Bitcoin has recorded its largest monthly loss since June 2022, pushing it into a bear market as the euphoria over cryptocurrencies after Donald Trump’s election win faded.
The price of bitcoin fell by 17.5% in February, the biggest monthly drop since June 2022, and its eleventh worst month in the last decade, as risk-off sentiment gripped financial markets.
The world’s largest crypto asset ended February at about $84,252 (£67,010), having hit a three-month low of about $78,273 during trading on Friday.
Bitcoin has now dropped more than 20% below the record high of $109,071 set in mid-January, which puts it into a technical bear market.
I hope it crashes straight to zero, along with every other crypto currency, NFT, chia, and whatever other “idle your car engine to solve sudoku puzzles you can trade for drugs” bollocks is floating around.
Between this and AI we’re wasting so, so many resources and killing the planet for nothing.
When I was a kid there was a cartoon called Captain Planet.
The bad guys would build these factories that didn’t seem to produce anything but pollution. Like, they would take in trees and sea creatures or whatever, and the only thing that would come out is smog and green water. It was very on-the-nose.
Bitcoin is a pollution factory.
Looten Plunder is President of the United States.
Nah. Fearless Leader & Boris Badanov.
It allows sending value anywhere anytime and it protects you against inflation, because it can’t be debased. You can also move large quantities of money without needing permission from anyone, anytime you want.
On the other hand, fiat money creates inflation and is controlled by central banks.
Well it isn’t protected from rapid deflation. In fact that seems like the point according to all the advertisements presenting it as an “investment”. Also, I’m not sure who needs to move large quantities of money across the globe. I just want to exchange money for his it services.
Well it isn’t protected from rapid deflation.
Bitcoin is deflationary by design, but that’s an advantage, not a problem. It’s like saying that gold is bad, because it’s worth more and more every year.
all the advertisements presenting it as an “investment”
It has been one of the best returning investments since its birth. Even Black Rock and many other companies consider it as a great investment.
Also, I’m not sure who needs to move large quantities of money across the globe. I just want to exchange money for his it services.
Believe it or not, there are rich people who need to move large quantities of money to buy houses, to buy land, etc. You can also buy small things with Bitcoin, of course.
I don’t think they “need” that. I think they like that. I also think they are frequently monsters and making things cushier for them doesn’t translate to as better off a life for the rest of us as we would like to think. In fact them being able to move money quick to buy houses and land quickly… Seems like it may drive it up for the rest of us
So then why are the only people ising Bitcoin to move large amounts of money scammers and criminals? It’s a hassel to move large amounts of money from one country to another because the stakes are so high and everyone involved wants to make sure it is done properly. You wouldn’t send the down payment for a house or car via cash in the mail, so why would you do the online equivalent?
You can use Bitcoin to buy food and small things as well. No, actually scammers and criminals are among the minority of people that use Bitcoin. Many people use Bitcoin for their daily needs.
It’s a hassel to move large amounts of money from one country to another because the stakes are so high and everyone involved wants to make sure it is done properly.
Stakes are high? I don’t think so. The problem is politicians, the hundreds of worthless currencies that exists and the expensive banking cartel with its high fees. People should have the freedom to move their money as they wish, because it’s their money.
You can actually buy houses using Bitcoin, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t do that.
It’s a giant ponzi scheme currently propped up Tether printing imaginary money.
So on top of pollution it enables crime? Great
What do you think state currency does? Petrol-dollars? Are these planting trees and spreading world peace?
Well it being a criminal money is a plus, a main feature even. I got some from GPU mining ages ago so was selling them at its peak and it’s easily noticable how all the legal way to get money is all so traced and requires you to send your ID, sold them by dealing with buyers directly so no ID required instead.
I use the creation of bitcoin to mark the end of the idea of the internet community.
Before bitcoin, there were scams and trolling but most of the people were there to enjoy themselves. Maybe you’d learn something, and maybe just kill some time.
There were plenty of scams before it was more just directly donating to them or buying courses with no way of being in on the scheme lol
As someone who was interested in Bitcoin at its very beginning (sometimes I wonder what kind of arsehole I would be now if I hadn’t lost my wallet back then long before the stuff was worth anything) - it took quite some time from its inception to cryptobros being a cultural phenomenon everywhere on the net. So the creation itself may be a bit too early.
But I think your point is still very much valid.
prob won’t happen considering relatively wealthy americans and europeans just dump all their money into it. quite literally the biggest ponzi scheme in history.
You feel this way about state currency too? Or just unconsciously bootlicking the competition?
State currencies aren’t torching the rain forest for speculation and gambling. There are plenty of criticisms you can make about the Federal Reserve and the ECB, but resources they use facilites trade between over a billion people for food, housing, clothing, and critical infrastructure. Meanwhile Bitcoin uses the same amount of energy as Australia or the Netherlands to accomplish nothing more than scams and market speculation. That’s why even El Salvador’s authoritarian tech bro president abandoned it as a currency this year.
People used currencies before the existence of central banks. They used gold, silver, etc. We don’t need central banks, they are a cancer that create inequalities and inflation. The fact that securing a decentralized proof-of-work network requires energy doesn’t mean that it’s a waste. You can also buy food, housing and clothing with cryptocurrencies.
El Salvador keeps buying more Bitcoin and lots of people keep using it as a currency there.
an expanded explanation of your first paragraph would have been useful for general discussion.
your el salvador paragraph absolutely killed the mojo.
December, 2024, El Salvador, in an agreement for a $1.4 billion loan from the IMF, agreed to reduce bitcoin purchases, removed the mandatory acceptance of Bitcoin requirement on merchants, will no longer accept tax payments with the asset, and will wind-down its involvement in the Chivo wallet.
Based on the available data from the Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (Iudop) of the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA), here is the percentage of Salvadorans who reported using Bitcoin for transactions from 2021 to 2024: 2021: 25.7%, 2022: 21%, 2023: 12%, 2024: 8.1%.
el salvador was always going to be an example of the very worst tendencies of hard-currency (anti-inflationary, proof of work, etc) crypto, specifically because the very worst of the cryptobro “community” was involved in it.
as of now, some of the worst people on earth are the face of cryptocurrency. major “L”, even for the arguably useful chains.
edit: bunny ears for community
When you stop voting for maniacs messing with our monetary sytem, we can shut the bitcoin down. Until then, hands off my sudoku.
It won’t crash to zero as long as there is a computer mining that supports the network. Normies that talk about the environmental impacts of cryptocurrencies don’t understand.
How many wars were created over fiat currencies and the power plays of politicians and central bankers?
Fiat currencies are inflationary, so they encourage economic growth (at what cost? At whose expense?). That inflation also attenuates the indebtedness of states, it is like an invisible tax against the poor and the financially uneducated.
There are cryptocurrencies that are trash, that don’t provide privacy, etc., but you can’t tar everything with the same brush. Moreover, the environmental impact is minimal compared to fiat currencies. There are cryptocurrencies that pollute more than others, of course. For those who care more about the environment, there are cryptocurrencies that do not use proof-of-work algorithms.
You’ve just used the word “normie”. Why would anyone even read the rest of the post?
I know I didn’t.
I saw an article that said it was to its lowest price since June 2022, got a chuckle out of that one.
Bitcoin was worth about $16000 at the end of 2022, so it’s still way up compared to then.
Yet it shot back up. Same as when it was down on Friday. Fucking stupid.
People love get rich quick schemes too much to let monopoly money lose value.
Good.
Yes, it makes for a nice buying opportunity.
It’s inherently worthless.
I know that this is the argument, and I agree in principle (no inherent worth), but people tend to forget: Money laundering, buying black market goods online, supporting illegal organisations internationally and speculating on something are technically some kind of worth. That’s why it still never crashed out to 0, imo.
So are fiat currencies
State currencies are backed by the military and police of their respective countries. You can criticize that all you want, but that gives them an actual value everyone can agree on since the punishment for not agreeing is severe.
Doesn’t really matter if there is enforcement, something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
If someone is willing to pay $100k for 1 Bitcoin then that is what it’s worth.
If someone isn’t willing to pay $100k for a piece of property in Idaho, the police can’t force you to pay that much.
The military and police is not what gives currency it’s value. A country’s currency is valued based on it’s usefulness in the global economy, not based on how many ships in its navy or planes in its air force.
We know the value of a currency based on the exchange rate to all other currencies, which you can see at any exchange.
Similarly, Bitcoin’s value is based on how useful it is in the global economy. We know the value because we can see the exchange rate to all other currencies on any exchange.
The only real difference is that fiat currency is a database of money backed by a bank, protected by police and the military while Bitcoin is a database of money backed by mathematics and processing power.
It’s silly to argue that Bitcoin doesn’t have actual value when you can simply look at an exchange and see the trade volume and price to know that that isn’t true.
The US dollar ultimately has power because that is what it takes to pay taxes in the US. You want to do business in the US? Uncle Sam gets his cut, and he only accepts greenbacks. Same with the EU, UK, China, and every other major currency. If you don’t give Uncle Sam his cut, you’ll go to jail or wake up to 110,000 tons of American “diplomacy” plus fleet escort sitting outside you main port.
Ultimately the economic power of a country is backed by the state’s power to defend it. That’s why the USD stands as the global reserve currency instead of something like the Lebanese Pound or the the Kiribati dollar.
Yes, that’s just extra reasons why the USD is more valuable/more dominant/used as a reserve currency.
The point was that saying Bitcoin doesn’t have actual value because it doesn’t have a military isn’t true. You can see the actual value on any exchange, just like every other currency. The value of a currency is related to its use in trade, even countries without a military have currencies with value.
The fact that the USD is more valuable or used as a reserve currency doesn’t mean that other currencies (including bitcoin) don’t have value.
People don’t even understand the value of an immutable digital object and how it never existed before bitcoin either. They can’t wrap their head around that having some inherent value even if small, and how that can transform the world, even if not bitcoin specifically
People recognize the value of digital objects only when they lose access to something like their e-mail or main social media account.
Yeah! Like meme stocks or beanie babies.
Bitcoin is climbing again today because Trump reaffirmed his intention to create a US cryptocurrency reserve. If state currencies have value because they are backed by the military, wouldn’t this give the same source of value to these currencies? I don’t think the US isn’t going to be happy with outside entities messing with the value of their assets.
Trump
If you ever needed further proof that crypto is a grift…
Sure, in regards to Trump, you can criticize that all you want, but it doesn’t detract from cryptocurrencies becoming more legitimate per your own criteria.
Not exactly?
The US uses its military to enforce the US dollar status as the global reserve currency. Libya tried to sell oil outside the US dollar market and look what happened to them.
Unless Trump starts using the military to enforce Bitcoin value it still won’t have the same status as a currency.
You make some interesting parallels. While Bitcoin is not mined from the Earth like oil, it is similarly mined all-around the world and not just in US jurisdictions. If another country tried manipulating Bitcoin to crash or pump-and-dump after the US becomes a major stakeholder it would be interesting to see how the US responds.
Again, I’m not speaking in favor or against Trump, just exploring the facts.
Tell them it’s worthless to the Russian people who scaped their dictator and could access their money worldwide without many issues. They go out of the Russia and don’t pay taxes to fund the war, ultimately good.
It’s not your fault if your stupid government does starts a war against your will and then your paper money is worthless.
Bitcoin is freedom.
Yes. Because the value if everything is relative.
…so?
Price discovery is gonna be a bitch.
I do not understand you. So many things have no inherent value but still cost arbitrarily much?
Yes you do understand them. You two are having the same exact flippant argument every single crypto evangelist and detractor have had every day for the past decade.
I do not know, since he never actually explained what his point is. Maybe, maybe not, we will never know, he just wants to say something and I move on.
“Crypto is based on nothing”
“Neither is the US dollar/fiat currency”
“It’s arbitrary. It’s Dutch tulips”
“No it has utility and people use it to pay for things something something smart contracts”
during busts
“See it’s worthless”
“No we just like the tech”
You all have your talking points, you all pretend you don’t know exactly what conversation is happening and are “just curious/asking questions,” and it just rinses and repeats over and over again.
I’m not mad at you I just don’t know why this song and dance persists.
There’s always two new people just discovering this conversation, picking a side and “researching” their way into the same talking points.
Or it’s bots.
Sounds good, bro.
Believing in “price discovery” is delusional even without the misogyny.
If the crypto Bros could read they’d be very upset
Unironically one of the most surprising thing about the current crop of techbros is how anti-intellectual they are. Back in the day Paul Graham published a smarmy essay about how you shouldn’t have possessions except books. Nowadays, I see so many techbros saying “I hate books” and “I never read.”
It’s weird to have your self identity be both I’m smarter than everyone else and also I don’t read. I really am baffled at how they square that circle.
Reminder. The price doesn’t matter, it’s heavily manipulated through “stablecurrency” printers and wash trading.
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