Bitcoin Forum

Investors are drunk on bitcoin. As I write this, the Bitcoin Investment Trust (NASDAQOTH:GBTC) is trading at more than 125% more than its underlying bitcoin are worth.

Shares currently trade at $505 per share, valuing the underlying bitcoin at 125% more than they can be purchased for at a popular online exchange. Each share represents ownership of approximately 0.093 bitcoin.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission carries some of the blame for Bitcoin Investment Trust's ridiculous premium to net asset value. Because it disapproved the Winklevoss' twins application to create a bitcoin ETF, the markets lack a proper exchange-traded vehicle for speculating on the price of bitcoin. Thus, eager speculators are willing to pay an extraordinary premium to get their hands on bitcoin through their brokerage accounts by trading the only vehicle to do so.

Bitcoin Investment Trust's premium to its underlying asset value has been a permanent fixture, but rarely has the premium been so high. In fact, as anticipation of the SEC's decision on a bitcoin ETF grew, the Bitcoin Investment Trust's premium collapsed to the single digits as investors feared a better alternative may soon come to market.

Bitcoin Investment Trust's premium nearly disappeared, only to soar higher after the SEC explained why it rejected the Bitcoin ETF. Photo: The Motley Fool

Of course, that never happened. The SEC later wrote that it disapproved the Winklevoss' bitcoin ETF on grounds that most markets for bitcoin are unregulated, and thus manipulation in unregulated bitcoin markets could affect the bitcoin ETF and the exchanges that list it.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/heres-how-much-a-bitcoin-is-actually-worth/

The headline and the article are a complete mismatch.  They don't say how they compute anything. Seems like click bait.

There's no reasoning to where their "value" is coming from. This is all about some random stock price that's related to bitcoins in some obscure way. I don't even get it.

Investors are drunk on bitcoin. As I write this, the Bitcoin Investment Trust (NASDAQOTH:GBTC) is trading at more than 125% more than its underlying bitcoin are worth.

Lol. Maybe the author is drunk when he writes this article. This is another classic example of writers trying to beat the deadline and write something that is complete rubbish to begin with. All of media are really into bitcoin right now and will try to write anything bitcoin related even though they know nothing about it. Indeed the title and the article don't match and it doesn't makes any sense. Just benefiting from the success of bitcoin and trying to get a hit on their not so popular website.

That was exactly my thought! :D It's not just this article, but something that happens also in their non Bitcoin related articles. I guess the writers on rawstory.com get paid with alcohol - 10 article clicks equal 1 beer as reward I guess. And yes, more and more of these sites start reporting about Bitcoin, but only not in the right way, unfortunately. Free publicity is good some people say, but only if everything is factually correct, and no unneeded drama is being added like underworld, dark markets, drugs, etc.

https://i.imgur.com/OSy6sNG.png

It's about how GBTC investors feel about bitcoin actually.
Much more interesting when this soar started.

So other commodities are not being manipulated, like say Gold or Oil? https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/koos-jansen/gold-price-manipulation-goes-mainstream-on-german-tv/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/perhaps-60-of-today-s-oil-price-is-pure-speculation/8878

I think the only reason they denied it, is because they are not in control of the manipulation..... go figure.  >:(

People pay too much, but at least their transactions are not stuck on the almost completely unusable Bitcoin network...  ....LOL?

Bitcoin is useable to me. But then again, I've always known how to operate technical systems I understand. That might be too much for users who have less than a clue.

I was referring to this kind of "completely unusable":
59190 Unconfirmed Transactions
https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

yep... bummer, I was hoping for an answer... ><

There is no point into looking at the large number of unconfirmed transactions, since the far majority of them are rubbish spam transactions. People constantly talk about having to wait for nearly days to see their transaction finally confirm, but I today have put it to the test.

The transaction size was 3586 bytes, which according to my client at that time would require me nearly 0.017BTC in fees, which equals around 475 satoshis per byte. I on purposely included a much lower fee, namely, 0.003596BTC, which equals slightly over 100 satoshis per byte. Guess what? It got confirmed within 6 blocks. If I agreed to pay the 0.017BTC in fees, it would have cost me +$44 in fees. I did it with just over $9 in fees.

that's a quarter of what is was a few days ago. i've never had a transaction stick, ever. most of the posts screaming about it on r/bitcoin have fees ten times or more too low.

it sucks but usability is there if you want it.

OK, thanks for the updates.
For accuracy, I'll go with "completely unusable" for small transactions. Times have changed, and it appears at least some alt coins will have a long-term future.