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Comment by berberous | Hacker News Reader

It is definitely a speculative bubble. I think we are in a similar position as 1998. The technologists can see that [the Internet]/[cryptocurrencies] are very interesting technologies, with the potential to change the world. But retail investors are pouring in, without any understanding of the tech, and inflating both good and bad [companies]/[coins] in a pure speculative frenzy.

If I had to bet, there is still lots of upwards runway left, but at some point, it will come crashing down, the bad [companies][coins] will be worthless, and out of the ashes will rise a more sensible market with some of these [companies][coins] truly changing the world.

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There will be a lot of blood on the floor though. The rise of Bitcoin as a speculative asset (and its inevitable crash) will do some damage for sure.

I'm bullish on blockchain technologies over the next decade or two, but we're gonna have to clean up for awhile.

My hope is that blockchain enthusiasts are taking their profits and using them to invest in building something better.

(There's also a lot to be said here about the hucksterism, shilling, get-rich-quick schemes, and an almost-fanatical belief in the power of a pure free market inherent in the BTC community from the beginning, but that's best left to another post)

I totally agree. I'm confident a crypto coin crash is coming to eclipse any we've had before. The combination of volume, transactions/second limits, and weak exchange infrastructure; when people want to get out things are going to get ugly.

Whenever someone says they're sure of a crash, I assume their true feeling is isn't confidence of a crash but frustration at having missed out. Have you shorted Bitcoin? That would help you to profit from your belief.

Sure I could short Bitcoin, but it cost me nothing to speculate about a crash. I also make the assumption when I see the FOMO argument that the person has a stake in Bitcoin/Crypto Currency. Perhaps both of our assumptions are wrong?

Once the bubble burst then no one argues that they were in a bubble.

something something about markets being able to stay irrational longer than an investor can stay solvent

Also agree. It seems many people are convinced that others will just keep holding forever. Eventually there's less money flowing in and people will realize they aren't getting rich. When people aren't making more money they will start selling.

Worse, the people buying in now aren't true believers. They are "investing" because they think it is easy money. These folks represent a larger percentage of the market cap and are also least likely to have confidence in bitcoin for it's utility. They also stand to lose the most because their buy in point was so much higher. (people who bought in at say $1000, are just losing profits)

A panic sell will happen at some point.

The cult-like “hodl” culture in the Bitcoin community exacerbating the already limited supply of Bitcoins (if it were a stock, it would be a “low-float” stock, which results in increased vol) has served as the perfect breeding ground for a bubble.

As Bitcoin becomes extremely mainstream, those who hodl Bitcoin with religious fervor are increasingly becoming a smaller minority. Eventually it’ll reach critical mass and there will be enough disloyal Bitcoin ownership to cause a panic at the first significant sign of selling.

I read somewhere that people are leveraging huge sums of money on crypto which may explain how it is going up by so much and so fast. If for whatever reason we start to see even a small downward trend then these people will be forced to sell their position and the whole thing will come tumbling down.

I think the big question here is what the crash will settle at for the big 3: BTC/ETH/LTC. Thoughts?

Why not Monero?

Simply to limit scope because Coinbase does not support Monero.

I believe BTC is here to stay, due to it being some form of "backing" currency for all other crypto currencies. I guess one could claim the same for ETH, since it's used for many ICOs.

But apart from that I am not sure what the future of ETH or LTC will be. To me it seems some adaptations of ETH have a much clearer use-case and therefore are likely to raise a lot in value in the future. One of the ETH based coins that I really believe in is OmiseGo[0] (OMG) which will bring banking capabilities to many people that currently don't have a bank account.

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[0]: https://omisego.network

How is eth "backed" by btc?

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