Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin to grow by 4000% in 14 minutes!
Cash to die out in 6 weeks!
If you don't have bitcoins, you will be poor forever!
Bitcoins will remove all evil in the future!
etc
etc!

Raising people's expectation to a level which is unreachable is a sure fire way of making everyone turn against you!!

I'm noticing the same types of extrapolation that were around in the mid 90s in relation to the internet. How it would take over the world, and the first people in would be the winners - and so started the stupid dot com boom (linked with that other stupid idea, the millennium bug!) that brought a whole industry to its knees in the start of the Century!

What do we have now?  The internet has changed the world, but the world is still here.  We buy more online, but we now spend more money in Coffee shops! We download our music, but spend far more time actually seeing the live music. But we still have to visit the corner shop to buy bread - just like my grandad did! Some companies have grown from nothing - others had died a death!

The reality is that bitcoin is still very, very unstable - compared to credit cards, and little bits of paper.  There are currently as many bitcoin transactions in a day that the credit card companies deal with in a few seconds. Bitcoin is sometimes having problems dealing with its daily amount!

The reality is that if bitcoin survives this gold rush insanity, its going to have to find a niche that keeps everyone happy - or risk lots of government intervention.  After it does that, then we will see some growth, maybe the sort we see in the picture.  But its going to take a lot of time.

We are reaching a tipping point soon where bitcoin is either going to become respectable, or the currency of the tin foil brigade.  If its the latter, the brand will die, regardless of how technically good it becomes.

What do others think?

Do you care?

Are you just in it for the big bucks - even if they just turn out to be a mirage?

Your fate is drawn on your avatar

Technically the guys saying that about the internet in the mid 90s were right  :D Just, not in 2000 but in 2010  :D

Yes: to lose them, like in almost any other investment I could make.
But at this regard perhaps only in the Bitcoin-sphere you can find gold mines like the GLBSE, Pirate, etc.


After gov't intervention there will be just this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8t59jorH2DM/SXZ1_275pyI/AAAAAAAADys/az9Ej6vEcQE/s400/Obama+-+There+Will+Be+Taxes.jpg

Fiat money IS a crime. We are born into a world and we accept things when they seem to work. But when you start to look at it and think in critical terms you realize how much faith you must put into the hands of the issuers; and 2008 proved that that is an unwarranted offering. But the trick is to change the world without having to tear everything down and start all over again (which just leads back to the same old). We must slowly take away the power of the governments by becoming independent, untaxable, and indifferent. The internet, and p2p especially, gives the people the ability to collectively work from the ground up. Our government's in the west were founded 300 years ago and we think they are effective in the modern day? We rush to replace anything else ineffective by the power of technology but the houses of our governments are the SAME, filled with the privileged classes that assume they are there to serve the public because they know what's best for us, and then take our money when their friends screw up in the markets and cut them a carte blanche backed by the work debt of the masses.  

Too bad critical thinking is abhorred in compulsory schooling :P  Don't think, just learn!

I get what you are saying, but in all honesty, its naive thinking.

The world has hardly changed politically since the days of the Greeks.

People have always found that when they can't get what they want, they try and find a way to create their own rules.  It all works out great for them, but eventually, others within the group want something else, find that the rules don't work for them, and the cycle continues!

I guess the reason for this difference of opinion is our backgrounds. I live in a place where there are daily reminders of 2000 years of man's desire to change their own world.  Every few generations, a revolution occurs and life changes.  However, the dirty part of reality is that its the same people who are on the top of the pile.

You think the privileged classes will get removed by bitcoin?  Forget it, the reason they are there in the first place is because they know how to play the game.  Bitcoin is just a handy way to move cash. No more, No less.

The same might have been said of Apple stock in its beginning stages as well.

I am saying bitcoin is a step towards having a monetary system that is transparent and publicly owned and operated, and this undermines the current power structure. The ECB report implicitly stated that bitcoin could be a threat to faith in the Euro.

Oh, by the way. Have you *ever* heard from *anyone* that he has faith in the Euro?

I mean from a person that has any knowledge of the subject, and is not biased.

+1 Lol! :)

They know the way to play the game, but internet and p2p changed this game forever. We are now living at the beginning of a collective decentralized world, something that was never technologically possible. And bitcoin is one of many bricks in it's foundation. Old school financial world is operating on this premise of a small network of people who have information ruling the blind herd; this will change, the network will grow. I don't know how painful the transformation would be, but it is unavoidable, if you don't consider global nuclear or similar crisis that would push us way back into pre-internet era.

Never before could a billion worth of wealth be stored on a key drive size of a penny. Never before could one simple man with no money say something that would be read by everybody in the world at the same time. There are many things less than 10 years old which open new horizons; and effects of this global network will surely change mankind forever. You will not be able to hide from it anyway :)

People USING it to BUY things and accept is as their WAGE is FAITH in the EURO. Wow this place is just full of knuckle dragging retards.

To me, the first BTC bubble to $32 was very much like the dot com boom.  Very little substance to support the price at the time. 

However, look at the dom com's now.  The Google, Apple, Amazon, Ebay of the world.  Game changers.  Technological adoption is not a clear and easy path.  There will be corrections and bumps in the road but if the tech is solid, in time it will be adopted.  If anything, your example of the internet shows the potential of Bitcoin, not its demise.

+1

Good post. I have talked about this several times before, Amazon stock for example went up by over 50 times and then crashed over 90% from the highs. People got carried away with the technology and thought they would take over the world overnight... obviously it took many years but yea they have indeed taken over the world just like those 'crazy people' in 2000 were saying.  ;D

 ;D Faith at gunpoint...

Except most of the people using fiat don't think of it like that.

Thats because people are impatient. Thats why traders exist, because people are impatient, they want a quick buck.

Investors, they buy low, spread risk and hold through panic. Buying the nasdaq (as a simple way to diversify risk amongst a bunch of tech stocks) in the mid 90's, and holding right through the bubble bursting, and the subsequent market crash of 2008 and you are still looking at ~113%-263% returns.

Buying BTC at nearly any point (other than the recent ATH - still only a 10% loss if you did atm) and holding and you are up right now.

Dollar cost averaging monthly since July 2010 would give you a cost basis $11.45 and thats if you were unlucky enough to pick the most expensive price every month! Even if you didn't get in at the start, and bought your first coins in june 2011 for $31.90, if you DCA'd from then til now and still were buying at the worst possible price every month your cost basis would be $16!!!

Trading will give you huge profits¹
Investing will give you moderate profits.²

see Graham, Taleb etc


The most important thing of all though, is that your dollar value is merely an indicator of BTC adoption/fiat devaluation. You are buying your future wealth right now for a fraction of its price, because you are lucky enough to know about it before it goes mainstream. Provided it all pans out and nothing bad happens. Assess risk and diversify accordingly!

---

¹Some of the time
²Most of the time

Apple is a good comparision but could very well be greatly understating potential bitcoin prices (http://www.runtogold.com/bitcoin-price/).

http://www.runtogold.com/images/potential-bitcoin-prices.jpg

Everyone talks about all the success stories like its a prediction of where bitcoin is going, but this is not a good way to predict the future.

Generally speaking, only 10% of products that get as far as being launched onto the shop shelves, actually make a profit for their developers.  Bitcoin is on the shelves, so its already made it this far.  As everyone keeps going on about Apple, lets imagine this could be our ipad, and not our Newton - but we don't know yet!

Reading the bitcoin white paper, its was only designed to be used in conjunction with other systems where faster confirmation and non reversal was important.  This was not meant to be a replacement for fiat, even if the potential is there.





 

I think there would be many Germans who would like to get back to the Mark...

yes but never before have we been able to exert power and rearrange society if full sight but also anon....bitcoin is rearageing society

Perhaps they will make Markcoins.