Official cryptocurrency thread (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Altcoin)

[tikay]

Proper rally in progress now. After flirting with $3,000 less than a week ago, it's north of $4,000 now.

[Pokerpops]

Today’s Telegraph Business & Money section has a front page headline of “City Watchdog targets Bitcoin dealing”

Some scary stuff in there

67 firms investigated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
49 of those investigations are completed and four out of five triggered warnings to the public about the companies involved.

Chrstopher Woodard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA is quoted as saying
“We’re concerned that retail consumers are being sold complex, volatile and often leveraged derivatives products based on exchange tokens with underlying market integrity issues.”

The joint task force comprising the Treasury, the FCA and the Bank of England has warned that “the use of crypto assets for money laundering is growing”

Stay safe crypto traders.

[tikay]

After being dormant for months, Bitcoin has had a wonderful April and has shot up 25%.

Any obvious reason? Tried googling "why", but it's just all the usual puff with no real substance or reason.

[Jon MW]

After being dormant for months, Bitcoin has had a wonderful April and has shot up 25%.

Any obvious reason? Tried googling "why", but it's just all the usual puff with no real substance or reason.

Article I saw said it was traced to a series of high value trades by a handful of traders - I don't know how reliable that is though because that's basically exactly what you'd guess in a market which can be manipulated without regulation to stop it.

[lucky_scrote]

Bitcoin still isn't dead yet? If this thread of conflicting information was anything to go by Bitcoin would have gone to zero now since all the taxi drivers have given out their advice. What gives?

[Marky147]

Liven it up, Dan!

Loved following this, even though I haven't a penny in, and don't have a clue

[lucky_scrote]

Ok fess up, who's buying? I thought all the cab drivers and eskimos had bought bitcoin now, so which suckers are BUYING?

[tikay]

Ok fess up, who's buying? I thought all the cab drivers and eskimos had bought bitcoin now, so which suckers are BUYING?

No idea, $7,823 last time I looked.

Just in time for the WSOP.

[DropTheHammer]

Ok fess up, who's buying? I thought all the cab drivers and eskimos had bought bitcoin now, so which suckers are BUYING?

IMO it never got anywhere near as high as it should have as, although many knew about crypto, they CBA to buy it as it meant jumping through many hoops.

I still believe in the concept of crypto, even though I’ve lost money compared with what I’ve put in.

[Jon MW]

Ok fess up, who's buying? I thought all the cab drivers and eskimos had bought bitcoin now, so which suckers are BUYING?

IMO it never got anywhere near as high as it should have as, although many knew about crypto, they CBA to buy it as it meant jumping through many hoops.

I still believe in the concept of crypto, even though I’ve lost money compared with what I’ve put in.

"...IMO it never got anywhere near as high as it should have...", by what metric though?

I  have seen some good uses of blockchain being implemented but it's still a very niche technology in terms of actual practical use.

Only a handful of people can use it for cryptocurrency as it benefits them more than normal currency and only a handful of people have developed blockchain uses that work better than the alternatives - where is the reall world driver behind pushing the valuation higher? Or is it all still just speculating?

[lucky_scrote]

Blockchain technology alone is worthless. About as useful as useful as saying spreadsheet technology or something. Using blockchain tech with cryptography, proof of work on a peer to peer network is what Bitcoin is all about. Eventually a few other cryptocurrencies will find a niche but I struggle to see where the breakthrough in technology there is in any other cryptocurrencies. Not saying other cryptocurrencies are worthless (although many are) as they will be valuable somehow.

The best example of a valuable cryptocurrency are the tokens that exchanges have created made in order to use their platform. They are valuable but there is no breakthrough there, meaning that it might be completely unnecessary and something better will come along.

The four technologies of Bitcoin is what was needed to create a full-proof decentralised network. The intentions of creating some kind of internet money is something that has been tried many times in the past but failed ultimately because nobody could figure out how to decentralise it. It's was figured out over 10 years ago and that network is ticking along very nicely, with many nay-sayers (including many smart people) boldly claiming it is a scam of somesort, or that it is worthless. Well, I haven't seen an argument that has much merit against the network. There is a gigantic honeypot for the taking if anyone is able to compromise the network.

[tikay]

Ok fess up, who's buying? I thought all the cab drivers and eskimos had bought bitcoin now, so which suckers are BUYING?

No idea, $7,823 last time I looked.

Just in time for the WSOP.

Over $8,000 this morning.

[Chris_T]

Ok fess up, who's buying? I thought all the cab drivers and eskimos had bought bitcoin now, so which suckers are BUYING?

Look at the cycles since it started with regard to its ATH, the drop then the new one. Regardless of its general worth / use I expect it to exceed the previous ATH by 2020. There are harder ways to double your money

[lucky_scrote]

especially as EvilPie pointed out all the complete idiots have now been bitten, all that's left now are the purists, how is there going to buy any huge buying volume again?

Unless the secret billionaires club is manipulating again, there must be an influx of eskimos and taxi drivers (again).

No one I know has really bought it for any practical purpose other than pure speculation. That's a dangerous and unsustainable position if that's all its used for.

For practical reasons of course not. You live in good ol' blighty and in 2019 nobody is going to be using bitcoin here practically.

Is there any evidence elsewhere of blockchain being meaningfully useful to people?

Yes. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/bqhfzg/venezuela_update_1_btc_is_47000000_bs_last_week/

https://btcdirect.eu/en-gb/banking-the-unbanked

Bitcoin doesn't work as a 'currency' for many reasons... Its more likened to gold.

How can anything with a finite supply be expected to be a currency? A capped supply is a disincentive people from using it as a currency, and is also so contrary to how fiat currencies work. Imagine if every year your employer gave you a cost of living pay cut. Your debts get bigger in real terms every year even though the balance stayed the same.

Slight inflation is an incentive to spend 'money', which drives GDP growth.... Bitcoin does not do this.

People who are accepting Bitcoin for their goods / services SHOULD be doing it purely from a speculative point of view and making sure they're in a financial position to do so.... If this isn't the reason / they aren't in a financial position to speculate with the amounts of Bitcoin they're receiving then they need to educate themselves more. 

There is a fantastic book called the Bitcon standard. Despite the name, bitcoin is only discussed in the last two chapters. Bitcoin is currently mined at a faster rate than Gold, but by 2025 it will be overtaken as it gets closer to its hard cap. The purpose of money is to be sound and if it can be artificially inflated then it becomes quickly unsound. Why would we want to spend bitcoin if we live in a such a consumer hungry world that is promoted by the ever devaulaing scale of our unsound fiat currencies?

The thing most people on earth consider as money is the stuff that is issued by the banks. The concept of money has changed many times over the past thousands of years, with fiat currencies being a blip on that scale. Whenever money has proven itself to no longer be sound due to ease of artificial inflation, we have seen the same story. Almost every single money in history has suffered the same fate, it is foolish to think that fiat currencies will one day not cease to exist in their current form. They break rule number 1: Money has to be sound. The only form of money that has failed to break any of the rules is Gold. Unfortunately, it is not practical in this digital age and even FIAT currencies are a better form of money.

On one hand people say bitcoin is dead, yet at the same time say it cannot work as a currency because of the hard cap- price is expected to continue to rise if it is considered a safe storage of value. It is cognitive dissonance at its finest.

[Jon MW]

...

Is there any evidence elsewhere of blockchain being meaningfully useful to people?

Yes. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/bqhfzg/venezuela_update_1_btc_is_47000000_bs_last_week/

https://btcdirect.eu/en-gb/banking-the-unbanked
...

A reserve currency in the places with a poor banking infrastructure but an adequate internet infrastructure could be a mainstay of cryptocurrency - but it's still a niche.

Why would it be preferable over using the US dollar as hard currency in the vast majority of these places?

A record of how much cryptocurrency was being used for actual trade rather than as a speculative holding would be a great resource - does anyone keep a record like this?