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Bitcoin's Recent Slide -- Harbinger of Cryptocurrency Problems in General?

posted by martyb on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the Trouble-In-Bitcoin-City dept.

All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us writes:

An article on Ars Technica notes the continuing slide downward of Bitcoin prices (down below $9,000 per coin from a December peak of $19,500). It also notes some recent news about Facebook ads and crypto, SEC Action against a different cryptocurrency project, and rumors about a still different coin's possibility of insolvency.

Meanwhile, rumors are swirling about Tether, a cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to the United States dollar. Tethers are supposed to be redeemable for dollars at any time, but in recent months Tether has struggled to gain access to the conventional banking system and has failed to produce a financial audit demonstrating its solvency.

I'm not sure if the article is connecting unconnected stories of problems or if the theme of trouble in crypto-land generally is valid. But this quote got me to thinking how much the state of cryptocurrency may be like the Free Banking Era in the United States in the 1800s and the Wildcat Banking that signaled its demise. We discuss cryptocurrency a lot on Soylent, but are the troubles of various operators all linked or is it unrelated coincidence?

[Ed. Note: The linked story at Ars Technica was updated to report that the price of one BitCoin dropped below $7000. As of this writing, coinbase reports the price dropped to about $6400 (Javascript required). Note this price is still $5500 ahead of where it was this time last year when it had just inched above $1000.]

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:29AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:29AM (#633610)

    realize that they had been had in an old pump-and-dump

    As soon as the media started talking up BitCoin, anyone with half a brain stayed in for just a couple more days to make sure they could take the money from the next schmo... then they got out because the game was up. Anyone pouring their money in because they heard about it on the telly basically was being had.
    It's like that with everything: as soon as everyone else starts pouring in money and savings, you know the game/good time is about to end.

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  • (Score: 2, Touché) by tftp on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:32AM (1 child)

    by tftp (806) on Tuesday February 06 2018, @03:32AM (#633612) Homepage
    I bet they will be calling it "BitCon" now.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:08AM (#633625)

      BitCon, where the fact that you were being had, has been immutably recorded in the blockchain forever...