
ETH price hits $500 - bpierre
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/?500
======
jatsign
And Litecoin just hit $100. And of course bitcoin hit $10k.

I invest a little bit each week in a lot of coins. I'm a fan of
cryptocurrencies. And I gotta say, this is crazy. I've had a few people ask me
if they should invest now, and my answer is: I have no damn clue.

~~~
corford
So true. It's just crazy at the moment. BTC, DASH, XMR, ETH, LTC, IOTA are all
hitting ATHs. In the old days BTC rising would take money out of Alt coins.
Now everything's going up.

Surely can't last but how long this bull market will go on for is anyone's
guess. 2018 is going to be insane.

~~~
candiodari
You can add pretty much every stock in the S&P500, the S&P500 index, and most
others, real estate, everything.

At the same time things like cars, food, toys, electronics, etc are hitting
all time lows. Good if you're turning 60 or so I guess.

Very weird.

~~~
corford
Good point. Real estate is going nuts here in Lisbon for example.

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jcousins
If you invested 1BTC in the ethereum presale in 2014 (about $600 at the time)
and kept that ether, you now have the equivalent of $1M in ether.

Has that much value really been created?

~~~
kaffeemitsahne
Apparently ;)

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thesmallestcat
Is HN now a cryptocurrency ticker?

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tensormoon
It should be at 600 before the week is done.

~~~
rkeene2
What makes you think that ?

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kapauldo
When the bubble bursts there are going to be no buyers so I hope people who
made a few million are slowly converting back to usd.

~~~
corford
The crypto currency market is growing and maturing at such break neck speed
it's got to the point where you can start to hedge against this. By either
shorting certain coins, betting on futures (soon) or diversifying across
function/ideology (e.g. some in BTC, some in XRP, some in IOTA etc.).

~~~
thisisit
>either shorting certain coins, betting on futures (soon) or diversifying
across function/ideology

shorting where? and you do know most of the market is BTC driven so even those
different function/ideology - XRP, Iota etc are going to go down if BTC takes
a hit. Maybe not a 1:1 ratio but a huge hit nonetheless. In which it's not
diversifying but putting all yours eggs in one basket, albeit different
colored eggs.

~~~
corford
>shorting where?

Bitfinex lets you short (although you'd obviously still get hosed if there was
an enormous sell off).

>you do know most of the market is BTC driven

That's my point. It seems as the crypto market is expanding some tokens are
losing their tether/bond to BTC (and one presumes the trend will continue if
the overall market gets big enough and has enough time to mature).

I think next year will decide whether or not crypto is an asset class that's
here to stay (perhaps with more modest growth in the years following) or if we
were really all suffering collective tulip mania and the entire ecosystem dies
a spectacular death.

For the moment I personally wouldn't put huge amounts in to crypto but if I
had cash I could afford to lose, I'd certainly dip my toe in.

Edit: also want to say, if crypto currencies are here to stay, I hope at least
a little light regulation comes in to force as there are way too many ways for
new/naive participants to have their shirts taken from their backs. Watching
some of the shenanigans going on has given me a stronger appreciation for the
role regulation plays in fostering a healthy market.

~~~
thisisit
> Bitfinex lets you short.

The exchange with those Tethers? I am not sure hedging on an exchange with
this kind of counterparty exposure is a good idea.

> It seems as the crypto market is expanding some tokens are losing their
> tether/bond to BTC

How do you figure? It will be interesting to see which tokens/coins are those
because I am sure all of them have positive correlation with BTC.

~~~
corford
>The exchange with those Tethers? I am not sure hedging on an exchange with
this kind of counterparty exposure is a good idea.

Agree. I don't use Bitfinex and I don't short. But many people do and for
certain risks/fluctuations it provides them some hedge.

>It will be interesting to see which tokens/coins are those because I am sure
all of them have positive correlation with BTC.

Watching the recent lead-up to the 2X fork (and subsequent last minute
cancellation) was quite instructive. There was a lot of correlation between
BTC and most Alts (initially everyone selling alts so they could boost their
BTC holdings prior to the fork date and then everyone selling BTC to get back
in to Alts as soon as the fork cancelled). XRP on the other hand stayed
relatively stable throughout the worst of it.

It's still early days but if the overall crypto market becomes big enough, has
sufficiently diverse investors (with differing long-term/short-term goals) and
some form of regulation appears to remove the worst excesses of
scammers/manipulators, I think a handful of coins/tokens will float and exist
independently of BTC's fortunes.

~~~
corford
And there's a nice real world test of this happening right now :) BTC is
experiencing a flash crash. I've taken a screen shot that shows the effect on
Alts ([https://imgur.com/a/4vNOP](https://imgur.com/a/4vNOP)). Almost
everything is down but at the moment DASH is still in the green and EOS has
only lost 2% (compared to others losing 12% or more).

Will be interesting to see if DASH stays green or starts to hit the red like
everything else.

