looks $ flowing out of alts and into bitcoin, which is somewhat surprising given the concerns over high transaction fees
Of course, it could just as likely be $20k tomorrow.
Problem is when a "Bitcoin run" (akin to bank run) starts you'll have slow, expensive transactions going down in worth compared to EUR or USD. Plus businesses can decide to stop accept BTC as currency like Steam did today.
And it will burst when Bitfinex bursts due to tether being an exposed fraud. Question is when, not if.
I'm also not really sure what the catalyst of a Bitcoin crash would be, wouldn't it require for the vast majority of people to decide Bitcoin is no longer worth buying ever? As long as the supply of greater fools never runs out, won't there be people around who buy into every dip and keep the price going higher?
I'm still not sure if that guy is lucky or screwed with his Bitcoin investment, but he seems confident it will work out.
Yeah, people thought the same during the tulip mania (something every Dutch kid gets taught at history class in high school [1]), dotcom bubble, MLM & ponzi schemes. "It can't possibly burst, the amount of fools who buy them are infinite." Of course it isn't infinite, and people are learning about Tether.
Plus, don't forget Bitcoin basically became illegal in China.
> I'm still not sure if that guy is lucky or screwed with his Bitcoin investment, but he seems confident it will work out.
As long as he can spend his Bitcoins, and as long as he does before it bursts, he's OK. Simple fact: if he spends it all now, he spend it with huge profit. I mean, if he can resell the products he buys with Bitcoin at a 10%-20% loss (which is very fair for a new product with receipt/warranty) he's still in on a net ~45-55% profit. Problem is the high transaction costs means people keep sit on their networth.
At some point though the exit strategy is destroyed when companies stop accepting Bitcoin as payment method. You can't exactly fortune tell when but when this happens en masse that's when the momentum of Bitcoin is RIP. Steam recently did, officially because as they put its "volatile" and because the transaction costs are too high (several tens of EUR/USD per transaction). Them saying its "volatile" is a way of expressing disagreement with the coin increasing in worth without being needlessly offensive. At the same time, they don't burn their bridge with Bitcoin altogether. My take is they'll restart with Bitcoin once the bubble bursted and stabilized.
And the reason it will burst is Tether. I'll patiently wait. I'm mid 30s. I got a whole life ahead. Recently bought a hardware wallet. Am I sad I didn't start with Bitcoins earlier? Sure, first of all because I like the concept in combination with a hardware wallet, and there was very little competition and virtually no drama about it (before Mt Gox). Second, I wish I did when it was 200 USD. And I even considered to start with BTC back then. I easily had a few thousand EUR to speculate with. The current stuff though, is irrational, and has the signs of bursting bubble all over it.
It seems like a crazy surge because of the nature of adoption rates of new tech. It gets faster and faster, radio, tv, internet, google, facebook, bitcoin. The limited supply also throws off our normal convention of stock price valuations that usually have large amounts of shares - often to keep the prices low for trading - but infinite divisibility makes this different from stocks.
I bought because I wanted to help people have a fairer system, and because I believe equity based money to be more sound than debt based money. Many of the people I wanted to help have a hard time believing what is happening (even I do a little), but I'm glad it is. Human nature often conspires against us in these situations, the naive and greedy may come in and benefit from a small investment earlier than the risk averse considered decision maker. The system is intended to help both. When you can see past your fear, envy, disbelief, regret and instead trade it for hope, adventure and magic internet money you may see it as a new fairer way for humanity to bank and not an affront to reality.
Interesting observation, in any case.
but that's only the case if the coin isn't popular. more popularity = more transactions = more competition for block space = higher fees.