Bitcoin Forum

Being relativly new to the bitcoin market it's worrying to me when looking at how the bitcoin market have changed, worrying because my bitcoins today might be worth alot less tomorrow.
Just take a look at this graph showing the market for the last 6 months, it has never been stable for long at all.
https://i.imgur.com/l9onlRC.png

So my question is what caused the sudden raises and falls? Especially back in August, over a few weeks the market skyrocketed, and then in a day or a few days went rock bottom. why? and what causes the bitcoin to raise and raise in price today?

I've seen people post the following opinion around and I agree with it but people think it may be because the volume of Bitcoins on the exchanges etc. is actually fairly low so naturally if someone feels like selling off a ton of them in a short amount of time then the price is of course going to fall the same goes for the opposite where if a bunch of people decide to hold all the coins the price will rise depending on the demand for them. Over time the Bitcoin price will supposedly stabalise as Bitcoin gets both more popular and there are more Bitcoins mined or spread around amongst more people.

Don't forget that Bitcoin is a relatively new currency, it's also decentralised, so you're going to see movement that you wouldn't see in other markets because Bitcoins aren't regulated or messed with the same way the paper money is.

Free market. People selling and buying. More people adopting bitcoin. And so on, tons of causes.

I'd agree with what Lethn has said wholeheartedly, and throw a couple of thoughts in for good measure.

Whilst I'm very new to Bitcoin, I have done a reasonable amount of reading on economies in general, and how our current fiat currencies work (without wanting to give the impression I'm an economist or an expert - I'm far from that, but am aware of what's going on).  I will also say at the outset that I take many things back to their very fundamental roots, or core, when considering things in general.

One thing to consider in the overall picture here is that, relatively speaking, Bitcoin is a very new currency - so much so that it hasn't yet 5 years of history.  That alone is enough to cause a fair degree of uncertainty in many people's minds when asking them for a "value" for Bitcoins in any other, more "traditional" currency.

Being so new, at this time, I'd suggest that current price is more dictated on short term supply and demand - and as a result, it won't be very stable just yet.

I have read some comments from folks who seem "surprised" at the fact that BTC is around USD$16-$17 about now, and their surprise is the fact that the price is so high.

Here comes the "fundamentalist" in me.  Consider a few very important facts about Bitcoin:

• It is the first currency (I believe, certainly that I have heard of) that is designed with absolute limits with respect to how much can be created
• The use of Bitcoin grows steadily, as more and more businesses begin to accept payments in Bitcoin (this is crucial for the survival of the currency), and on a positive note, there are no indications this will stop
• The day is fast approaching where the flow of new Bitcoins available by mining will become irrelevant in the big picture (next change of block reward to 12.5BTC in 4 years IMO)
• Especially at the time that "faucet" slows to a trickle, combined with continuing economic activity in Bitcoin, you will see much higher prices for BTC when compared to other currencies

The above, in my opinion, will have some people kicking themselves for not buying Bitcoin today - in some time to come, I am sure folks will look back to Bitcoin prices today, and think "Wow, they were very affordable back then".  That's also the time when we will become much more familiar, and used to spending fractions of Bitcoins in a transaction rather than whole, or multiples, as we're used to today.

Read up on the Pirate fiasco. He was offering 7% interest per week for deposits into his scheme, and there was a sort of frenzy as people tried to get money into his scheme, buying more bitcoins so they could invest at the great rate. Then in August he suddenly closed shop and made off with his victims money, and so the price dropped as uncertainty filled the market.

Recently there have been mentions of bitcoin in several high profile publications, and more people have been exposed to it. The more people use bitcoin, the higher its value will be.

The price floats with the market. It goes up and it goes down based on demand. Look below at recent gold prices. Is gold still a good bet?

http://goldprice.org/images/manual/goldpricechart1.jpg

It's about 17 cents per million satoshi. Dirt cheap! :P

As an answer to your question I would throw out the word confidence. The big crash last year followed a massive theft campaign that included a breach at MtGox. When the shock of it wore off it took a while for prices to rise as people realized that bitcoins fundamentals were still intact.
When confidence has risen from things like broader adoption, the price has shot up. I think that's what is happening now. Lot's of good news about BTC in the press and blogs.

Definitely $10k per BTC - I could bet my life on it. But it won't be happening tomorrow. :P