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Bitcoin Price: Cryptocurrency Investors See Red As Market Value Drops:
Crypto investors are waking to sea of red this morning as the entire market took an absolute hammering overnight for the second time in just a few weeks.
The price of bitcoin fell sharply on overnight, approaching a dreaded $US30,000 ($A38,800) threshold it has not crossed since January and dragging other cryptocurrencies in its wake.
At around 2am, bitcoin fell 8.6 per cent to a value of $US31,501 ($A40,715), a level not seen since mid-May, when the volatile cryptocurrency temporarily lost 30 per cent in one session.
The second-largest cryptocurrency, ethereum, lost 11.2 per cent of its value, falling to $US2361 ($A3051).
Bitcoin's value has recovered slightly since the drop, rising to $US33,738 ($A43,606) at around 7am today – but, across the board, almost all of the smaller cryptos have been battered overnight.
[...] No concrete reason appeared to explain the price drop on Tuesday, but some analysts pointed to the seizure of $2.3 million ($A3 million) worth of bitcoin belonging to the Darkside hackers by US authorities as a possible factor.
[...] The US managed to recover almost all the bitcoin ransom paid to the perpetrators of the cyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline last month.
[...] It is being seen as a sign that law enforcement is capable of pursuing online criminals even when they operate outside the nation's borders – and, crucially, that crypto isn't beyond government control.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 09 2021, @04:20PM (8 children)
The collective delusion willing to pay for bitcoin decided it was worth less this morning... as far as inherent value in a bitcoin? That has always been worthless.
If you want to trade public keys on a public ledger, there are so so many ways to do that that don't involve consuming more electricity than a mid-sized European country.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by tizan on Wednesday June 09 2021, @04:48PM (2 children)
Indeed...I have a oval stone in my backyard...i value it at $10 ...I am sure if i get a few friends drunk they may be willing to buy it at $100.
But who cares...But why should the world care...its not like somebody else will find it hard to buy food if the value of my stone goes up..it just the fool who is willing to give me the money for it that it affects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @06:19PM
I care because that same trick when applied to cryptocurrency means that people buy up all of the gaming cards in order to make money (as in, make it out of thin air) and make it impossible for me to get one at any reasonable price.
cryptocurrency = fools gold.
(Score: 2) by Anti-aristarchus on Wednesday June 09 2021, @09:54PM
I want to buy your stone. I bid $100.99, in DogeCoin.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09 2021, @04:58PM (1 child)
This is one of the inevitable consequences of deciding to assess the value of something based purely on what people will pay for it. A much better system would be to value things roughly based on how many resources you needed to produce it or how much effort it saves you is a much better measure for many things. The problem, is that doing that doesn't encourage people to overspend and buy crap that they don't need or really even want, which is death for an economy that's based so heavily on customer spending.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 09 2021, @05:24PM
Ironically, bitcoin roughly follows this rule. Anytime I have analyzed the cost of efficient mining, I found it to be just slightly higher than the cost of obtaining BTC on the open market. When you factor in people with access to cheaper (or stolen) electricity and compute resources, that pretty well explains why the cost of mining tracks the cost of market purchase.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 09 2021, @07:42PM (2 children)
Cryptocurrency and NFTs are both functioning on Tom Sawyer economics: In order to make something act valuable in the marketplace, you just make it hard to obtain.
Another major trigger in the drop in price is the IRS announcing efforts to make it harder to use cryptocurrency for tax evasion and money laundering purposes, which I think is worth mentioning. What I haven't seen, yet, is use cases in which cryptocurrency is superior to government-backed currency as a medium of exchange for non-criminal transactions, which makes the "currency" part of their name questionable as well.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 09 2021, @08:53PM
The fuzzy intersection is: most crypto-heads, particularly those who cling to proof of work schemes, espouse a deep distrust of government - making them want to conduct their normal business as a criminal would: out of sight and therefore out of control of the government. Funny how they also inherently depend, daily, on the government and police to defend their rights to privacy, property, etc.
The laughable thing I have been mostly fruitlessly pointing out to these "gubbmint out my bidness" dweebs is that the very design of blockchain transactions makes them inherently the most traceable form of transaction ever conceived. There may be layers of obfuscation surrounding BTC exchange, but those could more easily be set up around any other form of exchange. The blockchain itself is irrefutable, otherwise you could spend your BTC multiple times.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 10 2021, @04:54AM
Well, money can't act as money, if you don't control its scarcity. You'll end up with hyperinflation and a dead currency. So yes, something that acts valuable is necessary to have a currency.