Posted on 12/16/2024 9:48:58 AM PST by EnderWiggin1970
BITCOIN IS BACK. Since Donald Trump’s election victory on November 5th, the world’s dominant cryptocurrency has surged to new heights above $100,000 a unit, enjoying a rise of 138% since the start of the year. Altogether, the world’s cryptocurrencies now have a market capitalisation of almost $4trn—making them more valuable than the entirety of Britain’s stockmarket.
Holders of digital assets certainly have reason to be excited. Mr Trump has nominated Paul Atkins, a lawyer and head of a crypto-advocacy group, to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, America’s main financial regulator. The incoming administration is surrounded by Silicon Valley moguls who believe that regulation and enforcement have held back the crypto industry. A proposal by Cynthia Lummis, a Republican senator, for a government reserve of 1m bitcoin may be absurd, but it no longer seems impossible.
As such, today’s crypto surge looks different from earlier booms. Rallies in 2017 and 2021 dovetailed with rising excitement over new crypto use cases. The most fanatical believers envisaged a future in which the tech would take over the financial world, displacing stodgy existing institutions. This time, there is less hyperbole. Bitcoin, in particular, is being whipped into shape by large, mainstream investors. And so the way the market behaves is changing. The utopian exuberance of earlier crypto adopters is giving way to a more institutional and mercenary climate.
(Excerpt) Read more at -economist-com.acces.bibl.ulaval.ca ...
Bitcoin is a scam. It doesn’t even exist.
ok
How so?
I keep waiting for someone to explain to me what a Bitcoin actual is and why other than speculation it has any value.
I get why people by commodities like frozen concentrated orange juice because it has value but what is a Bitcoin? Even tulips had some value.
When my creditors accept Bitcoin as payment for debts owed—I am in.
Until that day—I am out.
Bitcoin is money that is backed by nothing at all. Just like the US dollar.
They won’t let me pay my bills with it.
,,, it does for those who believe. I see it as a computer entry that's no more than a bet on a fart that may or may not turn solid. As much as the title for this thread claims a 138% uptick, there's been significant "buying opportunities" along the way when BitCoin has tanked dramatically. Don't settle on just BitCoin, look at oil as well. There's no way enough oil is available on any given day that a contract closes, for the paper tied to each deal. So much of what's traded is a scam. This year my holdings in physical silver have increased way more than 138%. My problem is knowing what it's worth when everything that's a computer entry comes crashing down... and I sense that's likely sooner than later.
Ya ,I don’t trust cryptocurrency
Don’t let the army of scammers and flim flam artists scare you off with their fancy big claims and big words and big promises...
Remember—you can’t lose if you stand on your head on Tuesdays and scream “block-chain” over and over and over again.....
The US Dollar most definitely has backing.
Our government has both taxing authority and monetary authority over every dollar you have. They have many levels of police force and confinement options, should you not do what is right, as well. Additionally, the government has all sorts of assets and can block you from ever leaving the US, as well.
Bitcoin has none of that to back it up.
Care to rethink your comment?
,,, the $US has had one specific global marketing advantage that BitCoin hasn't had... the guarantee of the US government backing it. As a dollar is now worth about four cents, that means nothing presently. Over the decades though it was security that kept the $US as the reserve currency. When Russia was blocked from using SWIFT and the $US was effectively weaponized, that's when it lost credibility. It lost value through constant inflation by way of over printing.
Now apply the same logic to any fiat currency (like the US dollar).
Ahh, you must be an atheist of the materialist/reductionist sort. The sort of person who believes only matter and energy exist. But contrary to that view, most modern thinkers on the subject also hold that a 3rd entity objectively exists: information. Information is an objectively real, independent entity that coexists and interacts with matter and energy, but is not mattery or energy in itself.
As an example, when you read a sentence printed with ink on paper, speak it aloud to your phone, which the puts it in an text and sends around the world, it is not matter or energy that is being transformed from matter (ink) to energy (photons to the eye) to matter (brain cells) to audio waves (speaking the sentence) to electrons. If it were then E=mc^2 would be involved in the matter/energy transformations, and that would be... interesting...
But no, it is information riding on all these media that exists and is being transmitted. And Bitcoin is information, not matter/energy like gold or dollar bills. As such it is well suited for the digital age. And it is quite real, measurable, fungible, censorship-resistant, scarce, divisible and so on - all characteristics of good money.
I hear the government of El Salvador will accept it as payment as well.
Lol.
Bitcoin has a stench to it that just won’t quit.
That is great.
After it has been in use for one hundred years I will be very impressed.
Until then—I will be watching the fun from the sidelines.
Right now it smells like “safe and effective” vaxxes to me.
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