They run all the stories about how BTC lost 80% of its value without acknowledging that the top measurement was at the peak of spikiest part of the bubble where only half a dozen trades occured.
Then, after stories of how much value has been lost cease to be interesting enough to warrant further stories and noone is clinking on the stories that they do write. That's when it's time to start running the "It looked like bitcoin was dead, but it's coming back again, and this time it's stronger than ever!". Which promotes the next bubble that they can report on when it crashes.
There may be underlying value there, but the oscillations are driven by short term sentiment. I can't help but feel that their are news organisations that are happy to provide self forefilling prophecies as long as it provides more easy to write news.
So much of a scam that buying that coveted Tesla Model S in 2017 would sure have held its value much better than Bitcoin did and by now in 2025, Bitcoin should be worthless. Right?
Not even close.
If Bitcoin was a scam, was it supposed to "crash" from $10k to $100k+ and that Tesla Model S "skyrocketed" from $100k+ to around $40k from its retail price.
Sounds like buying a Tesla Model S in 2017 was a scam.
Honestly, no.
Scam or not, many people have gotten rich off of it. I bet the people who kept saying it is a scam wish'd they bought when it was low, they would have been rich today, instead, they double down (because they completely missed their chance due to their opinion), which is to be expected.
Too bad, life goes on, and you most likely will never get ~10 BTCs for the price of a bread anymore.
[1] https://gizmodo.com/bitcoin-crypto-bank-of-international-set...
And just because the value of Bitcoin has gone up, doesn't mean it's not a scam. "Market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
Bitcoin continues to fail at its stated goal of being a currency - it's more like digital gold that, unlike actual gold, would be worthless in a real global crisis. A lot of bitcoin-adjacent stuff has also collapsed since 2017 (NFTs, FTX). The idea of putting everything "on the blockchain" also seems to have died.
But I don't think anyone claimed criminality is not profitable. It can literally make you President.
Welcome to reality, where good/neutral things sometimes are used for bad :) Name one financial system that doesn't have any elements of criminality involved in them.
> Its only real use case still is enabling illegal transactions and evading financial regulations, and that maintains its speculative value
So if I and others happen to have done at least one transaction with Bitcoin that wasn't illegal or evaded financial regulations, would presenting proof of that leading to you changing your view that there is no real use cases?
> that's still a scam not a true investment
Personally I draw the limit of what a "scam" is when it's intentionally misleading with the purpose of defrauding you. Bitcoin doesn't look like it's either of those things, but I will agree that the ecosystem has a lot of scammers within it, just like any financial system.
It would be so awesome to have a forum where intelligent, grown up people discuss the possible futures of Bitcoin. Or any other asset. But I have not found one yet. If anybody knows some place, please please post a link!
Then it slowly drifted into scammers and low quality begging posts.
I even started mining for a brief time on work desktop which I had to uninstall immediately of course.
The reason I know bitcoin has hit the mainstream and isn't going anywhere is in sort due to HN. This bubble has spurred zero posts as far as I can tell, or zero that gained any traction.
In part this is because there is nothing new to discuss. But in the past there was nothing new either, but it gained traction because of the numbers of comments.
Now I guess the naysayers have moved on the criticism of AI and the defenders don't feel like it needs defending anymore.
Welcome to the new asset class.
... Did you look? Quick search turns up a bunch of stories that were on the frontpage: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
> But in the past there was nothing new either, but it gained traction because of the numbers of comments.
That's the opposite of how things are ranked on HN. Submissions with more comments than votes are being pushed down the frontpage, not up.
Another search, limiting it to >50 points (so passed through the frontpage at one point) and within the last 12 months, showing ~26 results: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...
Wasn't it supposed to be a currency people would buy stuff with that would eventually replace "fiat"? What happened to that?
wouldbecouldbe•5h ago
guesswho_•5h ago
adastra22•4h ago
CjHuber•4h ago
walthamstow•4h ago
diggan•4h ago
willis936•4h ago
diggan•3h ago
So a thing is a "bubble" for as long as it is possible for it to collapse if whales cash out too quickly? In your mind, every financial system today is a bubble if I understand you correct then?
xtracto•1h ago
Bitcoin has lost 75% of its value 4+ times, but for some strange reason everytime it "comes back stronger".
My thesis is that, in all these years, the BTC price has been composed of 2 parts: Speculators and "believers". Speculators will buy and sell very fast as soon as the market moved or due to external phenomena. "Believers" will keep holding through everything.
Thing is, with each cycle there is more money on Believers than Speculators. This time, ETFs and institutions have placed a lot more money, so it seems there are more and more Believers. That's why you see retail Speculators saying that this cycle is "boring".
It's interesting to see how the price will keep stabilizing, as the ratio of Believers vs Speculators money gets larger (Speculators become a smaller and smaller % of the price).
I think this was the last cycle (halving cycle) with that much volatility.
Even if you are not into bitcoin, it's interesting to study its phenomena.
dmichulke•3h ago
So any discussion with BTC bubble people is futile unless they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.
diggan•3h ago
No, I'm merely trying to understand what people's understanding of a "bubble" is. I couldn't care less if others consider Bitcoin a bubble or not, but after hearing "Bitcoin is a bubble" since ~2015 sometime, I feel like I misunderstand what a "bubble" is. The "tulip mania" seems to have been around 2-3 years long, the dotcom bubble around 10 years, so I guess it isn't impossible for a bubble to last 20 or even 30 years.
wouldbecouldbe•3h ago
The BTC holders trying to rebrand to a value storage instead of a currency is proof of this.
diggan•3h ago
Who judges this? Is "bubble" a personal/subjective thing then? Bitcoin is a bubble for you, because there is no use case, but not a bubble for others that can use it for any reason?