notahacker 13y ago
There are also many commenters and bloggers that are writing bullish comments on Bitcoin because they happen to own a lot of them, believe in it's mission etc. I would argue many more since it's not even economically rational to spread FUD to depress the current market price of BTC and then buy it when its potential to appreciate in future also depends entirely on confidence since it isn't backed by any tangible assets or income streams. Sure, it would be better journalism to add the detail that Bitcoin has actually risen since "only" falling ~15-20% in response to the Silk Road seizure and explain that the 50% fall from its peak price happened in a few hours on April 10 and had nothing to to with fears over Silk Road, but I don't believe that would leave readers with any more faith in BTC as being generally stable.
the_watcher 13y ago
No insight either way on this, but I did buy a (very) small amount of BTC after the initial post-Silk Road fall on the chance that the market was acting too irrationally. I've been curious about Bitcoin for a while, and now seemed like as good a time as any to buy a little bit and give myself some financial stake.

aeturnum 13y ago

If a currency fluctuates 300% in a year, I don't think it's out of line to note that it used to be 100% higher in value. Silk road's closer did drop the price a bit, after all.

yebyen 13y ago
It's also worthwhile to note, as long as this thread is engaged, that the value at 260 was a "spike" -- the only people who bought bitcoins at that price were speculators who couldn't bear the thought that the spaceship might fly away even higher without them on-board, and other I'd guess clueless users who didn't notice that what they were paying $260 for today could have been had for a maximum of $100 only two weeks prior to that date, with Bitcoin having never experienced such high valuations on any public market in the history of time leading up to that point.

andyakb 13y ago

No, the author isnt. This is the full quote: "The price after the Silk Road seizure has remained fairly constant but the currency itself has fallen from a high of $260 to about $130 this morning." It is a horrible worded statement as it doesnt specify the time frame within which the price fell from 260 to 130, but they clearly state it has been stable since the SR seizure

dmix 13y ago
Because Techcrunch is full of hack writing, as we all have complained about since around 2010-2011 or maybe earlier.
ajross 13y ago
It has to be said: geuis appears to have deliberately doctored that quote to provoke argument. The first half of the sentence directly contradicts the claim about the second.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

craigching 13y ago

I didn't read the last paragraph that way and you're taking only part of it: >The price after the Silk Road seizure has remained fairly constant but the currency itself has fallen from a high of $260 to about $130 this morning. I thought it was pretty clear that the SR seizure didn't have an affect but it was mentioning that it is down from a high earlier in the year.

yebyen 13y ago
I think that your read is a "rather bullish" interpretation of the charts, too. You can see pretty clearly that it did fall, http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg10ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg10ztgSzm1g10zm2g2..., or another way, the last few days have seen above average volatility and a large spike in trading volume following the news. Now, had you said that only today's spot price, one week after the news, looks basically unmoved by the event from the trades before October, I would have simply agreed with you. But you can't read that chart and tell me there was "no effect."
- craigching 13y ago
  To clarify, I was only responding to geuis' interpretation of what the article said, not whether the article was correct or not. I honestly have no idea if the article is correct or not, but I also think that geuis was misrepresenting what the article said as written. EDIT: I think you meant to respond to notahacker and not to me.
  - yebyen 13y ago
    I did read his reply and that's where I heard "rather bullish" to quote, but I meant to respond to you; sorry just being pedantic, I realize you were just trying to respond, but I just thought it should be clear: the market moved, even if it bounced back rather quickly. There was in fact a ton of activity and big motion at the time of the announcement. Definitely not moving from 260 to 130 as one might infer, but certainly a lot more movement than the rest of the week (or month?) prior.

applecore 13y ago

In fact, bitcoin was only priced at $260 for a few hours in April 2013. Even then, the price was mostly between $80 and $140.

erikpukinskis 13y ago
And it was only above $150 for six days.

GrinningFool 13y ago

If we limit ourselves to when things got stable in Mid-May, we see that the price has indeed drifted down from ~90 to ~70 then back up to 140, then bounced around between 120 and 140 over a period of weeks[1]. "Relatively stable" is not the same thing as "stable". That's ~40% variance, perhaps more (glanced, didn't do the math.) While not as bad as 260-130, it still ain't pretty. [1] http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgCzm1g10zm2g25 http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgCzm1g10zm2g...