chiefmonkey
1. What causes the sudden crazy price hikes – like litecoin and doge coin over 400% in the last 24 hours?
Right now, at the time of this writing, there is a general surge going on for all crypto currencies. Peoples first stop is usially Bitcoin and then from there they learn about the wider sphere of other cyryptocurrencies and the wider (more innovative) scope of blockchain technology.
So why are people surging towards Bitcoin? Very broadly speaking there are two avenues to people becoming aware of the cryptocurrency world; through bitcoin or through the blockchain. There are many reasons, but here are just a few:
1. Quantative Easing vs A store of value
Bitcoin, beyond a speculative investment strategy, is increasingly being seen as a sound store of value and a protection of wealth.
As governments (and their central banks) around the world have been practicing Quantative Easing they have been simultaneaously devaluing the value of their currency. In case you didn’t know, QE is literally the printing of money. When you print money, you devalue the money already in existance e.g. if there were £100 in existence and suddenly we print another £100; the value of that original £100 has suddenly been halved because there is twice the amount of it in existance.
E.G. Venezuela experienced hyperinflation because it was printing Bolivars into oblivion. The government is now issuing bankotes.
Rather than watching their fiat currenecy becoming less valuable by the day, people around the world (like in ) are moving their wealth from fiat based currencies and investing it into commodities like gold, silver, and more recently bitcoin.
2. Awareness of Blockchain Technologies
The technology that Bitcoin is based upon is called Blockchain. It is widely regarded that blockchain technology is going to have a greater effect on society than the internet has.
(too much too explain here why this is the case but “decentralised & autonomous organisations” are terms you will hear a lot of in the near future)
A famously young developer called Vitalik Buterin (I think he was 18), took a copy of this code, rewrote it and created Ethereum. Ethereum is an applicaion development platform that allows developers to create decentralised apps (like bitcoin). Needless to say it has been incredibly popular.
Just recently Vitalik (now 23) has launched the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. The starting members of this group is a who’s who of the Fortune 500… in fact I could probably just cut’n’paste the Fortune 500 list right here.
The launch of the EEA has been publicised all over the business world. The exposure it has received is HUGE.
3. Big News Stories
Whenever there is a big story that excites the crowd, and it’s a very excitable crowd, the price reacts. Here are some random exampes:
E.G. 1 India’s war on cash – when the Indian government withdrew some of the most commonly used bank notes from circulation, market sellers were crippled… Indian society is heavily reliant on cash… street sellers do not use swipe machines… they have smartphones though and since bitcoin is like digital cash, bitcoin price surged as Indians flocked to buy some.
E.G. 2 The Japanese government has recently been vocal about aknowledging Bicoin as a form of currency, unlike here in the west where it is seen as a commodity, as a result the price saw a huge surge.
E.G. 3 The Chinese people have great respect for gold… bitcoin is seen as a digital version of gold… the Chinese have seen a devaluation of the Yuan against other currencies and so they are moving their money to bitcoin since it is beyond their Governments control. You can read more about it here and here.
2. How can we track the news/ to get wind of any developments/ updates with all the little crypto currencies to be able to buy ahead of those sudden price hikes?
News Sources to stay in the know
I highly recommend using an RSS news feed service and then stripping out all of the news channels the service automatically loads your account with and then adding the following alt news sources.
I use feedly, it works brilliantly, has browser and mobile versions, and it doesn’t block out all the alt news websites like the Apple News app does.
Feedly – https://feedly.com
Add the following sources to get started:
Price Monitoring Services
Best website
- CryptoCurrency Market Capitalizations – https://coinmarketcap.com
Mobile
- Check out “CoinCap” in the iOS App Store or the Android Google Play .
3. What has caused this sudden increase in the last week or so? It can’t all be because of the ransomware?
It’s really hard to say exactly what is causing the prices to continually climb… the community (myself included) are just on a natural high at the moment as we can see the momentum of growth expanding exponentially and the technology being adopted globally.
Remember, the origins and the heart and soul of bitcoin (and a lot of cryptocurrencies) is very anti-establishment… bitcoin itself came from the Cypherpunk community and was a reaction to a fraudulent Fiat Currency and Fractional Reserve Banking systems that are at the root cause of most the economic recessions, boom bust cycles in the past and the growth in inequality. There is a sentiment that the underdog is winning.
Ransomware?… The terrible hack globally seems to have done very little damage considering the hype. Last I saw was that a minuscule amount has been collected considering… just over 50 BTC… If you want to see a live update of the ransoms being collected, you can follow the twitter account https://twitter.com/ransomtracker where you can see it happening in real-time.
Some people believe the WannaCry ransomware was a smear campaign against bitcoin to generate a growing disdain that it is evil, and only used to buy drugs, guns, fund terrorism, and hack computers… I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true… what I do know however is that one moment the community took a sharp breathe in thinking the price was going to drop, then a moment later we all laughed as it barely flinched before taking off at a greater pace.
There is basically just a continuous tsunami of good news and innovations that are happening in the cryptoverse at the moment so its hard to put the recent surge down to any one thing.
4. Do you think the prices will stay as they are or are they totally inflated/ waiting to crash?
There is always a potential for a massive drop… for me its half the excitement… I personally beleive it is going to drop 50% in the not too distant before taking back off to the moon.
I would not describe the current price surge as a “bubble”. Hype, yes, but not a bubble.
Bubbles have 2 characteristics:
- They are formed of a commodity that a majority of the populous own e.g. property
- The price of the commodity goes beyond the affordability of the people to own it
Neither of these can appy to bitcoin.
- Hardly anyone knows about bitcoin… ask in your local pub or at bus stop.
- Anyone can buy bitcoin… you don’t have to have a whole bitcoin, you can buy 1000th of a bitcoin if you wished or £10 worth
5. How can one best know which of the alt coins /crypto currencies to invest in – are there any ways of gauging which ones will shoot up/ of predicting patterns?
No one can really see the future in that way… I do however understand the Global Consciousness Project that has been going on since 1998 (nearly 20 years) at Princeton University, has discovered evidence that our collective global conscious could have precognition.
If you want to check out a reknowned linguistics expert and computer scientist who is mapping linguistics globally on the net and then making predictions then I would point you towards the amazing Clif High at HalfPastHuman.com. The accuracy rate of his predictions are both unsettling and mind blowing. I would also check out his YouTube channel.
Anyway, back on terra nova… my advice (and remember I am not a financial advisor who has to work within the rules dictated to them) is really simple:
Buy Bitcoin BTC
Its the original cryptocurrency and arguably the most advanced… It has the largest fulltime dedicated team of developers not to mention the extended community of developers (5000+) that are continually supporting it and improving it. It’s also the crypto tht has seen the most consistent increases in its value. It is enjoying the network effect.
It is worth being mindful that Bitcoin is the genesis blueprint of how all currencies will be created in the future e.g. decentralised, owned by the people, an immutable historical record, transparent, open-source, free from corruption and manipulation of inefficient governments, and the self serving financial elite.
Buy Ethereum ETH
Ethereum is NOT a cryptocurrecy like bitcoin… it is more accurate to think of ethereum ETH as a renewable energy… ETH does not have a cap on the quantity that will be created unlike bitcoin that will only ever have 21 million created… ETH is a fuel that can be used to power applications that are built upon the Ethereum application network.
It is worth noting then, that since ETH is a fuel, it is not in the interests of the creators of Ethereum for the price to sky rocket… if it did then the Ethereum network and ETH would become too expensive to use and runs apps on. Also, the network can not be allowed to run out of fuel so more will always be created. I hope this makes sense.
Saying that… I do believe Ethereum has got a lot more growth in it before it reaches a point of being counter productive to the use of the Ethereum platform.
Its also a good perspective to have that, like Bitcoin, you are investing into the infrastructure of the future. In the not too distant future, much of our society will be run using decentralised applications that run on Ethereum networks and others like it.
TIP: Buy Cryptocurrencies that have a purpose
Anyone can create a cryptocurrency, seriously, there are websites for that. Just because you can create a crypto does not mean that it has any value. Therefore, what gives a crypto it’s value, is the purpose or function is provides.
Buy Monero XMR
Monero’s main purpose and function is “privacy”. Bitcoin, is not as anonymous as the mainstream media would have you believe. Monero is private, and this is a good thing, it gives it a value beyond the vast majority of crypto’s.
Buy Zcash ZEC
Like Monero, it is also focused on privacy, unlike monero banks like JPMorgan like Zcash… this makes me suspicious of it’s authenticity but if I put my reptilian head on and think only about its potential price rise then I would say there’s a good case it’s price will see more surges than it already has purely because it will come with the bankers seal of approval. Sad really and completely counter to the bitcoin movement.
Buy Ripple XRP
Ripple is being completely loved up by international banks at the moment as they seem to be queuing up to jump on board. More than 75 banks have joined its network.
Like Zcash I can see its price jumping massively simply because its got the banks backing. Whether it’ll be used as an everyday currency or simply an international interbank transfer facility to replace the SWIFT network I do not know.
Buy Augur and Gnosis
These are both prediction network platforms and I can see this type of technology being incorporated in many systems in the future. Both Augur and Gnosis has been built on the Ethereum platform.
Buy Litecoin LTC
It was the first crypto to come out after Bitcoin and has a very loyal following… it breaks my rule that it needs to have a purpose since it is essentially the same as bitcoin… however, being the younger sibling so to speak it is also somewhat more dynamic… the development community behind it have been able to roll out massive improvement updates (e.g. SegWit) faster than bitcoin which is still enjoying an enourmous and volatile discussion over the SegWit update for over 3 years now.
In a small way Litecoin is to Bitcoin as Silver is to Gold. Beyond a currency though it doesn’t have another purpose… yet!
6. What do you think about bitcoin – will it keep being the main one?
I really think so. For the reasons I have mentioned previously, predominantly it was the first that started the movement and it has a truly open source development community that simply can not be matched.
I think in the future the average person will be a little bit more savvy about how money is created and how it affects society, they will have 2 options open to them:
1) Would you like this new form of money created using state of the art decentralised networks controlled by central banks, and brought to you by the very same people who have been at the heart of every economic collapse and war in history.
OR
2) Would you like this form of cryptocurrency that is not owned or controlled by anyone, built by the people for the people, is open source, completely transparent, has an army of developers all over the world contributing to the code voluntarily for the greater good and is beyond the control of manipulative banks and governments?
7.Which ones would you invest in right now?
I’ve given my overall opinion previously but my top 3 right at this moment in time are:
- Bitcoin
- Ethereum
- Ripple (begrudgingly, for pure speculation and monetary gain)
