To ask if anyone dabbles with bitcoin?

[MollyWantsACracker]

Disclaimer: I am totally clueless

I bought a few euro worth today, just for fun really

Anyone else?

Interestingly, bitcoin dropped in Jan 2015, Jan 2016 and Jan 2017. It always recovered by February.

Maybe it will, this time, then.

Bitcoin's price rise is fraudulent trading, in today's news:

techcrunch.com/2018/01/15/researchers-finds-that-one-person-likely-drove-bitcoin-from-150-to-1000/

8th-most valuable cryptocurrency's website hacked, coins stolen.

so much comedy

www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-hijack-dns-server-of-blackwallet-to-steal-400-000/

Money attracts people or agencies who like money. (Be they hackers (or other thieves), speculators and manipulators, or government legislators etc etc.)

Just sitting here watching all my pretty money go poof.

I suppose I am now getting my Q1 crash. I might go hibernate until Spring.

Anyone buying the dip? I’m thinking about it

DH would kill me if I did. I did say last summer that if I ever saw £1500 per BTC I’d buy more...

I might buy at 10p per Bitcoin. But no more. And even then I'd think twice.

typically in the bitcoin crashes there's been a fall of around 90% from peak. but bitcoin is much useful than it used to be, so not sure that would be enough now.

all the drug dealers & child abusers have moved on now.

Hibernation for me. Actually, it make take me until spring to read an digest today's VERY worthy New York Times article about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Don't say I didn't warn you... www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/magazine/beyond-the-bitcoin-bubble.html

Don't buy the dip, it's not a dip, it's a massive massive bubble collapse. There's maybe a small chance that you'll make money, but its so so risky and an incredibly poor use of money. If you've got money to invest, buy some shares in a good company at a decent price.

Expecting meteoric rises again is like expecting 2 lottery wins in a row. I think that there is a very large probability it will fall much further, and an even greater probability that it is never used as a serious currency.

If you really want to "buy the dip", do it once it drops to $1000 or lower. You have to wait until all the selling dries up, and that will take a while!

when the price properly falls you'll have plenty of time to buy in again

pisacake - it's not at all useful as a currency, for a variety of reasons.

It can either be an investable asset or a currency, it cannot be both. If GBP were rising in value by a large % every day, no one would spend it and it too would form a bubble, rendering it a useless currency. This is why small amounts of inflation are good, and deflation is really bad. Bitcoin is designed as a deflationary currency.

sorry that was a typo. I meant 'less useful'.

people did spend bitcoin, because it had utility for buying drugs and hitmen and raping children. But it's badly designed (as it appreciates, transaction costs spiral out of control), so that's declined in favour of other currencies

Thank you Starfro. The voice of reason at last. But I still can't see how it's an asset as it has no intrinsic worth. In fact it doesn't exist outside cyber space. I am told that's because I don't understand it. Too right I don't.

Luddite that I am, I can't see how this works apart from people talking it up to other people.
Yes, yes, I know this is essentially what all currency trading is: trading on reputation. But the difference is you can buy stuff with dollars/yen/gold. And currencies are usually underwritten by nation states, bonds, or larger political entities. Even if they go Tits Up they are likely to regain some

Way too risky for me and I don't believe in the product. Actual currency is for the time being going to have more traction than a crypto one.

It smacks of dotcom boom all over again. People talking up assets with little sustained value.

Regain some value that should say.

If bit coin goes tits up who is going to shore it up and fight for its survival? The largest holders? Why would anyone believe them?
"Your currency - it's worthless!"
"But, it's bit coin! If it goes down I will suffer irreparable personal loss/ all the other bit coin investors will suffer similarly"
"Oh dear. Sorry about that old chap. Bad luck. Byeeèee"

Thanks for that piece, Over. I read it all. (Gawd help me.)

Ragusa, the price can be made by fraudulent bots without money changing hands.

That's what happens when you have a libertarian fantasy without government regulation.

So they definitely prop up the price to a great extent. Plus the exchanges are run by fraudsters & criminals too. The saying is if you can't see the sucker at the poker table, then it's you. So they do need some fools to buy in at £10k and what not. But most of the price is from manipulation.

When you look up the exchange rate how can you be sure that's even anywhere near accurate. It could be a total lie if it's unregulated. Are people actually getting their money out. If they are that's something. Can't see anyone putting money into this now unless price absolutely crashes. Then a few probably will thinking it will bubble up again.

well obviously it's not anywhere near accurate, that's why bitcoin fluctuates more in a day than a real currency does in a year.

apparently computer manufacturers have made billions in hardware sells to bitcoin miners, but they believe it's a bubble, so they refuse to increase production, so the result is a price bubble in graphics cards.

Viviennemary - no, I don't think it has any intrinsic value either. What I meant was that it is being treated as an asset by those buying it, yet they claim that it is also a future currency (and it cannot be both). Value is quite complex, and ultimately is in the eye of the beholder, but most things have something backing them.

I would say that Blockchain, the software behind Bitcoin, might have intrinsic value, except:

1. No one has yet to find a commercial use for it, and
2. It's available to download for free on the internet. Anyone can take the code and modify it slightly, and start a new altcoin.

I'm not clear that it's wildly inaccurate - why would they be allowing such a downward movement if so. (Unless they're in 'sauve qui peut' mode.)