Bitcoin passes 600

by aburan28 • 13 years ago

10 16 13 years ago

fat0wl5• 13 years ago

Do these numbers really mean anything? Not being sarcastic, this is a legitimate question. When people talk about Bitcoin it sounds like unicorns. Can you really just buy & sell & turn a profit? How does a currency inflate so much in a short period of time?

I wish I could hear an economist's analysis rather than the inevitable chorus of "I told you so, I'm a jillionaire now!" from Bitcoin advocates.

alaskamiller3• 13 years ago

Limited supply, excess demand.

Creates an awkward situation where no one will pay pizza with bitcoins for awhile.

fat0wl5• 13 years ago

Yeah but where is all this demand coming from? Do people really think it will just keep going up without a crash?

Personally I wouldn't pay $600 for something that someone paid $5 for in recent memory. It's like buying a stock during the peak of a bubble that's about to burst.

fat0wl5• 13 years ago

Hmm... but it's kindof scary that it's supposedly a currency but it's not really in practical use.

From Wikipedia: Speculators have been attracted to Bitcoin, fueling volatility and price swings. As of July 2013, the use of Bitcoin in the retail and commercial marketplace is relatively small compared with the use by speculators.

It reminds me of a similar analysis I read of Amway -- how only a small percentage of the products ever make it to retail consumers.

If you have a currency that is supposed to end in consumer exchange but can't make it back down to that level, what is it really? It's a huge bubble that will have to go through many more transformations before ending up back in your wallet. Maybe by that time the gov't will have figured out how to tax it, or more exchanges will have disappeared.

I don't know, seems odd. An interesting risk for those who believe in easy money, but it's strange to me that a gamble that so many are making would pay off for everyone involved. That's a very... ponzi scheme level of idealism. Once the price started to rise I think maybe it ceased being a viable currency and instead became a fantasy for those wanting to trade it at a profit. I mean, the price of currency isn't supposed to be so volatile, right? If the USD for example, were jumping around like this would people invest in it? Or would they lose faith in the dollar?

EDIT: I found this article that seems to address a lot of these issues. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_ch...

chuinard• 13 years ago

If you had a Coinbase account, you could've bought up to 50 in the last week or two around $300, and now could sell them all back and make about $10,000.

fat0wl5• 13 years ago

Are there any success stories of people who have done this? How easy is it to buy/sell? I heard something like "a mass sale would trash the price" so why hasn't that already occurred?

icedicedavid• 13 years ago

Yes, there are many ways to buy sell bitcoins. One of YC's company Coinbase is a good place to start: http://coinbase.com

Then there are many more such as http://bitstamp.net

http://mtgox.com used to be the biggest, but now they are slow to withdraw in USD.

You can see the pricing of bitcoin across multiple exchanges here: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/

Bitcoin passes 600

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