China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used by Beijing

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by danbruc on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:17PM (#27823531)

The success of Bitcoin is clearly inevitable, and its adoption will continue elsewhere in the world, with or without China.

Where is this adoption that everyone is talking about? Is there at least some credible chart that shows growing transaction volume?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by landryraccoon on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:31PM (#27823691)

Clearly the problem is your measure of success. For the author, success means HODL to the Moon! Who cares about transaction volume or if anybody actually spends bitcoin in everyday life?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by danuker on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:45PM (#27823853)

While one of the intended uses was P2P cash, which is not very practical due to high fees, it is indeed successful as a long-term store of value.

If you ignore the stomach-churning 80% drawdowns and instead look at the long-term average, there's a power law that explains the price quite well:

https://digitalik.net/btc/long_term_power_law

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by jfengel on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @02:22PM (#27824322)

The problem is that in economic terms, there hasn't been a "long-term average" yet. It's a new financial instrument, and during what duration it's had, its price has been driven by an influx of interest.

At best, you can hope for a logistic curve, where the growth will flatten off when everybody on the planet (at least, those with money) has collectively decided to accept it. That will level off the price.

At worst, when that happens, the people who depended on the exponential growth will cash out their earnings in search of new opportunities. If that happens, the entire thing will crash rapidly.

I can't tell you which it's going to be. I'd call it a coin toss. But that makes it hard for me to consider it a "long term value". It's a valid best case scenario, but we haven't seen that best case yet, only an influx of new buyers who are drawn more by the upward curve rather than the potential flattening.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by legulere on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @03:52PM (#27825490)

You were able to say the same about beanie babies. Bitcoin could lose trust in it at any time. There’s hardly an intrinsic use in a Bitcoin and there’s also hardly any demand for it except as a gambling opportunity. (Fiat money has government demand through taxes).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by teachrdan on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @02:05PM (#27824127)

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but OP was talking specifically about adoption, which appears to remain very low. It seems the only practical use for Bitcoin today is as a store of value. Which can be rephrased to mean that it's a tool of speculation for those wealthy enough to buy it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by danbruc on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @02:53PM (#27824713)

Who will pay for the gains if people want to withdraw them?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by lhorie on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:29PM (#27823673)

There were news recently about Fidelity expanding crypto-related staff by some 70%. I hear crypto is also growing in popularity in Central/South America (the El Salvador Bitcoin move, Brazil's Mercado raising money w/ Softbank, etc). Though, full disclosure, I'm not familiar enough w/ the space to tell whether that offsets whatever is happening in China.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by jpmattia on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @02:01PM (#27824066)

> There were news recently about Fidelity expanding crypto-related staff by some 70%.

You got me curious: 70% corresponds to 100 people. The article is here: https://news.yahoo.com/fidelity-digital-assets-plans-70-1850...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by lhorie on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @02:56PM (#27824764)

I'd think in terms of how much it costs to hire these people and what Fidelity's profit-per-employee rate is, as that should in theory give an idea of a lower bound for how much they expect to earn from crypto. One would expect trading volume to be several to hundreds of thousands times that amount, assuming fees similar to Coinbase/Kraken/et al.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by EliRivers on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:35PM (#27823733)

No, that's bad! The article makes it clear that China banning bitcoin and bitcoin mining is good, so other countries making more use of it must be bad.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by lhorie on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:43PM (#27823823)

Are you hijacking the topic to rehash the well-known tirade about energy usage? The article says less mining being concentrated in China means more decentralization (which is "good" as far as the philosophy of cryptocurrencies goes)

Also, just a reminder that not all crypto is PoW. Nano, for example, claims to be extremely energy efficient.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by oefrha on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:38PM (#27823774)

From guidelines:

> Don’t be snarky.

You should have known this after being here for a decade.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by EliRivers on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:41PM (#27823806)

Take a guess; did I, in fact, already know that? There's another thread around here somewhere in which I am deliberately impolite to someone.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by Guest42 on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @03:18PM (#27825037)

I googled daily transactions and it was in the 200ks whereas before it was in the 300ks.

Meanwhile, there are 109 million credit card transactions a day in the US alone and who even knows how many wires or cash payments (or what happens when you go beyond the US).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by thatcat on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:51PM (#27823934)

It seems that at least one country, El Salvador, has even less stable value than btc and have declared it a national currency to stabilize the economy.

https://safemoon24.com/index.php/bitcoin/bitcoin-btc-now-dec...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by EliRivers on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:21PM (#27823578)

So for the future of Bitcoin, this is all extremely Bullish.

If China banning bitcoin use and mining isn't an obvious indicator to you that Bitcoin is looking good, I don't know what would convince you :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:China's Ban on Bitcoin Follows a Pattern Frequently Used ... by danbruc on Tuesday July 13, 2021 @01:27PM (#27823627)

Numbers.

[ Parent | on HN ]