I agree with all the points that there are still billions of people with just a faint understanding of what Bitcoin is or how it could benefit them and perhaps many who don't even read the technology side of their news sources. My point though is that no amount of generic news or hype will get these people into Bitcoin. Most people aren't aware of the problems associated with governments fiat printing and probably couldn't be asked to do anything about it if they did. As far as they're concerned Bitcoin is a solution without a problem to fix. Think about something like 'Evernote' app - people who use it swear by it and think its the greatest thing ever, those who have heard about it once have already gotten into it or thought its not for them.
Another cycle of hype/awareness and a series of news reports is not going to be whats going to convince those lazy sheep of the population to finally get into Bitcoin. The type of people who would be interested in being early adopters in Bitcoin have probably all been exposed to BTC and already made their decision.
So if we have really run out of early adopters that will jump into Bitcoin sheerly through awareness/hype - then any further growth has to come from actual improvements in usability, practicality, and yes trust. What I'm saying is we can't rely on a subset of a population (early adopters) just 'hearing' about Bitcoin for it to skyrocket any longer. The news from now on has to be things like major businesses offering attracting discounts for BTC users, or maybe some businesses accepting only BTC (forcing users to it), or perhaps a new application of BTC that is so much more conveniant than anything else (perhaps in gaming or something), or a major financial catastrophe etc..
People have gotten abit greedy over the last 2 boom cycles that its super easy for BTC to appreciate in value - but I feel those 'easy' manic growths are over and from here onwards its going to be a slow gradual grind gaining increasing acceptance. Institutional investors are the exception here, if they get into it we can see huge gains again without much infrastructure/usage developments to back it.
Why don't you just sell your bitcoins and leave the forum. You were talking about how China's new was a gamechanger and it was over.
Ok. Maybe you are right. So why are you here?
Obviously most people on here believe that bitcoin has a viable future and will flourish. Most of us weren't expecting to be at $1200 by November. But it happened. What can you do?
We only have to grow 10x more to get to 10k. We grew at 700x+ this year. So do you really think its unreasonable? With the ETF coming out. With more merchant adoption. With exchanges opening up in different countries. With VC projects like Circle.com working on creating killer apps and merchant adoption type online applications.
So, this is as high as it EVER goes?
If you think so, great.
Most of us have a different opinion obviously.
I could ask you the same question. What are you doing in this thread. Why not just leave and keep quiet. What are you doing here ?
Just join the "price goes to 10.000" guys. No reason to attack people who obviously have a greater sense of risk coming with Bitcoin. Some people are shouting even 5000 next year.
It is very rude to discredit people who have valid points. For me you look like another angry bull who is fearing to lose part of his investment.
Ok. But I do not think the hype/awareness "stage" is over. I do not think a majority of the worlds population knows about bitcoin. Also, most people have to hear about a thing several times before they adopt it.
Yes, bitcoin has been all over the news for two months. But most people still dont understand it and its not easily accessible either.
If there was a cool app that allowed people to easily grab and use some, then that would be another story.
I think there is plenty of more awareness to go. As far as hype, news stories run in cycles. If bitcoin goes to 2k there will be more hype. 3k? More hype. ETF. More hype. U.S. exchange. More hype.
Plenty of room for hype.
This kind of reply I can appreciate. Here are my responses to your points:
-People have to hear about something multiple times before adopting: This is true , some people behave this way. However this is a gradual drawn out process whereas early adopters are quick to jump on something almost immediately. At this point the people who will jump on Bitcoin almost immediately upon hearing about it, I would argue, are exhausted. There are millions of people who will adopt it later when it makes more sense for them, but thats another stage I believe like 'mass adoption'.
-Bitcoin not easily accessible yet/no cool app: These are developments that will bring in more people I agree but this is what I would call technological/infrastructure/usage developments. This is not part of the hype/awareness stage.
-Hype will keep building at 2k, 3k etc: I don't think those milestones will be as impactful as when we hit 100 or 1000, perhaps at 10,000 it will be enough to turn the heads of some real whales, who knows. This is kind of a circular logic though, you're saying if it keeps rising then it will keep giving itself hype to make it rise more and so forth. And the point is hype only affects a certain segment of the population so this tactic has to stop being effective at some point.
I guess what I'm saying in a short sentence is:
we might have reached a point where new hype should start to give diminishing returns in terms of adoption and consequently price appreciation.
