Bitcoin Forum

* Too unstable.
* People losing money they cannot afford.
* The press will have another field day.
* Inviting the Gov to take notice, regulate, tax, etc?

Is the current bubble harmful to Bitcoin?
What is your real opinion, even if you are a bit blinded by profit?


Bonus question (apply here to become a multi-millionaire)
How does anyone who was active in 2011 keep panic buying/holding now?

So since your other thread is a massive facepalm https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145315.0

You decide to try again here?  ;D

Stop calling it a bubble! Stop it!  It's a "return to value" :)

It woudl only be a bubble if the fundamentals of the coin did not backup its price. If there literally is a huge adoption with may new people interested and more commerce taking place than it isnt a bubble.

Current and bubble...I'm not sure those words are supposed to go together :P

ITT

A BEAR WHO
[1] STOOD OUT OF THE MARKET WAITING FOR IT TO CRASH
[2] COULD NOT AND STILL CANNOT DRAW A STRAIGHT LINE ON A LOG GRAPH

Because the long-term outlook has not changed. In fact, the probability that bitcoin achieves massive success has risen. It's still a positive-expectation purchase, in my opinion. I bought during the 2011 bubble. I continued buying all the way down (my cheapest purchase was around $3). I continued buying all the way back up, snagging my last batch a few weeks ago.

Yup. Might crash 50% tomorrow. Why do you refuse to understand that those of us with long-term outlooks fully understand that there's tremendous variance? We are bootstrapping a new global currency from the ground up. This has never been done before. The price discovery process is going to be wild, in both directions.

We're just not arrogant enough to assume that we can time the market, so we simply buy while the current price is less than our estimation of success-case probability times the success-case price, adjusted for estimated holding time.

Sorry but when I See the price of BTC rise from around $10 to $50 in a short period of time, accombied by the panic buying we've been seeing for a few weeks I get nervous, there has to be a pullback... This is sheer madness, I've practically cashed out completely.

BTC could end up $100 in a few days and I would have 'lost' a lot of money but I feel safe where I'm standing right now. Made a real nice profit either way.

Now, imagine if the Silk Road went down or was offline for a few months... What do you think would happen to the price of BTC?

it's actually helpful I think. Bitcoin is gaining huge attention. If people see that it can fall at a moments notice they might be more cautious which means it's less likely to have a crash from 1 thousand dollars to 100 dollars in the future. Hopefully.

It wasn't a real crash, people were just confused due to the mtgox lag

Oh bears, you try so hard to sound relevant.

its not a bubble!! its a balloon!!  :P

If it stays here for a while and then crashes down to 20ish and the new businesses that have started excepting bitcoin take a financial hit then YES it will be harmful and may prevent other companies who are watching to see how things go before they decide to get on board by accepting bits. If it just floats around the 35-45 price for a while before it goes back up then it should not hurt bits reputation.

I buy a krugerrand for $1600. I have a piece of yellowish shiny metal.

Market price of krugerrands falls to $1400. I do nothing; I still have a piece of yellowish shiny metal.

I buy one BTC for $40. I have one BTC.

Market price of BTC falls to $20 per BTC. I do nothing; I still have one BTC.

Market price in terms of fiat bankster paper does matter to a point, but it is not the be all and end all. At last year's Bitcoin conference, investment guru Charles Vollum reminded us in the audience not to be heavily focused on fiat price, but the whole picture.

My view is that BitCoin, or a successor currency built along the same lines, will change the world --- and the implications for banks, regulators payments systems and their vendors are what really fascinate me.

In socialising the concept with colleagues and clients, the *appearance* of a bubble (and hysterical articles on Business Insider) is decidedly unhelpful.....   but I consider the price leaps and falls to be inevitable growing pains.

I'm sure the price will continue to vary wildly and hope those who are so unimaginative as to see this as nothing more than an esoteric speculation game are wiped out....!

which bubble? can you even define what you mean by that? there is no bubble.

Silk Road was down for almost a month late last year.  The effect on Bitcoin was non-existent

/thread

Also other sites would come about.  This is a non-issue, and the bitcoin economy is much bigger than SR these days.

+1

While i agree that the large picture is important, we just cannot simply remove fiat as the defacto reference for bitcoins value.
This cannot change unless bitcoin becomes bigger than the fiats it is referenced against.
And in any case, you cannot completely divorce these money systems when they act in our global economy.
The only situation you could consider bitcoin as not relating to other value representations is to have the bitcoin economy have nothing to do with them.

I don't think so. Bitcoins strengths are in it's utility. That is not harmed by unbridled amateur speculation.

I kinda half agree. But economists have been known to use a "Big Mac" index - Bitcoiners could adopt a pizza index to measure value.

2010: BTC5k per pizza -> BTC1 = 0,0002 pizzas
Now: BTC0,4 per pizza (say) -> BTC1 = 2,5 pizzas
Tomorrow: ?

And so on. :)

There are several ways the current situation could end up being harmful to Bitcoin.  But, in general, no there is little possibility of this bubble being as severe, and as destructive, as the last.

Comparing money to food seems pretty reasonable.
I just think it should be something more general, like bread.

If it's a bubble depends, whether Bitcoin can satisfy the expectations of the buyers. McDonalds, Walmart or Amazon accepts Bitcoin in the future? -> not a bubble. New secure issues appear or other issues (like max block size) get not solved? -> bubble.

Nobody can't say for sure, whether it is a bubble (because of that we have the discussion), because noone can predict the future for sure. "Predicting" the past is much easier. No matter what will happen it will seem for quite everybody look plausible ("Donkey! It was clear, everybody knew it!"). Like other economic crashes like the dotcom-bubble. 

These last two posts are just flat out wrong...

1) When exactly was it down for a month? Hint: It wasn't.

2) At THIS point there is nothing that people purchase with btc that comes close to the millions of dollars per month spent on SR for actual goods. Unless you include the SPECULATION as something driving the btc economy, SR is pretty much the whole thing. But by all means, if you can find another business that has even 1/20th the amount of money spent on it in btc ON ACTUAL GOODS AND SERVICES, please point it out.

Throughout November and December it was impossible to log into SR for 90% of the time.  Check the SR forum history for yourself and you'll find dozens of apologies for DPR for the issues.

I was monitoring it closely out of concern for the potential impact on BTC price.

Now show your data that proves otherwise champ.

The fact that BTC has suffered one "crash" in 2011 and recovered back to full heath is a very good indication that BTC will not be dying anytime soon (unless global EMPs happen).

We may see exponential rises and fast drops down to the support. Support seems to be rising linearly at the moment ~$20 is rock solid support IMHO.

This spunky eager behaviour, and getting up to run again after falling on its face (even when volume was low) is a sign of very good health.

BTC behaviour after the "crash" of 2011 makes it all the more attractive to me when considering it as an investment. Had that crash not happened it would not be as attractive to me.

To know a system it is good to see it's "impulse response" we have witnessed this and its response was healthy.

The current "Bubble" will only be harmful to those whose stop losses kick in on the next correction.

I'm suprised there are no big cats doing large sell orders to invoke mini avalanche and then buying up the bottom. If they are and this is explaining current intraday volatility then that is a phenomenal display of health from BTC.