The negative news about Bitcoin does not seem to stop. Central Banks keep on warning for the crypto currency, but that does not really have an influence on the market anymore. The Charlie Shrem arrest had a chilling effect on the community, but was not directly related to Bitcoin. The problems at Mt. Gox because of the transaction malleability caused another round of negative articles in mainstream media that do not understand the real issue (“Bitcoin has a fatal flaw”).
Next came the ban of Bitcoin in Russia, which was unexpected for many Bitcoin fanatics. After that news came that many more exchanges would be affected by the transaction malleability bug and a lot of them closed temporarily. Shortly after that there was a DDoS attack on the Bitcoin network that slowed things down considerably. And when the whole BTC community thought everything was finally settling down a bit, news broke that Silk Road 2.0 was hacked and 4400 coins were stolen out (or maybe the operators stole the coins?).
If Bitcoin had been a business it would have been bankrupt by now. But interestingly Bitcoin went down about 25% over the past week, but not more than that. A year ago this news would have led to a major crash, like the one in April where Bitcoin lost 70% of its value in one single day. To me this is a very good sign, Bitcoin has become a lot more mature and not everybody starts panic selling anymore even when there is such a long string of negative news.
What doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger, and that’s the case with Bitcoin as well. It will take more time to gain acceptance among the general population, but it’s certainly not the end of Bitcoin. The currency has once again proven that it can solve its own problems and most exchanges have adjusted their code for the transaction malleability bug.
Although I don’t like to speculate about the Bitcoin price too much, I think the value will go up again fast once more positive news comes out. It may take a few weeks or months, but I personally believe that unless something huge happens this might be the last time you can buy BTC below $600.
Marc, can you say something about the cryptocurrency RIPPLE ? Is it a serious competitor to BITCOIN !
Rgds
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Ripple is certainly interesting, but because it’s centralized it is a completely different concept from the decentralized Bitcoin. The 2 can exist next to each other, but Ripple will never replace BTC. I looked at Ripple 6-7 months ago when it was ‘hot’, but I don’t hear much about it anymore (not even at BTC conferences). I currently don’t own any Ripple, but in case it should become more popular (they are well funded, so that may happen) I’ll probably put some money in. I believe more in Mastercoin and (soon to be launched) Ethereum.