It strikes me as a Wall Street hit piece (check the editor's bio, by the way).
For example:
"Still, actual retail sales using bitcoin remain paltry. The only figures on retail sales in bitcoin are estimates and Tim Swanson, head of business development at Melotic, a Hong Kong-based exchange for digital assets, told Reuters global retail sales in bitcoin come to about $2.3 million daily (5,000-6,000 bitcoins)."
The piece lists a number which would be considered huge by many measures - $2.3 million daily - and attaches the descriptor "paltry" to it. The justification offered for "paltry" turns out to be a comparison to the world's largest economy. This for a five-year-old entity that started from zero. Cheap trick - one of many in the piece. Oh - the "sputter" in the headline appears to be a comparison to the ath price.
I am reminded of Wired Magazine's classic blunder from December 2012 in which they said:
"EXPIRED Bitcoin
At the height of its popularity, Bitcoin was trumpeted as a viable alternative currency for the internet age, a monetary system engineered to prevent theft, gaming, and criminalization. Then came the malware, the black market, the legal ambiguities and The Man. Today, you can't even use it to buy Facebook stock."
http://www.wired.com/2012/12/wired-tired-expired/
Time will tell, but the media are not the media of the Cronkite era. Do your own due diligence.
Topic: 2014-12-11 Analysis -All the rage a year ago,bitcoin sputters as adoption stalls (Read 957 times)
December 11, 2014, 10:36:40 PM
December 11, 2014, 08:12:49 PM
How many USD are traded vs supply each month? I'm guessing much less than 10-20%.
December 11, 2014, 07:14:52 PM
What the hell are they talking about when they say "liquidity"?
In a proper decent market for an asset like Bitcoin that flows 24/7 and that does not get bought out of the exchanges by a "FED", you cannot simultaneously complain that the price is down from a year ago and say that liquidity is low. Or are they referring to the number of transactions that is above the last year highs?
Is this "bankster speak"? "Lack of liquidity" in bankster speak is when a Ponzi collapses and needs someone else's money.
An "account" in any "speak" is something you open with another party. Clearly not a wallet. And what is this about these accounts being created empty at a steady clip?
Man, these guys either got an F at their "cyberspeak" course or just have the lowest consideration possible for their readers. Alternatively, was this written by that mastercard guy that totally fails at hiding the sleaziest smirk while spewing his rehearsed lines of fertiliser?
Edit:
So by "liquidity", judging by the sentence below, they seem to refer to the amount of bitcoin that gets transacted every month versus total bitcoin every created.
"John Ratcliff, a software engineer at Nvidia who has done extensive analysis on bitcoin transactions, estimated that monthly liquidity is about 10-20 percent of the entire 13.6 million bitcoin in circulation. The rest are either being hoarded or don't trade because they're fractional in size."
10-20 percent per month sounds a lot better than I thought... but again, if the offer is high enough then surely a lot more of that "liquidity" will flow around and Reuters and John can get all those extra coins they need. Maybe some of those coins that do not circulate every month are waiting for Reuters to be for sale.
In a proper decent market for an asset like Bitcoin that flows 24/7 and that does not get bought out of the exchanges by a "FED", you cannot simultaneously complain that the price is down from a year ago and say that liquidity is low. Or are they referring to the number of transactions that is above the last year highs?
Is this "bankster speak"? "Lack of liquidity" in bankster speak is when a Ponzi collapses and needs someone else's money.
An "account" in any "speak" is something you open with another party. Clearly not a wallet. And what is this about these accounts being created empty at a steady clip?
Man, these guys either got an F at their "cyberspeak" course or just have the lowest consideration possible for their readers. Alternatively, was this written by that mastercard guy that totally fails at hiding the sleaziest smirk while spewing his rehearsed lines of fertiliser?
Edit:
So by "liquidity", judging by the sentence below, they seem to refer to the amount of bitcoin that gets transacted every month versus total bitcoin every created.
"John Ratcliff, a software engineer at Nvidia who has done extensive analysis on bitcoin transactions, estimated that monthly liquidity is about 10-20 percent of the entire 13.6 million bitcoin in circulation. The rest are either being hoarded or don't trade because they're fractional in size."
10-20 percent per month sounds a lot better than I thought... but again, if the offer is high enough then surely a lot more of that "liquidity" will flow around and Reuters and John can get all those extra coins they need. Maybe some of those coins that do not circulate every month are waiting for Reuters to be for sale.
December 11, 2014, 05:03:26 PM
Fresh reuters article:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/uk-markets-bitcoin-adoption-analysis-idUKKBN0JP2D020141211
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/uk-markets-bitcoin-adoption-analysis-idUKKBN0JP2D020141211
Quote
After skyrocketing to more than a thousand dollars in price late last year and attracting global attention, bitcoin, the leading digital currency, has stalled.
Figures obtained by Reuters show that while "wallets" - cyberspeak for accounts - are being created at a steady clip, many of them are empty. Analysts also provided Reuters with data that shows liquidity in the cryptocurrency remains limited.
Bitcoin, a virtual currency created through a "mining" process where a computer's resources are used to perform millions of calculations, has been hailed as revolutionary because of its lack of ties to a central bank and its potential as an alternative to credit cards for paying goods and services.
...
Figures obtained by Reuters show that while "wallets" - cyberspeak for accounts - are being created at a steady clip, many of them are empty. Analysts also provided Reuters with data that shows liquidity in the cryptocurrency remains limited.
Bitcoin, a virtual currency created through a "mining" process where a computer's resources are used to perform millions of calculations, has been hailed as revolutionary because of its lack of ties to a central bank and its potential as an alternative to credit cards for paying goods and services.
...
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