Is Bitcoin Dead?

[universal4]

Is bitcoin dead?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bitcoi...191800988.html

Personally I do not think it is quite dead yet, and I have stated many times that I do think banks and other payment system providers will figure out a way to start integrating blockchain technology into systems.

Transferwise does look interesting so time will tell of they can make a go of it, but with 100 million capital they have a good shot.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

Interesting article - thanks.

[Progger]

bitcoin is not death,not now.but this payment option is a niche the price can drop and you cash is gone,or not ?

regards

[Miles_FTA]

I have recently been approached to invest in a company Called Dragon Mining ?

Has anyone heard of them ? Apparently they are top 3 as far as mining companies goes ?

is it worth a try ? or should i stay far far away as is my first thought ..

[universal4]

Aren't they having the mining payout in a few months?

I could be mistaken as there is so much MIS-information out there about bitcoin (often put out by those marketing it), but I remember seeing that mentioned in a few articles.

Rick
Universal4

Edited to add: Yes I was correct, it halves in July
http://www.bitcoinblockhalf.com/

Some say this will push pricing up, but make an ROI on mining more difficult so it may not be able to sustain the price. But that could push the price even higher, but ion my opinion all of that volatility may not be good.

Speculators, on the other hand, probably won’t have much to celebrate when the halving comes. These people think the price will skyrocket when the block reward diminishes. On the surface, that belief really makes sense. Supply shrinks relative to demand, so the price goes up. However, that isn’t exactly how the halving works. The actual supply will not decrease, rather, the rate of growth will slow. The supply, the amount of coins in existence, will still grow continuously. Thus, there is nothing about the halving to lead us to say with certainty that demand will outstrip supply and send the price soaring.

http://insidebitcoins.com/news/the-b...the-hype/35014

[Christiaan]

It is not dead in my opinion, it will go up and down.

[Anton BitCasino]

Bitcoin should definitely show the growth this June when the miners reward will be halved.
Block rewards are being halved every 4 years and last time in 2012 bitcoin price went from $12 to $1000.


Bitcoin is not dead for sure. Just think about who is suffering from the popularity of cryptocurrency and who is trying to kill it?

[justbookies]

That article is old news about the one guy who threw his toys out the pram due to playground politics between developers, so you can ignore his hissy fit. The other guy they quote is trying to push some old fashioned payment app that bitcoin is completely undermining. Yes, he'd love bitcoin to be dead! Reminds me of the people who used to say you could never make money on the internet.

It doesn't matter how many people say the earth is flat or how loudly they say it, it wont change the truth.

Bitcoin is not dead (btw great emotive title for this thread!), it is growing in use and it even has a chance to be the future of payments. It doesn't need to be the future of payments though to be worth multiple times more than it is now. Whatever anyone says, in common use it works great, payments are fast, plus it cuts out the banks completely (and people with old fashioned payment apps). I could keep going with many more of its global benefits (in a world with numerous fiat currencies that need exchanging all the time). Basically it solves a lot of payment problems, particularly in our industry. Bitcoin aint dead, it is a healthy growing toddler.

[Celebrationbird]

It was dead before it lived for the swedish market lolol

[TheGooner]

I have recently been approached to invest in a company Called Dragon Mining ?
Has anyone heard of them ? Apparently they are top 3 as far as mining companies goes ?
is it worth a try ? or should i stay far far away as is my first thought ..

FFS Miles- if you've been approached to invest then surely you now know more than the rest of us put together?

They must have given you basic metrics on the operation? Costs involved vs coins mined and whether it's making a profit.
It's a very competitive environment now, coins are harder to mine and computing equipment is very specialist.

In the absence of hard facts or an inverstment summary :
I would have though the business was either :
a/ "coining" it and making a lot of money (so doesn't need investment) ...
b/ Or else is behind the computing curve and losing money so needs sucker investors ...

Basically if they need to ask for your money - then they're not making money - and you are unlikely to see your investment again.

But if you have some hard facts then please share.

[TheGooner]

(in a world with numerous fiat currencies that need exchanging all the time).

Hah ... I can tell you've been visiting the madmen forums to bone up.

The funny thing is that the phrase "fiat currencies" was originally used by "gold bugs" (metal bullion owners) to describe individual country currencies that were paper based and backed up by nothing more than the government promise to accept the currency as value for payment of taxes - which describes all currencies these days.

It was an attempt to say these currencies have little of value to back them - except a government promise.

Bitcoin lacks EVEN that as it has no intrinsic value, no guarantee of value, it's not widely used or circulated, and about 90% of it is horded by a handful of individuals in an attempt to create scarcity in the exchanges.

--------------

The thing I really don't understand about bitcoin is that it's just a piece of code that can be replicated tomorrow to start a new sequence - so how can there EVER be any scarity ?

There are thousands of competing coins out there aren't there - what makes Bitcoin so special? What prevents BitCoin1.1, or BitCoin2.0 from appearing? Why can't BetCoin appear?

I can't hold something as a store of wealth when I don't understand the reason for it's value.
Currency I understand (Goverment backing).
Gold and Silver I understand (rarity, cost to mine, desirability and technical uses)
Bitcoin ... I just don't see ANY value proposition at all.

[universal4]

Like many have said

plus it cuts out the banks completely (and people with old fashioned payment apps).

The only way this happens in reality, is that the exchanges which helps bitcoin owners exchange their coins back into an acceptable currency are currently hiding those users, and that will need to change, in order for it to become mainstream and acceptable.

Rick
Universal4

[rouletteguru]

All currency is based on perceived value. Bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrency so I dont think it will die so easily. But there are loads of other clones that probably wont last.

[justbookies]

Hah ... I can tell you've been visiting the madmen forums to bone up.

The only forum I have boned up on is GPWA. Enough mad men here.

[snaipera022]

Guess not, they started IPO and successfully guess one is just strating flourishing

[Sherlock]

Yeah, Bitcoin is dead. As Mike Hearn said in January. http://www.coindesk.com/mike-hearn-b...er-conspiracy/ And then Bitcoin gained 20% until now.

It is totally pointless to hear some nonsense from a company that is completely useless hipster project that the only thing can do is to raise money. Transferwise is dead, not bitcoin.

It has no sense for small amounts of money, because to save pennies on small payments is not worth of the time.

With bigger money it makes even less sense, because it is easy to have multicurrency bank accounts. Then it is easy to either do the forex trades or ask bankers to exchange at typically 0.3% margin max, which is way lower than trasnferwise fees. Even cashing the money out and bringing them in brick and mortar exchange shop will save something compared to TW. But the worst thing is about transferstupid is that from what I heard you will get money from many accounts of strangers. That is a way to hell to transfer bigger money through third parties when everybody is obsessed with moneylaundering.

Transferwise are really good only at one thing: marketing.

[universal4]

In my opinion, saving pennies on small transactions IS what will push a portion of the market.

Millions of people daily perform SMALL transactions and when banks and payment processors can save pennies, it will translate to LARGE savings annually for them which hopefully will also mean that in the end the consumer wins.

Whether Transferwise ends up being one of the "goto" payment systems or not is less of the point than the fact that MANY more will follow and there are sure to be some winners in the bunch that use the blockchain technology correctly, and integrate with CURRENT payment systems, banks and financial institutions around the world, which may reduce the perceived value or need of ANY of the hundreds of "coins".

Rick
Universal4

[Sherlock]

If it is about money, then in long term it is about effectivity. The small transactions add up, but only for the company.Not for the customers.

It is obvious they target small transactions from regular people. Ok. But is it really worth of learning new things, set up an account, be nervous from new things etc, when you are doing 2 x 1000 GBP transaction per year into EUR and you maybe "save" 20 Eur with that service and waste much more in your time as lost income? They try persuade people and rather investors, that it is woth of that for customers. I doubt that.

They are also deceiving on their website. Very few banks charge the 5% exchange fees on incoming payments. It is rather 2%. And as I said above there are ways how to go way lower. And be transparent. I have seen recently banks accounts closed, because AML procedures are becoming costly for banks. TW charges 1% or so. It is not a big difference. And if we count the fact their target group is the same people who accept double digits interest on credit without blink of eye, I do not see a space for this. Price elasticity of people is not that high. This is not like 1% cc cashback.


Also it is unclear what is their market? Is it SEPA area? There are already payments for free in Eurozone. Is it USD involved transactions? There are many restrictions there. Is it GBP to Eastern Europe payments? Underpaid Polish guys in London have their cheap ways...

I do not believe this system will be ever integrated. Banks do not want kill their business. They can easily ban those transactions or impose fees on certain domestic transactions in case tw would be used more. Now they do not care, because nobody uses it. But they would care if this becomes bigger. (They will care about bitcoin as well and they will not like it, but their power by btc is limited.)

This will follow another Baltic disaster Bondora. Guys want to copy Skype exit success, I do not believe in it. Time will tell as always. After recent bubble trasferwise will be done. It is obvious the video is just weird PR, where some bribed B-class journalist allowed to repeat some startup bullshit, where the brand "Bitcoin" together with "disaster" should promote Transferwise. There is no information.

Btw. it is obvious now that Bitcoin should NOT be competition to "greedy banks" or greedy cc fees, therefore mentioning trasferwise together with bitcoin makes no sense. Bitcoin - which has so far cheap transactions, but they will get much more expensive in future - has obviously different use: to allow payments in areas where it is difficult or impossible with overregulated fiat money. E.g. narcotics, online gambling in the US and maybe tax evasion. Bitcoin is not about paying coffee in starbucks and I doubt it will ever serve for regular overtheborder transactions in 1st world countries. But it might well serve for transactions to 3rd world countries, where banking systema are in stone age. I am using Bitcoins this way and saving incredible money.

I wish I am not right. I just do not believe in it as I do not believe in anything that can not produce hard cash in near future. It is only the recent monetary policy with subzero interest rates that so many startups in huge minus figures can exist for years. It is 100% state intervention, but sooner or later it will be corrected.

[universal4]

If Bitcoin is destined to be used only for gambling, drugs and other nefarious things, (which you are most likely right) then it's value can NOT be sustained over the long term, and it will never gain acceptance to the "regular joe".

If the popularity is based strictly for uses such as those between some third world countries as you suggest, it may well be dead but take a while to continue to lose long term value until it isn't worth trying to keep up with any longer.

Those that have recently invested heavily (or are still investing heavily) into mining operations etc, will do what they can to keep the hype going (the only reason it still exists today on my opinion) to try and get a return on their investments, but I think future large investments in mining operators is quite risky.

Rick
Universal4

[TheSpry]

I'm a fan of the BTC but totally admit there is so much confusion out there it is hard to take seriously. I have some and it is for spending and speculating with. Funny enough the reputable bullion dealers take bitcoin so it's easy to spend there and convert something with no intrinsic value into intrinsic value.