Crypto currency bubble?

[Cius]

I have watched and studied a few economic bubbles and the current state of the crypto currencies is showing all the usual signs. They have no intrinsic value other than what people are willing to pay for them and their prices have gone up massively in a very short space of time.

It feels like the current raft of media on them focusing on the massive price gains is basically being driven by the initial bubble creators who are now looking for the patsy public to step in and buy them out of their position before it all comes crashing down.

I suppose their is a small chance it is going up due to greater public awareness and acceptance but overall it just looks, feels, and smells like an economic bubble. Its kinda sad if it all does come crashing down as it will forever tarnish the image of crypo currencies which as an idea is not bad.

The saddest stories of these bubbles is always those desperate last in's who carry the can. The old folk who can't work, don't have enough retirement savings to live off of, and then their kid who is tired of financially supporting them comes along with this brilliant article about how etherium went up 20x in 6 months and that will solve all our problems. Parents loose everything, son has to take the blame for bad investment advice, whole family affected negatively. The only winner's are the guys who drove the bubble in the first place and got our early, and even then I think if you deliberately create a bubble to make your millions knowing it will all collapse its akin to running a scam to me and I hope you don't sleep well at night.

Anyways, just my 2c to counter the slew of crypto advertising happening now. I really feel like this is headed towards a bad thing.

 

[Sinbad]

Dotcom 2.0

 

[Praemon]

I think it's important to look at what big business and governments are doing. One of the main reasons Eth has climbed so high is due to major investment. Bitcoin has also surged thanks to governments like Japan legalizing the currency. The media is certainly helping push up the price, but I'm not sure it's going to suddenly be worth nothing. I do think the price is too high, and it might take a sharp drop if there's some panic selling, but I think there's too many entities invested into it to see everyone drop it at once.

It's undoubtably a risky investment though. High risk = high reward, and unfortunately anyone investing into a vehicle like that without understanding the risk can be left high and dry in the event of a large decline in value. I just don't think it's similar to "gambling" or the likes that people try and define it as.

 

[Eti1]

Tulips, South Sea Company, RMBS market.

 

[Alton Turner Blackwood]

Tulips, South Sea Company, RMBS market.

I think you need to spend a bit more time understanding blockchain technology and how it's fundamentally different to the examples you've posted.

And no, consensus around the world is that Eth is going to outgrow BitCoin because smart contracts are the future.

 

[Eti1]

I think you need to spend a bit more time understanding blockchain technology and how it's fundamentally different to the examples you've posted.

And no, consensus around the world is that Eth is going to outgrow BitCoin because smart contracts are the future.

I thought we were playing a bubble naming game. Take your grievances up with OP

 

[Alton Turner Blackwood]

I thought we were playing a bubble naming game. Take your grievances up with OP

OK, you've got me. To get back to the topic

I have watched and studied a few economic bubbles and the current state of the crypto currencies is showing all the usual signs. They have no intrinsic value other than what people are willing to pay for them and their prices have gone up massively in a very short space of time.

It feels like the current raft of media on them focusing on the massive price gains is basically being driven by the initial bubble creators who are now looking for the patsy public to step in and buy them out of their position before it all comes crashing down.

I suppose their is a small chance it is going up due to greater public awareness and acceptance but overall it just looks, feels, and smells like an economic bubble. Its kinda sad if it all does come crashing down as it will forever tarnish the image of crypo currencies which as an idea is not bad.

The saddest stories of these bubbles is always those desperate last in's who carry the can. The old folk who can't work, don't have enough retirement savings to live off of, and then their kid who is tired of financially supporting them comes along with this brilliant article about how etherium went up 20x in 6 months and that will solve all our problems. Parents loose everything, son has to take the blame for bad investment advice, whole family affected negatively. The only winner's are the guys who drove the bubble in the first place and got our early, and even then I think if you deliberately create a bubble to make your millions knowing it will all collapse its akin to running a scam to me and I hope you don't sleep well at night.

Anyways, just my 2c to counter the slew of crypto advertising happening now. I really feel like this is headed towards a bad thing.

Think of the blockchain and by extension cryptocurrencies as a completely autonomous, self-regulatory ecosystem . The cryptocurrencies are merely the payment you receive for verifying transactions in the blcokchain. People choose to trade these and by doing so, add value to them.

A simple example of a smart contract would be the IoT: your fridge turning on your kitchen light when it gets dark. All your smart devices have to verify and hash of this action, so your fridge will tell your car, TV, cellphone and HTPC that what it did. So all your devices are synchronised with each other. .

This is a rudimentary example of a private blockchain. Want to buy a house? Why do you need lawyers when you have millions of nodes across the world who can hash and verify the transaction? And what's more, it will happen in literally 17 seconds.

This is the heart of Ethereum and why people are valuing it more with every single passing day. I have absolutely no idea why BitCoin is also rising at the same time, I suspect its because of joe soap who just want to hold a crypto coin and buys at whatever price it's being advertised.

 

[akescpt]

where can i buy a car with bitcoin? it must be mainstream man. people wont take it serious until you can walk in a shop and pay with it.

 

[Papsak]

You probably right, it probably is forming a bubble. And yes, some are going to rush out an throw all their savings on it - greed does that to people.

But it's a very interesting sector, and have no problem with speculating with a small amount - 1-2% of total portfolio. Spread out over a few interesting projects - I am sure I will get burnt on most, but have no problem loosing 100% on them. I'm hoping for one or two that hit it out the park.

But when do you get in? If you just worked on common metrics, you would have never got into NPN. Sometimes I think it's best to just bite to the bullet - but don't flinch if you have a sudden reversal.

 

[Glingfram]

where can i buy a car with bitcoin? it must be mainstream man. people wont take it serious until you can walk in a shop and pay with it.

Takealot allows Bitcoin as an example.

 

[akescpt]

Takealot allows Bitcoin as an example.

Raru and landmarkpc as well. Like normal everyday purchases. Guess heavily regulated if we want that scenario.

 

[Alton Turner Blackwood]

It should not be a problem akes. Just tell them you want 5 of these TV's then swap them with a dealer. Most of them don't have TV's for the clients to sit and watch to keep themselves occupied while waiting for the salesman.
https://www.takealot.com/samsung-65ks9500-65-curved-suhd-led-tv/PLID41526775

Embrace the opportunity, son

 

[akescpt]

It should not be a problem akes. Just tell them you want 5 of these TV's then swap them with a dealer. Most of them don't have TV's for the clients to sit and watch to keep themselves occupied while waiting for the salesman.
https://www.takealot.com/samsung-65ks9500-65-curved-suhd-led-tv/PLID41526775

Embrace the opportunity, son

:crylaugh:

 

[Corelli]

You chose the wrong forum for this

You honestly chose the wrong forum for this. This forum is full of Bitcoin hippies that believe that it's as big as Jesus if not bigger.

They will never see the reality that it's really just a form of Monopoly money because at the end of the day if you create enough demand for it, then people were to believe it.

In Indonesia a few years ago people were stealing the red dots on the J of the Honda Jazz. They believed the red dots were actually made of platinum. Which clearly wasn't as just cheap metal. But the criminals created an entire market for it and people were collecting them in mass and selling to others at high premiums. At the end Honda announced it was just plain cheap metal. But the damage was done.

The same with the curren coin exchanges. They print coins and then create this push how limited it is. And you must buy into it as it will be worth a fortune in the future. (They can more than easily print more) they also promise to buy it back at inflated future prices. But like soo many have found that at the end it's still only the worth of the metal and the places will never buy it back. So ure stuck with a loss.

So with Bitcoin it's driven by demand and more exchanges are trying to create a demand because for them it's valued something if it goes up, more than for the clients. If it goes down, they loose big time.

But with all the terrorism and blackmail giving it a bad name we wonder how long it will stick with a bad name till a new version is invented to replace it....ether.

 

[rietrot]

You honestly chose the wrong forum for this. This forum is full of Bitcoin hippies that believe that it's as big as Jesus if not bigger.

They will never see the reality that it's really just a form of Monopoly money because at the end of the day if you create enough demand for it, then people were to believe it.

In Indonesia a few years ago people were stealing the red dots on the J of the Honda Jazz. They believed the red dots were actually made of platinum. Which clearly wasn't as just cheap metal. But the criminals created an entire market for it and people were collecting them in mass and selling to others at high premiums. At the end Honda announced it was just plain cheap metal. But the damage was done.

The same with the curren coin exchanges. They print coins and then create this push how limited it is. And you must buy into it as it will be worth a fortune in the future. (They can more than easily print more) they also promise to buy it back at inflated future prices. But like soo many have found that at the end it's still only the worth of the metal and the places will never buy it back. So ure stuck with a loss.

So with Bitcoin it's driven by demand and more exchanges are trying to create a demand because for them it's valued something if it goes up, more than for the clients. If it goes down, they loose big time.

But with all the terrorism and blackmail giving it a bad name we wonder how long it will stick with a bad name till a new version is invented to replace it....ether.

All money is monopoly money and its only worth what people believe it is. The notes in your wallet or the numbers in your bank account isn't very different. (Some people would say that's even worse because fiat currency is back by debt that still needs to be paid back) Money is only a tool to trade stuff with, but it doesn't have any set value so it is subject to supply and demand. The price for bitcoins will go up until the supply catches up. I don't think we are close to it being mainstream yet so there huge growth potential.
There's already quite a few versions of crypto currency.

I am not a bitcoin hippie. Lol I don't own any.

 

[etienne_marais]

I don't like how bitcoin lends to underground activity.
I do like deregulation and the (IMO) higher level of natural market forces.

At the moment it is more like an interesting hobby and for fun to me, that is why I'm sticking to mining without considerable hardware expenses despite very probable higher ROI if I did. Did some very small direct investments as well, but that had more to do with getting to grips with effective transaction costs and general insight.

 

[Thor]

I don't like how bitcoin lends to underground activity.
I do like deregulation and the (IMO) higher level of natural market forces.

At the moment it is more like an interesting hobby and for fun to me, that is why I'm sticking to mining without considerable hardware expenses despite very probable higher ROI if I did. Did some very small direct investments as well, but that had more to do with getting to grips with effective transaction costs and general insight.

Any currency lends to underground activity.

 

[etienne_marais]

Any currency lends to underground activity.

While South African exchanges require proper verification for example, one can have a local copy of the blockchain, create BTC addresses and transact without linking your personal information at all. Sure, dodgy activity may be uncovered when converting to/from fiat or the FBI may have seized BTC in the past After watching suspects (physical activity as opposed to BTC activity) but a lot can happen, such as wanted terrorists staying under the radar. I am however definitely for the 'freedom' model of BTC, it's just not cool if the underground activity is too prominent. zcash and others take it even further, with untraceable transactions...

 

[Cius]

Yep, some valid points coming up. Just to clarify the purpose of why I started this thread. Mybb has a fair bit of influence on its user base who frequent the forum. There are very useful threads around that assist people in getting started with both crypto currency trading and mining. I know because I was investigating getting into mining myself a little while back. The issue I had is there seemed to be nothing cautioning people to the risks involved especially after the recent price activity.

If people still want to get into it with non essential money, I have no issue with that I guess other than hoping no one gets hurt out of it. I just felt I was seeing a familiar pattern of danger and that someone needed to counterbalance all the threads here assisting and encouraging people to get into it with a view on at least one of the potential dangers I see looming over the crypto currency industry.

I for one am pro crypto currency and think in time it will become a good standard, the issue is right now the volume and size is small and hence vulnerable to manipulation by larger amoral players who know how to manipulate a market into a bubble. I strongly suspect in similar fashion to how guys like "The Wolf of Wallstreet" drove prices up on penny stocks and sold their own shares to unsuspecting investors the same is true now for the main crypto currencies. I suspect someone has stockpiled a bunch of these coins and is now driving the price up and advertising to the public with a view to cash out big fully knowing it will probably crash once they are done. So its a dangerous game to play right now.

As is always the case if it sounds to good to be true it probably is.

 

[Compton_effect]

Sigh. I started buying small in Bitcoin in '13, but got busy with other stuff and stopped.
My R150 worth of purchases are now worth R4300.
Anybody have a time machine? If I'd kept this up - I would have had a very nice investment.