This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse
The price of Bitcoin continues to rise at an exponential rate, and the financial world is in a complete state of shock. Just yesterday, I marveled that the price of Bitcoin had surged past the $13,000 mark for the first time ever, but then on Thursday it actually was selling for more than $19,000 at one point. As I write this, Bitcoin is sitting at $16,877.42, but a few hours from now it could be a couple of thousand dollars higher or lower than that. Those that got in early on “the Bitcoin revolution” have made extraordinary amounts of money, and many believe that this is just the beginning.
Of course many of the most respected names in the financial world were convinced that this would never happen. For example, back in 2014 Warren Buffett encouraged investors to “stay away” because he believed that Bitcoin was a “mirage”. And not too long ago JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that “if you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day”.
But for now, it is Bitcoin investors that are having the last laugh. If you would have gotten into Bitcoin back at the beginning of this year, your investment would be worth 16 times as much today. The following comes from CNN…
Bitcoin cracked $1,000 on the first day of 2017. By this week, it was up to $12,000, and then it really took off: The price topped $16,000 on some exchanges Thursday, and $18,000 on at least one. Other cryptocurrencies have seen similar spikes, though they trade for much less than bitcoin.
There’s a long list of factors people may point to in an attempt to explain this. Regulators have taken a hands-off approach to bitcoin in certain markets. Dozens of new hedge funds have launched this year to trade cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. The Nasdaq and Chicago Mercantile Exchange plan to let investors trade bitcoin futures, which may attract more professional investors.
At this point, Bitcoin has a market cap of approximately 280 billion dollars, and that means that if it was a stock it would “rank among the 20 largest stocks in the S&P 500“.
To put this another way, Bitcoin’s market cap is now greater than the GDP of the entire nation of Greece.
Earlier today, Zero Hedge posted a chart that showed how meteoric Bitcoin’s rise has been…
- $0000 – $1000: 1789 days
- $1000- $2000: 1271 days
- $2000- $3000: 23 days
- $3000- $4000: 62 days
- $4000- $5000: 61 days
- $5000- $6000: 8 days
- $6000- $7000: 13 days
- $7000- $8000: 14 days
- $8000- $9000: 9 days
- $9000-$10000: 2 days
- $10000-$11000: 1 day
- $11000-$12000: 6 days
- $12000-$13000: 17 hours
- $13000-$14000: 4 hours
- $14000-$15000: 10 hours
- $15000-$16000: 5 hours
- $16000-$17000: 2 hours
- $17000-$18000: 10 minutes
- $18000-$19000: 3 minutes
So where is Bitcoin headed next?
Whenever we see anything go up this fast, it is inevitable that there will be a pullback, and that is precisely what we are witnessing at the moment. After soaring past the $19,000 mark, Bitcoin dropped back to under $17,000. But this pullback could just be temporary, and there are some that are absolutely convinced that Bitcoin will blow well past the $20,000 mark by the end of December.
In the long-term, experts such as John McAfee and James Altucher believe that the price of Bitcoin will reach one million dollars. But there are others that believe that Bitcoin is one of the biggest financial bubbles in history and that it will eventually end in an absolutely horrible crash.
So who is correct?
Well, it is entirely possible that both sides are correct.
Bitcoin could theoretically continue to skyrocket for the next few years if the economy remains somewhat stable. And it is also true that given a long enough time frame, virtually every financial investment goes to zero.
Just like every other financial investment, the key is to get in at the right time and to get out at the right time.
For now, Bitcoin has sparked a worldwide craze that is absolutely unprecedented. The following comes from the Washington Post…
Such warnings have not stopped the craze surrounding the currency as the sharp rise in value creates ever more demand. In South Korea, people are pouring their life savings into bitcoin and other digital currencies. In Venezuela, after observing the rise of bitcoin, the government announced it would launch its own virtual currency called the “Petro” to get around U.S. sanctions.
And of course Bitcoin has spawned a whole host of competitors. At this point there are more than 1,000 virtual currencies in existence, and that number is constantly growing.
To me, this whole phenomenon is absolutely amazing. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are digital creations, and they don’t have any real intrinsic value.
But something doesn’t have to have intrinsic value in order to be extremely expensive. For example, a single painting by Pablo Picasso once sold for more than 100 million dollars. You and I may consider it to be just a silly painting, but because there are people out there that are willing to pay more than 100 million dollars for it, that is how much it is worth.
The same thing is true with cryptocurrencies. At this moment there are people willing to pay more than $16,000 for a single Bitcoin, and therefore that is what it is selling for.
Someday if this craze fades or global governments really start cracking down on cryptocurrencies, things could change very, very rapidly. So anyone that is considering investing should be aware of the risks.
But for the moment Bitcoin is on a wild ride, and it has been fun to watch. And since Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not controlled by the authorities, it is easy to root for them to be successful.
However, now that they are getting so much attention it is inevitable that the heavy hand of government will come down hard at some point. In the end, government usually ends up ruining just about everything, and I have a feeling that cryptocurrencies will be no exception.
Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.
Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream.
If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book [amazon text=Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming & How You Can Survive It&asin=150522599X].
bitcoin will save us!
bitcoin = “1” computer blip. i guess our dollar aint worth spit hahaha. bitcoin is just a money laundering scheme.
may the blockchain be with you and never be broken hallaluya!
And may the odds be ever in your favor.
why is it that when ever they show a picture of a bitcoin it looks like a gold coin behind a dollar symbol?. that is excellent brain washing. it should just be a picture of a charged partical on an ic chip.
Bitcoin is a scam. It’s most likely a Ponzi scheme and the last one holding the bag gets destroyed.
Don’t fall for it. It’s a deception.
Yes sir, you state to obvious. Real wealth comes out of the ground not some fictional computer construct that will disappear like a mirage. I would rather own a 100 ac. of coal land in Wyo. that all the bitcoin you could give me.
You can make a lot of fiat Dollars if you can get back out in time. The problem is that Bitcoin is a rigged game, and only a few know when the rug will be pulled.
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it”
Bitcoin is a digitized form of fiyat. It has some interesting features. No more than 21m Bitcoins will ever be “mined”. Theoretically, if you own a Bitcoin, you can fractionalize the thing to as many decimal places as your heart desires, which would then allow you to purchase a sack of groceries with your Bitcoin.
As Bitcoin stands today, there are some major shortcomings. The technology which would allow you to make a point of purchase transaction for that sack of groceries using Bitcoin does not exist. Right now, you simply can not take your USB stick, with your Bitcoin wallet on it, and hand it to the cashier so she can plug it into her register to pay for your sack of groceries. The processing speed is terrible; typically, a Bitcoin transaction takes 24 hours to process.
Then there’s the public. The public, by and large, is not going to be interested in how to fractionalize a Bitcoin. A significant percentage of the public simply lacks the brain power necessary to grasp any part of that concept. The public knows they can slam a wad of cash down on the table and walk out of the grocery store with their sack of groceries; if they can’t do the same with Bitcoin, they’ll want no part of it. Digitized fiyat will have to work exactly like paper fiyat, otherwise it will be doomed.
The fatal flaw to Bitcoin is its concept of all-encompassing transparency. Block chain is designed to create a digital record of every Bitcoin transaction, including the parties involved, the goods or assets changing hands, along with the value changing hands to complete this transaction. In theory, what amounts to a public record would be made regarding your grocery purchase once you pay for it with Bitcoin.
The pricing is a reflection of people wanting out of dollar denominated fiyat, and being willing to pay whatever it takes for something that does so and is portable, even if it’s just an evolved version of fiyat. If people are buying this thing thinking they’ll be able to move money, wealth or capital in vast amounts quickly, efficiently, and discreetly using Bitcoin, they will find out quickly that they were wrong in that assessment. Block chain was never built on the bedrock of a true and pure free market: money, wealth or capital moving from point A to point B quickly, efficiently, without the name of its owner ever being attached to it.
you must be a fed
all hail the rise of our savior “AI”. blockchain will create all wealth. we people love the blockchain, hail thd blockchain. well you might think you know what bitcoin is, but you dont. it will create misery before unheard of. -gandhi
The ‘Blockchain’ remembers all. A bankster’s wet dream.
Everything has a beginning, and everything has an end. It’s what happens in the meantime that matters.
A Ponzi scheme is a particular type of financial swindle in which some early investors are paid off with money put in by later investors in order to motivate investors to buy into it. Early Bitcoin buyers have benefited not by being given money from new buyers but by increase in price of Bitcoin. So Bitcoin doesn’t quite fit the definition of a Ponzi scheme. Whether Bitcoin has intrinsic value is irrelevant because the only value anything has is what someone is willing to pay for it. That is the only source of the perception of value. If something has no value for you, that does not mean that it has no value to someone else, and therefore any one man’s opinion that something has no value does not mean that it has no value.
Everything has a beginning, and everything has an end. It’s what happens in the meantime that matters.
A Ponzi scheme is a particular type of financial swindle in which early buyers are given money from new buyers in order to create the impression that all buyers will benefit. At some point there are no new buyers and the scheme collapses. By that time the originator has skipped town with most of the money. Early Bitcoin buyers have benefited not by being given the money of new buyers but by increase in the price of an item they purchased. Whether bitcoin has intrinsic value is irrelevant because the only thing that makes something valuable is what someone else is willing to pay for it. Therefore just because one man thinks something has no value does not mean that it has no value. If one other person is willing to pay for it, it has that much value. The reason is completely irrelevant.
4r’s, I see your argument. But it is a bit circular. “…. the only thing that makes something valuable is what someone else is willing to pay for it. Therefore just because one man thinks something has no value does not mean that it has no value. If one other person is willing to pay for it, it has that much value.” You’re right in that between those 2 persons, ‘nothing’ becomes ‘something’. But NOT to the rest of the world. Value must be inherently intrinsic in some manner to be global or widely accepted. Simply because without a value based in some tangible reality, all is just and idea. As you say, “thinks something…”; not, IS something. You can think there is a bridge; but, try to cross without a real structure and you’ll fall into the gorge. That is why the dollar MUST be tied to oil and it is now failing. Why? Because the idea of the dollar no longer is the only idea that it is coming to be traded in/for. Sir, even tulip bulbs were of a greater value in that someone in the end got a pretty garden.
Please accept my apology for the double post.
I am not sure what bitcoin is, but if I owned any of it you can bet it would not be worth much.
As an aside, did anyone see Roy Moore’s accuser now admits she doctored that yearbook? Also in this clip, utterly CLUELESS ABC throws out Moore’s comment on slavery. Having my M.A. in linguistics, I found this clip utterly insulting to mere common sense. This comment on slavery is ***clearly*** juxtaposed – i.e., an extreme positive with an extreme negative – ****to make a contrasting point.***** See clip at http://www.dailywire.com/news/24480/breaking-moore-accuser-admits-she-wrote-note-under-ben-shapiro?utm_source=shapironewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=120817-news&utm_campaign=position1#
Implying he supported slavery from this quote is perhaps one of THE most utterly ignorant things I have seen in quite a while from the media – and there is a LOT to choose from.
Hairless monkeys like sparklys, but then so do crows. I suspect this will be true till the end of time. I have a small stash of metals, which as of late have taken a hit, as the market is down. Not to worry, I just burp my ammo can so it does not implode/explode. When I actually open it, it contains the same mass as it did the last time I looked at it. Yea I know they are just shiny rocks, but if the value ever drops to zero, I can fill socks and have great saps for zombie hunting, so they will still be of some use!
yeah
When, as a teenager, my grandson worked for KFC, he bought two bitcoin for $40 each and has been holding on to if now for several years.
He repairs computers now and occasionally takes payment in Bitcoin.
He thinks by the year 2030 he will have enough bitcoin to buy a house.
“Wow,” I said. “Would be real cool if it happened that way. But, I dunno…??”
He tried to get me to go in to Litecoin a few weeks ago, but I just didn’t. It was way too high at the time. And now is way to higher.
He really should think about unloading those Bitcoins and plowing the proceeds into gold and silver. I follow Greg Mannarino quite a bit and he said a couple of interesting things yesterday about Bitcoin. He received some posts from people who were looking to move out of their Bitcoin positions when it hit 19k, but were unable to execute a sell on the exchanges. He also pointed out that the Bitcoin futures are going to start trading very soon. This is paper Bitcoin without even a fraction of Bitcoin to back the paper. Mannarino suspects this paper Bitcoin could be used to pile drive Bitcoin into the ground the way paper gold and paper silver are used to keep the price of gold and silver fraudulently low.
If the scenario plays out the way Mannarino suspects it could, anyone holding Bitcoin right now is going to get blown out. Paper futures pile drive the price into the ground, causing fear in those holding Bitcoin and a subsequent “sell at market” to get out, which pile drives the price into the ground further. The big question at that point is who would be waiting in the wings to gobble up all this Bitcoin people unloaded.
Bottom line on Bitcoin or any other crypto-currency is that they are all enhanced forms of fiyat. Instead of operating like paper fiyat, which is backed only by the ability of the outfit printing the stuff to print more of it, you can fractionalize a limited amount of coins to your heart’s content. It’s really the same concept run in reverse.
For me to be sold on crypto-currency, it must be built on the bedrock of a true and pure free market; quite frankly, none of this stuff measures up to this standard. For a crypto-currency to measure up, it must move money, wealth or capital from point A to point B quickly, efficiently, and without the name of the owner of said money, wealth or capital ever being attached to it. When you look at what block chain really is, even Ray Charles can see that block chain is a complete contradiction of a true and pure free market.
What would further enhance the standing of Bitcoin and the like in my eyes? Putting US fiyat into this thing at point A, then taking it to point B and being able to convert it into either point B local fiyat, or gold and silver at point B, without my name ever being attached to the transaction.
Until then, I’ll stick with history’s two true crypto-currencies: physical gold and physical silver.
If the banks paid even just a small nominal rate of interest on savings (5% or so), Bitcoin money would come flying out. Why don’t the banks realize this?
Tulips.
If its not in your hand you don’t own it. Its already collapsed a couple of times. I don’t trust online currency like this, it too easily can disappear. How and what backs it up?
Hi Jim,
I was thinking that some “big whales,” either huge hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, or central banks were on perpetual “standby” to stabilize BTC after these almost regular drops. They make sure they have enough cash on hand to prevent a severe drop. Wouldn’t that be the mother of all hoaxes?
I think that regular price drops in BTC are more like to reassure investors that BTC is following a “healthy” run up in price as opposed to a straight moonshot with no pullbacks.
This may be an attempt to lure the last remaining minnows (the small dumb mom and pop investors who are now probably trying to get a second mortgage on their homes, sell their precious metals or raid their retirement accounts) to get in on the action. These pullbacks are certainly the ultimate in enticements to “BTFD”.
You got that right Archivist…it’s a digitized version of Tulip Mania. People will pay whatever they can afford for whatever they think is valuable.
Me, I use my meager assets to purchase a few precious metals once in awhile like lead, brass, gold, and silver.
Bitcoin and cryptos are the “beast”.
Who gets the money when someone buys a Hitchin ?
Bit-will turn to=sH&T COIN me thinks
madoff swindle -updated….
A bunch of suckers are being had! Where do you think the bitcoins that are now being sold for 20 grand come from? The people that are selling bitcoins they bought at 100 bucks or so! They are getting out while the getting is good.
When the suckers decide to cash in they will find no buyers once the tide starts going out. Then they will panic and sell for whatever they can get, anything at all! Like the big stock market crashes. The real suckers are the idiots that are putting their life savings in it. They deserve to lose it all! Stupidity gets its just reward!
So funny reading all the negative comments regarding bitcoin (or cryptocurrency) … try and have an open your mind and educate yourself. Do you all think the fiat in your pockets/banks is better???
Will the Bitcoin crash cause the next depression?