Major cryptocurrencies are languishing this year, while old-fashioned bets such as blue-chip stocks have paid off
I think they filed this before today's debacle, so couldn't have been more timely. Well done, journos.
The slump has continued even though stocks are still near records, with the gains broadening throughout the market and investors betting the economy will keep growing. A weakened dollar had also pushed investors toward alternative assets for safety in the so-called debasement trade.
"“It’s a mess out there,” said Gennaro Salemme, a 32-year-old car salesman in Chicago. “The vibe right now is ‘stay alive.’”""“It’s a mess out there,” said Gennaro Salemme, a 32-year-old car salesman in Chicago. “The vibe right now is ‘stay alive.’”"
OK, honestly that's the guy you're quoting...?
oh, no it gets worse:
“It was almost like it was 2021 all over again,” said Lewis Carr, a 19-year-old college student in Texas who sold gaming consoles on Facebook Marketplace to fund his crypto investments. “Like you couldn’t lose money.”
“Crypto right now is a total gamble,” he said. “I think everybody realizes that.”
Jeez. WHERE ARE THE REAL JOURNOS ASKING THE REAL GUYS BEHIND THE SCENES?!
The bleak mood in cryptoland is in stark contrast to the start of last year, when investors cheered what many believed would be a new golden era for digital assets. Major Wall Street firms had already launched spot bitcoin ETFs, pushing digital tokens into the mainstream. And Donald Trump was back in the White House, promising to turn America into a “bitcoin superpower.”
Clearly something is breaking and you can't put in the journo effort to figure out what that is? What are you even here for, srsly.
Something is wrong. I know it; you know it; the WSJ journalists know it (even though this exact coverage was less than impressive.)
The question is, was bitcoin always wrong and we've just been pretended/throwing away our economic value all this time... or did something break recently, in the shadows? Did the breakage come from inside or outside Bitcoin, that is: is it macro markets (foreign-affairs, invading some wacky country?) collapsing that's spilling over into bitcoin, or is it bitcoin itself that's broken?
yeah, I've never been more disillusioned by this pretty pathetic orange piece of crap. I was sort of kidding about the scodus the other day (#1422689, #1422925) but now I'm not. "We" (the cypherpunks, the freedom lovers, the austrian economists etc etc) tried, and we failed. Just said it took 17 years to figure it out :/
Joe is (needlessly) pointing out the obvious:
Have fun staying poor everyone.Have fun staying poor everyone.
I'm gonna go get myself some, like, US Treasuries or something. A permissioned bank account, maybe #1422689
edit, oh am I looking forward to seeing these tweets age
Nothing has changed.
The truth is, Bitcoin's price is currently untethered to any fundamentals. There aren't any significant contracts denominated in bitcoin that tie its price to tangible value. So it fluctuates wildly based on Keynesian beauty contest dynamics. That's the only point I'll concede to the likes of Warren Buffet who see this lack of tethering to "fundamentals" as a problem.
But if you believed in Bitcoin's core thesis, which is that it's better money, nothing's changed that should make you second guess that core thesis.
everything has changed if it's performing when it's literally never been better conditions for it (macro, education/info, gold etc). The discrepancy between need/value/use case and actual reality has never been greater, I think.
And really sad to see literally everyone who bought bitcoin in the last 14-15 months have their value debased and economic worth eroded. It's like the opposite of what we're here for
So what would you say changed for you? Did you learn something new about the bitcoin influencer space? Or perhaps you learned something new about governments' view of bitcoin as a reserve asset / dollar hedge? Or the priorities of the bitcoin developers?
For me, I never expected much out of the influencer space or from state actors. The Core/Knots controversy, while annoying, is a necessary unavoidable debate over Bitcoin's future. Bitcoin's claim to better money is a function of its attributes, not a function of how others are acting in the moment.
I do believe that whether Bitcoin's attributes will necessarily lead to widespread adoption and value accumulation is an open question. For various reasons, a socially preferable money may not be preferable at the individual level given current circumstances, leading to a "failure to launch" situation. So maybe what changed is the assessment of the launch probability?
In any case, I think I personally always maintained a somewhat low weight / long time horizon on Bitcoin's launch potential, which may be why I'm not really surprised by Bitcoin's sudden downward price movement.
I made this point somewhere else recently, but the long time horizon part is pretty important.
Let's say everyone believes in eventual hyperbitcoinization, but the expected timeframe shifts out from 50 years to 80. That will have a dramatic effect on current prices, but it doesn't really change anything about bitcoin.
Yes, and it's also why I don't advise people putting 100% of their portfolio into Bitcoin. Who knows how long it'll takes to reach widespread adoption, and the twists and turns to get there? If it even gets there in our lifetime?
Kids still gotta eat
The whims of the market are inscrutable to me, but I don't think anything has changed about Bitcoin itself. Maybe the gold dump spooked people and now the fire sale is here. Feels like the kind of dump you get before everyone realizes that actually they do want some Bitcoin. Even if it isn't, I'd rather hold sats than dollars.
I'm curious: would you be happy to hold Bitcoin if it had no volatility? Say it traded at $124k for the next hundred years?
Or do you see price increase as a necessary part of bitcoin's value proposition?
I would still hold some bitcoin. I can't think of a better "escape" asset. I also always wonder what Weimar Germany would have been like if they had a bitcoin option during their hyper inflation.
I also want more places to accept bitcoin as payment. It is faster cheaper and more convenient than fiat. But maybe a bit less safe because there's no recourse if you make a mistake
The biggest problem is the majority of recent buyers bought in at the fomo 125k high and now their nest egg is fucked
They bought at the wrong and right time because the price has gone against them but they learnt the effects of volatility too
Most other plebs bought when they were bored to fuck in lockdown and at least they benefited from the 69k bull
It's a, painful period but 77k opportunity vs 125k, hope they saved some dry powder for now
Personally I can see 58k gang
Let's see 👀
Bitcoin is not threatening the fiat system in any tangible way. Therefore, Bitcoin (more accurately humans using Bitcoin) is broken. Period.
If I simply wanted to store value across time/space, I could just buy gold.
The world doesn't need Gold 2.0. It needs a replacement for fiat. When the Bitcoin community forgot about that goal, and embraced NGU nonsense, Bitcoin broke.
https://twiiit.com/TheStalwart/status/2017654918329348217