This week in crypto: Cryptocurrencies continue to drop, India plans to ban them and German President warns the financial sector

[fabafaba]

Further huge drops in value for cryptos:

This year didn't start well for Bitcoin, with a drop in value of almost 45% since January 5th, equivalent to $133billion (1) and other cryptos were hit similarily, losing 8-15% over the last 24 hours (2). But despite this volatility,every day more and more companies accept cryptocurrencies, from bookstores to Subway (3) and other major players like UPS might want to get in as well (4).

Crypto: Economy and politics:

All the while, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warns the financial sector, saying "When I look at the price developement of cryptocurrencies, I don' see a currency, I see gambling", remembering the last financial crisis (5) and Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told lawmakers that India doesn't recognize cryptos as a legal currency and wants to ban payments (6). After Bloomber falsely reported that ENEL, one of Europes biggest suppliers of electrical power and gas, wanted to supply miners with electricity. A day later, the company stated that they refuse to supply miners because "The intensive use of energy dedicated to cryptocurrency mining [is] an unsustainable practice that does not fit with the business model it is pursuing" (7&8).

 

The future, as predicted today:

There's still a huge disagreement over the future of cryptos and especially Bitcoin. Banks and "traditional" financial experts, including the Deutsche Bank which might have learned from its gigantic fuck ups over the years and is considered as one of the world's most dangerous banks (9), continue to warn the public about the volatility of the crypto market (10). In the meantime, investors hope for a turn around of the price developement and analysists predict Bitcoin to become mainstream and will hit “around $30,000-$35,000 this year” (11).

 

What will the future look like for gamers and PC enthusiast?

These are just my personal thoughts on what might come. Many of us are anticipating the release of Volta gaming cards (12). I hope Nvidia and the PCB manufactures will ramp up their production to combat the huge demand for GPUs. Once these hit the market, older cards like the 900 series will propably be sold first, so if you're on a budget, you might want to look out fore some cheap 980Tis and the demand for Pascal GPUs will sink a little bit, bringing the prices down to a reasonable level again. With the faster and faster rising difficulty of mining cryptocurrencies, the  one for BTC doubled since October 2017 (13), manufactures will have to keep an eye on RMAs because the obviously don't want to see their warehouses fill up with cards after they become unprofitable for miners, which might result in stricter RMA policies that hurt regular consumers.

 

 

Let me know if you liked this quick summary of this weeks news on cryptocurrencies, I'm thinking about making a series out of this.

 

 

 

 

1: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-sinks-below-10k-following-133-billion-january-loss/

Quote

The downward move follws a month for bitcoin when its market capitalization has tumbled from a high of $296 billion on Jan. 5 to $163 billion today - a $133 billion (44.93 percent) loss.

2: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/01/why-is-bitcoins-price-down/

Quote

3: https://99bitcoins.com/who-accepts-bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-bitcoins/

Quote

Subway - Eat fresh

[...]

SFU bookstore - Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada

4: https://www.coindesk.com/ups-might-making-locker-accepts-bitcoin/

Quote

Global shipping giant UPS may be looking at accepting bitcoin through an item-exchange locker service, newly published patent fillings show.

5: https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article173116660/Frank-Walter-Steinmeier-Bundespraesident-warnt-vor-Bitcoin-und-Finanzmagie.html

Quote

"Wenn ich mir den Kursverlauf von Kryptowährungen anschaue, sehe ich keine Währung, sondern Wettspiele", sagte Steinmeier am Abend anlässlich des Festakts zur 100-Jahr-Feier der Deka Bank, des Wertpapierhauses der Sparkassen, in Frankfurt.

6: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/india-to-curb-cryptocurrency-use-while-embracing-blockchain

Quote

"The government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told lawmakers in New Delhi on Thursday.

7: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-30/enel-is-said-to-be-in-talks-to-sell-power-to-digital-coin-miner

Quote

Enel SpA, Europe’s largest utility, is in talks to sell power from wind, solar and other renewable energy plants to the Swiss cryptocurrency company Envion AG, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

8: https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/913265/Enel-mining-cryptocurrencies-China-Canada-India-Envion-AG-Endesa

Quote

The electricity and gas operator said the company has no interest in providing energy for mining cryptocurrencies.

9: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/finanzkrise-der-irrtum-der-deutschen-bank-14461287.html

Quote

Bezahlt wurde der Kulturkampf in der Deutschen Bank auch mit dem Verlust von Ethik und Moral. Wie Hohn klingt heute ein Spruch vom ehemaligen Vorstandsvorsitzenden Josef Ackermann, es gebe kein Geschäft, das es wert sei, den eigenen Ruf zu ruinieren. Wegen Betrug, Manipulation und Geldwäsche drohen Strafen in Milliardenhöhe. Fielen diese deutlich niedriger aus als kolportiert, wird sich der Aktienkurs erholen.

10: http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/deutsche-bank-says-investing-in-bitcoin-could-lead-to-total-loss-20180129-h0qa7p.html

Quote

Deutsche Bank AG's Wealth Management currently doesn't advise investing  in cryptocurrencies, according to Markus Mueller, Global Head of Chief Investment Office. Problematic issues include high volatility, possible price manipulation and data loss or data theft, he told Bloomberg News in an interview.

11: https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/913268/bitcoin-price-news-ripple-ethereum-blockchain-cryptocurrency-latest-crash

Quote

“A lot more money is going to come into bitcoin, bitcoin will go up around $30,000-$35,000 this year – next couple of years? $100,000.”

12: https://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia/nvidia-volta-gpu-specifications

Quote

Early 2018 seems like the most likely release for Volta-based gaming cards, but if you can't wait Nvidia have launched the $3,000 Titan V...

13: https://www.coinwarz.com/difficulty-charts/bitcoin-difficulty-chart

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by fabafaba
@ARikozuM suggested I use quote boxes, so I added them to my sources to keep the main part short.

[ARikozuM]

Time to sell all of my coins and sh#t! 

 

Doesn't fit Tech News format; you need to add a quote box for the source material.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

Interesting, really.

 

Didn't India say they wanted to ban cash a few years ago? Maybe they think crypto would be a competing currency (that they wouldn't be able to tax)?

 

In a cashless society I would expect the incentives for payment methods to be low fees and ease of payment, and if crypto beats their currency then their economy would probably be ruined.

 

PS. Godammit pop bubble, pop already.

[themctipers]

need to sell gpu before it crashes

shit shit

$700 cmon

 

[Misanthrope]

Actually this might be the *best* time to get in guys!

 

Hey hey heeeeeeey!

Hey hey heeeeeeey!

Hey hey heeeeeeey!

wasawasawasawasaaaaap!

BITCONNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

Spoiler

 

 

[cj09beira]

bitcoin is a dying giant, sure it was ingenious and revolutionary but newer coins bring much needed improvements to the blockchain, mainly bitcoin suffers from centralized mining farms which completely destroy the main purpose of using blockchain in the first place, also its slow transaction speed and high fees prevent it from being used to buy commodities, newer projects like ethereum, Dash, litecoin bring much more useful platforms 

[Taf the Ghost]

17 minutes ago, cj09beira said:

bitcoin is a dying giant, sure it was ingenious and revolutionary but newer coins bring much needed improvements to the blockchain, mainly bitcoin suffers from centralized mining farms which completely destroy the main purpose of using blockchain in the first place, also its slow transaction speed and high fees prevent it from being used to buy commodities, newer projects like ethereum, Dash, litecoin bring much more useful platforms 

BlockChain is here to stay. Which Coin will come to dominate the 2020s is an utterly open question.

[imreloadin]

Burn baby burn!

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Taf the Ghost said:

BlockChain is here to stay. Which Coin will come to dominate the 2020s is an utterly open question.

I wouldn't  be at all surprised if they just start using blockchain and ignore all these new currencies.  

[Donut417]

I dont see the supply problem with GPU's going away even with newer cards. Plus there still is a RAM shortage. I think Governments are banning these crypto currencies because A) They are speculative. B) There are no safeguards in place. C) They dont know what to do with them.

 

I wonder how many people sold Bit Coin in the US, and forgot to report it on their income taxes? Because any coin you own less than a year is taxed under normal income, but coins that are owned longer than a year are subject to capital gains tax. There is also the issue, that people sell their coins off shore and not pay any tax on them. Which is probably why governments are banning it. Because in the end they want their cut. Dont get between the government and its cut.... LOL. Which I wonder how many people are going to get an angry letter from the IRS saying pay us or go to prison. 

[Kukielka]

So much FUD going around. No, India is not planning on banning cryptocurrencies.

 

All they said was:

Quote

The Government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate use of crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of of the payment system.

That basicly means: "We don't want cryptos to be used for bad stuff. You know... like real money."

So god damn annoying what ppl hype that "news" up to.

[Energycore]

It's kind of sad that because of the insane hype that blockchain got, it's garnered bad blood among people and governments even though it's in theory a wonderful way to make transactions cheaper and easier to execute.

 

I do look forward to the rise of cryptocurrencies that can't be mined so we do away with the massive power consumption that it's entailing.

[mr moose]

31 minutes ago, Energycore said:

It's kind of sad that because of the insane hype that blockchain got, it's garnered bad blood among people and governments even though it's in theory a wonderful way to make transactions cheaper and easier to execute.

 

I do look forward to the rise of cryptocurrencies that can't be mined so we do away with the massive power consumption that it's entailing.

Don't worry, governments and corporations aren't concerned with what the media says or what's written on internet forums.  They know the benefits of blockchain and it will be implemented in more than just financial services.   Regardless of what you might read on these forums, the leaders in big business and government know what is going on, they aren't "scared" or "ignorant".    Some might be corrupt but that is another story.   They know bitcoin uses blockchain not the other way around.

 

For the most part good technologies get adopted and the poor ones tend to eventually be forgotten.  ( I know that is not the "always" case, but digging up examples of good tech being overlooked is the exception not the rule).

The issue with currencies using the blochchain will essentially come down to private versus public networks and how secure they are compared to current systems.  Contrary to popular belief it is just as easy to steal bitcoin from an exchange or wallet as a conventional bank account.  Maybe even easier as sometimes if the funds are run through a mixer they are essentially lost.   Which means a lot of work has to go into appraising and developing blockchain before it can be adopted in such mission critical economies.

 

 

 

 

[TOMPPIX]

 

[lewdicrous]

"How low can you go"

[Bananasplit_00]

Need to get some of my btc into other stuff really... But I don't think bitcoin is going to die tbh

[RagnarokDel]

Ethereum is slowly creeping up on bitcoin more and more, as it should.

[Bcat00]

Hurrah on the ban.

once most of the big governments ban it then I like to see how peopl will spend that nonsense

[Dissitesuxba11s]

This FUD will soon become FOMO when the prices get low enough. To me, this dip is nothing but another opportunity to invest more. For the ones stating that it is crashing, note that bitcoin is still ~740% higher than what it was last year.  Cryptocurrency buying and selling, or investing for that matter, needs to be looked at in the long term. We can't keep looking at investments in the short term, i.e. price day to day, but compare the prices of when you bought in and when you are thinking of cashing out. That being said, day trading is possible and you can get short term profits, but that will be in alt-coins and ICO's, not bitcoin. Remember, buy low, sell high.

 

Honestly, a new architecture will not change anything with prices of GPU's; it will just give users another choice. The shortage will still be present since supplies don't magically stock up with a new products release. (Maybe GDDR6 will be our saving grace, who knows) If this new GPU does perform as well as we hype it up to be, what's stopping miners from buying this as well? If it does mine significantly better than the older cards and prices of older cards normalize, wouldn't miners steer to the cheaper cards since they can get more cards? There is a reason why some miners prefer to use multiple 1060's/1070's over 1080 Ti's or even a Titan Xp. 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

8 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

If this new GPU does perform as well as we hype it up to be, what's stopping miners from buying this as well?

Actually, they are the ones who should buy them, while current gen can be use for gaming.

8 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

If it does mine significantly better than the older cards and prices of older cards normalize, wouldn't miners steer to the cheaper cards since they can get more cards?

Not in they aren't profitable. The buying price doesn't matter much if the income per KWh is lower than the cost of a KWh as a consequence of an increase in difficulty (due to the newer cards performing better).

 

8 minutes ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

There is a reason why some miners prefer to use multiple 1060's/1070's over 1080 Ti's or even a Titan Xp. 

There is a reason why they are not buying the older heroes from the previous mining craze (notice how every card you mention is current gen).

[michaelocarroll007]

9 hours ago, Donut417 said:

I dont see the supply problem with GPU's going away even with newer cards. Plus there still is a RAM shortage. I think Governments are banning these crypto currencies because A) They are speculative. B) There are no safeguards in place. C) They dont know what to do with them.

 

I wonder how many people sold Bit Coin in the US, and forgot to report it on their income taxes? Because any coin you own less than a year is taxed under normal income, but coins that are owned longer than a year are subject to capital gains tax. There is also the issue, that people sell their coins off shore and not pay any tax on them. Which is probably why governments are banning it. Because in the end they want their cut. Dont get between the government and its cut.... LOL. Which I wonder how many people are going to get an angry letter from the IRS saying pay us or go to prison. 

The USA Made Coinbase Turn over anyone who owned more then 20k worth i believe for this reason. I could be wrong going off the top of my head. 

[Dissitesuxba11s]

6 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Actually, they are the ones who should buy them, while current gen can be use for gaming.

 

6 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

There is a reason why they are not buying the older heroes from the previous mining craze (notice how every card you mention is current gen).

Fair point, I completely forgot about card efficiency in my line of thought. But that doesn't change the fact that current cards are efficient enough that they are still attractive to miners. The new card would need to be significantly more efficient to warrant the upgrade/new buy.

 

7 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Not in they aren't profitable. The buying price doesn't matter much if the income per KWh is lower than the cost of a KWh as a consequence of an increase in difficulty (due to the newer cards performing better).

This is my issue with mining profitability calculators, they calculate the profitability number based off the current price of whatever coin the user will be mining. If I calculate profitability now, it would be significantly lower than what it was a month ago. ROI time is assuming a steady value for the coin mined which goes against the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies.

To your point, yes, the difficulty is increasing which might make newbie miners shy away or even stop mining, but veteran miners will holdfast or pivot to newer alt-coins. I know some miners cash out ever so often so that the can have actual money to use but the true way to make money is to hold on to whatever coin the user mines and sell at a peak price that they are comfortable with.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 minute ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

I know some miners cash out ever so often so that the can have actual money to use but the true way to make money is to hold on to whatever coin the user mines and sell at a peak price that they are comfortable with.

I think this is the only reason some miners are in it at the electricity costs they face. I mean, in places like Germany you actually lose money in most types of mining, yet it can be a cheaper way to access the coin for speculative purposes than just outright buying it.

Although at that point you may as well get a lottery ticket  

[Dissitesuxba11s]

10 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Although at that point you may as well get a lottery ticket  

With the lottery jackpot growing everyday, people are willing to take that chance especially since a lottery ticket can be as cheap as USD$1. To make a buck, you have to use a buck, or a hundred.

[suicidalfranco]

going to do what i've been doing for the past month; buy the dip