Ironic about the troll ... he would have made his profit if he had courage. I think that the price is skyrocketing for a number of reasons:
- BTC is a medium of exchange so some component of the price is due to its ability to transfer value easily.
- BTC is a store of value. When I deposit money into a bank account, I get charged a transaction fee. Each month I am charged a number of fees even if I don't transfer money in or out. I put a coin on a paper wallet a while ago. How much has it cost for my mattress to hold that piece of paper? Nada.
- Donald Trump. No matter if you like him or not, every day the President of the USA does something to make news. Each morning our family greet each other by asking "What has he done now?!" The value of a currency is a function of a person's confidence in the society it represents. Every bit of news shakes people's confidence meaning that relative to BTC the USD is very unstable.
- The handling of the USA Economy. This is a big topic which could be a blog in its own right. Whether you talk about the fact that Quantitative Easing was a failure because it tried trickle down economics when the top layer was a sponge; that the Auditor General announced that last year the military alone had $21 trillion of undocumented transactions; or any number of topics that I could discuss - the value of the USD is worth less versus BTC since 2009
- Unhinging of the petrodollar. Much of the reason of the elasticity of the USD is because during the 1970s an agreement was made that the medium of exchange to buy or sell oil would always be in dollars. This agreement has been in effect until this year, when China has unhinged the petrodollar. It buys oil using its own currency and if the vendors are unhappy with the yuan - they can exchange it for gold. Since the petrodollar is unhinged countries do not need to maintain reserves of USD to buy oil ... so it will start to flow back to the USA in ever increasing volumes. This glut of USD will mark the crash of the dollar and will result in inflation (possibly hyperinflation). China will be in a position to demand that payment for goods will be in Yuan or gold.
- The largest determinant that I can tell at this point is Bitcoin fever. I am saying this because it could also be the previous point. We could be experiencing the unhinging now. This Bitcoin fever could be that major investors are entering the market and driving the price upward, and smaller and smaller investors might be trying to get a piece of the momentum.
All your points makes sense, yet why are Americans letting this all happen? To preoccupied with their current problems/issues? These are issues the government should be raising and solving rather than creating another massive tax cut or massive spending. The debt is crushing the country.
Twenty years ago our local school district amalgamated merged with the adjoining school district with the goal of reducing spending.
So for a period of time there were many duplicated positions which were eventually consolidated but the remaining employee was paid more because they now had more responsibilities. One hundred years earlier the original school board had two people - the one in charge and the person who actually did the work. The parents at each school were hands on and supported the one or two teachers in these one room schools. By the way the school age population in this area was higher than it is today.
My opinion of governments are that they consolidate power into the hands of too few people and in the process disenfranchise most of the population. I reported in an earlier post that Income Tax in Canada was introduced 100 years ago as a measure to cover the war debt. At the time the population of Canada was 1/4-1/5 of the current population. The employed 40 people to administer Income Tax for 8 million people. Today the government employs 40,000 to administer the Income Tax for 36 million people.
You mentioned that the debt is crushing the country. Governmental Debt is an illusion. Who prints the money? If the people in charge wanted to eliminate the debt, they could just print money. Of course I hear echos of outrage saying that it would spark hyperinflation ... please review this site having to do with the various types of money supply in the USA. This chart shows you a quick snapshot of the most liquid money supply:
In a couple of years after 2012, the government inflated this part of the money supply not quite doubling it. Did the USA experience massive inflation? In the last twenty years
The money supply has quintupled yet where is the hyperinflation?
I am Canadian so it doesn't matter to me but there is an easy solution to correct the issues in the USA - but it would take a change in the USA constitution.
Not trying to argue but to clarify some items here. Yes hyperinflation is happening across US. Food and housing prices are a lot higher now than 2012. The reality is inflation is happening while wages are stagnate. The news never really talk about any of these issues. The reality is every dollar that has been printed has not help the standard of living in the US.
Money printing is debt. This must stop and all dollars taken back by the government. Of course this will never happen. Majority of people who have power have much more to lose if the dollar fails so they do what is best for their own interest. We citizens of the world need to extract ourselves out of this system and the first thing is to accept crypto instead of fiat. It is are salvation.
Capitalism is focusing on getting as much money and as little effort as possible. That is why people sue or file complaint towards one another. It is the fastest way to make a buck. When ever you need to bill someone for something bill them as much as possible for the biggest amount of profit margin as possible. Money talks and that is all it matters in capitalism. Morals and honesty is thrown out the window. Don't get caught cheating and that is fair play. Look at the latest US Michael Flynn. This is what US is becoming.
I think we are on the same page just expressed differently.
While I have never personally experienced hyperinflation, I have friends that did in Ukraine. They lived on those packages of soup noodles because they were not able to buy anything else. Normally inflation happens because of actions by the government... the last episode in the United States (and Canada) was because someone had a great idea to strive for full employment. If everyone is employed, companies need to compete to get employees. They raise wages and raise prices to pay for increased wages.
In recent years, the governments have been trying to stimulate the economies by reducing interest rates (now is in negative territory). The economies are stretch so thinly that a slight increase in the interest rate massively negatively affects the economy.
Part of the problem is that the people elected to the government and make decisions about the economy know very little about economics. The current prime minister of Canada (Trudeau) has a bachelor of arts degree in literature. In contrast his father first obtained his Law degree, attended Harvard for a masters in Political Economics, and attended London School of Economics for his doctoral degree. Just because one has the same last name doesn't give the same abilities or knowledge. While getting a bachelor degree in economics (à la current president of USA Donald Trump) is the first step in understanding economics. This doesn't mean that the decisions that are made would be in the best interest of the people in general - instead (eg a tax cut) might be in the interest of the family and friends of the people in power.
i would have to disagree with the statement that bitcoin is a medium of exchange. Most people are not buying things with bitcoin. People realize that is not smart since the price is continuously rising, for now. I believe bitcoin has become more of an investment. It is not easily transferable and the fees are ridiculous. Bitcoin was meant to be a currency that could replace real money and have low fees. But it is impossible to transfer small amounts of the coin for smaller purchases.
Therefore I believe Bitcoin holders have changed the intention of bitcoin and what is supposed to be doing. Bitcoin cannot keep rising like it. It is not feasible. The value of bitcoin is based solely on the desire of buyers to make the price increase. adding Wall Street investors would be great in the short term, but in the long run it will cause trouble to the Crypto Economy and cause further destabilization. Not to mention that huge regulations come with this.
As of writing this there is over 346,000 transactions posted in the last twenty four hours. In every transaction someone is sending BTC to someone in exchange for goods or cash. While it is strange for people to be buying stuff right now at least some people might be hedging their positions by exchanging BTC for BCH or ETH or Dash etc.
Bitcoin will continue to be used to buy stuff as long as businesses such as Bitpay continue to support it as a payment gateway. Bitcoin hasn't been particularly useful for micro-payments for quiet a while and that role has been offloaded to other currencies.
BTC is the main currency traded on many exchanges. I was going to confirm with Coinbase to see if it has added a number of alternatives lately but apparently they have been trashed by the number of people trying to get on.
I agree that Bitcoin is crazy right now because of Bitcoin fever. I actually wish that Wall Street would avoid Bitcoin. In that sense I would like to see a great divide in our societies - those people who continue to be manipulated in the stock market vs the next generation of people who understand and embrace the new technologies.
I agree. I want Wall Street investor types to not be involved. They will add money to these coins and create more pump and dumps. There are no regulations and buying and selling crypto like there is in stock, so they can literally buy millions of dollars of a coin at a low price and let other people keep the price rising, and then sell off, causing people to lose their money.
Bitcoin is being opened up to more pump and dump scenarios and more whales. I dont believe this is going to end well in the long run, but short term it will be great. Thanks for replying to my comment, I appreciate the dialogue. You earned a follower in me
Happy Steeming!!!!