The Bitcoin Economy cost some kind of effort, we can calculate it pretty easy in fiat money, in USD it is equal of 7200 x actual price / day. That is the fact long term, short term many things can happen. The miners pay for their bitcoins as well, it is a cost, same way it cost money for the fiat buyers. The Bitcoin Economy isn't that big today to handle a 4-5 dollar price with todays inflation rate. Maybe it can handle a 3 dollar price, but more likely it will go down to two dollars again.
What we might be looking at is an increase of demand because of speculation. And speculation is a good thing: it pushes the price up. The amount of Bitcoins minted each day is a constant until December 2012, and if we assume this is supply then demand only needs to stay constant for price to not go down. As speculation increases, demand will increase with it - fueling a bull market.
Yes, but the price of one Bitcoin makes a lot more harder to sustain when it is at 5-6 dollars, sustaining high prices would have to give a lot of money/effort in some way to this Economy long term. Once again, because of the high inflation environment for every dollar the price is higher it will need to get around 2,6 million dollars in to the Economy in some way, let it be miners that keep their Bitcoins or fresh fiat buyers at the exchanges. This is a fact, short term people miss this fundamental fact and then cry ans ask why the price is once again down. Because of that every intelligent investor should now that and take advantage of that and don't get caught in the exaggerated bull thinking.
by making the Economy argument you are totally dismissing speculation or investor demand.
explain to me for instance why gold is at $1700? there is zero economy wrapped around that.
I thought more of you cypherdoc, now I understand why you are a super bull, you don't get the fundamentals. Gold is very special, why? Because the total amount of gold and the gold that is refined every year are very very different, the amount is something like 2 % a year that is added to total amount (supply) of gold, that is the reason new supply doesn't have a big impact. Bitcoin will be there some day as well, in like 6-7 years time. Today the inflation rate is around 30 %. If gold had a inflation rate of 30 % the price should have been at around the cost of creating it (plus a margin of a couple of %). Do you see the point now?
but markets tend to be forward looking indicators. the market will not wait 6-7 years to price Bitcoin appropriately; they will today tend to project forward as best as possible what they think Bitcoin will be worth once the inflation has plateaued.
also you didn't really answer my gold question. without an economy behind it, how is it that the price of gold has gone from $250 in 2001 to $1700 today? answer: speculation. the exact same thing can and will happen, IMO, to Bitcoin.
Two things, markets look 6 month in the future not six years (generally). Second, speculation yes, that is one part on the answer the other one is a hedge against fiat currency's.
as a rational participant in this market, i can tell you that i am looking way further into the future than 6 mo. i have based my investment decisions on the calculated value of Bitcoin after the inflation has plateaued.
granted there are various ways to make that calculation depending on how bullish you are but surely one way is to take US money supply and divide by 21 million.