Of course this long read ("Can Trump make bitcoin useful?") has to throw "Trump" in the title (for SEO reasons, I'm sure), but the piece and feature itself is worth my (and our?) attention nonetheless!
Also, bitcoin on the FT front page?! Is this the "...then we win" stage??
The price of bitcoin is currently trading around its highest point since the token was created in 2009 — but a close look at the 16 years since founder Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first coins shows a history of soaring prices typically followed by steep crashes.
What was really cool about looking FT's bitcoin's price history—always is; you notice things you hadn't noticed before—is how unbelievably calm BTC/USD was in 2015: just shogging along in the $200s, doing nothing much. For 2016, too: chilling at 400, then jump and another round of chill at 600-700.
"It’s clear that the backing of US officials has been good for the price of bitcoin."
Last year, the top US securities regulator approved the launch of regulated funds holding the cryptocurrency, paving the way for pension funds, endowments and other large money managers to plough money into the token.
A reserve asset is typically a critical resource that can be used in times of crisis. The US currently has an emergency petroleum reserve which it can use to protect against oil supply shocks, for example, while many countries have gold reserves.
I spoke too soon; we're not winning yet
Naturally, the FT found some retard professor at some no-name university:
“It’s a very strange idea,” says Hilary Allen, professor at the American University Washington College of Law. “We need something that isn’t going to be inflated away, something hard and real in reserve. What’s ridiculous is that nothing could be less hard or real than bitcoin,” she adds.
If she spent more than five minutes studying it, I'm sure she would find that both those claims are the inverse of the truth (#760879).
What I found really nice in the piece is the volatility graphics... vol of BTC/USD really hasn't come down with maturity, instead hovering around the same levels for 3-4 years.
My then-AIER colleague Max Gulker wrote about this five years ago, and much wailing aside, nothing much has changed. Will BTC never grow up?
Volatility is a problem, but not because humans have a god-given right/natural need for morning and afternoon coffee to have "the same price": (but because long-term contracting + debt burdens become wa-cky!)
Its historically wild volatility is the first problem — we need coffees to be the same price in the morning as in the afternoon, for example, which requires currencies to be stable so users can trust their value.
not sure the graphics are going to work well in a non-paywalled version, but here we are: https://archive.md/j8XX0