# Lifestyles & Discussion > Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies >  What happened to the interest in Bitcoin?

## Madison320

Over the last 6 months or so Bitcoin has been amazingly stable, especially considering Bitcoin's history and the recent gyrations in all the other markets. Then yesterday Bitcoin crashed by 15% and not one person in this forum posted about it in the Bitcoin section.

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## EBounding

Still over $5000!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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## PaulStandsTall

> Bitcoin used 4 times as much energy as the whole of Google last year, like 0.5% of the worlds total.
> 
> How much energy would bitcoin use if as many people used it as used Google? (a factor of 1000x)
> 
> How much energy would it take for bitcoin to handle as many transactions as Paypal? (70x)
> 
> Banks that switched currency to a crypto-currency have to do all the crypto-energy costs on top of their regular costs.


This post is mostly incorrect. That last part about banks in particular.

There already is a bitcoin 'bank': Coinbase. They run a few full nodes-that's all. I'm sure their HVAC bill for their building costs more than their bitcoin related electricity costs. As a 3rd party off-chain business they don't mine for additional bitcoins. You see, mining is not something all nodes must do. In fact the original design was for bitcoin miners to end up in datacenters. Like they are today!

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## idiom

Coinbase is a forex platform not a bank.

Banks cover things like invest, loans, financial planning, insurance.

Bitcoin uses vast amounts of energy as its backing the way the US dollar uses nukes. The currency is only as safe as the cost of the energy used to maintain it. It takes a single entity a huge amount of processing power to create half the mining. That amount of energy has to be worth more than the currency or it makes it worthwhile attempting to subvert the processing.

The more bitcoin becomes worth, the more energy it has to consume to defend itself. Its part of the design. As efficiency goes up, it just gets cheaper to attack, so the energy level has to be maintained.




> Fake news... there were some articles out last year that reported on someone who calculated the amount of electricity used and it was completely and totally wrong, it was off by like hundreds of x's (times)


If this was correct then it would be 100x easier to attack bitcoin than is currently calculated.

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## TheCount

> No, you're answer is horse $#@! because loss of interest over time would explain a decline over time, not a 15% drop in one day. 
> 
> Your answer was unthoughtful, incorrect, a canned establishment response, and complete horse $#@!. 
> 
> The reason for the price drop was mostly related to the bitcoin cash fork.


He didn't ask about why the 15% drop happened, he asked why nobody was talking about it.

I'm starting to understand your Trump problem...

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## idiom

> He didn't ask about why the 15% drop happened, he asked why nobody was talking about it.
> 
> I'm starting to understand your Trump problem...


Why doesn't anybody cover the gyrations in the tulip market any more?

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## Zippyjuan

Google Trends:



https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-opinion-...ing-to-an-end/

Does that correlate to price?

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## TheCount

> Why doesn't anybody cover the gyrations in the tulip market any more?


Exact same reason there aren't gold and silver threads anymore.

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## Zippyjuan

> Exact same reason there aren't gold and silver threads anymore.


Smaulgld is trying to do his part.  Buy his coffee cups and help support him.

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## dannno

> Smaulgld is trying to do his part.  Buy his coffee cups and help support him.


That's the best idea you've had so far.

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## Madison320

> Exact same reason there aren't gold and silver threads anymore.


Except that those gold and silver threads will be back, bitcoin won't.

Bitcoin is a fad. Gold and silver are not.

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## TheCount

> Except that those gold and silver threads will be back, bitcoin won't.
> 
> Bitcoin is a fad. Gold and silver are not.


Could be.  Fads can affect anything; just because gold is a physical object doesn't mean that it can't be affected by fads and hype.

I'm more referring to the prevalence of the threads as being related to the current performance of the commodity than saying anything about the underlying item.  Gold and silver are not doing well enough right now to plaster the forum in threads the way they once did.

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## oyarde

> Why doesn't anybody cover the gyrations in the tulip market any more?


I still have tulips for sale .

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## Krugminator2

> Exact same reason there aren't gold and silver threads anymore.



What's funny about that is now is probably the best time in 8 years to have gold threads. I have never been a gold guy but the fundamentals are there with the positioning of large speculators and hedgers combined with the budgets which could be even more substantial in a recession. 

There is a good chance gold finally wore out all but the most hardcore of goldtards and is ready for an advance in the coming years. Maybe not. But it is the first time I have been bullish on gold.

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## Zippyjuan

> What's funny about that is now is probably the best time in 8 years to have gold threads. I have never been a gold guy but the fundamentals are there with the positioning of large speculators and hedgers combined with the budgets which could be even more substantial in a recession. 
> 
> There is a good chance gold finally wore out all but the most hardcore of goldtards and is ready for an advance in the coming years. Maybe not. But it is the first time I have been bullish on gold.


Gold tends to do well when the economy is bad.  When the economy is good, people lose interest in it.

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## dannno

> Gold tends to do well when the economy is bad.  When the economy is good, people lose interest in it.


That's due to fiat currencies. 

If people used money that had real value like gold or bitcoin in the marketplace, then people would be scrambling for gold and bitcoin to use to purchase investment capital for their businesses when the economy is good. Instead they scramble for fiat to purchase those things, because the government says so. The paper only has value because the government enforces it as a legal tender.

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## Zippyjuan

> That's due to fiat currencies. 
> 
> If people used money that had real value like gold or bitcoin in the marketplace, then people would be scrambling for gold and bitcoin to use to purchase investment capital for their businesses when the economy is good. Instead they scramble for fiat to purchase those things, because the government says so. The paper only has value because the government enforces it as a legal tender.


Of course if gold was legal tender it too would technically be a "fiat" currency.

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## dannno

> Of course if gold was legal tender it too would technically be a "fiat" currency.


Nobody said the government should make anything the "legal tender", but it should be legal to use gold, or anything, for tender.

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## Madison320

> That's due to fiat currencies. 
> 
> If people used money that had real value like gold or bitcoin in the marketplace, then people would be scrambling for gold and bitcoin to use to purchase investment capital for their businesses when the economy is good. Instead they scramble for fiat to purchase those things, because the government says so. The paper only has value because the government enforces it as a legal tender.


Except that bitcoin has no real value either. Bitcoin is a private, free market currency, with no value. Dollars are a government mandated fiat currency with no value. Both are flawed.

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## dannno

> Except that bitcoin has no real value either. Bitcoin is a private, free market currency, with no value. Dollars are a government mandated fiat currency with no value. Both are flawed.


Bitcoin has real value because it is currently valuable without coercion being involved. 

Both gold and bitcoin have their pros and cons.. Yes, gold has cons. Gold is easier to steal, and gold is harder to ship across borders and across the globe. Bitcoin is very difficult to steal and it goes across borders and across the globe with ease. 

On the other hand, bitcoin is somewhat dependent on electricity and internet. Gold is physical. 

That doesn't mean bitcoin is better than gold, it just means it is more valuable in some areas and less in others. They should both be used as stores of value and to transact. I recommend both.

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## Zippyjuan

> Bitcoin has real value because it is currently valuable without coercion being involved. 
> 
> Both gold and bitcoin have their pros and cons.. Yes, gold has cons. Gold is easier to steal, and gold is harder to ship across borders and across the globe. Bitcoin is very difficult to steal and it goes across borders and across the globe with ease. 
> 
> On the other hand, bitcoin is somewhat dependent on electricity and internet. Gold is physical. 
> 
> That doesn't mean bitcoin is better than gold, it just means it is more valuable in some areas and less in others. They should both be used as *stores of value* and to transact. I recommend both.


So far, bitcoin has been a poor store of value because it does not hold its value relative to other things (whether you look at dollars, gold, or goods and services).  It has value because people think it does.

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## dannno

> So far, bitcoin has been a poor store of value because it does not hold its value relative to other things (whether you look at dollars, gold, or goods and services).  It has value because people think it does.


It's a poor store of value because it exceeds all of those other things? Wow. That's some pretzel logic.

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## Zippyjuan

> It's a poor store of value because it exceeds all of those other things? Wow. That's some pretzel logic.


Store of value means it does not change relative to other prices of things.   It is much more volatile which means it is a terrible store of value. Just within the last year it has been as high as $20,000 and as low as $3300. I don't consider it "exceeding all those other things".

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## dannno

> Store of value means it does not change relative to other prices of things.   It is much more volatile which means it is a terrible store of value. Just within the last year it has been as high as $20,000 and as low as $3300. I don't consider it "exceeding all those other things".


A better determination of what is a good store of value, for a thinking person, would be whether it _holds or exceeds the value_ compared to many other things over a long period of time. 


If you look at a 9 year chart of bitcoin, you can see that it exceeds the value of almost everything in existence over that period of time. 

As opposed to saying that it has gone down over the last year and lodging that as a complaint, it would be better to look at the value 5 or 10 years down the road.

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## Zippyjuan

> A better determination of what is a good store of value, for a thinking person, would be whether it _holds or exceeds the value_ compared to many other things over a long period of time. 
> 
> 
> If you look at a 9 year chart of bitcoin, you can see that it exceeds the value of almost everything in existence over that period of time. 
> 
> As opposed to saying that it has gone down over the last year and lodging that as a complaint, it would be better to look at the value 5 or 10 years down the road.


To continue above average growth you need an ever increasing number of people wanting to buy and use it.   The average person got interested when they saw its soaring value last year and helped push its value to $20,000.  They have now seen that what goes up will also go down and have lost interest.  They are not likely to return. For them, it was a one- time novelty.

  But bitcoin will not go to zero value as long as there are true believers like you around.  But even "true believers" are contributing to lowering prices of bitcoin.  One was seen with the recent fork where different opinions on what bitcoin should be led to a split.   It is also being diluted by all the hundreds of different coins popping up. Fewer merchants are accepting it (few people were actually spending their bitcoins anyways- they were bought with speculation in mind). 

Just my opinion, but I think bitcoin has seen its best days.

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## dannno

> To continue above average growth you need an ever increasing number of people wanting to buy and use it.   The average person got interested when they saw its soaring value last year and helped push its value to $20,000.  They have now seen that what goes up will also go down and have lost interest.  They are not likely to return. For them, it was a one- time novelty.
> 
>   But bitcoin will not go to zero value as long as there are true believers like you around.  But even "true believers" are contributing to lowering prices of bitcoin.  One was seen with the recent fork where different opinions on what bitcoin should be led to a split.   It is also being diluted by all the hundreds of different coins popping up. Fewer merchants are accepting it (few people were actually spending their bitcoins anyways- they were bought with speculation in mind). 
> 
> Just my opinion, but I think bitcoin has seen its best days.


You had the same opinion when bitcoin went up to $1,100, then went back down to $250.

People lost interest.. it's seen it's best days already.. true believers, new coins.. 

You can't even keep track of what is going on to form a valid opinion. It was bitcoin cash that forked recently, not bitcoin. Bitcoin cash was a bitcoin fork that happened a long time ago. 

People will find out soon enough that fiat currencies and the world banking establishment are screwing them over, and that open source crypto currencies like bitcoin are the way to go to defeat them.

I don't care what the price is today, tomorrow or next week. In 5-10 years it won't matter.

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## Zippyjuan

> You had the same opinion when bitcoin went up to $1,100, then went back down to $250.


Yes, I did.  It is just a fad in my opinion- not a "serious" investment or currency.

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## dannno

> Yes, I did.  It is just a fad in my opinion- not a "serious" investment or currency.


...and you were seriously wrong, it went up about 80x after that.

It will go up 100x - 1000x again.

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## Zippyjuan

> ...and you were seriously wrong, it went up about 80x after that.
> 
> It will go up 100x - 1000x again.

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## dannno

> 


You were saying the exact same $#@! last time, so I spent 4 years buying up more bitcoin.. I was patient. I kept believing.. and it went up 80x.. 

So give me one reason why I or anybody should listen to you again?

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## Zippyjuan

> You were saying the exact same $#@! last time, so I spent 4 years buying up more bitcoin.. I was patient. I kept believing.. and it went up 80x.. 
> 
> So give me one reason why I or anybody should listen to you again?


You wouldn't listen anyways.  That is ok.  Good luck with your investments! I am more conservative with mine. Just a personal choice.

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## dannno

> You wouldn't listen anyways.  That is ok.  Good luck with your investments! I am more conservative with mine. Just a personal choice.


I consider gold and bitcoin "conservative" investments, because the global banks have the system rigged and the way they debase currencies does not seem very conservative to me. It is reckless and foolish. But if that is what you want to invest in, and that is what you consider "conservative", well, go ahead.

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## Zippyjuan

> I consider gold and bitcoin "conservative" investments, because the global banks have the system rigged and the way they debase currencies does not seem very conservative to me. It is reckless and foolish. But if that is what you want to invest in, and that is what you consider "conservative", well, go ahead.


If a system is rigged, one may be more successful by going along with it than fighting against it.

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## dannno

> If a system is rigged, one may be more successful by going along with it than fighting against it.


Is that your mantra?

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## Zippyjuan

> Is that your mantra?


For investing, yes. I tried contrarianism for a while.  I was losing money.

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## basecommand

Edit

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## Mordan

> Except that those gold and silver threads will be back, bitcoin won't.
> 
> Bitcoin is a fad. Gold and silver are not.


lol you are clueless. Bitcoin is not a fad. its the first ever immutable censorship resistant ledger of information... the CIA is TOTALLY UNABLE to tamper with data inside the Bitcoin blockchain because it is protected by work... raw electrical energy.

no other blockchain provide such security.

the world never had such a tool before.. let's see what humanity will do with it.

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## Mordan

> You had the same opinion when bitcoin went up to $1,100, then went back down to $250.
> 
> People lost interest.. it's seen it's best days already.. true believers, new coins.. 
> 
> You can't even keep track of what is going on to form a valid opinion. It was bitcoin cash that forked recently, not bitcoin. Bitcoin cash was a bitcoin fork that happened a long time ago. 
> 
> People will find out soon enough that fiat currencies and the world banking establishment are screwing them over, and that open source crypto currencies like bitcoin are the way to go to defeat them.
> 
> I don't care what the price is today, tomorrow or next week. In 5-10 years it won't matter.


This.. +1

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## Madison320

> lol you are clueless. Bitcoin is not a fad. its the first ever immutable censorship resistant ledger of information... the CIA is TOTALLY UNABLE to tamper with data inside the Bitcoin blockchain because it is protected by work... raw electrical energy.
> 
> no other blockchain provide such security.
> 
> the world never had such a tool before.. let's see what humanity will do with it.


No, you're wrong. You've got the blockchain technology confused with worthless bitcoins.

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## Mordan

> No, you're wrong. You've got the blockchain technology confused with worthless bitcoins.


that's the mistake many established players do.

The blockchain is only secured if there is a high priced coin securing the network (because its all about raw energy in the end). The CIA can trivially tamper with most blockchains.

Bitcoin And Blockchain meanings are interwined. Bitcoin is the coin that gave "blockchain" all the current hype around this corporate buzzword. 

Unfortunately, people don't yet grasp the intricacies.

Shameless appeal to authority.. It took some time for Ron Paul to come around.

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## Madison320

> that's the mistake many established players do.
> 
> The blockchain is only secured if there is a *high priced coin* securing the network (because its all about raw energy in the end). The CIA can trivially tamper with most blockchains.
> 
> Bitcoin And Blockchain meanings are interwined. Bitcoin is the coin that gave "blockchain" all the current hype around this corporate buzzword. 
> 
> Unfortunately, people don't yet grasp the intricacies.
> 
> Shameless appeal to authority.. It took some time for Ron Paul to come around.


Soon to be worthless coin.

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## idiom

> lol you are clueless. Bitcoin is not a fad. its the first ever immutable censorship resistant ledger of information... the CIA is TOTALLY UNABLE to tamper with data inside the Bitcoin blockchain because it is protected by work... raw electrical energy.
> 
> no other blockchain provide such security.
> 
> the world never had such a tool before.. let's see what humanity will do with it.


The more the CIA wants to tamper with anyone else's use of the currency the more my transactions cost. I can't see that becoming a huge pain in the ass. Bitcoin topped out at _$55 per transaction_ before people stopped and thought maybe this was a problem. That was without it becoming anywhere near mainstream in usage.

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## Mordan

> The more the CIA wants to tamper with anyone else's use of the currency the more my transactions cost. I can't see that becoming a huge pain in the ass. Bitcoin topped out at _$55 per transaction_ before people stopped and thought maybe this was a problem. That was without it becoming anywhere near mainstream in usage.


55 usd was the market price to pay when everyone wants to write to the immutable ledger all at the same time.

its the security model to prevent spam that would kill the network.

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## Schifference

How can BTC survive? 

I was under the impression when the value was way higher than what it is now that it was cost prohibitive to mine the coin. If it was cost prohibitive due to the cost of electricity to mine the coin, how can it be mined when the value of the coin has fallen tremendously  yet the cost of electricity has not changed?

I guess miners just don't mine until the cost goes up. The price increase will be purportedly driven by the limited supply because no new coins had been mined and the coin is more scarce.

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## Schifference

Here’s how much it costs to mine a single bitcoin in your country

So-called bitcoin mining is a hot topic of in the cryptocurrency world.

That’s chiefly because of the rising electricity costs associated with creating new digital coins.

Lately, miners have flocked to Iceland, known for its relatively moderate climate and the abundance of hydropower. In fact, bitcoin mining energy consumption is set to exceed private consumption, an energy expert told the BBC. And according to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, global energy usage of all bitcoin mining already is equivalent to the power uptake of the country of the Czech Republic, with a population of 10.6 million, and will eventually approach Bangladesh, a country of 163 million people.

In search of cost savings, cryptocurrency miners traverse the globe to take advantage of cheaper energy. Those virtual miners perform a crucial function within the blockchain, or the decentralized ledger technology that underpins most cryptocurrencies, by solving complex problems to validate transactions on the network, In exchange for this function, which powers miners are rewarded with bitcoins.

However, because bitcoin’s protocol operates on a proof-of-work basis—meaning it requires an expenditure of computing power—both the power and difficulty of problems increase as miners approach the maximum number of bitcoin’s meant to exist at 21 million. Currently, there are about 16.9 million bitcoins in existence.

The mainstream attention around bitcoin as it hit a peak level at $20,000 last December has led to an outcropping of digital miners and mining operations.

So, where is the cheapest place to mine bitcoin?

*According to research conducted by Elite Fixtures, the cost of mining a bitcoin varies significantly around the world, from as little as $531 to a stunning $26,170.*
more at link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/he...try-2018-03-06

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## Schifference

What the report (see table above) found is that the U.S. ranks 41st among countries, with an average costs for mining bitcoin of $4,758 a bitcoin, close to other popular mining destinations Russia at $4,675 and the aforementioned Iceland at $4,746. That means that investors would be able to make a profit with bitcoin’s current value at $8,567.86, according to Kraken exchange prices.

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## Schifference

I would speculate that people that got into BTC in the beginning when it was worthless are not as concerned as people that got into it at 20k. 
New comers that do due diligence would probably be concerned with volatility. 
Look what happens to a tangible company that is in a field or industry that has lost favor. Take SWN for example. They are a huge gas exploration company that is still making close to $1 per share profit and because of ??? the stock can be had for $3.20. I would venture to say that purchasing SWN would be less speculative an investment today than BTC.

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## Zippyjuan

> What the report (see table above) found is that the U.S. ranks 41st among countries, with an average costs for mining bitcoin of $4,758 a bitcoin, close to other popular mining destinations Russia at $4,675 and the aforementioned Iceland at $4,746. That means that investors would be able to make a profit with *bitcoin’s current value at $8,567.86*, according to Kraken exchange prices.


Bitcoin is currently below $4,000. 

Miners may continue to mine during price declines hoping it goes back up again (assuming they can absorb the losses). They may need the cash flow if they borrowed money to purchase their equipment or facilities. But some will start shutting down or at least reducing operations. https://www.coindesk.com/layoffs-und...tmain-confirms

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## presence

> Bitcoin is currently below $4,000.


lol

I recall the same conversation 3 orders of magnitude ago on freenode

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