Compiled by Sina Technology/Edited by Yi Yi/Zheng Zhuo
Unexpectedly, Bitcoin, which seems to be going down, has "returned to the peak".
On the 3rd and 12th Beijing time, the price of Bitcoin once rose above 58000 US dollars, and its market value again exceeded 1 trillion US dollars, the first time since February 22 this year.
Since the beginning of 2021, Bitcoin has been on the cusp of the storm. In the "Delivery person" Tesla Under the "demagogue" of CEO Elon Musk, more and more people choose to invest in Bitcoin. With the increasing interest of institutions, Bitcoin has increased more than six times.
On February 8, Tesla announced that it had purchased Bitcoin worth $1.5 billion, and the price of Bitcoin soared to $48000. Subsequently, some technology companies and traditional financial institutions also opened their arms, which stimulated Bitcoin to rise again. On February 21, Bitcoin set a historical record of $58350 each. However, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen subsequently warned that Bitcoin posed a danger to investors and the public.
This basin of cold water directly made Bitcoin high dive. The downturn lasted until March 11, when US President Biden officially signed the US $1.9 trillion epidemic relief bill, the optimism of the financial market was strengthened.
With the recent rise and fall of the price of Bitcoin, the mood of investors has also fluctuated: some people sigh that they did not "buy tickets" as soon as possible, some people secretly rejoice at the precise spot, and some people lament that they failed to leave in time.
Here are some adventure stories about Bitcoin.
Lucky people who insist on buying
James Saye James Saye is a technical consultant. His first investment in Bitcoin was in 2017, and he initially invested about 500 pounds. Then he exchanged 2500 pounds when Bitcoin reached a peak price, which made him spend a "great holiday" in Iceland.
Saye said: "I bought Bitcoin again in 2018, when the price was low, but I am still buying it, but I do not regret that I used to cash out for vacation that year."
Heather Delaney, Founder of Gallium Ventures Heather Delaney is the founder of an investment company. She calls herself an end to end cryptocurrency investor. At first, she only invested 5 pounds to buy Bitcoin. But over time, her income from it gradually and steadily increased.
Later, Delaney decided to invest in Bitcoin as a long-term strategy, so the price would not cause her anxiety if it quickly reached a high or low point.
According to Delaney's statistics, her return on Bitcoin investment has increased by 585.41% over a period of time.
However, Delaney never converted his Bitcoin investment into cash. She said that as the market fluctuates, she will convert some Bitcoin into other currencies.
She explained: "I know many people will choose to exchange for cash to do exciting things. But I am different from them. For me, this is part of my pension plan."
To sum up, Saye and Delaney have a certain understanding of Bitcoin investment.
Javed Khan Independent businessman Javed Khan is different from them, because his Bitcoin journey does not begin with investment. In terms of Bitcoin investment, Khan called himself "unconscious".
At first, he only regarded Bitcoin as a very convenient way to transfer money. "I don't have to wait for confirmation from the bank," Khan said.
Things have changed since 2018. Khan noticed that the price of Bitcoin he put in his wallet is rising. Unconsciously, he gains from it. He was also "surprised" by this.
Khan said, "I have always told my friends that I use Bitcoin as a payment tool, and I have no intention of investing in it."
In January 2020, Khan cashed in the profits of Bitcoin and bought a Bentley in Dubai, his current residence.
He said: "I will only invest the money I can afford to lose, and the only thing I lose most is the transaction costs. So when the price falls, I will not lose confidence."
He also pointed out: "I think the best time to buy Bitcoin is when no one will talk about it. You need to wait for the hype to subside."
The loser of "collapse"
David Stubley However, not everyone can have such good luck. In addition, as a non physical currency, Bitcoin is easy to give people a feeling of being ethereal and unreal, as if one day it will "disappear with the wind".
David Stubley once saw one of his customers' bitcoins "disappear".
Stubley is the founder of 7 Elements, a network security company. He said that the Bitcoin wallet of a client of his company was defrauded, and all the money was transferred out.
He described that the client clicked a fraudulent link when checking his virtual currency wallet. This action made him enter a phishing website that copied the real situation. It is understood that the client has 84 bitcoins, of which 83 were transferred by website fraudsters. In 2017, the total value of these bitcoins was 475000 dollars.
Stubley said that after accepting the entrustment, his company tracked the flow of the Bitcoin on the blockchain and found that the money eventually went to a wallet worth 15 million dollars.
Although the identity of the fraudster could not be determined, the Stubley team finally chose to freeze the fraudster's wallet. "At least they were prevented from using these stolen bitcoins," he said.
The client was angry and helpless at the result. According to the current market situation, the value of these stolen bitcoins may reach 480000 dollars (about 3.12 million yuan).
Stubley also sighed: "Once it (Bitcoin) disappears, it really disappears."
In addition, Bitcoin "mining" needs powerful computers to support, which also leads to a surge in energy demand. According to the analysis data of Cambridge University, the annual power consumption of Bitcoin "mining" has exceeded that of Argentina, the Netherlands and other countries. The annual power consumption of Bitcoin mining is about 121.36 TWh (TWh, 1 TWh is 1 billion kWh). If the power consumption of Bitcoin is calculated by country, it can even rank among the top 30 in the world.
Rohan Muscat Rohan Musca confirmed this with his own experience. The Australian electrical engineer noticed Bitcoin in 2010. As a hardware geek, he wanted to dig it. At the end of 2016, he bought a pair of video cards to start "mining".
In addition, he also owns some Horizon State tokens (another cryptocurrency) given by a start-up company. Muscat said that the company took this approach to pay part of its consulting fees.
According to his statistics, in January 2017, the total value of these tokens plus his "mining" assets was $40000 (about 200000 yuan).
Musca decided to increase some transactions and conduct more large-scale "mining". However, it backfired. At first, he was able to earn money, and then he began to go downhill. Later, he could barely make ends meet.
To make matters worse, his electricity bill is rising, soaring to 500 to 600 Australian dollars per month, "because mining equipment needs a lot of electricity", he said.
In the end, Musca chose to sell its mining equipment because it was unable to support the increasing electricity bill.
In fact, investing in Bitcoin, a virtual currency that is characterized by price fluctuations, is very risky for some investors.
At present, Musca has cryptocurrency of about AUD2000. According to the current situation of Bitcoin, if he continues to follow up, he may be able to earn more money, but the mood and risks in the transaction have made him collapse.
"I'd rather not take that risk," Musca said.
The Daily Economic News also reported such an event: a Bitcoin investor entered the market when the price of Bitcoin reached more than 40000 yuan in 2019, sold it in December of that year, and finally earned more than 10000 yuan.
On or about January 20 this year, he entered when Bitcoin was close to $40000, but was finally forced to close his position. Several times, the investor lost about 200000 yuan.
In this regard, he sighed that it would be better not to engage in Bitcoin, which would not only change the quality of life, but also affect the mentality.
Do you want to invest in Bitcoin?
It is undeniable that although the price of Bitcoin fluctuates like a roller coaster, many investors still choose to enter.
February 10, Twitter Ned Segal, CFO of, said that the company will pay close attention to Bitcoin and does not rule out the possibility of paying wages with Bitcoin.
On February 11, the oldest bank in the United States Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) announced that it will provide its customers with storage and transfer services for digital currencies such as Bitcoin.
The mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, even said that he planned to let the city buy Bitcoin.
In addition to foreign countries, look at domestic:
On the evening of March 7, Metu announced that it had purchased about 260 million yuan of Bitcoin and Ethercoin (a cryptocurrency whose market value is second only to Bitcoin), becoming the "first crab eater" among Hong Kong listed companies. Prior to this, Dan Bin, the domestic private equity tycoon and chairman of Dongfang Harbor, publicly said on February 19 that he would buy Bitcoin ETF funds.
In addition, in addition to domestic and foreign large institutions and tycoons, more and more retail investors have also entered the market, and Bitcoin is increasingly known by the public.
However, some analysts believe that assets such as Bitcoin, which fluctuate greatly, are not a good choice for ordinary investors to allocate assets.
Microsoft The founder Bill Gates once pointed out: "If you don't have as much money as Musk, I suggest you wait and see." Gates said that Musk is very smart and has a lot of money, so he is not worried about the random rise or fall of Musk's Bitcoin.
Barbara Eisner Bayer, a writer of The Motley Fool, an internationally renowned financial media, agreed with Gates' views. She pointed out that Bitcoin is very unstable. Although more and more enterprises begin to accept Bitcoin, no one can guarantee that it will eventually become a successful monetary tool.
She also said that since her wealth was far less than that of Musk, she intended to stand by and watch the craze of Bitcoin as suggested by Gates. She believes that investing in Bitcoin is like gambling. Now, she is not willing to take the risk.
Bayer said: "You can call me a coward, or you can call me a short-sighted... but the fact is that I am moving away from cryptocurrency."
Jon Quast, a Bitcoin investor, also admitted that although owning some Bitcoins is a good investment choice, investors should pay more attention to stocks than cryptocurrencies when thinking about portfolios. The reason is that Bitcoin, which basically lacks intrinsic value, is a high-risk investment, which is a key difference between it and stocks.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher of Pangu Think Tank, also advised ordinary investors not to invest in Bitcoin in an interview with the Daily Economic News.
He pointed out that although Bitcoin is a valuable digital asset, for ordinary people, investing in Bitcoin means huge risks. In addition, in the case of high risk, short-term operation by adding leverage will bring serious risk amplification, which is very likely to lead to position explosion.
In February this year, the Securities Times also published a front page comment saying that for ordinary investors, although the price of Bitcoin can hardly peak in the short term, they should remain sober. Bitcoin is a high-risk asset, not a safe haven asset.
However, it can be predicted that, even with more warnings and suggestions, no matter how the market of Bitcoin changes, there will still be groups of investors swarming in and struggling to "enter" the investment circle of Bitcoin.
As is said in "Besieged City", people outside the city want to go in, and people in the city want to come out. As long as people pursue the myth of getting rich overnight, Bitcoin, a "dream machine", will not fall out of favor.
