Topic: Bitcoin Shrinking - The Long View - page 9. (Read 19401 times)
And in other news, flat trading on the BTC Exchanges has led to rife trolling and infighting on the interwebs. One trader is said to have assaulted another upon hearing something about his mother's head going in unison with past volatility. The resulting brawl on to the street led to excessive intercourse between the parties with onlookers recoiling in horror. The local police would have intervened but no-one it seems was willing to fund the contract to so due to the local economy focus on mining.....
The long term trend for bitcoin value is contraction, not expansion.
Here's the fact of the matter:
+ Bitcoin just enjoyed more media exposure over the past 3 months than can reasonably be expected to occur anywhere in the near future. There's just nothing newsworthy forthcoming unless there is something scandalous that happens again, and we're just about out of interesting scandals. We've made the rounds from illegal purchasing to hacking to market failures.
There's just nothing left to get the attention of corporate media. The fact is that no-one cares about bitcoin as a medium of exchange, except a small core constituency of idealists here on these forums. It HAD newsworthy spectacle value as prices skyrocketed and people "got rich quick," but those times are over. There is nothing left of newsworthy value.
Here's the fact of the matter:
+ Bitcoin just enjoyed more media exposure over the past 3 months than can reasonably be expected to occur anywhere in the near future. There's just nothing newsworthy forthcoming unless there is something scandalous that happens again, and we're just about out of interesting scandals. We've made the rounds from illegal purchasing to hacking to market failures.
There's just nothing left to get the attention of corporate media. The fact is that no-one cares about bitcoin as a medium of exchange, except a small core constituency of idealists here on these forums. It HAD newsworthy spectacle value as prices skyrocketed and people "got rich quick," but those times are over. There is nothing left of newsworthy value.
It's true that Bitcoin was suddenly thrust into the media spotlight as a result of several co-ordinated blog posts. It is also true that a lot of speculators charged in and bought up bitcoins through exchanges as a way of making a quick buck. Prices went through the roof as a consequence and the story of that bubble sparked more media coverage in either a virtuous or vicious circle depending on your point of view. Virtuous if you wanted a quick buck, vicious if you were hoping to get more of the economic infrastructure (like EPOS, instant transactions etc) in place before it went mainstream.
The media will grab anything and everything that will help it draw attention to itself. There are a multitude of ways that bitcoin will be able make news in the future as others earlier in this topic have shown. This news could be good "Synaptic becomes first Bitcoin Billionaire - buys island in 10 minutes". Or it could be bad, see previous headline
+ The price run-up happened SOLELY on hype alone. There's not much analysis that needs to be done here. It was clearly a bubble that started with the Silk Road coverage, inflated with the mining crazy, and ended with the Gox scandal. That's it folks. Bitcoin jumped the shark 3 weeks ago.
I disagree with this viewpoint. I think that Bitcoin has gone through a taste of mainstream attention and the services built on it were caught entirely by surprise. The fundamental operation of the currency was utterly unfazed. Lessons have been learned, and further developments are incorporating those insights. However, it takes time to develop new and improved code and so this is a quiet time for Bitcoin while more solid infrastructure is built.
+ The current "stability" is no such thing. There is no stability when there's no backing economy. The only "stability" we're seeing is roughly the same sub 10-15,000 (could be exceedingly lower, and possibly a bit higher though doubtfully) "investors" propping up the price and using trading bots to maintain the appearance of a functioning market and "stability."
The fact is that the market has been on a slow and steady DECLINE ever since Gox came back online. This is because there is no new blood entering the market, just the same old speculators throwing more of their paychecks into it; BUT, not enough to grow the market. That's why were seeing a steady loss of a few cents of USD value everyday. And this will continue for the long haul.
The fact is that the market has been on a slow and steady DECLINE ever since Gox came back online. This is because there is no new blood entering the market, just the same old speculators throwing more of their paychecks into it; BUT, not enough to grow the market. That's why were seeing a steady loss of a few cents of USD value everyday. And this will continue for the long haul.
Here you have made a very interesting observation. In my experience Bitcoin is currently seen as a currency speculation or medium term investment vehicle (3-5 years). What is desperately needed by the economy is for more people to spend their bitcoins on goods and services just like they do with other currencies. But this flies in the face of why many people bought them in the first place: to sit on them for the long term and reap the reward. Unfortunately, the Bitcoin economy will not grow with this attitude unless first time buyers continuously arrive and purchase bitcoins. In order to reap that reward a fraction of the money investors have set aside to buy BTCs must be spent on stuff that those investors need on a regular basis. So instead of buying a new set of headphones with local currency, Bitcoin investors should attempt to seek out a vendor willing to sell them in bitcoins. The price should be about the same and the overall economy will grow just a little bit leading to an increased in the relative value of your earliest position.
+ Echoing the same dilemma of 3 months ago when bitcoin began catching on with speculators, "Where is the bitcoin economy." Well folks, this is it. The list of bitcoin merchants hasn't grown at all, and in fact if you browse the Trade section of bitcoin.org itself, and explore some of the merchants there you'll find that some of them have removed their bitcoin advertisements and no longer APPEAR to accept it. I encourage you to peruse them and see for yourself, because during that excercise you'll also see that basically all businesses listed are extremely small time, mom and pop shop operations, and most of them quite amateur at that. That is your bitcoin economy. That is what you have to work with now, and for any reasonable foreseeable future.
I agree that Amazon has not embraced Bitcoin just yet. Microsoft are a little slow to the table here, and perhaps Apple could have made more of an effort. However other large organisations are taking an interest, particularly those dealing with large sums of paper cash. (It costs a lot to securely move cash to and from the bank every day). The benefits that Bitcoin can bring to large organisations are manyfold, and anything that reduces operating costs is generally seen as a good thing. But, no-one is going to start adopting Bitcoin without seeing solid proof that it works in the mainstream. And getting there is really, really hard.
This is not a thread about the speculation of bitcoin's future, these are the facts.
All discussion about the future is by definition speculation, unless it is based entirely in mathematics when it becomes a fact. Bitcoin is based entirely in mathematics.
Even if new forum registrations could be used as some sort of correlation to Bitcoin's overall interest, you would need to also know the number of inactive accounts to draw any sort of conclusion. We can only see the inflow but none of the outflow and it would be foolish to assume everyone who has joined this forum continues to be actively interested.
That is quite true, so either way there's appears still to be no conclusive data to indicate if the number of real human participants are increasing/stagnant/decreasing.
However, anecdotal evidence suggests increase. For a while I was quite puzzled by the surge of interest in used 5xxx series ATI cards in my local hardware forums. Then there were vendors telling me about odd buying patterns with people snatching up as many as 8~10 pieces of aging 5xxx inventory they never thought they could get rid of at decent pricing. This coincide with the Bitcoin media coverage since late Jun as well.
Now since the overall network hashrate is increasing, with no real significant breakthrough in hashing hardware for the past six months or so, it would seem to imply that the overall number of participants joining is greater than those leaving.
Miners do not bring value to bitcoin. In fact miners actually drive the price steadily downward without the influx of new money equaling current market price * 7200 per 24hrs. Since that is very unlikely to continue, we'll just see a steady bleeding of value as miners get desperate and keep selling off coins to cover costs and recoup investment, just as we're seeing. As I said, BTC has been on a slow burn decline ever since Gox opened back up.
Miners are into bitcoin to profit in USD, except the zealots/speculators who hoard, and they're neither hurting nor helping bitcoin.
Bottom line, miners mean jack shit to the value of bitcoin as a "currency" or even a speculative vehicle, since the amount of bitcoins introduced to the market daily remains the same.
Even if new forum registrations could be used as some sort of correlation to Bitcoin's overall interest, you would need to also know the number of inactive accounts to draw any sort of conclusion. We can only see the inflow but none of the outflow and it would be foolish to assume everyone who has joined this forum continues to be actively interested.
That is quite true, so either way there's appears still to be no conclusive data to indicate if the number of real human participants are increasing/stagnant/decreasing.
However, anecdotal evidence suggests increase. For a while I was quite puzzled by the surge of interest in used 5xxx series ATI cards in my local hardware forums. Then there were vendors telling me about odd buying patterns with people snatching up as many as 8~10 pieces of aging 5xxx inventory they never thought they could get rid of at decent pricing. This coincide with the Bitcoin media coverage since late Jun as well.
Now since the overall network hashrate is increasing, with no real significant breakthrough in hashing hardware for the past six months or so, it would seem to imply that the overall number of participants joining is greater than those leaving.
Even if new forum registrations could be used as some sort of correlation to Bitcoin's overall interest, you would need to also know the number of inactive accounts to draw any sort of conclusion. We can only see the inflow but none of the outflow and it would be foolish to assume everyone who has joined this forum continues to be actively interested.
What? That's crazy talk son. Correlation == Causation. Always.
Bitcoin Forum accounts come in, Market Value soars to new heights.
Never a miscommunication.
Even if new forum registrations could be used as some sort of correlation to Bitcoin's overall interest, you would need to also know the number of inactive accounts to draw any sort of conclusion. We can only see the inflow but none of the outflow and it would be foolish to assume everyone who has joined this forum continues to be actively interested.
The "kids" who "wasted" their time and money in '09, '10, and early 11 with this could now buy an entire data center with the proceeds. The exact same arguments were made then, are made now and I guarantee you will be made until bitcoin either becomes mainstream or disappears. Check back in a year to see which is more likely. At some point those arguments could all be right, or they will all be proven wrong. IMO there's no reason to believe the point is now.
Developing a $ to BTC exchange and mining pools also seemed like a dumb waste of effort at the time. And look at the income they're generating today.
Those being negative then have nothing to show for their efforts. The ones taking risks and initiative, however, are pretty well off.
Developing a $ to BTC exchange and mining pools also seemed like a dumb waste of effort at the time. And look at the income they're generating today.
Those being negative then have nothing to show for their efforts. The ones taking risks and initiative, however, are pretty well off.
Hypothetically well off, since in reality it's difficult to pull much value out of the system without totally crashing the entire market a la the Gox hacking which was only like what, 200k BTC that got sold, and crashed the whole fucking thing to $0.00? Not only that, but that's not 200k odd BTC that sold at the then $20 price-tag, no. The lions share of that sell off was had at absurdly low values. If I'm not mistaken I think more than half of it started being sold around $4-.01c. So the argument that there is outrageous wealth in the bitcoin market is patently false. At most they can hope the scheme keeps bringing in new blood so they can progressively cash out, just like all the miners do. But they certainly aren't going to be pawning off massive amounts of BTC and buying a new Porsche in a day, or even a week...or month, or year at these prices/market depth!
The reality is that yes, they are making a nice hefty RELATIVE profit on their original speculation, but so are the Amway founders and VitaLife and all the other founders/early adopters of other multi-level marketing schemes that very closely resemble what bitcoin exists as today.
I see this thread has been moved to Speculation. It should have been moved to Facts 
The "kids" who "wasted" their time and money in '09, '10, and early 11 with this could now buy an entire data center with the proceeds. The exact same arguments were made then, are made now and I guarantee you will be made until bitcoin either becomes mainstream or disappears. Check back in a year to see which is more likely. At some point those arguments could all be right, or they will all be proven wrong. IMO there's no reason to believe the point is now.
Developing a $ to BTC exchange and mining pools also seemed like a dumb waste of effort at the time. And look at the income they're generating today.
Those being negative then have nothing to show for their efforts. The ones taking risks and initiative, however, are pretty well off.
Developing a $ to BTC exchange and mining pools also seemed like a dumb waste of effort at the time. And look at the income they're generating today.
Those being negative then have nothing to show for their efforts. The ones taking risks and initiative, however, are pretty well off.
Here's the fact of the matter:
Before I go on, I'd just like to say that I generally agree with you in the short run. In the long run, nobody knows.
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+ Bitcoin just enjoyed more media exposure over the past 3 months than can reasonably be expected to occur anywhere in the near future. There's just nothing newsworthy forthcoming unless there is something scandalous that happens again, and we're just about out of interesting scandals. We've made the rounds from illegal purchasing to hacking to market failures.
There's just nothing left to get the attention of corporate media. The fact is that no-one cares about bitcoin as a medium of exchange, except a small core constituency of idealists here on these forums. It HAD newsworthy spectacle value as prices skyrocketed and people "got rich quick," but those times are over. There is nothing left of newsworthy value.
There's just nothing left to get the attention of corporate media. The fact is that no-one cares about bitcoin as a medium of exchange, except a small core constituency of idealists here on these forums. It HAD newsworthy spectacle value as prices skyrocketed and people "got rich quick," but those times are over. There is nothing left of newsworthy value.
I'm not sure these are "facts". I stumbled upon bitcoin while google/wiki surfing and didn't know anything about these scandals. There are probably others like me who will find out and get interested. So to say that "no-one" would care about bitcoin because it isn't newsworthy and/orwithout these scandals would not be factual, even if I'm the only one
Secondly, your claim of 3 months of media exposure doesn't seem quite right. Checking up on these scandals, indicate that the first (Silkroad) only started in late Jun so it's only one month of real media exposure. Unless you mean some other scandals apart from the 3 you specified?
Thirdly, claiming there's "nothing left" to get attention of the corporate media is indulging in crystal-ball gazing isn't it? Who knows if next week some celebrity stumble would upon this (maybe while trying to get a discreet drug fix) and decides to hype it up to his/her 100,000 twitter followers and 200,000 facebook fans?
So fact of the matter is that your "facts" aren't that factual as well.
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+ The price run-up happened SOLELY on hype alone. There's not much analysis that needs to be done here. It was clearly a bubble that started with the Silk Road coverage, inflated with the mining craze, and ended with the Gox scandal. That's it folks. Bitcoin jumped the shark 3 weeks ago.
This I would agree fully excerpt the jump the shark part since I'm not sure what you mean by that, sorry, I'm not American/British.
However, looking before Jun, I'd say there was already a slow crawl upwards in price, the current downtrend seems to be simply market correction and likely to settle somewhat higher than before in the next couple of months if I may dare to speculate, around the $9~$12 range perhaps.
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+ The current "stability" is no such thing. There is no stability when there's no backing economy. The only "stability" we're seeing is roughly the same sub 10-15,000 (could be exceedingly lower, and possibly a bit higher though doubtfully) "investors" propping up the price and using trading bots to maintain the appearance of a functioning market and "stability."
The fact is that the market has been on a slow and steady DECLINE ever since Gox came back online. This is because there is no new blood entering the market, just the same old speculators throwing more of their paychecks into it; BUT, not enough to grow the market. That's why were seeing a steady loss of a few cents of USD value everyday. And this will continue for the long haul.
The fact is that the market has been on a slow and steady DECLINE ever since Gox came back online. This is because there is no new blood entering the market, just the same old speculators throwing more of their paychecks into it; BUT, not enough to grow the market. That's why were seeing a steady loss of a few cents of USD value everyday. And this will continue for the long haul.
I'd disagree since there is no data to prove that there are less real humans investing into the system. While forum registrations is not a hard metric, it does serve as an indication that more newcomers are getting into this.
For the decline part, as I mentioned earlier, for the time being, it can only be described as a correction. In the long term, nobody knows. If you could predict markets with such certainty, then you would be making bilions elsewhere, not wasting time here
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+ Echoing the same dilemma of 3 months ago when bitcoin began catching on with speculators, "Where is the bitcoin economy." Well folks, this is it. The list of bitcoin merchants hasn't grown at all, and in fact if you browse the Trade section of bitcoin.org itself, and explore some of the merchants there you'll find that some of them have removed their bitcoin advertisements and no longer APPEAR to accept it. I encourage you to peruse them and see for yourself, because during that excercise you'll also see that basically all businesses listed are extremely small time, mom and pop shop operations, and most of them quite amateur at that. That is your bitcoin economy. That is what you have to work with now, and for any reasonable foreseeable future.
I've not checked out every single listing but I would agree that this economy is key to the long term viability of Bitcoin. However for any market to thrive, there must be enough users. So the more people who get Bitcoins and ironically maybe the lower the dollar value, the more likely an economy will bloom since people would want to be able to use their existing bitcoin in exchange for something. Once the volume of trade starts to grow internally, things should start to snowball at accelerating rate.
There are many smart people thinking of things that could be bought for bitcoins so I wouldn't be so sure that none of the come up with a killer idea that will help propel the bitcoin economy into long term sustainability.
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This is not a thread about the speculation of bitcoin's future, these are the facts.
As shown, not all of what you claim are facts and ultimately facts are also subjected to interpretation
Neither of those things are about to happen. Not in a month, not in two, not in 6. There's nothing on the horizon for bitcoin, and that's what this thread was started for. The mining boom is over. Silk Road is out of the bag. We had a huge scandal that met the ADHD attention span of the mainstream media. It's done for the long term.
We have a lot of patience though. I don't care if it takes 5, 10 years to adopt bitcoin on larger scale. There isn't any hurry. Look how Linux started, or any other open source project.And well, I find that admirable. I think if you're really behind something like this you should be in it as a life goal. I have no gripes against you for that at all.
Unfortunately there's a lot of kids here who are wasting their time and money gambling on something that's patently incompatible with modern society and culture. Not only that, but the very fundamental infrastructure and programming of bitcoin "1.0" is absurd and poorly thought out.
In fact I belive in an eventual viable crypto-currency, WITH global adoption. I'm actually a supporter of a One World Government (I actually believe we already have one by defacto standards of operation) and obviously there will need to be an currency that transcends geography.
Bitcoin 1.0 isn't it though, and I feel it's useless to continue wasting kids time with it.
Though it sure is cool as hell to pay off a bit of your gaming rig with it, I'll agree.
The long view - our Sun will exhaust its energy. Everyone dies - Bitcoin becomes totally useless. The end! Or is it?
+ Echoing the same dilemma of 3 months ago when bitcoin began catching on with speculators, "Where is the bitcoin economy." Well folks, this is it. The list of bitcoin merchants hasn't grown at all, and in fact if you browse the Trade section of bitcoin.org itself, and explore some of the merchants there you'll find that some of them have removed their bitcoin advertisements and no longer APPEAR to accept it. I encourage you to peruse them and see for yourself, because during that excercise you'll also see that basically all businesses listed are extremely small time, mom and pop shop operations, and most of them quite amateur at that. That is your bitcoin economy. That is what you have to work with now, and for any reasonable foreseeable future.
You ignore the number of entrepreneurs that discovered Bitcoin in the last 3 months and are now investing in the Bitcoin infrastructure and products/services that makes sense at this time. It takes time to develop and market that.
I saw a story about a guy developing a bitcoin "ATM" and another working on a bitcoin POS system. And then of course all your run of the mill "early adopters" running amateur websites for primarily virtual services and oddball goods and basically accepting bitcoin as a novelty (bitsnacks or whatever the hell it's called, anyone? Yeah, let's pay a huge markup on snacks that could be had for 50% at COSTCO...why? Pure novelty, period.).
There's plenty of examples of failed investors/inventors, and this sadly will be one of them. I feel bad for them because in the case of the POS and ATM guys, they're obviously really clever and using their minds. However it's unfortunate that they're gambling on ideals and circumstances which simply do not fit the mainstream appeal and never will. Otherwise their ingenuity would serve them extremely well.
Neither of those things are about to happen. Not in a month, not in two, not in 6. There's nothing on the horizon for bitcoin, and that's what this thread was started for. The mining boom is over. Silk Road is out of the bag. We had a huge scandal that met the ADHD attention span of the mainstream media. It's done for the long term.
We have a lot of patience though. I don't care if it takes 5, 10 years to adopt bitcoin on larger scale. There isn't any hurry. Look how Linux started, or any other open source project. 
This thread really has gone to hell. Let's stick to the issues, please, as I will have a very bad day if I have to spend the rest of the afternoon deleting personal attacks.
No my argument actually doesn't boil down to that, you're just too stupid to read the top post and reply with any type of substantial rebuttal.
And you're the bright bulb who can't figure out "The Long View" doesn't mean "next week." For the rest of the month, sure, your points make sense. I already said taking a myopic view I agree with you.
Long term none of that matters.
Change your title to "Re: Bitcoin Shrinking - the next week view. Probably." and we're in violent agreement.
"The Long View" is exactly as long as it takes for:
A. More media hype to drive empty money into bitcoin
AND/OR
B. The "bitcoin economy" to pickup and grow.
Neither of those things are about to happen. Not in a month, not in two, not in 6. There's nothing on the horizon for bitcoin, and that's what this thread was started for. The mining boom is over. Silk Road is out of the bag. We had a huge scandal that met the ADHD attention span of the mainstream media. It's done for the long term.
Now we just watch the value bleed...
I've put a bit of money & time into btc. I too have concerns about it's future.
There is not enough critics on this forum. It's like browsing crackberry.
Often anytime something critical of bitcoin is mentioned a parade of fanbois drown it.
It's really in my best interest for btc to succeed. I don't want to look stupid.
Bitcoin is technically sound. It seems the majority of what backs bitcoin is not.
HURR DURR, I TYHINK YOU MEAN "THERE AREN'T" HURR DURR. WELCOME TO THE BITCOIN FORUMS: THE ALTERNATIVE SPELL CHECKER AND GRAMMAR ENGINE.
In all seriousness, thank you. That's why I started posting here, because there is such banality that has lead a personal friend into folly (no, not you you know who you are, the "other guy"), that I find it both an honor and also quite entertaining to put up with the banal douchebags that frequent this place to potentially give some of the lurkers some perspective.
You don't look stupid. You're one of the few people that have posted in this thread that actually seems to have the ability to reason critically.
IMHO it's way too early to gauge the direction of the BTC based on temporary spike in the charts.
Agreed. Reading tea leaves here.
As I said once before... a monkey with a ouija board has a better chance of predicting where this is going than anyone here... but it's fun to correct the mistakes made by the little trolls.
I love you buddy. Here, let's hug.
Group hug everyone.
No my argument actually doesn't boil down to that, you're just too stupid to read the top post and reply with any type of substantial rebuttal.
And you're the bright bulb who can't figure out "The Long View" doesn't mean "next week." For the rest of the month, sure, your points make sense. I already said taking a myopic view I agree with you.
Long term none of that matters.
Change your title to "Re: Bitcoin Shrinking - the next week view. Probably." and we're in violent agreement.
I've put a bit of money & time into btc. I too have concerns about it's future.
There is not enough critics on this forum. It's like browsing crackberry.
Often anytime something critical of bitcoin is mentioned a parade of fanbois drown it.
It's really in my best interest for btc to succeed. I don't want to look stupid.
Bitcoin is technically sound. It seems the majority of what backs bitcoin is not.
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