At this point the arguments for or against the idea of cryptocurrency are pretty irrelevant. Bitfinex has injected millions of dollars of fake money into the ecosystem, users are reporting an ability to withdraw money from it on Reddit, and their Twitter account's last message was reports of a DDoS two days ago with no updates.
Bitfinex controls Tether, a single source cryptocurrency supposedly backed by and pegged to the US dollar. The market cap of Tether has risen $188 million dollars to $678 million in one month:
If Tether is what they say it is, this can only come from investments of US dollars. Ie nearly $400 million dollars of investment in one month.
On November 21 Tether announced a hack in which they lost $30 million.
Bitfinex is extremely likely to be insolvent at this point. Users are complaining of an inability to withdraw funds on Reddit, and Bitfinex's Twitter has a days old announcement of a supposed DDoS attack, with no updates:
Tether announced a hack in which they lost 30 million USDT, not USD. As they don't plan to redeem those USDT to USD, in no sense Tether lost 30 million USD. As far as I can tell, Tether lost nothing.
Do you still think the Tether is still held by the thieves? They traded it for other cryptocurrencies, out of Bitfinex, the second they stole it.
That is, of course, if it actually was a theft, and it was actually for $30 million. It's a single source currency, no one but the people running Tether knows what's actually behind it.
I'm not clear on the the details, but if you wanted to look in to it a lot stems from their "Tether" crypto currency which is supposedly backed by real US Dollars, but many suspect that they created new unbacked "tethers" to buy and bid-up BTC.
In a sense people are worried that they're literally making up money on the promise they have US Dollars so they can buy up BTC and sell it to maybe regain the missing USD? Unclear.
Need to remember that this is the same place, I believe, that was "hacked" and they spread the losses across all their customers if their costs were actually lost or not. Details have been hard to come by which is where the suspicion seems to have really started.
While bitcoin stores value in fiat, eventually that may not be the case and bitcoin will just be worth bitcoin. I know that day is likely very far off but if enough economies collapse, price stabilized and people adopt bitcoin as a currency, we may stop caring what a bitcoin is worth in USD, Yen, AUD, what have you.
I'm not convinced this is true anymore. My only information source is anecdotal, but I've been amazed at how many non technical people I've talked to lately that know about Bitcoin. Many are even buying little bits on coinbase. Their knowledge doesn't run deep, but it certainly exceeds levels of "never heard of it."
You probably just covered > 50% of the population of the earth there. If that isn’t “ordinary people” than what is? People aren’t all rural farmers anymore.
Brussels is the centre of power in the EU. I have nothing against Toronto, but just because its population is higher doesn't really award it the status of being more "major".
Being important or good at one thing doesn’t make you a major city. It’s that you’re not known for one thing that makes you important. NYC has software, banking, media, art, culture, dining, etc. DC or Brussels just has one thing: political power.
Even then, there are plenty who are on the internet without really understanding what it is they're using. They just know how to pattern match (netflix.com will take me to movies + tv but no idea how or where it comes from)
I think on a surface level, they'd say sure, digital money, why wouldn't that be the future but they assume it comes from an "authoritative" source such as the UN or a government.
I wonder whether people associate money with government simply because that's what most money labeling says.
If I were living in a world where money had just been invented, I suppose I'd care mainly that whoever was issuing it was trustworthy enough not to issue extra on the side.* Otherwise I wouldn't really care where it came from.
I'm not sure if I'm agreeing with you, disagreeing, or just continuing the discussion.
*Eventually I'd come to understand that inflation is not necessarily a bad thing, but my first instinct would be that I'd value money only if it were scarce.
So you're saying these average people that say "sure, digital money, why wouldn't that be the future" also "understand why a decentralized asset is the ultimate safe haven"? Huh?
How are you interpreting the term "understand"?
Does the average person even understand what a "decentralized asset" is?
Wait till Africa stops using their local currency mobile payments and switches to crypto. Internet use won’t matter as bitcoin and I’m sure many crypto to follow won’t hinge on an internet connection.
Maybe. My point wasn't so much that people need internet to use cryptos as that our definition of "ordinary people" is pretty skewed compared to the actual world population.
https://twitter.com/bitfinex https://www.reddit.com/r/bitfinex/comments/7fx9z9/bitfinex_w...
Perhaps Bitcoin will recover from this fraud or another cryptocurrency will take the lead in the space, but we are headed for a crash.