Bitcoin crashes...

...through £3000 per coin.

Let's see what the future holds.

They've been waiting for this bubble to burst for a while.

Intruiging to watch

Thousands of people have lost thousands of bitcoins over the years, must be a nightmare to watch for them

I tried to buy 1000 for 300 quid around 2008 to 2009 but couldn't find anywhere that would sell them to you unless you handed over all your bank details, which wasn't happening

The blockchain is a monster, the last time I looked it was about 150 Gigabytes

There's really someone out there who will give you £3K for you bitcoin?

And they don't wear a mask and a black and white stripy jumper?

Neil

Only 2 months later...

Crikey!

Don't understand them at all.......

Creating money from nothing..........................banks have been doing it ever since the gold standard was scrapped!

Looks like the skin of the bubble is getting ever thinner...

www.cnbc.com/2017/09/13/bitcoin-is-in-a-bubble-and-heres-how-its-going-to-crash-ron-insana.html

Well, I've been proved wrong- I said a bitcoin was worth three magic beans, now only one.

Jamie Dimon is a banker, Andreas Antonopoulus is an expert in Bitcoin. This link is an excellent explanation in straightforward language about the background of money and its evolution into Bitcoin. Very easy to understand - 30 mins duration.

Martin.

Virtual currencies will be the future.

But only once the establishment has proffered the trough and the Bitcoin Beast has shoved its snout into the mash and they can nip round the back and castrate the animal (to borrow a metaphor).

Bitcoin is sailing high on the lack of regulation and unbounded optimism of folks who think that because it gained value yesterday it will tomorrow. Its value depends on the ability of users to translate bitcoin into other currency in general trade; there isn't enough about yet to really encounter any barriers and much of the trade is in the dark economy. When the big investors find the only people can trade with are their fellow crims your billion dollars of bitcoin will be worth as much as the Monet or Munch you can use as security on a drug deal but only redeem for a fraction of its 'real world' value.

In other words once there is a real market for spending bitcoin rather than accumulating it, its value will drop, and when it starts to drop the bottom will fall out...

Its pretty much the only currency you can use on the dark web.,....or so ive heard.

If I invested in some my wife would think I was a bitstupid.

These arguments remind me of those between the pro & anti CNC advocates, where the debate centres around the validity of CNC in the home workshop environment and whether it amounts to cheating by the assertion of a misapprehension of being able to "have the machine make something for you" by simply drawing it. Only once you've embarked on the CNC journey do you realise that there is much more to this topic than drawing a few lines and circles and leaving the rest to the machine. I think you have similarly misunderstood Bitcoin.

Every government on the planet, as well as every hacker, has had the opportunity (for eight years) to "nip round the back" to wipe out Bitcoin, but non have managed to do so.

Bitcoin isn't being regulated by governments because it can't be regulated by governments - who would be held responsible for implementing these third-party regulations when Bitcoin is just an open source protocol? Anyway, regulation is already part and parcel of the protocol and working correctly without needing to trust any middle-man or his regulations.

I don't get the emphasis being used to steer the belief that Bitcoin is the currency of choice for criminals - are you saying there was no crime before Bitcoin? Remember that every transaction is recorded on the blockchain.

Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper is easy to find on the web and details the workings of Bitcoin & Blockchain.

Edited By blowlamp on 14/10/2017 23:20:48

I'm not arguing about the technical implementation, the security or anything else like that.

I just think that bitcoin is a currency that's being treated as a commodity.

That's exactly how gold was used in the days of the gold standard, but then gold started to get too rare...

Now you will argue that when bitcoin gets scarce you can always 'mine' more so it won't run out; but the limited supply of gold was what supported its value. As Moore's Law bites and it gets easier and easier to make bitcoin its value will, if not decline, slow down.

But the key point is as bitcoin becomes really widely traded and transferable its value will start to be determined not by investors but by its real purchasing power, but unlike currencies that are underwritten by nation states or stocks backed by companies, bitcoin is more like a derivative with no tangible real value other than the fact that everyone who has invested in bitcoin wants it to have worth.

When bitcoin starts a real slide (rather than its minor hicups to date) the World Bank isn't going to step in to underwrite it, nor is anyone else. You can bet eth likes of Paypal will be the first to jump ship and the value will just slide...

That's when they nip round the back, not to wipe it out, but to neuter it; probably by creating a some new, regulated alternative and offering you to sell your bitcoin for the new alternative or watch your investments dwindle to junk...

I bet the 'bitcoin alternative' is already set up and ready to roll...

Neil

(All speculation based on my shaky knowledge of economics but let's see what happens by 2020!)

I wouldn't argue that more could be mined, because I know it's part of the protocol that production of coins is capped at 21 million. This figure is unalterable and is what makes the supply limited in a similar way to that of gold. Each bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places.

When talking about Bitcoin, Moore's Law becomes irrelevant because the protocol regulates the mining difficulty to change in proportion to processing power. This means that the time between mined blocks stays fairly close to ten minutes. The number of bitcoins produced currently is 12.5 per block and is halved every 210000 blocks (approx four years). The last fraction of a bitcoin will be mined around the year 2140

Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cyprus and Greece had currencies underwritten by their governments, but still suffered either hyperinflation or bank bail-ins.

There may be government cryptocurrencies in the future, but no one can be compelled to use them. Why would I choose to use a bank/government generated currency that can be seized, frozen, bailed-in or have a negative interest rate applied to it when I can have a trustless alternative that gradually increases in its purchasing power?

Surely they are valuing this against something tangible? or else who's making it up?

Michael W

I wouldn't say exactly nothing, the coins and notes have to be paid for, a time when it really becomes created from nothing would be when there's no actual currency involved, this is why governments are always in debt, precisely because the money doesn't cost nothing and somebody has to pay for that.

Just like gold was discussed, the supply of physical money is limited and may be a reason why they haven't already scrapped it besides it's convenience. If money becomes truly virtual, and thereby anyone could create it, then it's worthless, unless the bank could guarantee that nobody (including themselves) would tamper with it.