Thursday, December 19, 2013

Lessons From China for US Bitcoin Owners

....do not wait until the USG puts regs on Bitcoin dealers.

From NYT:
On Wednesday, BTC China, the country’s largest Bitcoin exchange, said it had been told to stop accepting deposits in Chinese currency. The announcement was the latest in a series of steps that have restricted the ability to buy and use Bitcoins in China.

“The drop in Bitcoin’s value in the last few days has been terrible, I’ve felt really uncertain,” an investor surnamed Chen told The Securities Times, a Chinese financial newspaper. Mr. Chen said he had bought five coins recently at a price of 3,100 renminbi, or about $510, apiece. On Wednesday the value dropped to three-quarters of that. “I thought I’d make a little short-term investment,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d lose money.”[...]One Chinese Bitcoin investor bought 10 Bitcoins when the price was at 2,000 renminbi each after seeing friends earn good returns, The Economic Daily News reported. “After half a month or so the price climbed to 7,000. It was unexpected and I was so happy. But I didn’t sell them. I thought, even if it dropped a little, I would still be ahead,” the investor, who was identified only by the surname Xu, told the paper.

6 comments:

  1. I can't wait for the US banks to lockout bitcoin. Only then will it grow like it was intended - person to person with no need for the banks. At the moment we're getting a free ride on their rails while we get it into the hands of the masses who will be really pissed when they're told the can't do something that is clearly in their economic interest.

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    1. Yup - every Tom Dick and Harry walking down the street is just DYING to get involved with a highly complicated technology that they do not understand until the State effectively makes it illegal ... exactly when everyone will jump in

      And of course this has nothing to do with why it will fail - bitcoin cannot generically become the most "marketable" commodity because it is not a commodity - it has absolutely no use/utility other than as a medium of exchange (laughable given current volatility) or as a medium of speculation

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    2. @ Danger Pioneer December 19, 2013 at 3:05 PM

      You make several faulty assumptions, namely:

      1. That the technology will always be complicated (do you use email or buy things on the internet?)
      2. That the State (specifically all States) will make it illegal
      3. That we need everyone to jump in (does everyone need to jump in to gold?)
      4. That bitcoins only utility is as a medium of exchange (have you even looked at the technology other than reading this one-sided blog?)

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    3. I'll be charitable and grant you 1

      as for 2 - if not illegal, entirely impractical for all intents and purposes - absolutely will happen, assuming it doesn't collapse entirely on its own

      3 - you need at least some critical mass - absolutely and unquestionably

      4 - I am vaguely familiar with other uses of the bitcoin platform - but that seems entirely unrelated to using bitcoin as a currency - which is the only thing I'm talking about - whether it can be used as a super-duper dropbox type thing may be entirely possible, but I don't think its germane to the ongoing debate here

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  2. I love it... its like the Wright brothers inches from lift off being rammed with a police cruiser and arrested." Told ya it wouldn't fly!"

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  3. Buy gold. Sell your shitcoins while they're "worth" something. You won't though and you'll lose your shirt!

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