I repost a Risto's mythic post, one of the best I have ever read in this forum:
Blockchain, as a technology, is indestructible. A reasonable starting point is to understand that
crypto is here to stay, and no laws or wars can stop it. Any individual cryptocoin, Bitcoin included, has challenges particular to it, and local laws and wars may prove detrimental to individuals' wealth, as well as life.
People can only learn more about Bitcoin, unlearning is not possible. With any technology, invention or innovation, there is an adoption curve that is the aggregate of all the people's individual propensities of learning about a new thing, deciding to use it, trying it, and amplifying their usage to significant levels.
On average, the process from first hearing about something, to trying it, takes 2 years. From trying to actual adoption, we might add 1 more year.The current number of Bitcoin owners is likely a paltry 1-2 million. Even smaller is the number of people who actively use Bitcoin in their life. The first number, at least, has not grown significantly in 2014. Enthusiasm has given way to apathy, evidenced by both price and volume of trades lagging far behind their highs.
Meanwhile,
the 2 years average delay from first hearing to first trial, is slowly becoming fulfilled in hundreds of millions of people. There were millions who heard about the bubble in 2011, and their "2 years" started counting. Not enough of them were ready to buy in 2012, which was still a year of slow price appreciation. But in 2013, the great advances were made by the people who had had 2 years to ensure themselves that it was not a fly-by-night. In 2012, the global media coverage about Bitcoin was tiny, but in 2013 all changed.
In two years, we are talking about 100x more people in the pipeline of becoming Bitcoin owners.This gives rise to the exponential trendline. There is only one way to draw a trendline with the best R^2 fit (follows from the fact that goodness-of-fit is a universal criterion), and
it is shown here. The number of Bitcoin users is so small at 1-2 million that the trendline should stay exponential 2 more orders of magnitude minimum.
An added reason is that because Bitcoin is money, and the exponential trendline means exponential gains for everyone involved, it makes sense to speculate and buy a large number of bitcoins instead of the fair share. (The fair share assuming worldwide adoption is
BTC0.002 and assuming that only the elite of 3% world's richest and most connected buy it,
BTC0.07.)
An increasing number of people are already ready to buy bitcoins. Banks, ETF's, private services, etc. have the infrastructure ready for launch. Both are waiting. Bitcoin holders are anxious, but as long as their anxiety results in them selling more bitcoins to the deep-pocket investors, the wait continues. In 2012 it continued quite long, with price going up only a little (more than 100% though).
Hearing about Bitcoin is the start of your Bitcoin pregnancy. Of these pregnancies, not all perhaps result in a healthy baby (adopting Bitcoin as your home currency), but luckily here, the time is not limited to 9 months.
The average with those who currently are power users may have been 3 years (or less, since the delay is shorter with people with the early adopter mindset),
but for others it may be 5 years. Miscarriages happen often, but the reverse-miscarriage is also a very typical occurrence.
We have a world-record number of Bitcoin pregnancies going on now, and hardly any births for several months already. I believe that the laws of nature and mathematics will take care that the babies will be seen in increasing numbers.
The trendline shows how much behind we are currently. The price shows the daily birth rate. I am writing this from a castle that I bought with money earned by trading Bitcoin based on the very premise I have explained to you here.
I believe that the next one might carry us north of $10,000. The longer time we spend here, the more explosive it gets. The supermove from $2 to $266 (133x price appreciation) took 17 months. Extrapolate that with the starting point of $340 in 2014-4-11.
Today we have lost the 340, and I expect to bottom on 275 on Tuesday. Free coins today and then!!
You will have to edit the "starting point of $340 in 2014-4-11" sentence by, perhaps, "starting point of $275 in December 2014" in the future, but that doesn't change the message of that mythic post at all.