maybe it isnt going to zero? https://cointelegraph.com/news/micr...nto-nasdaq-services-following-new-partnership response to the energy question https://thinkprogress.org/experts-d...study-hyping-bitcoin-energy-use-8f8744672611/
I’m assuming that because this is a gold and silver forum that in your subjective opinion gold derives its value from its physical form and that in order for something to have value it must possess physical characteristics. In other words it must be a commodity. Applying that line of thought we can dismiss love as have any value because it’s not a commodity. Furthermore fine art work in its physical form is little more than a few $$ of paint, canvas and wood suggesting the Mona Lisa is grossly overvalued. The rocks in my garden conversely have more value than the feeling an icy wind on my face evokes as I stand on the edge of a cliff watching the surf pound the shore because rocks are physical unlike emotions. The point I’m trying to make is that value is derived subjectively, it is assigned by users as they meet their needs and desires. And yes, fiat currencies have value, they are a good we use to trade, they're just not very sound because they are backed by the State’s monopoly on power and can be inflated thus destroying wealth. A good doesn’t have to have physical form in order to have value. Just because cryptocurrencies have no physical form doesn’t make them worthless.
Good points raised all round. With Microsoft now joining the crypto ranks (with JP Morgan,Goldman,etc,etc,etc) do you see this as driving Bitcoin/other Alt coin price? or just those companies/banks driving profits for the crypto products they are leveraging off blockchain(s)? My thoughts would be the two (company crypto vs currency crypto) wouldn't correlate in prices though using the same underlying tech
'So what happens if China bans mining by blocking data? (as per Korea) or demands miners only validate a Yuan crypto coin/token and nothing else?' There are some technicalities I'd need to brush up on; but it goes roughly like this: Bitcoin (et al.) were originally mined on laptops. Then more complex miners were created and put into use (by cartels). The thing to dig here is exactly the original intent of Bitcoin, readers: decentralised. So, if a Government could suddenly and completely ban/block all crypto mining, the price/difficulty (of mining) would crash in minutes. And then, all over the world, computer geeks would be dragging their old miners out of closets, to set them up to mine Bitcoin before the difficulty rocketed back up again, which it would, because all over the world, computer geeks would be . . .
Ok, makes sense and think you covered it well. If that situation did happened then it would be effectively a short term bump in the road
'Ok, makes sense and think you covered it well. If that situation did happened then it would be effectively a short term bump in the road.' I am, in a very real sense, not a crypto geek. I came to cryptos from anarchist/libertarian politics -- decades of it. My point? Cryptos are a mad house! No one in their right mind would deny this. But it's the scene that is a madhouse, the shite pile of greedies great and small who have latched on: big exchanges, small exchanges, scam ICOs, hackers, Governments -- you name it!! Now put all that aside for a minute. Completely. Please. So, One: the basic design of Bitcoin is splendid. The whitepaper says it was created to serve as a peer-to-peer currency for micro-payments (across national borders) -- really, just the prototype of a politico-financial principle. (That's why massive success clogged up the network -- no one envisioned that sort of volume would come so fast!). And I ask anyone here who has never used a crypto to try it before you set your hair on fire. I recall the first time, with the 'Franko,' on an android wallet on my smartphone, with a guy in Rumania -- dum de dum. Tap tap. Hit 'Send' . . . money in Rumania! And Two: my analysis is that the reason folks flocked to cryptos is because it represents one of the few points of resistance left *. It is an idea whose time has come. If we met at a barbecue, and you didn't know I was a crypto geek, and we got to talking about the fantastic increase in 'centralisation' -- Government authority -- in recent decades, we'd get on like a house on fire. So here's my plea: just stop worrying about the craziness of the scene. Try to get a gut-sense of just how pleased any bullion bug would be to see hundreds of millions of her fellow hoomernz escape the tyranny of bully clowns like Westpac. This is what has kept me in cryptos. A village needs just one smartphone android wallet to run their co-op at the market in town. Maybe they can't afford one-oz silver coins. Maybe they can't afford any silver coins! But some of the 'DAG' cryptos are almost literally fee-free. Administrative overheads drop to almost zero. You can use a crypto to sell a single carrot. Conclusion: cryptos are a mad house. But the technical principle is a sledge hammer with which we could all gleefully whang away at a system that we all loathe. *I'm including the secure-communications functions that are rolled into the tech -- 'crypto' meaning 'encoded.'
You are missing the point. Value is more-or-less subjective. Here are some key facts ideas that I think of: 1. Bitcoin consumes a lot of electricity and some say it consumes so much that it's not really worth mining: https://powercompare.co.uk/bitcoin-mining-electricity-map/ 2. Gold and even fiat money had a "trade system" behind them, an entire "living" infrastructure (trade system, infrastructure), which cryptocurrencies don't 3. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies exist "for themselves" like "wannabe currencies", but they're merely speculative assets, closer to ETF's, treasuries, shares 4. Bitcoin is only for a select few who know how to handle it (it simply is too damn complicated to buy, trade) - it's important what the masses use: if it's dollars, because they're a lot easier to use 5. Gold is scarce and it's real. The US dollar has petrodollar behind it (more or less), but it too is based on petrol, which is real. This is not subjective, but real, material, physical value. Bitcoin is not. It's virtual, invented. Digital fiat. 6. Look at both paths of Bitcoin: the drammatic rise (which made many rich) and the drammatic decline (which disappointed many) - after such a massive disappointment and such instability, many are already runnig away: there goes the subjective value 7. Cryptos are spreading like bacteria, countless species of cryptos and they're confusing, most created for the mere "game of hope" of winning, speculating. This is a long chain of events leading nowhere. 8. Bitcoin is "hope investment": let's invent something and hope it goes up 9. Speculation is stronger in Bitcoin than trade: few people actually buy services, products with it - most of it is speculation 10. Millions of Bitcoins were already lost. And they are still lost. And more will get lost. But yes, you can divide it... that doesn't mean it will compensate for the loss. 11. It's a pyramidal scheme: let's get in and lure many in, hope it goes up, then we will sell it or buy things with it 12. Look at the typical bubble graph: it is going down. Even right now, it's been going down, even while many are promoting it. Tulip mania, gold bubble... petrodollar bubble perhaps. It's a bubble. 13. Bitcoin died before it lived: speculative asset and crashed due to its own speculative market 14. Technically a great invention, yes. It seems like a promising technology. But it's an IT specialists's fiat. It doesn't look like it was created by economists. Economists don't understand it, only IT-software people do. And IT people don't understand economics! 15. Most of the time people buy it to sell it or in order to somehow get rid of it to buy something else (e.g. other cryptos). The entire crypto game is a "move from one pocket to the other game". 16. Where is the infrastructure of Bitcoin? It should have spread. Yes, a few sites accept it. Even Peter Schiff and some travel agencies. But Bitcoin's popularity in real use is not growing, yet it's being marketed heavily. 17. Speculators market Bitcoin. People who own a lot of it and can't stand losing. They just want to push the price higher. Bitcoin is marketing-fueled. 18. It is essentially digital fiat. Even if it were wide-spread. Why would you trust it more than the petrodollar? It crashed a lot already, now why did that happen? Isn't that called a bubble? 19. You'll most likely have to sell your Bitcoin to buy dollars, euros, whatever - because most people won't understand how it works! 20. Real trade, real use is supposed to keep a "real currency" afloat, not speculation. If cryptos would have been used in trade, then their popularity and price would have steadily risen over time. Bitcoin is not a "real trade asset"
Thanks @TreasureHunter , there’s so much to discuss from your post, so much that a response to all would fill the next 2 pages and elicit groans from the Won’t shiney! Shut Up? Set. So I’ll just comment on a few things. But before I start I just want to say I completely agree with you, value is entirely subjective. The analogy of the diamond/water paradox explains this well. It’s easier to trade cryptocurrencies than it is to trade in stocks and bonds. It’s about as complicated as buying something on eBay, and a damn less complicated than selling something on eBay. Hang on. You said value is subjective, and now you’re saying value exists because something is real ie physical? Come on @TreasureHunter, either value is subjective or it’s not. It seems I hadn’t missed the point after all, you consider gold to have value because it has physical form, and cryptos, like love, or other abstract concepts have no value because they aren’t corporeal. It’s been over USD6000 for more than 12 months now. This is higher than at any time prior to the manic end of 2017 phase. It hasn’t been going down at all. There are many schools of economics, they share some similarities but also have huge differences in the theories they apply. Now I’m no great economist, and I’m certainly not any good at IT, but I understand the theory and purpose behind the invention of cryptocurrencies. As do many economists. And vice-versa eg IT developers in the crypto-sphere are pretty switched on to sound economic theory, including Satoshi back over a decade ago. My favourite economist of the current age is Jeffrey Tucker, his writings are worth absorbing yourself in: https://fee.org/articles/bitcoin-for-beginners/ Much of what you’ve said has already been countered in previous posts both in this thread and in others. I’d honestly recommend you open your mind a little more to the potential it has for liberating us.
I think there’s a lot of antagonism toward cryptocurrencies amongst goldbugs because they may view cryptos as some form of threat to their wealth. I’d encourage goldbugs to embrace the technology and the opportunity they potentially can provide. There’s nothing to suggest that Bitcoin for example can replace every feature that makes gold valuable, there’s also nothing to suggest that cryptocurrencies and gold can’t exist side-by-side with both featuring in some form of alternative sound currencies. And there’s certainly more antagonism toward cryptocurrencies in the mainstream financial sector, just as they are antagonistic toward gold as the basis of sound money.
Tee hee -- word diet today, me. 'It is essentially digital fiat.' Completely untrue. (And if you're 'running out of Bitcoin,' you simply move the decimal point.)
I hope this is the final major correction that I've been talking about for a while. I hope this will be the big correction that is needed to remove all the excessive speculation/stupidity in this market. Once most of the shit coins are flushed out, the market can build a more fundamental base and grow from there. I'll like to see the total market cap get down near the $100 billion range.
For as long as there is a market, they will be boom bust cycle, can’t avoid that. In this case I reckon it was just a long term miner, with 20,000 bitcoins who isn’t savvy with OTC markets, selling out via an exchange, triggering stop loss orders, than the market cascading. Bearing in mind that no instituion or a sophisticated whales would use an exchange to offload any of the major crytos. That would be like Commonwealth Bank going to local moneygram office inside 7/11 to exchange currency. As for flushing out shit coins, hmm not really, doubt they were holding any coins in crypto. So until they run out of ico money, they will chug along, but you’re right when they run out cash they will go bust, no shitcoin is going to get another round of funding, unless it is a vanity coin with a principle backer.
I think the hard forks combined with Craig Wrights comments may have something o do with it as well. It seems there are some mentally juvenile people in the space with ultra big and fragile egos.
All these people live in a hermetically sealed bubble, much like hedge funds, feds and bankers, but in different bubbles.
just a regular day in bitcoin possibly yes the bch fork in the next 20 hours and the hash war between jihan/ver and cw with the threat of switching hash power from bitcoin to fight cw could have triggered a margin call on all those longs.
