Ask HN: Shopify self hosted e-commerce alternative? - <AUTHOR> What do you recommend to physical product business which gets about 25-100 sales a day?
In case you are curious, what I sell it's 3d printing fimament which I make in my garage: https://medium.com/endless-filament/make-your-filament-at-home-for-cheap-6c908bb09922
I am a programmer but I do not like building something which already exists and e-commerce platform is boring for me also Shopify while is good but I need self hosted one for ideological reasons. <comment><USER2> Honestly - don't.

Beyond the technical challenges, have you considered: \- All the little tax issues for various countries/states \- Security in processing payments, avoiding fraud and protecting customer data \- Integrating payment processing for credit card companies, Payp __et al. and NOT having to deal with constant "account freezes" due to stolen credit card payments, customer complaints etc.

For selling software, I user Fastspri __and not having to deal with all those things made a huge difference. We still had our fair share of annoying problems, but if you start digging around what other "self-hosted" businesses have to deal with...

In a sense, we had a more complicated case as the product keys were generated upon purchase and sent immediately - hence there was no manual/physical interaction from our end with orders...

You can also put stuff on Amaz __and use their infrastructure

<comment><USER2> Just adding to that (especially for software): not only was the development overhead minimal: I think setting up the shop, integrating the license key generation, determining all the pricing etc. took like 1 day including testing?! The savings on accounting were also significant. Had we been the direct seller, we would have driven the (tax) auditors fee ad absurdum. E.g., we would have needed a tax id in every EU state we are selling to, the tax audits would have taken ridiculously long and cost a lot, the paper trail (every sale an invoice that has to be kept on record...).

Instead: we only booked 2 revenues per month and that was it. We were not liable for the taxes, everything was taken care of.

I do think that purchasing these services makes small & large gigs easier than ever. Highly recommend.

<comment> Fire-Dragon-DoL Are you referring to using Stripe or Shopify?

<comment><USER2> I personally used Fastspring. I cannot talk about Stripe or Shopify. They also model your "shopping page" to fit in with everything else. So your customers have a consistent experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would suggest Woocommerce. It has a huge community with almost any plugin or theme you can think about. I am not sure it makes sense to do it in your case, as you are likely to spend more time on the store, and less growing your business.

Some managed hosting options at different price levels: Kinsta.com WPXhosting.com SiteGround.com NameHero.com

Some themes, plugins, that can help you get up and running quickly: Elementor.com kadencewp.com/product/kadence-woo-extras/ wpastra.com/woocommerce/ commercegurus.com/product/shoptimizer/

Some other useful links to get you started: woocommerce.com/product- category/woocommerce-extensions/ youtube.com/channel/UCjDuxPEhNQ2qn_qAdjRG4YQ/videos

</comment><comment><USER4> Whatever you do, don't end up spending 6 months building something and miss out on 6 months of comission-free sales.

Anything self-hosted is going to need a fair bit of configuration and looking after - eg. even for the simplest of the them (Wordpress/Woocommerce), you'll need time to install and configure, updates come out ever few days, you'll have log files to monitor and keep tidy, a server to keep secure, etc. If you're doing 25-100 sales/day, do you have time for that? Wouldn't that time be better spent on increasing sales?

(depends on your goal obviously... is it to sell more? or have a fun toy to tinker with?)

There are shopify alternatives - eg. Freewebstore[1] is a small SaaS product run by a few developers.

[1] [https://freewebstore.com/](https://freewebstore.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Woocommerce. Can you elaborate more on "ideological reasons"?

I'm genuinely curious why you don't feel ok to pay less than $1/sale to shopify to keep your store up & running but are ok paying much more on fulfillment/shipping.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've a multiple stores and some stores get 5 sales a month on $10 item and for that I can't afford Shopify.

I am looking for something which I can host on my own as I've nearly free servers (I receive digital ocean credit through affiliate sales on the guides I wrote) so hosting is free for me and tinkering is free as there not much work where I working so I can fix my website in that time.

Also I don't like to pay monthly for closed source product. That's my ideological reason, it's low in priority but I always choose open whenever possible

<comment><USER6> OpenCart and Prestashop are open PHP/MySQL shops with a lot of available payment provider plugins.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Spree e-commerce is a solid Rails engine that can be used a fully skinnable site and offers a full API for any integrations, customizations, or other apps you want to hook up down the line. It also has robust configurations for your product line, fulfillment, and shipping setups. Have built enterprise-level online stores on it, but it is geared for business the size you describe.

[https://spreecommerce.org/](https://spreecommerce.org/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm sure there are many but Solidus is one: [https://solidus.io/](https://solidus.io/)

<comment><USER9> To add to that, Spree Commerce: [https://github.com/spree/spree](https://github.com/spree/spree)

<comment><USER10> Coincidentally, they both run on Ruby on Rails it seem.

Gonna check out these two they seem cool.

<comment><USER11> Solidus is a fork

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're familiar with python and django, then saleor might be a good option: [https://saleor.io/](https://saleor.io/)

<comment><USER13> I second that. Have used saleor for couple of Ecommerce stores. Has enough features to launch a store out of the box while lacking all the features that if incorporated would make the platform extremely complicated. You can take the community edition and extend it to meet your requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised no one mentionned Prestashop here. Aside WooCommerce this is a really solid solution since years now, that can scale and have real plugin official marketplace with verified contributors. WooCommerce has way more hassle ...

</comment><comment><USER15> I dislike the monthly fee for Shopify apps so I go with WooCommerce most the time. I like designing in Elementor, but the Storefront theme is free and decent out of the box.

If it's for a site I want to get up fast I'll go with Shopify.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes some of my websites sell 5 items a month and Shopify gets expensive for that too

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Woocommerce is built on top of Wordpress and is open source.

</comment><comment><USER17> I want a simple GUI to manage the store & output a static site & manage hosting with terraform files/CDN for any cloud vendor. Lambdas for billing & SQLite/Redis for storage.

</comment><comment><USER18> Several people mentioned Magento already. For your project, I'd stongly add suggest you should ignore that. While Magento has loads of features build it, it also misses some, I'd consider important. You can not create a custom invoice template out of the box for example.

If you are a somewhat experienced developer, Sylius might give you a good experience and code quality. We build a shop on an earlier version, and it runs solid - not a single downtime in years.

<comment><USER18> And talking about downtime, see that you get a solid webhost. A clients shop had ~1h downtime a day (!) that nobody could explain. Same setup on a new host runs for a couple of weeks now without issues.

</comment></comment><comment> w-ll What's the problem your trying to solve?

Paypal button on a static site?

Dont like Paypal, you can use crypto (it's the only thing one can actually self host as in receiving payments)

</comment><comment><USER19> In case you're into Python, try Odoo community edition. There are integrations for PayPal, Stripe, UPS and whatnot. As an ERP system, an Odoo Webshop is integrated with Sales management, warehouse management etc. For me that's a big benefit.

</comment><comment><USER20> Magento is still free isn't it? And by adding M2EPro your products & inventory can also list on Amazon and eBay's global sites at the same time that they're on your website.

M2EPro is also free up to a certain (quite high) monthly sales volume

<comment><USER21> While magento 2 CE is indeed free, it's a horrific mess that I wouldn't recommend to anyone let alone someone who needs a store with only 20-100 orders/day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Don't self-host. Just get Shopify and be done with it. You should be focused on running your business not fussing around with the tech. Any time you spend doing that is time you aren't spending on selling.

</comment><comment><USER23> Give a look st Sylius. [https://sylius.com/](https://sylius.com/)

It written in PHP and has clean and modern codebase what is great if you need some custom development

</comment><comment><USER24> So what would be the the most simple and cheap _non-self-hosted_ shop and site architecture for small businesses that would enable sales globally?

Are there any tutorials/blog posts on this topic?

</comment><comment><USER25> Woocommerce on it's own VPS running CentMinMod: [http://centminmod.com/](http://centminmod.com/) I help manage an Ecommerce site which gets 10,000 vistors a month, and our $20 per month Linode instance + Centminmod handles that level of traffic easily. As for Wordpress themes I'm a big fan of GeneratePress. [https://generatepress.com/](https://generatepress.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Just use woocommerce. As long as you keep the number of installed WordPress plugins minimal and keep them up to date every couple weeks, you're golden. The biggest issue with WordPress ecosystem is the varying qualities of 3rd party plugins which give it endless security issue, but as long as you keep those minimal, a woocommerce store is very solid choice as woocommerce is a first part plugin with solid attention from automattic.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'll vouch again for WooCommerce. I've built multiple sites with it for clients and it's ideal for a small business with tech-savvy operators.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hey econcon, I built One Item Store, which solves your exact problem: [https://oneitem.store](https://oneitem.store)

You can just set up a really simple page, accept payments, and manage orders.

I built a simple example site for your filament: [https://oneitem.store/3dfilament](https://oneitem.store/3dfilament)

Let me know if you want any more info :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I created belgianbrewed.com ( fully custom). It's a lot of work, even less obvious things like E-commerce filters.

Tax is hard depending on the country, eg. For Belgium/Europe it's pretty easy. = Tax calculated in the country of residence only.

There are plenty of alternatives beyond woocommerce/Magento. I use woocommerce for another one, but it requires some maintenance.

Just make sure you can easily extend it.

What programming language so you use?

</comment><comment><USER30> If you're comfortable with PHP, Shopware & Sylius (both built on Symfony). For Python, look at Saleor. If you don't want to live in a world of pain ( see looping__lui), use a SaaS solution like Snipcart or BigCommerce (which has very competitive rates vs. Shopify). Use the time to learn how to market your product, run ads, create content and grow your business.

<comment><USER18> Sylius should be seen more as a framework. And while it is full featured, it also is maintenance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Workarea is a rails engine you can host yourself, I do integration work for retailers but the core of it is OSS. Lots of plugins, and they're easy to create.

[https://github.com/workarea-commerce/workarea](https://github.com/workarea- commerce/workarea)

<comment><USER32> License is a non starter:

> You may make production use of the Licensed Work without an additional > license agreement with WebLinc so long as you do not use the Licensed Work > for a Commerce Service.

<comment><USER31> > Effective on the Change Date, or the fourth anniversary of the first > publicly available distribution of a specific version of the Licensed Work > under this License, whichever comes first, the Licensor hereby grants you > rights under the terms of the Change License, and the rights granted in the > paragraph above terminate.

doesn't that convert the license to "Version 2.0 or later of the GNU General Public License"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Check out Shopaholic for October CMS: [https://octobercms.com/plugin/lovata- shopaholic](https://octobercms.com/plugin/lovata-shopaholic) (Disclaimer: I'm the lead maintainer for October CMS but I have no affiliation with Shopaholic).

</comment><comment><USER34> I'll put Snipcart ([https://snipcart.com/](https://snipcart.com/)) in the ring. It's nice because it has only the server logic part in the cloud but it's very easy for a programmer to set up and do themselves.

</comment><comment><USER35> Reading through these replies makes feel like the only person who doesn't sell something and made me curious about what people here are selling.

Slightly off topic I know, but anyone care to share what product or service they use these services for?

</comment><comment><USER36> Recently had some experience with nopCommerce and it's been neat to work with.

</comment><comment><USER37> Prestashop, WooCommerce, Snipcart, Magento, are all decent self-hosted solutions.

</comment><comment><USER38> Open Cart is a near solution

</comment><comment><USER39> [https://commercejs.com/](https://commercejs.com/) looks like nice platform.

They have a plan with 0 upfront cost, you only pay % of transaction.

</comment><comment><USER40> Can try snipcart.com

You can build a very basic static frontend (HTML/JS) and they will host all the backend stuff and process the payments. 2% fee + payment gateway.

</comment><comment><USER41> If you can't afford the shopify fees you don't actually have a business.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also sell 3d printed models online so I've made like 20+ e-commerce websites so far. Most of them are niche website and get 5-10 sales each and some even get zero sales but some websites are seasonal in nature and in some season or event, they blow up in sales.

I am trying to capture this windfall but Shopify is not good for this task.

They charge per store so I am limited to just having one store which is not good for niche work - exploration and discovery.

<comment><USER42> I been thinkering with the idea of service first ecommerce platform; that doesn't lock people down as much Shopify, Magento or BigCommerce do.

For an use case like yours, the 20+ websites are more akin to microsites focused on a subset of products but still mapped to one single catalog and ecommerce store.

Even with ShopifyPlus multi store support each store has its own catalog, and completely seperate for integrations, transactions, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is actually very popular usecase among dropshipping too, being locked to one store reduces conversion rates.

We can make subaccount in stripe, so it's easy to specific different subaccount for different product.

While WooCommerce is there but still we need to setup wordpress blog and multiple other things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Magento is a popular alternative

</comment><comment><USER44> Netlify + Stripe.

</comment><comment><USER45> Drupal Commerce.

</comment><comment><USER46> Openbazaar</comment>


Anon claims that it has the source code to Stuxnet - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/chrisbarth/2011/02/11/anonymous-claims-possession-of-insidious-stuxnet-virus/

<comment><USER2> They are telling the truth. The source code to stuxnet is in the email archive stolen from HBGary Federal that belonged to Aaron Barr.

<comment><USER3> I'd be _very_ interested to know how he got it in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Source or object code? The article doesn't specify.

<comment><AUTHOR> Upvoted: I thought I specifically saw 'source' in there, but going back, it just says 'a copy.'

There are also things like this: <http://anonleaks.ru/email1.html>

<comment><USER5> Am I wrong, but are most leaks on Wikileaks US-centric information, or are they the only leaks that get press? We're talking about leaks that don't do much for freedom. Leaks that are a small part of a bigger political game.

Can Anonleaks or Anon people actually get and publish information about oppressive regimes, atrocities and cover-ups (maybe publish on wikileaks itself)... stuff that is unlikely to leak by whistle blowing attempts alone? Maybe content from the UN HRC, which they don't do anything about, and instead focus on Israel. Ugly corporate activities would be interesting: environmental and human catastrophes in mining, arms, energy and pharmaceutical businesses.

Imagine all the shit going on in China right now, or conspired manipulation of global financial markets, or rigged elections in supposed democracies: to me this is much more important than Aaron Barr's emails or the Stuxnet source.

It is clear that Anonymous are potent, but how can that be directed so that the Anon mind can be a powerful force for good: white-hat hacking with less ego and more conscience.

<comment><USER6> Wikileaks publishes what people send it. There has been a bunch of non US stuff in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm no security researcher, but it seems to me that there are two interesting parts to Stuxnet:

        1. The infection mechanism it uses to spread (no idea what the technical term is for this)
        2. The payload it uses to damage nuclear reactors

The vulnerabilities exploited by (1) are supposedly already patched, so that isn't going to do anyone much good. And unless anon hopes to take out a nuclear enrichment facility (and since they probably aren't all the same, we're only talking about some portion of those) I don't see what good (2) would do them.

So while this is probably a great way to drum up an 'OMG HACKERZ!!' scare, I just don't see why this is really a big deal. To say nothing of the fact that, being a virus, Stuxnet can't really be all that hard to find a copy of.

Edit: Changed reactors to enrichment facilities in the list and fixed the list formatting.

<comment><USER8> Stuxnet has nothing to do with "nuclear reactors". It targeted uranium enrichment centrifuges.

<comment><USER9> And the uranium is use for? (weapons aside)

<comment><USER10> I believe the point is that "to damage nuclear reactors" conjures a far different (and more explosive) mental image than "to damage nuclear enrichment facilities", even if the economic impact is the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One disturbing bit: Anonymous has a _lot_ of members who work currently or used to work in IT and at ISPs. Of those no longer in such positions, a lot of them are close friends with others who currently still work in such places. It's totally like that bit from Fight Club, but instead of being the ones that make your sandwich and vacuum your floors, they're the ones that install your code and backup your databases.

In another way, this is very reassuring. With Internet access being spread between 200,000 ISPs in the US and Canada, the prospect of a top-down commanded Internet blackout seems awfully slim.

Universal lesson -- if a part of your society is built out of bullsh#t, it's going to be riddled full of holes and secret passages. If a part of your society is built of bullsh#t, there will be a disaffected contingent looking for meaning, who will find the time and the means to communicate. It's been true for thousands of years, and I don't see it stopping.

</comment><comment><USER12> I doubt that HBGary had the source to Stuxnet. Even the source is not that useful. Its infection vectors are known. It does not really use novel worm techniques. They would not be able to sign a different rootkit payload without the stolen certs. The source does not give you control of the command and control infrastructure, so they cannot use or update any of the currently infected machines (this is speculation, I do not know the specifics of Stuxnet in this regard). The PLC payload is useless and would have to be rewritten and tested for a different target. Basically, having a copy of Stuxnet and/or the source for it is useless for using it as a weapon.

The source would be great for the people looking for evidence of who wrote it and what their intentions were, but that is about it.

<comment><USER13> > The source would be great for the people looking for evidence of who wrote > it and what their intentions were, but that is about it.

I think that's more the point than attempting to use it, which like you say, is not really feasible or even useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really hope Anon keeps a happy attitude. I don't want to see the governments getting stupid on everyone because they feel the must do something about things they really have no control over.

What I mean is this: Anon or others with similar resources will always be able to take governments to brinkmanship. I say that because governments always want to have the upper-hand. Of course, in some places (like the internet), the only way they can really have the upper-hand is to destroy it, because its very nature (evolution and breadth) means they will never be able to maintain the upper-hand. They are only one player, a good one, but they aren't the referee.

</comment><comment><USER15> Headline is misleading.

The article only mentions "a genuine stuxnet copy" (the Stuxnet "application") whereas the headline title mentions "source code to Stuxnet" which implies the C or assembler or code was used to create Stuxnet in the first place (which be an incredible find indeed).

The article seems rather ridiculous in any case. I recall an analysis of Stuxnet describing it as a conventional virus and it became visible specifically because like other viruses, it spread through a variety of systems.

<comment><USER16> Several posters elsewhere in the comments seem to think it's the source code.

Regardless, this is precisely the sort of headline that a fear slinging, technophobic, "series of tubes" politician will latch on to. Doubly so in this case, what with HBGary's political connections...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Stuxnet is one of the more powerful viruses to ever spread across the internet"

Is an interesting statement, since to my knowledge it spread via USB drives instead of the internet

<comment><USER18> It has multiple attack vectors, not just USB.

<comment><USER17> Ah, it seems you're right: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet#Windows_infection>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If the article is only referring to the compiled version of Stuxnet, then every security researcher has had that for a very long time.

</comment><comment><USER20> Forbes doesn't have a spell checker? "Siemen's"?

</comment><comment><USER21> The binaries are already in torrents.

</comment><comment><USER22> What Anon would do if it isn't a bunch of hypocrites: Release the source code, in the spirit of the WikiLeaks they love so dearly

What Anon will do: Be a bunch of bastards about it

<comment><USER23> It is very unlikely that they have the source (judging by the article). Rather, they have a copy of the virus executable. Still, the same probably applies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> this mostly seems to be pure speculation on Forbes/Chris Barth part + a little bit of usual pandering to the establishment.

real journalist would have done slightly better job than just copy-pasting some twitter and blog posts.

<comment><USER25> the face of journalism's changed since I was a kid; I've talked with plenty of journalists researching stories, and things like twitter posts and linkedin profiles are part of the landscape now. we as readers like to put much of the onus on the writer, in this day and age it's probably more important for the reader to be aware and informed as well.

<comment><USER26> They may be part of the landscape but that doesn't mean taking them at face value is good journalism. And I think the reliability of journalism has a large impact on how aware and informed it's even possible for a reader to be.

<comment><USER25> As much as we like to think journalists are doing public service, they are working for commercial organizations struggling to make money. One aspect of being informed is recognizing that news organizations are companies trying to make money, and those incentives aren't necessarily aligned with fair and balanced reporting. All the 'tiger mom' stuff is a perfect example of this; much of the hoopla surrounding it stems from the inflammatory title that the editor chose for it... definitely sold a lot of papers and a lot of her book.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Bitcoin a Bubble? Economists Say 'Yes' - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2017/12/13/is-bitcoin-a-bubble-96-of-economists-say-yes/ <comment><USER3> If there's 1 thing I've learned in the past 2 years, it's that experts can be deadly wrong (Trump being president, Brexit). They seem to be good at predicting things with known variables, but not with unknown unknowns.

I'm making a contrarian bet that experts are wrong this time as well (at least in the near term). People are jumping the gun, trying to look smart and predict the right outcome. The same people that never predicted bitcoin would be this popular. If I'm wrong, so be it, I'll lose a few % of my net wealth.

<comment><USER4> >If there's 1 thing I've learned in the past 2 years, it's that experts can be deadly wrong (Trump being president, Brexit).

Be very careful with those conclusions. In both cases the predictions were that the elections were very close. Trump winning the presidency when the best models we had gave him a 30% chance is not a failing of prediction at all.

<comment><USER5> > Trump winning the presidency when the best models we had gave him a 30% > chance is not a failing of prediction at all.

How accurate the "best models" were isn't really relevant to the accuracy of the predictions of experts as a whole. The media was running that Clinton had a 98% chance of winning the morning of the race.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like the model was correct. We just fell into the 2%.

<comment><USER7> Today: My model says that I have a probability of 98% of making money by buying this stock tomorrow.

Tomorrow: I lost money. I guess I just fell into the 2%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Both the founder and lead dev of Ethereum and Litecoin think they are both significantly overvalued.

Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum): [https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/94085013791...](https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/940850137919836160)

Charlie Lee (Litecoin): [https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/940353265585160192](https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/940353265585160192)

I've been bullish on crypto past few years but it's gone too far. I've flipped to bear until the tech catches up.

<comment><USER9> I was just reviewing the avg tx fee on major coins.

Micropayments aren't possible on any widely accepted coin. BTC has hit 20 USD a tx (albeit without segwit).

It's looking a little rough.

Might be time for a draw back.

EDIT: I was pulling together the avg tx fees from [https://bitinfocharts.com/](https://bitinfocharts.com/)

$BTC: 24.4 USD $ETH: 1.07 USD $BCH: 0.17 USD $LTC: 0.632 USD $DASH: 0.62 USD $XMR: 5.49 USD

My other thoughts on the subject: [https://twitter.com/placeybordeaux/status/941122240623423490](https://twitter.com/placeybordeaux/status/941122240623423490)

<comment><USER6> Bitcoin doesn't HAVE to be used for micropayments to be useful.

<comment><USER10> At this point the transaction costs are making it unusable for most regular payments as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Experts" predicting bitcoin's impending doom is nothing new. Does anyone remember Professor Mark Williams, a top economist who is so well regarded that he has been called to testify before Congress many times? In late 2013, he predicted that bitcoin would crash from $1200 to under $10 within the next 6 months [1]. After he was proven wrong, he revised his claim to say that the crash would happen eventually. I guess he was smart not to attach another date to his prediction, lest he be humiliated a second time.

Until these economists are willing to put testable specifics to their predictions (bitcoin will drop to under $X within Y weeks), or are at least taking short positions to back up their beliefs, no one should take them too seriously.

In contrast, the Winklevoss Twins correctly predicted Bitcoin's rise and become Bitcoin billionaires in the process. But they're not selling because they think it will go up much further [2]. Unlike the economists here, the Winklevii are putting their money where their mouths are.

Time will tell if they're right.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/williams-bitcoin- meltdown-10-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/williams-bitcoin- meltdown-10-2013-12)

[2] [http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-winklevoss-twins- say-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-winklevoss-twins-say-could- soar-20-times-trounce-gold-2017-12)

<comment><USER12> This is true of every bubble ever. No one knew how to predict when the real estate bubble was going to collapse. And they wouldn't have been able to make any specific predictions, despite real estate being an obvious bubble.

It was very easy to see that the price did not reflect the fundamentals. And Bitcoin is similar. The fundamentals of Bitcoin do not support the price.

Also in terms of putting your money where your mouth is, there isn't any reliable way to profit off of bubble's unless you know the timing. And that's very hard. There are no laws of the universe that keep Bitcoin from rising for another 12 years, or tripling in value before it crashes.

<comment><USER13> I'm both someone who believes Bitcoin is in a bubble, and someone who holds a decent amount of it.

I never liked the word "Bubble" do describe these things because they rarely pop like bubbles. Physical bubbles inflate relatively gradually and pop very rapidly. Asset bubbles usually don't. The Nasdaq bubble took roughly 6 years to inflate and 3 years to "pop". The real estate bubble took about 11 years to inflate and 6 years to fully deflate. IMHO "balloon" might be a better term.

It's possible we could wake up tomorrow in a world where Bitcoin is trading for $10, but I doubt it. Even if today ends up representing the peak in hindsight, I'm (literally) betting that it will take years to fully deflate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Bitcoin is certainly in a speculative bubble. I think Ray Dalio (the hedgefund manager who runs Bridgewater) explained this very well in this clip:

[https://www.facebook.com/raydalio/videos/401164293638585/](https://www.facebook.com/raydalio/videos/401164293638585/)

The gist of it is, is that if you look at the nature of the investor today, it is clear that this has become a giant speculative bubble. Investors do not understand what they are investing in. They are not sophisticated. They are not analyzing their investments. They are investing on the 'greater fool' theory.

All of the above does not preclude the possibility that Bitcoin survives, is useful, and perhaps is even still long-term undervalued despite the current bubble-aspects. But the nature of the investor today means that the dynamics of the price today are currently being driven by bubble-like factors, and are almost certain to have a large (50-90+%) drop at some point.

If you read crypto twitter, you will see that even the devs like Vitalik [0] and Vlad [1] are extremely wary of how much the price has risen given the level of development of the technology thus far.

[0] [https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/94085013791...](https://mobile.twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/940850137919836160)

[1] [https://twitter.com/VladZamfir/status/941220330294644736](https://twitter.com/VladZamfir/status/941220330294644736)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm committing the cardinal sin of commenting before I'm done with the article, but whenever this discussion comes up, I feel like asking: why not both? Could it be that Bitcoin is currently overvalued and in a "bubble", but it or something like it still may have huge value and utility in the long run? The idea that the Bitcoin bubble is something more like the Dot Com bubble than Tulipomania seems plausible to me.

<comment><USER16> Tulipmania lasted 6 months. Bitcoin is now 8 years old.

Stop comparing Bitcoin to flowers. It's not even close to the same thing.

<comment><USER17> If you chart them, they're actually right on top of each other.

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/its-official- bitcoi...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/its-official-bitcoin- surpasses-tulip-mania-now-biggest-bubble-world-history)

<comment><USER18> This chart shows nothing interesting and is hardly scientific. Of course by lining up price charts of various speculative bubbles they will roughly line up. The chart also intentially discards the first 4 years of Bitcoin trading data (2010-2013) where Bitcoin has actually gained the most. None of the other assets in the chart even remotely compare to Bitcoin's gains in these 4 years. Also, it should really use a log scale: [http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/](http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/)

<comment><USER17> > The chart also intentially discards the first 4 years of Bitcoin trading > data (2010-2013) where Bitcoin has actually gained the most.

Sure, just like the comment being replied to discards several _hundred_ years worth of tulip sales to say "Tulipmania lasted 6 months. Bitcoin is now 8 years old."

Bitcoin has, until this year, largely escaped widespread public notice beyond "isn't this odd/interesting" pieces in the media.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Everyone that I've talked to seems to be aware of the (seemingly) inevitable price drop, but that doesn't seem to be stopping them from buying in. Most people just assume they'll be able to sell what they have when the price drops before all the 'dumb' people have a chance to do the same.

They just assume they'll be the lucky ones. I don't think everyone can be the lucky ones though.

I think after this all calms down and a reasonable price is reached it'll be a bit safer to use as an actual currency. Pretty sure we were all saying that when bitcoin was around $200 though so maybe it won't ever settle.

<comment><USER20> That's textbook bubble behavior.

One caveat with Bitcoin is that the network is so slow (effectively just 3 transactions per second) that a crash would be spread out over time. If a panic starts you won't be able to get a slot to sell your bitcoins unless you pay an enormous transaction fee. It could be an interesting situation where the rich literally pay to get to the head of the line and avoid the crash.

<comment><USER21> You don't understand how trading bitcoin works. Trading is not done on the chain, its the centralized exchanges which keep the books. Its instantaneous, with people who are involved in arbitrage between the exchanges keeping the prices level across all.

<comment><USER22> A bubble explosion would inevitably bankrupt the exchange platform first, then you. GDAX/Coinbase will never be able to create money out of thin air if everyone are selling and the BTC is dropping to $5. So even if you sell before everyone, even if you get your money on Coinbase virtually, they'll never honour the wire transfert.

<comment><USER23> Why will a bubble explosion bankrupt an exchange platform? The platform doesn't need to own any bitcoins and can be unaffected by price swings. The platform likely earns bitcoins through fees, but is free to trade them at any time. In principal all the bitcoins in the care of the exchange can be owned (or owed) to the traders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Did you guys see this thread on Twitter a couple of days ago? [https://twitter.com/TedOnPrivacy/status/940588631709896704](https://twitter.com/TedOnPrivacy/status/940588631709896704)

Have you had similar problems selling bitcoin?

EDIT: saw -> see

<comment><USER25> Yes, I used breadwallet to sell some bitcoins, accidentally set the transaction fee at (what I'd later find out to be) ~10 satoshis/byte.

Now I have ~$2300 locked up in the mempool, and no end in sight for these high transaction fees. Can't figure out a way to raise the fee.

[https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#4d](https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#4d)

<comment><USER26> It should expire in 3-4 days. You can also try importing the keys to another compatible wallet and redo the transaction with higher fee.

<comment><USER25> Thanks! Currently trying to find a wallet that will let me double spend. Any recommendations?

<comment><USER26> Actually I don't think any wallet will let you do that. How ever, you can install breadwallet on another phone/device (don't mess with your existing one) and restore with your backup seed (12 or 24 words one). Electrum is another good wallet for desktop that supports all kinds of seed words where you can again import your seed words and re-spend them. The newly installed wallets will let you spend it again because it has no way of knowing that you already spent it.

Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's obviously a bubble, just stop and think about it for a moment. P2P payments over the internet clearly have _some_ utility, but the quantity of bitcoins owned has no relationship to its utility, thus, the incredible rise in price can be attributed almost entirely to speculation. The masses don't care about P2P payments (at least not as far as that concept might relate to cryptocurrency), they are engaged in a FOMO reaction to constant hype and the false narrative that bitcoin is going to be the future of money. It's not as if all these new bitcoin buyers are going to engage in some kind of novel economic activity or wealth creation, they are just going to hodl till they're ready to cash out. Certainly, it is clear that bitcoin's rise in price does not track with any sort of uptick in commercial activity by the masses... really, every sign points to a bubble.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've seen a few estimates for what value Bitcoin would have if it did become a world currency (or suchlike), and they're all in the $500 000+ range. So the current price of around $20 000 is consistent with the theory that Bitcoin will succeed with probability 5% and go to zero with probability 95%. I don't think that's _obviously_ wrong, so I'd say it's wrong to call it a bubble.

And even if Bitcoin does go to zero that _still_ doesn't prove that we were in a bubble now. The market is already 95% sure that that's what's going to happen!

<comment><USER29> I think a 5% chance of bitcoin becoming a world currency is obviously wrong. You also have to figure in discount rates.

<comment><USER28> >You also have to figure in discount rates.

Yeah, and risk aversion which I think would be much more significant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Sean Snaith from UCF is quoted in the article calling bitcoin a tulip bubble.

Back in 2007 I watched his presentation in person where he said the U.S. would experience a "soft landing" and nothing major.

A few months later the stock market crashed 60%.

Economists are terrible at predictions.

<comment><USER31> You cherry-picked one poor prediction from a single (shoddy) economist and somehow conclude that economists in aggregate are terrible at predictions.

That statement doesn't even logically support a conclusion that Sean is terrible at predictions. It's also entirely possible that Sean errs on the side of optimism given his 2007 prediction, in which case his alarmism over Bitcoin shouldn't be immediately dismissed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's completely possible for Bitcoin to be in a speculative bubble but also not overvalued.

I'm somewhat bullish on Bitcoin, but there's no doubt that there's a speculative bubble -- people with no knowledge of Bitcoin other than its price history are getting more and more eager to invest to ride the wave. This is the definition of a speculative bubble.

The main question is what side of the bubble we're on -- where are we relative to the point where Bitcoin has passed its fundamentals.

</comment><comment><USER33> So one of the items that keeps coming back to awareness is the potential implications of the Tether fraud. For those few that haven't heard of this by now, Bitfinex is tied closely structurally (in terms of management and ownership) to the company that created Tether, the altcoin that claims to be backed in a 1:1 basis with a USD.

Well, there've been mysterious USDT transactions, in regular intervals, that suggest that there's tens of millions of Tether being pumped into Bitfinex on a regular basis, which of course can be converted into BTC (and other coins). However, no one thinks it's likely due to the soured reputation of Bitfinex (their big hack, their inability to do business with a U.S. bank, among other things) that this is REAL USD being pumped into this suspicious company with ill-reputed owners. This has been mentioned on Bloomberg and other mainstream publications.

So (if this is all true) what in the world will it mean reputationally that people have been pouring 800M of counterfeit coins into Bitcoin, and what does it mean economically?

I can't wrap my head around that second question.

[edit: updated last sentence of p2 for clarity)

</comment><comment><USER34> Well, there's already talk that Bitcoin is the biggest financial bubble in world history: [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/its-official- bitcoi...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/its-official-bitcoin- surpasses-tulip-mania-now-biggest-bubble-world-history?page=1)

<comment><USER35> Well, we still have that apocalyptic "derivatives bubble" hanging over our heads, which is estimated to be around $1.5-2 quadrillion (with a q). I don't think Bitcoin is competing in the same league.

<comment><USER36> MarketWatch has an infographic that shows the relative sizes. It's originally from 2015 but it has as been updated for 2017.

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-money- exi...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-money-exists-in- the-entire-world-in-one-chart-2015-12-18)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> An interesting data point can be found at [https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/938859025483141121](https://twitter.com/charliebilello/status/938859025483141121)

The author of that tweet (a researcher at a pension fund) polled his followers several times about whether they thought BTC was a bubble. The higher BTC's price, the fewer people believed it was a bubble.

</comment><comment><USER38> In the end Bitcoin is so similar to Gold. It is a means of storing wealth and is valued on a shared belief of finite quantities and that it is an effective/secure means of storing wealth.

It is hard for me to call a shared belief a bubble, because there is a clear understanding I think now that there is no underlying fundamental asset value.

<comment><USER39> Gold has a floor value though, sure it has a value above that based on being used as a store of wealth but the whole thing is predicated on the fact that gold is actually useful and has thousands of years of human history of being valued.

<comment><USER40> bitcoin will still have a sort of floor value for the various illegal things it was and is still use for.

Obviously though that is far far lower than what it is now.

<comment><USER39> I see your point but even on that - there are alternative blockchains, we could all just swap to litecoins and send it to zero.

If it were the only feasible crypto it would have some sort of floor I agree but factor in altcoins and it actually doesn't have any.

<comment><USER40> True, there are others, some with more privacy built in , bitcoin enjoys a network effect for now. That might change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How would someone classify Bitcoin's rise from $0.08 to $31 from 2010 to 2011 before dropping to $2 or its rise from around $100 to around $1200 and subsequent crash to around $200 from 2013 to 2015?

I would say losing 85% to 95% of its value in a relatively short period of time after a large run up could be considered a bubble bursting. The thing that is interesting is that each time this has happened with Bitcoin the price settled somewhere ABOVE where it was before the last bubble.

I do think Bitcoin is in a bubble right now, but I think it could go much higher (maybe $50-100k?) before crashing, and I think the price after the crash will not go below $5k or $10k. The current wave began around $1000.

So what I think we are seeing is actually mass adoption of a new technology in waves that are increasing exponentially.

There has never been anything like Bitcoin so it is difficult to use lenses of Bubbles in the past to explain what is happening with it.

</comment><comment><USER42> I really don't think cryptocurrency in general is a going anywhere; I don't think this is even the tip of the iceberg in terms of where this is going to lead. There are reason however, why bitcoin specifically might bubble and collapse. The main issue being the fact that at the moment its not reasonable to use bitcoin as if it were money, with the prime cause (in my eyes) being the cost of transactions. I do think bitcoin will collapse (not any time soon), but I think the contents of that bubble will find themselves in other, technically more useful cryptos. Not being able to move bitcoin around with out these ridiculous transaction fees is why bitcoin will eventually collapse. Its not (as) useful as a store of value in its current form than a store of value that doesn't have acost for its use.

<comment><USER43> We need to give up on the idea of bitcoin being used as money. It wasn't designed in a way that would encourage holder to spend it like money until a stable valuation is found when everyone in the world is holding it. As Yellen said, it's a highly speculative asset. Small chance of massive yield, large chance of small failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> IMO, bitcoin is a commodity money, and history has moved on from those a long time ago. At most treat it like stock, and not as if it were _money_.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm curious how much of an understanding of coding and computer science gives you an edge here in terms of making money. It's weird seeing people on the news talking about different cryptocurrencies when they obviously don't understand the technical merits of each. For example, Litecoin and Bitcon differ by the block mining times and the hash function used and Ethereum allows more complex smart contracts etc. but these kinds of details aren't mentioned. Bitcoin seems to be facing scalability issues (in terms of the protocol and the community) but I'd be very surprised if the news picked this up.

<comment><USER46> The crypto market trades more on sentiment first, then technicals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Many economists also say that the current economic state may be a bubble, an even worse than that one that popped in 2008.

I think, Bitcoin is undervalued because it can provide a way out for unstable currencies (Venezuela, some African and Asian countries, maybe soon western countries) or to avoid regulations (China, Russia) and of course, for unlawful business (money laundry, blackhats, drugs). That's probably the real value drivers at the moment.

The biggest risk is regulation. Exchanges have to operate somewhere. But I guess, its hard to regulate something that is global (looking at you tax heavens).

</comment><comment><USER48> Unless you have any predictive insight about when a bubble going to burst, it's essentially a meaningless term. Specifically, I mean, it doesn't tell you anything about what you should do. Suppose Bitcoin is a bubble but it won't burst until 2152. Well, in that case, I should buy it. If it's about to burst in the next few months to few years, then perhaps I should sell it. If you can't tell me when, then you can call it whatever you want, it's not an informative term.

<comment><USER49> There's a fallacy in there somewhere. It's like telling me that calling something gambling is a meaningless term because I can't tell you exactly when you will lose your money playing craps. I don't know exactly when. There's a random factor involved. There's even a chance you might come out ahead.

The fact that you don't know when it will burst is just one problem with bubbles. You don't know if it will be 2152 or now. If you know it is a bubble because of a strong irrationally motivated valuation but still buy in, then you are gambling on not "if" but "when" the bottom will fall out.

<comment><USER48> I don't agree with your analogy. If you play craps, then given the odds, we can predict that you will lose money on average if you play a large number of games. That's a pretty specific statement. Which specific statement are we making when we call something a bubble?

<comment><USER49> Bubble can be overused and become meaningless, but it can be a useful concept to consider when deciding if this is where you want to put your money. In my opinion, irrationally motivated valuation is key here.

People buying Bitcoin as the future are taking a leap of faith that only comes true if enough people take that leap and do not abandon it. There is no underlying asset or intrinsic value, there is no government force backing it up. There is nothing people can point out to express why this particular cryptocurrency has value.

This isn't an argument against the underlying technology, just the valuation of Bitcoin.

<comment><USER48> Perhaps, but there are all sorts of sophisticated people with all sorts of valuation models for crypto, etc. What you are saying is just disagreement about valuation. I mean, if bitcoin is irrationally priced, there is a way to express that view by shorting bitcoin futures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Seems to me international fiat currencies are the bigger, more pressing bubbles. But what do I know?

How many people know about QE, NIRP, or PPT?

<comment><USER51> Fiat currencies are still reasonably stable compared to actual goods right now. I know that can and has changed in the past (pre/post WWII germany), but at the moment, they are not in a bubble. Not at the same level that bitcoin is, anyway.

How do I know this? Well, because I can still get a gallon of milk or loaf of bread for ~$3. If I put that $3 into bitcoin, I'd get some fraction of a coin (roughly 0.0001). Which is all well and good until the bubble bursts, and suddenly milk is worth 0.1 bitcoins. Did milk suddenly become 1000x more valuable? No, bitcoin lost value.

This is something I don't understand about people who say they "cashed out of fiat currency". Fiat currency is still what everything is valued by. The value of a gallon is milk is relatively stable. Compared to this, fiat fluctuates a little, and bitcoin is a drunk on a rollercoaster.

Which, if you consider fiat currencies to be a bubble, would make me even more concerned for bitcoin as it is a bubble within a bubble.

<comment><USER52> Just a comment to chime in with some interesting info.

QE in the UK seems to have actually kicked into the inflation cycle. Commodity prices (butter was a big one, if I remember correctly, at >20% yoy) have been jumping alongside service costs (insurance). I'm sure that Brexit is _some_ sort of variable in this equation but I won't pretend to make heads or tails of how beyond that inflation is in fact happening in some places. [0][1]

Given the level of concern there is over the "missing inflation" in USD that causes so much headscratching by the Fed WRT rate raises, I think the OP is fair to say that we should be at least somewhat concerned about the state of currencies during QE (My intuition as someone not in finance is that it's simply been "absorbed" somewhere in the system that doesn't trickle down to normal consumers, such that it doesn't manifest like the inflation they're looking for; would be curious if someone more informed could speak to this.); and more importantly, the position that a multi-year ZIRP regime puts us in to respond to the next crisis.

Bitcoin is an obvious outlier for sure, and a correction would hurt. But compared to the populations currency exposure, bitcoin's pain would likely be much less widespread.

[0] (because I trust reuters as a source) [https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk- britain-economy-inflation/...](https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain- economy-inflation/uk-inflation-hits-highest-in-nearly-six-years-peak-seen- soon-idUKKBN1E60YF)

[1] (more fine grained breakdown from sketchier news site) [http://www.trustnodes.com/2017/12/13/inflation-spikes- britai...](http://www.trustnodes.com/2017/12/13/inflation-spikes-britain)

<comment><USER53> To answer your intuition: QE is trickling up into asset price inflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Bitcoin is designed to be a bubble. I mean, I love the concept and have profited from it, but looking at the mechanics, it almost makes sense to buy and hold, as the money supply doesn't grow much. This sort of puts a deflationary pressure on prices (of goods, not bitcoin - bitcoin becomes ever more valuable as the money supply tends towards a constant), meaning hoarders are rewarded, thereby reducing supply further. I don't know for sure, but mass deflation doesn't really sound all that sustainable. Couple that with hype driven demand, and you have yourself a perfect little bubble! I've personally sold a lot of my holding, but I'm very excited to see how this plays out in the next few months. There will be a lot of lessons to learn, but the end of bitcoin (should that happen) will not be the end of a decentralised money - <USER2> genuinely believe society needs this.

</comment><comment><USER18> This WSJ survey is very deceptive. It worded the question to make it sound like they were asking if 2) was true, but the blog post title make it sound like 1). Let me explain: in my experience people mean two very different things by "bubble":

1) Bitcoin is _a_ bubble: the entire technology is worthless and its long-term valuation is zero.

2) Bitcoin is _in_ a bubble: currently in a bubble phase, will probably crash in the short-term, but the long-term potential and value of the technology is or may be real. (Just like there has been bubbles in the past: 2011, 2013, 2014: [http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/](http://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/) they have been corrected, but the price ended up always surpassing previous peaks)

</comment><comment><USER55> Does this count as another "Bitcoin is dead" proclamation? We're already well over 200 obituaries: [https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/)

</comment><comment><USER56> The one thing they aren't accounting for is that there really hasn't been anything like bitcoin. In most bubbles, eventually the whales start selling which triggers an avalanche, however bitcoin is distributed enough that this might not happen. Too many different people are interested in it doing well now. E.g. rich people in 3rd world countries, boy are they pumped for bitcoin.

I've mentioned it before, and I was kinda laughed at but I legit believe that certain economic truth need to be reevaluated for software and crypto. You know how at tech companies, the economics are different from other companies? I can imagine the same being the case for crypto.

<comment><USER20> _Every_ crash is preceded by people saying "It's different this time".

 _Edit: Fixed autocorrect goofery_

<comment><USER57> Every crash is preceded by people saying _everything_ , because there are billions of people in the world and it's easy to find any opinion. Thus, the mere presence (or lack thereof) of any particular opinion is not a useful barometer of what's actually happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Bitcoin is a bubble but that doesn't mean that you can't make money investing in it. All you need is someone else to be the "greater fool" to purchase it from you. Just don't get stuck holding bitcoin when the bubble collapses.

<comment><USER59> Same thing could be said about sub-prime loans. Or really - anything. If you have this kind of "God-like knowledge", even gambling is a great idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> > 96% of Economists Say 'Yes'

Oh God this means I was wrong... I should start buying bitcoin ASAP.

</comment><comment><USER33> _"Old Baron Rothschild's recipe for wealth winning applies with greater force than ever to speculation. Somebody asked him if making money in the Bourse was not a very difficult matter and he replied that, on the contrary, he thought that it was very easy… "I will tell you my secret if you wish. It is this: I never buy at the bottom and I always sell too soon."_

(from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reminiscences_of_a_Stock_Opera...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reminiscences_of_a_Stock_Operator))

</comment><comment><USER60> I always wonder how an opinion piece from WSJ or the economist can change the direction(few billion $) of the market to some extent. Especially in these markets which are partly running on mass hysteria.

</comment><comment><USER61> Look at the value of gold between 2001 and 2013[1]. There were multiple years with 20-30% gains.

I grant that a +1500% gain in 1 year is a different animal. But combine the store of value along with rapid technological innovation in all cryptocurrencies (ICOs, alt-coins, etc). I submit to you that there could be something here besides baseless mania.

1\. [http://onlygold.com/Info/Historical-Gold- Prices.asp](http://onlygold.com/Info/Historical-Gold-Prices.asp)

</comment><comment><USER62> If you think of it as a currency probably yes and i assume that is what most of these people are assuming it to be. But Bitcoin and other alt coins have suddenly become a way to hoard something digitally. Pretty sure if everyone wants to cash out their bitcoin "portfolio's" there is gonna be a lot of long term and short term plummets. Overvalued ? Over Hyped ? Over Sold ? Over Everything ? Sure , but a Bubble ? Lets wait till it all goes down shall we ?

</comment><comment><USER63> Yes, it's a bubble but we've never had one where the whole world can be, and is, involved. This can go on for years before it falls. The key , for it to continue, is to make it VERY EASY for people to buy and sell. Once that's in place who knows when it will stop. All the naysayers can't see that.

</comment><comment><USER64> It is still pioneers and early adopters time, people seeing bitcoin as the first possible single currency for the entire planet. We will see how it goes when the masses and legislators come. Utopian it is not anymore and even technically feasible nowadays, so we will have attempts.

<comment><USER31> My grandma bought some Bitcoin last week and she doesn't even use the internet. Friends who are not tech-savvy are talking about Bitcoin often.

It most definitely is not still "pioneers and early adopters time"—that idea seems to be Bitcoin propaganda aimed at potential new Bitcoin buyers on the margin.

<comment><USER51> This sounds like the Joe Kennedy Shoe Shine story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> The take by this economist seems pretty sensible:

[https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2017/11/bitcoin-and- bubbl...](https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2017/11/bitcoin-and-bubbles.html)

</comment><comment><USER66> Keep in mind, many of these economists also say that no one, not even them, can consistently identify undervalued or overvalued liquid assets.

By calling Bitcoin a "bubble" with such confidence, aren't they contradicting themselves?

</comment><comment><USER67> Oh dear. I don't own any bitcoins, but I sure af don't trust the judgement of people who invent fantasy signal processing strategies like fibonacci retracement [1], support and resistance levels [2] and Elliott Waves [3]. Sincerely, a dude who does actual signal processing for stuff that has to work.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_retracement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_retracement)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_and_resistance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_and_resistance)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_wave_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_wave_principle)

<comment><USER68> What makes you think that those fantasy signal processing strategies were invented by (respectable) economists? Because they weren't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I don't know whether bitcoin is a bubble or not, but I would love to see it pop and the twits who won't shut up about it lose all their money.

It may never happen. If it does, I will feel schadenfreude.

</comment><comment><USER70> Who could have expected 4% of economists to be holding bitcoin already?

</comment><comment><USER71> If a stock market crash was to happen, Bitcoin would go up or down? (the peak of 2007 look small when compared to the peak of 2017)

</comment><comment><USER72> I saw an article of one economist comparing bitcoin to Lehman brothers and that it will burst just like Lehman did.

How are these two in any way similar?

</comment><comment><USER73> It's easy to spot a bubble. It's much harder to predict _when_ it's going to burst.

</comment><comment><USER74> One more percent and they'll have 'scientific consensus' /s

</comment><comment><USER75> In a related noted, 4% of economists are bitcoin holders.

</comment><comment><USER76> by the same people who broke the economy on 2008... lets just trust them...

</comment><comment><USER77> Genius does not come from consensus. The economist who knows what bitcoin is is probably in the 4%.

</comment><comment><USER30> Usually the same number of economists forecast continued growth right before recession.

</comment><comment><USER78> Doesn't this headline actually violate Betteridge's law?

<comment><USER79> By answering their own question, the headline doesn't end in a question mark, so Betteridge's law doesn't apply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Looks like professor bitcorn is back

> trust me I'm an economist

</comment><comment><USER81> 4% are Bitcoin owners :)

</comment><comment><USER82> These statistics are as useful as the pre brexit and us presidency polls

<comment><USER77> a lot _less_ useful tbh

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Must be the 96% of Economists who have no idea what cryptography is.

</comment><comment><USER84> Gotta love how the negative crypto articles rise to the top on HN immediately. What's not understood is that crypto is a way for the un-banked (1/3 of the people on earth who barely have clean water, toilets or telephones, yes telephones and that make $1/day) now have access and participation in a global trading platform. Disruption for the first time is happening to both VCs and traditional investment bankers and they are rekt. Be a contrarian.

<comment><USER85> Except that bitcoin transaction cost is what, $10 or $15 now? There's no way "unbanked" people will benefit from that, at all.

<comment><USER86> He wrote crypto, not bitcoin.

<comment><USER87> Yet the economists they're mocking were asked about bitcoin.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rehabilitating the Arrogant Engineer (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2012/08/09/rehabilitating-the-arrogant-engineer/ <comment><USER2> I wonder who the target audience here is. It is a short article composed of quotes from Randy Pausch, some generalizations about engineers, and sports metaphors.

> I've had the privilege of spending my entire career in technology surrounded > by wicked smart engineers. I've always been drawn to their raw intelligence, > Spock-like rationality, sincere honesty, dry humor and quirkiness. With the > immense popularity of the sitcom, "The Big Bang Theory", I suppose I'm not > alone in my appreciation of them.

Almost none of the characters on Big Bang Theory were engineers, they were physicists. This article seems to conflate 'nerd' with 'engineer' on an incredibly surface level exploration.

... and before anything is actually stated, it moves over to use sports metaphors to accent how important teamwork is.

The awful truth is that arrogance, inability to delegate, poor communication, poor ability to react to feedback are traits that are rampant in pretty much every industry, including VC. Picking out engineers are some type of specific 'archetype' especially bad at these skills is buying into awful stereotypes about engineers as if we have no social skills.

<comment> s-shellfish There are lots of experiences that are very specific to technical people.

These experiences are not easily communicated.

It's possible that we all go through similar quirky experiences that yield absurd and seemingly arrogant behavior because of these particular intracicies of working so closely with machines. It's also nice to have personal privacy when we know we are responsible for so much data and information about people.

It's possible that this winds up looking like arrogance, but isn't actually. It's just people going through a thing that honestly, most humans just don't go through.

Not every person experiences life in the following way. I'm around tons of people I could see as arrogant or judgemental or whatever ( and myself the same, if not much more so than everyone else I know ) but honestly it's more like, when software doesn't work correctly, there becomes an odd sort of recurrence relation between the source of the issue and the outlet, and how that maps onto how one sees their self and others. And I honestly think most people who work with machines are so used to seeing that pattern that they understand the dynamic enough to not judge, just slowly hope their additions to the systems they work on get noticed enough to improve the whole process.

So yes, it's an inability to communicate, but we understand one another, because we can explain it with math or code, which most people don't care about. Golden rule. You don't give a shit about my knowledge, I don't give a crap about yours. If you think I'm being arrogant, please try to figure out whether you'd actually like to experience life like this first, where everything is chaos and crazy and nothing the world says makes sense, because most people just don't want to deal with the details of actually understanding how hard it is to get a machine to do exactly what they want it to do, and how hard it is to avoid having that character defect mapping over into one's own social life at all times, as though one must be on constant guard for the oh so you're terrible exhibition of being both aware of being smart, and actually being intelligent at the same time.

We don't have social skills like most people. That's fine. Why is that a bad thing? Those people wear lack of knowledge of logic and mathematics as though it were some badge to be proud of. Which is again, fine! Just don't force me into your archetype of having social skills.

<comment><USER3> > winds up looking like arrogance

I'm seeing more and more accusations of arrogance leveled at "engineers" (but usually they mean programmers). I think this is because they're no longer allowed to stuff us in our lockers and push our heads in the toilets, so they have to be more subtle when they bully us.

<comment><USER4> This is very likely true, sadly. Doesn't help them that some of us grew to be big men with karate and aikido background either. So they try to vent insecurity through other venues.

These days I just laugh in such situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've got a pet theory.

I often feel like carrying the weight of technical decision making on a moment-to-moment basis is what makes engineers bad at social skills. To put it another way: The technical problem is so big that it occupies your brain for weeks and months at a time. Any social interaction requires context-switching out of the technical problem, which is expensive and stressful.

Hence the stereotype that engineers are bad at social skills. If we were ever given enough time to decompress, we'd get right along.

<comment><USER6> _> I often feel like carrying the weight of technical decision making on a moment-to-moment basis is what makes engineers bad at social skills._

That's correct. The logical and emotional parts of your brain literally inhibit one another.

Edit: that being said, it means that it's hard to do both things at the same time, but you can alternate between both modes.

<comment><USER7> > That's correct. The logical and emotional parts of your brain literally > inhibit one another.

I don't know whether this is true or not. But I am sure that when I do mathematics, I have very strong emotions. These are of a very different kind than the emotions that you find described, say, in a novel. I came to the conclusion that neither the English nor the German language have words for these emotions.

<comment><USER6> That's very interesting. What I described is the general case, you may have an unusually wired brain, triggering logic/emotions synesthesia.

The emotions you describe are reminiscent of the "Martian colors" described by a colorblind synesthete who could see words in colors, including colors his eyes could not trigger in his brain.

Richard Feynman was notoriously synesthete. He could see math in color (builtin syntax highlighting :-).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure I've ever read a clumsier, more tone-deaf introduction to a blog post.

<comment><USER9> What did you see in it that was so off? The idea, the choice of words, the "nerd credentials"? I'm trying to see what could have been avoided to make it better.

<comment><USER4> Too much stereotyping, almost zero context, bold claims on topics that are highly subjective and vary wildly from person to person.

These were the things I found myself categorizing the post into as I was reading it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was having a related debate on Twitter with YC's Michel Seibel earlier today [1].

My argument is that organizations, and most strikingly in technology startups & Venture, generally place no value on leadership ability. VC's and others will claim that they "invest in people." In my experience that simply means that "people," poorly defined, are one of the many vectors for which a company is judged. Primary of which is whether people get along well together, rather than if they can make hard leadership decisions in a way that is constructive and progressive.

As a result, while "team" is a consideration, no qualities of leadership or management will be able to compete for venture dollars or talent with a company that is growing like crazy. Said more concisely:

"Investors will always take an A+ Product with C- leadership over a C- Product with A+ leadership."

That seems to make sense in the short term, but at scale, when leadership and management matters, things historically get hairy. In the even longer term, this attitude shapes an entire culture where covering bad management over with growth and revenues - something not unique to technology certainly.

The primary argument I see in valuing traction over leadership in the early days, is that it's _Hard_ to judge someone's leadership without working with them. I would agree with that, but I don't think it's any harder than any other level of technical due diligence. Where I think it's intractably harder, is when the person or team has absolutely no track record of leadership or management, like many young founders.

The community assumes you can teach or coach your way into Leadership, and that's certainly true to some extent, but it underestimates how hard it is to do well, and how catastrophic it is when it goes really badly. On the other hand the old trope of "bringing in adult supervision" really undermines the concept of founder run and employee owned companies.

I think the market would be better off in the long term funding and supporting founders with track records of leadership, but I honestly don't see that happening anytime soon.

[1] [https://twitter.com/AndrewKemendo/status/1016723207997591554](https://twitter.com/AndrewKemendo/status/1016723207997591554)

<comment><USER11> My second employer out of college was a very charismatic man. Talked me out of quitting twice. The third time I went in and just repeated that this was my two week notice, without listening to a single thing he said, until he took the piece of paper in my hands.

If I were a VC I can imagine wanting to stay away from people who can talk me into anything. I might end up funding another round after the building is already on fire.

So I wonder if they are always clear on the difference between leadership and salesmanship. I'm not sure I can always distinguish the two, more's the pity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yet engineers tend not to be sociopaths, while that's common in top management.

<comment><USER13> > while that's common in top management

I've heard that before. It smacks of confirmation bias promulgated by envious people.

<comment><USER12> No, it's reasonably well accepted. See [1][2]. The trouble is, there's considerable overlap between the traits needed for becoming a leader and sociopathy.

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/04/25/the- dis...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/04/25/the-disturbing- link-between-psychopathy-and-leadership/#1a2faa624104) [2] [https://www.cio.com.au/article/537320/how_recognise_deal_wor...](https://www.cio.com.au/article/537320/how_recognise_deal_workplace_sociopath/)

<comment><USER13> Your first link says 3%. That's not "common". The study's sample size was 203, a pretty low number for statistical confidence.

I have no doubt it is "reasonably well accepted" that it is "common" for business leaders to be psychopaths, because it's what people want to believe, but the cited evidence for it doesn't show that at all.

<comment><USER4> I respect your remark about the small sample size but there aren't that many CEOs out there, would you not agree?

<comment><USER13> There are quite a bit more. Every corporation has a CEO, and there are lots and lots and LOTS of smaller corporations. Also, the claim was for "top management", and that's another order of magnitude.

With 203 samples, all it would take is a couple people one way or the other to get that 1% rate of the general population. How accurate is the test, even? There's also selection bias in who consents to the test - I wouldn't consent to a psychoanalysis test because of privacy issues. Lastly, I bet a few of the participants were able to see what the researchers were driving at and had a bit of fun with the answers.

I.e. the conclusion is simply junk science, even setting aside the notion that 3% makes it "common".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The Big Bang Theory is an insulting characture. While some developers may like it - it's not really best way to endear yourself to a group of people.

<comment><USER15> What annoys me most about that show is that 3 physicists and a mechanical engineer are often shown writing working software. That's rarely the case.

<comment><USER16> Physicists and Mechanical engineers, often do write software.

So do a whole host of other people.

<comment><USER17> I once had to untangle a hairball of stuff made by someone with enough titles that his last name tended to fall off the line or be clipped. Having a degree in physics or mechanical engineering does not automatically make you a (good) programmer.

Dijkstra would have had a fit.

It was interesting software (finite element analysis) but until it was just about completely rewritten absolutely un-maintainable. Which was a bit of a problem because it was also buggy.

<comment><USER7> > I once had to untangle a hairball of stuff made by someone with enough > titles that his last name tended to fall off the line or be clipped.

In my experience, the problem rather is that in science, the intention of the code is to be able to run well enough such that one or two papers can be made out of it and after that, it may be forgotten.

For this purpose, this kind of coding is actually decent and (unluckily) investing time in good software engineering practises would mean that you have less time for writing papers.

In this sense, I would be cautious to call this kind of code "bad", but rather say that if you write code for a company, the priorities are very different.

<comment><USER17> That code was old rather than bad. And I had the distinct feeling that whoever wrote it simply did not have a lot of background in software and had a job to be done no matter how it got done. And then that code started a life of its own because the software did work most of the time. Edge cases (sometimes literally edge cases: edges of networks of steel trusses) would sometimes give the weirdest results and upon closer inspection you'd find lots of errors in the rest of the output, just not large enough to immediately cause suspicion.

In the end it all worked out and it was a very good lesson in trying to keep the output stable while refactoring the code. This was well before 'TDD'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >> I'd give out a one-page handout I'd written titled, "Tips for Working Successfully in a Group." We'd go over it, line by line. Some students found my tips beneath them. They rolled their eyes. But the most self-aware students embraced my advice

Sounds like that arrogance didn't necessarily get fixed....

</comment><comment><USER19> Beware the fundamental attribution error.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)

If somebody comes off as a jerk and doesn't appear to listen to you, it's almost certainly not because that is their "nature". They likely have reasons and incentives for acting like that. Possibly other people really _aren't_ helpful to them, and they haven't yet learned the fine political art of pretending otherwise.

If you want to hire a bunch of very smart people who are also very pliable, and won't question you even if they disagree- well, good luck. Start with naive college grads, probably.

<comment><USER20> I really fail to see how your last paragraph has anything to do with the rest of the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It sounds like he read a good book, but that article really doesn't say anything about actually "Rehabilitating the Arrogant Engineer", just that he read about it, kinda.

</comment><comment><USER11> A little OT, but:

> I spent part of my childhood dreaming of being Captain James T. Kirk… I > seriously believe that I became a better teacher and colleague by watching > Kirk run the Enterprise. Kirk was not the smartest guy on the ship.

And that's the main reason I never liked Voyager. Kate Mulgrew's character _was_ the smartest person on that ship, and she made sure everybody knew it. Which is a shame because I always thought she deserved more screen time.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's also worth noting that this article is 5 years old. Perhaps the tone is reflective of that..

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe we should all read the book instead on commenting on its review.

</comment><comment><USER24> VC blog says that engineers should be less arrogant, more pliable towards VC requests. Cool story from people who want power and don't understand technical problems.

<comment><USER25> Could you provide some examples of times when being arrogant improved the quality of the product you delivered?

I've certainly run into arrogant engineers in the past. I spent the 2-3 weeks after the worst of them left cleaning up his bug-ridden, brittle code. If he had worked more collaboratively, it wouldn't have had to be that way.

<comment><USER24> Correctly identified that a product would be a GDPR problem. Said product's main feature was deanonymizing non-consenting visitors.

Insisted that certain metrics should be recorded, ended up identifying massive gaps in SLA, improved overall QoS.

Was asked to give SRE and Devops advice to a team. Told them to document their "regular tasks"; that is, to write down a doc "How to Upgrade Frob Databases" so that they would have a way to do all the "Upgrade Frob Database for Customer #xxx" tickets on their kanban board. Got pushback. Wrote the docs for them anyway. Their kanban board drained over the next two sprints.

Edit: In all cases, got massive pushback from _management_ and never from _devs_ nor _engineers_. Was called "arrogant", "troublemaker", "enabler", reprimanded, etc. You asked for examples, you get examples.

<comment><USER25> Forgive me, but these don't sound like instances of arrogance. You've pointed out flaws in execution or feature, and I would do the same, but that's not arrogance. That's just doing your job as a developer.

Maybe you achieved these in an arrogant way? I'm not going to deny that you can get things done being arrogant. But I don't think it's necessary to getting things done right.

<comment><USER4> I think he is saying that he got _labeled as arrogant_ because he was not respecting internal office drama and human specifics which were getting in the way of him trying to do his job well. Is that arrogant? It's very context- specific but I'd claim that most of the times it is not.

People calling other people offensive names in offices happens way too many times. Way too many managers and teams got too warm & fuzzy & comfy (and unproductive) and any newcomers who want to get shit done are labelled as "rocking the boat" although not literally but with a ton of euphemisms to conceal the core idea -- like those your parent commenter already mentioned ("troublemaker" etc.).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > I was stunned to find every one of these observations called out > specifically by Randy in his lecture.

That's because every one of those "observations" applies to most everyone. It's the same reason why astrological horoscopes apply to everyone.

<comment><USER7> > That's because every one of those "observations" applies to most everyone. > It's the same reason why astrological horoscopes apply to everyone.

Example from psycholoy:

> > [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barnum_effect&old...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barnum_effect&oldid=838924301)

By the way, the statements in the

> > [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barnum_effect&old...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barnum_effect&oldid=838924301#Early_research)

paragraph actually describe me rather badly (I am badly described using "wishy-washy statements"), so I believe this effect hardly works on _me_.</comment></comment>


Foursquare's Big Round: A Sign of Things to Come for NYC - <AUTHOR> http://ventureminded.me/post/6902073170/foursquares-big-round-a-sign-of-things-to-come

<comment><USER2> I don't get the whole idea of NYC being a startup hub. Sure there is capital here, but the nearest decent engineering school is in Boston and there is not a top-notch state engineering school in the entire northeast. How are you going to have a tech mecca without a read supply of talent? It's easy to wire money to other cities; not so easy to get top talent to relocate to the most expensive city in the country.

<comment><USER3> Actually Cornell is ~4 hours away and is making a push to open a 'tech campus' in NYC proper:

[http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March11/NYCTechCampus.ht...](http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March11/NYCTechCampus.html)

<comment><USER2> True. I keep forgetting Cornell exists.

The lack of good public schools is still an issue I think. The major tech corridors (bay area, research triangle, seattle/portland, northern VA) are all close to top-notch state engineering schools. I worked at a startup in northern Virginia and definitely noticed that having Virginia Tech right there was a great benefit as we grew. I think that's a huge weak-spot for NYC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Foursquare also just opened a San Francisco office in order to be able to hire more technical talent. So, meh.

[http://thenextweb.com/location/2010/11/22/foursquare-to- open...](http://thenextweb.com/location/2010/11/22/foursquare-to-open-san- francisco-office-hire-engineers/)

<comment><USER5> Yes, there's a shortage of engineers in NYC, but that's largely because of high demand. Google and banks and startups are all struggling to hire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If Foursquare is a sign of things to come for NYC, I need to get the fuck out of here asap.

<comment><USER7> LOL

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't really see the motivation begin dethroning SF as the go-to place for startups. NYC is great, a city I personally love, but why can't it co-exist alongside SF? There SHOULD be two great places for startups, not just one. What will make the difference, though, is what types of startups flock to which city and why. No need to start a war, work together and the end result will be a tech industry that will be hard to stop.

</comment><comment><USER9> Really? And did Googles 3 billion acquisition of double-click kickstart the momentum that led to foursquares funding?

Me thinks not. The fact that foursquare, which makes no significant revenue, is now valued at 600 million dollars is the antithesis of what NYC, driven by profit motivated banks, is all about. It's an example of a bubble.

<comment><USER10> Greater fool theory. They hope to dump it on a bigger fool and make money

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If you don't get the idea of NYC being a startup hub, take a look at this post: [http://ventureminded.me/post/5891689041/why-nyc-will-win- out...](http://ventureminded.me/post/5891689041/why-nyc-will-win-out-over-the- valley)

Also, even though Foursquare opened up a SF office, the key point is that it is BASED in NYC. The app still says "made in NYC." Dens is an East Coast guy, and that's what matters. If Zuck started Facebook now, he just as easily could have stayed in Boston or come to NYC (he's from just outside the city). However, in 2004, he had no choice but to go to the Valley.</comment>


Google Comparison Ads: Mortgages - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/comparisonads/

<comment><USER2> Google hints that it may introduce the format for some other categories, saying it will "increase ... the number of advertisers able to participate."

[http://news.ebrandz.com/google/2009/2939-google-debuts- compa...](http://news.ebrandz.com/google/2009/2939-google-debuts-comparison- ads-aimed-at-mortgage-market.html)</comment>


Edward Snowden's Parasites: Evo Morales, Julian Assange & More - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/edward-snowden-s-parasites-evo-morales-julian-assange-more.html

<comment><USER2> This is a disgusting piece of propaganda, a rant full of name-throwing, misconstructed straw men arguments and easily spotted lies. I can see no reason to have this low level pseudo journalism in HN other than talking about how low are they willing to go.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that it is written a bit casually, but can you explain what the "easily spotted lies" and the misconstructed arguments are? Also, who is "they"?

I know this is not on the official line of most articles that make it to the frontpage, but I thought a different perspective that tries to analyse the motives of Snowden's helpers might be interesting.</comment></comment>


How to improve your pitch process with entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2007/03/14/how-to-improve-your-pitch-process-with-entrepreneurs/ <comment><USER2> This shows the value of human relationships in startups -- the people who are most successful spend time cultivating them, and take a long-term approach to investing their time in them (I may not back this person today but I want to keep up with them to hear about their next big idea)</comment>


Pingdom being hosed by IP 18.104.22.168 (see recent tests) - <AUTHOR> https://tools.pingdom.com <comment><USER2> wow looks like they're using pingdom to mine bitcoin

</comment><comment><AUTHOR>
      ⋊> ~ whois 126.96.36.199

# # ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use # available at: [https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html](https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html) # # If you see inaccuracies in the results, please report at # [https://www.arin.net/public/whoisinaccuracy/index.xhtml](https://www.arin.net/public/whoisinaccuracy/index.xhtml) #

# # The following results may also be obtained via: # [https://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=18.104.22.168?showDetail...](https://whois.arin.net/rest/nets;q=220.127.116.11?showDetails=true&showARIN=false&showNonArinTopLevelNet=false&ext=netref2) #

NetRange: 220.127.116.11 - 18.104.22.168 CIDR: 126.96.36.199/16 NetName: DIGITALOCEAN-9 NetHandle: NET-104-131-0-0-1 Parent: NET104 (NET-104-0-0-0-0) NetType: Direct Allocation OriginAS: AS46652, AS14061, AS393406, AS62567 Organization: DigitalOcean, LLC (DO-13) RegDate: 2014-06-02 Updated: 2014-06-02 Comment: [http://www.digitalocean.com](http://www.digitalocean.com) Comment: Simple Cloud Hosting Ref: [https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-104-131-0-0-1](https://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-104-131-0-0-1)

OrgName: DigitalOcean, LLC OrgId: DO-13 Address: 101 Ave of the Americas Address: 10th Floor City: New York StateProv: NY PostalCode: 10013 Country: US RegDate: 2012-05-14 Updated: 2017-07-03 Comment: [http://www.digitalocean.com](http://www.digitalocean.com) Comment: Simple Cloud Hosting Ref: [https://whois.arin.net/rest/org/DO-13](https://whois.arin.net/rest/org/DO-13)

OrgTechHandle: NOC32014-ARIN OrgTechName: Network Operations Center OrgTechPhone: +1-347-875-6044 OrgTechEmail: firstname.lastname@example.com OrgTechRef: [https://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NOC32014-ARIN](https://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NOC32014-ARIN)

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE5232-ARIN OrgAbuseName: Abuse, DigitalOcean OrgAbusePhone: +1-347-875-6044 OrgAbuseEmail: firstname.lastname@example.com OrgAbuseRef: [https://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ABUSE5232-ARIN](https://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ABUSE5232-ARIN)

OrgNOCHandle: NOC32014-ARIN OrgNOCName: Network Operations Center OrgNOCPhone: +1-347-875-6044 OrgNOCEmail: firstname.lastname@example.com OrgNOCRef: [https://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NOC32014-ARIN](https://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/NOC32014-ARIN)

# # ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use # available at: [https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html](https://www.arin.net/whois_tou.html) # # If you see inaccuracies in the results, please report at # [https://www.arin.net/public/whoisinaccuracy/index.xhtml](https://www.arin.net/public/whoisinaccuracy/index.xhtml)</comment>