Bitcoin Forum

With Italy making a big statement to not follow with the imposed European Union budget (see this crazy sequence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erSSC85CME4 ), things are starting to get serious. Salvini may be nuts enough to not be bluffing.

Are we going to see the start of the biggest EU crisis yet? Italy is no Greece, it is too big, if the same scenario happens (this time with the far right instead of far left but same result) are we going to see an impact on the Bitcoin price?

If Italy goes Greece the consequences will be felt all over the world IMO.

That video was funny hell, rofl. Jokes aprart, the people of Italy were never theirs goverment's biggest supporter hence the European Union was adored by them. If EU forces things to go south between Italy and itself, I don't think they will keep getting the favors from Italians. Assuming a dismal situation between those two parties, the price of euro will fall and a high inflation will raise the price of bitcoin. Now the question arises, whether europeans will start using bitcoin? Maybe. Momentarily it will take place of euro until the fiat currencies of respecitve countries kick in again.

Euro price is already down a bit. Since europeans trade bitcoins with euro, a price inflation would seemingly rise the bitcoin price. However, it remains to be seen whether bitcoin takes place of euro if a total collapse happens.

Like Brexit this might not affect Bitcoin in anyway. These currencies operates in the virtual space and these decision will have little to no impact on the virtual ground.

As we have seen that Italians are not a big fan of their government for which I think they will not support the government if European Union forces matters to go south. So taking that into the matter the price of Euro may fall and inflation may occur which can rise the price of bitcoin.

Italy have proposed a high debt budget which is something the EU is not
enthused about and want Italy to change it. There is talk of a second credit
crunch looming if things escalate.

Firstly to all the newbies above bitcoin will not be used or adopted by the
EU or any other country  ::)

If things heat up i think bitcoin could benefit as some people migrate their
savings etc. Just a thought.

During the Greek debt crisis of 2015, Bitcoin acted partially as a go to currency for the Greek, increasing noticeably the volume of TXs at exchanges, with a fair share originated by the Greeks. Price also rose during the duration of the crisis. A similar effect happened back in 2013 when the Cyprus was submitted to capital control conditions due to a bailout.

Although the crypto market has grown much since then, and the specific weight of the demand made from those two countries would not be as noticeable now, a deep crisis in Italy would, I figure, drag many more EU countries along, with a similar effect on an increase of Bitcoin price due to the influx of demand. The one thing that may act as a brake is the loss of value BTC has had during 2018: If a crisis were to start now in the EU, dragged by Italy, people could have second thoughts about moving assets to such a volatile value. 

It might have small impact if not major as those countries in which economic crisis exists people will not have money to trade or invest in crypto currency which earns less demand and will have a direct impact on the price. So market may not pick that well in those times.

Italy's economy is orders of magnitudes bigger than Greece, but I somehow do believe that everything will be done to not let that country implode. It would drag the whole EU and likely even the world with it to some degree.

Don't forget Italy imploding will also give Deutsche bank the final push it needs to implode, and with how they have nested themselves in so many corners of the world, it's impossible that they won't trigger a major global crisis.

All the money that went to Greece is gone for ever. The EU tries to convince average joes that every penny will be paid back, but every person with common sense knows that it is nonsense. The same applies to Italy. It's an endless put.

It may sound odd, but I honestly don't care about it. I have done enough to significantly lower my exposure to fiat by having around 75% of my net worth in Bitcoin, so whatever happens, I can sleep well without having to worry about lower EUR value or forced haircuts. I advice anyone here to do the same right now rather than tomorrow, especially with how there simply isn't a way to time these events.

I started converting my EUR net worth to Bitcoin years ago already, where the exchange rate was €1>$1.4 which has come down to €1>$1.14 today. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see EUR sink under USD in the next 10 or so years. It's a currency worth dumping for something with more stability, which is Bitcoin, Gold, or even USD is better. Don't hold a falling knife.

if it develops into a full-blown financial crisis and subsequent recession, it'll probably be bad for bitcoin prices. even hedge assets decline during financial crises, and bitcoin really hasn't achieved the status of a hedge asset anyway.


correlation does not imply causation though.

i don't think the cyprus event had much effect on the price at all. bitcoiners might see the connection between bailouts and bitcoin's fundamental value, but most people don't. even if volumes increased on greek exchanges during the third leg of the debt crisis, is that really evidence that it became a "go to currency for the Greek"?

Update from a couple hours ago:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1039533/EU-News-Italy-Brussles-budget-clash-Matteo-Salvini-GDP-deficit-proposal-Eurozone-latest

Salvini doesn't seem to be bluffing so far, indeed he is doubling down and calling for massive protests in 8th of december. He said there's no turning back "we will never be enslaved again". He is a pretty intense guy. Very interested to see the outcome of this. He knows Italy is a heavyweight in Europe, and after Brexit his representation is even bigger. I don't think this is Syriza 2. Italy is in a position if primary surplus (minus the EU debt, they are on good standing). An interesting clash to watch closely. Big moves in EU for the next year.

I think it means more of whats been true before, governments fail to run a surplus required to repay debt.   EU has a problem with regulating member states especially within the EURO a shared currency.   The weakest point and so most likely is ongoing currency weakness.

The simple take is that FIAT currency has major flaws, they have all agreed to devalue together so as not to cause a disharmony in global trading but ultimately it is a volatile situation. BTC with no debt and no obligation to politics and its fiscal deficit spending does not share this flaw, arguably also it does not have the support of national trade revenues and demand but of course Bitcoin is useful to its own economy. 

For me I believe Italy won't go the same route as Greece because EU would be foolish to let this happen, concerning triggering crisis  in EU region, one thing I have observed recently is that Bitcoin is becoming tolerant to news like this and is having less and  less impact on the price, as we have seen this year, before this would be a good thing for Bitcoin prices but don't see it driving the price up

Yes I agree with you and that is why I think this trade union may create another great financial crisis in some years to come.  I don't think we would have no consequences from this and because bitcoin is becoming globalized there is no going to be any things that affect the global financial system that will not affect bitcoin .

The European central bank will have to save Italy from bankrupcy,by printing billions of euro and buying the Italian government debt.I really doubt that this impact the bitcoin price,the italians just won't start buying bitcoins like crazy.The price of the euro will go down and most of the people will start buying gold,USD or real estate.

It doesn't need to be the italians that start buying Bitcoin. A big Euro crisis will quickly spread across the globe with overall market uncertainty, and Bitcoin is a global phenomenon, so there will be endless reasons to buy and hold some for a ton of people out there. That is what's so cool about Bitcoin, it's global and neutral. Gold is stuck where it is, you can't really move it around as they will stop it on borders. Real state is obviously stuck where it is physically, so as an italian I wouldn't be looking forward to buying real state. I think Bitcoin will be an awesome buy an hold, specially after Bakkt starts allowing a reasonably safe way to buy and hold for the technologically incompetent.

of course they will invest in commodities that are real and contain little risk, therefore gold and property are choices. and i think it's unlikely that they will invest in cryptocurrency, because it invites a lot of risks

The impact of the Italian crisis on Bitcoin is negligible. It is necessary to know that cryptocurrencies have their own way of growth. The current decline is to release the once-high rise. I think it is an economic power to influence the price of Bitcoin, and the top three in the world economy have a deadly influence.

I talked a few times here about the agony with the banking system in Italy. And here is the problem.

It's going to be a huge crisis, the one in The USA in 2008 is nothing compared to what this one could be; With a lot bigger impact on the worldwide economy.
Secondly, E.U. helped Greece with millions of euros, the last payment was like 3 months ago only. But Europe has no money to do the same if Italy faces a crisis, and here is the real problem. Italy isn't alone the next could be the DeuctchBank in Germany (one of the leaders worldwide btw)

Sure it could be an open door for Bitcoin if it's able to show more maturity than currently (I am not talking about the market)

I agree with you . Bitcoin may be a major risk for next year's financial year. But as the global financial markets are reeling, bitcoin is finally beginning to see the light of day again, and it could just have something to do with the fact that a potential threat to the euro highlights the benefits of a decentralized currency like bitcoin.

In case of a strong crisis, people can start looking for a new place to invest, and come to cryptocurrencies.

The Italian "crisis" is only an electoral maneuver. They will do a bit of theater, a bit of skirmish, then you can be sure that the rulers will obey the wishes of Europe.
In any case, the effect on bitcoins will be irrelevant, or - possibly - positive.

If I remember correctly, Bitcoin received a small boost during the events with Greece, but Bitcoin was also very small compared to where it is now. So, we might see some speculation around such events, if they will indeed happen, but I wouldn't expect anything big, because Bitcoin now is harder to move, and many people have learned over the last years that Bitcoin doesn't correlate much with any economic problems in the world, despite people telling that it's a safe haven asset.

best take i've seen all day.


did it, or is this just selective memory? greece received bailout loans in 2010, 2012, and 2015. bitcoin had been in a long term bull market this whole time. is it really appropriate to link the events?


agreed. if anything, it seems to broadly correlate with the stock market, which indicates to me that the bitcoin markets might operate along similar "risk on/risk off" cycles we see in equities. that would mean quite the opposite of a safe haven asset.

Will be no impact at all
Italy is everyday crisis
Much bigger problem for EU is France what economy is dead
french people have big social expectation in fact France is socialism and now only 19% of french are supporting Macron
There is strike after strike in France public sector

Much bigger impact on any asset price may have current trade war and relation between USA and China

Bitcoin's price won't be affected by any county's economic crisis because bitcoin is not under control by any country. Bitcoin is decentralized. Its price is determined by its supply and demand. It is more likely that whales have an impact on bitcoin's price.

Yes Bitcoin is world decentralized cryptocurrency and it was under the control of any country but there are some countries which Bitcoin market will be affected if they have economic crisis due to their level of crypto friendly and adoption. Mind you, the EU are among the countries.

If Italy crisis, i am believe it will creating world crisis again like Greece. I think it will creating distrust on financial system and maybe investor will see alternative investment like cryptocurrency and if this happen, it will bring cryptocurrency to next level

Maybe the biggest impact will be because of all these events happening at the same time? The overall worldwide economy is at it's most unstable times since the "acknowledged" crisis in 2008.

Thats not quite true, gold has a security risk to it (and cost).  There is a risk of confiscation, even in USA gold has been taken away by government with some compensation but still it was to the disadvantage of the population holding hard assets like that.
Bitcoin has a more global stance which gives some advantage so that 1 citizen in 1 country is not so easily isolated to a situation of purely where they are located.   When we have a global economy and digital one even this makes more sense, obviously some costs will always be local so I never think in terms of just one currency or type even.


Problem is we suffer consequences of choices made previously, even before we were born in some cases.   The Greek problem dated back to previous governments and debts with false accounting they used to enter the EURO under false pretence.
The Greece problem should have been unwound with some defaults, the debt was bad and untenable.  Instead the debt will be paid by the wages of those who were not alive when it was taken out.  Its a failure of capitalism

Nobody (directly) sees these problems driving up BTC prices, the main reasoning I think is the failure of FIAT and its ability to regulate its spending and controlling supply of new money used to pay debt like this.  Overall this leads to weakness in that currency standard, it appears a self regulating currency like BTC is superior in comparison at that point.  Thats part of the price at least, there is a range of alternatives to EURO or any value exchange, each has their advantage

They dont have to but either way represents volatility to what was thought of a fixed standard.    Governments failing to balance budgets is a source of imbalance that eventually must be dealt with.
The proper route would be default, its the quickest and cleanest way to acknowledge loss and attribute correctly where that loss occured.   However money printing seems most likely politically

BTC is more easily transmitted value then either of those you mention.  Real estate is also a form of liability often, maintenance and costs are there and usage and land value varies with economy with prices bid up quite high right now probably

I do not think italy is THAT big and has that much impact on the world. It is one of the bigger countries in the world but honestly comparing the 2008 crisis which was caused by the leverage of house mortgages in USA, italy doesn't have that type of power.

I think even if it affects it a little bit it won't be anything different than the regular volatility we have, so if the price drops like 200 dollars because of it than we wouldn't be shocked because 200 dollar worth of changes always happens in bitcoin and the volume won't be that much lower or higher considering the italian people do not make the bulk of the volume anyway. It is a bigger deal in countries like USA and China and even maybe Japan because they are so into it. Hence I think we will not even feel the difference.

Although Italy is also the world's ranking. But it is not enough to influence the team's cryptocurrency. The ability to influence cryptocurrencies must be joint action worldwide. This has such a bitcoin to take off. Or the common action of the top three in the economy.

I certainly think Italy can cause a contagion effect on Crypto and the price of alot of things.   We all know crypto is quite a speculative market based on the idea of this high growth, new area of economy that proposes but has not come close to replacing parts of the old economy.

Here we can see from a chart Italy is one of the worlds most unstable economies in terms of its debt loading.  The government is almost eclipsing the legitimate private economy with its possibly bad debts which impairs their standing in EU and within the EURO.    This debt is not secured over the long term but can react badly within quite a brief period of just a few years I think.

My experience of finance dates back to when 10% interest rates were common in western economies not the tiny amounts we have now.   If this situation were to occur again as is perfectly probable, it would be a cold winter that covers europe and most of the world and anything finance related will suffer much harder ground when attempting to make progress and grow.

https://i.imgur.com/kN1j6cB.png

https://tradingeconomics.com/india/government-debt-to-gdp

I see it no big threat for the whole crypto market because i don't think that the people of Italy will follow that lead and beside Italy is a small country that i don't think they have trully a strong support in crypto currency that might influence other people to be afraid of this investments.

This is not an impossibility and people always try to look for spots which could give them more utility and are less prone to the inflation like gold and silver and this might also give them an opportunity to realize the potential of crypto and start investing in it to prevent the loss in the values in the financial crisis. Though it is yet to see the impact of financial crisis on the crypto market but i believe that the devaluation will not be as much as in other assets.

Gold and silver has always been the safe haven in the past when it comes to storing value, and they still are when people are trying to run away from the inflated fiat system. Now, that we have the crypto space which actually stands a huge chance of being in this category, there is certainly no doubt at all that the potential as a store of value is hugely there. One thing I know when it gets to this stage of a financial crisis in a country is to see people trying to find a safe spot, and in this case, I believe the crypto space even though it is young, can still be classified as one.

Not even a single threat actually. I remember some of the things that happened in some parts of European countries in the past, and when banks were trying to do somethings very strange which would affect a lot of people, we started seeing a lot of people seeing the crypto space as a safe spot for storing value. I cannot remember the incidence but I can remember Spain was involved. Italy may be a small country, but the reality check is that, even if there would be any impact at all when it comes to crisis in Italy, it will only be a positive one.

The influence Italy has on crypto and bitcoin is not so significant IMO, to have so much impact if it goes Greece's way. Though I have so much belief Italy is a strong economy than Greece. Yet, it is not a good thing to hear of economies going down. We need everyone in this space.

While we might not be able to separate the happenings in the fiat economies from crypto, I still don't see the direct effect it could have on the subject matter. Italy is no doubt a significant stakeholder in the EU and the disagreement they are having to spell doom in certain areas of the EU economy but that does not translate to either the upward direction or downward direction of the price of bitcoin. Just like BREXIT era, economy handlers would surely figure out ways to navigate the storm. The same thing happening in the trade war between the United States and China or trade dispute between United States and Mexico. It does not directly impact the crypto market.

Speak for Italy, not for the whole world. Whatever that is happening to Italy will only happen to Italy alone and won’t have anything to do with other countries. It’s not even going to affect Bitcoin cause Bitcoin doesn’t rely on that. Bitcoin stands on its own and situations like this cannot have any impact on what will be the outcome of crypto price.

Well in believe that the crisis in the Italy will affect Bitcoin in the way that people will have limited values or capital to invest in Bitcoin and own the magical currency after the devaluation in the financial assets that loose value after the recession. So yes Italy’s financial crisis is going to affect the prices of Bitcoin in the form of a decreased demand that affect the price directly. About the new investment opportunities, Bitcoin is no doubt attractive.

The Italian economic crisis has limited influence on cryptocurrencies. Italy is the euro zone. They usually have other groups or loans from other countries. But if the Italian financial crisis is out of control, it may lead to a global financial crisis.

And who will pay if Italy collapse? Who paid when it was Greece? Europe. So it has to do something with others countries because they are paying too. Europe doesn't have enough money to do the same with Italy. Unless the central bank print fresh money based on a 40 years loan. It's the whole Europe that could in trouble and it's the major place .

Tax payers always end up sucking on the wrong lollipops. Remember what happened in Cyprus? They gave people a fresh haircut, and they had no choice but to swallow it. I'm sure that we'll be subject to that same form of theft at some point.

They probably calculate in the way that most of people's savings aren't used anyway, so why can't we take a cut of that to clear some of our debt? It doesn't require money printing, and thus it doesn't devalue their currency further.

It's only a matter of time. Be happy that Bitcoin has gotten cheaper this week, the lower the price is, the more Bitcoin you get for the same amount of fiat, which you could lose a chunk of if governments go nuts on us again.

I don't know if this will be pushed through. I mean. The reform itself os presidented by Greece and look at Greece now? I don't think that thenItalian government will follow suit because honestly it's not an economic crisis but a diplomatic crisis in my opinion. But then again, all that would be affected is the regular "Mario's" of the country.

the Italian crisis can have a very bad impact on European finances, if Italy is unable to withstand the inflation rate in its country can have an impact on the flight of large entrepreneurs who usually use fiat currency to change using bitcoin, because bitcoin will not be affected by one country, so for entrepreneurs,  Bitcoin can be an alternative means of payment between countries, Italy.

right, a political crisis that has an impact on the economic crisis, because of political problems, the thinking about the economy has been disrupted, and I think this has an impact on bitcoin. from this thread BTC prices have been declining to date, although not a major factor, but I think it has an influence too

The Italian crisis will not affect the price of Bitcoin. Europe can affect the price of Bitcoin. If Europe is in serious recession, the price of bitcoin will rise rapidly. All this is likely to happen in 2019, and France has already begun.

Just mention down the number of the people who use cryptocurrency in Italy. Very few among them would go for cashing out amid the political crisis which has also engendered the financial crisis.

There are not much of a correlation. The broader market has been down in 2018. A diversified portfolio is required to stand any sort of financial crisis.

As the FED/ECB money printing party farse is exposed and the markets collapse (only a matter of time) obviously people will have less fiat to invest in cryptocurrencies.

But this may not be bad after all.

We need to move on from the FED farse and adopt cryptos worldwide. We must actually pay for stuff in BTC and other cryptos.

All we need is for enough shops and businesses to adopt crypto and make it a viable currency. That's when the FED fraud collapses.

The world is sitting on U$ 182 TRILLION in debt. It is unpayable. They printed all this money and bankers hold most of it. This debt does not exist, it is impossible to pay. The US could not pay it in 10 years if they wanted to.

If you stop and think about this for a minute you'll realize the farse we've all been living in.

Italy's quality of life collapse after the Euro. I remember the 80's and 90's in Italy, then the year 2000 changed everything. The Euro made local work and local production worthless. Why? Because the ECB prints money at will.

The ECB does to the Europeans the same damage the FED does Americans the same damage BOJ does Japanese. The FED system must end.

We have once again seen that bitcoin is a whale run currency just like other currencies and as long as there is no big deal going inside bitcoin the outside affects won't be too major to change anything. Whole of USA could bankrupt all together and it won't affect bitcoin as much as Craig selling 30+ thousand bitcoins all at once.

We are our own little island and nothing huge could affect us as much as ourselves. We need to figure out a way to distribute bitcoin as equally as possible around each other to stop this looming threat and danger of someone selling a lot of coins all at once. We need to make sure no one has more than a thousand bitcoins at once. If people have more than a thousand bitcoins that means they are a threat to the price and for all of our livelihoods.

Why should the Italian crisis affect the price of Bitcoin? There a lot of more serious problems in the other counties, where the cryptocurrencies are also used - Ukraine, France, Russia, for instance.

Really? Do you think that everything is so serious? I did not guess before that Italian crisis could affect the cryptocurrencies and the crypto market. By the way, many European countries have a crisis now.