Why is Bitcoin suddenly plunging?

[Blockchainbull + 26]

I see absolutely no big catalyst for this....what's going on. All the top cryptos are falling all of a sudden. Bitcoin down to $9,500....

[msk + 42]

Binance halted withdrawals on fear of hacking rumors, apparently. 

https://safehaven.com/article/45047/What-Sent-Bitcoin-Below-10k 

[TraderTate + 183]

yeah, that's a different take than bloomberg or zerohedge had, but it makes sense. Everyone else is tying it to the SEC's statement today: 

https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/enforcement-tm-statement-potentially-unlawful-online-platforms-trading

I'm not buying it, though. It's a vague statement that says nothing new, really, does it? And why didn't crypto dive last week when everyone was talking about the SEC launching its crackdown?

[Blockchainbull + 26]

I'm sure everyone's freaking out over Binance. Nothing strikes fear in the crypto trader's mind more than an exchange playing free and loose with someone's holdings--without telling them. 

[Seleskya + 50]

The Ripple disappointment of this whole thing is another big story. Why is Coinbase giving them the cold shoulder? Ripple's been on a tear lately, too. 

[WaytoPeace + 62]

The real question is not why cryptocurrencies are falling, but why people are still willing to pay so much for them.  After all, their “value” will plunge once they are regulated and tracked, and until then they are nothing but rationalized Ponzi schemes.  

[sen + 11]

Yep, agree.  Bitcoin ethereum Al are great enablers for criminal gangs, etc.  Without the anonymity, how is it better than a credit card?

[CMOP + 225]

17 hours ago, sen said:

Yep, agree.  Bitcoin ethereum Al are great enablers for criminal gangs, etc.  Without the anonymity, how is it better than a credit card?

Here's a great article over the differences - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/042215/bitcoin-transactions-vs-credit-card-transactions.asp 

Blockchain is the future - banking needs to evolve. 

[TraderTate + 183]

On 3/8/2018 at 6:53 PM, sen said:

Yep, agree.  Bitcoin ethereum Al are great enablers for criminal gangs, etc.  Without the anonymity, how is it better than a credit card?

Which makes PayPal's seeming new love for bitcoin odd, right? They just filed a patent that would speed up payments with bitcoin. Not too long ago they were saying bitcoin would never be widely adopted because it's too volatile and merchants wouldn't be able to handle the volatility. Now they're changing their tune, so I guess that means that merchants are ok with the volatility. If Paypal wants to speed up the process of making purchases using bitcoin ...

[Blockchainbull + 26]

but the 'catalysts' were all exaggerated, I think, largely because the crypto market is ruled by FOMO

[Missy + 42]

On 3/10/2018 at 2:11 PM, Blockchainbull said:

but the 'catalysts' were all exaggerated, I think, largely because the crypto market is ruled by FOMO

FOMO is for sure what's driving it here, I think. Crypto doesn't actually exist. Yet the values are crazy, driven by people who want to jump on the crypto train because they are scared that the train is going somewhere good and they'll be left out. The train could derail, but still, this is not a sufficient deterrent. If the train went somewhere grand and you weren't on board, you'd be kicking yourself. I, for one, am happy to wave bye-bye to the train

[CameronMcGrath + 2]

Now Bitcoin has great price.

[TherWalkSv + 1]

It seems to me that now even bitcoin is growing in price, isn't it? I'm just now very much interested in this topic, and even came across about earning money on this cryptocurrency on this site https://www.insiderlearningnetwork.com/daisy-tron-review/ . Now, in general, cryptocurrency is the best investment, in my opinion. Now even the best companies invest money in cryptocurrency, so it has a future. And if there is a future, then it is money in the future. The main thing is to wait and then you can earn good money, while doing nothing, I think everyone dreams about it, isn't it? I'm interested to hear your opinion on this, guys.

Edited March 8 by TherWalkSv

[turbguy + 662]

On 3/12/2018 at 6:38 AM, Missy said:

FOMO is for sure what's driving it here, I think. Crypto doesn't actually exist. Yet the values are crazy, driven by people who want to jump on the crypto train because they are scared that the train is going somewhere good and they'll be left out. The train could derail, but still, this is not a sufficient deterrent. If the train went somewhere grand and you weren't on board, you'd be kicking yourself. I, for one, am happy to wave bye-bye to the train

Tulip bulbs, anyone?

At least you might get some blooms...

Edited March 8 by turbguy

[specinho + 217]

On 3/10/2018 at 1:33 AM, CMOP said:

Here's a great article over the differences - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/042215/bitcoin-transactions-vs-credit-card-transactions.asp 

Blockchain is the future - banking needs to evolve. 

there is a danger to flock into things that deemed new and trendy......

someone mentioned it somewhere that blockchain system is literally similar to something existing,  but somehow incompletely constructed by most above ground techies...........

credit card and loans created convenience and aided economy. It is, somehow, bringing down most banks beknowingly or unbeknowingly, worldwide..... The costs to cover up is rolling......

Peaceful life brings complacency and develops massive crowd of imbecility, from the top to the bottom........ Hearsay, besides wars, it would be financial meltdown that would create hardship tough enough to shake people out of their comfort zones............ We ruined in seconds what we used decades and centuries to build....... We often have the talent to leave things bounce back on their own being not able to reconstruct the ruins by our means and capability.... Our sense of humour is really cruel.........

On 3/9/2018 at 7:53 AM, sen said:

Yep, agree.  Bitcoin ethereum Al are great enablers for criminal gangs, etc.  Without the anonymity, how is it better than a credit card?

never comment fluffily what you do not know or not familiar with.......... Top CIA devices might have been stealing from the copy right patents of the less beknown world.....

[surrept33 + 364]

Cryptocurrencies are all about decentralized accounting in the end (this is what verifying "blocks" on a transaction "chain" are all about, it's like a decentralized audit except that it's software doing it).

Some cryptocurrencies are just much more efficient at this in building additional value/trust (in what they are accounting), as well as power/energy efficiency. For example, right now, if you have access to cheap hydropower (or are willing to burn a lot of coal like farmers in China or Russia), it's easy to setup an ASIC cryptofarm and waste a lot of compute doing nothing but mining bitcoin (these are just verifying cryptographic hash codes to build consensus, it has very little value otherwise outside of what people assign it).

Is that very profitable right now? Yes. Is it something that should be incentivized? IMHO, no, it's just speculation . Other cryptocurrencies are not like bitcoin of course. For example, Ethereum and friends are all Turning-complete (it speaks the universal language of the machines), which means roughly that you can create much smarter contracts and such.

I think the hyperledger ecosystem (which are enterprise blockchains) is going to be much larger because it's business to business and designed to handle much larger money flows:

https://www.hyperledger.org/about/members

There is a lot less counterparty risk, and it helps businesses of any size (fintech companies all tend to have internal cryptocurrencies) create smart contracts to reduce supply chain risk worldwide and reduce the transaction costs of doing business. The ecosystem has grown exponentially in the last year because it's drawn in a lot of investments from pretty much every sector. 

A lot of governments are also experimenting with cryptocurrencies, as roughly defined by cryptographically secure software-defined transactions.