Digital currency Bitcoin hits new high before losing S$200 in value in one day

[weijian]

The last time i heard of a few "accidental" millionaires - it came from the penny stock saga of Blumount/LionGold etc fame. Wouldn't be too surprised that there are a few selected winners out of the hundreds/thousands who will eventually be burnt and have their dreams dashed.

1 S-chip that returned a (worthless) physical share cert to me recently - surprisingly, was actually one of the best investments of another personality i read on the newspapers - of course if i were to trace back those times when i invested in the (eventual worthless) s-chip, there were indeed chances that I could have made an immense profit as well.

[Temperament]

Siren are always calling.

It's hard to resist.

When your Heart is not in the right place.

i still hold some S-CHIPs loh (LOL)!

[weijian]

Wild wild west.

Will Bitcoin Tear Itself Apart?
New proposal SegWit2x aims for compromise ahead of Aug. 1
Failure to agree could lead to bitcoin splitting into two

It’s time for bitcoin traders to batten down the hatches. The notoriously volatile cryptocurrency, whose 150 percent surge this year has captivated everyone from Wall Street bankers to Chinese grandmothers, could be headed for one of its most turbulent stretches yet.

Blame the bitcoin civil war. After two years of largely behind-the-scenes bickering, rival factions of computer whizzes who play key roles in bitcoin’s upkeep are poised to adopt two competing software updates at the end of the month. That has raised the possibility that bitcoin will split in two, an unprecedented event that would send shockwaves through the $41 billion market.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ical-month

[cyclone]

Bitcoin Soars to Record as Buyers Look Beyond Miners' Split

By Justina Lee
August 7, 2017, 1:29 PM GMT+8

Bitcoin extended gains to a record, ignoring a split in the cryptocurrency over its future.

The digital exchange rate jumped as much as 16 percent from Friday to an unprecedented $3,292.41, even after bitcoin’s division last week. The debate has revolved around how to upgrade its underlying technology, with a group of developers backing a solution called SegWit2x against miners -- some of whom have created an offshoot called Bitcoin Cash -- who want to increase the size of data blocks more drastically.

“The miner-orchestrated hard fork has had limited traction and will not impact the price or future development of bitcoin,” said Aurelien Menant, chief executive officer of Gatecoin Ltd., a cryptocurrency exchange in Hong Kong, referring to the split. “The activation of SegWit is a significant milestone in bitcoin’s technological evolution.”

More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ners-split

[cyclone]

Bitcoin Surges Past $4,000 on Speed Breakthrough

By Justina Lee  and Yuji Nakamura
August 14, 2017, 12:02 PM GMT+8

Bitcoin soared past $4,000 for the first time on growing optimism faster transaction times will hasten the spread of the cryptocurrency.

The largest digital tender jumped to a peak of $4,125.17 on Monday, a gain of 15 percent since Friday, after a plan to quicken trade execution by moving some data off the main network was activated last week. The solution -- termed SegWit2x -- had been so contentious that a new version of the asset called Bitcoin Cash was spun off earlier this month in opposition.

The split grew out of the tension between growing demand for the virtual currency and some of the design features that had fueled that popularity -- the decentralized verification procedures that ensured against hacking and government oversight. While this month’s confrontation ended up as little more than a speed bump in bitcoin’s more than 300 percent rally in 2017, concerns remain around the capacity to increase transaction volumes.

More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...uel-spread

[specuvestor]

By Hugh Son, Hannah Levitt and Brian Louis
(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimonsaid he would fire any employee trading bitcoin for being “stupid.”
The cryptocurrency “won’t end well,” he told an investor conference in New York on Tuesday, predicting it will eventually blow up. “It’s a fraud” and “worse than tulip bulbs.”
--snip--
Gundlach said he doesn’t have a view on bitcoin but that he’s concerned it may be more vulnerable to manipulation than enthusiasts admit. “Maybe I’m just too old, but I’m going to let this mania go on without me.”



My 42 months view below when Bitcoin was US$655... now it's US$4000... the demand is from speculators (in particular mainland chinese) and currency for illicit activities feeding off one another.

My view hasn't changed not because I am stubborn but because I learnt that some "trades" are not for me and I will skip it regardless where it is trading now... there are certainly people that made money from Gold Quest or Blumont which I am too old and not sophisticated enough to participate

Mr. Buffett expressed his view on Bitcoin...

Buffett says bitcoin 'not a currency'
04 Mar 2014 08:22
[NEW YORK] The Oracle of Omaha is not a believer in bitcoin.

Warren Buffett, chief executive of investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway and one of the world's most respected investors, told CNBC television Monday that bitcoin "does not meet the test of a currency." "I wouldn't be surprised if it's not around in 10 or 20 years," said the 83-year-old billionaire, whose nickname stems from his investment savvy and his home city of Omaha, in the US state of Nebraska.

Mr Buffett called the virtual currency, which has no central bank backing and is generated by an automated computer programme, "very speculative, a Buck Rogers kind of thing" like the Dutch tulip mania in 1637.
...
Ref: Business Times Breaking News

Time will tell if we are just old fashioned folks that can't keep up with the times...

Bit coin is a mockery on the fiat system where it is based on faith. Buts that's where the similarity ends.

A country produces something that the sovereign taxing power and money creation instills certain rational faith

Faith in bitcoin is misguided faith. Bitcoin is tulip. Every rational person knows it's going to burst but everyone don't think they will be holding the ball when the music stops. Nothing new under the sun, from Bre-X to Madoff to the recent Blumont.

Just that no one knows when, which is the fuel of speculation

I have stated my unreserved opinion in this rational forum on bitcoin because in my experience this is too obvious a duck.

Demand has to be based on fundamental demand which many MLM lacks. Why insurance is a valid MLM is because there is a fundamental demand for the consumption of insurance. Similarly bitcoin lack a fundamental demand except it is restrictive in supply. This is not a rare art piece but one generated by generic one and zeros. You can try to sell gaming items but the day of reckoning will come when these virtual items are worthless.

Gold has certain industrial uses as electrical interconnects and also storage of value from a historical antiquity and Bretton Woods legacy perspective. Even so Buffett's view on non productive gold is very clear. And I don't think bitcoin is productive or can be used for other purposes.

IMHO bitcoin is a product of virtual goods commerce and the misguided idea about fiat currency. History will repeat itself

[Wildreamz]

My 2c:

Investing in Bitcoin in 2010 made sense on hindsight, because it was equivalent to early stage venture financing of a break through technology (decentralized currency). On hindsight, the underlying value of Bitcoin as a "currency" lies in its ability to do transactions and transaction value has increase from <US$10k in 2010 to >US$1B today. So you can say, by that metric, the raise in Bitcoin price is justified.

https://www.quandl.com/data/BCHAIN/ETRVU...Volume-USD

However, moving forward, I think a lot of Bitcoin success as an "investment" lies in it's success as a true replacement of fiat currency to a certain degree. And in my humble opinion, these things must happen:
 - substantial equilibrium transaction volume
 - volatility must fall to an acceptable level
 - sufficient transaction fees to support mining infrastructure
 - adequate security to protect virtual assets
 - sufficiently widespread real world adoption and exchanges to other currencies
 - Government support

I would say the last part is the most difficult part. Unregulated cryptocurrency market is vulnerable to systematic and security risks, the the government's job is to minimize such risks to average investors. Also if cryptocurrency becomes a runaway success, it will be competing with the value of fiat currency.

But all of these don't mean that it would not continue to appreciate and stabilize at a value higher than today (or collapse to oblivion for that matter). Also, potential investor should consider the possibility that better tokenized currency, with much lesser carbon footprint, which also addresses all the above issues, may come into circulation someday; making existing cryptocurrency soup obsolete. 

(not vested in cryptocurrencies)

[cyclone]

Jamie Dimon Slams Bitcoin as a ‘Fraud’

By Hugh Son , Hannah Levitt , and Brian Louis
September 13, 2017, 2:09 AM GMT+8 September 13, 2017, 6:59 AM GMT+8

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he would fire any employee trading bitcoin for being “stupid.”

The cryptocurrency “won’t end well,” he told an investor conference in New York on Tuesday, predicting it will eventually blow up. “It’s a fraud” and “worse than tulip bulbs.”

If a JPMorgan trader began trading in bitcoin, he said, “I’d fire them in a second. For two reasons: It’s against our rules, and they’re stupid. And both are dangerous.”

More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...ud-bitcoin

[Wildreamz]

Another perspective on cryptocurrency: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jp-morgan...08361.html

JPMorgan: The cryptocurrency market looks a like a pyramid scheme

In essence, Kolanovic is saying that the scarcity of bitcoin some evangelists cite as bolstering the cryptocurrency’s value actually illuminates the pyramid-like nature of the scheme. Because if it is unprofitable to mine new bitcoin, then it follows that new or prospective bitcoin buyers might ask whether they are really getting something of value in buying existing bitcoin or simply enriching the early owners who own a disproportionate amount of the asset.

Additionally, the proliferation of cryptocurrencies we’ve seen of late — Kolanovic estimates the market is now about $150 billion in size — indicates that players in the space may merely be extracting value from new members (read: crypto investors) and not actually creating cryptocurrencies which are worth anything.

Kolanovic writes that, in the case of bitcoin, “it is believed that an unknown person (or persons) known as ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’, before disappearing, mined the first 1-2 million coins, or ~10% of the coins that will ever exist ($4-8 billion current value). While initial mining requires a negligible effort, the benefits for subsequent participants start diminishing. Mining becomes progressively more difficult, and eventually unprofitable, marking the likely end of a scheme.”

Like a pyramid scheme, then, the values accrue up the chain while the losses flow down. Kolanovic says a possible workaround would be to just create a new coin, adding that, “This can work as long as there are enough willing and uninformed buyers.”

[tonylim]

https://tech.sina.cn/i/gn/2017-09-15/det...l?from=wap

有人赔上所有身家在炒币，现在进退两难；有人一夜间清仓，损失巨大。

来源：界面新闻 作者：王付娇

比特币上演了惊魂一夜。

9月14日晚7点，比特币国内最大的交易平台之一"比特币中国"发公告称：该数字资产交易平台今日起停止新用户注册；2017年9月30日数字资产交易平台将停止所有交易业务。

Game over ?