39 pointsby hn_acker3 hours ago15 comments
  • garciasn2 hours ago
    > Bitcoin, down more than 40% from its October peak, is now “exposed as a completely speculative asset.”

    “Now”? No; it’s always been a speculative asset. The only folks who didn’t think that were those who didn’t know any better.

    • JumpCrisscrossa minute ago
      To drive home the ridiculousness of this, Bitcoin traded around $126k in October. It’s now at $60k. Even if it recovers, that’s an 87% annualized loss.

      That’s a 669% inflation rate.

  • kristianpan hour ago
    https://archive.is/eS2Q3

    > [Burry] warned that if prices fall another 10%, Strategy (MSTR) would be billions in the red and could “find capital markets essentially closed".

    According to bloomberg [1] mstr is still trading at a 9% premium to the btc it owns. Why would bitcoin falling another 10% make a difference?

    [1] https://archive.is/jQPYk

    • donavanm5 minutes ago
      I suspect the issue is they still need cash for 1. dividends 2. Further dilution, er acquisition. They have some put away for the near term dividends. But you can see the negative feedback loop if they cant make those payments/acquisitions. Having a huge hole in the books wont help for raising cash through lending, or asset sales realizing the loss.

      Re: 10% specifically, i havent checked but Im guessing thats a floor on their cost basis for a bunch of holdings going negative.

  • aresant2 hours ago
    Top comment of one of the standout Bitcoin-culture memes ->

    "The best technical analysis anyone has done on bitcoin."

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZ8zDpX2Mg

  • ArchieScrivener2 hours ago
    Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but PoW is going to become a liability in a world of energetic production. It is irrational to spend the same amount of energy on mining a digital token when it can be used to build and power actual productive robots.

    If Bitcoin Core decides this is true and alters the algo to save the chain, it too will lead to collapse as a Balkanization will occur across the mining pools. The most likely outcome is disintegration.

    • woleium19 minutes ago
      I have no idea if it’s true, but i did see some estimates that the visa and mastercard systems also use the same order of magnitude of energy.
    • usrnm2 hours ago
      > It is irrational to spend the same amount of energy on mining a digital token when it can be used to build and power actual productive robots

      It's just as irrational as it was 10 years ago, there have always been more productive uses for energy, but it doesn't really matter, people will always chose their own short-term profit, expecting anything else is delusional

      • jszymborski31 minutes ago
        Further to this point, it's not like non-PoW coins like Ethereum are doing better at the moment.
  • thousand_nightsan hour ago
    after seeing the recent surge of meme stocks, 0dte option trading, sports betting, prediction markets and funny internet coins, one thing is apparent is that people just love to gamble

    so i don't believe it will ever go to zero as it has intrinsic value as a casino, if nothing else

  • kilroy123an hour ago
    My prediction has always been that as soon as Tether is proved to be a fraud, the game is over. All of it will experience a massive sell-off.
  • skybrianan hour ago
    I'm doubtful that Bitcoin true believers will give up after a crash and expect that there will be buyers. At what price, though?
    • ajkjkan hour ago
      on the one hand I can't imagine it will ever go fully to zero because then people will buy them just for fun, keeping the price at least a bit up.

      on the other hand there is a price where the network no longer has any incentive to operate. Whereupon... doesn't it just stop working / become easily forkable? in which case it seems like Bitcoin is perhaps uniquely unable to recover from crashing out of all things that can crash (a thesis which is consistent with it having no intrinsic value, lol)

  • womittan hour ago
    I see the https://occupywallst.com/yen narrative more believe
  • 2 hours ago
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  • zetanor2 hours ago
    So, how many bitcoins to a pizza would that be?
  • tgrowazay2 hours ago
    One may think it is about quantum computers reversing the keys or something like that, but no.

    This piece predicts that BTC will go to zero because it is held my MicroStrategy and is not a good hedge against stock market.

    • jfengelan hour ago
      The other key piece is AI, which is where the money is going instead. It is newer, so people can hope they're getting in closer to the ground floor.

      And unlike Bitcoin, it is producing something. Maybe not what people hope, but it's more than just a "store of value".

      Once the speculation money starts to leave, the supply of greater fools will have run out. There will be literally nobody willing to buy it.

  • codyb2 hours ago
    That's been my target for the last... wow... has it nearly been 18 years since I started futzing around with Bitcoin for the first time?

    Been a swift drop this time. My buddy goes "if only I sold it all in October", what... like the rest of the people participating in the Ponzi scheme who would also like to cash out at the top?

    Looks like all those stupid bitcoin treasury companies are finally unwinding.

    At least no one's sitting around pretending it's going to actually do anything useful anymore.

    • bb88an hour ago
      > At least no one's sitting around pretending it's going to actually do anything useful anymore

      It enriches certain elected officials (and their friends). That's why the US Government holds a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve".

      Other than that if you measured the utility of Crypto assets versus AI, there's no argument that AI (even though it's in a bubble) is still more valuable per MWh than Crypto.

      • codyban hour ago
        Oh ya, AI may be frothy and bubbly right now but there will certainly be and already are tremendous real world software and hardware products and tech flowing out of the space
  • londons_explorean hour ago
    I will buy every single bitcoin in existence for 1 cent each.

    The fact my offer exists means a zero price target is dumb.

    • rationalistan hour ago
      There are about 20 million BTC mined so far, multiplied by 1 cent each equals $200,000.

      That seems like a lot of money to waste.

      • dullcrisp15 minutes ago
        I will buy every Bitcoin in existence for approximately one twenty millionth of a cent each.
    • surgical_fire37 minutes ago
      If after you buy those, you are unable to buy anything with them, or sell them for whatever value, the zero target will have been reached.

      Your take was dumber than the zero price target.

  • tom_an hour ago
    This article contains multiple lies. For starters, it is not the 5th of February. Also, 1 BTC = 1 BTC, or, in dollar terms, despite the claims, $64,400.

    I didn't pay much attention to the rest of it but I can't imagine it was any better.

    • sointerestingan hour ago
      What day do you think it is?
      • tom_an hour ago
        Well I messed up my joke slightly by adding a time-dependent BTC value, which was silly of me, but I was trying to cover all bases. I should have stuck to the classic 1 BTC = 1 BTC :(

        (Anyway, in answer to your question: at time of writing, it's the 6th of February, though I don't know what else you might be expecting.)

        But, regardless, even if you feel you have won, this time - for how long? It won't be the 5th of February for you forever!