I don't see this discussed in enough HN threads. Everyone is quick to talk about FTX, Tether being a scam, etc but I rarely hear people discuss how the heck BTC is pegged at $16k this whole time, through it all.
You won't see this discussed on HN, there's an overall hostility toward Bitcoin. A few are interested or sometimes involved with it (whether with development or infrastructure) but don't bother enlightening the crowd since I think it's pretty hopeless here and they would be buried under downvotes.
I wonder if that resentment would have been the same toward the Internet in 1997. You know, that useless thing for hackers and scammers that only benefits crime and should be regulated like heck by governments for our safety.
Tech people were hugely enthusiastic about Internet-like things even before the internet existed. I know Arthur C Clarke predicted satellite TV in 1957; I'm sure one could find lots of examples of internet prediction, some positive, some negative (e.g. The Machine Stops, 1928).
But 97 was late for the internet. ARPANET dates back to the 1970s .. as a government project!
There was a great deal of value in the internet liberating people from monopolist telcos and their billing practices, as well as from borders, and there was nowhere near the same level of scamminess and crime. Why? Because there was no money changing hands.
You don't see it discussed because it's not news. "Thing has not changed in the past few months" doesn't get many news articles, and if there's no news articles being submitted, then a news article feed site like HN isn't going to have anything to post about that.
HN userbase is older and more American than tech in general. It follows that they are more invested in the legacy financial system than most and don't even encounter the problems crypto tries to solve. Also sour grapes.
What are you talking about? America's financial system is the worst of the world's major economies from the perspective of people wanting to send money (to the point that the easiest way to send money between individuals is with paper checks, something that has virtually disappeared everywhere else). If anything, Bitcoin's promises of frictionless money transfer should have the most appeal to Americans since that's already a "solved problem" in the EU, Canada, Australia, etc.
I mean, the primary theory about Tether being a scam is that Tether is allegedly a scam _which is used to prop up the price of delicious bitcoin_, so that more or less tracks.
My theory is that a lot of prices in cryptoworld is set more by "vibes" rather that analysis of value and fundamental utility. You often see crypto prices hitting whole number price floors on the way down. I think it is from traders picking buy order prices by their gut feeling which leads to more whole numbers.
BTC fell through a few of these whole number price floors on the way down, this is just the one that finally broke the momentum. If it is going to continue to fall then downward pressure will build up until it overwhelms these buy orders and it will crack down to the next floor. Kind of like the 40k to 30k fall, the 30k to 20k fall or the 20k to 16k fall.
I don’t know but I don’t like that stability in a gambling market. This is not the case of asset being stable because the business is stable - there is no business beyond betting on the price of the asset. For me this is an indication of loss of interest in the casino.
Even if there seems to be a trading volume, i’m skeptical of that trading. Maybe it’s just painting the tape?
What are those people achieving by trading the thing at about the same price? Are we churning believers? Why would the price be stable?
Volume is not that useful. Could just be 10 whales trading with each other or exchanges doing some programmed rotations. When there’s nothing really backing the price then it’s most likely manipulation
