Bitcoin Forum

So here's how I read the current sentiment around this forum: most people who watched 2011 happen here are now expecting a dump. Most newbies aren't.

2011 bitcoiners are mostly middle-class geeks not pro investors. Their fun-money has suddenly become something you can buy real estate with. At that level there is little point for them in buying more coins with their monthly spare cash - it's like adding a few dimes to a million.
Most of them were true believers at the beginning, yet now I'm not sure most of them still are - to the point they'd actually spend their coins.
Their stash's potential worth keeps oscillating between "decent car" and "financial empire", depending on the news of the day.
So much at stake doesn't make you sleep at night. Turns you into a zombie checking tickers and watching walls.

Newbies - they are coming late to the party and are likely in for the get-rich-quick hype. They don't have the 2011 bias. It's like fathers vs kids. Fathers have cognitive bias so they are uneasy to adapt to new conditions. Kids have inexperience bias so they are likely going to make the same mistakes again.

And then there are speculators. Pro speculators. Likely silent lurkers here. Maybe we are all being played by a few pro's of them who just need to get all the coins for their own play, and are ok with burning some serious amount of fiat in the process. I don't know.

I think BTC price is like Schroedinger's cat. The simple act of us observing walls and talking about them makes it so that they move in the opposite direction of where the most of us expect them to. And yes I think the dump will happen. But only when almost nobody is expecting it anymore. Which makes it hard for us to get profit on the way up.

Didn't a big dump just happened a few days ago?

My guess is that there are not enough bitcoins around to crash their price much more, given the demand, unless a better cryptocoin becomes popular or some weak spot is found.

I got in in 2010.  I sold too early (2011 and 2012) and don't have much now.  On the other hand, I turned $20 and a little mining into $8000 and I feel pretty good about that.  PLaying with bitcoins is fun partly because it is really easy to win.  Just hold.

I think you are spot on on that one.
Damn :-[

Oh, and I am no longer a true believer.  I thought bitcoins could revolutionize finance and make it free.  Currently the only thing you can  buy better with bitcoins than fiat is drugs (at least as far as I can tell)  I'm all in favor of a reliable way to conduct online drug deals, but I had a LOT more hope for Bitcoin than that.

I still think they're going to keep going up for a while yet though. 

Its a bit early to throw in the towel yet Babylon, bitcoins are process and there is gradual progress happening all the time. Don't expect instant results, it will take years

I've been involved with them for years.  There used to be a bitcoin e-bay, now there is not.  There used to be more escrow services than there are now.  It feels like we are further from the sort of potential I thought it had than we wee back when it cost less than a dollar to buy a bitcoin.

I haven't given up, I just wouldn't call myself a true believer.

I wouldn't lose hope so early.
Bitcoin is the first easily accessible, relatively widespread technology that can circumvent restrictions on currency exchange set by governments.

I'm thinking about China where you are not allowed to freely exchange CNY for USD, unless you're very important. And their government is printing CNY faster than the feds are printing USD because they are trying to deflate their own internal housing bubble and at the same time make sure Chinese products' price (in USD) stays low enough.
Or Iran, for what matters.

This could have an important side effect: if you keep constantly changing back and forth from your national currency to bitcoins, after a while you start thinking of prices of goods in bitcoins. So I envision a distant future where bitcoins (or a successor of them) are the worldwide currency of reference.

Albeit for most people in the short term bitcoins mainly are a crazy speculation toy.

They could also be built seamlessly into the system in a way that doesn't have you thinking in bitcoin prices or the prices in other currencies.  That seems to be how things work on the Atlantis Black Market, prices are in dollars, bitcoins are what you pay with.  It wouldn't be too hard for a site to give the prices for items in the native currencies of any number of people while still having payment in bitcoin.

Hmm..

What about the people who have Bitcoins from 2012? Those that brought some (mostly for Silk Road at the time) before all the btc businesses started appearing beginning of this year, and then suddenly realised those few btc's still in their wallets are suddenly worth a bit more. Not millionaires, but suddenly more interested.

That's basically the situation I am in.

Althoguh the fact that people bought for Silk Road makes it interesting, since it means it is mostly drug consumers.

I'm probably the greenest noob posting in speculation, so here's some first-hand info:
Learned about Bitcoin on a hardware site a while back.  I was building waterblocks, and someone mentioned mining as an alternative burn/bench app  ;D 
Read about it again last summer on a mainstream tech news site, found this forum & started lurking.  And i still have no money in Bitcoin, though if getting in on an impulse was as easy as getting out, i'm sure i would be pretty heavily in by now (for better or worse, i play-traded to a small profit, but so many variables ignored).

Buying into Bitcoin seems pretty dicey. The buyer expected to account for variables one expects in a street drug deal, not exchange of currency.  Mt. Grox, escrow, reputation systems etc. lower the risks, but these are not available to an impulse buyer (Mt. Grox requires a wait period & documentation, the rest imply time spent in the Bitcoin community, thus != new impulse buy-in)

As far as dumping on the horizon -- sure, but how much & when ??? :D   

And (i think) i agree with your Schroedinger's cat analogy, but if i'm reading you right (not sure how deeply you mean it to be followed), it applies to most markets, unless you feel that some things have intrinsic value, immutable by demand, decree, speculation etc. 

there still is an "ebay of bitcoins" its called bitmit.net

I've been involved with Bitcoin since early 2011 (registered here in June 2011).  A dump wouldn't surprise me at this point, but I'm honestly perplexed as to why the price is not skyrocketing now.  So many of the things we dreamed of in 2011 are happening:

1.  Bitcoin has gotten serious and very favorable attention from a number of extremely well-known VCs
2.  As a result of (1), a number of amazing new Bitcoin businesses are being built as we speak.
3.  Bitcoin has gotten explicit legal recognition from the US (Fincen)
4.  Bitcoin is routinely covered in mainstream financial news (WSJ, Forbes, Economist).  Much of the coverage is positive.
5.  Bitcoin is gaining adoption as a payment system by more and more "regular" business each day.  Watch r/bitcoin for a few days and see.
6.  The CEOs of both Paypal and Western Union have said that they're seriously thinking about integrating Bitcoin into their businesses.

And to top it off, we've gotten a huge positive surprise no one even dreamed of:  Bitcoin was covered very positively in a half-hour special of one of China's most popular financial news programs, signaling implicit Chinese government approval of Bitcoin.

If Bitcoin dives, I know what I'm doing.

There were a lot of bad news as well though. Exchanges bank accounts closing, propaganda attack with that kiddy porn links, there was that stupid icnn report that obama has banned bitcoins.

The good fundamentals you mention though are really good. They hint at mass adoption. The new craze. Maybe the new facebook like big thing.

But, it is a very learning to walk stage for bitcoins, hence the ups and downs.

Not necessarily a dump, but possibly a long, slow slide.


This is essentially correct.


Eh, I still believe in Bitcoin in the long term, but I think it's over-hyped now.


A bit of an exaggeration on how much it oscillates, but yes, it was stressful enough to make me sell all of my coins recently.


Yep, I think the price will be a lot lower in 6 months.


It's possible, who knows.


The dump already happened. The next step to match 2011 is a long, slow slide (with some bouncing up and down) for the next 6 months.

"Extremely well-known VCs"? Acronym search for "VC" yields nothing meaningful in a list of 50.  In other words, extremely well-known, when applied to "VC," (virtual currency?  Virtual credit?  Virtual company?) doesn't mean much?
Could you name a couple you are convinced will still be around in a few months & are not related to currency exchange?  (SR is already built--doesn't count.)
Heroin has "explicit legal recognition" -- as a CI drug.  What's Bitcoin recognised as?
Sounds better than "Bitcoin occasionally appears in newsy financial publications  (WSJ, Forbes, Economist).  Much of the coverage is negative."  Both say the same thing.
Again, could you point me to a few companies of any size which accept Bitcoin?  Exclusively?  A sub sub reddit is the pinnacle of success for Bitcoin entrepreneurs?
In other words, you honestly believe that Paypal or Western Union is likely to offer bitcoin transactions?  You don't even need to convince me, just tell me that you think it likely.
If you do not, why even mention it?  

...followed by:


Heh.

Just cuz you don't what a VC is doesn't mean rich-folk don't.

VC = venture capitalist.  If you google "bitcoin" and "VC", you'll see all the names.  The fact that you didn't do that makes me question the wisdom of even addressing your questions, but I'll try a few anyway.  A few of the names: Fred Wilson, Chris Dixon (of  Andreessen Horowitz).  Google for the rest.  Etc.  Major venture capitalists.


Bitcoin is recognized as a "virtual currency".  Read the FINCEN document.


Yes, I honestly believe that WU may integrate Bitcoin into its service offerings.  Paypal, unlikely.  But the point of mentioning it is that CEOs of huge companies are talking about Bitcoin in a serious manner.  They don't make these comments off-the-cuff.  Some very serious vetting is going on.

Look, I don't need to convince you, and I don't have the time to answer all your questions.  But try researching some of these topics yourself, and you'll get a picture of what's going on. For example, check out r/bitcoin for the past week or two for all the businesses announcing that are accepting Bitcoin now.  I'm not claiming that huge businesses are accepting bitcoins, but more and more small- to -mid-sized businesses are.

It's good to be skeptical with Bitcoin-related discussions.  But I have little doubt that Bitcoin is going mainstream.  What that means for the price I'm still not sure.

I'll rely on survivors and Senseis before I rely on newer folk.

  Never heard of Fred Wilson, but googled him just as you've suggested.  His view on Bitcoin could be summed in a single statement from his blog: "...Bitcoin or something else, I'm confident we'll see the emergence of currencies that are not controlled by nation states in my lifetime."  In other words, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Feathercoin, BBQ, CNC, DDT or some other TLA-coin. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.  Oh, he also donated 500BTC to the Bitcoin Foundation last year.  Donated.  At that time bitcoin was, what, ~$12? So, let's see...  Six thousand bucks?  Didn't look up his worth, but my guess is that sum puts him out no more than the buck i give to a panhandler.

  Chris Dixon, another household name.  Googled him too.  This sums him up well enough: "Dixon himself has invested “a fair amount” in Bitcoin, although he wouldn't say how much." In other words, young tech startup investor is not embarrassed to admit he's got cash in Bitcoin.  Not news.

  Major venture capitalists?  If the firms behind these men were invested in Bitcoin, on record -- that would be news worth talking about.  I already know people invest in Bitcoin -- thinking of doing it myself.  



You mean this one? http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html  Why not read the part that differentiates "real currency" from "virtual currency"?  
Then you can explain how the guidelines help, rather than hurt Bitcoin.


In other words, PayPal's CEO is "talking about Bitcoin in a serious manner," but you think it "unlikely" that he's being serious?  Is this some new Interwebz kind o' sophistry?


If assuming me lazy & uninformed serves you well, by all means do.  Though if your intent was to preach the virtues of Bitcoin, why not treat my questions at face value, and drop the patronizing "I don't need to convince you, and I don't have the time"?    


I think so too.  Or some other cryptocurrency.  Some day.  If i only knew which, and (more importantly) when.
EDIT:  Gah!  I can't even match brackets!!

How much have you donated to the Bitcoin Foundation? And if you have money to throw around be free to send me some. Moreover, if you have money to throw around doesn't that sort of prove what was being said, investors are looking to invest.

I think you misread me.  I was trying to say that the $6000 or so donation to a man of Fred Wilson's caliber is equivalent to me giving a single dollar bill to a beggar.  In other words,  Fred Wilson is *six thousand times richer and better than me*.  

P.S.

I've donated exactly 0 (zero) bitcoins to the Bitcoin Foundation.  I could have spared more, but all of my funds were tied up in competing currency, a gift of which would have been in pretty poor taste, no?  What i wanna know is how Fred got his hands on the Bitcoin?  Did he read the Scam Accusations thread?  Did he build up his ..."rep"?

Well, it's quite nice of you to suggest that other's donations are worthless.

The point wasn't that VC's are investing in actual bitcoins. The point was that Silicon Valley is on fire with bitcoin fever. Loads of companies, many not publicly, but some publicly, are being founded and are working on infrastructure for bitcoins. That in turn is likely to lead to a healthy or healthier ecosystem for bitcoins. Making it ready for mainstream adoption.

I wouldn't dream of it!  Are you implying that my dollar gift to a gutter wino is worthless?  

P.S.
I think your experience with tech investors is different from mine.  You may feel that they put the best of the best startups in crosshairs & pull the trigger.  My experience?  Shotgun blast with two barrels of birdshot.

There are always enough coins to crash the market, because coins can be resold.

1 - Coins sold on market, price goes down a bit
2 - Price stays steady, goes down a bit, some people get bored or panic
3 - People who bought coins in 1 panic and sell their coins

repeat until all the bids are taken or people withdraw their bids so they don't get stuck with a dropping asset, and voila, the price goes down to nothing, even though there were 45 million bitcoins worth of bids.