Bitcoin plummeted by $13,000, and countless people left the market in tears. Why is the “roller coaster” of the currency circle so exciting?

March 1, 2021 Savior

The group can only do two things-icing on the cake or making trouble.
"The Crowd" by Gustave Le Pen

In the last second, Musk was still backing Bitcoin, and the sentence "almost legal tender" pushed Bitcoin to skyrocket.

In the next second, Bitcoin plunged in a panic, falling by US$11,000 in 4 days, with more than 90,000 liquidated positions, and many people were deeply locked in.

▲ Bitcoin plummeted, falling by about 13,000 US dollars. Picture from: Bit Fan

In the eyes of some people, Bitcoin has become an existence that surpasses Chinese real estate and the US stock market. In order to "Stud", they will become rich overnight, and they will not hesitate to bet their entire wealth and add high leverage. In the end, they will lose their money.

What kind of magic power does Bitcoin have that makes people mad?

Not the most absurd, only more absurd

Some time ago, when Bitcoin fetched a price of $58,000, a ridiculous piece of news made people wonder whether to cry, laugh or scold.

This is a piece of news in 2019. At that time, the price of Bitcoin was about US$8,000 per coin, and 60 bitcoins were US$480,000, which is equivalent to about 3.1 million yuan in RMB.

If these 60 bitcoins are sold at a price of 58,000 US dollars per coin, you can get 3,480,000 US dollars, which is about 22.46 million yuan.

Many people's brains are wide open, and continue to write the next plot:

The husband liquidated his warehouse at a price of $8,000 (USD) each, and was sent to the same mental hospital a year later.
The husband sold the original price of 60 bitcoins, and now sits at home all day long and sighs, complaining that his wife does not possess the spirit of resistance, so that the family misses the opportunity to get rich overnight.
The husband knelt outside the mental hospital and begged his wife to tell him the password of the wallet. He wanted to reconcile with his wife as before. He also sued the mental hospital for irregular admissions and suspected violations of laws and regulations.

Seeing too many ridiculous things, it even makes people think that these "sequels" plots are not ridiculous. There is "reasonable" everywhere in the irrational, and it is really possible to happen. After all, there are too many real ridiculous things related to Bitcoin.

Throwing away the hard drive containing 7,500 bitcoins, the guy rummaged through the city's garbage dump to find it, and unexpectedly found that picking up rags is more profitable than working.
The local tyrants sold $2 million in gold mines for Bitcoin and made a profit of $6 million, which is $3 million more than the 2020 gold surge.
To write a thesis, the man bought 5,000 bitcoins for $27 and forgot. After seeing the bitcoin news a few years later, he remembered that a thesis indirectly made a profit of $866,000.

When it comes to Bitcoin, the word "money" must be inseparable.

Why is Bitcoin popular?

The outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 exposed many problems in the financial system. In order to solve some of the problems, a person who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto published a Bitcoin white paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" on the P2P foundation website, stating his new vision for electronic money— — Bitcoin.

▲ Bitcoin. Picture from: 71 Republic

Compared with fiat currency, Bitcoin has the following characteristics:

There is no centralized issuer, it is calculated and generated by network nodes, anyone can mine, and the total amount is fixed
Circulate all over the world, theoretically it can be freely traded and circulated online
The transaction process is fully transparent, and the transaction behavior is open to leave traces
Outsiders cannot identify the user's identity information during the transaction

The characteristics of Bitcoin are similar to those of currency , which avoids the problems of currency inflation and different transparency of transactions . This is why Musk said that "(Bitcoin) is almost legal tender." Most ordinary people "speculate coins." Like buying a house and investing, the core motivation is to resist inflation.

At the same time, some people prefer to use Bitcoin as the "currency" for transactions due to the consideration of anonymous transactions . In 2018, the data of 300 million users of a courier company was leaked. Hackers specified Bitcoin transactions in order to hide their identities.

It should be noted that as early as 2017, the People's Bank of China announced that Bitcoin is a specific virtual commodity, which has no monetary attributes such as legal compensation and compulsion, does not have the same legal status as currency, and cannot and should not be used as a currency in the market. Use in circulation.

Conspiracy theories and absurdities coexist

Parallel to the absurdity, there are conspiracy theories related to Bitcoin.

Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, remains a mystery, and no one knows who he is so far. He claims to be a Japanese-American, coming and going without a trace, as if the world has evaporated for so many years.

▲ Satoshi Nakamoto has always been a mystery. Picture from: Talking about Bitcoin-Rosen (Knowledge)

As a result, various conspiracy theories are flying all over the sky.

Some people think that Satoshi means "clear thinking; witty; wise", Naka means "internal or relationship", and moto is defined as "origin; reason; foundation." It can be considered that Bitcoin was created by the CIA .

More conspiracy theories indicate that Bitcoin is manipulated by 4 companies behind the scenes, Satoshi = Samsung + Toshiba, and Nakamoto = Nakamichi + Motorola.

▲ Some people speculate that there are four companies behind Satoshi Nakamoto. Picture from: blog.remitano.com

Others believe that Nakamoto is a metamorphosis of NATO amok-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (North Atlantic Treaty OrganisaTIon). Amok can be defined as out-of-control and disruptive behavior, which can be understood as the crazy action of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a whole.

There are any interpretations, and no one can convince anyone.

In the end, in 2016, a man named Craig Steven Wright claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Some people recognized it and some people doubted it. There is no conclusion yet.

▲ Craig Steven Wright calls himself Satoshi Nakamoto

Wright also expressed his views on Bitcoin: "The current Bitcoin is not the real Bitcoin. The current Bitcoin is just pretending to be Bitcoin. This is just a plagiarism version, which aims to gradually change the protocol and allow people to carry out their actions anonymously. This kind of transaction to condone criminal activities. The purpose is to establish a system that allows people to commit crimes, extortion money, spread automated ransomware, and even engage in worse criminal activities. This is not the purpose of Bitcoin."

But for those who "speculate coins", it doesn't matter who Satoshi Nakamoto is, as long as Bitcoin is still Bitcoin, this is the "basic disk" that Bitcoin can continue .

Why Bitcoin soars and plummets

It seems that the magic guarantee, the logic behind it is actually very simple-there are more people buying Bitcoin.

According to foreign media reports, a series of well-known institutions , including Guggenheim, a large asset management company and MassMutual Life Insurance Company, announced the purchase of Bitcoin in 2020. Since August 2020, MicroStrategy, the world's largest independent business intelligence company, has purchased a large number of bitcoins for a total of more than 1 billion US dollars in 4 times .

The Glassnode report found that from the beginning of 2021 to February 5th, the number of "whales" (addresses holding 1,000-10,000 bitcoins are defined as "whales") increased by more than 14%. The buying frenzy of "whales" and "humpback whales" reached its peak in January, when they snapped up 80,000 bitcoins, worth 3.84 billion U.S. dollars at today's prices.

When Bitcoin was the hottest, Musk changed his Twitter profile to #bitcoin# to "bring goods" for Bitcoin. Bitcoin instantly skyrocketed by $800. He also changed his profile picture on February 20 to show A big Bitcoin logo.

▲ Musk changed his Twitter profile to Bitcoin. Picture from: Zinc Scale (Sina Creation Column Genesis)

There are only so many bitcoins. Everyone is optimistic about bitcoins, and they all buy bitcoins, so the price will increase naturally.

Bitcoin plummeted, of course, everyone is not optimistic about Bitcoin, and selling behavior has increased.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently publicly stated that Bitcoin is often used in illegal transactions and is an inefficient transaction method . This call released an obvious signal that Bitcoin is not as good as expected, and there is a higher risk.

Some economists said that the index of global technology companies has fallen sharply. Previously, the market generally believed that many technology companies and the growth of Bitcoin in 2020 provide a certain basis . Now these companies' own weak performance has also affected people's expectations for Bitcoin. .

Since February, "whales" and "humpback whales" have reduced their holdings of 140,000 bitcoins, which is equivalent to a reduction of US$6.72 billion since the beginning of this month.

▲ Bitcoin ATM machine

For many technology companies, the rise and fall of these numbers can even be said to be "not painful or itchy", but for individuals who "speculate coins", losses are unbearable, and it is not uncommon to lose money.

The reality is more cruel than expected. During the epidemic, the United States put a huge amount of money on the market in order to rescue the market. Under the flooding, money is becoming less and less valuable. The strong can "do whatever they want", and the small scattered have to get involved in nothing. And in the game, and then spontaneously become fanatical, hoping to use collective behavior to save their wealth .

In response to the ups and downs of Bitcoin, Cheng Lingfeng, the former director of Tencent Technology Center, commented in his public account "Lu Hongyan":

In order to fight Wall Street's do whatever they want, retail investors rushed Gamestop's stock price to a point far higher than its actual value, but now it has fallen to 1/10 of the highest point, and many people have lost their money.
In order to fight against the unrestrained flood of currency devaluation, Bitcoin was rushed to extremely high prices.
Bitcoin is similar to Gamestop in that it uses one kind of unreasonable against another unreasonable, and uses a group of people to do whatever they want against another group of people to do whatever they want.

Rich wealth and bankruptcy under the zero-sum game

If we use an old Chinese proverb to describe the behavior of coin speculation, it is that "the world is full of benefits, and the world's hustle and bustle are all benefits." Risks and persuasion are left behind, and there is only one night to get rich.

▲ Someone ridiculed that Tesla "swept lonely" on the Bitcoin price chart. Image from: omid (Twitter)

In the financial market, which has always been regarded as a high-end field, when you see that the market buys bitcoins, you buy bitcoins at your expense. And in the countryside, when you see other people grow apples and make a lot of money, the whole village will grow apples in the second year. The above is the same: the layout of the Zhuangzhuang, the powerful harvest, and the blood loss following the trend .

However, in the face of the huge amount of money flying in the sky, this ridiculous behavior has an extremely realistic side . Amidst the anxiety of the whole people, many people are unwilling to let their wealth fall one step further. The concept of "stepping in place is regressing" is deep. In Zhi's mind, the absurd things, conspiracy theories, and madness related to Bitcoin perfectly show a sentence from "The Crowd":