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Comment by paulpauper | Hacker News Reader

imho it stabilizes and goes back to 1200. It surged from 2011-2014 without the ETF...Bitcoin is seen as a safe haven against global destabilization. A lot of money on the sidelines looking for a buying opportunity that has come

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Exactly. The bitcoin market is small compared to other financial markets, 15 billion or so, but has potential to get much larger. In a world of negative interest rates, capital controls, and cashless societies, it looks pretty attractive. It's wealth that you control and own. When the next financial crisis comes (and in the face of low yields and record PEs), the asymmetries of money flowing out of these markets into Bitcoin will be a sight to behold. I hold some BTC. It's been a wild ride from the 200s. -10, -20% is just another day in Bitcoin world. yawn

"Bitcoin" and "safe" in the same sentence is an odd look.

safer than many foreign currencies, which have lost 30-99% of their value relative to the USD since 2013

Yeah but we're talking about a loss of 30% of its value in under 5 minutes. Brexit vote to the GBP wasn't even that bad.

Eh, most of us were expecting it to fall worse.

Yep. Was picking it to hit the 7's. Quite surprised. Still think it is going to move sideways for a few months though. But hey, I was wrong about the scale of the post-ETF drop, so maybe I'm wrong about that. By any measure, bitcoin has much more support than I thought it did.

As opposed to Bitcoin, where the statement is sometimes along the lines of "lost 30% of its value since 20:13"?

In 2013, depositors in Bank of Greece lost 50% of their deposits above $100k, overnight, by decree. Not saying Bitcoin is perfect, but the alternatives are often not better.

"We're as bad as Greece during a financial crisis" isn't really reinforcing the "safe haven" argument.

Wasn't that in Cyprus?

yes not only was it in cyprus but it was 60% and in addition the rest of the 40% you weren't allowed to touch it, or more generally you need to submit around 3 forms to get funds from the money that is still there that you and i state this "used to own"

Nice joke, but short term volatility aside, bitcoin has been fairly stable for the last year or two, compared to the early days.

Why is it seen as a safe haven?

Like if the internet got broken up, Bitcoin would be even harder to use safely.

it's much more liieky a country will default or fal ito chaos (5 countries nearly did in 2011 during the European debt crisis) than the internet suddenly ceasing to exist or being broken up.

A small country defaulting isn't global destabilization.

> it's much more liieky a country will default or fal ito chaos (5 countries nearly did in 2011 during the European debt crisis) than the internet suddenly ceasing to exist or being broken up.

There are countries for which that may be true, but there are other countries with currency to hedge against those events.

When bad things happen, sometimes capital controls are introduced. This may restrict the ability for people in that country to purchase foreign currencies. Even in developed countries such as Iceland.

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