
Bitcoin Whipsaws Investors as Bubble Shows Signs of Bursting - rbanffy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/bitcoin-drops-below-8-500-as-cryptocurrency-misery-continues?srnd=cryptocurriences
======
nxsynonym
I'm ready for Bitcoin, and crypto-currency mania in genral, to either crash
and burn or take off to the next level and produce something of value.

I can't be the only one who is growing tired of seeing the same circular
discussions rehased on every click-bait article posted by Bloomberg/forbes.

There's nothing exciting or newsworthy about the price fluctuations that have
been present since day 1. Sure, the dollar value swings are larger - but
nothing new is happening.

edit: found the wannabe over-night millionaires.

~~~
wlesieutre
I'm ready to buy a new graphics card to render graphics with. That'd be cool.

~~~
zolthrowaway
I put together a new computer this week. Everything new but I still have my
760TI in it because I'm not paying $1000 for a graphics card. You can get a
1050 reasonably priced still, but that's more of a lateral move than an
upgrade for me. Here's to hoping the market returns to normal soon.

------
mrtksn
Internet is turning into giant algorithmic propaganda and dopamine dripping
machine.

Small online communities are thriving in quality but all the business models
are gearing on communities becoming huge and exploitable with a content for
the average. I.e small communities on reddit have high quality content when
they are small and they start looking all the same as they grow, attracting
trolls, propaganda and disguised advertising by power users.

-so we have content quality issues due to misalignment of incentives of consumers, creators and gatekeepers.

Here is the thing: Other countries will follow China's model and the current
internet giants like Facebook and Google will lose their status of global
giants. Even USA has strong anti-globalist movement and a president who is
preaching it.

-so we have political landslide towards geographic compartmentalisation.

Bitcoin and other blockchain projects are reaction to the current direction of
the internet. Transfer of value, distribution of value and guaranteeing
identity are the pillars of the movement.

In my opinion, __investing in bitcoin or altcoins with reasonable projects is
a better long-term investment than investing in Facebook or Google. __

~~~
0wing
Anytime you buy a crypto-asset, it's someone else cashing out.

Consider where and how these assets are created, as it's more than likely a
system designed to extract wealth from greater fools.

If the system does not let you produce the asset for the same amount of work
that someone else put in (cryptocoins generate the bulk of the supply very
early, and then cut off produciton to new users forcing low liquidity markets
to exploit new users), why would you want to contribute to that cryptosystem?

~~~
justboxing
> If the system does not let you produce the asset for the same amount of work
> that someone else put in

This. I also can't wrap my head around certain quirks, like for example
Stellar Lumens ( XLM ) was/is giving away (for FREE), 16 BILLION of its coins
to former Bitcoin Holders.

I just can't wrap my head around paying to buy a coin that the creators have
themselves given out BILLIONs of, for FREE.. How do you justify buying into a
coin like that?

That like Burger King saying that we'll give FREE Burgers for a YEAR to anyone
who has been a former customer of McDonalds (receipt required), but all others
have to pay.

Even though I believe in their ( Lumens' ) use case, and they currently have
live rollouts of their payment system in partnership with IBM in Asia, I just
can't bring myself to buy something knowing they have millions of the same
thing to many people for free.

Source: [https://www.stellar.org/blog/bitcoin-claim-
lumens-2/](https://www.stellar.org/blog/bitcoin-claim-lumens-2/)

------
stuntkite
I'm not bullish on bitcoin, but that guy literally said that blockchain has no
value and bitcoin is a scam. I get that finance guys don't really know what
computers are but there are some really neat things happening with blockchain.
I personally really like blockchain/ipfs. It's neat and there's a lot
happening in that space.

~~~
hyprCoin
"As a currency, Bitcoin should be a serviceable unit of account, means of
payments, and a stable store of value. It is none of those things. No one
prices anything in Bitcoin. Few retailers accept it. And it is a poor store of
value, because its price can fluctuate by 20-30% in a single day." \-
[https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-bitcoin-
is-...](https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/why-bitcoin-is-a-bubble-
by-nouriel-roubini-2018-01)

I actually recommend reading some of Nouriel's thoughts on the matter. I don't
recommend taking investment advice from him, or anyone else for that matter.
Do your own research and your own critical thinking.

I believe there is immense value in a global currency that doesn't have
uninvited middlemen. I also think the immense volatility will slow as people
come to understand what cryptocurrencies can represent and better solutions
arise.

~~~
stuntkite
As investments go I hold some coins and a few other things. I ran a 13TH mine
of KNC Neptunes during the first big spike. I lost a ton of money in Mt. Gox.
I sourced Avalon chips and designed boards for mass production only to have my
chips stolen by the chinese government. After my run at all of it it paid for
my business partners divorce, a bunch of my medical bills and we had some cash
to sit on. At no point did I bet the farm or really ever see it as anything
but a VERY interesting experiment.

I've basically been out since then, but might be jumping back in to running a
multi currency mine if the stars align right. Again, I don't really care about
it as an investment vehicle, I think the technology is interesting and I'm
good at the ops around it.

No one really knows what the whole thing is going to be, I think bitcoin, with
all it's flaws is here to stay but I think persistent information and
decentralized network address resolution is WAY more interesting than money
laundering, day trading, buying pizza, futures, ICOs, or buying drugs.

The day I turn on TV news to tell me about my budding technologies is the day
you can just dump me in the river. Seriously though that guys yowling doom and
gloom is either just ignorance or he's got a bridge to sell. I don't need to
google him to find out which.

------
jokoon
I'm going to wait for it to crash, I am going to buy some, and wait for it to
bubble again.

~~~
zerostar07
That would be too easy. It s probably going to be another coin next time

~~~
seba_dos1
Possibly, but it's not like it's the Bitcoin's first time either.

------
vthallam
An FX trader saying Bitcoin is gonna die? right, he's not biased at all. Isn't
it very obvious that anyone in the current financial world(Traders/FX brokers)
doesn't like cryptocurrencies? Why does Bloomberg even have to take their
opinion.

On the other hand, yes, there's some bad news across the board. China, India,
and Bitfinex/Tether. Despite that, we only see the price going to a 3 mon old
price. Once Tether is sorted out and the regulations are clear in China &
India, you could see the recovery.

~~~
mikestew
_An FX trader saying Bitcoin is gonna die? right, he 's not biased at all._

Yeah, currency traders, what do they know?

 _Isn 't it very obvious that anyone in the current financial world(Traders/FX
brokers) doesn't like cryptocurrencies?_

Oh, it's obvious. Ever wonder why? Bias? Conspiracy? Ya know, traders would
trade cockroach shit if there was a market. It could be bias, could be that
these professionals ask themselves, "how can I value this?" and come up empty.

~~~
fwdpropaganda
HAHAH awesome I just made exactly the same comment.

~~~
mikestew
Our comments do have an uncanny restating of the same thing, all within 60
seconds of each other. I'm not terribly surprised, as parent has an
uncomfortable "chem-trails" vibe to it. What ELSE is the currency market
hiding from us?

------
fwdpropaganda
"Investors".

~~~
danhak
Your comment is pithy and likely to get downvoted, but anyone who thinks
cryptocurrency is an "investment" is a fool. I have heard no reasonable
explanation from crypto enthusiasts when I ask them how they arrive at a fair
valuation.

Even as a "store of value," anything this volatile is useless. Call a spade a
spade: this is nothing short of pure mania and speculation. It will end poorly
for the majority of people getting swept up in the hype.

~~~
eganist
> anyone who thinks cryptocurrency is an "investment" is a fool. [...] this is
> nothing short of pure mania and speculation.

Strictly speaking, speculation is a genuine investment strategy, but it's only
appropriate for those with a high risk tolerance.

~~~
blueprint
Then what is the definition of investment and when you speculate on the price
rise of an asset what specifically are you investing in?

~~~
philipov
A reasonable definition of 'investment' involves the allocation of capital for
the purpose of long-term creation of wealth in the instrument being invested
in.

This should be contrasted with 'speculation', which best applies to short-term
strategy that merely seeks to skim alpha off the top of fluctuations in value,
without regard to long-term health of the instrument.

------
narrator
I think there might be some deals in the ICO market when this bottoms out, at
least the ones that had some sort of legitimacy. I went and read some
whitepapers for a few of the more legit ones and it seemed like they might
support a profitable niche business, but they were astronomically absurdly
overvalued for what you might get buying their ICO tokens. It's a bit like the
dot.com bubble. A good analogy would be waiting until 2002 before buying PCLN.

~~~
narrator
Just a little edit here that didn't come in under the wire... I don't think
this is going to bottom out for a year or two and ETH will probably be under
$100 when it does. Thus these ICOs that are now trading for 20 cents a token
will be trading for 2 cents a token or less. Now, assuming they actually
developed a product and are operating and ICO investors are getting some sort
of profitable use out of those tokens... I might consider buying a few.

