Bitcoin Forum

I don't use to open discussions here because all my questions have already been answered somewhere in this forum however I cannot understand what is going on in these days with the bitcoin price. Let me explain myself:

It is clear for me that in this year (2014) we are a lot better than years before. We can buy directly with bitcoins in overstock and paypal has "integrated" bitcoin in its payment system. I also saw a browser extension that allow us to buy in amazon (there is a middleman).

Without MtGox and after the 2013's bubble the ecosystem looks healthier than before.

There weren't bad news in 2014, no more repetitive-fear-generator SilkRoad / drugs / isis / satan news. In fact there were more good news thanks to new projects/startups.

I think that in this atmosphere the bitcoin's price shouldn't go down. What is going on? Do you know?

What's happened is since the last rise a lot more trade volume has entered the market, so it will be a lot more difficult mess with the price short term, before you could pretty much dump a few hundred thousand into the market and that would be enough to send it skyrocketing ( You could do this in the altcoin markets for example, with less actually because they aren't as well known ) but now it's going to be difficult because there's so many people trading it's going to require a big move for the price to go either way.

This is partly a good thing though, because people were bitching and moaning about stability a lot before, it will be interesting to see what happens during the stock market crash that is inevitably going to happen.

It's often discussed. The simple answer is, that the price is low due to price manipulation. Speculators can just make more money with high volatility and that is mostly what all the exchanges are about: Making money with speculation.

That is exactly the reason, why so many people don't look at the price anymore. If you look at other metrics you see, that the BTC-economy is growing.

Indeed.

http://s24.postimg.org/58hcs4nj9/Capture.jpg
http://s17.postimg.org/p5k8vbjy7/Capture.jpg

Yeah, you're not paying attention :-\

http://s29.postimg.org/w45q6ewjr/neo1.jpg

That's what I say and that what feels weird because if the btc-economy grows and the btc supply is the sameone then the price should go up, or at least that's my opinion (I realised I don't understand economy at all).


Yes, I think so. Anyway, more volume (more buy/sell transactions) sounds as bigger market (more capital) and provably a bigger demand.  

Do you have a link to read about that? Or could you explain yourself a bit more, please?

@NotLambchop, good points really. In you opinion, was it enough to affect the price? Do you think the 2014's news were worse than the 2013's ones?

The total market cap of bitcoin is 5 billion, equivalent to a mid-size Chinese real estate company:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_in_China.

It is also 1/1000 of what Fed accumulated in their QE programs (4.5 trillion).

This should give you some perspective on where things are currently.

People forget that Mt.Gox hit the news this year, starting off this barrage of "good news":

http://s30.postimg.org/wynoqpqap/Capture.jpg

That, along with post-bubble publicity and tighter regulations/string of criminal indictments (making Bitcoin less attractive as a black market currency) contributed to current price slump.

To sum up: The fundamentals are great and improving. The price does not follow yet. >>> Worries.

Don't worry, because it's just a matter of time before prices will adjust to fundamentals. The market is still digesting the astronomic rise of last year. You will have noticed that the amplitude of price movements is slowly decreasing. The market is calming down, which is a good sign. The next rise will start after a longer phase of boring sideways movement.

I expect that the Bitcoin ETF will trigger the next rally phase.

ya.ya.yo!

The price is exactly correct. It may not be what I like, but it is correct.

Thinking this very much too - and considering just how much positive the growth of fundamentals has seemed over the past year, I'm very much looking forward to the adjustment.

Surely "fantastic" would involve a rapid and exponential increase in the use of Bitcoin as a means of payment, driving a similar rapid and exponential increase in the volume of Bitcoin transactions?
These both remain things that people hope to see in the future, despite Bitcoin being five years old.

In the last half year, the use of Bitcoin hasn't changed much. See Estimated transaction volume in USD (https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=), which has been flat for six months now. There's been a lot of talk about growth in usage, but it's not happening.

I think the market price is overall correct, and I don't think it is manipulated long-term.  The fundamentals at this moment would give you probably a price which is way lower than the current price (the amount of stuff bought with bitcoin - mainly the black market, and the gold market share).  $10.- wouldn't surprise me.  So a serious part of the current price is the speculative estimation of future fundamentals and their probability.  If you give it 3% chance that a coin will reach $10 000.-, you may be willing to put $300.- in a coin now.  Well, less, because of risk aversion.

The other good indicators simply increase slightly the chance that one day, bitcoin will have stronger fundamentals.  That would on one hand go for a higher speculative price now.  On the other hand, the bubble from MtGox is still deflating.  One was around $100.- before.

So you should take as a baseline, $100.- or so, and consider the price increase relative to that.  If all the good news would double chances for bitcoin, the right price would be $200.-.

Looking at transaction volume, it is up around 300% from this time last year, which means around $360 is pretty much exactly where the price should be.

Plus number of transactions and number of unique addresses used continues to climb, I would say BTC is pretty much where it should be. Remember, we were at $15 not that long ago. I would say we should hit 4 digits again around this time next year.

I wouldn't expect any rally of significance any more.  People got burned by the MtGox bubble.  Tullips don't rally twice.  Moreover, there are now a lot of trading options.  Speculation and trading usually make large excursions harder to come by.  A fully speculated and traded market usually only has large excursions as a function of unexpected events.

I would expect the price now, on the longer term, to evolve more slowly as a function of the expectation of the future fundamentals of bitcoin.  Bitcoin came to some form of maturity after the MtGox bubble I would think.

speculation and manipulation,real price is above 1000$

Price may not be what we all like but with time it will come to price we all want to see for now is stable.
This is good for now but we will see will it stay like this but for one point of view price will jumping and dropping always.

Real price may be above 1000$ but that dont seem to be at the moment.
Maybe with next year or something. Price is fine for now. Maybe will hit 500$ by end of year but i dont think so.

everything except the thing that matters

Can people like you please just play at a casino or something similar and leave bitcoin alone?

Agreed on the premise that the crypto economy is doing fine, but disagreed on the conclusion that it must be due to manipulation (at least not in the sense of active, coordinated manipulation). People so easily forget that, each day, 3600 new coins are potentially entering the market (probably less, but don't fool yourself into thinking miners "hold" as much as they did two years ago), which at current valuation means up to 1.3M USD are needed per day are needed to sustain price. I'm simplifying, of course, it's probably not 1:1, but the point is: During its bootstrapping phase, Bitcoin is de facto highly inflationary, and the market must absorb this.

In addition, people seem to forget that we ran up to a major price peak last year, catapulting the hypothetical Bitcoin market cap to more than 10 billion. And that was after an almost uninterrupted upwards trend since late 2011. At some point, the market will cool down, like it or not.

None of that means Bitcoin is done. Far from it. But it never was a realistic option that we'd go straight to 100k USD, by some magical, market defying process of the entire world giving up fiat and turning their assets into crypto. The process will be a lot more choppy. Still a good investment, imo, and most likely price will go up again substantially, but not in one smooth go, and probably not quite as high as some in here used to think, or still think.

Anyone wishing yet they invested in ripple? I have hated XRP since it was conceived but it seems to grow like cancer lately. Any ideas why it's in a bubble and will it pose any threat to bitcoin?

Well worded bs. Look at the long term log price chart, the current user base, and current market cap. Bitcoin has far further to run from here. Newbies.

If you want to know the usage, why do you see the volume in USD? That chart shows how many wealth in moving. The number of transactions should be a better meassure of dinamism. https://blockchain.info/es/charts/n-transactions

Nagle was here in 2011 and missed out on being an early adopter by being constantly bearish on bitcoin. I would review his post history before taking his posts too seriously!

USD volume represents the value of the transactions.
The number of transactions means little--if you buy something from me for $100, I don't care if you hand me a $100 bill once, or hand me $10 bill ten times.

That means that for a given day, a few hundred transactions for a couple of million USD each is better than a couple of millon transactions for a few tens USD. Sorry, I don't agree.

Why would you make more than one transaction for a purchase? The values might come from different addresses, which resembles you metaphor of 10 10$ bills.

Because I control more than one address?  Because tx fees are ridiculously small?  Because it costs nothing to create an addy?
Why wouldn't I, considering that folks like you equate # of transactions with influx of users?  Profit.

If you want to make fake data, you can also just send the same amount forward and back between two addresses to increase USD volume. That doesn't make that metric better in any way.

Don't expect a reply to that rebuttal :)

Sure.  Are you suggesting that the USD volume data could also be manipulated and likely is?
I'm with you on that one, brah :-\

@inca:  Your prognosticatin' skillz in this thread are on par with your ability to read the market. 

I don't think, anybody does this in a large enough scale to really have a significant impact on the statistics.
People often tell me that all statistics/studies are fake, when a statistic/study doesn't fit their gut instinct, but sorry, the statistic/case study is still better than your gut instinct.
When all media, all statistic, all studies are fake, on what do you base your opinion/knowledge? Conspiracy theory sites on the internet?

You asked me why I would do X, I have answered you.
Without thanking me, you went on to offer other means of manipulating data.  I have agreed with you.
Now you're suggesting I'm a conspiracy theorist :(
I'm not saying the statistics are fake, only that they don't mean what you think they mean.

What I see is in that graph is a U-shaped long bottom in the making.
Go figure. Different people, different conclusions.

Nagle,

Quite strange you chose those start and end dates. Are you expecting USD transaction volume to be higher at the end of a prolonged bear market than it was at the previous manic top? Ridiculous.

Why not view the all time log chart for a better picture of transaction volume (easy to do just click the options at the bottom).

It shows a clear steady up trend.

The supply is not the newly minted coins, it is the coins that people decide they do not want to hold, miners and normal beings alike.

Indeed.  At a certain point, most coins should become "liquid" again.  A store of value which is never claimed doesn't make sense.
Everybody storing value for a purpose, needs to use that value some day, otherwise it doesn't make sense.
Keeping forever is the same as loosing the stored value.  It would be equivalent to "hide" gold on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean by throwing it overboard, by burning fiat, or by erasing your private keys.

I don't understand why the price is still in the same range, although more people starts to use bitcoin and more merchants accept it. Is this due to exchanges or people with lots of bitcoins making profit on the small rise and then dump it etc?

If someone could explain it shortly, would be great!

It is perfectly reasonable for someone to hold for a long period of time when you consider the possibility that the value stored appreciates over time.

No one here is suggesting people will hoard their money infinitely

Let us not forget that there is an inflation of 10% going on.  That means that the bitcoin holdings must grow at a 10% rate at the current price.

The market cap is a wrong indication of "how much value" there is stored in bitcoin.  In reality, the amount of value people have put into bitcoin is much less.  Many coins have been sold and are still held since they were a few dollars or a few tens of dollars.  So in order to sustain an inflation at 10% at the current price, means actually that the real value flowing into bitcoin is very big as compared to the past. 
As a simplistic example, suppose that most coins have been bought at an average price of $100.-
That means that the actual "value flown into bitcoin" would be rather $1.5 billion.  At the current price, say, $350 per coin, and an inflation rate of 10%, this comes actually down to a growth of the value flowing into bitcoin of 35% per year.
In other words, even to sustain the current price, per year, one third of the total value that has flown into bitcoin since 5 years, must flow again in bitcoin even to sustain the current price.
A growth of 35% a year is HUGE, and is needed to sustain the current price, simply due to inflation.

Of course.  But at a certain point, the number of new holders must come into equilibrium with the number of holders not holding anymore.

The overall 2-year trend resumed in May:
https://i.imgur.com/Stsy96x.jpg

So when do we get out of this price range and it starts to rise?

Much better overall view

Let me explain this for once. I am drunk after a great night out so let me be condescending about it.
The fact is, theire is a bunch of people out there that exchange bitcoins on-chain no matter what the USD price of a bitcoin is. They make the estimated USD transaction volume.
Now, you can speculate about their motives. They clearly don't care as much as this forum does about volatility. Be it the drugs markets, be it remittances, we don't know fur sure. We don't care either. What we care about is that the on-chain transaction volume is growing steadily.
That means that the price of a bitcoin, sooner or later, will have to catch up with that information, because bitcoins are a finite resource with predictable supply, and because money velocity.

Ignore this post at your own risk.

USD has a inflation of 10%?

No.  Bitcoin has an inflation rate of 10%

http://s3.postimg.org/icriogjer/reading.jpg

Ok, you mean that in a year there will be 10% more bitcoins.
That is not really inflation. That is nothing someone who bough Bitcoin really bothers.
But I see, you like to play with numbers, and make stupid conclusion. It is the same as taking some numbers from the bible, play with them and than telling everybody that the world ends at a certain date.

Edit:
Just to show, how stupid your assumption is. "value flown into bitcoin" is definitly not, what people paid on exchanges for Bitcoins. You have to take mining equipment and electricity into account.

You asked about the 10%.  I answered:  It is Bitcoin's monetary base inflation.
If you are interested in the rate at which the general level of Bitcoin prices for goods and services is rising, this number is ~65%.*  That's how much Bitcoin BTC $ price has fallen YTD.
Hope this helped.

*This assumes that USD had 0 (zero) inflation.  If we factor in USD inflation, the number becomes even moar hilarious.

Good thing these aren't tulips (or even "Tullips").

At least someone who knows the term "monetary base inflation", but that is still not the kind of inflation, that really matters to a consumer, so I don't get, why people are referencing it all the time.

But anyways, your calculation still doesn't make much sense.
In case you just didn't see my Edit:

I'm not certain you understand what inflation is, so I'll give you an abridged definition from Investopedia:

"DEFINITION OF 'INFLATION'
The rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising, and, subsequently, purchasing power is falling."

Note that "value flown [sic] into [currency]" is conspicuously absent.  That's because it has nothing to do with inflation.

To offer an example:
If the US FED started spending trillions of dollars a day on printing presses, and paying its employees trillions of dollars an hour, USD inflation rate would not be any lower :-\

For a dose of reality check this one out.

https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

unchanged for 2.5 years

There is monetary base inflation, which means, that someone made more money(print or mine) and there for according to supply/demand one unit of money has less value.
And there is Price inflation, which means you can buy less with the same amount of money.
When you talk about inflation with someone outside of the Bitcoin-community they mostly mean the second. People in the Bitcoin-community mostly mean the first one, like dinofelis did, stating that inflation is 10%.

Sorry, I just mixed you up with dinofelis. He said:

^
TLDR:
Bitcoin monetary base inflation = ~10% YTD
Bitcoin price inflation               = ~65% YTD

It doesn't depend on the price, unbelievable! How can that be possible? I mean, it requires that BTC volumen is in function of the price. Higher price -> lower BTC volumen.

 

a) Agreed (approximately) on the first number, the "monetary base inflation". Even if some crypto enthusiasts like to point to the finite total no. of coins that will ever exist and think of the existing (and growing) base of mined coins as irrelevant, I personally think it is correct to call Bitcoin's monetary base "inflationary" during its bootstrapping/mining phase.

Note that the yearly inflation declines over time. For now though, it's still above 10%:
2013: ~15%
2014: ~13%

b) Your "price inflation" is bullshit of course. Otherwise, I'll go back one more year, and suddenly Bitcoin becomes hugely deflationary. Meaning, I don't get to cherry pick the periods of the market where BTC/USD hugely increased, so you don't get to cherry pick the period where it decreases. The market valuation of one bitcoin is simply not the issue here - otherwise, I point to market valuation since inception and point out we're still up more than 100,000%.

c) Finally: the fact that, despite the significant inflation of the monetary base, we went from a 1 million USD "market cap" in 2011 to a 5 billion "market cap" currently should probably tell you something, but I know it won't :3

"Cherry pick the period"?  You mean choosing a year when discussing yearly inflation rate? 

Bitcoin/USD-exchange rate is just not stable enough to make a serious statement about that.
Such discussions are just dumb ...

Yup the year u created this account to try to scare noobs into selling before u buy and dissapear back to your normal account, that year

Ha.

Choosing the 1 out of 4.5 years of trading in which price is (mainly) is down to discuss, in rather general terms, the "yearly inflation rate"?

That's cherry picking, absolutely.

Average over the entire time, or break it down by year (starting mid/late 2010)

You trying to arguing such nonsense borders on trolling, oda.krell.  I refuse to believe you can't understand how absurd your stance is.  When talking about USD yearly inflation, do you average it over the entire life of the dollar?  Or do you use the recent year data?

The attempt to include Bitcoin's heyday is interesting, though.  If you average Bitcoin over it's entire lifespan, you will have to include the price at Bitcoin's inception, which would be 0 (zero), any other point would be rather arbitrary, or "cherry picking," as you put it.  With zero as a starting point, any increase in BTC/USD price, percentage-wise, is infinity.  Even if the price went back down to $0.01/BTC.

So yeah, Bitcoin's value has increased infinitely since its inception.  Good point.
In the past year, tho, the price has tanked by ~65%.
That's some serious sound money.

  ~Happy Investing!

I may have forgotten Lambchop, but I cannot recall you having any argument for why the price will drop in the medium term, other than "see the recent chart".

Enlighten us :)

That's definitely not unchanged.  There is a clear upward trend.  Your selection of a linear chart simply zooms out so far due to the temporary spike, that it becomes difficult  for some to see.  Erase the spikes that occur around bubbles and the overall bullish trend becomes apparent even on linear charts.

Non sequitur?

Enlighten us :)

That is definately not unchanged, there are days when it's 400k and days when there are 50k

It just looks unchanged because of the huge fucking spike that some spoiled kid managed

Leave logic aside and please enlighten us!

^
So thaat you can come back with something equally clever and apropos, like "I cannot recall you having any argument for why water is wet, enlighten us <durr emoji>."
Not falling for your fiendish ploy, bro >:(

Why of course, how silly of me. Here, this should satisfy your high standards of data presentation, I hope:


USD inflation by year:

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


BTC inflation by year:

https://i.imgur.com/e66zDQh.png


Negative numbers = deflation.



https://i.imgur.com/e66zDQh.png

You accused me of cherry picking because I chose year as a time span when discussing yearly inflation.
After I explained to you why you were wrong, you came back with some catty line about my high standards.
You've finally crossed over into the full-blown troll territory, oda.krell.


http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/d7/5f/3a/d75f3a6d4868e8f0a843b3267a1e5482.jpg

^Yes, I remember 2013 real well--great time for Bitcoin.  The glory days were glorious, but nao it's time to let go, oda.krell :(

When they return, will you let go and... you know.. go away?

Lol, if Apple stock charts looked like this...

http://s14.postimg.org/j7dx5v0xt/Capture.jpg

...hell yeah, sell all Apple stock a year ago!

Have to spell it out for you, huh?

The implication being that selling Bitcoin today could turn out like selling Apple stock in 2013: investors scared by a local decline, and not considering the global trend, miss out.

Which is still an open question of course, what exactly the global trend of Bitcoin will turn out to be. I'm not committed to the 100k per coin idea as some in here are (or were?).

However, I'm even less committed to your idea that, because Bitcoin sees one year of bear market, it's game over for crypto.

A glimpse into the future of bitcoin:
http://www.coindesk.com/3-pre-bitcoin-virtual-currencies-bit-dust/

Hmmm, let's see....

Centralized
Centralized
Centralized

Have to spell it out for you, huh?

The implication being that Bitcoin's current price resulted from the last bubble.  If AAPL price stayed in the single/double digits for years, shot up by _an order of magnitude_  almost overnight, and since then remained on a downward trajectory?  Well, I'd say buy buy buy, because the road to mental health is just around the corner.

And stop putting words in my mouth.  Never said this meant "game over for crypto."  Crypto could exist without Bitcoin, and the results of the Bitcoin experiment could contribute to a new crypto, which won't have to repeat Bitcoin's mistakes.

Until then, Bitcoin's fate is not "to the moon or bust," as many here have you believe--Bitcoin will do just fine @$50/BTC.

 ::)

You're so stuck in 2013.

Nah, it's you who is stuck in 2013.  It's over, brah, bitcoin has been tanking for over a year.

http://www.lovethispic.com/uploaded_images/75449-Let-Go-Of-The-Past-But-Remember-The-Lesson.jpg

Yes and let's not forget one of the best things to happen to Bitcoin in a while: Circle.com
Circle truly is breaking new ground when it comes to providing Bitcoin to the masses. I got my invitation early and I'm still marveling at how easy it is to buy BTC with a credit/debit card on their site. It's a pretty cool feeling to know that I can get BTC anytime, in less than 3 minutes with just a few clicks :) Sure they're not ideal for bigger players because of the $500 weekly limit but still I think it's a major step toward mass adoption.

Cue lambchop explaining why Circle.com is actually ultrabearish in 3... 2... 1...

Nah, but thanks for that [predictably] testy quip.
Circle.com is awesome for Bitcoin.  Degenerate gamblers & junior CloneRoad junkies can now dime out their (parents'?) CC. :D
Party on.

Dont scare my that price will go down under 100$ i just started with this and i hope your wrong.

Same was back then all said the bitcoin is history and then he pop up to over 1000$.
You can not expect to be like that then you have loose confident in any crypto not just BTC.

I hope for all our sake that price will go over 1000$ once again.

You think the same fate is for BTC.
I dont think so to much is in stake here.

All things will be empty if bitcoin has no price

Only reason im somewhat bearish on bitcoin is because of the noobs trying to get rich quick with all of their savings.. and we know that pigs get slaughtered so smart money has no interest in making a new top 1% wealthy club... so in reality it should keep around these levels or lower until there is a mass influx of noobs pouring money in causing it to go nowhere but up.. but this will happen just as development keeps going... technicals are good just buy and hold. There are new people coming in, maybe not enoughto cause it to go moon right now but enough and one day miners will stop dumping and the "everyone knows what will happen then" scenario plays out like it always does in every market... except timing will be off for everyone except those who held.

That's the takeaway value for those that engage in trading trying to up their fiat. When the ship sails and you have extra fiat but low on BTC, you're gonna pay an arm and a leg to get back on where the holders are sitting. Of course, first class isn't for everybody. This is really where having skin in the game will pay off immensely after having weathered the storms.

Could someone explain and answer why the price trend is not going up, while all this new bitcoin adoption takes place?

We are literally in the same price range, and has been, for almost 2 months now. Not sure whats really going on.

How's that camwhore studio investment of yours working out thus far?  What was it, Klyemax Studios or some such?  All the bitches tied to the same hitchin' post & calling you daddy yet?

@goldsun:  Bitcoin is a purely speculative commodity, think of it as poker chips.  Adoption rate gives Bitcoin a plausible backstory for speculators to exploit, but little more than that. 

When the last but one hodler have capitulated, the market will turn.

Bitcoin was in all news and people chose to ignore it. Nothing is going fantastic. It's dying, people don't want scam coin. Wake up, Sheeple!

You sound like a bot in all the topics that you write in, you use the same words (sheep/s, sheeple, daying, media, stupid, cry) again and again. From my point of view everything is going fantastic.

Your point of view is deluded holders point of view.

actually the price is good also, compare it with previous all time high and you will see, peaks don't count hit sry, right now we have a good increase per year

There's only one all-time high, because English.
The price fell ~65% this year, because math.
Ur welcome.

You're certainly motivated, in 4 or 5 threads in a matter of minutes.

When you place the Ayers statement in context and stop being pedantic, the phrase 'previous all time high' is easy to understand... but you knew that already.

Troll on.

You're certainly motivated, threadstalked me  in a matter of minutes.

When you place my statement in context and stop being pedantic, it's easy to understand that correcting his usage was just a segue into the crux of my post... but you knew that already.

Troll on.

One more swing down and then buy with your shirt off

^You mad, bro?

https://i.imgur.com/cIj6TKq.jpg

Just ignore the silly little twit, as most here have.

^ Just in case everyone doesn't know about your problems with reality, your spot-on predictions from last spring:

Let us just hope that the price also follows the fantastic trends with a lag.