
No End in Sight for Crypto Sell-Off as Bitcoin Breaches $4,250 - ilamont
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-20/no-end-in-sight-for-crypto-sell-off-as-tokens-take-fresh-hit
======
simias
Since the article states "the trigger for the latest sell-off is unclear" I'm
really curious if somebody here could venture a guess about the reasons for
the sudden drop. The Bitcoin Cash fork seems suspiciously correlated but is it
big enough news to cause such a turmoil?

Being a cryptocurrency-skeptic I won't pretend that I don't experience a
little bit of schadenfreude when I see CC crash, however if I'm trying to be a
bit more constructive I suppose that means that we're nearing the "make or
break" point: if the huge investment in cryptocurrency-related technologies
over the past four years or so manages to produce something actually useful
over the next year I have no doubt that this is only a temporary set-back and
we'll see BTC (or some other coin) breach $20k again.

On the other hand if, like I believe, it's mostly scams, empty promises and
poor understanding of technology and/or economy, then this might be the
beginning of the end. Hype can only sustain a $100 billion market cap for so
long. That being said I wouldn't be the first Pythia to erroneously predict
the downfall of cryptocurrencies...

~~~
jeletonskelly
Trading volume has dropped significantly over the last 6 months. Large holders
have been patient waiting for new money to enter the market. Eventually, when
the only activity is a few automated traders and the exchange liquidity
provider, large holders are faced with opportunity costs of investing in
something else and the limited liquidity the market can absorb as they exit.
It's a domino effect as they see each other wiping the liquidity off the books
as they market sell. No one wants to be the last one holding the bag.

~~~
superkuh
This is also the result of the federal governments of the world, the US in
particular, choking off all the fiat<->crypto exchanges with their expanded
and draconian know your customer laws.

As an anecdote, I didn't buy my monthly bitcoin purchase early this month
because I've been (and still am) locked out of my ~5 year old coinbase account
I use constantly because they are being required to require new forms of ID
and I cannot supply it.

Even if the stupid speculation markets and their off chain antics didn't exist
this would be a problem.

~~~
scient
Yeah, KYC/AML is totally bad because of trying to actually prevent money being
funnelled into crime organization etc.

This is why I cant stand ignorant crypto-fans.

~~~
Hermel
Even according to the IRS's own estimates, laws like Fatca would never pass a
cost/benefit test. The implementation costs of such bureaucratic monstrosities
is in the range of hundreds of billions, whereas the benefit is a few orders
of magnitude lower. The established banks do not complain much about it
because the high fixed cost of compliance disproportionally affects small
firms, thereby protecting them from being disrupted by innovative startups.

~~~
simias
So I know next to nothing about these regulations but what do you mean by
"cost/benefit" exactly? Surely if these rules are meant to fight (directly or
indirectly) organized crime then you can't just judge them on the amount of
money saved? If you spend $10 millions to prevent $1 million to reach a
terrorist organization, can't you consider it money well spent?

~~~
wpietri
Exactly. If we want to do a true benefit calculation, we have to look at
alternate futures.

One important future to avert is where organized crime is rampant. Even if we
look at only the economic costs, one study in Italy suggests mafia domination
cost 16% of per-capita GDP. Given the US's $20 trillion GDP, that's quite a
lot. And that's ignoring people's preference for security and safety. As an
entrepreneur, for example, I think it's great that I don't have to worry about
paying for "protection" to keep from having my business burned down or my legs
broken.

We also have to look at terrorism. KYC/AML work to keep cash out of the hands
of terrorists. Terrorism is, moral and human cost aside, very expensive. The
9/11 incident alone sees estimates in the $2-3 trillion range for total
economic costs.

So even if KYC/AML really does cost hundreds of billions, which I doubt, it's
a bargain compared to the problems it's meant to prevent.

[1]
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12235](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ecoj.12235)

[2] E.g., see [https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-world-
after-911-part-...](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-world-
after-911-part-i/) and
[https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011...](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-
graphic.html)

~~~
antidesitter
> One important future to avert is where organized crime is rampant... one
> study in Italy suggests mafia domination cost 16% of per-capita GDP. Given
> the US's $20 trillion GDP, that's quite a lot.

You’re making two separate, tenuous extrapolations here. Can you justify them?

~~~
wpietri
I probably can. Did you want to ask some specific question? Better, do you you
have a way of calculating path-not-taken costs for rampant organized crime
that you think might be more effective?

~~~
antidesitter
I didn't see any calculation in the parent comment.

~~~
wpietri
Are you asking me to do some sort of calculation? If so, could you spell out
what and why?

The point of my original comment was to point out a couple of things we'd have
to include in a cost/benefit analysis of KYC/AML regulation, not to actually
do a proper analysis, which I would expect to run to hundreds of carefully
researched pages.

~~~
antidesitter
Maybe I misread your comment. What did you mean by "Given the US's $20
trillion GDP, that's quite a lot"? What is "that" in this sentence referring
to?

~~~
wpietri
That "that" refers to the implied product of 16% times $20 trillion. It's
meant to provide an order-of-magnitude notion of what rampant organized crime
could cost an economy, so that people who had previously read "costs of such
bureaucratic monstrosities is in the range of hundreds of billions, whereas
the benefit is a few orders of magnitude lower" could more usefully think
about what the benefits of crime reduction really are.

~~~
antidesitter
Exactly. You have provided no reason at all to think that repealing KYC laws
(which were introduced by the Patriot Act in the 2000s) would transform the US
into Italy, which is frankly just silly.

It also flatly contradicts the fact that the US _didn’t_ lose 16% of its GDP
to mafia activity before KYC laws were introduced.

------
apo
Having seen four of these major wipeouts over the years, here's the pattern
for this highly cyclical spectacle:

1\. Nobody cares about Bitcoin. If you tell anyone you bought it, they either
shrug or laugh.

2\. Bitcoin refuses to die. The long-predicted technology show-stoppers never
happen and the network keeps chugging. A small but dedicated group of users
continues using it on a regular basis.

3\. Speculators who had written Bitcoin off as a fad take a second look.

4\. Defying any explanation, the USD/BTC exchange rate begins a modest rally.

5\. The financial press starts running stories about that crazy Bitcoin idea,
and how it's not dead and the modest gains made by those crazy enough to buy
in.

6\. Seeing this coverage, people without much technical or financial savvy
begin getting interested in Bitcoin.

7\. Stage 6 continues relentlessly, producing jaw-dropping gains.

8\. The financial press gives Bitcoin a bear-hug, dedicating special attention
to it with special segments and even dedicated shows.

9\. A full-blown speculative mania is now in progress. Gains of 3-8% per day,
for days on end are not uncommon. Everyone, it seems, is an expert on Bitcoin.

10\. An event takes place. Most likely, the collapse of a major Bitcoin
exchange, although it could be something else. Regardless, a sharp decline
takes place.

11\. A prolonged period of USD/BTC declines unfolds. Initially, the press is
all over the story, telling the tales of woe from those who bought in at the
peak of the mania and lost it all.

12\. Occasionally, BTC/USD shows signs of life, either rallying sharply or
falling precipitously. These short-term changes are usually reversed quickly.

13\. After months or years of flat to downward USD/BTC motion, the only people
left holding bitcoin are those who understood it and wouldn't sell at any
price.

14\. GOTO 1

~~~
projektfu
"13\. After months or years of flat to downward USD/BTC motion, the only
people left holding bitcoin are those who understood it and wouldn't sell at
any price."

Lol

~~~
alexvoda
Aparently Bitcoin is emo now.

------
overcast
That's what happens when you screw over the general public in a giant pump and
dump. There is just no more money left to steal. First time was for the early
adopters at $1000, second time was for the late majority at $19,000. You're
not going to see that happen again.

~~~
strasse86
"You're not going to see that happen again."

I've heard that during the last 4 bear markets. Give it some years it always
comes back stronger to absorb fresh money

~~~
agumonkey
I know the feeling, but at one point you gotta stop repeating the same thing
forever. Bitcoin is not a new thing that will repeat 1000% growth.

~~~
charlesdm
You are aware Apple was worth $1tn as a company? $150bn more or less in the
grand scheme of things isn't a lot of money, which is about the size of the
crypto market.

I just don't see banks and institutions (i.e. Nasdaq and Vanguard) building
out crypto capabilities to then not use them. They'll market the hell out of
them at some point, and the cycle will repeat.

~~~
thisisit
> I just don't see banks and institutions (i.e. Nasdaq and Vanguard) building
> out crypto capabilities to then not use them

Let me start by saying that I agree there will be a repeat. But, the assertion
that companies build some capability to always use them is wrong. What
companies did was look into a hype cycle and bought into it as the next "cool
thing". After sometime they will forget it even exists. And move on to the
next "cool thing".

------
bhaak
_picture of a bitcoin man on a free falling rollercoaster screaming
/weeeeeeeee/_

What's the purpose of that article? What can be discussed about Bitcoin and
the other crypto currencies that hasn't been discussed here several times
already?

There is no news besides the price collapsing but that has happened before as
well. _But this time it 's different_ They are saying that during a bull run
and during a bear market.

I don't believe that, there's no limit to human greed.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _What 's the purpose of that article?_

I stopped watching cryptocurrency prices about a year ago. The novelty wore
off. These articles say “hey, that thing you forgot about is doing something
interesting—give it a minute.”

------
LMYahooTFY
And still, even on HN, the discussion of cryptocurrency is oscillating between
totally different axioms?

Some of us speak as prophetic market analysts and bring up "nails in coffins"
and other crystal ball bull shit, and some of us wonder about the technology
itself and understand that the price against the dollar only matters to
gamblers.

~~~
na85
Has anyone come up with a use case for blockchains yet, that isn't buying
illegal drugs or money laundering?

I keep seeing pie in the sky hypotheticals like "supply chain trust" from
people who think farmers are etching their cucumbers with serial numbers, but
I've yet to see any use case presented for a blockchain that has real utility
and isn't better solved by existing processes or systems.

~~~
bhaak
They aren't cucumbers but over here in Europe, eggs do have a serial number.

Making an analog asset machine readable and tied to a trackable digital asset
is certainly an entertaining thought.

Especially for an industry like the food industry where currently we have to
trust that the state is controlling them correctly or even that they are
controlling them themselves (which several food scandals showed that this
isn't working very well).

But we're still early days in that regard. None of the existing crypto coins
could handle the necessary transaction volume.

~~~
nsomaru
do you have a counter argument for: "you still need to trust the devices that
write to the blockchain" \-- so ultimately you would be trusting the supplier.

~~~
hanniabu
In order to write to chain you need a key. If malicious activity is found,
these keys can be banned from the network along with any products that they
verify.

It's not that the system can't be exploited, it's introducing incentives to
make it economically unviable to do so.

------
arijun
Good. Bitcoin is too wasteful when it’s at a high valuation. The amount of
resources in both electricity and gpu hardware that gets locked into mining is
too high.

It can still do it’s job as a currency with a lower valuation.

~~~
dragontamer
The problem is that all that computing power still exists. If the hashrate
drops, then a 51% attack becomes possible.

Remember that those mining farms still exist, even if they've temporarily
turned off their mining equipment. Someone can turn all that equipment on
suddenly to attack the network and start double-spending their coins.

In effect: the hashrate MUST remain high if the BTC network is to remain
secure. That's just how Bitcoin was designed. A big drop like this where
"good" miners start to turn off and sell off their equipment puts BTC in a
highly vulnerable spot.

The electricity usage will remain high, OR a 51% attack will happen. The
electricity usage can never drop without severe risk to the entire system.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _The electricity usage will remain high, OR a 51% attack will happen. The
> electricity usage can never drop without severe risk to the entire system._

Sounds like the best argument against bitcoin I've heard yet.

~~~
hndamien
The forking also seems to have had some unintended consequences of changing
the use of hash power such that the main chain is more vulnerable.

~~~
asdff
It also ruined the concept. In its most innocent terms, bitcoin is for sending
money to people. What happens when person A has all their wealth tied up in
Bitcoin Cash #1 and person B has it all in bitcoin cash #2. What coin does
person C who wants to send something to person D use? With every new coin, the
argument for switching to bitcoin for transactions weakens.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I mean, that argument works for any currency. All my wealth is in US Dollars,
all my cousin's wealth is in Russian rubles.

What does Person C use to send something to Person D? Whatever Person D deems
as acceptable.

~~~
hndamien
Hence medium of exchange, not so much store of wealth.

------
kamaal
Only a few months back, I happened to talk to a person associated bitcoin
trading. You instantly get that feeling of talking to a person deep in a
pyramid scheme.

He talked endlessly about how he plans to buy a luxury villa with all fancy
facilities worth crores, and an expensive car, and it would all happen, and he
would defy the world and rub it in their face. All with bitcoin money. He
continued to justify his actions, decisions with unimaginable zeal. The
closest I've seen this kind of conviction is among high religious people. It
almost felt the same way.

The general feeling among this crowd is their heaven is only steps away, and
will come to pass sooner. Other people will left watching, and will come to be
envy of their success. And he can do all that by just investing in some coins
and watch it become very big.

I was tempted to debate, but given how deep he was in fantasy, I thought it
best that he be left alone, at least the guy can have fun in his thoughts
while he can.

But the larger problem is with people, so many people want to do so much with
one life. Many people go into wrong academic tracks, end up being accountants,
or real estate brokers or whatever. And they see no bailing or escape from low
paying jobs, and living working through a mediocre career, under achieving all
the way. Its easy to lure such people into any thing that mildly looks to pay
disproportionately with little effort. What follows next is religious
conviction in such pursuits, even if they can proved totally irrational.
People do like to believe miracles can happen in the face of every day
mediocrity. And when ponzi schemes come along, they helpless fall for them.

------
ladybro
Miners in China supposedly throwing out their rigs after this latest crash
made them too expensive to keep running.

[https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1064878600594305025](https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1064878600594305025)

~~~
all2
Does this mean GPUs will be flooding the market? I've been looking to buy
something for gaming...

[https://us.bidvoy.net/gtx_1070/27386](https://us.bidvoy.net/gtx_1070/27386)

Guess not. I suppose if most of the miners are on BTC, they'll be using custom
ASICs.

~~~
prolikewh0a
The price of other crypto's reliant on GPU's will also fall with the price of
Bitcoin, likely making them unprofitable.

GPU prices are fairly cheap right now to be honest. I just picked up a GTX
1060 6GB for $139.

------
emerongi
Bitcoin still has a $77B market cap. This is bigger than many well-known and
long-living companies. Let's be real - Bitcoin still has a long way to drop.

~~~
ceejayoz
Market cap is a silly way to look at crypto.

A well-known and long-living company that went from $19k/share to $4k/share
would be rightly deemed to be struggling, and folks would have concerns about
its long-term potential.

~~~
prewett
The thing about a company is that its share price doesn't have to be related
to the health of the company. Lots of companies' share prices dropped 50% in
2008, but that didn't mean that the firms were struggling, it meant that
people were afraid of the firm struggling, or even merely afraid that they
wouldn't get their money out so they sold at a loss to get something. Imagine
if Coca Cola (KO) dropped 50% today. Is KO struggling? Not at all. You have
cause and effect backwards. The firm deemed to be struggling tends to have its
share price decrease. And those that can tell the difference between a company
that _appears_ to be struggling and one that actually _is_ struggling make
money.

Unlike most companies, though, which provide tangible goods and services for
which people pay and has factories and stores and real estate you could sell,
Bitcoin is just a list of numbers floating around.

------
tgb29
Investing in crypto currencies because you believe in blockchain technology
doesn’t make sense. Any good use case I’ve thought of doesn’t require public
chain.

So why invest in a specific crypto? How is Bitcoin fundamentally more valuable
than Ethereum? How are either fundamentally more valuable than EOS? As a
currency or store or value, each have essentially the same properties. Leaks
in the ecosystem, like scam ICO and products like Tether only siphon money
from the market. At least gold or silver doesn’t have this problem.

~~~
52-6F-62
I'm generally with you— but the value in a public chain is probably just not
having to set up the larger infrastructure yourself, and rather just tie into
the existing network.

Couldn't you say, why invest in companies that support the internet backbone
rather than Cisco?

Definitely couldn't answer why one is more valuable in dollars over another.
There does seem to be more practical use and development of Ethereum out there
than the others (at least from where I've stood).

But that more or less would support your point—I've definitely seen more
groups just creating their own private fork or networks rather than directly
tying into the public chain— JP Morgan, Microsoft, etc...

 _Disclaimer: I do own a few Eth, I bought some time ago and have just been
sitting on. It was never to be a serious investment, just wanted to play
along. Never bought into the ICO madness._

All that said, I always thought this was interesting as a use case (also
further supporting your point):

[https://qz.com/1118743/world-food-programmes-ethereum-
based-...](https://qz.com/1118743/world-food-programmes-ethereum-based-
blockchain-for-syrian-refugees-in-jordan/)

> _Building Blocks replaced the payment part with a ledger that records the
> transactions on a private version of ethereum that it developed._

~~~
tgb29
IBM, Microsoft, and AWS each have private Blockchain solutions that can be
launched in under an hour. It’s not easy to build your own network, and it
might not have a native currency, but I’ll use one of these solutions if the
business case requires privacy and permission controls. Public Ethereum is an
amazing invention for many reasons, but asking users to pay for their
transactions is a tough sell from a UX perspective.

~~~
52-6F-62
I definitely agree. Though I will say, even though I can't easily picture a
use case—that fact hasn't entirely convinced me there isn't one.

------
jeletonskelly
Cryptocurrency crash will hopefully bring expectations back in line with
reality. Legit blockchain projects will only have to deal with the stigma from
being associated with a giant pump and dump when they approach VCs.

~~~
Daishiman
I have yet to see a _single_ blockchain project that's actually interesting
and worthy of anyone's attention.

~~~
jeletonskelly
I think secondary markets could benefit from a distributed trusted database
with smart contracts.

I also think that behind the scenes on wall street there are some interesting
things around securities settlement, something that is very time consuming and
it's handled with some antiquated technology.

If securities trades are settled faster and ownership is more easily verified
it could lead to some very interesting shareholder voting behavior.

The problem with all of these is that it requires a deep understanding of the
process and the nuances of the industry to build a DLT solution that works.

~~~
Daishiman
For any solution for settling trades, the one without the blockchain will be
faster. And the use of electronics for trading systems where it makes economic
sense is already a done deal.

~~~
jeletonskelly
I'm talking about inter-broker settlements. Like settlements of securities
between large banks. The actual physical securities that are stamped and all
that.

------
throwaway487548
What is interesting, the losses of those who got in after $10k could be
approximated by analyzing daily trading volumes, and the sum of loses is about
to exceed by far the .com loses.

Such a huge loss of real, usually borrowed, money must affect the economy, at
least in US and Asia.

~~~
awakeasleep
Now this is the article i want to read

------
mavdi
Ouch for my crypto investment, makes no difference to my crypto product. And
that's the point, price of bitcoin is irrelevant to most crypto products.
We're in the business of Fiat > Crypto > Fiat instant money transfers which is
immune to what the current market is.

Crypto as a technology will keep moving forward.

~~~
notyourday
> We're in the business of Fiat > Crypto > Fiat instant money transfers which
> is immune to what the current market is.

You should chat with Pablo, Luiz and Patel. They own a bodega, a bill pay
stall and an electronics stall in a rapidly gentrifying part of Brooklyn. All
three of them have been providing this service for years, without the need for
expensive computer equipment or bitcoin. Some of their customers don't speak
English, have a fourth grade level of education and just fill out slips of
paper to send/receive money worldwide within a few minutes.

------
rusk
Still nowhere near low enough for me to feel okay about ditching back in 2016
...

~~~
emerongi
I remember looking at the price of Bitcoin when it was $23, $250 and $400. I
didn't have any money, so I couldn't buy, but still fun to think about 10x-ing
my current bank account.

To be completely honest, even if I did have money, I wouldn't have bought. The
price used to go up and down by 10% like daily. At that point it feels like
gambling.

~~~
kevingrahl
Sometimes I nearly shed a tear when I open my wallet that shows me how many
coins it held over its lifetime. It even converts it into my local currency as
if to mock me. I remember times where those Bitcoin faucets (is that still a
thing?) gave you 50BTC every X hours just for entering your wallet address. Of
course I spend nearly all of them on stupid stuff later on but before they
gained considerable value. I still have an old external HDD with somewhere
between 20-50BTC on it that I broke and haven’t had the money to fix it and
retrieve them.

~~~
pault
You can't afford to fix a hard drive with $250,000 on it? Can't you borrow
some money against that?

~~~
kevingrahl
It’s questionable if the data can even be restored.

Plus there’s more sensitive data than just Bitcoin private keys on that disk
I’m not really that comfortable sending that in to some lab for data recovery.

When the disk broke I inquired what it would probably cost to retrieve the
data and I was quoted with something around 150-300€ which to me is too much
just for the small chance to actually get those coins. I don’t like to gamble.

~~~
AndrewGaspar
Discounting the sensitive data issue (I don't know what keeping that
confidential is worth to you), a few hundred bucks for what I presume is a
good chance at a 1000x up-side doesn't seem like much of a gamble to me.

~~~
kevingrahl
I assume you have more disposable income than me.

For me this would be a gamble and like I said the chance of data recovery
isn’t to high in my case that’s why I haven’t done it mainly. I had someone
who works with HDD’s take a look at it and he assumed that most likely the
platter itself was severely damaged/scratched. And there was something about
the encryption in addition to the scratches that would’ve made recovery not
that likely.

Please note that I have absolutely no idea about HDD data recovery and am only
remembering what I’ve been told a few years ago.

~~~
pault
Sell it as-is for €1,000 to someone that is willing to take the risk. :D

~~~
kevingrahl
While 1k does sound somewhat enticing that disk was my secure storage holding
all my passwords (albeit old ones), ssh keys, wallet seeds, pgp keys, 2FA
backups, payslips, bank statements.. you name it it’s probably on there..

I just keep it in case I get some unexpected money that would allow me to get
it fixed securely under supervision. I’m a tiny bit paranoid about that
particular disk falling into the wrong hands even if it’s broken :)

And well.. I didn’t exactly loose any money on it since I didn’t buy those
coins with real money so I’m not too frustrated about it.

But it was a great lesson advocating for redundancy! Now I have everything
storage related in pairs. One storage server at home, one offsite etc.. (I
didn’t loose everything, most stuff wasn’t that important)

------
tgtweak
Still up 500% since January 2017.

~~~
pc86
Still down 78% since December 2017.

What's your point?

~~~
apexalpha
Just because a bubble pops doesn't mean it's useless or dead. Many bubbles pop
in the real world, they always recover.

~~~
mbreese
They don’t always recover. It’s hard to recover when you are a commodity that
doesn’t have any inherent utility other than being a method for completing
transactions.

Also - Tulips.

~~~
sodafountan
It's a lot easier to recover when a recovery mechanism is built in - aka the
halving. We're a solid year and a half away from that event happening, it'll
go lower than this in that time but once the new supply restricts it'll make
its slow ascent back up, people will see the opportunity and the demand will
skyrocket again.

I say this a lot, it's helpful to think of bitcoin as an algorithm, I just see
this pattern playing out the same way over and over and over again every four
years.

~~~
Nursie
This only works if demand continues at all. "The halving" is of little
consequence if nobody cares.

~~~
sodafountan
Yeah I'm sure nobody's ever going to care about bitcoin again you're right.

~~~
Nursie
Not nobody, sure, but the halving really only matters if interest is at least
half what it has been in prior bubbles.

Reduced supply may push up the price... or it may not if there isn't much of a
market for the supply anyway.

~~~
sodafountan
The interesting thing is is that bitcoin enthusiasts tend to buy a fairly
steady supply over time, this is what's maintaining the current price.
Eventually demand will starts to wane off after a big run up but the core
people are still buying in steady amounts, then once the halving comes and the
demand stays relatively steady you start to see the price trend up, this draws
in new interest and runs the price up even more, then you have all the rest of
the people who are tuned out and they come rushing in and you have full blown
FOMO, all the people who've been buying steadily begin to cash out and the
price drops off.

It's happened before and it'll happen again like clockwork and that's because
bitcoin is just an algorithm.

~~~
Nursie
>> this is what's maintaining the current price

The price that's tanked about 30% in the last week alone?

>> It's happened before and it'll happen again like clockwork

I'm afraid this is a very bold prediction.

------
spork12
Funny that the top in bitcoin was the day futures started trading on it

------
tonyedgecombe
Is this below the price where it is economic to mine? Presumably at some point
the miners would have to pull the plug to avoid loosing money.

~~~
jeletonskelly
Difficulty adjusts dynamically to ensure there is always an incentive to mine.

~~~
FabHK
Difficulty adjusts when total hash power changes, so for difficulty to adjust
downward some miners will have to take equipment offline, ie "pull the plug".

------
sct202
Is there something useful that all the custom built bitcoin mining rigs can do
now that it probably is less economical to use them to mine?

~~~
zanny
Bitcoin mining has been custom ASIC dominated for years now. Almost all miners
(in terms of hash power) are custom purpose built machines. So no, they really
can only do sha256 hashing on payloads of comparable size to bitcoin blocks.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Which might make them harshly powerful password crackers for anyone daft
enough to use SHA256 as a password.

~~~
LeonM
Except that BTC does a double hash, so it won't work on any 'regular' single
hashed password.

------
jf22
I hope we start to realize the power consumption from crypto will contribute
to global warming and take appropriate measures.

------
seibelj
This is good for Bitcoin.

~~~
stjohnswarts
I agree this is the market correction I've been waiting on.

------
Danieru
The price has been bouncing off the 6k magic "resistence" for ages now. Each
bounce reaching lower and lower highs. It was only a matter of time before the
that energy disapated.

Technical analysis of stocks and efficient markets is a fool's tool, but BTC
is fool's money so TA is an efficient tool.

Yes, I did explain this prediction half a year back to my BTC holding friends.
As you can imagine; they ignored the advice.

It has taken 10 months for the trail off in public interest to feed into the
pricing model. In those 10 months a great many tricks and scams have been
played to prop up the price, we'll see more news about those tricks unwinding
soon.

~~~
dragontamer
> The price has been bouncing off the 6k magic "resistence" for ages now

"Resistance" is from above, "support" is from below.

Last week, the 6k USD / BTC price looked solid. Every time 6k was tested, the
community would buy up BTC and the price would go back up. Today, we have
blown through the 6k USD / BTC "Support" and selling has continued down,
beyond the 5k mark.

Its hard to say what the next support mark is. If you asked me yesterday, I
would have thought that 5k was the next support. But now that's been pushed
out now. So 4.5k is my assumed support area for now.

There's no "resistance" on the upper-end of the BTC market depth charts until
~7k USD/BTC. Someone really wants to sell at 7k USD/BTC, where there is
~300,000 BTC waiting to be sold (if the price ever got back to that height).
The community as a whole would have to spend over $2.1 Billion to grow from
$6.9k to $7.1k (wiping out the 300k BTC available at 7k). Such a huge-sum of
money is why that point is called a "resistance", because it will "resist"
efforts to bring the price above 7k

Just an FYI.

~~~
jeletonskelly
Don't let the order book fool you. Big players spoof the market all the time
with these massive orders.

------
mrhappyunhappy
No utility = no value. Tell me, how much utility is there one ethereum?
Currently close to none. Why in the world would anyone pay anything over
transaction value for eth? I think the answer is clearly hype and irrational
behavior we saw in 2017 crypto rush. What we are seeing is natural return to
real value, which for most crypto is next to nothing. Bitcoin is a bit
different as you know and my bet with that one is someone or multiple someones
with hefty bags are liquidating to save their asses.

------
tzfld
>the trigger for the latest sell-off is unclear

What I think has happened, a stop loss order of a big actor was hit by a
random small move and that started a chain reaction. Totally possible.

------
mancerayder
Well, what's interesting or perhaps not-so-interesting to those that
understand the underlying mechanics is: there's 'crypto sell-off' but only
Bitcoin is mentioned in the headlines. In other words, the implication is BTC
crashing leads or is concomitant with ETH and LTC and others crashing, and no
one is surprised or curious by this.

I really makes one laugh at all the "diversify your portfolio" advice of
yesteryear's crypto shills.

------
nanna
Assuming mass adoption and use is not going to happen without a turn of
events, what's on the crypto horizon, medium or long term, that could reverse
this trend?

Eg, proof of stake?

------
nerdponx
What I wonder is why BTC is still the main "entry point" for acquiring crypto
with fiat. Having so few ways to trade crypto for fiat, and so few ways to
spend crypto, means that the various cryptocurrency markets are highly
correlated. It's a bad situation for cryptocurrency as a whole.

------
theandrewbailey
Nvidia stocks are dropping like a rock, too:
[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nvda](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nvda)

------
wlesieutre
Ethereum’s dropping too, maybe I can afford a new GPU next year!

------
eruci
Crypto coins are all worthless. Just my 0.0000^-11 Bitcents

------
singularity2001
"No End in Sight" stupid title for a chart which has nearly recovered (thanks
to manipulators but still).

------
lee101
keep a close eye around any volatile times (potentially related to scares of
manipulation) :) for checking up on trends and ai forecasts of the next few
hours checkout [https://bitbank.nz](https://bitbank.nz)

------
gruglife
Wonder how this will affect coinbase. Didn't they just raise a ton of money?

------
angel_j
What would a "pump and dump" for short sellers look like?

------
softawre
Just curious, do you guys throw a bit of your retirement portfolio into BTC
just to diversify? I do, I keep maybe 3% of mine in BTC just in case.

~~~
airstrike
Just curious, do you guys throw a bit of your retirement portfolio into
roulettes at the casino just to diversify? I do, I gamble away maybe 3% of
mine just in case.

~~~
dplavery92
I get the gag here, but it's not a very apt comparison. The expected return
from a roulette spin is really well understood: a loss of about 5% of your
bet, albeit with high variance. The future of these investments is less
understood. Again the variance is high, but its performance over time is also
really good. Perhaps you have plenty of reasons to doubt the future
performance of BTC, but it's not like it's a known bad bet.

~~~
airstrike
The point is it's the same as gambling. Pure luck, no proven way to project
future demand, does not generate cash flows. It's also hyped AF so you can't
even tell what's real vs. speculative demand.

------
tobyhinloopen
HODL, buy low!

------
buildbuildbuild
My suspicion is that insider trading is rampant in the crypto world and that
someone might have been tipped off as to what the outcome might be in the
Tether investigation.

At risk of a downvote party I will express my opinion that, since many other
interesting cryptocurrencies still closely track Bitcoin’s price, this “black
friday sale” is a buy opportunity for some great other concepts.

------
cobookman
Here's a rumor.
[https://twitter.com/GeoStar79705164/status/10585100371260211...](https://twitter.com/GeoStar79705164/status/1058510037126021120)

------
coding123
One of the people that decide the price of Bitcoin lost upward control so they
are doing the next best thing. They will then re buy at the bottom which is a
number only they know, then artificially Jack it up to 5k and sell off again
and probably get out permanently.

------
throwaway487548
The legacy of Bitcoin should be studied to understand better how _memes_ or
semantic viruses are spreading through social groups and affects our inner
representations or models of the world, trained by endless screaming streams
of bullshit^W information we are forced to process.

There is nothing more fascinating than this - how a global Ponzi Scheme based
on a few memes about poorly understood abstract concepts unfolds.

~~~
cconroy
s/Bitcoin/Central Banking/g

------
aphextron
Everything sells off this time of year. Nasdaq is down 7% on the month. It’s
end of year profit-taking for tax purposes. As BTC has become completely
mainstream now, this makes sense.

~~~
metalliqaz
No, it is almost certainly related to the network split, as mentioned in the
article. There are issues with bitcoin that limit its long term potential. For
example, the effective limitations on the number of transactions per second,
and the huge energy cost for providing proof of work.

~~~
stjohnswarts
You mean the fact that it can be split ad infinitum and new bit coin like
currencies with much better properties can be had at the drop of a hat by any
dude or dudette in his-her den?

------
sea_sftwrngnr
These discussions are interesting as a distilled, pure exhibition of cognitive
biases.

Nobody has any way to accurately value BTC. Yet when it goes up everyone
discussing knew it and was right all along, and when it goes down everyone
discussing knew it and was right all along. Logical arguments are applied to
observed history & present conditions and used to forecast the future of
something fundamentally impossible to predict.

You know the future price of bitcoin about as well as you can predict my next
coin flip. Afterward, if you've guessed correctly, you might believe supreme
intuition or reasoning led you well. And if you believe you've done something
well, you're more likely to say so on some public channel such as this one.

