Ummm...
This one is kinda under the radar, right now anyway...
Crypto’s having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month, and it could get worse before it gets better, experts said.
Cryptocurrencies have cratered this month, losing more than $1 trillion in value in recent weeks. Bitcoin’s dropped to the lowest level since April and is on track for its worst month since 2022. It’s down more than 33% from its all-time high above $126,000 in early October, which officially pushes the digital unit into bear market territory defined as at least 20% lower than the record high.
Bitcoin’s now down about 10% this year, and likely will see more selling which could mean its first annual loss since 2022, experts said. At 1:29 p.m. ET, Bitcoin was down 3.18% at $83,776.81.
Full article, HERE from USA Today.
Ironically, apparently AI and high valuations of companies like NVIDIA, along with rumblings of a stock bubble have exacerbated the fears of overvaluation of all of the crypto currencies...
Considering that there really isn’t any actual backing for Bitcoin or any other crypto that I’m aware of, I’m frankly surprised it’s taken this long for the fall to start...
The real question is, how far will it fall?
I read that the stock trader, who spotted the subprime mortgage bubble in 2008, and Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley trader, are both dumping NVIDIA stock. Thiel also dumped TESLA stock, while the trader also dumped PALANTIR, Thiel's company's stock. 🤔
I have a neighbor who used to own a Tesla. He put in solar panels to help with the cost of powering the thing; the solar installers came back again and again because they screwed up something during the install. In the end, he traded the car in for two big pickups. 🫤
I wonder how much of a loss all three companies are running? 🤔
The thing about crypto is, in pretty much every form I'm aware of, there are two potential attack vectors that are very hard to defend against, in the sense that if they succeed there's pretty much no "and then what?" to repel or recover. One is breaking the cryptology scheme. The other is taking over a sufficient number of "miner" nodes (or clearninghouses, if you wish) such as to rewrite the books in your favor.
Both are considered to be "too hard," the former because of the computation time required and the latter because of the sheer number of targets that have to be taken down or over at once. But, note that neither of these is a strong active defense; they're situational. The intersection of quantum computing and AI could make for a very interesting challenge to those assumptions.
Anyway ... Crypto is very interesting in an abstract and intellectual sense. Viewing it as an asset in an asset-allocation framework is likely a good approach, and far be it for me to argue with Thiel et al. Me, I view it as a 21st-century tulip bulb.