Bitcoin offers a lesson in volatility

Currencies

Bitcoin smashes records in super-quick time, not all of them on the upside. But the trend is ever higher

8th Jan 21, 10:03am by David Chaston

Update: This price is now at US$41,311 at 6:30am, January 6, 2021 NZT after ranging between US$41,962 and US$36,498 over the past 24 hours (+/-7.5%).

This note records that the bitcoin price has briefly topped US$40,000 earlier today.

Almost immediately it fell by a massive -US$3,748 or -9.3% all in the space of just 30 minutes. At that point it was at US$36,576

It has since recovered back to a level it was at about 24 hours ago. As we publish this it is back to US$39,000.

This volatility was the largest we have seen in any 24 hour period, ever.

The previous largest rise was +US$3,149 on December 7, 2017.

The previous largest fall was -US$2,238 on January 16, 2018.

Volatility by bitcoin isn't unusual, but volatility at this sort of level certainly is.

Despite its volatility, it is still on a general rising trend.

More details about this rise are here.

From the time bitcoin was created in January 2009, it took eight years to reach US$1000.

But it took only another 322 days to reach US$10,000 for the first time.

Then it took a very long breather, taking 1113 days (more than 3 years) to reach US$20,000. But it fell to just US$3,178 in between.

It took just another 18 days to hit US$30,000, and only another seven days to hit US$40,000.

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103 Comments

by KH | 8th Jan 21, 10:12am 1610053920

That volatile means Bitcoin has no use for anything at all - except mindless gambles.

by frazz | 8th Jan 21, 10:17am 1610054230

Get informed --
Described by Mallers, as a “Bitcoin neo-bank,” Strike leverages the Bitcoin network and scaling technology the Lightning Network to move fiat fast from point A to point B. Zap plans on providing banking services in up to 200 countries via the international exchange.
https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-lightning-startup-zap-global-fiat-pair…

by Fegus Woodward | 8th Jan 21, 10:25am 1610054758

Corona virus has accelerated many things - US/China relations breakdown, US reserve currency status decline. These things were inevitable but it is now instead of what would have likely been another decade or so.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are once in a lifetime opportunity's that are now in front of peoples faces and they choose to stick their head in the sand.

by Stev-O | 8th Jan 21, 11:27am 1610058425

Wait wait wait, are you telling me I cannot just create Bitcoin 2.0 by copying/forking the public open source codes in no time then create another 21 million supply of the EXACT same thing? Are you saying the price isn't rising solely because most people buying in don't know how it works or even know what forking means? Are you saying the unregulated crypto exchanges aren't pulling/doing anything that's deemed illegal in normal stock exchanges? Lol and yes, I do own bitcoin/other cryptos :D

by southmotian | 8th Jan 21, 11:42am 1610059342

It would be the same thing but without enough miners securing the network it could easily be attacked. Unless you can convince people it's valuable no one will mine it, and without a lot of miners it's not valuable. I agree with the sentiment though, of the thousands of digital currencies available today I'd be surprised if many make it long term.

by Ezy | 8th Jan 21, 1:44pm 1610066671

All the objections in this thread are old as Bitcoin itself, and have been debunked over and over https://seekingalpha.com/article/4355978-debunking-common-bitcoin-myths

by KH | 8th Jan 21, 1:57pm 1610067454

Did read the bit about volatility ezy. Made no sense. Some 'Trinity' a quite religious idea, and concluded by saying it always went up anyway. Go figure

by Ezy | 9th Jan 21, 7:04am 1610129077

If some people here are so sure BTC is a scam, you should be shorting the hell out of it.

A large part of my portfolio is in several crypto assets - I'm up 250% across the board over a 7 year time frame at the time of writing.

Much like religion, with investment one of us will be right, and the other won't. One in heaven, the other in hell. We just won't have to wait our whole lives to find out.

by southmotian | 9th Jan 21, 8:08am 1610132890

Do you mean up x 250 or 250%? Times 250 wouldn't be uncommon over that timescale.

by Ezy | 9th Jan 21, 8:14am 1610133270

250%. The early years were smaller amounts and learning. The later years much larger.

by southmotian | 9th Jan 21, 12:00pm 1610146843

Fair call, dollar cost average in

by KH | 9th Jan 21, 8:57am 1610135820

Ezy. You say it's going to be heaven or hell. Ever though of becoming a priest?

by Ezy | 9th Jan 21, 12:47pm 1610149628

I would KH, but this is a one time in history offer. Once I've reached the promised land, the gains now won't be available to the average punter unfortunately. Everyone will be buying Satoshis rather than Bitcoins.

The baby boomers know what I'm talking about - even though they have next to no clue about Bitcoin, they're experts at pulling up the ladder. ;)

by Gold Kiwi | 8th Jan 21, 10:41pm 1610098863

Bitcoin has already forked several times. Have you checked what those forked coins are worth now? There's your answer.

by Hook | 8th Jan 21, 6:15pm 1610082952

Crypto was a "once in a lifetime opportunity" when it hit 3K or so.. now it's a fools errand. It's not backed by any hard commodity (eg Gold), it's open to manipulation and it's being propped up by FOMO. A classic bubble.

by frazz | 9th Jan 21, 8:33am 1610134405

Keep holding onto that belief Hook...and save that Fiat..its backed by gold yes?

by Zack Brando | 8th Jan 21, 11:32am 1610058779

@frazz .. don't bother arguing with these bores. It's an exciting time for Crypto Currencies, namely Bitcoin.

The truth is, the market is telling him he's wrong, yet he won't listen. It's how people get wrecked.

They're fait junkies dude, all they want is another hit. It's like; "hey bro, how about you don't stick that needle of smack in your arm - I'll cook you a roast dinner?" Response; "just need the hit, leave me alone!!!". If they want to stay broke - let them, doing anything else will drag you into their destructive and addictive fait lifestyles.

All people are of value, however; some people are more deserving of your help than others.. kind of Animal Farmish there, but you get what I'm trying to say.

by frazz | 8th Jan 21, 11:41am 1610059309

Funny Zack I just came to that conclusion this morning and will refrain from trying to educate anyone anymore (other than my close friends and family). Incredible opportunity for the average person to get in on the ground floor - the fat cats are rolling in the fiat - let them eat cake.
New book I have am waiting to read "Layered Money: From Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies" due out 26 Jan.

by Fegus Woodward | 8th Jan 21, 10:21am 1610054489

Most interesting thing i have read recently about Bitcoin is how it puts a floor on energy prices - there is no need for an energy source to be close to a population zone or usage of energy. The network will buy the energy wherever it is in the world with no transport costs.

Alot of skeptics on this website and they are going to miss out on a once in a lifetime event. The psychology behind everything is as fascinating as the technology itself.

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 10:39am 1610055593

Could you explain the energy transfer/transport thing to me?

by powerdownkiwi | 8th Jan 21, 11:02am 1610056963

Easy. You photograph a 5-litre can of gas.

Send the pic to someone on the other side of the world.

They pour it into their tanks.

What's not to understand? Debt and bitcoin and even cash are the same thing; forward bets that there will be something tangible to exchange them for. Nobody, bankers or bitcoiners, is asking whether the underwrite exists. Bitcoin, however, requires sh--loads more energy than banking.

Some people don't 'get' physics, spend too much time in a virtual world and have forgotten what work - and therefore energy - really is.

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 11:26am 1610058399

That's what bamboozled me. How can someone use the energy if it's halfway round the other side of the world?

by brisket | 8th Jan 21, 11:54am 1610060054

It's just a way of guaranteeing there was a cost to producing it.
Because, in Bitcoin logic, the value of something is not its utility but the fact that it consumed resources to produce.
It's a kind of reversal of the usual way of thinking about things. Bitcoin is desirable *because* it is both perfectly useless, in the physical sense, and very costly to produce. The uselessness and waste is the proof of value.

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 12:02pm 1610060524

Does that not leave it still vulnerable if it has no utility at all? Like fiat currencies?

by President of P… | 10th Jan 21, 8:40pm 1610264405

sorry so spill the news to you but bitcoin network, an open ledger of bitcoin transactions, requires computational power to verify the spreadsheets, and the reward, in bitcoin, is awarded to the winning verifier

this reward, for proven work, can then be on-sold to others as it is of proven value, and as they become more scarce over time, the value naturally increases, as the supply is fixed, demand increases and as the reward values reduces over time bitcoin is anti-inflationary, the complete opposite to money printing

The more money that is printed, the less valuable the money becomes
1/4th of ALL USA paper currency ever printed or in existence was printed in the last year

1x bitcoin will always be worth 1 bitcoin
Meanwhile dollars (or fiat) are printed and spewed into the top pockets and economy, our own money reduces in value
think of the rising price of bitcoin reflect that the price of bitcoin hasn't gone up, the value of the dollar has fallen and future pricing in the further fall of value all of fiat currencies (printed money)

hyperinflation too will soon occur

debt levels rise, unpayable sums of fiat are required to pay fractionally backed increasingly higher interest loans where, 90% of the money was invented by the click of a bank persons finger in the first place anyway, against the 10% banks are required to hold as cash reserves.

Anyway back the energy and best producer and use of energy of store of energy

1) Bitcoin uses energy only once to create value, this energy is always verifiable and it and it's value belongs to the bitcoin owner. The value of this energy, has to increase, as it is in a anti-inflationary up against the whole world inflationary fiat money printing (printer goes brrrrrr)

2) Dollars are invented from nothing, and as such are backed by nothing, but we have to to work to earn dollars, to pay the debt on the imaginary money the bank created for us in mortgages. All money we earn is taxed and then decreases in value not matter what, there is never enough to pay back so more work must be done to generate dollars to pay back the other dollars
Dollar energy = zero for bank and every bit of blood sweat and tears you have and at least 40 to 60 hours a week for your life
Dollars energy is heat generated from the transfer your life power and all hope and meaning sucked from you along with physical and mental energy until you are used and fatigued

Bitcoin energy from renewable resources, ie; geothermal, solar, hydro etc
Dollar energy is from non-renewable resources , ie; you, your lost family time, worry, fear, debt traps and human mortgage slavery

so i would rather have something that gives financial freedom, than a lifetime of enslavement
each to their own

President Of Property

by finite | 8th Jan 21, 11:54am 1610060047

I think he means that the mining computers can be relocated to be close to the cheep electricity source.

by kpnuts | 8th Jan 21, 8:28pm 1610090900

its the obvious replacement for the aluminum smelter - and the shot in the arm the deep south needs - high quality well paid jobs

by Galloleous | 9th Jan 21, 12:34am 1610105699

Hell yea, a few of us have been talking about this. But you think here are any forward thinkers in power in this country hahaha

by realterms | 9th Jan 21, 10:07am 1610140027

Data center certainly has been discussed. Which is much the same as a btc mining operation in terms of what is actually there. Might be a good idea but the number of jobs would be tiny.

by Audaxes | 8th Jan 21, 11:59am 1610060379

Russian gas to fuel Bitcoin mining (BTC) – Cryptocurrencies

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 12:03pm 1610060608

So the price of fossil fuels should rise on account of them being burnt to mine bitcoin?

by powerdownkiwi | 8th Jan 21, 1:38pm 1610066335

No. That's the mistake I made back in 2005-8, Goldman Sachs made it too.

Money is a forward bet on future energy doing future work. If the future energy isn't there in anticipated quantity, the work isn't done. Period. So there is a price beyond which society cannot pay for energy.

That price is clearly south of $100US/barrel (current $); I'd argue it is where debt becomes 100% assuaged. Whatever, we will never see $200/barrel oil, society has collapsed well before that. Of course, you can up the bitcoin numbers, and the debt numbers, indefinitely just as long as you don't want to cash them in for anything tangible.....

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 1:46pm 1610066760

At least oil is tangible I guess, however unsustainable it is.

by CourtJester | 8th Jan 21, 10:49am 1610056193

Bitcoin is a giant waste of energy and needs to die. The technology has its merits, but this implementation is plain harmful.

by frazz | 8th Jan 21, 11:26am 1610058404

Why is it harmful?

by finite | 8th Jan 21, 11:53am 1610059986

The absolute waste of a high quality energy source.

by frazz | 8th Jan 21, 12:08pm 1610060887

You mean the sun?

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 12:16pm 1610061364

Are all bitcoin mining operations solar powered?

by frazz | 8th Jan 21, 12:22pm 1610061749

In a single hour, the amount of power from the sun that strikes the Earth is more than the entire world consumes in an year.

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 12:45pm 1610063125

Didn't answer the question. What's the point having all that available energy but instead burn fossil fuels for numbers on a screen. Isn't there a climate emergency?

by Mark Hubbard 1965 | 8th Jan 21, 6:39pm 1610084396

This is the silliest argument I see against (and for) Bitcoin: the energy used to mine Bitcoin is a waste of energy, or somehow values Bitcoin in a manner to gold gaining value from the cost of mining it - or rather, a base cost because mining firms won't dig it out below their cost of doing so.

This is the Internet: the only opportunity cost here is if this energy weren't being used for mining Bitcoin, it would probably be being used to watch porn, or for online sports betting.

It has no relevance to whether Bitcoin becomes the future store of value replacing gold or not. And I see it's future as a store of value not a currency given tax rules treat all sales of Bitcoin as taxable: thus you're not going to use it to buy eggs, if you then have to calculate the profit of the BT used to buy the eggs (sale of BT less historical cost), then add the tax to cost of the eggs to cover it and pay the tax to the IRD at the end of the year across all such transactions: tax turns BT's use as a currency into a complicated mathematical and accounting nightmare (... but then tax destroys value always, so same old same old).

On BItcoin, itself, I'm open minded. I used to pan it, but I see more future uses for crypto than for gold (yeah, I know, you can make bling to sell to rappers), and it's a hell of a lot more easy to buy and far more portable: that's why some of the most numerous BT accounts are out of Africa, Latin America, etc, where there is political instability and a history of destroyed fiat currencies. Re portability you can carry a billion dollars of BT on a thumb drive sized device in your pocket: try transporting a billion dollars of gold (and think of the freight and security costs).

What has got my interest is the large institutional buy-in over last four months: from MicroStrategy to Guggenheim, to a host of big firms and funds, these firms and funds are putting billions in: so they're treating it like gold. And so getting back to gold, what is that value - well it's the value that purchasers are prepared to pay for a scarce resource; nothing different to Bitcoin now with the big money coming in. It's like the working out of an unwritten contract between these firms with their treasuries which they're finding too costly to keep in fiat anymore, given central banks have become an asylum. And for that reason, of course, it's volatile: gold has had 5,000 years of price discovery, Bitcoin only twelve: as it finds it's long term trend price there will be wild swings, but over time volatility will lessen.

Disclaimer: I decided simply out of curiosity to buy $4,500 of Bitcoin on 26 October, just over two months ago. That is currently worth over $11,500, a 150% return in just over two months. So even at this stage if it crashes 50%, then I'm still on about a 30% return for two months. Wish I'd put more in frankly. But yes, it's also farcical ... but that's only because monetary stimulunacy has broken reality and turned all financial markets toxic, with the only correction now, really, being collapse and start over (I would hope with free markets which central banks have destroyed, but it will probably be authoritarian monster states and tyrannies that rise from the social upheaval). But, of course, Bitcoin, like gold, is seen as a decentralised hedge against just that collapse.

Anyway, got to go to a party.

by finite | 8th Jan 21, 7:01pm 1610085686

"This is the Internet: the only opportunity cost here is if this energy weren't being used for mining Bitcoin, it would probably be being used to watch porn, or for online sports betting."

Wrong. All the porn watching or sports betting is independent of BTC mining.

Currently, the tool estimates that Bitcoin is using around seven gigawatts of electricity, equal to 0.21% of the world's supply. That is as much power as would be generated by seven Dungeness nuclear power plants at once. Over the course of a year, this equates to roughly the same power consumption as Switzerland.Jul 3, 2019

by Mark Hubbard 1965 | 8th Jan 21, 7:05pm 1610085906

There is so much energy. Last week some clever chaps ran a fusion turbine for 20 seconds. That will be limitless almost free energy. It'll be the best thing since fossil fuels.

But read my post: energy is just a dumb argument for or against Bitcoin. It's irrelevant. My comment also explains BTs current volatility.

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 7:14pm 1610086492

Yea we don't have unlimited energy yet, so it kinda is relevant until your free energy promise comes true.

by Ezy | 8th Jan 21, 7:23pm 1610086998

If people can't understand why we can't simply turn off Tiwai, they won't understand why Bitcoin doesn't waste energy, but rather settles across the peaks and troughs of the international energy grid, settling evenly across the surface like the ocean on the Mariana trench. If we were smart as a country, we'd turn Tiwai into a BTC mine. Would be great for our hardware tech contract sector too.

by powerdownkiwi | 8th Jan 21, 7:42pm 1610088130

That isn't just wrong, it's really, really wrong.

Tiwai uses energy but produces something tangible, something useful to life as we've constructed it. IT doesn't. IT merely makes our physical resource and energy-use more efficient. And efficiencies run into the Laws of Thermodynamics - so diminishing returns are the order of the day. Reminds me of the economist who asserted that food was only 5% of the economy, so even if food production ceased, 95% of the economy would continue.....

There's no vaccine for ignorance.

by Ezy | 8th Jan 21, 8:32pm 1610091172

And yet ironically, they're going to turn Tiwai into a server farm...

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-tiwai-point-data-centre

by Pragmatist | 8th Jan 21, 3:08pm 1610071680

Energy is never consumed... (unless you are turning it to matter.)

by Hook | 8th Jan 21, 6:25pm 1610083506

Unfortunately frazz the amount of energy required to capture, transmit and store that boundless energy far outweighs the input. If you do an energy efficiency calc taking everything into account -solar , whilst nice and feel good doesn't stack up

by CourtJester | 8th Jan 21, 12:31pm 1610062283

The energy cost of 1 bitcoin transaction is about the same as of 500000 credit card transactions.
Keep in mind that 70%+ of energy production is NOT renewable. Also, 'spending' that energy also results in byproducts such as electronic waste.
But clearly this is the money of the future...... suuure.

by J.C. | 8th Jan 21, 8:23pm 1610090616

Where do you get these facts?

by Galloleous | 9th Jan 21, 12:42am 1610106133

Bitcoin is not competing to be the next Mastercard or visa (whose market caps it overtook recently actually) it is competing with final settlement made by international banks. i.e when the send millions of $4 worth of gold from England to France. And how much energy does that take??
Please tell me how wasteful the legacy financial system is with millions of massive offices and printing presses operating world wide...
You ant waste electricity. If someone wants to pay to use it, then that is a valid use for it. No one can decide how I value electricity.
Anyway, there are no new arguments against BTC here. As the memes go: https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1341521106734379009/OUsM0ayZ_400x4…

by Gold Kiwi | 8th Jan 21, 10:42pm 1610098925

Three interesting reads on bitcoin energy consumption:
https://blog.trezor.io/three-myths-about-bitcoins-energy-consumption-ef…
https://www.coindesk.com/the-last-word-on-bitcoins-energy-consumption
https://twitter.com/KryptykHex/status/1005079233075515393/photo/1 (bitcoin mining has become much more energy efficient since these figures were published)

by realterms | 9th Jan 21, 11:25am 1610144745

Is this a joke? Bitcoin black market costs negligible but significant for the others? Total nonsense.

Bitcoin has many good things going for it. The proof of work energy requirements are a big drawback though, and the logical contortions required to pretend otherwise do the btc crowd no credit.

Comparison with gold and fiat is largely irrelevant BTW. We're designing something new. It should be the best it can be, not just better than what exists.

by southmotian | 8th Jan 21, 10:59am 1610056793

While not as speculative as the 2017 rally the price seems to be getting well ahead of the technical realities again. The bitcoin network still has comically low throughput combined with ridiculous energy usage. Not changing anything has almost become a religion and it seems unlikely we'll see any major technical improvements as btc people like to pretend it's perfect already.
The second highest market cap crypto Ethereum is far more ambitious in both functionality and scalability. The first phase of Ethereum 2.0 is live and does away with Proof of Work (prove how much energy you have wasted) consensus in favour of Proof of Stake (prove how much ether you own and risk loosing it if you act maliciously). This PoS transition should improve scalability and reduce energy wastage by orders of magnitude. The first release should really be viewed as a live test net for further releases and isn't truly useful until then, so this being achieved is by no means guaranteed, and is at best 1-2 yrs away.
Despite the technical realities, in today's world I fully expect speculative rises to continue across the whole crypto market.

by Rosenstein | 8th Jan 21, 11:03am 1610057005

Almost as if the more USDs you print, the more the price goes up??

by brisket | 8th Jan 21, 11:57am 1610060222

This continuing rally makes me more certain that
-there will be continuing spectacular appreciation in the near term, and
-the value will crash even faster, probably to zero or near-zero, probably as part of a 'unified' asset crash.

If I could time it right, there's a lot of money to be made, but the risk of losing everything is very high IMHO.

by Cowpat | 8th Jan 21, 11:58am 1610060332

I have noticed that on one of the exchanges we use, Bitcoin minimum contracts are 0.05, which facilitates retail trade or speculation .
I had 4 January as being the most volatile day ever ,more so than today, when certain platforms were down on both days temporarily . Given its just as likely to slump under 25 or rocket to 60, it probably will not matter historically.

by J.C. | 8th Jan 21, 1:01pm 1610064103

Noticed the Bitcoin price was added to the Sydney Morning Herald's financial / business daily briefs. Not sure if this is shift in perception or just an attempt to appear to be relevant. BTC doesn't really operate like an asset class with an open / close.

Also, some of BTC's biggest proponents were initially skeptical or dismissive of what it represented and what it is (I share the same experience). You need to read before deciding as to whether or not this represents a sea change. I think it does.

The price action of BTC is quite understandable. For ex, there are approx 700 BTC mined per day at the moment. All that supply is being gobbled up by the likes of PayPal. Now consider that the 'old school' owners of BTC are simply not selling. Their BTC has been removed from exchanges and is locked away in cold storage. Therefore, more buyers are entering the market to buy a scarce asset.

by Galloleous | 9th Jan 21, 12:49am 1610106563

Bang on, simple supply and demand. With 900 new BTC (6.25 every 10 min) being created and tens of thousands being purchased, supply is shriveling up. https://www.viewbase.com/exchange
Shows that 89,000 BTC have left exchanges in the last 30 days, of which 35k have left in the last 7 days. THis is large institutions taking them into cold storage not to be seen for years.
Thats 100 days worth of production.....do the maths people.

by J.C. | 9th Jan 21, 1:02pm 1610150552

With 900 new BTC (6.25 every 10 min) being created and tens of thousands being purchased, supply is shriveling up.

Thanks for the correction. You understand what's happening. The market structure of BTC has fundamentally change.

by Carlos67 | 11th Jan 21, 12:25am 1610277937

Please dont call bitcoin an asset it doesnt exist.

by Ezy | 8th Jan 21, 1:24pm 1610065471

This volatility is nothing. There's a saying in the BTC community - "If you can't handle my 90% drops you don't deserve my 800% Gains". Wait until Bitcoin is a million a coin and fluctuating 100k at a time. Weak handed people will sell and trade. The experienced hodlers will never ever sell their Bitcoin, ever. But rather use it as leverage against debt on transactional fiat and crypto currencies. This is the way.

by Rosenstein | 8th Jan 21, 1:33pm 1610066017

Intergenerational wealth storage.

by Rex Pat | 8th Jan 21, 4:04pm 1610075066

Like property?

by Ezy | 8th Jan 21, 6:38pm 1610084301

Property is a business first, then a passive wealth storage vehicle as it actually requires active maintenance and improvements. Anything else is just something to put you on the playing field so you can talk about your "portfolio" at BBQs with the other chads.

by youngdumbandbroke | 8th Jan 21, 7:16pm 1610086615

Pretty much. BTC holders are hoping to make astronomical capital gains and they most likely will. Like property on steroids. Anyone using BTC as a storage of wealth is probably already insanely rich

by CourtJester | 8th Jan 21, 2:08pm 1610068131

You're doing a great job making it sound like a religion.

by Rosenstein | 8th Jan 21, 2:18pm 1610068700

Hi, do you have a moment to talk about our saviour Adrian Orr?

by Zack Brando | 8th Jan 21, 2:34pm 1610069663

lol classic, AAA+

by Ezy | 8th Jan 21, 3:39pm 1610073564

Meh, I'll be right or wrong just like every other economist. Time will tell. Give it 2 more halvings.

But if you really want to understand this crazy distributed, openly verifiable ledger that has never existed in the history of mankind before, read "Who owns the future", by Jaron Lanier. Bitcoin is technology first. Technology is eating the world.

by J.C. | 8th Jan 21, 4:17pm 1610075856

Some of your comments are quite Twitterati Ezy, but then these ones resonate. You mention Lanier and this is good. I think people should really read The Bitcoin Standard to understand BTC in a historical context.

by CourtJester | 8th Jan 21, 4:44pm 1610077478

FYI I'm not saying that the blockchain technology is useless. I just think bitcoin is a really bad use of that technology. Cryptocurrencies that don't require INSANE amounts of energy are viable. Bitcoin isn't.
1 bitcoin transaction uses as much energy as the average kiwi household in 33 days(!!!).

by J.C. | 8th Jan 21, 4:51pm 1610077879

Cryptocurrencies that don't require INSANE amounts of energy are viable. Bitcoin isn't.

I'm not convinced you've really taken the time to make this claim.

by Ezy | 8th Jan 21, 6:39pm 1610084376

Much like religion people do actually need to do their own research, get educated and come to their own conclusions. Easy to spot the one's that can't be bothered and are happy to be led off the QE cliff.

Bitcoin's energy consumption is more efficient than that of gold and traditional banks. - Seeking Alpha Article

by J.C. | 8th Jan 21, 8:21pm 1610090491

Yes. It's usually sensational like 'the whole energy consumption of Denmark required to power the BTC network.'

by Rick.James | 8th Jan 21, 2:17pm 1610068652

Smart investors & companies have been piling in all year, thanks to the printing press...
Stanley Druckenmiller, Bill Miller, Blackrock, Paul Tudor Jones to name a few...
Mainstream banks now saying 100k+ USD Value is likely (citibank / jpmorgan)...
Hard to ignore... Arguably silly to ignore.

A small percentage of portfolio allocation, hold 10 - 20 years. Dollar cost average dips (which will be significant)

by J.C. | 8th Jan 21, 4:19pm 1610075969

Good strategic overview. I'm a little more aggressive than the 'small % of portfolio allocation' because I think the next few years are good for profiting.

by Rick.James | 9th Jan 21, 6:29pm 1610170147

Yup it might just like be gold in the early 70s or crazier given its accessibility... A good asymmetric bet in my opinion (I haven't bought anymore since 19k USD though)

by Dave Moderato | 8th Jan 21, 3:59pm 1610074753

Kinda keeps me amused. The masses charging around after property. When there are much better opportunities staring them in the face.

by J.C. | 8th Jan 21, 4:20pm 1610076003

Don't follow the crowd

by powerdownkiwi | 8th Jan 21, 7:47pm 1610088436

Reminds me of Ariadne believers circa '87.

There wasn't anything backing that, either.

by Ezy | 9th Jan 21, 8:20am 1610133601

"All this investment in apples, reminds me of the great pear crash of 42"

by powerdownkiwi | 9th Jan 21, 8:53am 1610135599

Spruiker.

by Rex Pat | 9th Jan 21, 11:22am 1610144546

Bruce Judge, now flogging micro bikinis and lingerie in Brisbane.

by Rex Pat | 9th Jan 21, 11:25am 1610144733

Double post

by treadlightly | 9th Jan 21, 10:10am 1610140236

if you lose access to your digital wallet, there’s no way of getting your bitcoin back. There’s no centralised bank to verify legitimate claims of lost login details, and no way to prove that an account is yours.

Current estimates suggest there are nearly 4 million bitcoins that are lost forever. That’s NZ$200b at today bitcoin’s value. Worse still, lost bitcoins account for roughly 19 per cent of all bitcoin that will ever be produced (21 million).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300200535/heres-why-i…

by frazz | 9th Jan 21, 11:09am 1610143771

A private key in the context of Bitcoin is a secret number that allows bitcoins to be spent. Every Bitcoin wallet contains one or more private keys, which are saved in the wallet file. The private keys are mathematically related to all Bitcoin addresses generated for the wallet.

by Doggog | 9th Jan 21, 12:35pm 1610148918

The human race is very odd. Why would you spend a huge amount of resource digging up gold to simply lock it in a vault. The electricity consumption used to mine Bitcoin is criminal. Bitcoin is modern day Tulip mania. You own nothing but digits in a computer. We never learn, so history just keeps on repeating.

by Clementé | 9th Jan 21, 4:55pm 1610164544

you own nothing but digits in a computer at ANZ. when you swipe your eftpos card those digits reduce.. its no different.
Go ask ANZ if you can have your current account balance in pieces of eight.

by Doggog | 10th Jan 21, 9:02am 1610222526

How do you make money from Bitcoin? Sell it for fiat money and tell everyone how much you made.

by Ocelot | 10th Jan 21, 9:58am 1610225907

Bitcoin is money. I'm a tradey and I'd work for Bitcoin, or gold, or silver, or other cryptos or metals. They're all a better store of value than FIAT for the last several years.

by Doggog | 10th Jan 21, 3:32pm 1610245978

Would you seriously take a payment in Bitcoin? The price volatility makes it worthless as a short term method of payment. You say fiat money is nothing but thin air and you suggest replacing with digital thin air. If you read about tulip mania it seems unbelievable. But greed has a way of perverting reality. Nothing is always nothing!

by Rick.James | 9th Jan 21, 6:33pm 1610170390

Square is investing in renewable energy solutions for crypto mining fyi

by Doggog | 10th Jan 21, 9:05am 1610222717

Wasting energy is wasting energy, it does not matter where it comes from.

by President of P… | 10th Jan 21, 9:43pm 1610268181

well choose, it's either electricity working hard once to make a bitcoin forever or you working forever to make money once

or you working hard forever paying back printed FIAT money that is 90% x imagination and 100 %x inflationary, that, to repeat FIAT or printed money is your energy, your time, your life swapped out and exchanged for paper with printed squiggles on it, and for the bank generated digital zeros and ones

Bitcoin powered by electricity
The banking system powered by you

by Rosenstein | 9th Jan 21, 11:36pm 1610188572

Start with "The Creature from Jekell Island" come back when you're done

by Doggog | 10th Jan 21, 9:25am 1610223936

A book written for flat earthers and Area 51 Apollo lunar landing believers. Any system created by humans will be full of errors and bad choices. Any system can and will be manipulated by the powerful and clever. Bitcoin money replacing fiat money will be just like the gold standard era. Scarcity of money only favors the very wealthy.

Because a gold standard requires that money be backed in the metal, then the scarcity of the metal constrains the ability of the economy to produce more capital and grow." The money supply would essentially be determined by the rate of gold production.

by President of P… | 10th Jan 21, 9:48pm 1610268512

gold standard went with Nixon
glad you came out from under your rock
FIAT printed money is backed by the government promising to back the value while it can with the ability to promise future citizen taxes - that's you
FIAT savings, ie; cash placed into a savings account, immediately makes you a unsecured lender of the bank, and the bank then loans out 10x it's value with a magical push of the button and the debt is created out of thin air - with the promise you will work forever to pay it back

see the loop?

by Doggog | 11th Jan 21, 6:46pm 1610343997

For all its faults, the current system has deliver a pretty good increase in the standard of living as far as I can see. My father couldn't borrow money to buy a house in his day with a financial system constrained by lack of money supply. Today the opposite is true. No system is perfect, but do the gold and Bitcoin bugs really know if their concepts would make it better or worse. We are living in the end times of the baby boomers. The wealth they have accumulated has left the world with lots of money and not many places for it to go.

by Pusheen | 10th Jan 21, 1:24am 1610195062

Once Kiwis open up their eyes to this type of new ponzi, stellar performance investment which outshine the property market. Then more of participants and more local Banks involvement. NZer need to start from collective groupies of investment, tied up asset to the housing, to get couple of this coin, so leverage on it for country as a whole. As when it's surpass around 60% of Kiwis joined up the scheme. The more likely, a bail out preparation by CB & Govt. if things goes to custard.

by kaczor47 | 10th Jan 21, 10:34pm 1610271241

A ponzi... right. Can you explain how bitcoin actually works? Please do not paste from online sources, but in your own words. Than we can discuss...

by President of P… | 11th Jan 21, 12:14am 1610277249

yes i wrote to parliament suggesting binning Tiwai Point smelter which blackmails the country for subsidies and cheap discounted power and replacing it with a giant treasury backed bitcoin mine with any surplus energy going into some of Elon's batteries that can then power the rigs in a blackout or to charge batteries that could literally be freighted to power towns and cities without the costs of cables and transmission in between power generation source and supply consumption. This system could also dropped into Civil Defense situations where outages have occurred.
just saying how to save the country, maybe someone else with more power within government will read this and go golly
Tiwai Point used 5400 GWh per annum but supply can push out an even higher with supply being 640 megawatts of power. This is 15% of New Zealands entire power supply that could be mining bitcoin and making billions upon billions and an anti-inflationary backed treasury. the website can track me down for more details and accolades

President of Property