Bitcoin Forum

I'm just curious how many people believe that bitcoin will reach the $1 trillion total value milestone or crash and burn before it gets even close or if it will be a cryptocurrency successor that does it instead.

Personally, I have a lot of faith in Bitcoin and that the Sky is the limit when it comes to how high the value can go. I mean, it's still very possible that bitcoin could fail, but another cryptocurrency will take it's place and we will eventually(read: decades, possibly centuries from now) replace all fiat everywhere. Cryptocurrency has been released from Pandora's Box and no matter how hard banks and governments may try to put it back in, it's here to stay.

What are you predictions? When do you think it will happen? If not bitcoin, are there any potential successors that could take up the mantle? Or why do you think Cryptocurrency is bound to fail?

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/derailed_train_455.jpg


I think it's inevitable that the value of all crypto-currencies combined will  far exceeed a 1 trillion dollar cap. Whether bitcoin does it will depend on how it fares against the competition over the next decade or two.

Please stay on topic.


I'd be interested to see the statistics for the adoption of domestic vs foreign children in the US.

If you really want to discuss adoption, please take it to the offtopic subforum and send me a pm. I regret mentioning that aspect of my life now since it has completely derailed this thread.

@OP

I think cryptopcurrencies are going to play a large role in the future of finances.  The keypairs and signing transactions part is exactly how digital banking has always worked, but now it is available to the masses instead of just the select few.  Bitcoin may or may not change the world, but I have no doubt that since the cat is now out of the bag cryptocurrencies will play a large roll in the future of economics.

I'm thinking it will be another cryptocurrency.  Imo, btc is just the beginning.

Bitcoin is close to developing real network effects. Once that happens, it is Bitcoin.

Voted the 3rd option. I feel as if there's a lot to improve on Bitcoins, even if its issues we currently don't even know about. Someone will fix them and all other issues, and they'll take over. As someone said here, Bitcoin is a test.

With that being said, I'd be more than happy if it was Bitcoin that did it hehe

+1

I'm quite sure some crypto-currency will be the gobal money of the future.
It could be (an improved) Bitcoin, but there is still a chance that some competition can outdo it.

It's gonna be bitcoin for sure. It cannot be stopped anymore, no way. I think it will reach $1M (per BTC) before Christmas this year, but the long-term value is not so high.

Meh, seriously what is so great about cryptocurrencies?

I put it to you that fiat has a long way to go, and after fiat there's no guarantee cryptos will take over

Woah steady there cowboy..

I do not think bitcoin can handle that amount just yet. Sure it might look into 4 digits, but we need a lot wider availability and recognition before we can even talk about 6 let alone 7 digits.. Sure WU could be a big factor if they take the right measures, and I'm pretty sure that the bitcoin ATM will also have quite an impact. That being said, what makes you believe that it will hit the sky so soon? (I'm leaning towards high-end 6 digits in 5-10 years)

Read this (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174620). All of it.

Well I wouldn't be angry if it was, though I'd rather bet on a number like 10 thousand USD per 1 BTC at the time close to end of the year.

Mother nature doesn't like singularity , that's why you don't see it,  ever .

Actually, mother nature loves singularities, but I suspect we have a slightly different definition of what a singularity is.

Just tell me, how (by what mechanism) can you stop all the money in the world from trying to enter into bitcoin in the following 7 months?

There are no bitcoins for sale, until the price is very high. There is only about 1.5MBTC in weak hands now. I will consider selling the bulk of mine at above $1M. I think that is substantially above the long term realistic value of $300k.

"Singularity" is a human term, referencing when exponential growth crosses significant human-scale thresholds.

For example, if a middle-class guy bought 100 BTC for $200 last year, exponential growth of his holdings even up to $20,000 has felt to him like "neat, but not a big deal."

However, if that exponential growth continues apace and his worth reaches $2,000,000 next year, suddenly it's life-changing. And then in another two years he's one of the richest men alive. It feels like a singularity, because even though the growth has followed the same exponent all along, it just recently passed the thresholds of his human scale that make a big difference for him.

Except, um, black holes?

+1

I am already creating serious ripples, when I jetset around the town trying to corner all prime available office space since I know, the other bitcoin millionaires/HNWI:s will be after the same thing in as little as 30-60 days.

What you described, blokes suddenly being lifted to world class, is exactly the mechanism that will finish bitcoin's rise from <1,000 to >1,000,000 this year. It just cannot take any longer any more. This is not 2011.

So you think there will be spike at about 1M USD per BTC?

Looking at the numbers - the global wealth is about 222 trillion USD and about 1/3 (on average) is held in liquid assets. So we are looking at BTC to be going worth at max 74 trillion/21million which is about 3.5 million USD per 1 BTC.

Yeah 1 million spike sounds reasonable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD3RNouwvOU

Could you elaborate on the mechanism? Do you mean people the newly rich will brag to their friends and get everyone in on it? Or something more than that?

So Justin Beiber  just got 1 M $ richer....he really needed that ;)

Black holes are nonsense, because infinite gravity is nonsense (literally a meaningless string of words). /OT

During the heyday before the 266 crash, $10 million invested into bitcoin increased the marketcap by $100 million. This is because most of the coins are not traded, and will not be. The large holders do understand what I am saying, and will leave the haters to hate (and me to fend it off), while we all accumulate more and more bitcoins. I am not selling unless for investment, any time before $100k, and probably as we are there, I will have a hard time to start unloading, since the world will be all about bitcoin.

In January, if you bought bitcoins and mentioned it in a ball, they were looking at you like this:  :o

When bitcoin hits $100k, and you talk about soon selling yours, it will be the same:  :o

Although I'm not quite as optimistic as you, I think Bitcoin is the lottery ticket with highest chance of winning you can buy right now.
There is a realistic chance for 1M$ Bitcoins indeed, but I don't think it's for certain.

@everyone: So, if you know people playing lottery, tell them to buy Bitcoins instead xD

I have also been looking at commercial real estate.

I think a large number of us would have changed lives if Bitcoin hit $1,000. I don't see it going to even $10,000 anytime soon.

exactly, when you "see" it, you've passed event horizon, and you know what's waiting for you  ;)

One million $ per BTC in 2013? Seriously guys, that's just ridiculous.

Instead of outright denial, why don't you post some proof?

Currently I don't see a proof anywhere in this world that Bitcoin can go to zero, OR that it can go anywhere but up in the months and months to come.

It does sound ridiculous, doesn't it? But then, so does the idea that the Fed is "printing" $85 billion every month as part of its (cough, euphemism) "quantitative easing" program.

We can rise an order of magnitude or two within the next couple of years, I think, but of course past performance is no guarantee of future results. If you'd told me five months ago that now bitcoin would be trading at $130+ and litecoin at $4, I would have wondered what drugs you were on. ;D

+1

Because I don't have the ability to travel through time.

Sure, 100x within 2 years, I'd call that unlikely but possible. I really hope that happens so I can go retire on a beach somewhere.

But the OP is predicting a rise from mid $130s to ONE MILLION BUCKS in 8 months. Does anyone else here believe that's possible?

It was me, not the OP  8)

I would say that it's hard to believe, but also possible.  The last bubble drew quite an amount of interest to cryptocurrency, and it with it a lot of VC to improve the overall infrastructure.

rpietila is no troll.  If he says it is possible, I believe it.

we all wish this could become true. but...

how should the bitcoin infrastructure cope with that ? remember the spike a few weeks ago ? mt.gox couldn´t handle it. lag. laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag... panic sell lemming stunt. while at the same time bitcointalk went offline, bitcoincharts went offline, no more prices, other exchanges getting in trouble because users went away from mt.gox ... it was a desaster.

at 250 $

what would happen at 2500,- ? imagine the media coverage. everything would get really crazy at a 2500 level. but what about 25 000,- ? pure madness. it would be in daily news, some news would start to broadcast live from tokyo 24/7. people would go nuts. every scammer would sell to every grandma, people would start killing each other over bitcoins. how would mt.gox and the rest of the infrastructure do at this point ? if all this and much more complete madness is going on, what is to expect at 250 000,- $ ? mt.gox would be in smoking ruins.

let´s say mt.gox pulls all the way through 1 btc = 1 million $  
if one cashes out his 100 btc he would have 100 mio $ on his account. (would sure look nice)
with the current rate of withdrawel of 10 000,- $ a month...  hm...  nice income for the next 833 years.  


much more likely: failing infrastructure making it bumpy all the way up to....  (?)

Of course it's bumpy, but that will just be a killing upon a killing for OTC dealers, like me.

If you want to learn how to profit, there is a summit in my sig.

Gox will be replaced by a dealer network this year

I think that's what rpietila is getting to though: infrastructure is one of the roadblocks holding cryptocurrency back, currently.  With the recent growth there is significant areas for individuals or groups to use their knowledge and increasing financial weight to aggressively remove those barriers to entry and primary points of failure.  

Anything over $10,000 by the end of this years is a bold claim in my opinion, no way will we hit $1mil per BTC, at least not within the next couple of years(most likely ever). Think about it, how will Bitcoin users shift down to those kind of decimals within a space months, just the psychological impact of such an increase is difficult to accept.

Because for such a thing to happen there current userbase will become 0.01% or less of the new userbase.

Not being bullish enough has always been and continues to be my biggest mistake regarding bitcoin.

I do consider myself Bullish, I am in Bitcoin for the long term however what would that kind of value do to the economic system? Will the bankers and corrupt governments sit back and watch some new kids make billions from their BTC wallet? Perhaps in 10 years BTC would be widely adopted and worth huge sums but no way within this year.

If I am wrong then I will send everyone in this thread (up to this point) 1BTC lol.

Awesome.  Looking forward to my free $1 million coin :P.

No, I don't think they will sit back.  I think they will resist but be unable to stop it.  Eventually, they will have to jump in and adapt or go extinct.  Corrupt governments should love it since it is easier to launder than digital fiat transactions.

Nonsense words are the main currency of theoretical math and physics: words like point, set, line, plane, mass, force, gravity, momentum, space, infinity, time, and most of the rest - words that seem like they have a definite single meaning but actually don't. (Fortunately engineering, where math and physics actually hit road, has real-world/market tests that largely weed that stuff out or work around it in a way that sequesters the silliness.)

To bring this back on topic, speculation is another nonsense word. Or rather a word that has multiple, subtly different definitions that people will switch between as is convenient for their argument (same as math/physics people do with the word infinity). To speak of speculation (or infinity) "as such" with no elaboration in what is supposed to be a rigorous context is then effectively nonsense - uninterpretable.

Speculation means variously "investing for short-term gains," "investing in something as a store of value," or both. People use the equivocation to rope all the people covered by the latter definition under the umbrella of those who only invest for short-term gains. They'll act like "speculation" is bad, using the implied argument that of course weak hands are bad (first definition), but then use that to reach the conclusion that therefore Bitcoin should only be valued for its medium-of-exchange uses, and that all the store-of-value ("speculation" definition #2) imputed value is somehow illegitimate.

When people try to make a careful/rigorous argument this way, they end up spouting nonsense. It is of course expensive for an investor to harbor nonsense notions about the value of an asset.

If you want to defend any terms (be they investing terms or scientific ones) as "not nonsense," the place to start is by supplying definitions of them.

Saying X has been observed doesn't communicate anything until we both know what we are talking about when we say "X."

Once definitions have been supplied, the key question is whether the definitions can be used consistently.

While I think I get where Mr. Pietila is really coming up with the $1 million figure, I'd really like to hear his thoughts on how it could be possible for the infrastructure to adapt to that. Even with his supernodes idea, it seems just too fast for human structures to form, be vetted, and reach full capacity. So many things would have to change so incredibly quickly.

I don't see that really being addressed except by invoking "Supernodes! (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Semantic_stopsign)" In other words, I'd like a clear and detailed explanation of how supernodes could form quickly enough for all this to happen within the year. Why aren't there all sorts of other infrastructural challenges that would realistically limit growth to the merely exponential ($10,000 by year end)?

There is a conference dedicated to all this, and you are not yet enrolled.

That is correct. And as they do (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174620.msg1940876#msg1940876), they create a ripple effect which increases the bitcoin adoption, and increases its price, creating a virtuous cycle.

The fact that Casascius coins, quality weed, hotel rooms, world class office space, champagne, etc. will start to command very high prices in the immediate future, is in no way a detriment to the continuing adoption of Bitcoin. The prices will just effect an increased production of these types of goods and services, and there will no more be need to produce lower quality stuff at all, since nobody is willing to use it, no matter the price.

Unfortunately I still don't have enough to quit my day job and fly to Finland. Maybe next year :)

I want to contribute some small thoughts to this discussion:

1. the amount of calculated BTC is split into two parts - one part which is in use and another part which people store in a safe space, which may in a later phase have a heavy impact on the BTC market

2. the current value of money derives from two aspects: firstly the summed up goods and services available for the money in use (see pt.1); and secondly the money users (owners) expectation on the value development - the harbour safed BTC amount is no more or less a speculation on increasing value

3. the course (value) balance for BTC therefore is a game between circulating BTC, market growth and number of market partitipants. Always with the overlay of the impact safed BTC amount have when they are flooded into the market which is especially high due to the fact that many people seem to be in a gold rush (which may also end up in a cold rush :) )

My personal expectation is that BTC has a good chance to grow quite quickly in value if the market base grows quite quickly. That means if people adopt the currency and start to trade their goods and services also in BTC. Also projects like Bitmit or BitcoinATM have key influence on this.

On the other side goverments, financial institutes and everybody who profits from the currently installed interest based monetary system will start to fight Bitcoins with whatever they find to suppress it - e.g. legal attacks (criminalisation of BTC users and markets for money laundering), technical infrastructure attacks (DoS attacks, crypto attacks, social attacks etc.) and what else they might find.

The interesting question is if this money virus like concept will find a market stability which create more trust than rumors and attacks can destroy.

To forecast any course development in a market which is in the current phase dominated by speculation is simply ridiculus. I expect growing rates with growing volatility which again has a negative impact on peoples trust. Maybe it would be good if some potential market participants would take over the role of market makers to stabilize the course development.