Topic: So, everyone knows about Bitcoin now... why isn't the price going up? (Read 4946 times)

- Lead time from hearing to buying. It took more than a year from my first contact with bitcoin, to buy ANY. (Expect a rally in 2014, based on the current events.)

- Difficulty in obtaining them, since most of the platforms are incredibly risky (bitcoin exchange half-life of <12 months).

- Bitcoin price logarithmic trendline is 26% per month. It means a double at exactly every 3 months. We were getting a bit ahead in March.

-===-

https://soundcloud.com/deepbreathinc/train-passing-by

It's going up. It's just giving you another chance to get some cheap coins.

Fear.

I was promised cheap coins and I'll get them! 

Too many people "Waiting for cheap coins"

Sadddd

We all just need to give Bitcoin a little push every day.

+1

I love your thinking! These people are gaining market share and re-envigorating Bitcoin with demand at the cost of bitcoin prices. Very interesting I do know that strategy, increase market share when the markets are low and keep on buying.

If you can convince people that the trend is down, even those only wanting BTC will be tempted to sell then re-buy cheaper to increase their holding in coins.  Conversely while the price was skyrocketing these same people likely didn't want to sell and be left out of the game.  I don't think most people make their buy or sell decisions based solely on what dollar value they place on their bitcoins vs what the current price is. 

Even after all the coverage very few people know about Bitcoin.

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/321788-bitcoin-mining-scheme-foiled

Keep in mind those forums are for a community of IT professionals and barely anyone has a clue what bitcoins are.

As a side note SpiceWorks is a pretty awesome free solution to track IT inventory and maintain a ticket system among other things.

If I sell everything now I make a 30k profit, if I hold out I may make nothing

Lost confidence.

Volume has skyrocketed.  It just awes me that so many people are willing to sell right now than they were at 200.  If you were so confident in Bitcoin as to not sell at $200, why are you following herd mentality and selling at the low point?  Boggles my mind...

Yeah I know what you mean, it was so frantic in those days. It definitely feels like the hysteria is gone, and what do you know? the volume is back up, no one wanted to sell at 200, who knows how high it could have gone, but of course we know that answer now. Who the hell was jacking up the price? there was barely any volume during that time.

Coinbase lets you buy plenty.

Everyone knows about it but there is no working infrastructure. Gox is broken.

Hahahaha how new are you?

Well, at least I can say that lots of people made a lot selling at the right time. Where did that lot come from?

I actually feel a lot better at todays price than  200+ days , more  solid , down to the earth feelings .

Did they though?  Although difficult to get an accurate picture due to goxlag I'd got the impression it took very little money to take the price down a long way because the bids evaporated on the way down as people realised they'd be able to get cheaper by waiting.

Are you counting those who bought high and still didn't sell as having 'lost'?  Your confidence that the game's over does not make it so. I'd be interested in your reasoning or figures behind the 'lots of people lost a Lot claim.

http://caribbeanrestaurantconcepts.com/stats/content/supcache/dwight-the-office-quotes-fact-1.jpg
Mod Note: Removed embeded image to a malicious site.

Fact:  Bears, Bulls, Beats, etc.

We must not forget about Bitcoins staying power, The true value of bitcoin is in the Encryption, it is unbreakable by modern computers; The SHA256-512 encryption  would require a computer with the mass of the solar system to crack by brute force... now that is security.  Not only is it protected by the latest encryption it is done twice, then it is distributed so you will have to crack everyone else's as-well and after that you have to keep up with the network.

Only quantum computers will be able to crack it and those are a few decades away.

Bitcoin was created for one amazing thing, to be able to transfer information from point A to point B securely and unstoppably... once the transaction is made it cannot be reversed, it merely uses the word currency throughout the paper.

The original white paper was called, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, If you read the paper you will notice that the Bitcoin part... was an afterthought; What is described in the paper is a system to transfer any and I mean ANY currency securely without compromising the banking system within the digital domain.

the price of Bitcoin does not matter when all I want to do is send some money to my mom, or buy that new Nvidia Tesla processor for doing some simulations, many people have forgotten this, people have built a trading system around it because it has been decoupled from the banking system it was intended for, with no support they have created and built upon Bitcoins Cryptographic engine; how else are they to convert their real money into something that can be securely transferred over the digital frontier? no one else is giving them that opportunity so the Bitcoin community is building their own infrastructure and learning as best they can along the way... this will come back and bite the regular financial system in the ass.(more innovation in the Bitcoin community, better products, better selection)

Fact: The Bitcoin community has evolved Bitcoin to be functional, something that it really was not in the beginning, it needed the banking component to transfer financial Value.

Fact: People are treating this as if it was meant to be a commodity, of course they have, the media has propagated this myth creating uncertainty in what could possibly be the most secure system ever created.

Now that we have reached this point in Bitcoins development, now we must study why the price is fluctuating.

who are the producers of the bitcoins? The Bitcoin miners who maintain the integrity and security of the Bitcoin network. Do they have a right to set their prices for bitcoin?... you must remember that they have expended resources to earn their bitcoins, they do have that right. The market does have it's effects, but i'm pretty sure that an old Gold miner would not accept less value than they put in to find that Gold, they will trade at fair market value and not one satoshi below what it cost them to produce it.

The Bitcoin miners creating the liquidity within the market set the bottom price, They control a certain percentage of the exchange rate

Now who has the rest of the control over Bitcoins price?  The holders of regular national currencies; who because of the media hype do not understand the practicality and purpose behind this technology. they just buy,sell,low,high like idiots with absolutely no understanding of the market... these are newb traders! and they're coming in by the boatload! There is more of them coming in than educated Bitcoin community members, this is a problem.

the other? The people holding on to their bitcoins ready to dump them onto the market; This is a good thing, it creates liquidity... but it also crashes the price of bitcoins when people don't want to sit on their bitcoins waiting for a dangerously insecure exchange to have the buyers become available to buy those bitcoins. I believe this is a good thing because... those hoarders are dumping their stashes into the general market dwindling the amount of instability, allowing the system to reach an equilibrium between the early adopters and new adopters.

Another aspect of the price is due to Bitcoins customers(the people buying into bitcoin to have their transactions carried out... or the idiots who are planning a pump-n-dump).  now these customers are new they know very little of what they have to do, they don't know they can trade in smaller denominations, hence limiting the number of buyers on the market. They need to be educated on how to buy only the amount of bitcoins that they need to carry out a secure transaction from point A to point B, they need to be educated.

The exchanges are Bitcoins weak spot, They can be attacked to bring the system down... The banking component that Bitcoin was supposed to be mated to had to be built and the best practices of the financial sector are right now being learned by the exchange operators. this again causes instability, how this gets resolved it will be up to the ingenuity of the Bitcoin community to resolve.

Once an equilibrium is reached, the system will be fine, it will begin to operate as it was intended, but a good chunk of the ecosystem that Bitcoin was supposed to be working with is non-existent and only being built now.

summary: there's a bunch of idiots out there who are selling their coins cheap, then in a few years when Amazon.com starts accepting coins, these same ppl are gonna be the ppl kicking themselves. coins always move to stronger hands. always.  good for us long bulls.

I'll buy it from you for 1/2 the market price, since that's what it will be worth in a few days

Id like to sale 50K worth, but I dont want it put into the banks.   Getting cash transactions in this amount isnt easy (if you want to avoid wires, etc).

I said in another post, people's mindset have not been adjusted to bitcoin
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1834909

Most of the people are basically conservative, so when they first see a new thing like bitcoin goes mainstream and price rise in amazing speed, the very first thought will be: This is a scam, a ponzi scheme, or in the best case a bubble

It will take long time to change their mindset due to the deep learning curve of bitcoin. In order to understand why bitcoin is superb, people must be able to understand why today's financial system has some fatal flaw (It is not possible to save money without causing someone else's debt)

It takes some time to increase people's general knowledge of bitcoin, especially economy wise

Mostly 1). Also 3) and a little of 2). Bitcoin-24 being down and rumored to be having trouble is also not helping.

The problem is with the crash even people that would otherwise have bought in a week or so hesitate now.

A friend asked me this morning if it was a good time to invest. I told him I had no idea about the short term.

I THINK THIS ABOUT SUMS IT UP thanks NWbitcoin,

people are not at all savvy about bitcoins yet not even the news head that is talking about it. also don't be scared about the price doping. I know that it sucks especially if you bout in high but i remember buying them for 2 and 5 dollars just months ago and of cores i spent them. i got some coins around twenty and 50 and 140 and 200 i bout some at 230 even, the whole time thinking "man if i only put in 2k in when they were 2 dollars each and i would have made 200,000.00 " well i got my wish, this will probably go down a bit more and when people start buying a few at say 60 or 70 then they will see it go up to 80 and 90 and more will buy then it will be 100 - 110 and people will start getting excited about it again. this will be in the 800 no problem. no not tomorrow, no not in a month, no not in two months but it will get there and you will be glad you bought some at 80.

dont be that guy (like me) who lives his life with the prefix of "if only i would have bought when it was 80" when it does go to 800 and it most likely will by years end (October November)you will 10x your money. 100=1,000 1,000=10,000 ---------your tax return 1684.92 will be 16,849.20. its up to you-

oh and when you bank on this, buy something with your profits, don't sell, find a retailer who sells what you want ie flat screen tv- you wont pay taxes on it!!! ya buddy more money saved. and  you will be suporting the bitcoin market.

K thats all from me, what do i know though I have no crystal ball, I just see trends and devote 8 + hours a day studying the one and only amazing bitcoin.

What about: 5) All of these + people find it difficult to trust

Do not confuse "knowing it exists" and "wanting to buy it"

Because it's finally stable! Yaaaaaàaaay!!!



... Right...

Right, like I said, it won't die.  This iteration, however, of distributed money is quickly losing plausibility as the one.

I'm with you here, PJ...
...and you lost me there.

Bitcoin wont die. Bitcoin is an idea. It may not be this exact protocol in the end, but it's still bitcoin.

The voters have the choice every election. They just like to choose evil (the lesser of two).

Bitcoin won't die, it'll hobble along for as long as people have some and swap them around, but yeah, as I said as the crash was happening, this will be worse than 2011.

Or it could be that he comes off as a nutjob.   Libertarian except for the things "where I know better than you"......
Try to remember WHY clinton got elected?   Ross Perot was weird but how much of the vote did he get?

They are following SEC rules on accredited trading.

The federal securities laws define the term accredited investor in Rule 501 of Regulation D as:

1. a bank, insurance company, registered investment company, business development company, or small business investment company;

2. an employee benefit plan, within the meaning of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, if a bank, insurance company, or registered investment adviser makes the investment decisions, or if the plan has total assets in excess of $5 million;

3. a charitable organization, corporation, or partnership with assets exceeding $5 million;

4. a director, executive officer, or general partner of the company selling the securities;

5. a business in which all the equity owners are accredited investors;

6. a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person’s spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase, excluding the value of the primary residence of such person;

7. a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or

8. a trust with assets in excess of $5 million, not formed to acquire the securities offered, whose purchases a sophisticated person makes.

The big flaw in the US federal election system is the electorates/mandates. It's plain stupid that a state is completely red or blue. Guess it's to keep out any third party that might shake up the system.

"They stand on their taped-together papier-mache mockup of Wall Street, waving cheap wallets and stock certificates written in crayon and charcoal, droning “buy low, sell high”, and they haven’t quite figured out why the world isn’t yet at their doorstep."

Bitcoin is done. People trusted Bitcoin after the 2011 MtGox fiasco, but they won't do it again. Lots of people lost a LOT of money, and will not put more into the market. It is as simple as that. I am waiting for a $5/Bitcoin price in the next few weeks. Already at 83 from 102 today.

When I supported Harry Browne in 2000 as the Libertarian Party presidential candidate my thought was "if only he could get in the debates and people hear his ideas, then he would surely win".

Then in 2008 Ron Paul was allowed into the debates. Surely once people heard about a solution that offered them freedom and liberty they all got on board right? Well, you saw how that went.

We are fighting the same mentality that was fighting Ron Paul's campaign.

"Wow, I can make a bunch of money with bitcoins? Sign me up! Oh, it dropped? Then what good is it? It does what with the banks...liberty...what? No thanks, I already have dollars which everyone accepts. The government may have some bad people on the other side but all in all they are working well enough. Besides, I read an article about how bitcoin is a ponzi scheme."

Oh wow, I wasn't aware of an income requirement.

They are catering to the truly wealthy and licensed financial institutions.

By truly wealthy you have to have over $200k salary for at least two years.

This is not their policy, they are trying to follow US trading rules for their setup.

Until there is something to DO with the bitcoins (other than hoard or convert them into FIAT), it is really hard to see how you are going to get the common man to actually want to buy some.   have a "I accept BTC too" sign does not help.   Because the common man will still use visa because it is easier (and accessible) and currently the only way to buy bitcoin is as scammy as sending money to the widow of a Nigerian General whose wealth can be released for a mere $450.....    No, exchange seem legit to me and I certainly would NOT leave money in an account at any of them (funding and defunding any significant amount of money is impossible).   Does ANYONE here have an account at the NYSE/AMEX/Nasdaq?   No.  You have an account with a broker that gets you access to trade on all these different exchanges.  Gox is trying to be both which is scary in itself.
This is like investing in amazon in june of 98.   we have a long way to go, but there is potential.
and Proudhon, I am sorry I called you Chicken Little before.   You don't say the sky is falling EVERY day.  Just most days.

I'll keep posting these until everyone understands what it means.  It answers the question in the thread title.



So, yes, lots of people know about bitcoin, but enough people who know about them and own some don't want them anymore.  The ask depth on MtGox is the highest it's been in 6 months and is a little more than 5x what it was just before the crash.  People were fooled into thinking the supply of bitcoins was low relative to the demand.  It isn't.  And over time we'll see the price reflect this fact as more and more people internalize it.  We will see low double digits, and when people get sufficiently off-put by that, we'll see the price collapse into the single digits.

That's the point. It isn't behaving, it's acting like it is and using magical thinking till you believe it is. Role-playing.
 Why do you think he posts on a webforum?
Just read it

No price increase? Check the prices 1 month ago. Sheesh.

Thanks for your opinion. We certainly wouldn't want anyone behaving professionally around here, would we?

If it weren't all make believe, rpietila is full of shit and most of the things he posts about could be made up on the spot.

And he is a major cargo cult shaman here, just read his posts, he acts like this is wall street and people believe him. There are others, he is just the most annoying example.
A part of is is due to bitcoins real success, the problem is these people are so out of place it looks comical.

Ashley is referring to rpietila who has these threads:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/1oz-silver-maple-leaf-check-best-price-in-op-151800
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/rpietila-public-diary-174620


Also, I don't understand the occupy bitcoiners. They want people to start using Bitcoin, but then they attack you and cry foul and unfair once you do. Idiots.

Nobody knows about Bitcoins!

I remember visiting a seminar once hosted by a nationally recognised marketing guy who was explaining to a room full of businessmen how to grow their business in the shortest period of time, with the use of very high class marketing.

He went to the trouble of explaining every single thing a business would need to do to get themselves up a level on the media radar - and at the end he predicted that less than 5% of people in the room would follow the plan!

So, why would someone who just saw a news report between something about a celebrity and the sport about some risky business related thing (bitcoin) go to the trouble that you need to go to to just own one?

This really is a long game and we are only in the first half, of the first game of the season!

the current system isn't going down without a fight....
youtube would have you believe the dollar is about to collapse and the world is about to implode.
their is some truth to this, and the flaws of the current financial system are clearly being exposed, but it still works just fine, and it can continue to function indefinitely,  as long as the people do not vote for change by buying into things like bitcoin, gold, silver... or wtv alternative  system they chose to place their faith in, the current system will do just fine.


False: the system will crash and burn and bitcoin will save the day!
True: bitcoin will save the day and then the system will crash and burn.

Revolutions require a crisis to take hold. It's the Shock Doctrine. When the current system collapses, there will be a stable system already in place to take over. In fact, open source in general will replace disaster capitalism.

I think we would all love to see that happen.  Maybe something is already in the works along those lines...

Did not like the looks of them.   They did not seem as credible as they made it seem.   And then when I searched for the background, I found some complaints.   If there was a ticket window at the airport (even with their rip off F/X rates) that had bitcoin on it, I would walk up and do an exchange.   Because let's face it, there is NO exchange for wheat (just wheat) -- what needs to happen is BTC needs to GET LISTED as a product on some other exchanges, not build its own exchanges to basically trade ONE THING.

the reason is simple....

Speculation!

a major reason people bought bitcoin before all the mainstream events, was only to SELL it once it got mainstream, and collect on a hefty profit.

this is what's happening now, the long shot bet has paid off! bitcoin is here! so stick to the plan and take your reward! $_$

get it?

People are annoyed by the cargo cult and they don't think of joining any time soon.

What about Tradehill?  They're supposed to be catering to the wealthy, having a $10,000 minimum deposit.

Yes you can. OTC. Call up our friend the Reptilian Overlord or a similar bitcoin broker. There are plenty of OTC venues for buying amounts that large, and there are even a couple exchanges that have, say, $10,000 minimums (i.e. not for the faint of heart.)

I know everyone wishes the exchanges had such great liquidity that you could buy 50k in a heartbeat without any slippage, but we ain't quite there yet.

Now, you'll also run into the "occupy wall st. bears" who think it's perfectly OK to have $50,000 in a Fiat savings account, but once you try to buy $50,000 in bitcoins, you are an evil socialist, an evil market manipulator, a hoarder, a member of the "cargo cult," you don't care about bitcoins at all, you are trying to "get rich quick,"  you "have no interest in using bitcoin as a currency" etc. So try not to disrupt their socialist wet dream too much

Hey I have a bunch of money in my fiat savings account, i'm a "hoarder who doesn't care about USD is just trying to get rich cargo cult capitalist market manipulator" , yet I still manage to find ways to use it as a currency. These folks confuse me sometimes.

Good point. But please don't send money to Nigeria. I did that once and never saw any ROI. I think there is a lot of scammers there.

It is going up. We've seen a steady increase if you cut out the volatility "noise." When I bought my first bitcoins they were $12.50 each and now they're $90+.

Example of press coverage (for laffs):


A nice reminder from another thread:



Patience, young grasshoppa  

It is nearly impossible to buy.
Mining is really the only way.   I wanted to buy 50k worth, you cannot.   The exchanges act like they are brokers also and none seem worthy of any trust whatsoever.   Most do not accept wire transfers (WTF???) and many suggest you go buy a money order??   What kind of legitimate business does that?
Basically, I would rather send $50k to that Nigerian General's wife that keeps emailing me.

5) Talking heads spreading FUD

It was fully my expectation that when "mainstream" news got out about Bitcoin that we'd see a lot more people buying in.  I see more and more people and companies wanting to use it, so why aren't we seeing a price increase?

I figure it's due to one of four reasons:
1) Lag time between hearing about it and actually buying some.
2) Difficulty in buying Bitcoins.
3) It was previously overvalued.
4) Many people have heard of it for the first time, and do not yet believe in it; they are waiting to "see what happens" before they dive in to the world of Bitcoin.

Thoughts?