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Bitcoin Drops Back Below $6,000 as 2018 Loss Approaches 60%

61 points| everdev | 7 years ago |bloomberg.com

72 comments

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[+] Blackstone4|7 years ago|reply
How do you value BTC? What is a fair price? $1m? $2m? $5bn? $10tn? Do you have a valuation methodology?

My biggest issue with BTC is that it's subject to how the market feels about it. There's no cash flow. When I buy USD, I can by 2yr treasuries yielding ~2.5%.

[+] hackerman12345|7 years ago|reply
Does the cash flow in the trading/exchanges not count?
[+] charlesdm|7 years ago|reply
It's been said many times before, but as digital gold. Gold is worth about $8tn. That puts it at about an 80x multiple from where it is today. But let's be "conservative" and put a 20 to 40x estimate on it, from where it is.

It's obviously an assumption, not a sure thing. But the only thing that needs to happen is people sharing the belief that it is and/or can become digital gold, which is quite peculiar.

If large stable investors buy in (pension funds, endowments, etc) that will help massively to support price levels, after a period of value growth.

[+] ninedays|7 years ago|reply
I bought BTC when it was 15$. I bought again at 17k and bought at 6k and really don't care what the price of btc is today tomorrow or next week. I understand how easy it can be to call someone an idiot in restrospect when everything is down, but you have to know too that some people don't really care where it is _now_ and is just interested in where it go few years from now.

It is like calling people idiot because they bought btc @ 1000$ and then it dropped @ 360$. I really don't think those who bought at 1k are idiots but that's just my opinion and it's OK if other people have different opinion than mine.

Warm vibes.

[+] Blackstone4|7 years ago|reply
How do you value BTC? What is a fair price? $1m? $2m? $5bn? $10tn?

Do you have a valuation methodology?

My biggest issue with BTC is that it's subject to how the market feels about it. There's no cash flow. When I buy USD, I can by 2yr treasuries yielding ~2.5%.

[+] jjeaff|7 years ago|reply
You left out those that might say that buying Bitcoin at any price is idiotic.
[+] tcbawo|7 years ago|reply
When you play poker, luck will win you a hand but skill prevails in the long run. I have a feeling Bitcoin will end up similarly, where much of the value will eventually transfer from the initially lucky to the pros. It will be interesting what increasing concentration will have on its popularity.
[+] jjkk0101|7 years ago|reply
I don't know what is your position both in life and financially but sounds like you don't really care because you can tolerate risk and losses?
[+] panoply|7 years ago|reply
Just for a second give thought to those who purchased bitcoin when it was at 18k.
[+] weregiraffe|7 years ago|reply
Okay. The thought is "bloody morons".
[+] everdev|7 years ago|reply
Past success unfortunately does not guarantee or even predict future success.
[+] mkempe|7 years ago|reply
And then also think of those who purchased below $1.
[+] biql|7 years ago|reply
Some just expanded their investment horizon and now wait 100k by the end of 2019.
[+] toss1|7 years ago|reply
The BTC chart since last year looks very much like a classic bubble / burst sequence. Build up, running up to a hyperbolic frenzy, then precipitous drop, followed by long decline of lower highs and lower lows. This seems to be only punctuated by significant buys just around psychologically important 'support levels', which correspond with the several credible articles I've read about Tether coin being used to manipulate the currency.

The chatter is always about the next 'support level', and it always gets broken. I'm expecting it to slide down well into three digits (<= USD$ 999) before any real recovery, if there is one. The real use cases are materializing much slower than expected as the scaling issues and transaction times increase.

Edit: (& BTW, I'm a generally enthusiastic supporter of the cryptocoin concepts, just noticing that it is apparently much harder to really get there than originally thought)

[+] m-i-l|7 years ago|reply
There's fairly strong evidence that the rise from $6K to $18K was primarily the result of market manipulation [0], so in some senses it isn't a crash more like returning to normality. Although there is so much market manipulation going on it is hard to tell what normality is, e.g. the rise from $150 to $1K between Sep to Nov 2013 was due to the markus and willy bots [1]. That's one of the problems with a completely unregulated market where almost all the wealth has become concentrated in the hands of a few largely anonymous players.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17302054

[1] http://uk.businessinsider.com/one-or-two-traders-may-have-ca...

[+] Finnucane|7 years ago|reply
Markets for speculative assets and commodities are generally down, and the dollar is up. So what do you expect?
[+] lucidlive|7 years ago|reply
So everyone thinks that cause Bitcoin is down from its high that it was a bad investment? The top has been reached and it's all downhill from here?

Nobody who invested 1+ years ago is down so save your judgements for the future.

[+] tapoxi|7 years ago|reply
I just don't understand what the purpose of Bitcoin is. Everyone seems to be treating it as an investment, but its use as a currency doesn't seem to have obvious advantages over cash. Its value fluctuates wildly, transaction processing takes forever, every purchase you make is public record, the price is easily manipulated, and it takes a ton of electricity to operate.

What's the end goal of Bitcoin? What makes it worth investing in?

[+] sunir|7 years ago|reply
That’s bubble investing. Watching the face value only.

Is the face value of Bitcoin higher or lower than its economic utility value?

What is the economic utility of Bitcoin? I think that is the real underlying unresolved question that creates volatility. The market is unclear and so can’t set a price objectively.

[+] prepend|7 years ago|reply
It depends on your perspective. A lot of people bought in 3 or 6 months ago and aren’t happy. Of course people who did that weren’t used to speculating and so are unhappy now that they lost substantial sums.

It’s significant news, but not really changing any of the fundamentals that I see.

Bitcoin will become a useful currency when it is stable for long periods of time. It doesn’t matter if that consistency is at 6k or 20k or 10.

[+] tonyedgecombe|7 years ago|reply
If I'm honest I'm a surprised it hasn't fallen further, the only practical use seems to be buying drugs and it's not ideal for that.
[+] herbst|7 years ago|reply
This is a very one sided view on things. I regularly use BTC as alternative for international payments. It's cheaper, faster, more secure and honestly it feels nice to not pay into the hands of visa and master.

Namecheap and FastTech.com being 2 big examples, as well as 2 of 3 of the hosting companies I use accept it.

Not to mention that alternative chains like Eth very well have a practical real world use outside if monetary value.

Edit:// I also order pizza and Chinese with Bitcoin like once a week. Saved me plenty of fees compared to other prepayment methods.

[+] trakout|7 years ago|reply
5 years ago, maybe. You can buy flight tickets and tech hardware (Newegg) with bitcoin.
[+] ruskerdax|7 years ago|reply
This is objectively untrue. You either have no idea what you're talking about and don't use Bitcoin, or you're lying. I've used Bitcoin for years for all kinds of things. I can only surmise this isn't downvoted to oblivion because a lot of people who dislike Bitcoin (or its users) for ideological reasons use HN.
[+] Sir_Substance|7 years ago|reply
I use it for buying stuff from aliexpress on the regular.
[+] nikolay|7 years ago|reply
Bitcoin is a pathetic way to boost Global Warming so that a bunch of Chinese miners can separate Westerners from their wealth!