Topic: Reality Check (Read 2696 times)

What exchange has been frozen since April?  I sold 500 in June and had no problem getting the money out of Gox.

haha good one on a more serious note, I invite all the bears come to the btc1k.com party in berlin and raise your concerns there, why limit yourself just to the speculating audience.

Damn, I hadn't realized we were already near break even prices on BFL miners.  I hope for the sake of my mining income we don't move much higher for now.  We could use a break on the difficulty rises.

You can buy BFL single 50GH now with $2500, it will mine 0.04 bitcoin at today's difficulty, and in a difficulty rise at 20% each jump, it will mine 2 coins during its life time. Divide $2500 by 2 coins, you get $1250 per coin, that is the lowest possible cost of one coin

Although the demand is very high (trillions of dollars of savings are ready to be converted into bitcoin, since they are losing purchasing power each passing day), investors will always find the lowest possible cost, which is mining, when mining costs too much, they will buy coins directly on exchange

That's the reality

Yeah, I had some money tied up in Bitfloor for a while when it shut down.  Oh, wait, it was only $500 because I don't trust ANY exchange and immediately move all my coins to offline cold storage.

I do think you have a point that a massive investor could drive the price to $1500 instantly (but it would correct to $1200 just as instantly).  And that if there was a "bank run" these exchanges would have a problem coming up with the funds, which could crash the price.

The question then becomes, do you believe in the long-term potential of bitcoin and buy more cheap or does everyone see it as a failed experiment?

I think the bitcoin non-believers need a reality check. More bubbles and crashes are to come, but if you are unable to look more than a few weeks or months ahead and see the bigger picture in front of you I'm afraid you simply deserve to be left behind. It's financial darwinism at its best.

Especially hardcore bitcoin believers need a reality check. They only see the advantages of bitcoin, and deny most of the disadvantages.

Oh well, time will learn.

No, that doesn't sound right, because that's not how it works.  Unless you can make the exchanges move together, you are just handing money to arbitragers.

Well that's what bubbles tend to do when/if they pop. I don't know what's going to happen, I'm just pointing out the signals I'm seeing.

Yes everyone is free to do as they like and I probably would be in the same boat of riding the magic wave if I didnt have this horrible experience. But this kind of experience is not rare or new for Bitcoin, and I haven't seen any maturity/progression to suggest it won't happen again. Just wanted to send a friendly reminder to some: cash in a portion once in a while, you really never know what kind of BS is going to happen on the exchanges whether it be hacks, or bank problems or some government authorities stepping in, or a good old fashioned crash.

Bullish = exchanges will evolve over time, improving become more transparent increasingly accountable. 

Bearish = exchanges will always rip us off in future. 

You only need 6500 coin purchase to push the price up to 1500 on Gox. So you spend less than 10 million dollars and you can increase the market cap by 4 billion dollars. Does that sound right to you?

My account, and everyone else's, got frozen on BTC-24.com since April. Some recently got their BTC back, most people with fiat still have their money tied up waiting for some obscure investigation. Of course we weren't able to take advantage of this recent surge. Whatever, shit happens.

But Im just warning those that have money in these exchanges to cash out while they can (especially in countries like China where you might NEVER get access back to it if something happens). If youve paid attention, my main gripe is with these exchanges - I don't believe they are suitable for handling billions of dollars of money.

Roughly 10 billion has moved into the cryptocurrency sector in a month, even Ben bernanke gave it a nod of approval imagine what that would have done for gold or silver , so I say it's the bernanke effect after all he is head of the printing presses , the QE Program is churning out 85 billion dollars per month making bitcoins market cap look tiny   

I think it'll continue the same cycle parabolic rise, correction, parabolic rise, correction . Next stop $3000 as it moves higher inevitably it divides and spreads into more hands as the urge to sell increases with each parabolic spike . 

It's interesting to compare it to Internet adoption - 

https://nwww.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=Litecoin&cmpt=q
https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore#q=Bitcoin&cmpt=q

I still remember what I thought about the Internet, email, even utube, when I first heard about them , Internet=what on earths the interweb,  email=who am I going to need to email, utube=who wants to sit and watch other people's home movies 

A conversation you might have in years to come 

Donald :yes I got to know about Bitcoin quite early on old boy.

Randy: that's great Donald, boy that sure is swell you must be rich enough to buy Buckinghamshire palace.

Donald: if only........I sold all my bitcoin when they reached £5000 

Randy : awkward silence 

Donald : awkward silence 

Randy : that sucks. 

This "Bubble" if it is a bubble, is not like any of the other previous bubbles (yet!).

2011, the market rose from 19 to 32 in just over 24 hours before entering a bear market. In 2013 the market rose from 140 to 266 in just over 72 hours before entering a bear market.

And that's what we are talking about here, right? Starting a bear market. Because otherwise its just a correction, not a crash. And we just had a pretty big correction just 10 days ago. Remember? It went from 900-500.

So, when does this bubble pop exactly? Is this one just going to start going down and down and down for no reason out of the blue?

Maybe. But that would be unprecedented.

Didn't mean to sound to harsh, my words were more for the other poster. However, this point you reiterate I ignored originally because it makes no sense. The exchanges have the money that people send them. What extra money do they need. If the price goes up it does so because more money is sent to them by traders. If the price goes down is does so because money is being withdrawn.

Why did your account get frozen? Are you talking about Gox? Did you not verify your account? Your story sounds more suspicious than Bitcoin's price.

I don't think there's anything "ridiculous" about the current price - in the long term.

I DO think we might have gotten here a bit too fast. My personal opinion is that the graphs are looking a quite bit toppish right now, and sentiments here are extremely bullish (which is exactly when you'd expect a big correction.) The problem with bubbles is that they're easy to spot but very hard to time.

Geez, no need to get so worked up.. this is a forum and we're exchanging different points of view. Didn't say Bitcoin will fail, I said its overvalued.

I already told you exactly why I thought so: limited liquidity in barely functioning exchanges coupled with super speculative investors are determining a price that is not sustainable in the least bit nor is it even real because not only do exchanges not have billions of dollars but their banks wouldn't even let them pay it if they did. I could make more arguments but I doubt it matters - people are highly sensitive concerning their ticket to potential riches.

Apples an oranges. Bitcoin is not a single tech company, it is remotely possible that it is an internet of money. If that turns out to be the case then it would be fairer to compare it to the sum of all internet companies. In January 2012 NASDAQ had a market cap of $4.45 trillion.

Oh I see. So because its a popular baby, it should be able to drive a car. Ok.

Its not bitcoins fault that it is so popular. Do you REALLY think the popularity is by ACCIDENT? There are fu*kton of brilliant and wealthy people involved in this project.

So just because everyone wants to invest in Bitcoin (except you) you get to criticize Bitcoin for being overvalued?  You get to say that Bitcoin will fail, just because its got a 10 billion market cap? I'm sorry, but thats a REALLY weak case.

Make a real case against what Bitcoin and its eco-system CAN'T become over the next 5-10 years and quit whining about the price.

Sorry but at $10 billion it stopped being a baby. Any tech in 'baby' stage should be valued at a fraction of that  - which is the underlying point here.

Hahaha. Well said.

hahahahahahaha people already wanna sell, get a grip why sell ever! Its a global currency you never need to sell. Just buy stuff with it! And quit looking at the damn fiat price! If you just look at the Tech you would never sell, especially Namecoin!!!! Its going to be one big world wide ownership database of who owns what!!!! 21m bitcoin 100+ years of mining, 7 billion ppl so far. hmmmm get out of the house and quit thinking so small. Im so glad that the computer geeks like myself that love to nerd with new tech, own most of the coin. Cuz its not about the price for us!

because it is the first of its kind.. in the history of mankind, there has never been an asset that shares striking similarities with bitcoin. to me, that means there is gigantic possible demand for it.

Bingo.  Well said

Kireinaha, you make some decent points. However, let's take the speculation rise in price we have currently and set it aside for a moment.

Now, once we do that, your arguments against bitcoin are similar to many others. And the arguments resemble screaming at a 2 year old because they can't wash the dishes, they can't drive the car, they can't play basketball very well, etc. etc.

You wouldn't (I would hope) expect too much from a small child. Yet, you expect so much from Bitcoin. Bitcoin will not solve the problems you mention. But the bitcoin eco-system - the one that is just starting - the one that has companies like Circle.com in it - those companies will be the ones that solve these problems using bitcoin.

Bitcoin has spent most of its time and energy so far creating the one thing that was needed before all else - security within its system. Bitcoin cannot be breached. Now Bitcoin and can go in what ever direction it needs, supported by a growing eco-system of companies. (much like the early internet).

So, let's cut bitcoin a break here, shall we. Quit screaming at the baby for christ sakes.

Because it was born a few years ago in a new age of instant communication and money transfering? Heh, kind of silly to compare it to anything in the past.

How about the fact that bitcoin has outperformed every traditional investment by orders of magnitude since it's inception?

Surely I'm just a noob without any real knowledge but I guess my speculation/opinion or whatever is just as good as anyone elses but to me the 10billion or so market cap doesn't seem that much if you just think the massive amount of money moving around the world so I have to come to conclusion that even if this is going to crash there is still huge potential to go upward before that. I'm only owning like a bit over 5coins atm, planning to cash out my original investment at maybe 10k or so and then just see what is going to happen with the rest and after that start selling some % of my coins every time the price doubles as rpietila my fellow finnish citizen has suggested in his investment plan. Interesting times the ones we are living, only time will tell hows it going to end up.

Bootlace, don`t even bother. The people here hate `reality` and they all live in lala land where bitcoin  is going to `da moon`, and they`re rock solid in their belief that consumers are going to want to enroll in a currency that offers no protections against fraud, and requires costly conversions from fiat. They also believe that bitcoin is a superior store of value over gold, for reasons unexplained. I`m sure all kinds of investors are just foaming at the mouth at the idea of bitcoin, given that you need to first store it on a computer. And second, you need to make regular backups, and it`s best to store it on a Linux OS (which I`m sure your average gold investor is well versed on). Then, there`s always the worry that if your HD does crash, you might not be able to successfully backup your bitcoins.

Given all this, why a gold investor would choose to invest in bitcoin, nobody has been able to explain.

But hey, bitcoin is `new` it`s digital, and it`s `sexy`. This is basically the gist of their arguments.

I didn't really cash out, I sold in middle of 200's when the April bubble was crashing (it was so obvious with the Gox lag that it would have been criminal not to) and was planning to buy back in upper double digits but the exchange has been frozen ever since then.

Am I bitter? Yes. But Im not here to try to fool anyone or try to get cheap coins or anything because like I said all my money for investment is frozen.

I just shared some of the Bitcoin worries I had after thinking about for the past couple of months - you don't need to treat anyone who voices concerns as some evil person hellbent on getting your coins.

I don't know how high we will go, the "new normal" is a bit worrying, but then it has been since about $350.
You could well be right that a bubble burst is imminent, but then it might be $2000 in the next few days, to be honest I think $2000 is more likely than $500 short term

10 billion market cap is nothing. get rid of gold's insane store of "intristic value" and move that aspect to bitcoins and each bitcoin is worth $500,000. i'll let you think a bit more about that

It does not matter if some exchange is closed, have not you noticed this by now? There is no "tight pay out", you can withdraw all you want. Any merchants use bitpay so they don't even need to worry about exchanges. You really do not have a point, only an unfounded wish for a lower price.

You still did not answer at what price you cashed out, so we can advise you should you wait for the dip to that price or buy in now while you still can.

Sorry to derail the thread but btc24 gave back all Bitcoin present in the exchange, all the money held in their German bank and now are in the process of returning 72% of the remain found being held on a Polish bank.

Of course there are plenty of  reasons for what happened to btc24 and they're more related to the unprofessional (not dishonest) way the owner managed the exchange rather than not.

I don't care how much 'transaction' there is in intra-BTC or the hypothetical  dollars in these exchanges - if the price shot up to 10,000 on a few crazy investors taking advantage of the limited liquidity on the exchanges - the market cap would stand at 100 billion dollars. You think any of the exchanges or any one for that matters has the money to pay out anyone significant their positions? No, the first couple who cash out will make bank and the price will then correct MAJORLY.

How much Bitcoins -> USD transaction per day is there actually? All these exchanges have very tight payout policies. I presume it has not been a problem until now because like I said no serious company is actually using Bitcoin/BitPay or getting that much transaction.

Apostata: I don't need to hear a lecture about Bitcoin's potential from someone who joined the forums a week ago. I'm very well aware of its potential. Having said that if you've spent any time in the real world, you will know that revolutions like the banking sector collapsing doesn't happen overnight and certainly won't go down without a major fight.

Oh and I dont need to have done any reasearch about BTCChina - I have lived and worked in China for 5 years and I know the Chinese authorities can shut down that shit in seconds wihout blinking an eye. Having been subject to that in Europe with BTC-24, I doubt things are gone end well over there.

No, he should calculate the number of Hyundai's.  Bears like this don't even dream of ferraris

at what price did you get out? and yes, stop "reigning" on our parade, you're quite bad at it because all of your "facts" are bullshit. there is about 100 million usd volume daily across exchanges. take out calculator and subtract your ferraris if you will now.

What people like you don't seem to understand is just how disruptive Bitcoin truly is.  Bitcoin completely replaces the banking and payment processing industry, and rewrites the book on how trillions of dollars are transferred around the world. Every.single.day.  Banks rely on systems that were developed decades ago; at the very least they will learn from bitcoin and utilize its ingenious ideas to improve on their existing infrastructure.  At the most it wil replace them altogether, and could very well do so.

The fact that major corporations haven't adopted bitcoin is partly due to lack of understanding, but also due to regulatory cloudiness and quite frankly greed; amazon wants their own bitcoin that they can control and profit from, as do facebook and google.  And keep in mind that Bitcoin is still in its infancy, most corporations didn't start a website the first day or even first decade the Internet was created. And if I may add, Bitcoin has the potential to disrupt the world just as much as the Internet did.  Seriously.

Your comments about BTCchina show just how uninformed you are; have you researched anything about the background of the largest exchange in the world, it's founder, his family, or its history?

The price of bitcoin is currently being driven purely by speculation, absolutely.  However, there really is no limit to what the value of one bitcoin could be, if you understood the potential it has to disrupt the banking and financial industry.  But its clear that you do not so i will finish this reply with that.  I suspect that you either missed the boat, sold too early, or are just trolling without anything better to do, but more than likely your post is a result of a combination of all of the above.

Hate to reign in on the party, but perhaps some will appreciate a little bit of reality check so they can cash out while they still can at these ridiculous prices.

First of all there's the matter of price. Pretty much everyone going crazy over these bitcoin surges are those that are interested in making money. For all the USD and fiat bashing we see here, everyone's measure of excitement is measured by how much of 'it' (fiat) they can get for their BTC. And contrary to popular remarks, everyone has a fiat price they want to cash out at. So let's not get carried away with how Bitcoin has 'made it' because in terms of adoption it has barely moved an inch - it is largely being carried by the speculators.


The fact that not one major corporation has started to use Bitcoins as a major part of their business (and not talking as a quick and cheap marketing/attention ploy) since the boom in price and supposed popularity is concerning. I'm not talking about some Subway branch in Russia or a tiny subsidiary of Baidu. Don't expect any of the tech giants to help push this to widespread adoption - they all already have their own digital payment solutions.

Now lets get back to the current price for a second. Bitcoin market cap is north of $10 billion now - that's a lot of money created out of nowhere but that's not even the concern I have - afterall tech startups being overvalued is a norm these days.

What does concern me is what is needed to sustain this price point.  Everyday loads of BTC needs to be sold: miners are one part of it but the other part is companies like BitPay - who are suppose to be the leaders behind this adoption revolution.

As many already know, any half serious business needs fiat capital to function: selling things in BTC and not converting is just not an option. So let's say a couple Bitcoin millionaires decide to buy a Ferrari. Let's also assume Ferrari accepts Bitcoins. So Ferrari sells 10 cards in one day through BitPay - they immediately ask to convert the BTC they received for the cars into USD. That's couple of million dollars that BitPay has to sell on the BTC exchanges. How can BitPay even offer Ferrari the exchange they promised when all that BTC selling will obviousy drop the price? Let's even go to the extent to say that there is enough demand and the price doesn't drop THAT much -  which exchange has the capability to make millions of dollars worth of payments everyday.

As far as I know the largest US exchange is facing severe problems in this domain and the largest one in EU (BTC-24.com) shut down in April and has still not returned its users their money. Other ones like BTC-E and BTCChina are very shady to begin with so not even getting into that.

Bitcoin exchanges have already so many problems - limited liquidity, being run by small time novices, being hated by banks, hacks/security - that I can't imagine them really paying a lot of people when the eventual mass cashing out occurs.

So in reality that price you see is only an illusion. Some out there can actual get that money out but most of the people can not. Once this realization happens the price crashes and all the speculators that have pushed this wave so high will also naturally make it crash just as hard. So don't count on speculators to create a sustained value increase in coin value.

For many of the popular and useful uses of Bitcoin - like spending on gambling for example - the purchase of BTC is neutral on its price because users use it as a tool USD -> BTC -> USD. That, in the long term, should not affect the price because money in should equal money out. So what is it that remains? Ah yes, actual BTC use that always remains in BTC.

As I've said, we've not seen this behaviour yet. So that's why Im highly skeptical this price increase is in any way warranted or sustaintable.