Yeah, Bitcoin was in a big bubble in 2017. If you were dumb enough to buy BTC then, today your portfolio would be a devastating +400%.
griffzhowl · 2h ago
Only if you'd held on to it while it went from 17k to 3k a month later, and the many ups and downs since. That's not necessarily a sound investment strategy without hindsight
rvz · 2h ago
Remember what HN kept parroting in 2017? "bItCoIn is sCaM".
So much of a scam that buying that coveted Tesla Model S in 2017 would sure have held its value much better than Bitcoin did and by now in 2025, Bitcoin should be worthless. Right?
Not even close.
If Bitcoin was a scam, was it supposed to "crash" from $10k to $100k+ and that Tesla Model S "skyrocketed" from $100k+ to around $40k from its retail price.
Sounds like buying a Tesla Model S in 2017 was a scam.
cornholio · 2h ago
Bitcoin is still a criminal ecosystem in 2025. Its only real use case still is enabling illegal transactions and evading financial regulations, and that maintains its speculative value; but that's still a scam not a true investment just like a business used as a front for Mafia appears stable until it inevitably comes crashing down.
But I don't think anyone claimed criminality is not profitable. It can literally make you President.
diggan · 1h ago
> Bitcoin is still a criminal ecosystem in 2025
Welcome to reality, where good/neutral things sometimes are used for bad :) Name one financial system that doesn't have any elements of criminality involved in them.
> Its only real use case still is enabling illegal transactions and evading financial regulations, and that maintains its speculative value
So if I and others happen to have done at least one transaction with Bitcoin that wasn't illegal or evaded financial regulations, would presenting proof of that leading to you changing your view that there is no real use cases?
> that's still a scam not a true investment
Personally I draw the limit of what a "scam" is when it's intentionally misleading with the purpose of defrauding you. Bitcoin doesn't look like it's either of those things, but I will agree that the ecosystem has a lot of scammers within it, just like any financial system.
AlexandrB · 2h ago
I'm confused. Who would think buying a car (any car) is an investment that would increase in value?
And just because the value of Bitcoin has gone up, doesn't mean it's not a scam. "Market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
Bitcoin continues to fail at its stated goal of being a currency - it's more like digital gold that, unlike actual gold, would be worthless in a real global crisis. A lot of bitcoin-adjacent stuff has also collapsed since 2017 (NFTs, FTX). The idea of putting everything "on the blockchain" also seems to have died.
No comments yet
nkrisc · 2h ago
You should slap whoever taught you that a car was an investment.
AlecSchueler · 2h ago
> Remember what HN kept parroting in 2017? "bItCoIn is sCaM".
Honestly, no.
johnisgood · 2h ago
I was here, and they still keep saying the same thing. There was a recent submission about Bitcoin. People were still saying how it is a scam and whatnot.
Scam or not, many people have gotten rich off of it. I bet the people who kept saying it is a scam wish'd they bought when it was low, they would have been rich today, instead, they double down (because they completely missed their chance due to their opinion), which is to be expected.
Too bad, life goes on, and you most likely will never get ~10 BTCs for the price of a bread anymore.
AlexandrB · 2h ago
Many more people have also lost money on it[1]. A Casino is also a great "investment" if you only count the winners.
...I know what you're trying to say, but cars are the textbook example of assets that don't preserve value.
ArtTimeInvestor · 2h ago
People are generally not interested in discussing assets in depth. Or any other topic for that matter.
It would be so awesome to have a forum where intelligent, grown up people discuss the possible futures of Bitcoin. Or any other asset. But I have not found one yet. If anybody knows some place, please please post a link!
celticninja · 2h ago
We had that, it was bitcointalk, between 2011 and 2016 it was a great place to do business, meet other people interested in bitcoin and to make and create new things.
Then it slowly drifted into scammers and low quality begging posts.
HPsquared · 2h ago
Honestly LLMs are the best bet for intellectual discussion of obscure topics with a specific tone.
diggan · 2h ago
Honestly, no. When people seek for forums to connect with other humans, LLMs aren't a good alternative for that. And I say that as someone who generally find LLMs useful, I'm not a "AI is impeding doom" person, but their use shouldn't replace the human connection and human conversations.
roenxi · 2h ago
Of all the things, people calling Bitcoin a bubble would have to be the most reasonable in hindsight of any group who got a prediction wrong. It is hard to argue with the reasoning and the observations. Goes to show, the economy is a funny thing.
wouldbecouldbe · 3h ago
BTC is still in a bubble and there is not much news about it :)
diggan · 2h ago
For how long does a "bubble" need to be in "the bubble" for it to not be considered a "bubble" anymore? I'm guessing there is a time limit involved here somewhere?
wouldbecouldbe · 2h ago
As long as there is no world use justifying it's exorbitant value pumped up by speculation.
The BTC holders trying to rebrand to a value storage instead of a currency is proof of this.
diggan · 1h ago
> As long as there is no world use
Who judges this? Is "bubble" a personal/subjective thing then? Bitcoin is a bubble for you, because there is no use case, but not a bubble for others that can use it for any reason?
dmichulke · 2h ago
What you're saying is that the claim "it's a bubble" is not falsifiable (people move price and time targets) and therefore a belief and not scientifically grounded, just like a religion.
So any discussion with BTC bubble people is futile unless they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.
diggan · 2h ago
> What you're saying is that the claim "it's a bubble" is not falsifiable (people move price and time targets) and therefore a belief and not scientifically grounded, just like a religion.
No, I'm merely trying to understand what people's understanding of a "bubble" is. I couldn't care less if others consider Bitcoin a bubble or not, but after hearing "Bitcoin is a bubble" since ~2015 sometime, I feel like I misunderstand what a "bubble" is. The "tulip mania" seems to have been around 2-3 years long, the dotcom bubble around 10 years, so I guess it isn't impossible for a bubble to last 20 or even 30 years.
willis936 · 2h ago
Economic downturn that motivates holders to liquidate. The house of cards would collapse very quickly if one whale cashed out. Everyone holding is facing a bad version of the prisoner's dilemma.
diggan · 2h ago
> The house of cards would collapse very quickly if one whale cashed out
So a thing is a "bubble" for as long as it is possible for it to collapse if whales cash out too quickly? In your mind, every financial system today is a bubble if I understand you correct then?
guesswho_ · 3h ago
BTC is Bhutanease Currency. Do you mean XBT?
CjHuber · 2h ago
It seems like you are fighting a very lonely fight
adastra22 · 3h ago
Nobody uses XBT. That ship has sailed.
walthamstow · 2h ago
BTN is the ISO 4217 code for the Bhutan Ngultrum, which is a currency I hadn't heard of until today
praveen9920 · 2h ago
I remember when bitcoin post appeared first on HN. It was trending and lot of people were curious about technical details and people joking about viability as currency.
I even started mining for a brief time on work desktop which I had to uninstall immediately of course.
celticninja · 2h ago
Yeah I remember the white paper being posted in 2009, took another 2 years before I got into bitcoin.
The reason I know bitcoin has hit the mainstream and isn't going anywhere is in sort due to HN. This bubble has spurred zero posts as far as I can tell, or zero that gained any traction.
In part this is because there is nothing new to discuss. But in the past there was nothing new either, but it gained traction because of the numbers of comments.
Now I guess the naysayers have moved on the criticism of AI and the defenders don't feel like it needs defending anymore.
Welcome to the new asset class.
diggan · 2h ago
> This bubble has spurred zero posts as far as I can tell, or zero that gained any traction.
What? No, there are over 300 results when filtering by "last 6 months".
celticninja · 1h ago
Maybe I'm spending less time here then. Not necessarily a bad thing
AlexandrB · 2h ago
> Welcome to the new asset class.
Wasn't it supposed to be a currency people would buy stuff with that would eventually replace "fiat"? What happened to that?
johnisgood · 2h ago
Well, they were wrong, and anyone who bought low before, are now rich today. It is quite funny if you think about it.
scotty79 · 2h ago
Is there update for 2025? This is a general rule of all media. After 4 cycles you can pretty much feel at which stage the BTC bubble is just by the amount of coverage there is. The current one feels sluggish.
Lerc · 2h ago
A bubble or two ago I hypothesised that the period is defined by how long the media feels is necessary to justify the narrative. It has to be just long enough that people op don't notice that they are saying the opposite of a previous story.
They run all the stories about how BTC lost 80% of its value without acknowledging that the top measurement was at the peak of spikiest part of the bubble where only half a dozen trades occured.
Then, after stories of how much value has been lost cease to be interesting enough to warrant further stories and noone is clinking on the stories that they do write. That's when it's time to start running the "It looked like bitcoin was dead, but it's coming back again, and this time it's stronger than ever!". Which promotes the next bubble that they can report on when it crashes.
There may be underlying value there, but the oscillations are driven by short term sentiment. I can't help but feel that their are news organisations that are happy to provide self forefilling prophecies as long as it provides more easy to write news.
pyman · 3h ago
Ironically, it's the banks that drive the price of Bitcoin these days. Along with the "Bitcoin whales": hedge funds, investment firms, and billionaires, they're all in on the speculation.
msgodel · 2h ago
The derivatives market means it's much more like a "real fiat" currency than it used to be. That's why there's so little insane volatility these days.
So much of a scam that buying that coveted Tesla Model S in 2017 would sure have held its value much better than Bitcoin did and by now in 2025, Bitcoin should be worthless. Right?
Not even close.
If Bitcoin was a scam, was it supposed to "crash" from $10k to $100k+ and that Tesla Model S "skyrocketed" from $100k+ to around $40k from its retail price.
Sounds like buying a Tesla Model S in 2017 was a scam.
But I don't think anyone claimed criminality is not profitable. It can literally make you President.
Welcome to reality, where good/neutral things sometimes are used for bad :) Name one financial system that doesn't have any elements of criminality involved in them.
> Its only real use case still is enabling illegal transactions and evading financial regulations, and that maintains its speculative value
So if I and others happen to have done at least one transaction with Bitcoin that wasn't illegal or evaded financial regulations, would presenting proof of that leading to you changing your view that there is no real use cases?
> that's still a scam not a true investment
Personally I draw the limit of what a "scam" is when it's intentionally misleading with the purpose of defrauding you. Bitcoin doesn't look like it's either of those things, but I will agree that the ecosystem has a lot of scammers within it, just like any financial system.
And just because the value of Bitcoin has gone up, doesn't mean it's not a scam. "Market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
Bitcoin continues to fail at its stated goal of being a currency - it's more like digital gold that, unlike actual gold, would be worthless in a real global crisis. A lot of bitcoin-adjacent stuff has also collapsed since 2017 (NFTs, FTX). The idea of putting everything "on the blockchain" also seems to have died.
No comments yet
Honestly, no.
Scam or not, many people have gotten rich off of it. I bet the people who kept saying it is a scam wish'd they bought when it was low, they would have been rich today, instead, they double down (because they completely missed their chance due to their opinion), which is to be expected.
Too bad, life goes on, and you most likely will never get ~10 BTCs for the price of a bread anymore.
[1] https://gizmodo.com/bitcoin-crypto-bank-of-international-set...
It would be so awesome to have a forum where intelligent, grown up people discuss the possible futures of Bitcoin. Or any other asset. But I have not found one yet. If anybody knows some place, please please post a link!
Then it slowly drifted into scammers and low quality begging posts.
The BTC holders trying to rebrand to a value storage instead of a currency is proof of this.
Who judges this? Is "bubble" a personal/subjective thing then? Bitcoin is a bubble for you, because there is no use case, but not a bubble for others that can use it for any reason?
So any discussion with BTC bubble people is futile unless they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.
No, I'm merely trying to understand what people's understanding of a "bubble" is. I couldn't care less if others consider Bitcoin a bubble or not, but after hearing "Bitcoin is a bubble" since ~2015 sometime, I feel like I misunderstand what a "bubble" is. The "tulip mania" seems to have been around 2-3 years long, the dotcom bubble around 10 years, so I guess it isn't impossible for a bubble to last 20 or even 30 years.
So a thing is a "bubble" for as long as it is possible for it to collapse if whales cash out too quickly? In your mind, every financial system today is a bubble if I understand you correct then?
I even started mining for a brief time on work desktop which I had to uninstall immediately of course.
The reason I know bitcoin has hit the mainstream and isn't going anywhere is in sort due to HN. This bubble has spurred zero posts as far as I can tell, or zero that gained any traction.
In part this is because there is nothing new to discuss. But in the past there was nothing new either, but it gained traction because of the numbers of comments.
Now I guess the naysayers have moved on the criticism of AI and the defenders don't feel like it needs defending anymore.
Welcome to the new asset class.
... Did you look? Quick search turns up a bunch of stories that were on the frontpage: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
> But in the past there was nothing new either, but it gained traction because of the numbers of comments.
That's the opposite of how things are ranked on HN. Submissions with more comments than votes are being pushed down the frontpage, not up.
Another search, limiting it to >50 points (so passed through the frontpage at one point) and within the last 12 months, showing ~26 results: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=tru...
Wasn't it supposed to be a currency people would buy stuff with that would eventually replace "fiat"? What happened to that?
They run all the stories about how BTC lost 80% of its value without acknowledging that the top measurement was at the peak of spikiest part of the bubble where only half a dozen trades occured.
Then, after stories of how much value has been lost cease to be interesting enough to warrant further stories and noone is clinking on the stories that they do write. That's when it's time to start running the "It looked like bitcoin was dead, but it's coming back again, and this time it's stronger than ever!". Which promotes the next bubble that they can report on when it crashes.
There may be underlying value there, but the oscillations are driven by short term sentiment. I can't help but feel that their are news organisations that are happy to provide self forefilling prophecies as long as it provides more easy to write news.