Bitcoin Forum

Maybe I'm just overly emotional on this, but here goes. I believe to see a current "plan" used by quite a few speculators, and I find the plan to be questionable at best.

The plan begins with making the current rally continue until some TV show airs. This coincides nicely with the desire to acquire some Bitcoins needed later. The average viewer of said TV show will have insufficient statistical education, and is thus likely to mistake skew for expectation value: blindly follow trends. These people may see the current strong uptrend, jump on, and thus repeat the mistake of feeding a Bitcoin bubble. The participants of the plan estimate the peak and compete to sell at the right point, either to buy back lower or to walk off with USD, their win either way.

This is different from normal bubble profits because there are participants who are trying to create a bubble, and this means they increase volatility. I know it's a mass phenomenon and unspoken and therefore no real "plan", blah. Still, it would not be in favor of the Bitcoin community's name.

But how else is everyone expecting price to jump very quickly after some TV show, if not by the viewers buying speculative Bitcoins? We won't get any indicators on the success of this type of publicity any time soon, a few web statistics at best, which could die down the same way they did before. I also don't see another reason to expect another massive rally directly after one in which price tripled, but this is a common opinion.

Maybe I got it all wrong. In that case, people should not have trouble warning newcomers about the dangers of speculating and bubbles, no? ;)

Relax.  Those that gamble on bitcoin are not children - they know what they do and what are the risks.

right, and if they don't... the gov't will bail them out...

lol. Certainly the people who bought back at 32 were well educated on the history of finance. ::)

*cough*Atlas*cough*

The problem with appealing to moral values is that those who are vulnerable stay vulnerable. You have no pull or sway over the majority who would take advantage.

And even if you prevented one bubble from forming by pure force of morals, people would only buy harder into the next one.

The real solution is education. That way vulnerabilities can be addressed with minimal damage.

Anyone who runs out and buys bitcoins after seeing it on some show without doing any research is a lucky idiot.

If you're worried about a bubble, learn to short.

As for me, I'll be selling after the rallies and rebuying on the dips.

They even mentioned that the price was at one time over $30 and that it went down due to hoarders.

At the making of this show the value of bitcoin was just over $3.

Oh give me a break....

You know how hard it is to explain what bitcoin is, and how it's different from... well, everything else, especially to non-geeks? Anything that helps explain the basic concept, even if it's technically inaccurate in its details, is good for novel new technologies.

I work in a fledgling industry that's a completely new product category, and find that it's complicated/lengthy to explain why the systems are useful.  Thankfully competitors are out there spending tens of millions trying to get the word out that this product category *exists* and is useful, and I'm thankful every time I come across someone that knows the acronyms and the lingo.  Bitcoin has no such marketing or sales group, so I think people are rightly excited that it's getting some exposure.

The pyramid-like aspect of bitcoin bothers me, too, but I can't see any better way to distribute coins quickly and make them worth keeping. Speculation is the reason the 15,000 btc pizza was bought, and it's also why KnightMB bought up ~370,000 btc back when it was in the penny range. Both transactions were driven by an expectation of higher future value, and both drove up the value of *all* bitcoins.  I think speculation is a necessary evil and part of the economy, same as in the traditional world.  How much is too much?  I don't know, but I think the $25-$50 range will be where the system will be large enough to resist most manipulation.

The $25-$50 range is when we will attract enough attention for the first real pump and dump.  Even with sound money, you can't avoid booms and busts.  It can be traumatic, which is why people usually overreact.  It will eventually smooth out, but we haven't seen the last bubble.  I don't think we'll see one short term however.

Nice I am watching it on Global now. Thought I was going to have to stream it or something.

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