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BTC
That's right, I speculate we're going to see some bitcoin-related suicides, and the mass media will lap it up, ruining a perfectly good crypto-currency with tons of potential.
In fact, I reckon it will be promptly countered by the holier-than-thou reddit crew explaining that it wasn't a 'bitcoin suicide' but a 'finance-related' suicide, trolling their heart contents that this and that person shouldn't 'have invested more than they could afford to lose', and that the MSM is out to get the cute, innocent little bitcoin. Oh and by the way if it falls back at 50, then it's all OK, because it was at 2 one day, so it actually didn't crash at all, it multiplied its value by 25x. What? You bought at 150? What an idiot, loser, they'll say. They mined theirs you see? It was all a big laugh for everyone, didn't you know?
That's the same people currently haranguing the newbies into investing blindly, posting 'spartans, hold' meme pictures as the price fluctuates wildly, and berating everyone who might dare to have 'sold early'. You can't even post on reddit any opinion that vaguely deviates from the group-think 'BTC AT 1,000,000 LULZ' party line, without being downvoted to nothingness.
At this point bitcoin is a hoarding game. No one seems to care about the potential of the technology, or even the technology itself. It's all 'ra-ra it's passed 160, ra-ra told you so 180'.
Yes guys, it might even hit 500. The questions is why do you care so much if it does? The 3 btc you mined making you feel like a big shot hedge fund investor? Because that's what it is - a vocal minority with no real skin in the game going into full 'revenge of the geek' mode while the mass market consists of people too greedy or too dumb to realize that a currency with nothing to buy is not a currency, but an e-metal.
Everyone seems to forget what an exchange really is. More and more of the people holding BTC have bought it at 100+. I'd be curious to know what proportion the 150-200 buyers represent in the total market cap. 1%? 10%? 50%? The only thing that's sure is that it's increasing everyday, and these aren't the same people buying porshe caymans with their 300 coins.
So, back to the point, why suicides? Once the panic sets in:
- companies that have regularly converted their BTC balances to FIAT will become insolvent, unable to disburse balances (bitzino I'm looking at you)
- because of the decentralised nature of bitcoin, trading curbs are impossible to implement
- the exchanges have proven to be unreliable. It's not even about not being able to place a sell order without lag, it's about not being able to login the website, period
There's going to be one hell of a moment, in my view (again, here, speculation) when people realize the enormity of that 2B market cap, maybe it might even reach australian-dollar level market cap. The guys who are talking about putting 1M+ in the game will pull when they get bored of the low retailer adoption (they don't have time for spartan memes I'm afraid), it will freefall 50%, and all of a sudden here goes the mortgage, here goes the dream, and the newbs won't even get to press the sell button when it's all said and done.
Anyway, rant over, have a nice evening and keep cheering to that woop woop 200 bucks 'new floor'