Topic: Throwing in the towel - page 2. (Read 12673 times)

However new adopters might think it's unfair to have fewer new coins in circulation by design. Or maybe they won't deem the decreasing worth scheme as viable. Hard to predict what potential new users will perceive of that. Speculators are a different story, I also predict the price to go up short term when this happens or even shortly before. Mainstream adoption doesn't necessarily have to go in parallel with market price.

I predict that when the block reward halves the price will rise. Miners won't like it but I think the market will like it a lot, which will push the price up and then it won't be so bad for the miners either. Mining difficulty effectively doubles but then again the price increase will compensate.

We have a few milestones ahead. Stability seemed good recently until this week. Then, we still have to have a first bitcoin creation halving and see how the market reacts to that.

After that we'll see.

But maybe I'm a bit biased to considering 4 year plans that make me filthy rich to be on the optimistic side.

My numbers are not related to Bruno's measures in any way. It's obvious that currently people don't spend bitcoins that much because the merchant market is still in its infancy, but it can be assumed that in 4 years the situation will be totally different. I for one have spent more bitcoins in recent months compared to the summer, when I did not spend a single bitcoin. It's a slow process but in 4 years I can imagine the situation being very different and I am confident that I'll be able to spend a good amount each month.

In my book we can count anyone as a Bitcoin user who knows about Bitcoin and owns at least some bitcoins. Usage is irrelevant at this stage. These people are all potential users once it becomes more usable. My calculations are based on the overall adoption rate of Bitcoin based on who knows about it and who owns at least some bitcoins. With that in mind I believe my numbers are not wrong.

By the way the Bitcoin network has been used increasingly in 2012. From the standpoint of transaction counts we have recovered to the levels of late August / early September. From a long term perspective (yearly), Bitcoin usage growth looks very healthy at the moment. Also exchange activity and depth has been at very good levels in 2012.

Don't trap your tail on the door on the way out...

I wish.

Where did you get these user numbers? No way we have 100k active users by Bruno's measures (exchanging hundreds of dollars worth of bitcoin monthly).

I haven't looked into the blockchain hard enough to make a decent estimate, but I'd expect a decrease of active users during the last months. We have some easy metrics like market volume that do show some growth in average for the last few months, but nowhere close to these numbers.

By Bruno's measures (100s of dollars in monthly bitcoin trade) I'm barely an active user now and I won't expect to be active for the next few months until things settle a bit.


Disappointed? that was the optimistic prediction. I'd be ecstatic. That would make bitcoin economy the size of a medium-sized modern city.

I'm no trader on forex, have no experience in these things, but isn't it normal for shallow markets to bounce around this much?

I don't think Bruno's expectation is at all unrealistic, in fact I'd say anything less is very pessimistic. Asking for 100 million users in 4 years is insane, even 10 million is pushing it, but 2 million? You have to be kidding me. Let's go through the numbers again shall we.

Bitcoin has around 100 000 users these days. In February 2011 we probably had only 10% of that, maybe 10 000 users. Which means there has been a 900% percentage increase in users in just 1 year. These numbers are thrown out there, they could be off but not way off.

Next we have to take into account the fact that Bitcoin is not going to grow at a yearly 900% forever. Let's say the growth rate halves every year, which is very conservative. So for the next 12 months we can expect a 450% growth rate, next 12 after that will be 225% and so on. What we come up with is this:

February 2011: 10k users (start of calculation)
February 2012: 100k users (900% increase from 2011)
February 2013: 550k users (450% increase from 2012)
February 2014: 1,79m users (225% increase from 2013)
February 2015: 3,8m users (112,5% increase from 2014)
February 2016: 5,94m users (56,25% increase from 2015) <- target date

Conclusion is that even with a fairly conservative growth pattern we can actually surpass 5 million users within 4 years. There is plenty of room for even more conservative calculations that still get us to over 2 million users. It can also be assumed that during this 4 year period the Bitcoin merchant market is on a whole other level, making it actually possible for Bitcoin users to spend a good amount of bitcoins each month.

I'd say we should aim for 10 million and be very happy if we reach 5 million by February 2016. We should look in the mirror and not be too happy if we only achieve 2 million. If muyuu's super conservative prediction holds true or if we don't even reach that, then we can be very disappointed.

I'd say having half a million users doing business with Bitcoin on a daily basis would already be huge success. Like in, I'd be rich success. Not going to happen, but I expect it will steadily gain support in different markets and I will try to do my bit.

What are your predictions for state of Bitcoin in 4 years ?

Do you seriously believe any of that? 2M users spending hundreds of dollars worth of bitcoins in a month? within 4 years?

If these are your expectations, or else "you are wasting your time here"... I think you are in for a big disappointment.

who is this guy?!

If a bitcoin circulated once per week, we'd have a velocity of 52. And we'd be able to support an economy worth 52 times the total value of bitcoins (so if we have 50 million dollars worth of bitcoins - we could support an annual trade of 2.6 billion).

That said, I think a velocity of 3 to 10 is more realistic.

I like this post. I'm giving it a +1.5.


I believe countries fear the discipline aspect of Bitcoin, but won't slow them down in trying to stop it, yet at the same time embrace it if they can figure out a way to profit from that position. I can envision them using it as an adjunct currency to fiat, thus perpetuating their doom currency as long as possible, reaping the awards as it fails, all the while setting in place a defense mechanism to manipulate Bitcoin with the hope of filling their next generation's coffers.

~Bruno~

How does that even apply? I can go to nearly any country in the world without any money, just VISA. There are no rules anymore that apply to money, that's why the world economy is in the mess it is in. Bitcoin offers discipline and new rules, but we haven't figured out what they are yet. There are new economic relationships to be described with math that we haven't yet discovered. Bitcoin is still a big unknown.

Um... no.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

Simple math:

In approximately 4 years, there'll be approximately 15,000,000 bitcoins generated. At $23 USD, there would only be a market cap of $345,000,000. For sake of argument, say that in 4 years there will only be 2,000,000 loyal users of Bitcoin. On average, they each will have only $172.50 between them.

Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, but there should be a hell of lot more than 2M users within 4 years. If that is not the case, than somebody in the towel business is going to make a killing. Again, for sake of argument, I'll concede to there only be 2M Bitcoiners in 4 years. These Bitcoiners are not going to be spending on average $172.50 USD per year. Many will spend that in a week--or less. But I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say that that's what they'll spend in a month. Follow closely, for the math is going to get harder. There are 12 months in a year. With me so far? 12 X $172.50 = $2,070. $2,070 X 2M users = a market cap of $4,140,000,000. $4,140,000,000 USD/15,000,000 bitcoins = $276 per Bitcoin.

Therefore, $276 USD is the bear minimum Bitcoin must be trading at within 4 years, otherwise WE ARE ALL JUST WASTING OUR TIME HERE.

There is no way in hell that a market cap of $180,000,000 ($12 USD X 15,000,000 bitcoins) in four years is going to sustain the Bitcoin community.

~Bruno~

try $2 to $7. 

There is nothing stupid about new people learning about bitcoin. Of course 95% of people who watched the TV shows are not crypto literate in the slightest.

http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/bitcoin

What give me more hope is Bartydt's upcoming TED talk.   I guess the average person attending TED have greater vision and deeper pocket than all of "The good wife" auditory combined.

Oh and BTW : It did not skyrocket, unless going from 5 to 7 is a rocket worthy move to you.

I'm sorry guys, but this is going down to $2-$3 again, just like the first time.


The only reason it skyrocketed (both times) was because of some stupid conference, some stupid tv show, and some stupid national news segment.

There's nothing to look forward to except the collapse of civilization.


When there's a collapse of civilization, you can't buy power with bitcoins to access your bitcoins.