Topic: Vast expansion of BTC utility/reputation - but no rise in BTC price? Why? - page 3. (Read 5516 times)

Yup, I feel ya!

Very well put.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

Someone above asked what businesses couldn't run with BTC at $10... it's not that there's 1 particular... it's that the whole economy at $10 is only $210MM (actually like $130MM or so right now).. that won't support many businesses, especially ones that would like to go 100% BTC.

Bitcoin needs to be $10,000 or $100,000 (i.e. $210B or $2.1T) if it hopes to capture significant share.

But it can't go there unless it's a compelling value proposition to users. Not there yet.

Also, the overhang of people who will be super-rich (and super-duper-rich) at $100,000 is a problem. I wish bitcoin had seen a quicker uptake so even out the distribution early. Alas, I was a late-comer.

This is my thought:

The Q4 2013 price spike was a bubble because the price increased without proportion to the utility.

The utility has increased dramatically stabilizing the bubble so now it is no longer a bubble, rather a support base...

From here the price can spike to a new bubble or can slowly increase as additional utility and adoption comes along.

I expect a new price spike followed by even more dramatic adoption and increased utility. Lather, rinse, and repeat...

Finally - somebody who has held his account since May 2011... and that's all you have to say?

There would be (and was) a lot less interest in BTC at $10, so most of them wouldn't be in existance, I think that's pretty obvious.

For a good guess as to which ones wouldn't be in existance, go back to the time at which BTC was at $10, and take a look at the BTC businesses that were in existance back then.

I'm talking about expansion of the currency and it's usage.

Too bad there isn't some product that everyone wants, but is exclusively available for purchase with BTC.

There needs to be some really big news really for the price to spike. It's got off to a slow start this year but I'm sure it'll grow nicely during the course of the year.

I mean all of them.  But mostly Bitpay, their customers, and businesses that take BTC directly. 

Name one that would not work today if Bitcoin was $10.

Be patient, OP. 

What are you implying, can you get more specific? And by "BTC business", do you mean some Service like Bitpay or a BTC exchange or businesses that accept BTC as payment?

Name one Bitcoin business that would not work today if Bitcoin was $10.

It has increased too much lately, that makes many of us reluctant about buying more. Even if it seems like it's a good buy, it makes us feel stupid for not having bought a few months earlier for a much lower price.

Actually the price dropping would not help either, what is needed is stability.

The late XBT price explosion is hindering it's value for payment because the price was growing a lot faster than the acceptance aka merchants accepting XBT.
The high price actually reduced XBT to a commodity like gold.

We should all wish for end to the december "bubble" - well, except for the speculators - and return to a reasonable price level to give an incentive for buyers AND merchants to get into (aka buy) and trade in XBT on the increasing number of acceptance points.

I can't agree with you guys on lack in utility being the reason. BTC was even less useful as a currency when it was at $300 or $50 or $1 - but it has risen back then as well! So obviously that's not what's holding the price back.

It would be cool to get the opinion of people who have been into BTC for at least one year! Most previous posters have just signed up recently.

Anybody?

Yes, I have to agree. It's good to have this infrastructure, but most people just don't need bitcoin. Even if amazon would accept bitcoin I would love it and use it, but I won't buy more bitcoins than I do now. It may be a basic attribute of a currency you can take it with an atm and buy things with it on amazon - but it's no special feature. You can do both with traditional currency. And, hey, with traditional currency there are no fees. To get bitcoin at an atm cost 5-7%, to sell it on, imagine, amazon, 0.0001 btc. It costs time and money to use bitcoin. The opposite should be real.

Maybe porn. Maybe software. Maybe international crowdfunding or coworking or freelance.

I hope it wouldn't become illegal file sharing. This wouldn't work out well for us ...

Exactly.  Why are people going to go through the hassle of learning about BTC, then the hassle of acquiring it, just to shop on overstock.com.  It is going to take them longer to acquire the BTC, then if they just ordered the item in the first place.  Until these merchants put in some sort of incentive to use BTC on their site, it doesn't look like it will encourage more people to adopt its use.

The reason Bitcoin price doesn't rise because there is No Demand For It.
Yes, the acceptance has grown but people don't have any reason to buy BTC to purchase stuff.

The reason that bitcoin price was exploded in December is a lot of Chinese wants to move their wealth out of the country.
Of course they still do now but it's lot harder, since government is trying to stop it.

My thoughts (I agree with most of the stuff above, just adding to the list):

1. 90% still treat it like an investment. Sounds like you do as well. Investments101: You buy when you think the price will rise. Let's say you bought in summer 2013. You bought because you were speculating more adoption, services, etc. Price skyrocketed; congrats. Now you sell out (as many did when it was >$1000), or you continue holding IF you think there will be a continued price increase. We EXPECTED ebay/newegg/TG/OS to accept bitcoin. That was priced in. We expected more hazy regulation; that was also priced in. What WILL affect the price is if there will be a 'shocker' no one expects. This can go both ways.

2. [most] Merchants currently accepting bitcoin may affect the price negatively because they essentially dump it on the exchanges. When you use bitpay, you are selling your coins for fiat, not transferring it to the merchant. This adds selling pressure so the effect of 'X now accepts bitcoin!' is ambiguous - good because it creates more intrinsic value for BTC but bad because it adds sell pressure.

3. I agree with your 'lag' argument. For new money to come into bitcoin, first there needs to be a good reason to do so. So as we develop more infrastructure, and get more acceptance, then people might buy in.

3b. The issue though is that before you could claim 'exponential returns!' and thus we had a lot of new money coming in and hoarding bitcoin as an investment. Now, it's a bit more difficult to say that because we had a  'top' or a 'peak' at ~$1200/coin, and the price is cooling - much less exciting to put money in as an investment unfortunately.

I would be okay if bitcoin stayed at one price because to me stability is more important than a price increase. If you really want to see your wealth grow; start mining something, release an epic altcoin, start a business or invest in the stock market or penny stocks. Remember there is no free lunch.