If Martin's model is to be believed. How low can we expect Bitcoin to go? and by When? Is Under $100 in Spring of '16 a safe bet?
I think bitcoin does not go low, he doesnt state anything about bitcoin
Dollar going high is pretty much the same as bitcoin going low, all else being equal.
On what basis?
I see so many people here attempting to comment about Armstrong's classification of Private vs Public and they haven't taken the time to understand what he means by the distinction. How can someone feel they are capable of commenting on something they haven't even taken the time to get the definition of? It would be likely speaking a language without having ever opened a dictionary to understand the meaning of words.
Public means the confidence in this asset is correlated with the confidence in government. Private means the confidence in this asset is correlated with the lack of confidence in government.
With that in mind, Bitcoin is clearly Private, because its entire raison d'être, is because we don't trust any government nor central bank to manage the money supply and instead we want that control decentralized into an algorithmic protocol.
Armstrong's entire point about whether the US stock market would double before 2015.75 or after, was all about whether US stocks (and the dollar) would continue to behave as a Public asset, or would they phase shift and become a Private asset (and rise while interest rates are rising, i.e. rising when the general economic outlook is tightening and worsening thus not being bought for income potential but rather like gold bought for being a hedge against government). It became clear by the end of 2014 that the latter was the case.
What has happen is the entire world will look at the dollar and US stocks as a hedge against the collapse of government every where outside the USA from 2015.75 to 2017.9 (not because stocks can't be confiscated by government but because it will be the only mainsteam, high market cap asset not collapsing). After 2017.9, the world will become very confused because the artificial boost the USA got from the stampede of international capital into the USA during that period will have peaked and with the sky high dollar (and stock valuations) and the rest of the world utterly imploding due to being short the dollar and overloaded with debt, the USA will start to implode. So after 2017.9, capital is going to be very confused where to turn to. At that point, the dollar and stocks may shift back towards Public assets especially if the USA and other governments start to attack all traceable assets. At that point, all that will be remaining are gold and any crypto that can survive the onslaught by government capital controls and interference with the internet. But one big problem is these private assets do not have sufficient market cap to absorb the $trillions of international capital (and their market caps can't grow that fast without becoming speculative bubbles that will burst due to the wealth effect where market caps rise faster than the capital actually invested in the market cap[1]). If the government is able to block all avenues for Private wealth, then we will collapse into a Dark Age where only food is money.
So in 2016, there will be growing lack of confidence in government worldwide, growing attacks on wealth by governments, and thus more desire for Private assets. The lowest hanging fruit with the largest market cap is the US dollar and US stocks (if for example the USA is benefiting enough from the ingress of capital to raise interest rates and avoid any increase in onerous capital controls for the time being). Other private assets that are speculative in nature will also catch a bid, such as crypto and gold, because there doesn't take much interest to send their market caps up and ignite the speculative ingress (speculative ducks following each other). But first we have to get through this liquidity crunch as capital runs to the safe haven of short-term bonds given the contagion in Europe, China, Japan, and now enveloping Brazil and even Australia. The BIG BANG is this contagion running to short-term bonds which will be the final peak in sovereign bonds, and when interest rates start rising they will be very caustic because government debts have moved mostly short-term thus interest on the debt will rise very quickly.
There won't be any global monetary reset before 2020.05. We have to go through the pain first before all the nations will be accepting of such. I am not clear yet if the global monetary reset will come 2020ish or more towards 2024 - 2032.
[1] | This is why one of my big goals with an altcoin is to try to radically accelerate use as a currency with microtransactions, because I see that may be the only way to scale fast enough without a speculative bubble. It is a long shot, but I am trying. We've got to get that ball rolling now, so sufficient scale can be achieved before the end of 2017. |