Quite poor financial reporting from AJ to be honest. BTC is highly volatile but it has generally stuck around $1,000 for the past couple of weeks, the upward spike to $1,200 was just one of many fluctuations which has once again levelled off at $1,000.
China telling large banks they can't handle BTC will not have any impact on the currency because everyone buying/selling BTC in China weren't using the banks anyway. The "dive" was potentially a slight overreaction to the news from China but it's also a fairly uninteresting fluctuation in a highly volatile resource.
how are average people in China buying bitcoins without the use of a bank??? How do they get the cash to the seller of the bitcoin I guess is my question?
Do they walk into a brick and mortar "bitcoin store" and make a deposit (with cash)... and then they can trade from that "bitcoin store"? (Provided they accept all the risk).
Is there some other user friendly way this happens that doesn't require the use of cards that flow through financial institutions?
Or is the trade really complex currently and relegated to just "people in the know" so to speak?
Just trying to get an idea of how these new rules would affect the average Chinese.
There was an even bigger dive a few weeks ago to 300, news channels just didn't have a story, and I'm sure if Snoop Dogg said bitcoin was useless back then, they would have used that... "Bitcoin dive after Snoop Dogg loses faith in the currency..."
This is true of any market. By the time it hits newsstands, the change has happened. That's why you read charts, not headlines, when trading (if you want to make money, that is).
What most reporting is missing is that the early adopters are cashing out because it is now worthwhile to do so. And the prices keep jumping right back up, due to the late adopters.
Whenever you see a huge crash in a short period of time and a quick gain, expect it to recover. If you see a prolonged slow decline, it's time to abandon ship...
> Prices on BTC China, the country's biggest Bitcoin trading platform -- which had stood at more than 7,000 yuan (around $1,100) each -- plunged by more than a third to an intra-day low of 4,523.12 yuan.
A 33% reduction in value is a dive. It may be constrained to the yuan, to China, to the particular exchange or just the crazy fluctuations of bitcoin, but it is still a dive no matter how you slice it.
Working in amounts doesn't tell the whole story. Volatility is easier to understand when expressed in percentages. Have a look at the charts on bitcoinwisdom.com:
Explore various intervals (time period). Even at the 1d interval, there are 15% swings. Is this bad, given the qualifier that "it is Bitcoin" after all? That depends on what you expect Bitcoin to be. If you expect to use it as a currency, then yes, it's very bad. If you earned your Bitcoins yesterday, and you have to pay a bill today, then that kind of swing is a big problem. You could end up taking a 15% haircut. If you expect to use it as a speculative investment, then you've got a lot of opportunities for trading.
Both of these are fine, but they're opposing goals. Most economists agree that you want stability in a currency; that is the currency should act as an accounting measure only. It is a means of storing value at as close to NET zero gain/loss as possible, with it's real value being the ability to transact goods indirectly.
I'm not sure what values Bitcoin endeavors to hold, but if we're using duck typing, it looks a lot more like a speculative investment than a currency.
[+] [-] ChrisClark|12 years ago|reply
Yes, the virtual currency that soared from $100 to $1200 has plunged down to $1000.
[+] [-] _ak|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anon4|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javindo|12 years ago|reply
China telling large banks they can't handle BTC will not have any impact on the currency because everyone buying/selling BTC in China weren't using the banks anyway. The "dive" was potentially a slight overreaction to the news from China but it's also a fairly uninteresting fluctuation in a highly volatile resource.
[+] [-] bilbo0s|12 years ago|reply
how are average people in China buying bitcoins without the use of a bank??? How do they get the cash to the seller of the bitcoin I guess is my question?
Do they walk into a brick and mortar "bitcoin store" and make a deposit (with cash)... and then they can trade from that "bitcoin store"? (Provided they accept all the risk).
Is there some other user friendly way this happens that doesn't require the use of cards that flow through financial institutions?
Or is the trade really complex currently and relegated to just "people in the know" so to speak?
Just trying to get an idea of how these new rules would affect the average Chinese.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] booop|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theboywho|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ep103|12 years ago|reply
I know, because my coinbase didn't come through till last Tuesday.
[+] [-] Pxtl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leeoniya|12 years ago|reply
"Any statement about bitcoin's value is outdated by the time it's published."
[+] [-] orthecreedence|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iluvuspartacus|12 years ago|reply
Whenever you see a huge crash in a short period of time and a quick gain, expect it to recover. If you see a prolonged slow decline, it's time to abandon ship...
Oh to buy a bunch at 2009 prices...
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Fuxy|12 years ago|reply
Honestly i expected more but it's already recovering it was more like a minor bump in the road.
[+] [-] Aloisius|12 years ago|reply
> Prices on BTC China, the country's biggest Bitcoin trading platform -- which had stood at more than 7,000 yuan (around $1,100) each -- plunged by more than a third to an intra-day low of 4,523.12 yuan.
A 33% reduction in value is a dive. It may be constrained to the yuan, to China, to the particular exchange or just the crazy fluctuations of bitcoin, but it is still a dive no matter how you slice it.
[+] [-] bradleyland|12 years ago|reply
http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitstamp/btcusd
Explore various intervals (time period). Even at the 1d interval, there are 15% swings. Is this bad, given the qualifier that "it is Bitcoin" after all? That depends on what you expect Bitcoin to be. If you expect to use it as a currency, then yes, it's very bad. If you earned your Bitcoins yesterday, and you have to pay a bill today, then that kind of swing is a big problem. You could end up taking a 15% haircut. If you expect to use it as a speculative investment, then you've got a lot of opportunities for trading.
Both of these are fine, but they're opposing goals. Most economists agree that you want stability in a currency; that is the currency should act as an accounting measure only. It is a means of storing value at as close to NET zero gain/loss as possible, with it's real value being the ability to transact goods indirectly.
I'm not sure what values Bitcoin endeavors to hold, but if we're using duck typing, it looks a lot more like a speculative investment than a currency.
[+] [-] pionar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ye|12 years ago|reply