Bitcoin Forum

I may be wrong, but I thought I'd throw this out there. The general mood of this board is that we're in for a rise in price. I feel this way too, I think that the trend is up considering how much more exposure bitcoin is getting (look at the Bitcoin subreddit).

However, with the economy growing, I think that we'll only see less volatility. Remember, stabilization is our long-term goal. Sure, we'll always see price fluctuations, but I think we may be closer to stabilization than I previously thought. What are your thoughts on this? How close are we to being relatively stable?

Relevant: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68239.msg795648#msg795648

No. Bitcoin is not stabilizing. It may be less volatile for a while, but that’s because it’s preparing to break out in a huge wave (and personally I suspect up) once enough people think Bitcoin is "stable".

This.  If enough people sincerely believe bitcoin is stable, and, on that basis, decide to start using it, then demand for the currency will go up, and I suspect it will kick off another large bubble; and the longer this "stability" lasts, the larger I think the subsequent bubble will be.

agreed,

and its slowly happening

i ran a poll, and about 50 users will be selling / buying diablo3 items (in May when it comes out) this will lead to many new bitcoin users actually using bitcoin for trading.

bitcoin is perfect for diablo3, because  Ebay hates selling this kind of virtual item

and its true you will be able to sell your stuff for real money with the in game auction house. but NOT for hardcore mode (the mode where, when you die you lose everything), blizzard will not have auction house for this hardcore mode. so now we NEED to use bitcoin.

I'm hoping diablo3 & bitcoin will create a BUZZ in the MMORPG world, and one day we will see the first MMORPG using bitcoin in game

I absolutely agree :) So get your coinz while they're cheap  ;D

BTW Are you short again Proudhon ?

Nope.

I think bitcoin is stable forever, lets celebrate!

http://i39.tinypic.com/2qlqpzt.jpg

Stability is relative. I've been hoping for more volatility as a speculator - these sideways ranges we get into for several days at a crack are tough to make money in!

As I saw someone else point out, most people aren't used to having to account for fluctuations in exchange rates to do business. Right now, everyone has to convert their BTC to purchase supplies & services to run their businesses. If more business was able to conduct their back-end business (the b2b part) via bitcoin, rather than just the customer facing side of the business, "stability" would be perceived. We view our "home currency" as the one that's "stable" but, in reality, this is rarely the case. My "home currency" the USD has been on the rise lately, even against gold, but making USD-USD transactions, I don't really notice, I only notice over time due to inflation or deflation.

It's also my opinion that we're likely to see continued volatility (primarily due to low volume/liquidity) for most of the rest of the year. Speculation based on FPGA purchases and the block reward decrease will likely bring a significant push to the upside.

I'm of a mind that the addition of various derivatives and increased interest in the GLBSE will detract from the overall volatility. The growing prevalence of purchased mining contracts also suggests lessening in overall volatility, since this will help to limit the upside of mining (overall) as well as limit the downside potential.

However.....the biggest thing to consider, I think, in the long term: what is the overall potential market penetration of bitcoin? We're at a market cap of ~$40M, with some part of 50K users on this forum representing the core of the market. Market penetration is slight, at best. Even if we were to count the market cap by using all of the future bitcoins, we're still at a very very small number, compared to typical multi-national organizations. Several orders of magnitude smaller. In reality, this suggests that the $30 bubble last summer would represent a very small bump in the rise of BTC value.

It's not clear that bitcoin will become "the people's currency" - there is some speculation that it could replace the interbank system (i.e. replace SWIFT notes, SDRs and the like) while others speculate that it's the new Visa of the future. Until this is known, it seems that relative stability in the exchange rate will be hard to achieve. Again, either way, market penetration is slight at best.

Yep. Volatile, and lots and lots of long term upside. I'm expecting that it won't be all that long before the most commonly used denomination is the centibit (bitcent) as a single bitcoin is too large a denomination. I wouldn't be surprised to see USD$1 = mBTC 1 - In fact, I think a lot of people here wouldn't be surprised to see that. And, looking around at past history of internet companies, comparing BTC to internet stocks, the potential for that kind of growth is definitely there for bitcoin.

In the meantime, I'd sure like to see $4.90 ;D

But, while i wrote this, everyone decided to SELL SELL SELL - and I must look to see if there's a nice entry forming :D

My bot loves sideways!  > 1% in less than a week makes me happy :)

Your bot sounds pretty interesting. He doesn't brag too loud, but sounds successful.

I'd love to have a bitcoinica bot.

He's successful when we go sideways.  He could be successful on bigger moves too if I had more funds, but if he runs out of funds in one direction he's not so happy.

Is your bot the one placing small but frequent trades of around 0.02btc? I've noticed one bot do this in what looks like a grid trading strategy.

lol, people aren't as ambitious anymore

lol. the faster they climb, the harder it hurts when they fall. My money was on the tortoise.  ;)

Nope.  There are lots of bots.

Seals accounting is bitcoin based. We have no ongoing dollar costs and just buy some when we need to pay for work from someone who doesn't want coin. It's happened twice. Promos, ads, server all bitcoin payments. 2 of the 3 are even denominated in coin.

the further we go down this road, the more I expect your model to be more the norm, especially for those providing online services, or virtual goods.

If if could pay employees in BTC I'm sure i could run an online service with very little currency other than bitcoin. This is becoming more common. In my contract work I currently offer a steep discount to my hourly rate if I'm paid in coin.

conversion is going to be an issue for hard goods for some time. paying my light bill in coin will be a way off. But I can pay my phone bills w/coin. I can pay for hosting/VPS service w/coin.

Of course, the rule is that people save "good" money, and spend "bad" money, so as a business owner, I prefer to have dual currency accounting, and receive payment in BTC, and make payment in USD (or better yet, EUR or GBP!)

IIRC I tried to go to Seals. I think I will have to (ahem) go on a trip abroad, and then try again. (I've been to others but they just absorbed my BTC with no fun, or drinks!)

Yes, running a business can be a way to convert some USD and labor to many coins. Funny looking model to authorities also.


I don't quite follow. You can play at Seals from anywhere. sealswithclubs.eu

edit: and you can have fun for cheap or free if you like. Freerolls on the hour, cheap tourney with extra added on the half.

I thought I went to there and was denied because I was in the US (I looked through several one day and I thought that was Seals)