
Cryptocurrency bloodbath continues as Bitcoin falls below $10,000 - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/bitcoin-falls-below-10000-as-crypto-rout-continues/
======
bogomipz
>"Bitcoin fell below the psychologically significant level of $10,000 on
Wednesday morning..."

When exactly did $10,000 become "the psychologically significant" number for
bitcoin? It's only been above 10K for less than 2 months and only above 1K for
less than a year.[1]

[1]
[https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/price/](https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/price/)

~~~
placebo
I think around the time people started basing their counting system on the
number of fingers at their disposal... :-)

~~~
conanbatt
The good old 20-base system. It was the result of public outcry because _some
people_ used their privilege to have 21-base.

~~~
Brockenstein
Are you some kind of Shokan, but with a birth defect of having five fingers a
hand instead of the normal 3?

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konschubert
Bitcoin is a great prototype for something that people will actually want to
_use_.

It has some utility, but there are armies of other cryptocurrencies with
higher utility waiting to be used.

It may be that people will still assign value to Bitcoin in a couple of
decades, like they do with gold. It may also be that you'll need 100 Bitcoin
to buy a pizza.

~~~
throwaway2016a
> Bitcoin is a great prototype for something that people will actually want to
> use.

I agree so much with this. I tell this to everyone who will listen. Blockchain
will be huge and Bitcoin was a pioneer. I think 10 years from now everyone
will be using blockchain (either directly or indirectly) it just won't be
through Bitcoin.

~~~
placebo
I'll be convinced when I get a satisfying explanation on how blockchain will
scale to handle the rate of transactions in a real global economy (while
keeping all it's advantages intact)

~~~
vertex-four
The answer is reasonably simple - a globally-agreed-upon time-ordered database
can act as an anti-cheating layer for new protocols built on top of it.
Lightning Network is a simplistic option, and I reckon there'll be more over
time. These protocols may allow nodes to only watch transactions that they're
interested in, and participate in a blockchain only indirectly - storing or
even hearing about the whole chain becomes unnecessary for most nodes.

I do hope that proof-of-stake or a similar system come into being trustworthy
systems, however, to decouple the security of a blockchain from its energy
usage.

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phoe17
The fall is not as quick as the rise. There was a lot of resistance, I wonder
where the price will plateau.

Does this have anything to do with the futures?

~~~
cantrip
The fall was much quicker than the rise. There was little resistance. No one
knows where the price will plateau. This has nothing to do with futures.

~~~
rjp0008
According to
[https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/price](https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/price)
it first reached today's price on the 6th of December and peaked on the 17th
of December. It has now taken an entire month to fall to the 6th of December's
price.

To say the fall was quicker than the rise is at best cherry picking price
point data and at worst an outright lie.

~~~
cantrip
No argument here. You cherry picked price data and accused me of cherry
picking price data.

~~~
rjp0008
You didn't even have data though... you just made an incorrect statement.

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wonderwonder
Articles like this thrive on schadenfreude. Cryptos go up and down much like
the forex market but with exaggerated swings. 50% corrections are common. Will
it eventually reach the highs of 100k - 1 million? Who knows but we are living
the birth of a new technology and potentially a fundamental change in how
currencies work and wealth is stored. Could it all go to zero tomorrow, sure
but as with all investments if you only invested what you could reasonably
afford, everything is going to be fine.

I'll see you here in a few months for the article crowing BTC at all time
highs. Or maybe not :)

I'm excited for whats next, even if its nothing.

Edit: The price of BTC is not fluctuating wildly, Crypto currencies for the
most part still follow the rules of Technical Analysis

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m3kw9
The half glass full crowd would be saying is still up 10x this year

~~~
JonnyNova
Or the bag is half full

~~~
m3kw9
The problem is that a half full bag is still heavy either way you look at it

------
thisisit
Two other thread on the same topic:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16167092](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16167092)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16168149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16168149)

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legitster
Bitcoin was pitched as proof why a central bank is unnecessary. In the end, it
proved exactly why a central bank is necessary.

~~~
mrb
Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks
emphatically disagree with you. [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-10/new-
laws-allow-gove...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-10/new-laws-allow-
government-seize-savings-deposits-during-crisis)

A man who was moving across states carrying his savings in cash and who had
everything confiscated by police under civil forfeiture law emphatically
disagree with you. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/dea-asset-
forfeitur...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/dea-asset-forfeiture-
joseph-rivers_n_7231744.html)

Venezuelans who see the value of their currency evaporate and inflate 4000%
yearly because of incompetence from their central bank emphatically disagree
with you. [http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/22/news/economy/venezuela-
curre...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/22/news/economy/venezuela-currency-
crash/index.html)

You see, despite being volatile, Bitcoin still solves important issues.
Fundamentally it gives people the ability to carry "digital cash" and encrypt
it, protect it, back it up, in a way infinitely more robust than a banknote in
your pocket, or digital numbers in a computerized bank account.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Cyprus citizens who had their deposits confiscated in 2013 by their banks
> emphatically disagree with you_

Insured deposits were un-affected--anyone with less than €100,000 lost nothing
[1]. 47.5% of un-insured deposits converted to equity [2]. That was in the
depths of a national financial crisis. Meanwhile, today is Wednesday and
everyone in Bitcoin lost 50% of their purchasing power from peak mark.

[1] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-
parliament/cyprus-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-
parliament/cyprus-banks-remain-closed-to-avert-run-on-deposits-
idUSBRE92G03I20130325)

[2] [https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/2159864...](https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/21598649-bail-out-working-bail-isnt-injured-island)

~~~
Cyberdog
It's not the number that was stolen that's important. It's the principle that
a government would be able to do such a thing in the first place.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _It 's the principle that a government would be able to do such a thing in
> the first place_

What makes you think your government couldn't seize Bitcoins from Coinbase or
knock down a door and seize a hardware wallet?

~~~
Cyberdog
Nothing. Governments do this kind of shit all the time, I know.

But at least with the Cyprus bank case and those like it, all it involved was
legislation (or maybe not even that; not sure of the particulars) plus
compliant lapdog banks, plus the unspoken understanding that the government
"owns" all the official money anyway and just lets us use it from time to
time.

Yes, as long as we are subject to a government, we are subject to its theft
and violence. We can at least not make it so easy for them, though.

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woliveirajr
The problem with some bubbles is that not all are easily seem from inside, or
during the bubble.

Because it's easy to see the dotcom bublle nowadays, but those who invested in
some companies got a big money back.

~~~
JonnyNova
Many people have been calling this a bubble for a long time. Nobody cares
while they think they are making money though.

~~~
woliveirajr
I think I wasn't clear in my first post.

Yes, it might not even be a bubble. It might be the end of bitcoin and the
adoption of some other criptocurrency that doesn't take that long to confirm
small transactions. But, during the times, people might not recognize the
bubble, and people might call "bubble" things that weren't.

~~~
JonnyNova
I disagree on the bubble comment. Rightfully so only of the two camps will
eventually be right as to the current potential state of bubble. Splitting the
difference between the two opinions because the two sides felt strongly about
it is the age old centrist trap that gets us nowhere.

As for the end of bitcoin/cryptos - I hope not. A bursting of this bubble is
hopefully just a rite of passage so that they can mature and gain adoption.
Basically everyone knows what they are now.

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mordymoop
Price is already back above $10,000. Calm down, folks. It's a volatile asset.
Stop writing news articles about fluctuations.

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camgunz
The main thing is, why would I buy a sandwich with Bitcoin if the BTC it costs
could suddenly be worth $10,000?

Bitcoin is a bad currency because it's too volatile. I don't expect it to
replace conventional currencies without a regulating force, and since that's
complete anathema I think the status quo will persist.

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arcaster
When will people (journalists with a juvenile understanding of systems behind
crypto-currencies) start to understand that writing about price fluctuations
really isn't valuable as news and offers almost no sentiment whatsoever?...

~~~
mikeash
This will happen at the exact moment when people stop clicking on links to
these stories.

~~~
binarybits
Correct. Also the story took me like an hour to write, so the opportunity cost
is low.

Here's a 5,000-word explainer I wrote about how Bitcoin works. It took
significantly longer than an hour to write. [https://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2017/12/how-bitcoin-work...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/2017/12/how-bitcoin-works/)

------
adamnemecek
Yesterday, I setup a slack channel for technical discussion of crypto and like
blockchain projects. Like there aren't that many good sites for this. Reddit
overall is all about lambo memes, twitter is shit for this too and hn is a
little too "it will all go to zero". No enough consensus protocol discussions.

[https://join.slack.com/t/hncrypto/shared_invite/enQtMjk5MDg2...](https://join.slack.com/t/hncrypto/shared_invite/enQtMjk5MDg2MzAzMTIwLTEzNmU2NzVlNWFkMjNmZDI1ZGU1NzQ3MTZmNzM0NDU2OTc0Y2Y2NWMxZjBkZmI1MzMxMDllOGIzOTgwYWQ4MmU)

