453 upvotes, 15 direct replies (showing 15)
View submission: Don't invest recklessly
That's only a ~2 Trillion Market Cap
Right now for $100k I can change bitcoin's market cap by over $100 million dollars (although briefly).
Market cap is useless as a number for bitcoin when trying to compare it to its impact on the larger economy. The market cap right now is over $100billion and I can assure you no where near that amount of money has gone into bitcoin. And **that** should worry everyone.
Think about it, where did that "wealth" come from? What former billionaire is now flat broke since everyone who invested in bitcoin took his money? When bcash split off, who put in $23billion into it? Why is it "worth" $23billion?
Everyone seems to hate fractional reserve banking, but not realizing that bitcoin as of right now is almost the same thing (in terms of creating "fake" wealth). We're all pooling our "wealth" into bitcoin and as long as only some of us takes it out at a time it works. But if we all took it out at once? It'd collapse the system completely.
The only way Bitcoin survives in the long run is if people can use bitcoin directly for goods and services. Right now that just isn't true as very few people accept bitcoin as payment. (Processors that just take bitcoin and deliver fiat to businesses don't count).
Until it's usable as a currency in a real sense, Bitcoin's value depends on people not actually claiming their "wealth tickets".
Comment by knadkicker1 at 30/11/2017 at 06:56 UTC
107 upvotes, 6 direct replies
It’s a great comment, but that goes for everything in society. If money stops flowing, Everything collapses. That’s all the stock market is is a future gamble. That’s what interest rates are set on. That’s why we have inflation. Because it keeps velocity up in the monetary system. Minor Inflation is not a bad thing. It’s when we have the big dickheads at the top of the pyramid manipulating the system in the big banks gaming the system and government fostering those actions. A real stable currency should be released slowly overtime in accordance with population growth but we all know that greed destroys even a perfect system. I love big coin but I do believe it is an experiment, and a complete mystery as to who the fuck created it! I personally think that it will be around but it will be so valuable that transactions will be difficult to do in and out of that. Kind of the same thing when you invest in a 401K, moving money in and out of it is difficult and takes an act of Congress and usually occurs a huge penalty. That is because they want stability to an extent. I believe there will be another widespread currency that is adopted for day-to-day transactions that will be centralized and government controlled. That is not what I want but I am not stupid and actually believe that government will stand back and let us create our own money. Those fuckers will shut it down so fast. The IRS is already subpoenaed coin base for their transaction records. Regulations are coming. decentralized currency will be great for the micro economies that will emerge with block chain technology
Comment by [deleted] at 30/11/2017 at 11:09 UTC
50 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Nozx at 30/11/2017 at 13:53 UTC
31 upvotes, 2 direct replies
In order to use bitcoin directly as a currency, we need to establish how much a bitcoin is worth in terms of goods and services, create a baseline not pegged to the dollar. ex: .0000000001 bt = a pack gum .00000001 = a burger, etc, that would go a long way towards real world nom fiat use, once ppl start to trust btx has non dollar value, we'll have real progress.
Comment by borges6127 at 30/11/2017 at 11:47 UTC
44 upvotes, 3 direct replies
We're all pooling our "wealth" into bitcoin and as long as only some of us takes it out at a time it works.
You're almost correct. However, there's no pool to take money out of. It's already taken, all of it. For anyone to sell bitcoins for money, somebody else must be willing to buy them, essentially putting some money in the pool which the seller immediately takes. There is no buffer. If there are no more buyers, no more bitcoins can be sold and the price goes to zero.
Comment by ASUjames at 02/12/2017 at 08:24 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I have no idea why you’re bringing fractional reserve banking into this, unless you meant the exchanges?
Bitcoin, like anything, has value because the market assigns it value.
No one dumped 150 billion into bitcoin or 23 billion into bitcoin cash.
The individual tokens traded on the open market fetch x amount of dollars. When you multiply that with supply, you arrive at the market cap.
This is how companies are valuations are arrived upon.
Have no idea how your misinformed post received 143 upvotes.
Comment by [deleted] at 18/12/2017 at 17:25 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As long as bitcoin can buy USD that's good enough for me. I don't need to use bitcoin to buy groceries. If I own stocks, for example, I don't expect to be able to convert those directly into groceries. Like here, here is 1% of a Facebook share in exchange for milk. It's just not necessary.
Comment by RedditTooAddictive at 30/11/2017 at 06:46 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Gold 2.0.
Comment by somanyroads at 30/11/2017 at 13:37 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
But if we all took it out at once? It'd collapse the system completely.
We can't...we're not that coordinated. Bitcoin has crashed before, and came back, when it was much less known and much less tested. There's nothing special about bitcoin in this regard: it's just as hostage to human psychology as any market.
Comment by alwiniecke24 at 02/12/2017 at 04:28 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
100% with crypto. People love to talk about market cap as the be all end all with crypto value, and this extends all the way down to options and ICO's. People get caught up in BTC because it's all the rage lately, but fail to see where the value lies and how it even functions. Crypto will one day be a part of all of our daily economic transactions, but until that day, tread carefully.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/12/2017 at 00:14 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The market cap right now is over $100billion and I can assure you no where near that amount of money has gone into bitcoin.
Hi, newb here, care to elaborate?
Comment by Arm_27 at 07/12/2017 at 06:47 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What about simply using it to do trading like stockmarkets? So I doubt it will ever go to $0
Comment by Noophatuated at 13/12/2017 at 10:00 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Wow👌🖒
Comment by crogineer at 26/12/2017 at 10:06 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Economically, what you're saying makes little sense. For example, when a startup comes to investors for funding (think Shark Tank), they ask, say, $1M for 20% of the company which gives it a valuation of $5M. According to you, the business isn't worth $5M because investors only gave $1M. You get my point?
Comment by rabbitrabbitrabbit1 at 12/12/2017 at 07:50 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I can assure you no where near that amount of money has gone into bitcoin.
LOL have you looked at the daily volume?
https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/6m?c=e&t=b
Comment by [deleted] at 30/11/2017 at 09:52 UTC
-1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Crypto is being vested heavily by the tech industry. Crypto only falls if the tech industry falls. If you bet against Crypto you bet against the tech industry. It won't happen, this is the security in bitcoin. Do you think these people are gonna invest their money back into commodities, the stock market, the forex? The other markets having closing times, move slow, are riskier and overpriced. There is more action in Crypto, anyone can make a quick buck 24/7/365. I believe this is the fundamental outlier in the Crypto Currency Exchange. Also, why the regular consumer will want to own crypto currencies.