The Lemon Fool

I mean, I guess it's overall a good trend if the rate in which it happens ie relatively moderate.

Will it fall? Yes. Will it implode like it did in early 2018, I don’t know. The crypto market is driven by mass psychology even more so than the stock market. What happened in 2017-2018 was a gigantic bubble inflated by the media and the ease of acquisition, plus a lot of misunderstanding about the technology. But people were very fearful of missing out, so they just bought into the hype and the price skyrocketed. I’m guessing a similar mentality is happening here, but now people are thinking “I missed it last time. I don’t want to miss it this time”.

I’d like to say people are more aware of the limitations of the tech, and that there won’t be an explosion of altcoins with no real purpose. Not least because so many people got burned by altcions in the last bubble. But markets have short memories, and this is always “the exception”. So who knows.

The tech itself is quite cool and useful. Even Facebook is trying it out. There’s real potential. But I’m always wary of assets that double their value in a couple of short months.

One thing to bear in mind about Bitcoin is that, unlike gold or tulips, it's been designed to solve what are fundamentally political problems afflicting fiat currencies and stores of value such as gold. This means statements such as "driven by mass psychology even more so than the stock market" aren't very insightful beyond referring to an aspect of Bitcoin's as yet early history.

The trouble is, you almost need a PhD in monetary theory and economics to understand how those designed mechanisms interact with things like sentiment and macroeconomic cycles

Gold and tulips have an inherent value. You can use all the fiat currencies to pay tax somewhere and as a form of legal tender. Bitcoin has no inherent value.

https://www.janes.com/article/90889/nor ... -un-report

"North Korea has appropriated an estimated USD2 billion through “large-scale” cyber attacks against crypto-currency exchanges to finance the country’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes, according to a 30 August report written by a United Nations panel of experts for the UN Security Council (UNSC).

The Northeast Asian country has “used cyberspace to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks to steal funds from financial institutions and crypto-currency exchanges to generate income”,"

- dspp