Cryptocurrency bubble has burst

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It was beyond easy to see this one coming.
It isn't over.

Bitcoin slumped to its low for the year after seeing more than $44 billion in market value lost during January amid mounting concerns of increased regulation and the viability of the cryptocurrency.
After reaching a record high of $19,511 on Dec. 18, Bitcoin has lost more half its value as the digital token has been weighed down by expectations of more government oversight globally, fears of price manipulation, the susceptibility of exchanges to hacking and lingering concern that it’s all just an asset bubble. Facebook announced a ban on cryptocurrency ads this week.
Bitcoin declined as much as 11 percent today to $8,915, the lowest since November, in part on concern India may crack down on cryptocurrencies. That follows a spate of recent negative headlines, including a $500 million heist from a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange.

More than $300 Billion in paper wealth has vanished from the cryptocurrency market since December.
This bitcoin bubble, and cryptocurrencies bubble in general, shared all the same indicators of a mania that you could find in any financial bubble:

Irrational bullishness
Buying with marginal credit/debt (especially near the top)

And now we see the best indicator of a financial bubble of all - fraud.

A growing number of virtual currency investors are worried that the prices of Bitcoin and other digital tokens have been artificially propped up by a widely used exchange called Bitfinex, which has a checkered history of hacks and opaque business practices.
...The people behind Bitfinex issue a virtual currency called Tether. Unlike most digitals tokens, every Tether is supposed to be backed by traditional money — the United States dollar. New Tether tokens are issued when investors give them dollars. One dollar is worth one token.

Because of the credibility that comes with that tie to the dollar, Tether are often used to buy other virtual currencies like Bitcoin.

In recent months, however, many investors have been raising alarm bells about Tether. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new Tether were created; almost always when the prices of other virtual currencies were heading down. The Tether were used on the Bitfinex exchange to make big purchases of Bitcoin and other tokens, helping push their prices back up, according to multiple analyses of data from Bitfinex.

“This became more and more concerning, because every time the markets went down, you have seen the same thing happen,” said Joey Krug, the co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, which runs several virtual currency hedge funds. “It could mean that a lot of the rally over December and January might not have been real.”

My guess is that the big fraudsters have already bailed on the market, leaving the greedy dumb-money holding the bag.

That being said, cryptocurrencies aren't going to go away. They do have a place in the world, so they will retain some value. Just not anything near what we've seen.

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Tangentially, it speaks to the value of money, particularly fiat currencies (of which I have the barest understanding). Still in the basic sense when currencies aren't tied to anything of value, they are subject to all sorts of hijacking, manipulation, hi-jinx, highway robbery. Whatever the mechanism, the money always seems to flow toward those who have most of it already.

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earthling1's picture

No, they will be kept on a 5" floppy in the kitchen junk drawer.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Strife Delivery's picture

Well hopefully it pops soon.

The mining has caused GPU prices to soar excessively. It kind of puts a kink in trying to build your own PC lately.

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Meteor Man's picture

Talk about irrational exuberance; this is from your very first link at Bloomberg News: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/bitcoin-extends-recor...

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at TF Global Markets in London said regulatory news are a long-term positive.

“Regulatory pressure is only a blip,” he said. “Speaking with investors, they are comfortable that now we have some regulatory framework around this, this doesn’t deter them but only foster their confidence in the technology.”

Sounds like a real buy opportunity to me!

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

are harmonious in the "cashless society" aspect. Certainly TPTB are working out how to turn the crypto craze to their own end.
Some day we'll be free of that awkwardness felt when some hungry, homeless person asks for change. We'll be protected better too, when the AI consults your medical history and refuses to authorize the purchase of those potato chips.
I try to keep the endgame in mind when trying to analyze the things being pushed at us. "Many fewer people, mostly slaves" makes the most sense.

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Orwell: Where's the omelette?

Song of the lark's picture

Money from nothing girls for free. What are there 500 cryptos at this point?
China markets a bit squirrelly last few days. Beginning of the end of the various bubbles, bond, crypto, stock, and personal, and national debt? Maybe.

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Arrow's picture

I was just going to launch 'c99coin' too. Hat a bummer.

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I want a Pony!

WoodsDweller's picture

Cryptocurrency miners build special servers with a dozen or so graphics cards (like you use to build a gaming rig). With the bubble in cryptocurrencies they've been buying up all the video cards in sight.
I want to build a new gaming rig, but I'm priced out of the market for now.
An example, an nVidia 1070 Ti (nice card)launched in October with an MSRP of $430. This morning they are priced for up to $1500. They've been going up around $200 per week.
A lesser card, a 1050 Ti has an MSRP of $150, it was going for $185 in December when I started pricing this stuff out, this morning it's going for up to $660.
This dip in BitCoin probably isn't enough to break this price spiral, but if it continues to decline to the point where mining isn't profitable, miners will dismantle their servers and sell the parts on eBay and we'll see a price crash in cards too.
Here's hoping!

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

edg's picture

@WoodsDweller

First their cryptos crash, then their server hardware is worthless. Greed deserves no less a reward than that.

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Lookout's picture

I thought this interview with Jeremy Gardner, 20 something year old millionaire and co-founder of Augur, about crypto-bros, ICO markets and the future of crypto was worthwhile to understand the generational gap between those who value crypto vs those who do not. It is in the last 15 mins of the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTVk_SeH_BU

In the first half they discuss the stock market. Seems now would be the time to buy bitcoin at the low? Much of the bitcoin sales are going to gold. People are trying to hedge against the fall of the dollar in both cases.
https://www.goldmoney.com/research/market-updates/gold-and-silver-may-be...

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout and no twenty-something year old on earth "deserves" a million dollars. It's no wonder to me he wants to make more of virtually nothing but profit. He's no different from any other hedger or speculator be it dollars, stocks, or blockchains. Those experts agree everything is fine. Not me.

Thanks for the Max Keiser video, he's affirmation how totally insane the Financial Services makes people. "intellectually vapid" indeed! The Mr. Twenty-something says "you olds just don't understand" omg are you sure he's not a teenager? "Open source money" omfg kill me now, are people actually swallowing it? "natural asset class" because "video games" Please proceed millenial lemmings, solving "the digital scarcity problem".

I love the way it ends, bleep! bleep! bleeeeep! That was perfect. Thanks.

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@Lookout
and $1,000 iphones.
They are infatuated with technology. I'm not.

But I do agree that gold is a good long-term investment in these times, for reasons of late-stage empire, the end of the global bond bull market, and the corruption of our political system.

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edg's picture

Are you telling me my stock in bitcoin mines on the moon is going to lose value?!?! I was planning my retirement around those hardy lunar miners and their digital shovels!!

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Each time driven by fraudsters like the ones you just described. Each time belatedly, the rubes will jump in and get burned.

Its like watching the hstory of the stock market

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