Bitcoin Forum

I don't see any point in time when it was risky to buy BTC at a price below the exponential trend line.

https://i.imgur.com/Q2XPAxG.jpg?1

Looking at this chart and the last bubble we could dip as low as $512 or bubble as high as 4K this year.
Sounds reasonable yet 10K would have been better :)

Interpolating this chart into the future makes me want to see 2018 :D.
I do believe it will stagnate more and this chart might be a bit positive but let's hope I'm wrong.

Crude Interpolation:
Begin 2015:  $512 to $4K
Begin 2016:  $4K to $32K
Begin 2017:  $32K to $256K
Begin 2018:  $256K to $2M 

What is the "trendline"? An observation of an averaging of the past? What good is that? It's another one of these lagging indicators.

For example, let's pretend we are in 2011, right before the collapse portion of the bear market began, and we were trying to convince people that this was just another brief retracement.  We could conduct an averaging of the past, and claim that the trendline is this:

https://i.imgur.com/7hY8J13.png

We could have projected being at $20,000 by 2013. But that didn't happen, and a bear market happened instead. After the bear market and the recoveries, the slope of the 'trendline' adjusted, and if you fast forward to today, now you have the current 'trendline' you posted. Now let's say another bear market collapse happens, and we fast forward again to the future in 2016. The 'trendline' slope could have again adjusted, and look something like this:

https://i.imgur.com/LHsM0rJ.png

And it still looks good...

The point is that using an average price of the long term past is useless to predict the long term future and it could end up being anything with any different trendline. I could have draw dozens of other potential charts but I am not that bearish.

@TERA:
You actually just made a point I wanted to make in my previous post but didn't do it because there is enough FUD.
Based on your comment about trendlines I believe that we cannot make a straight line in the logarithmic chart anymore. It's more of a curve but still a nice growth in oncomming years.

This line was done with mspaint and purely illustrates my idea on a curve instead of a straight line. I didn't do any math to justify it...

http://i61.tinypic.com/34exe2s.jpg

Here are the major exponential lines of support and resistance.  We will likely remain between the lines for at least the next year.  What happens as we get closer to the end of the wedge remains to be seen.

https://i.imgur.com/HhOIREA.jpg?1

Any way you slice/dice it, all indications point to at least $8000+ by April 2016.

I'm hopeful about bitcoin, but this trendline has to end sometime. The only question is when.

We have a few interesting moments comming

1. Halving of block reward.
2. End of mining (or atleast viable mining)
3. Mass adoption of bitcoin

All these moments could push bitcoin to new heights and change the trendline.

I think from a trader's perspective, when you get to the point where you have to speculate about something gaining mass adoption and reaching its final form, then it's time to find something else to speculate on which is at an earlier stage and will have an easier time increasing.

Though I don't think we're at that point yet.  Sparking the next rally could be simple as opening some exchanges in New York.

True, but I am still a bit conservative and think it will end up somewhere between 6000 and 8000, but of course 8000 would be nice, and is not that unprobable to happen either.

Also, everyone knows an exponential growth can not continue forever, however, just like the chant "past results are no guarantee of future profit" it's often used in the wrong context without truly understanding it.

Exponential growth usually continues until it can not sustain itself anymore. For example a population of mice on an island will grow exponentially until food becomes scarce and they have to compete with each other. Similarly new technology spreads exponentially until there are no more people who can and want to buy your latest device.

The same counts for bitcoin, over its history of a couple of years it has proven to follow the exponential growth pattern almost religiously, and it will most likely continue to do so until it runs out of people who want bitcoin. This is not likely to happen anytime soon as there is plenty of room left to grow (we have barely even scratched the surface!). To say bitcoin will stop growing exponentially just because it hit 1000 and it would be impossable for it to hit 1 million just because your brain can not handle large numbers, or to say it stopped growing exponentially just because it corrected from last years bubble (while it's like the 4th these bubble patterns happen without moving away from the long term exponential trend) is just pretty shortsighted.

I would still think we had a looong way to go before that point. Currently 1-2 million people own bitcoins and merchants are just starting to adopt in meaningful numbers.
The halving of the block reward in 2017 (3 years away!) will decrease supply, but who knows what will happen before then.
Mining is self-regulating, so I'm not sure how this will affect prices. The same number of bitcoins will be mined regardless.
Mass adoption, whatever that means, may also have unpredictable effects. Ultimately, if there is equilibrium/stability of price then there's less reason to hoard. I imagine the greater the adoption the shallower the price curve.
All in all, there are far too many variables to make a decent guess about where a stable price range lies. But that's what makes it so interesting...

Currently only 2 years 4 months away.
Reward-Drop ETA: 2016-08-22 18:25:29 UTC (122 weeks, 7 hours, 20 minutes)

The price will only grow exponentially if the the usage of Bitcoin will grow the same rate. If you could just make a ton of money by following a simple, simple trend line, everybody would be richy rich...

I mean do you think angel investors go like this: "Uh it grew x% in the past, so this is the sure buy."?

Adoption means coins being sold in large numbers as well as bought and hoarded. Velocity will play a critical role. It's also unclear what adoption truly entails. Bitcoin as payment or transmission mechanism? How it pans out will have huge implications.

Questions is when does Bitcoin have a killer app that the mass will want to use ?

Its called the blockchain  ;D

True.  But once something comes along that uses the blockchain but hides the complexity from Joe Sixpack, THAT is the killer app.

What about incorporating/adapting BTC in the current banking system. Joe sixpack can then use his credit/debitcard as he is used to.
I know most people want bitcoin to far away from the current banking system. However I do see banks adapting the digital currency transfer systems (credit/debitcards) to do BTC safely by acting like an escrow.
Banks can then slowly reject/step away from government fiat and retain their usefulness. Since money is mostly digital nowadays it would be as easy as repricing products to the new currency.

Just like any new technology that comes along, the incumbents fight it tooth and nail until it's too late.  The banks will be the LAST to accept bitcoin, with meaningless gestures after the rest of us have made them virtually obsolete.