Topic: Bitcoin 2014 Prediction (Read 1472 times)

Yeppers.  I've been referring to the increased acceptance by merchants as "organic growth" to counter arguments that the price has been purely driven by speculation.  There is a lot of evidence of this growing exponentially.  Has anyone taken a stab at measuring it? 

We know that Bitpay alone processed over $100 million in transactions, and currently has over 15,500 merchants. 

http://blog.bitpay.com/2013/12/bitpay-exceeds-100000000-in-bitcoin.html

Erik,  I agree.  This is the appeal of Bitcoin, it isn't pegged to any one economic system but rather the value that people worldwide asses to it partially based on 1) supply 2) speculation and 3) it's acceptance as currency by merchants. Number 3 is KEY as the more merchants that accept it, the more worldwide validity (psychological precept) that is given to Bitcoin as means of exchange and not just a holder of value... and the more likely it will be here to stay.  

What is going on here is an economic experiment between centralization as well as isolation of currency (currency controlled by a select few in each separate economic system; FED, EU, etc..). vs decentralization and globalization of currency.

What I believe is happening is the FED is just playing hot potato by raising the debt ceiling. It's all a psychological charade to stop people from going on bank runs and people worldwide losing faith in the almighty dollar by just creating more money out of thin air to pay off current debts with future IOUs to prevent a "technical" default.  Kind of like Social Security. The reality is we have ALREADY DEFAULTED time and time again. This is why our dollar keeps losing value every single year. The dollar you earn today is worth less than the dollar you earned last year. This is a historical fact that can't be argued.  This is the major flaw with the centralization of currency, that you trust a select few who may or may not have the best intentions of the public.  It's the future generations that are getting screwed.  I believe there is a statistic out there that every US child born today is already $50K in debt.  

Unless huge massive reform takes place where congress ends all foreign aid (We're broke and in severe debt!!!), puts an end to the economic system they've created based off bribery aka lobbying and the revolving door, nothing will really change.  The dollar will continue losing value and history again backs me on this. All it's going to take is for another powerful country (Russia maybe and most certainly China) to call the US on it's bluff, refuse to accept the worthless US Dollar, and the house of cards that Congress has created by constantly raising the debt ceiling is going to come crashing down.    

T. Williams gave alot lame and failed predictions before. Let's forget him.

What if you were a guy stranded on an island with a couple of girls, and a lot of competing guys, surrounded by fresh water?  

People are social.  Shiny things have value.  History has proven this.  

Barring the imperfect analogy, I wholeheartedly agree with you.  At least, that's what they taught us in economics, and I haven't seen concrete evidence to counter that the USD is backed by faith in the US economy.  

Yet, in light of the recent debt crisis in the EU and the US, and the complexity behind the systemic risk, I question that "the economy" suffices to describe what backs it.  Obviously, the economy does matter.  System risk is certainly lower with a robust economy.  Growth counters debt.  But, if it was just the economy, then why do we need a central bank "to rescue" us?  Why create more debt to resolve solvency issues in Greece?  Why print money?  Why have interest rates near 0%?  With all of this happening, what tools are left if there is another crisis?  

Then, to bring it to contrast, where does bitcoin fit in all of this?  While it has its own systemic risks, is it immune from these traditional ones?  In purely economic terms, it is certainly looking appealing to the saver.  

  



 

It's good to see some people actually using their brain.

Gold itself also has no intrinsic or meaningful value from a utilitarian perspective other than the one humanity collectively psychologically assesses to it on the premise that the rarer it is, the more value we all decide to asses upon it.  Think about this, if you were stranded in middle of a desert, what good would 7,000 Oz of gold do for you?  At that point, a bottle of water is more valuable than all that gold.  Other than being paper weight or a door stopper, it has absolutely no practical use.  Bitcoin is similar. It's 1K now because there are people that have psychologically placed that value on it and are willing to pay that amount. Whether Bitcoin keeps going up or ends up falling in value, the realty that seems to be unfolding based on the fact that more and more merchants are accepting it is that it's here to stay.

USD also has no intrinsic value at all other than the one the Federal Reserve assesses to it and what humanity collectively psychologically assess to it to come up with its value.  It's essentially putting faith in the United States economic system.   If the US were to default on its payments, the dollar would fall instantly.

All the currency we have today is all psychologically based. The only real form of value exchange is bartering where I trade you a pair of shoes for a sack of potatoes like they did back in the day.

This seems to be discussed a lot.  Can someone please contrast the intrinsic value of the USD to the intrinsic value (or lack thereof) of bitcoin? 

Obviously, if the USD was backed by gold, we'd described the gold as the intrinsic value.  But, since the USD isn't backed by gold, what is its intrinsic value and how does it differ from bitcoin? 

Stupid speculators.

Bitcoin has NO INTRINSIC VALUE.

how many times does mankind need to learn this lesson?

On December 17th, Business Insider published an article called FINANCE PROFESSOR: Bitcoin Will Crash To $10 By Mid-2014. The author, Mark T. Williams, teaches finance, risk management and capital markets at Boston University School of Management and is a former Federal Reserve Bank examiner, according to his Business Insider profile.

I theorize that each of us makes approximately 100-1000 false assumptions per day, inevitably engraved in our nature. Our ability to make a decision based on an assumption is necessary to navigate a car through a snow storm where, you cannot always know for certain which way the road bends, and other skills that let us navigate probability. Unfortunately, despite its ability to helps us in risky situations with unknown variables, more times than not we use it when we shouldn’t to reach conclusions that don’t really help us.

Let’s break down the assumptions that Mark asserts in his article as the foundation for his Bitcoin 2014 prediction, which will be interesting to look back on when 2014 is over. We’ll quote him, then break down the assumption as he builds his case for his 2014 Bitcoin prediction.

Read the rest at Butt Trader...

http://www.butttrader.com/bitcoin-2014-prediction.html