This post about XRP applies to roughly every other cryptocurrency too: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ripple/comments/7pzd7f/heres_what_w...
2 sentences later
> Also, please don't ask for financial advice or price predictions short or long term. You have to make your own decisions.
This contradiction undermined the point of whole article for me.
http://hivergent.com/you-shouldnt-invest-in-ripple-and-not-b...
The difference between the price of bitcoin versus the price of bitcoin as it would be if it was only used as a medium of exchange rather than a speculative asset.
The bitcoin network adjusts the block difficulty (effectively the energy required to mine 1 BTC) every 2016 blocks such that the rate of creating blocks is fixed at one block (currently 12.5 BTC) every ten minutes.
If the dollar value of energy required to mine 1 BTC is significantly less than the current dollar value of a bitcoin then it is likely more hash power will be added to the network by the bitcoin farms, further increasing the network's hash rate, and as a consequence the block difficulty and therefore the price of the energy required to mine 1 BTC.
In general things are only as valuable as the "market" is willing to pay for them.
Sure, I was agreeing / checking my understanding was correct :)
Let it rest for a while and I believe it will have more races up-and-down the 10k-22k range so people can enjoy their gambling ;)
Nitpick:
Butcoin is not, to my knowledge, legal tender anywhere. What Indonesia has done is declare that all transactions in Indonesia must be denominated in rupiah. This is far more restrictive than most Weatern nations where private parties may accept anything they want as payment, but must accept legal tender in certain circumstances.
That's not what legal tender means in the UK and the misunderstanding causes some problems.
If I have a debt, and I attempt to pay in legal tender, and my creditor refuses to take it, I can say I've discharged the debt.
It has no use, in the UK, when I'm buying stuff in a shop.
http://edu.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-legal-t...
1. China cracking down harder: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/01/16/business/16reuter...
2. South Korea cut off access to banks by cryptocurrency exchanges in December, and access to exchanges by foreign traders. As a result the prices in the country spiked, and the largest price aggregator CoinMarketCap removed Korean exchanges from the index because they were skewing the averages. This caused ~$150B to appear to have suddenly vanished, gapping prices down. This is when the sell-off began in earnest. Then recently the South Korean Minister of Justice said he wants to shut down exchanges, but then the PM says that would require a vote in the National Assembly on new legislation. They are consulting with Japan (who are positive on crypto) and China (who are not) to create a new regulatory framework. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180116000817
3. Indonesia just banned cryptocurrency transactions, stating only their native currency is legal tender. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/01/15/bank-indonesia...
4. France's central bank has been whining about cryptocurrency for some time and finally convinced the Minister of Finance to make a public statement and authorize a draft of new regulations. https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/905169/bitcoin-France...
5. A speculative theory: the Bitcoin futures contracts are about to expire, and some investors will have bet on lower BTC prices. There could be large market players deliberately pushing prices down to meet those futures bets. Or just market makers wanting to get in at a lower price point.