
Bitcoin (BTC) is up by +22% in a single day, valued at over $14,600 - jurajmasar
https://wallmine.com/cryptocurrency/btc
======
bllguo
This is a farce. There's only been negative news today and yet prices jump
higher than ever. There's no conceivable way this doesn't end badly. I guess
people are gambling on being lucky enough to exit before then.

Edit: removed unnecessary hostility. If you have money to spare on a high risk
gamble like this then by all means. But in general there's just no way
everyone jumping in is fully aware of the risks.

~~~
colordrops
It's the first in a new asset class that provides things that never existed
before, mainly being the ability to quickly transact value over great
geographic distances and national borders with zero interference from third
parties. The value of that is extremely underestimated by most people, and
shouldn't be so hard to grasp. Analogous examples are the Internet and Google,
which provided very straightforward and simple value propositions that most
people did not get, could not predict, and decried until they actually grew to
enormous and important positions in society. Cryptocurrency is very possibly
in the same vein, making valuations like this seem less absurd.

I wish I had the time and motivation to go back over the last 6 years and
create a timeline of people making the same tired statements as yourself. The
same types of statements were made when it hit 10 dollars.

~~~
AjithAntony
> quickly transact value

Well now it takes hundreds of minutes, in which time the value of your bitcoin
has changed, given its current volatility.

~~~
koonsolo
I remember a time when my modem had to dial up to internet, and everything was
slow. And I remember that whatever you searched on google, there was at least
1 porn result in the top 10. I also remember when electric cars were not
nearly as good as gasoline cars.

Technology advances. If you're stuck looking at what is inferior now, you will
not see what is possible in the next few years.

You are talking about a technical problem, which can be fixed.

~~~
IshKebab
Not all technical problems can be fixed.

~~~
colordrops
Sure but that's a general statement not applicable to the current situation.
There are already known technical solutions to the scaling problem. The issue
is social, i.e. getting everyone to agree to a protocol upgrade, not
technical.

------
lossolo
I anticipate that a lot of comments about "bad bubble" and "bad bitcoin" will
emerge like on every thread about bitcoin on HN.

I think people just don't understand that most participants in "Bitcon boom"
knows this is a bubble. Every major news outlet says it's a bubble every
couple of weeks. This is a common knowledge, everyone are saying it's a
bubble.

I know it's a bubble too and I have bitcoins but I don't care that it's a
bubble. I am holding BTC from the time it was worth couple of times less when
everyone was saying it's a bubble also. Even if it goes down a lot below 10k
now I will still make money.

I think a lot of people yelling "you morons don't buy bitcoin!!!1111" need to
understand that people are aware of the risk, like they are aware when going
to casino that they can lose money and there will be people that will lose
their money for sure. The last one in the game takes the highest risk, that's
all.

~~~
bllguo
How is that relevant, the price spiking isn't because of people like you. It's
because of people buying in now.

People are obviously not capable of understanding risk. Are you serious? You
bring up casinos when they are perhaps the best example of how ill-equipped
the majority of people are to understand risk and probability.

~~~
prawn
I think people buying in now know the risk too. I don't think the general,
general population is buying yet. Anyone I know coming in during the last few
months has been reasonably savvy. Taking a risk, but they're aware of it.

Two people asked me the other week, "Are we too late?" I said that I didn't
think so, but to only risk what they could afford to lose. They bought in
around $8k. It's now approaching $15k, two weeks later.

------
jurajmasar
Seems like a significant portion of the capital is coming from Asia, mainly
South Korea, with just Bithumb BTC/KRW trades making almost 11% of today's
volume.

[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/#markets)

~~~
malloryerik
I'm in Seoul as we speak, and it's an insane mania here.

It has absolutely nothing to do with North Korea. If Koreans want to keep
money safe, they can, for example, buy US stocks and bonds. They can buy US
Treasuries. Bitcoin they buy out of greed and fear of missing out. Korea is
the land of the trend, of bangdwagonning.

I feel bad for all of the people who are going to be burned.

I saw an ad on YouTube, in Korean: VOICE: How easy is it to make money in
Bitcoin? [Shot of a finger pressing a button. The price goes skyward. Finger
presses again to sell, showing screen of juicy profit.] VOICE: That's how easy
it is.

I literally hear random people in coffeeshops and the subway talking about
their BTC schemes. I met someone at a coffeeshop and a group of four well-
dressed guys at the next table were talking about their bitcoin scheme.

I went back about a week later. A different group at the very same table were
chatting about their bitcoin thing. "We know it's not very original, but we're
thinking of making a new bitcoin exchange... with a twist... so we're thinking
about what the twist should be!"

Go to the unrelated programming meetup, it's half about bitcoin. A few guys
are working together. Their project? Something bitcoin. They weren't sure
what. But gotta be bitcoin. "I'm gonna make a new cryptocurrency business
based on Bitcoin! We're gonna be big boys on the blockchain! Oh, what's
Ethereum? I've never heard of it."

When I go online my browser windows are festooned with various bitcoin ads in
Korean.

Although quite different, this has a very similar smell to the real estate
boom in Los Angeles, when every waiter and wannabe actor and person between
jobs was talking about buying their million dollar shack.

That's to say, it smells like doom.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
"If Koreans want to keep money safe, they can, for example, buy US stocks and
bonds. They can buy US Treasuries."

I wouldn't consider US securities to be a safe bet, especially considering
risks from US's current political uncertainty. US might even cancel their
debt, so US Treasuries might even be considered riskier than bitcoin.

~~~
malloryerik
I'm sorry, but you can't really be saying that you consider bitcoin to be a
safer place to park your money than US Treasuries?

In any case, Koreans can access safe haven assets from around the globe; they
don't need bitcoin for that.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, after the rage of a shakeout, bitcoin
were at some point banned in South Korea. Online gambling is banned (there are
public service announcement ads in the subway against it, showing gamble-a-
holics in handcuffs). They might just have to classify bitcoin as gambling.
Once there is a large enough group of people angry at losing their money to
bitcoin mania, it could happen.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
I never said I consider bitcoin safer than US Treasuries. I just said I
wouldn't consider US securities to be a safe bet and that even US Treasuries
might be considered riskier than bitcoin.

Every asset has some degree of risk. And even something that might be
considered somewhat risky might even reduce the risk of a portfolio through
diversification if its risk doesn't correlate significatnly with the other
assets.

~~~
malloryerik
Everything has some degree of risk. Truer words can't be spoken. And sure,
diversification is the only one free lunch, they say. But could US Treasuries
be riskier than Bitcoin, under any scenario? Even if an EMP attack wiped out
North America, or Washington DC and New York were both nuked, I'm not so sure.
But those are the kinds of scenarios that might make it possible. Something
where the United States ceased to exist. In those cases, would Bitcoin
survive? Good sci-fi material.

------
panarky
It's obvious to nearly everyone that this is the world's biggest pump-and-dump
scam.

Sentiment on HN, Twitter and the financial press is nearly unanimously
negative. Co-workers and family members are convinced this will end in tears
for the foolish speculators.

But one thing bugs me about all this.

Historically, bubbles burst after long-time critics finally capitulate.
Pyramids and Ponzis collapse when most people have bought in and there's
nobody left to sell to.

Are there any examples of bubbles bursting when 98% of the population knew it
was a bubble in advance?

~~~
thisisit
People are also seeing their co-workers and families asking about how to
"invest" in Bitcoins.

So the old story about Joe Kennedy and the shoe shine boy applies too? The
saying " You know it's time to sell when shoeshine boys give you stock tips.
This bull market is over."

~~~
koonsolo
Stocks are for the elite, Bitcoin is for the masses.

------
Veratyr
Could we stop turning HN into a Bitcoin ticker? It feels like every day we get
a "Bitcoin reaches $X" post and it's getting old. It's certainly not
newsworthy.

If there's something concrete that _causes_ Bitcoin to move majorly, I'd be
happy to see that but if I just want to watch the price, I'll look at an
actual Bitcoin ticker.

~~~
scotty79
... Or maybe they should just pin this news to the top od HN because price of
bitcoin is sort of developing story.

------
juanmirocks
This is becoming a joke. Meanwhile, transactions times in both BTC and ETH are
getting ridiculously slow.

~~~
arcticfox
As someone that has been in since 2013, I don't even recognize the current
scene. The only reason the vast majority of people are getting into it is to
get rich. It seems totally unsustainable, but the only incentives for people
on the inside are to loudly convince others to join them.

~~~
juanmirocks
Last day I saw a magazine on cryptocurrencies in a kiosk in Germany (in German
language). As Warrent Buffett used to say, "When everybody and your taxi
driver talks about your stocks... it's time to sell".

It's impossible to predict. Anyway, I'm investing with a buy & hold
philosophy.

~~~
tudorconstantin
Crypto currencies are the first investment where everybody and your taxi
driver gets to buy before the institutional investors.

------
659087
Yet another hack resulting in the loss of tens of millions of dollars,
transactions taking forever, retailers announcing that they no longer accept
Bitcoin, massive questions surrounding one of the largest exchanges:

22% surge in a single day.

This is going to end well.

------
frakr
Meanwhile "An $814M Mystery Near the Heart of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchange"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15851824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15851824)

------
paulpauper
looks $ flowing out of alts and into bitcoin, which is somewhat surprising
given the concerns over high transaction fees

~~~
FLUX-YOU
I don't think anyone knows WTF is going on with it. I also sincerely hope
people have only invested what they can afford to lose -- and that they've
realized the gains that they'd be happy with.

Of course, it could just as likely be $20k tomorrow.

~~~
matte_black
Ha, I know a crypto nerd who was investing all his savings into bitcoin,
several years ago. Today? He’s a rich man, but he still holds the vast
majority of assets in Bitcoin and has not attempted to sell them all at once.
So he’s Bitcoin rich right now. I wonder what his ultimate destiny will be.

~~~
Fnoord
He's trying to figure out when and how to dump. The when is right before the
bubble bursts (look up Nina Brink for example in dotcom burst). The how is by
spending the money on businesses who accept Bitcoin.

Problem is when a "Bitcoin run" (akin to bank run) starts you'll have slow,
expensive transactions going down in worth compared to EUR or USD. Plus
businesses can decide to stop accept BTC as currency like Steam did today.

And it will burst when Bitfinex bursts due to tether being an exposed fraud.
Question is when, not if.

~~~
matte_black
I'm not really sure what it means for someone to have millions of dollars of
value in Bitcoin. In practice how much of that money might someone be able to
convert to cash and over how long of a time period?

I'm also not really sure what the catalyst of a Bitcoin crash would be,
wouldn't it require for the vast majority of people to decide Bitcoin is no
longer worth buying ever? As long as the supply of greater fools never runs
out, won't there be people around who buy into every dip and keep the price
going higher?

I'm still not sure if that guy is lucky or screwed with his Bitcoin
investment, but he seems confident it will work out.

~~~
Fnoord
> As long as the supply of greater fools never runs out, won't there be people
> around who buy into every dip and keep the price going higher?

Yeah, people thought the same during the tulip mania (something every Dutch
kid gets taught at history class in high school [1]), dotcom bubble, MLM &
ponzi schemes. "It can't possibly burst, the amount of fools who buy them are
infinite." Of course it isn't infinite, and people are learning about Tether.

Plus, don't forget Bitcoin basically became illegal in China.

> I'm still not sure if that guy is lucky or screwed with his Bitcoin
> investment, but he seems confident it will work out.

As long as he can spend his Bitcoins, and as long as he does before it bursts,
he's OK. Simple fact: if he spends it all now, he spend it with huge profit. I
mean, if he can resell the products he buys with Bitcoin at a 10%-20% loss
(which is very fair for a new product with receipt/warranty) he's still in on
a net ~45-55% profit. Problem is the high transaction costs means people keep
sit on their networth.

At some point though the exit strategy is destroyed when companies stop
accepting Bitcoin as payment method. You can't exactly fortune tell when but
when this happens en masse that's when the momentum of Bitcoin is RIP. Steam
recently did, officially because as they put its "volatile" and because the
transaction costs are too high (several tens of EUR/USD per transaction). Them
saying its "volatile" is a way of expressing disagreement with the coin
increasing in worth without being needlessly offensive. At the same time, they
don't burn their bridge with Bitcoin altogether. My take is they'll restart
with Bitcoin once the bubble bursted and stabilized.

And the reason it will burst is Tether. I'll patiently wait. I'm mid 30s. I
got a whole life ahead. Recently bought a hardware wallet. Am I sad I didn't
start with Bitcoins earlier? Sure, first of all because I like the concept in
combination with a hardware wallet, and there was very little competition and
virtually no drama about it (before Mt Gox). Second, I wish I did when it was
200 USD. And I even considered to start with BTC back then. I easily had a few
thousand EUR to speculate with. The current stuff though, is irrational, and
has the signs of bursting bubble all over it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania)

------
davidw
This piece seems relevant:
[https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2017/11/bitcoin-and-
bubbl...](https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2017/11/bitcoin-and-bubbles.html)

------
gestirn
What is too high and what is too low in Bitcoin world and how do people come
up with those values?

If people were keeping track of Satoshis (0.00014 USD/Satoshi) would they also
think it is expensive?

~~~
koonsolo
The only way to tell is look at the market capitalization (see
[https://coinmarketcap.com/](https://coinmarketcap.com/))

To compare, if Bitcoin reaches $400.000 per bitcoin, the total value of all
Bicoins will be the same as the total value of all gold.

------
bemmu
For those who want to sell but not cash out in fiat (because on exchanges such
paperwork can take over a week), what's the easiest stable thing to exchange
your BTC for?

~~~
sireat
You can easily cash out on localbitcoins at least in Europe using SEPA.

------
watoc
Futures on Bitcoins will be introduced next week on CBOE and the week after on
CME.

I wonder if we will still see this kind of crazy rallies as it will be easier
to short it.

~~~
tudorconstantin
If one wants to short the CBOE/CME futures and also be hedged, he'd need to go
long on spot price. That will only increase its price.

------
zzxxddere333
A lot of salt in this thread.

So let me take the opposite side and say congrats to everyone who's hodling
bitcoin!

