BITCOIN

Scottex99

Any promotion made by people who have a vested interest is going to be ramping. BC may well go to $100,000 this year but it wont get there because people believe in the technology or because its a great way to carry out transactions. It will get there because ordinary investors will push from the bottom which only works whilst there are ordinary investors willing to do this. As soon as there is a large sell off the market will collapse just like any other market, the difference being there is no underlying value to stop it falling completely.

Lol, is that a fact?

So it will "fall completely" to what? Zero?

I have no problem coming back on here in 2 years and proving you wrong. Or 2 months or 200 months actually. You pick the timeline if you want

bugbyte_2

You or I do not know what it may fall to. To quote Yahoo Finance:

• June 2011: -99%
  In 2011, Bitcoin hit the big time when it soared from $2 to more than $32, achieving parity with an ounce of silver. Then the bottom fell out. On June 19, Mt. Gox — the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world by far — admitted that criminals had hacked hundreds of accounts and stole millions of dollars worth of Bitcoins. In a single day, the value of a Bitcoin fell to one penny.

• August 2012: -56%
  In August 2012, the public learned that a classic Ponzi scheme updated for the digital age had been bilking crypto investors for months. Promising incredible returns of 7% weekly interest, the culprit — later charged, convicted, fined and imprisoned — had stolen 700,000 Bitcoins by deception.

• April 2013: -83%
  In April 2013, Bitcoin became a victim of its own success as investors piled on to the exciting new opportunity that was buzzing in the mainstream media. Trading was so intense that Mt. Gox couldn’t handle the volume, and when it crashed, hackers attacked the vulnerability. It forced Mt. Gox into an unprecedented total shutdown, sending prices from nearly $260 to $50.

• December 2013: -50%
  When China banned Bitcoin at the end of 2013, it lost 50% of its value overnight, according to the Guardian. China’s relationship with cryptocurrency remains turbulent and the country continues to add new restrictions today.

• December 2017-December 2018: -84%
  2017 was a landmark year for Bitcoin, which broke all its own records and peaked near $20,000. Then, on Dec. 27, it all came crashing down as investors harvested gains from what was an obvious bubble and sent the price cratering below $12,000. The cryptocurrency would remain in the doldrums throughout 2018, as major hacks in Korea and Japan — as well as rumors that those countries were planning to ban Bitcoin — sent already skittish investors looking for the exits.

• March 2020: -50%
  The pandemic did not spare Bitcoin, and when the markets crashed in March 2020, the Bitcoin market crashed even harder. Bitcoin lost half its value in two days. Over a month, it fell from above $10,000 in February to below $4,000 in March.

• May 2021: -53%
  In April, Bitcoin was the talk of the investing world as it roared past an astonishing $64,000 for a single coin. Then, in a flash, $1 trillion in value was wiped off the global crypto market in a single week. First, Elon Musk went back on a promise to accept Bitcoin as a payment for Tesla cars. Then, China announced yet another crypto crackdown. Finally, the public learned about the environmental impact of Bitcoin mining and crypto investors found themselves in a familiar position — at the mercy of forces beyond their control

I don't understand why you think I am wrong. If crypto only has market sentiment as underlying value, and market sentiment can change very, very quickly as demonstrated above, or just be manipulated by big players, or can be wiped out by hackers, or wiped out by government intervention, then there is no underlying value to stop it falling to zero. I didn't say it would, just that it can.

You appear to believe in its infallibility - good for you! 

Scottex99

Ha, yahoo. Put the pump figures next to it too. It’s all irrelevant as it makes new ATHs after each dip anyway.

Why is it just market sentiment? It’s store of value, it’s the scarcity, it’s decentralised network, it’s the ability to transfer with no authority in the middle, it’s the option to store assets off grid, yada yada yada. The price is actually one of the least interesting things about it. 

But yeah it’s going up against USD regardless. You say 0, I say 100k, let’s see how we do. Imo it’s never going below 20k ever again never mind 0

worldtraveller

IMHO, we're now in the Jean-Paul Rodrigue's 'Return to Normal' phase of the classic asset bubble!

File:Stages of a bubble.png - Wikimedia Commons

Good luck to all those that probably still just don't get it!

What maybe concerns me more than anything else, are the, mainly young, inexperienced, social meeeeedya led investors, especially those that got in 'late', who still believe that any investment will continue to rise, forever! But, like us all, it will be a learning curve going forwards, for some a shock!

GLA!

Adyinvestment

Bitcoin is worth whatever people will pay for it - exactly the same as any share, and S&P 500 companies now have an average expected lifespan of less than 20 years and plenty go to 0.

The thing with Bitcoin is it is right at the beginning (in my opinion) and the adoption rate is staggering, I am betting on Bitcoin being around far longer than Apple...unless they put Bitcoin on their balance sheet!

thegentleway

Do you really only have your seed phrase in your head? Have you considered what happens when you die?

Scottex99

Nope as I have about 20

Section62

Scottex99 said:

Valid point but no government can stop BTC or "turn off" crypto. They can't.

They can make it difficult at the on/off ramps, for example blocking me taking cash from Coinbase to my bank or forcing banks to not give me a mortgage because I once sent £50 to Binance in 2018.

But they can't stop me sending BTC to any wallet in the world.

Could they make it very difficult for companies in the space? Yes. Can they stop everything when they want? No. There's already protocols worth hundreds of millions built by anonymous devs. DAOs is going to be a big play too in the future...

Sure to the first BiB, but that wasn't the point I was making.

The point is whilst a local government is controlling the communications networks (or has the ability to do so) then that government can stop you sending BTC to any wallet in the world (the second BiB) whilst you are in their jurisdiction.  They just deny you access to the network which you need to use to make that transaction.

Someone in smalltown Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe (etc.) who has just been turned away from their bank by a government official is likely to be equally at risk of finding none of their devices have got a connection.  Arguably more so, because the goto response for governments in trouble is to shut down communications so the population cannot organise themselves in opposition, and so they can't tell the world what is going on.

...until of course someone comes up with decentralised citizen's communications networks which are hardened against government blocking.  But as it remains a challenge to get a decent connection in parts of developed countries, it will be a while before downtrodden folks around the globe will be able to establish non-governmental interference-free networks to use crypto as an alternative if the government decides to deny them banking facilities.

Starlink or similar as an alternative comms system? Still uses EMR, still vulnerable to blocking by a government that wants to deny citizens their rights.

Scottex99

Ok so on a technicality they could shut down the internet for the whole world to stop me being able to plug in my ledger and send the BTC, fair enough.

Assuming they are not spending precious government money and their top spies to track my individual whereabouts then I can leave whatever jurisdiction I'm in and do it somewhere else, ledger in my pocket, or seed phrase in my head.

Good point about the 3rd world and their networks though. Either way the most decentralised forms of money or assets are now upon us and a lot of cool stuff is about to get built

bugbyte_2

Scottex99 said:

Ha, yahoo. Put the pump figures next to it too. It’s all irrelevant as it makes new ATHs after each dip anyway.

Why is it just market sentiment? It’s store of value, it’s the scarcity, it’s decentralised network, it’s the ability to transfer with no authority in the middle, it’s the option to store assets off grid, yada yada yada. The price is actually one of the least interesting things about it. 

But yeah it’s going up against USD regardless. You say 0, I say 100k, let’s see how we do. Imo it’s never going below 20k ever again never mind 0

Ha, facts. 

I never said 0, I said could go to £100,000, could go to £0 - as did your good self in an earlier post. Looks like we agree after all. To state the obvious:

Crypto is only a store of value whilst people believe it is, as there is nothing - no dividend, no coupon, no assets - underlying it. Nothing. Just a string of numbers someone somewhere decreed is worth x amount. Interestingly, it is only worth x amount because Fiat exists. Bit ironic. If there was no Fiat, how would you value it? What would be replicated in the CPI basket of goods? I'll start with hand grenades and Japanese Tosa.
Its not scarce, anyone can freely buy it.
The ability to transfer with no authority in the middle is great until you need some protection against fraudulent action (that would never happen with a currency specifically designed for fraudulent action). Tell me you would happily buy a house or a car with Crypto if there was no record of you buying that house or car?
Option to store assets off grid? What grid? Don't you need electricity and 'the internet' to access your coins?
Yada, yada yada - Nope. cant help you there. 

Just sayin, whatever language you dress it up in, its still a string of numbers which has value just because market sentiment says it does, and market sentiment changes. As long as you are aware of this and do not try and put meaning and attributes where there is no meaning or attributes to make yourself believe you are investing in something more than it is, then all is good in the world - enjoy the ride!