
Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally - rayuela
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/bitcoin-surges-past-7-000-to-extend-record-rally-this-year
======
joefourier
Notice how almost all news of Bitcoin now are about its price. Bitcoin used to
be exciting in both technical and economical aspects, but has now become just
a store of value entirely driven by speculation.

Other technically superior cryptocurrencies (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have
replaced most of its usecases, boasting much faster and cheaper transactions
and real anonymity in the case of Monero. Bitcoin takes more than an hour even
at absurd transaction fees of multiple dollars, and is actually pseudonymous,
meaning if you can associate an address with a real person, it becomes
relatively easy to trace all their transactions unless they were careful to
cover their tracks.

It may or may not continue to increase in value long-term, but it has little
uses outside of being worth a lot of money.

~~~
tudorconstantin
Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the
fiat currencies as a matter of fact, because I don't know of any of them to be
backed by anything else than trust.

Of course, the US dollar has the whole US economy and the biggest army in the
world as its plus, but it also has its minuses: the US treasury can and does
print as many as it wants, in the detriment of ALL USD holders.

Bitcoin's pluses when comparing it to other crypto currencies are:

\- the first to market advantage

\- almost 9 years of virtually 0 hacks of the protocol or concept

\- no sudden moves

\- the whole ecosystem that formed around it

\- etc.

Let's not forget - ETH is less than 3 years old, Ripple is centralized,
Litecoin, zCash, Monero and most of the others are bitcoin forks.

~~~
slg
>Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the
fiat currencies as a matter of fact

Except fiat currencies also have that fiat behind them that gives them value.
If you want to do business with the US government, you do it in USD. If you
are one of the millions employed by the US government, you are paid in USD. If
you manipulate USD, you have to answer to the US government. Those things add
tremendous value and they are something that Bitcoin does not have.

With Bitcoin you only have trust in value of Bitcoin. Fiat currency is given
added value by having trust in the power, reach, and stability of the nation
that issued it.

~~~
baddox
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to attribute much of USD’s value to business
deals with the US government. That must be a tiny effect. I’d say most of the
value comes from the fact that US workers _have_ to pay taxes in USD even if
they earned income in some other currency or asset.

~~~
phamilton
> pay taxes in USD

basically, citizens dealing with the US government. I think it's the same
category.

~~~
baddox
If you define that so broadly, then sure. I got the impression that sgl was
referring to directly doing deals with the US government where the US
government pays in USD, which I suspect is a much less significant phenomenon.

------
Andrenid
I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but I'm still completely lost as to
whether Bitcoin is basically a pyramid scheme set to crash massively, or
something huge that will continue climbing.

I probably should've taken the time to mine some back when my friends were
doing it and tried convincing me too. Ah well.

(Queue heated comments from both sides. Discussing bitcoin is like bringing up
religion AND politics at the dinner table at the same time)

~~~
weddpros
There's no pyramid scheme. It's a hyped asset, to say the least, but there's
no pyramid. Like a hyped startup, it doesn't do much yet, but it is promising,
so people buy it. It may be "worth" much or zero in the end, it all depends on
the final outcomes.

It's also the easiest/cheapest/most open asset to trade (depending on where
you trade).

In the long term, Bitcoin can be seen as a safe heaven in case of economic
chaos, like gold, but way easier to buy and hold. It can also be seen as an
interesting economic experiment: what if currency wasn't managed by a
government? Or you can give trading a try for a few $$ as a gamble (with more
chances of success than in a casino).

It's also a useful currency in some cases: I'm a "digital nomad" which my bank
can't seem to understand. Getting my Debit Card to work online from a foreign
country, with an ever changing phone number (they insist on using SMS as a
2FA), sounds like an obstacle to them, but not to BTC.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's like a pyramid scheme in that so long as people keep buying in on the
hope of a profit you'll keep making more and more. As soon as people say "hang
on this is a con" and convert to another currency then this factor of the
supposed value of Bitcoin could deflate to zero. It's not formalised like a
pyramid or MLM scheme but it has some of the same structure.

~~~
buchanaf
A pyramid scheme involves some form of active (fraudulent) recruitment to help
increase the price of the asset. Bitcoin doesn't have this.

From what you described above, every single speculative/overinflated asset
would be a pyramid scheme. That's not the case.

~~~
zanny
It is a bit of a fraud to claim bitcoin can ever replace fiat currencies,
though. Its deflationary, has a fixed coin limit, is incredibly centralized,
and its tx rate is awful and costs a ton to move any of it around the chain.

The only value in bitcoin is in how much it exchanges for at this point, and
that is definitionally a pyramid scheme, because current buy-ins need more
adoption to drive the price up so they profit off their investment.

3% of all addresses control 97% of all coins. 0.01% of all addresses control
21% of all coins. And bitcoins mint rate is _slowing_ every four years and
almost 80% of all bitcoin that will ever exist already exists.

Its absolutely a pyramid scheme. Early adopters were incentivized with large
quantities of limited coins to persuade them to mine and participate when the
value was low. Those really early wallets (circa 09-12) amassed over half of
all bitcoin ever and are now worth extreme fortunes. Those fortunes are based
on demand for BTC, demand for the tiny amounts actually left circulating.

The real question is how much of that old money is actually dead - lost
wallets and lost passwords - and how much is just waiting to cash out for
absolute fortunes. All it would take is one early wallet carrying thousands of
BTC to liquidate to cause a panic.

~~~
SippinLean
What you said still falls quite short of a literal pyramid scheme, which has a
pretty specific definition. There is no central organization to recruit new
members. People that buy bitcoin receive a real, usable product. Every person
holding bitcoin profits when the price goes up. This is all in stark contrast
to a true pyramid.

The way specific ICOs are structured, I could see an argument for some kind of
pyramid; but "bitcoin is a pyramid scheme" is easily proved false.

~~~
mywittyname
Well, there are two components to a pyramid scheme: 1. returns to early
investors are generated by contributions from new investors. 2. Each new
investor attempts to recruit two or more new investors.

The "profits" for existing investors are paid with money from new investors.
So it checks the first requirement to be a pyramid scheme. Now, this isn't
_explicit_ , but people still understand that the more BTC investors, the
higher the price.

And BTC investors go online and evangelize. They talk about how BTC is a full-
proof investment that can only go up-up-UP. Even this thread is full of them.
So that checks the second requirement to be a pyramid scheme.

~~~
SippinLean
There are many more components to a pyramid scheme, you've purposefully left
out the ones that clearly don't apply to bitcoin and gone with a definition
that is too broad to fit.

Further, your first component leaves out the necessity of a purposefully
fraudulent bad actor to redistribute the new investors' "investments" to old
investors, instead of investing them. This is clearly impossible with a
distributed ledger. Returns (and losses) to all investors, new or old, are
equally distributed.

Your second part is clearly much too broad, in a pyramid scheme new members
are promised a share of the money taken from every additional member that they
recruit.

Simply saying "hey, this could be a good investment" doesn't make something a
pyramid scheme, unless Apple is a pyramid because my financial advisor told me
and one more client to buy shares of it.

~~~
mywittyname
Actually, I looked up the literal definition of a pyramid scheme before
posting, to ensure I hit all the points.

> Returns (and losses) to all investors, new or old, are equally distributed.

No, old investors can profit while new investors lose money. Or, the new
investors paid the old ones. Original BTC investors got them for free, the
next generation paid pennies for them, the next paid dollars, then hundreds,
and the current generation is paying thousands each.

So should the price collapse, the old generation still stands to make massive
profits, at the expense of current investors.

> Simply saying "hey, this could be a good investment" doesn't make something
> a pyramid scheme, unless Apple is a pyramid because my financial advisor
> told me and one more client to buy shares of it.

Apple earns a profit, of which a share is provided to owners. That's why it's
a good investment.

BTC is a purely speculative investment and literally the only way to earn a
profit is to get someone else to buy it for more than you paid. It will never
pay you a dividend, it will never generate any revenue.

~~~
SippinLean
Why were you throwing the term around before you knew what it was? Again, you
left out MANY aspects of pyramid schemes--the ones hardest to twist into
fitting bitcoin.

And you glossed right over this: the necessity of a purposefully fraudulent
bad actor to redistribute the new investors' "investments" to old investors.

>So should the price collapse, the old generation still stands to make massive
profits, at the expense of current investors.

Nope, the old generation suffers the same losses as the new if the price
crashes. A pyramid scheme is just that, a _scheme_ with a central organization
controlling the flow of income. That is impossible with a distributed ledger.

The last part of your answer is a rant about Apple vs Bitcoin, I think you
missed my only point: in a pyramid scheme new members are promised a share of
the money taken from every additional member that they recruit. "Evangelizing"
by itself is _not_ proof of a pyramid scheme.

I suggest you continue to look it up and learn what a pyramid scheme is. It's
different than speculation, it is different than a Ponzi scheme.

~~~
mywittyname
I knew what it was, but looking it up helped ensure my argument was complete.
I know what a Volvo P1800 is, but if I saw one on the street, I'd still
compare it to a picture on my phone to be certain.

> And you glossed right over this: the necessity of a purposefully fraudulent
> bad actor to redistribute the new investors' "investments" to old investors.

I did not, but here:

Any person who currently own BTC, and publicly state that it will continue to
rise in price indefinitely are bad actors intent on defrauding the public.
This applies doubly to individuals with technical or financial backgrounds
that claim their are an authority on the subject.

There. You may not agree, but you can't continue to argue that I'm ignoring
this point.

> in a pyramid scheme new members are promised a share of the money taken from
> every additional member that they recruit. "Evangelizing" by itself is not
> proof of a pyramid scheme.

When evangelizing crosses into market manipulation, then it is.

I feel that people are making claims about the price of BTC can rise, _for the
purpose of attracting more investors_ and increasing the price. Thus,
attempting to profit from each member they recruit. The margin can be small
per recruit, as the audience is literally worldwide.

I do feel that there are evangelists that are primarily motivated by political
principals. But I also think nearly every investor is motivated, in some part,
by greed.

~~~
SippinLean
You still skipped over both points. There is no central org which
redistributes income. This alone disqualifies it as a pyramid.

Market manipulation is not specific enough to qualify as a pyramid. Pyramids
have a central org that promises rewards for recruiting; it's not an abstract
idea like "make comments on the internet and maybe someone will believe you."

You also left out _many_ qualifying factors, again because they plainly don't
fit Bitcoin or your argument.

If you'd like to deride Bitcoin, you'd do better to call it a generic term
like "scam." It weakens your argument to call it something specific like a
pyramid scheme, which actually has a real definition.

------
110011
It's scary to see so much faith in bitcoin given it's horrendously wasteful
proof-of-work scheme to avoid double spending.

There are better alternatives that minimize latency nearly a hundred-fold and
avoid proof-of-work altogether. Example: Algorand
([https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/gilad-
algorand-...](https://people.csail.mit.edu/nickolai/papers/gilad-algorand-
eprint.pdf)) Even if this new cryptocurrency is "just" a proof of concept
there are many others like it that are much less wasteful than bitocin, and
this should make people think twice before piling their faith on an important
but ultimately flawed first attempt at a usable cryptocurrency.

~~~
RoboTeddy
Wasteful by what standard? Right now each day it consumes ~$1m worth of
electricity in order to protect ~$1.5 billion of new payments. Economically,
this "electricity safety fee" works out to less than a tenth of a percent.

~~~
tome
0.1% per _day_? Are you sure? That's a 3.5% fee per _year_! That's
astonishingly high for any sort of custodian's fee.

~~~
RoboTeddy
oh it's 0.1% of _new payments_ per day.

if you wanna compare it to all stored value instead (about $100bn), then the
"electricity safety fee" comes out to ~0.001% per day.

(these comparisons are just meant to help put the electricity costs roughly in
scale against the benefits they help provide)

~~~
tome
Ah yes, thanks, I misread. So it's 0.35% per year so still quite a lot.

[My initial calculation was wrong. It would have been _35_ % per year, which
would have been more obviously incorrect!]

------
duiker101
I don't know much about bitcoin i'll admit. And I was surpised the other day
to read some comments where the poster was saying that the transaction price
is somewhere in between 5$ - 20$. Isn't that like... a LOT? I thought the idea
of Bitcoins was how easy it would be to make transactions but with a price
like that I can image most smaller transactions are discouraged. Also, after
the initial hype I haven't really seen much of an implementation of payments
in Bitcoins.

So... other than the hype, what's driving the price up if I guess the price is
going up way faster than the implementation?

~~~
3pt14159
Here is what will happen in the long run:

Lightning networks will allow common people to transact and will semi-
centralize the blockchain across a couple partners, kinda like banks. Over
time and for the people that don't really need to be on chain, these banks
will start taking over the transactions between each other and just
broadcasting signatures from their bitcoin keys to match deposits vs
obligations so that people can be assured that they have what they say they
have. If you need to move $100k, you can always do it on the real blockchain,
or from your bank to the real blockchain, but the chain is going to turn into
the banking system.

Originally I thought there could only be one cryptocurrency, and that is at
least for now looking to be incorrect. But I don't really know how all this
plays out. There is a huge market incentive to get in on a coin early, but if
there are infinite crytpocurrencies then they all get devalued. Probably the
winners of the current system will use their money to push for regulations to
stop new currencies from coming out. So Bitcoin, Etherium, etc will get
entrenched. Then I'd guess maybe 3 to 10 currencies survive in the long run,
provided they don't get regulated out of existence in the first place.

~~~
cableshaft
> There is a huge market incentive to get in on a coin early, but if there are
> infinite crytpocurrencies then they all get devalued.

I don't think that's true that an unlimited number of cryptocurrencies
existing will devalue others. It might affect public perception (confusion and
skepticism for some, thus those people don't participate at all) and affect
the value a bit, but not significantly.

Just like I could collect all my toenail clippings, give it a fancy name (like
NailCoin), and try passing it off as currency won't even make a blip in any
other currency anywhere, all these coins that fail to get any traction are not
going to be able to affect the rest of cryptocurrencies.

------
d__k
I think the behaviour of Bitcoin price (not the technology) reflects some
_social phenomenon_ rather than the real economy. And it is precisely why it
is interesting.

~~~
nickjj
Yeah, it's pretty much what happened 500 years ago when people were selling
everything they owned (including houses) to buy tulip bulbs[0].

Maybe it's not that bad yet, but it's looking to get that way.

Spoiler alert: It ended really badly, but the people who got out early enough
did make a lot of money.

Plot twist: I did invest in bitcoins back when they were hovering around 2k
and sold them for a small profit (~10%). Yep, I wish I invested more and held
on, but it's so easy to think this way after the fact.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania).

~~~
jesusthatsgreat
Tulips aren't finite in number nor can they be transferred on a decentralised
ledger.

Anyone can grow tulips and grow fake tulips that may look like tulips but are
cheaper quicker to buy / make. You can't fake Bitcoin nor can you grow it
indefinitely in your garden.

People who make the tulip comparison simply don't understand the revolutionary
aspect of the technology. It's like calling the internet tulip mania back in
the mid 90's. Blockchain technology will change the world. Bitcoin's value
will boom and bust for many years to come. Where will it end up in USD terms?
Nobody knows... but the technology itself will become as indispensable as the
internet.

~~~
nickjj
I was replying to someone who was talking about the social phenomenon of
bitcoin trading. I wasn't comparing them literally.

------
dandare
I keep seeing my non-it friends boasting on FB how much they profited with
Bitcoin this week. I am afraid this bubble will get way much bigger before it
bursts.

~~~
eterm
I'm afraid that like the housing bubble, it'll get "too big to burst" and
require intervention to keep those who have previously invested afloat while
keeping down those outside the bubble.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Who would bail it out? It isn’t backed by any government with big pockets.

------
jdhn
I'm willing to bet that this is happening because people are trying to get
coins before the fork happens on November 16th.

~~~
sheeshkebab
Double the coins, double the profits! Right?

~~~
jdhn
Of course! More seriously, I'm moving coins to Coinbase very soon as they're
going to allow users to sell the new B2X coins the day after the split. I
expect to make a 4 figure profit, but I'm not sure whether it'll be low 4
figures or high 4 figures.

~~~
sodafountan
You do realize that if you have a market entirely filled with sellers and no
buyers the price is zero right? Who do you predict is going to be buying 2X

~~~
sheeshkebab
It would be good for btc to slow down for a while too. Otherwise the thing
looks like a totally bogus Ponzi scheme.

------
davidmanescu
To me an asset that moves 15% in a day, and which no-one knows what it's truly
worth, isn't great as a store of value. I'm not going to speculate about where
bitcoin will be trading when it becomes a stable, useful asset, but in order
to justify a market cap anywhere near this high it will eventually need to
generate actual utility for its users. Can someone explain where that will
come from? Cheap currency conversion and easy money transfer?

~~~
tinco
Gold, art and wine all have a utility value that's way below their "store of
value" value. Bitcoin is just a more convenient store with an equally
insignificant utility value. Whether Bitcoin can persist while offering so
little value I don't know, just saying these valuations are not unheard of in
the asset world.

Just look at what people pay for mediocre Van Gogh paintings I wouldn't hang
in my toilet..

~~~
rhino369
It's hard to objectively value things. But bitcoin is a clear outlier because
it's only value is that people think it's going to go up in value. It's more
like beanie babies than a Van Gogh.

Wine price is generally determined by the genuine demand for the wine. Art
less so, but still people actually want to hang the art somewhere. Some people
speculate with art, but it's not a huge percentage of the value.

Gold is the closest, but it's still a mile apart. First, there is genuine
demand for gold for decorative purposes. But there is a large demand for gold
as a store of value.

There are two key difference between bitcoin and gold. Gold has a very long
track history of reliable demand. All of history it has been valuable. It is
seen as a safe bet. But the bigger difference is that gold isn't purchased on
the expectations of massive growth. Gold isn't supposed to MOOOOOON. It's just
supposed to be steady. Sometimes gold is over priced, but demand is steadish.

Bitcoin only has any value (beyond the negligible trading value) because a
bunch of baghodlers think bitcoin will be work tens of thousands of dollars
eventually. Why do they think that? Because it's gone up a lot in the past?
There is no "there there." If people start to wonder if bitcoin will ever go
up, it will crash.

~~~
tinco
Wine prices, gold price and art prices are all driven by genuine demand for
them. Why would something have a price if there wasn't genuine demand for
them?

What do you base the idea on that only some of the price of art is based on
speculation?

I don't think Bitcoin is an outlier at all. And if you don't believe Bitcoin
is an outlier, as many people are starting to do now, you can understand why
its price is going up so fast.

Gold prices don't do anything because they're "supposed" to do anything. Gold
moons whenever the market decides it wants gold to moon, just like Bitcoin,
just like wine and just like art.

------
lsmarigo
the engagement on these posts is insane relative to everything else on here.
Seems without heavy moderation Hn would be Crypto-News.

Everyone is afraid to say what they think. The core concept of BTC is
fundamentally flawed and unbelievably naive. The value is rising based on hype
and speculation alone, no value is being generated in-fact it's being consumed
to 'mine' and transact the coins. Those claiming they're spending their BTC on
regular purchases are either not being honest or beyond stupid.

~~~
psyc
Considering that 2017 has been an unprecedented, huge year for all things
crypto (whether for very good innovation reasons, or for frothy fraudulent
ones), Hacker News barely talks about it at all. Conspicuously avoids it, in
fact.

------
marcosscriven
There’s no way I’d take this level of risk for a significant sum, but just to
play with Bitcoin, and see my own transaction in the blockchain, I bought £100
in September that’s now worth £200.

It’s of course tempting to imagine doubling my entire savings in just two
months, but so too could they have halved, or worse.

------
S410520
Imagine a world where you can buy without a merchant, bet without a bookie,
get insurance without an underwriter, access finance and loans without a bank,
trade without an exchange, purchase commodities without a broker, have law
without lawyers, courts and judges, create assets without an issuer, secure
escrow without an agent, have internet without an ISP, verify records without
a notary, establish reputation and credit without a credit agency, and create
identity without a government.

Imagine a Bitcoin world.

~~~
acjohnson55
Sounds kind of like the wild west

------
brndnmtthws
To all the naysayers in this thread, I suggest you watch "Banking on Bitcoin"
on Netflix, which is a great introduction to Bitcoin. It might change your
thinking.

Also check out Andreas Antonopoulos' videos on YouTube, which are easy to
digest and very informative. Here's the place to start:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1si5ZWLgy0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1si5ZWLgy0)

~~~
goldenkey
Naysayers? Does that mean you are a yes sayer? Bitcoin is a question?

Seems more like an overpriced valueless commodity controlled in majority by
Chinese miners who have ASIC rigs only a couple companies in the world can
produce. So its basically centralized even if the protocol isn't.

How much stake do you have in Bitcoin? (Technical people can understand what
Bitcoin is and yet despise the blatant canvasing by owners of Bitcoin.) I find
the blatant tarlipping to be offensive. Just admit when you have the asset if
you are going to try to get people to part with their hard earned money for
what amounts to a global ponzi scheme.

~~~
virtuexru
Yikes, someone sounds bitter.

~~~
goldenkey
Please refrain from personal attacks that don't add to the conversation (even
if you would like to shill for Bitcoin.) It is in bad taste and against HN
rules.

------
markatkinson
The technology that spawned Bitcoin, and the technology that is being
developed in its wake is the really exciting part of all of this.

So long as some catastrophic event doesn't completely tarnish the masses
opinion on crypto's I think we are in for a wild ride (wild ride either way I
suppose). Traditional banks, asset managers and transaction facilitators need
to watch themselves.

I get the feeling that younger generations (<35-40) are hungry to separate
themselves from traditional banking systems, and the group that pulls off
(almost) instant free transactions in a distributed ledger are going to cause
a real financial revolution.

Cant wait and fingers crossed.

------
napolux
What scares me is the amount of people investing all their life savings in
this.

Somebody will get hurt, sooner or later.

~~~
romanovcode
Still not as stupid as buying fidget spinners in bulk.

~~~
matthuggins
Context?

~~~
Hates_
Someone bought fidget spinners with their life savings and was looking to sell
them quick:

[https://i.imgur.com/V0u1KHG.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/V0u1KHG.jpg)

~~~
thieving_magpie
Oh. That makes me just feel very sad.

------
pinchharmonic
Do these people that hold bitcoin or say that they've "made amazing returns"
actual cash out at any point? Or are they holding a few bitcoins like everyone
else? Isn't that how a bubble forms?

If I got into it, I would get a return I thought was nice (100-200%) and then
cash out.

~~~
votingprawn
I cashed out 20 bitcoins many years ago...and brought myself a nice graphics
card with the proceeds. (i.e. $300)

If I'd waited a few years longer I'd have been able to buy a house (nearly),
but I suppose I could also have ended up with enough to buy a sandwich.

------
artur_makly
whats baffling to me is its lack of utlitity, application, and overall
adoption when compared to ETH.

So at this point (to me) BTC is a pure pyramid scheme — a digital casino

~~~
eterm
It has utility for ransomware. Even a niche utility can bootstrap an
ecosystem. Add layers and layers of speculation above that kernel and it is a
feedback loop.

As long as speculators refuse to sell, people need to spend more and more for
ransoms (or equivalently ransomware writers have to demand less denominated by
bitcoin), driving up the price as long as those destroyed through ransomware
outstrips those created by mining.

------
lin_lin
A few years back I had 10 bitcoins and bought weed on the Silk Road with them.
Hmm, imagine I held onto it :)

~~~
Synaesthesia
Yeah that happened to a lot of people, myself included.

~~~
dotluis
And it's going to happen to everybody, since the Bitcoin is deflationary.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I sold my Bitcoin a couple weeks before Floyd Mayweather's fight with Conner
McGregor. I used all the money to bet on Floyd to win the fight, which he did.

When I went to put the money back into BTC, I found out that I would have made
the same amount just by leaving in BTC for the 3 weeks I was out of the
market.

------
decentralised
It's the normalisation effect kicking in now that more traditional financial
instruments are tacking advantage of Bitcoin and the growing acceptance with
regulators and government officials (see UK's report on cyber crime and
cryptocurrencies as well as Europol's, see CTFs announced, etc).

------
mrhappyunhappy
HN is like a huge echo chamber and a bitcoin basher. Every single time the
same arguments (bitcoin is a currency or store of value), the same questions
(should I invest?) and the same reasons for talking oneself out of going into
it. Even when bitcoin gets to a half a million value people will still be
saying oh it’ll crash any time now, bitcoin is useless, can’t trust bitcoin
because it’s not backed by US economy or the government. And you know what,
keep living in your bubble because those that capitalize on the shift won’t
have to say I told you so. I wholeheartedly agree on many arguments against
bitcoin but we have to agree that we are seeing something unprecedented happen
and nobody really knows what they are talking about 100%.

------
nadam
What I don't like about the current cryptocurrency climate is that Bitcoin,
garbage ICO-s, and BitConnet-like piramid schemes completely distract people's
attention from the serious cryptocurrencies that genuinely try to develop a
decentralized trustless and efficient payment network, like DASH.

I am betting against the current trend, and holding mostly DASH (and BAT,
POWR, RLC and some similar currencies) with practical potential to be used for
more than just a store of value like Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has its place and strength, it is the digital gold, but too much
bitcoin dominance in the cryptocurrency industry is against innovation and
progress.

------
mads
I just got a call from someone trying to peddle a Bitcoin trading site. Didn't
catch the name of the site, but he was very persistent, was reading from a
manuscript and didn't know that the maximum supply of Bitcoin would be 21M,
when I asked him.

I think it's time to get out, if you own any coin, to be honest.

While we were talking (for maybe 30 minutes - normally I wouldn't do that, but
this was interesting like a train wreck kind of interesting), I could hear
cheering in the background, when the price reached an all time high. This is
super weird, man...

------
tqi
Is this good or bad for BTC as a currency? On one hand, I can see how being
more valuable makes it more likely to be supported by retailers / banks / etc,
but on the other hand I can't imagine spending BTC on anything when prices
keep skyrocketing... at which point I feel like it ceases to be a currency
(BTC in particular, not crypto in general).

~~~
tome
> On one hand, I can see how being more valuable makes it more likely to be
> supported by retailers / banks / etc

I doubt it. If anything it's being more _stable_ that will make it more
attractive to use in commerce.

------
loki0505
I believe once you can start using your cryptocurrency as collateral for a
loan, this space is going to go into the trillion(s).

check out Salt Lending. I know many waiting for it to open so they can get a
100k loan and put it back into crypto. This project has been fully licensed
and regulated, and owned by the founder of shapeshift (erik vorhees)

~~~
aakilfernandes
Any idea on the tax implications of this? Do you have to pay cap gains when
using crypto as collateral?

If not, seems like it'd be massively useful for whales to cash out without
paying taxes.

~~~
loki0505
honestly, this seems like a grey area and I have no idea! but the concept of
this platform is amazing, and has already been approved. They are taking SALT
deposits currently (just opened a few days ago) so they are ramping up for
full operation soon. I would suggest to hit up their reddit...i'm gonna do the
same :-)

~~~
dajohnson89
How do they asses creditworthiness?

~~~
loki0505
by you using your current crypto stack as collateral. you put up your stack,
add SALT tokens:

1 salt token + collateral = 10,000 loan 10 salt token + collateral = 100,000
loan 100 salt token + collateral = 1,000,000 loan

no credit check.

------
bitmapbrother
I recall being downvoted when I replied to someone asking if it was too late
to invest in Bitcoin when it was at $4000. In my reply I quoted Roger Ver by
saying that it was never too late to invest in Bitcoin. I also decided to walk
the talk and buy some at $4000 with money I could afford to lose. Glad I did.

~~~
acjohnson55
That's crazy thinking though. It's only "never too late" if it _never_ stops
going up. Just because it went up from $4k doesn't mean that you won. Unless
you sell now and walk away.

Point is, it's impossible to know if you're leaving money on the table.

~~~
coryfklein
Bitcoin is a high risk investment. If you buy some today it could go to $1
next month (although as it's years of track record continues to grow this
becomes less and less likely).

Make bitcoin 1% of your portfolio. If you lose all of it, it's not really a
big deal. If one year from now it has grown to 10% of your portfolio, you'll
be more comfortable with it and you can sell half and maintain it as 5%
knowing that if you ever lose that you are still ahead.

------
patrickg_zill
The purpose of talking about the price, is that it is being used as a proxy
mechanism to determine if Bitcoin is "crossing the chasm" from the technology
oriented early adopters, to the much wider, non tech, early majority.

Then the bandwagon effect will (presumably) kick in and Bitcoin will become
truly entrenched.

------
baldfat
I know know what I would do with a time machine.

1) Go back to when I start to put bitcoin mining on my server for fun and than
decided it would cost to much in electricity

2) Second time around I wouldn't sell it when it hit $1000 for the first time

3) I would go to the future to see when to see :)

------
mrfusion
Dumb question. If I buy a bitcoin today would it be assumed the associated
bitcoin cash coin had already been spent or is there a chance I ended up with
both?

Or am I completely misunderstanding? When it formed each coin holder got a new
coin in the fork?

~~~
thisisit
Today you get only 1 bitcoin. No bitcoin cash or gold or whatever forks that
may exist.

Think of this way, there is a ledger - bitcoin which shows I own 1 bitcoin on
1st August 2017. Someone copied the ledger. Now there are two ledgers both
with name bitcoin. It is confusing - so one is called bitcoin cash.

Going forward, the transactions for bitcoin is recorded in the bitcoin ledger
while for bitcoin cash in that ledger. I can spend both bitcoin and cash as my
ownership is reflected in both the ledgers.

But if you buy from me today, your ownership reflection will start now. So
only on one of the ledgers.

In November someone will create a new copy - the Segwit 2x. So if you own the
bitcoin till then you get 1 bitcoin Segwit 2x too, while retaining the
ownership from original bitcoin ledger.

------
jeff_sig
For anyone interested there is service where you can get free price alerts
[https://www.signality.io](https://www.signality.io)

------
danbruc
Is any reasonable good and current analysis available showing what Bitcoins
and other cryptocurrencies are actually used for and in what volume?

~~~
decentralised
The volumes you can check using any of the block explorers freely available as
for what they are used for, it's a transactional system so all records are
transactions.

The myth that cryptos are used for illegal and criminal activity is dying down
in Europe with Europol and BoE both releasing studies showing criminals prefer
to use fiat rather than cryptocurrencies.

~~~
danbruc
Just randomly clicking through blocks won't give you that much insights.
You'll need at least a rather comprehensive list of address together with
information what they are used for. Some of the block explorers provide such
information to some extend, but I don't think any of them is comprehensive
enough to be able to answer something like how many coins were spend in April
2017 to pay for food delivery services.

~~~
decentralised
Perhaps you are thinking of some other block explorer. Here's the one I use
regularly to get all the insights I can think of:
[https://etherscan.io](https://etherscan.io)

------
gallerdude
The other day my Grandma, who cannot print things without getting help, asked
me how she could get into BTC.

------
senatorobama
Who is bitter about not buying? I am.

~~~
coryfklein
It's not too late. I wouldn't place a huge buy at $7000 right now, but it
doesn't hurt to set up a monthly buy of $50-200 on Coinbase and take advantage
of some dollar cost averaging.

------
BLanen
Again, nobody in the comments mentioning Tether or Bitfinex shows how little
hackernews knows why the price is rising.

~~~
thedjinn
Well, please enlighten us then!

~~~
BLanen
[https://medium.com/@bitfinexed](https://medium.com/@bitfinexed)

------
leemike
Understaning the bitter concept of Bitcoin is really daunting.

------
nepotism2018
it will easily reach $10k...don't ask why

~~~
ddorian43
I'll sell when it goes $50K.

