Was kind of a funny situation. He called the correct top around 7.5k and said it would retrace back to 5k, but it only went to 5.2k and he missed the correct TA because of not looking at all exchanges. The Bitmex one actually pointed towards 5.2k being the bottom, as he later analyzed in a stream. Still very close. Still, you'll find very few people saying there won't be a harsh retrace this week, it would indeed be unprecedented and make little sense market-wise. Definitely, but the last one was actually predicted and completely lined up with the Tether scandal, so it wasn't a complete FUD.
This is funny af, Roger Ver getting completely rekt in an interview and then having an epic meltdown:
We haven't had a fallout from the tether rumors, have we? The last re-trace, IIRC, was because Bitcoin Cash tried to become Bitcoin and the miners all switched over to Bcash, clogging up the Bitcoin network as there wasn't enough hash power to do timely transactions. Maybe tether FUD would lead to the next big retrace. Though several guys I trust on twitter have poked holes in the tether conspiracy, so who knows. It's started dropping some today, hopefully the alt:btc ratios start ticking up accordingly. Profits gotta go somewhere?!
This instability will ensure what many were already saying, BTC will never be a practical currency or used as such. I'm guessing at the end of the day it will be like and used like Gold, a currency that's rarely used as such, because both have properties physical and virtual that make it useful and thus valuable. All that said, I'm not convinced that this increase is not due to the limited supply and millions in forver missing/uncirculated BTC. In that sense you could argue it will go up indefinitely as the years go on. I mean it almost has to because of that simple fact.
I know you can, but I've never personally heard of anyone actually using it as a currency. Considering this is it's main intrinsic value, if everyone is just pouring into it because it's appreciating so much you would be crazy not to think this is a bubble.
Or nuts not to. Sell high imo, but time will tell I guess. I've been skeptical of bitcoin's value before it hit $1k.
That isn't its main value though. BTC is decentralized, no government control, not bound to inflation, more anonymous and a great store of value for all these reasons. Also, the value of btc can be 1mil and it doesn't make the coin less usable as a currency, as you only need a certain amount and can buy anytime.
Guys are also ignoring the utility of it as a "digital" currency. Meaning, upon mass adoption, it will be easy to go to your store and buy items with Bitcoin -- just use a VISA card that debits your Bitcoin wallet for any purchases. There are already Bitcoin ATMs in Houston that allow you to withdraw cash. Re: Gold -- I can carry a million dollars worth of bitcoin in my pockets and (eventually) spend it with a linked debit card. I will never be able to carry that amount in gold, pockets or no pockets. And good luck spending gold at any retail store in 2017.
What if someone holds a gun to your head and makes you transfer your million dollars worth of bitcoin to their anonymous wallet?
Not a bitcoin expert, but isn't the reason that criminals/ransomware writers use it is so they can receive funds that can't be tracked to them? So if someone knows that you have 250k or whatever in bitcoin on a hardware wallet, why couldn't they rob you to transfer the bitcoin to their wallet? If someone tries to force you to transfer funds to their bank account that can be tracked. Also, if I had 250k in gold I would not store it on me. I would store it in a bank that's secure and insures my money if it's stolen.
It isn't anonymous by any means and you can trace back transactions with a bit of effort. There are certain altcoins that provide people with anonymity, for example XMR is used by certain darkweb markets.
Well -- you also couldn't store 250k in gold on your person. This is generally the argument people make who are unfamiliar with Bitcoin -- they associate it with criminals, which IMO is unfair. Sure, criminals can use Bitcoin -- they can also use the US Dollar, or off-shore bank accounts, or.... you get the point. Criminals will find a way to use what is available, so I don't believe that a specific criminal instance related to bitcoin should be an indictment on its utility. Now days more than ever, people want privacy. "Get the government out of my life! Less government intrusion!" It's not not my Bank's business what I buy or who I send money to. Cryptocurrency offers a solution to that -- they remove the middle man and allow you complete control of your funds. Why is this good? I can send bitcoin (for example) to someone in China, after hours, on a holiday weekend, and they will receive the funds within ~30 minutes usually with limited (no?) fees. This is not possible with other methods we have in fiat right now. Upon mass adoption, it would also eliminate the need to exchange currency when visiting a new country -- more useful I imagine in Europe (especially if Euro deteriorates) than the USA currently. Add to that the fact that most country's domestic currencies have steadily declined in value, while cryptocurrency has trended the opposite way, and I think it's easy to see why so many have jumped in with both feet. Bottom line, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Bitcoin and associate it with criminals. 99% of the people in this thread alone are using it as an investment opportunity or accumulating it as a potential future currency. We shouldn't fall into the "if you have nothing to hide, why do you need privacy" logical trap -- given we live in a digital world, with elections and politics being influenced digitally, I don't think it's farfetched for a digital currency to eventually emerge with mass adoption.
I disagree. I think instability is related to the limited/finite supply and the ever growing list of millions of "lost/out of circulation" coins. No one will want to pay and or trade in a currency that has wild swings like btc has. That's my point, Gold as a currency (is legal) is the type of currency future BTC has.
How is this any more useful than a regular VISA credit or debit card? You're still going to have a middle man taking a cut to provide that functionality to the store and the individual, plus your bitcoin network transaction cost - it's the same as any other bank that provides transaction processing. And you lose all your privacy if you're putting VISA in the middle of the process anyway. If do you create something with true privacy, then you're giving up everything people like about credit cards - fraud protection, refundability, etc. Currencies are designed to be mildly inflationary for a reason - that's what encourages commerce. Take any commodity, limit the amount of it, and then start destroying little bits of it at a time, and you'll see it appreciate. Imagine art or gold or diamonds or anything else. And now limit future production and have leakage where some disappears every year (bitcoins disappear when people lose their private keys, etc). That's not how currencies work for a reason - because it discourages spending. Why would you spend your bitcoins if you know there will be fewer of them in the ecosystem next year, meaning each remaining one should be worth more - it functions like a bond providing an interest rate at that point. For all the talk years ago about adoption as a currency, there has been no progress at all. Some merchants take it for fun, but there are no merchants that actually keep it - they just convert it right back to their local currency, and the exchanger takes a cut and makes a nice profit. It's done solely for novelty value. In fact, due to the rising transaction costs, it can't even effectively be used for microtransactions anymore. Bitcoin has value because people have assigned it value - it has very similar properties to gold in that its worth something because people value it. But it's equally as useless as a currency.
While watching CNBC, they mentioned Coinbase added over 300,000 users just this past week. They now have more users (whatever "users" means) than Charles Schwab.
I understand the concept when you're talking about direct transactions, but it's nonsensical when connected to a bitcoin-based VISA debit card because you're inherently inserting a 3rd party into the mix. But beyond that, people aren't going to go backwards when it comes to currency and just accept fraud just to be able to use bitcoins when they have a perfectly functional alternative. People don't really complain about debit or credit cards in terms of their functionality or ease of use, which is largely why every alternative payment like ApplePay or Google Wallet or Paypal-by-phone hasn't really taken off. There is also no cost associated with credit or debit cards (unless you take advantage of the ability to pay later, but that's a feature too). These are all solutions in need of a problem.
