The New York Times on Twitter: "Bitcoin has struggled, but a rival virtual currency called Ethereum has climbed 1,000% over the past 3 three months"
Posted Mar 28, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC
17346
lol, some twitter user replied "congratulations to support a money laundry operation". Guess he really needs to study cryptocurrencies :-)
16
Amazing how people just dismiss stuff in a second based on absolutely nothing.
Potentially society changing technology gets presented to you by ways of a frontpage article in the business section of the New York Times in which various experts are quoted saying this could very well be the next big thing?
"nah...this shit is stupid"
21
Some comments say more about the person making the comment than they do about the subject. Case in point, "Heather" tweeted that Ethereum sounds like some new form of STD.
I was going to reply back, but I try not to be negative - plus that's just too easy. Fat pitch, right down the middle of the plate.
5
[deleted]
1
Guess he really needs to study
Money laundry? I'm afraid there's no hope for this idiot.
3
Too bad he doesn't want to recognize the vast majority of the culprits responsible for money laundry operations are banks. Cryptocurrencies actually account for a very tiny share.
1
A few other alts have gone up that much also. Some in a week. A bit misleading.
6
Yes, but without liquidity and significant market cap increase, as well as being technically sound.
3
the speculative aspect should really not be what attracts people to a cyrptocurrency, but oh well.
6
Currencies have value because people estimate that that currency will have value in the future. This is known as speculation. The higher people think a currency will go in the future and the more likely they think that will be the case, the more value they ascribe to it now. Speculation is necessary for all economic activity and speculation is necessary for a currency to have value.
1
You are right that speculation is necessary for all economic activity. I am not one of those misguided people who thinks speculation is somehow bad.
However with cryptocurrencies there are lots of people who seem to care a lot about the exchange rate, rather than the characteristics of the currency.
The major characteristic one needs from a currency is generally stable value over time (otherwise prices become meaningless), and thusfar BTC has been quite volatile compared with some mainstream currencies.
I don't view this as a drawback since cryptocurrencies are young and the market (number of users) is still very small compared to conventional currencies.
Who knows, it may actually benefit cryptocurrencies to appeal to those who view them as a get-rich-quick scheme, their ultimate success depends on being a superior medium of exchange, which means having some degree of price stability in addition to fungibility and wide acceptance.
The reason we view cash as being highly liquid is because its value is considered stable enough that we can change our cash position without worrying about being on the wrong side of a short-term swing.
When you remove price stability you reduce liquidity which makes it less cash-like and more commodity-like. This may all be well and good, but the thing I like best about cryptocurrencies is that they offer a superb alternative to cash.
1
It does benefit cryptocurrencies to have people trying to get rich. The bubbles are a natural part of the hypermonetization of cryptocurrencies in total. I am not sure from your post if you have read Cesar's opinion on how crypto develops into a currency. First it is a store of value, then is a medium of exchange, and finally a unit of account. Store of value includes Greeks who are afraid there will be a bank bail-in, so they shelter in crypto. Medium of exchange is where one would buy a haircut or pay a kid allowance and the would move it back to fiat periodically. Unit of account is where the price of the crypto gets very high, stable, and is interwoven through society so much that goods and services become priced in the crypto as much or more than the official fiat. I subscribe to this framework. We are a very long way off from any crypto being a unit of account. BTC is already used as a medium of exchange, but that is crumbling. My kids won't take bitcoin anymore for goals scored, RBI's, shutouts, OBP, errors, etc. Bitcoin is moving from medium of exchange back into store of value. The kids would take ETH, but ETH wallets are too undeveloped as of today. So, ETH is still in the store of value phase, entering the medium of exchange phase. Entry of ETH into medium of exchange should be pretty rapid, as there are many wallets in development with the right features on the major platforms. Cryptokit is about to release iOS, for example. Crypto will enter unit of account after the world has been somewhat transformed by Crypto. One could argue when that stage is reached, based on the definition of entry.
1
exactly the kind of title that would attract a lot of speculators that don't really care about actually using ETHER to buy stuff
5
Fine. Let them throw their capital at the ecosystem. Those who are doing things could use it!
1
We need people to use ether to run contracts. I'm on the fence on if Dapps will totally take off but the underlying contracts can be easily integrated into existing websites and we need that to happen to show off what ethereum can do.
1
Would have been better to see VB's photo anywhere in there...it seems incomplete without him
4
Why? the project is (and better be) bigger than one person.
9
Check out Satosh -- erm, I mean Nick Szabo's positive comment.
3
I kind of divorced myself from the crypto world between Dorian and Frontier, but I've been seeing comments like this a lot. Was Nick Szabo proven to be Satoshi at some point during that time?
1
Not that I know of, I've just seen that a bunch of people suspect that he was involved.
1
I got banned from Bitcoin for 10 days just now for "Eth spam" because I mentioned r/Ethtrader once in one comment. Thats a ridiculous level of censorship over there. Hard liners don't know what to do.
3
Your name probably didn't help matters lol
6
I havent followed BTC for a year but man when did they get so toxic
2
It's a survival instinct kicking in.
3
When they couldn't agree on transaction sizes
3
[deleted]
1
Only bad comments about it there.... But it will create alot of interest for sure and in the end more demand.
2
They did focus a bit too much on the price increase as opposed to the technological advantages. Advertising 1000% price increase certainly makes it look like a bubble or scam.
5
yes feel about that, only when price is 500 it is a bubble, now its just the beginning of a bubble:)
-4
[deleted]
5
Its because intelligent people usually dont care about commenting i guess. Intelligent people are buying more ether :)
-1†
25.9M NYT + 2.3M CNBC. Good Times Indeed :)
2
Bitcoin has struggled, but a rival virtual currency called Ethereum has climbed 1,000% over the past 3 three months nytimes.com
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1
I have a feeling cryptocurrency will take time to gain since people lost a lot of money with Bitcoins.
Unless you see gov is trading, it will remain currency for target number of people.
1
Fair point, look at winklevoss, silbert, etc. It's less tempting to dump a hundred million into eth if bitcoin fails.
2
Yep, I wait for July. That's when change takes place.
1
They could still save face if they wake up and pivot to Ehtereum before the Bitcoin train goes off the rails completely.
1
Perception changes fast
1
Actually I think perception changes slow. But it gives the perception that it changes fast. :)
1
Who lost money with bitcoins? and how?
1
And that's precisely the sort of statement that gets attention from people with money to invest. It's a much more powerful statement than the NY Times technical article on ETH.
1
99% of people don't get it right. Ethereum is not a rival cryptocurrency to bitcoin. Both of them have to CO exist!!
1
Why do they have to coexist? It seems like Ethereum could do everything Bitcoin does.
5
We'll see about that.
2
I don't think they are rivals persay but I do think Ethereum undercuts the usefulness of Bitcoin quite a bit. Once the general public can pick between Bitcoin and USD for digital transactions they are going to go with USD. Ethereum basically lets us bolt smart contracts into our existing financial system.
2
I must not get it.
1
The New York Times twitter account has 25.9 million followers. 'Nuff said.
Talk about a wide exposure!
SEPTUM SEMPRA!