Bitcoin Forum

Take a look at the last 6 months (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzl):



http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=180&i=&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=0&ps=0&l=1&p=0&




BTC price were "almost stable". I know it's funny saying that when we had 350% price swings, from a low of almost $2 to a high of about $7. But in BTC terms, that's "almost stable".


Compare that to the 6 months before that (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180zczsg2011-03-10zeg2011-09-08ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzl)


http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=180&i=&c=1&s=2011-03-10&e=2011-09-08&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=0&ps=0&l=1&p=0&

A low of 80 cents, a high of $32, ended at around $7, that's about 4000% end-to-end volatility.


Of course, this tells nothing of the future.

A little theory: Increased stability --> Good for BTC economy, shows public trust in BTC --> rising BTC prices --> decreased stability --> ... ?

"A little theory: Increased stability -> Good for BTC economy, shows public trust in BTC -> rising BTC prices -> decreased stability -> ... ?"

Increasing the price of bitcoin will bring about more attention which will bring in more people which will finally force bitcoin to its actual price discovery (what it should be worth if the general public started using it)

Why do you think more people started buying gold? ... (hint) it wasn't because the price of gold flat-lined or went down  ;)

Lulz.

So BTC is stable because... because it was even more unstable before?  ;D

That's a good sales pitch: "bitcoin is stable!*1"

*1 : stability defined as price swings around 350%. Could be more. Terms apply.

All I'm saying is that there will be Bitcoin Bubble 2.0 (and probablly 3.0+) before getting to the "real" stable price.
If Bitcoin now jumped to $50 and stayed there for a few months, this fact would attract more speculators and a bubble to $100+ will form, which will then quickly deflate to $20, etc...

Within a few (5-10) years, all these ups and downs should calm down, and either 1 BTC will be less than 10 cents, or at least $1000. My hunch is that the volatility in the next 6 months will be higher than the last 6 months.

Yeah right. :D

If bitcoin jumped up to $50 I know I wouldn't be able to get to the sell button fast enough and I'm sure I'm not the only one.  My point is, a jump like that is not sustainable, as we've already seen.

BUT BRUCE SAID $100!

And if Amazon or Google dropped a bomb and announced, out of the blue, that they will be integrating Amazon into their services?
Something like this could spike prices well above $100.

I'm not saying it's likely in the near future, I have little info on the inner workings of Amazon & Google. My point is that a major news event could boost prices a lot higher than the current rate.

Replace Amazon/Google with some smaller company for a smaller increase in BTC prices. E.g. Quora decides to switch from their internal credit system to Bitcoin.

The Google chairman himself said they did not want to create a p2p currency like Bitcoin due to the legal troubles.

Noone anyone nearly established will accept Bitcoins anytime soon. They will only do so when they are overwhelmingly forced to by demand.

The point in accepting Bitcoin is not tax evasion, it's reduced fees from payment processors and credit card companies, and increased anonymity.

Note that if I happened to be a manager of a mid-large company, and would happen to be a personal Bitcoin believer, I'd think there's good business sense in being early adopters and not just waiting out.

"If we, BigCompanyFoo, accept Bitcoin now, Bitcoin prices are likely to rise considerably because of that, and other companies will follow suit. If we invest a nice sum of BTC, and then make the announcement that we'll accept Bitcoin, we'll make a lot of money for our shareholders in the process, regardless of any future profits from Bitcoin being inherently more efficient than other payment processors".

The business sense sounds like a ponzi-scheme, but it might make sense. Granted, it's not the kind of decisions I imagine most executives at most mid-large companies ever making ... its too risky at this point.

This is why we need like a distributed (as opposed to central) payment processor, perhaps something incentivized that miners could run along side mining.  So that when someone goes to www.bitcoin.org to get started, they no longer download a client -- they just sign up and a card will be sent to them that spends their BTC.  And their wallet would be securely stored on the distributed processor.  I'm sure it will be hella hax0r3d at first but it is what needs to happen.

That is not quite correct. There is a way to use bitcoins much like cash that only requires the customer to carry pieces of paper. Of course, those pieces of paper need to come from somewhere but that's the case with cash too.

The method is simple. You just have pieces of paper that have bitcoin private keys printed on them (ideally QR codes too) and have someone transfer bitcoins into them in whatever amounts desired. Then, at the shop, you just hand over the paper, they scan it, sweep the coins and you're done.

What if the customer does not have a credit card or bank account and wishes to purchase something online? For in person transactions cash is the option. But what options exist online on a worldwide basis in this case other than Bitcoin?

By the way people without credit cards or bank accounts are a very significant proportion of the population.

Way to run off in a completely unrelated dimension you have there. I merely corrected your misconception that the customer needs expensive equipment to use bitcoins. The dream world where all shops accept bitcoins is still quite far away from reality, unfortunately.

P.S. I must remark that your way of trying to paint me as someone living in a dreamworld is extremely disrespectful. Unless you're going to answer with a respectful tone, you might as well not bother.

A 10x jump is not sustainable?  Wasn't Bitcoin at $.05 for a while, and then hit $.50? 10x.  Oh, and then didn't it hit $5? Another 10x. Since the beginning of last year we already jumped over 10x and have remained quite stable in the $4-$6 range.

WOW! You really don't know what you are talking about.
CC might be cheap for the consumer, but not the merchant!
I operate a small business and pay so much in PP fees it would hire 1 guy fulltime! This with significantly lower than CC processing fees. Changing to direct CC processing now would double up the cost probably.

Right now Bitcoin mostly matters for online purchases, anyone looking to make online purchases does not need any additional investment to utilize Bitcoin. NADA.
Only investment is a little bit of time to install bitcoin client, register on Mt.Gox and buy bitcoins.

Chargebacks are an extreme cost at the merchant side, and this extreme cost is added directly to the end product costs for honest customers. Single chargeback can loose the merchant thousands of euros, atleast in the case of Paypal where paypal might take the chargeback amount + another time the chargeback amount as reserve for costs of handling the chargeback. Even if you disputed successfully the chargeback there is upto 15% cost.

Now even at 7.5% cost, even if 0.1% customers do chargeback and you successfully dispute it 100% of the time, is 7.5%+human resources added to the final product price.

Computers are dead cheap nowadays anyways, 150-200€ for cheapest netbooks, new :)
400€ for full desktop.
That is less than any serious business would pay in TRX fees in any given month. Nevermind if they actually process the CC fees themselves there is also reserves etc. holding a % for atleast months, or for the lifetime of the merchant account.

Payment processing is currently *very expensive*, for example for us it accounts for roughly 6% of total costs! More than our marketing budget ffs.

If we'd solely use bitcoin, buyer would benefit:
 - At the very least 3% average lower service price, more likely in the 15% area (for 100% margin service, 1euro saved in costs lowers end price 2euros, 25% margin service price will likely stay the same)
 - No PP Dilemnas, getting verified etc.
 - No random payment reversals with PP and causing need to submit extra info to PP for validation
 - No sending utility bills, drivers license pictures etc.
 - Not having to keep a valid CC on file @ PP to be charged anytime for whatever reason PP decides
 - Not having the chance of PP employee stealing your CC information (In the past even cleaners had access to CC information)
 - No random accounts freezings
 - No waiting always PP to load forever (for finns logging in might take 3-7minutes, amazing it doesn't hit timeout)
 - Fast transaction histories if you need it
 - Ability to purchase sub-1$ priced services (PP Charge minimum 0.39$ TRX fee), in practice availability of good value sub-5$ services. Anything below 5$ and the TRX fee margin becomes too high
 - Some long term payment discounts on low priced services are transferred to even monthly subscriptions (TRX fee minimums)
 - Anyone could use our service, as in practice Bitcoin is available to any nationality without restrictions (Unlike PP)

Many have asked us to support WU, but we'd have to charge 40-60€ per transaction for using WU :(

First of all, you should learn a little bit of english, if you want anyone to understand you.

Wire transfers are FREE here. I'm talking about PP and CC payments, you said CC is far superior. No one was talking about wire transfers.

Currently users have no need for BTC because so few places accept BTC. We accept on manual request, but only manual as long as there isn't a WHMCS module i'm confident enough with. At this point we have to charge a little bit extra for BTC payment due to it's volatility.

You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Were are right now in a state where there is NO demand for BTC payments from merchant point of view, because users see no supply.
As soon as there is a little bit more supply, users will adopt when they see the all around benefits. Stabilizing exchange rate will help there as well.

It's true however that the sole reason we accept PP is because by nature 97% of webhosting payments are via PP.
However, if it would be convenient for us we would push more for Alert Pay, and probably Liberty Reserve too, along with WebMoney and some Asian gateways, unfortunately, becoming a merchant with them has been made rather .... Annoying .... To say it very mildly.

If we would present all those choices, i would bet usage of PP would drop to around 40%-50%, mainly being US and UK customers. But at that point we would also add an extra fee for using PP, allowed by accepting Western Union with even heftier fee ;) At that point PP usage would plummet.
However, right now convenience trumps other benefits, managing a bunch of different payment methods can create a lot of extra burden on managing cash flow.

Did you know that PP TOS denies you right to charge extra fee for using PP *unless* you accept some other payment method as well with the same or higher fee?

PP is currently killing their supply side (merchants), so it's only matter of time supply for BTC services becomes great enough for mass adoption buy consumers (demand of BTC paid services).

So wake up, and get first some experience and knowledge about things you don't clearly understand the slightest bit.

Which happens as wire transfer behind the curtain OR is a very expensive merchant account for CC processing.
Just goes to show how little you know.

Ignorance is a bliss!

Great stability ;D

https://i.imgur.com/pVjpF.png
http://i41.tinypic.com/33oo2l5.png