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Title: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: elrodvoss on August 07, 2012, 11:21:25 PM I have been sitting and looking at how bitcoin has expanded in the course of the last 8 months and I have watched it grow and watch the bubble pop. I have seen technology grow and the user base grow. I have seen people embrace bitcoin and I have seen people take advantage of it and its users.
I know that there maybe a few dozen posts on this, but I wanted to get my 2 cents out there and see if someone can give me another perspective on my train of though. So what does everyone thing what will happen in the next 4 months??
Do think think that bitcoin will hits its peak in the new year and fail or will it wane and then come back stronger? -Elrodvoss Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: casascius on August 07, 2012, 11:22:05 PM Last year, there were a few hackings and thefts and people said OMG sell now, they're not secure. And the media considered it fireworks.
This year everyone realizes that hacking and theft only happens when precautions aren't taken. Plus, paper wallets are easy to print, people realize to keep their bitcoins in "cold storage", and the occasional thefts don't even register as blips on the news anymore. The five months of price stability and the media reporting that "Silk Road" is booming is making the world take notice that, if nothing else, Bitcoin functions as advertised. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: smoothie on August 07, 2012, 11:24:30 PM Last year, there were a few hackings and thefts and people said OMG sell now, they're not secure. This year everyone realizes that hacking ... ::) ::) ::) Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: sunnankar on August 07, 2012, 11:48:07 PM This year everyone realizes that hacking and theft only happens when precautions aren't taken. Plus, paper wallets are easy to print, people realize to keep their bitcoins in "cold storage", and the occasional thefts don't even register as blips on the news anymore. This is a major problem. We need to lobby for legislation forming a Bitcoin oversight board and to protect people we need to form an FDIC for bitcoin owners so that moral hazard develops and increases inefficiency. All in the name of make work to create jobs. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: jimbobway on August 07, 2012, 11:58:46 PM This year everyone realizes that hacking and theft only happens when precautions aren't taken. Plus, paper wallets are easy to print, people realize to keep their bitcoins in "cold storage", and the occasional thefts don't even register as blips on the news anymore. This is a major problem. We need to lobby for legislation forming a Bitcoin oversight board and to protect people we need to form an FDIC for bitcoin owners so that moral hazard develops and increases inefficiency. All in the name of make work to create jobs. coinbase is working on insuring bitcoin deposits at their site. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: Kupsi on August 08, 2012, 12:04:01 AM I don't think the block reward halving will make that big difference as many believes because the monetary inflation in percent has been decreasing all the time and is already down to 7% per quarter. The supply at the exchanges is much bigger than the daily mined coins so I believe the increasing demand for bitcoins is much more important than the reward halving.
Period Totalt BTC Increase in percent Q1 2009 656250 Q2 2009 1312500 100 % Q3 2009 1968750 50 % Q4 2009 2625000 33 % Q1 2010 3281250 25 % Q2 2010 3937500 20 % Q3 2010 4593750 17 % Q4 2010 5250000 14 % Q1 2011 5906250 13 % Q2 2011 6562500 11 % Q3 2011 7218750 10 % Q4 2011 7875000 9 % Q1 2012 8531250 8 % Q2 2012 9187500 8 % Q3 2012 9843750 7 % Q4 2012 10500000 7 % Q1 2013 10828125 3 % Q2 2013 11156250 3 % Q3 2013 11484375 3 % Q4 2013 11812500 3 % Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: Stephen Gornick on August 08, 2012, 12:27:24 AM
Do think think that bitcoin will hits its peak in the new year and fail or will it wane and then come back stronger? Buy on the rumor, sell on the news. If in December the block reward happens and there isn't a spike there could be some aggressive selling if the exchange rate starts to dip below these levels (at 2X the "stable" $5 range). The metric to watch is how well bitcoin gains traction in its niches where it does well -- as a currency for online gambling, as a decent way for transferring money across borders, and yes -- as a currency used for "investing" in a new way, whether that be GLBSE cyber-equities or in a ponzi-like scheme. Here's the daily diary for that metric: - http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular What that chart doesn't show is what the value of the currency needs to be to support the economic activity for all these niches and other uses of bitcoin. It is entirely possible that 90% of the value comes from speculation and just 10% is actually needed to support the level of the economy that exists now. So bitcoin's economic value today might be just $1. So even if that economic activity goes up 3X, that brings the value only to $3, still well below today's $10. The reason there is such speculation though is that if it is plausible that in a year there could be 3X current demand, could it be plausible a year after it would be 30X? Or even later reach 300X (or more) versus current demand? So there is a rational reason to explain fthe price premium each bitcoin carries today. But nobody knows. It is simply pure speculation. But if you were to project out four months from now how many transactions each day occur and the average "output less change" for each transaction, then you could then make an educated guess about a price range that would likely be in the right ballpark. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: adamstgBit on August 08, 2012, 01:43:16 AM honestly i expect bitcoin to mature a hole lot in the few month.
next year or two or three, digital cash online will no long be vaperware, till will have been tried tested and true, it will begin its take over internet commerce. it will be recognized as a new type of global digital currency. new laws will be past. things have changed things are changing things will change bitcoin Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: dissipate on August 08, 2012, 05:19:17 AM It's really hard to predict what will happen in the next 4 months, but in my opinion Bitcoin is still in a bootstrapping phase and will be there for a long time.
Bitcoin has 4 main uses right now (besides speculation) in this bootstrapping phase: 1. Gaming tokens. Bitcoins make for great online gaming tokens because of instant or near instant cash outs and the fact that they are borderless and greatly divisible. Poker alone could be a multi-billion dollar opportunity, but there are plenty of opportunities for other non-gambling games. http://bitcointerror.com has a really novel concept where you win Bitcoins for each in-game kill. 2. Black market/grey market sales. Like it or not Bitcoin is great for black market sales because of its anonymity (after tumbling) and the fact that there are no chargebacks. 3. International transactions. Bitcoin can be used as an intermediary medium of international exchange between countries that have capital export controls, or to avoid banks that have extremely high fees. In this regard, the Bitcoin exchanges of each fiat currency become international exchange intermediaries. 4. Long term wealth storage. Bitcoin costs nearly nothing to secure, store or transport and cannot be confiscated by governments. If one can handle the volatility, it can be used for long term wealth storage. Unfortunately, I don't think online retail sales are there yet. The reason is not because of merchant problems. I think bit-pay and mtgox can probably provide merchants with enough tools to integrate bitcoin checkouts and allow them to mitigate risk by selling the coins immediately. The problem is on the consumer end. There isn't a huge incentive for consumers to acquire Bitcoins right now. The cost (or at least perceived cost) of acquiring them is going to be greater than the cost of just whipping out a credit card. Furthermore, holding bitcoins for any significant amount of time carries risk. A consumer would have to buy the bitcoins and get some kind of discount with the retailers to make it worth their while, and then spend them all rather quickly before they had a chance to drop in value. Bitcoin is going to have to bootstrap from the rather menial niches it can worm its way into for a long time because the cost of acquiring Bitcoin and the volatility is not going away anytime soon. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: FreeMoney on August 08, 2012, 05:43:21 AM Taking "Bitcoin for economic activity" to mean buying coins, spending them and the recipient sells them right away this has a negligible effect on total demand the coins involved being 'demanded' for maybe hours or a day.
But merchants accepting coin has a huge effect once people come to realize that they'll be able to get what they want for coin making it safe and/or wise to hold coin at the ready. Some people need to see this in the most direct way "SR has been open a long time and sells thing I need so I'm going to buy more coin this time to save the hassle for my next buy". Some are more in the middle, or saw this development earlier etc. I'm on the extreme end of this spectrum. It works as a money, I think others will eventually figure this out and that doesn't depend on any particulars of the current market. I just get and save as many as I can. A dozen people doing this increases demand by more than 1000 occasional SR one time shot, quick turnover buyers. I've carried something like 5 million bitcoin days. I'm a nerd, that's the area under my bitcoins held each day curve. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: ArticMine on August 08, 2012, 08:27:28 PM It's really hard to predict what will happen in the next 4 months, but in my opinion Bitcoin is still in a bootstrapping phase and will be there for a long time. Bitcoin has 4 main uses right now (besides speculation) in this bootstrapping phase: ... Unfortunately, I don't think online retail sales are there yet. The reason is not because of merchant problems. I think bit-pay and mtgox can probably provide merchants with enough tools to integrate bitcoin checkouts and allow them to mitigate risk by selling the coins immediately. The problem is on the consumer end. There isn't a huge incentive for consumers to acquire Bitcoins right now. The cost (or at least perceived cost) of acquiring them is going to be greater than the cost of just whipping out a credit card. Furthermore, holding bitcoins for any significant amount of time carries risk. A consumer would have to buy the bitcoins and get some kind of discount with the retailers to make it worth their while, and then spend them all rather quickly before they had a chance to drop in value. Bitcoin is going to have to bootstrap from the rather menial niches it can worm its way into for a long time because the cost of acquiring Bitcoin and the volatility is not going away anytime soon. This ignores that fact that many consumers cannot get a credit card or a debit card that works as a credit card. It is the same reason that cash is still around despite that efforts of the financial industry for the last two decades to eliminate it. For an online merchant accepting Bitcoin is not about changing the habits of existing customers. It is about getting an entirely new customer that before Bitcoin had no cost effective way to pay for goods or services online. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: molecular on August 08, 2012, 08:34:30 PM This year everyone realizes that hacking and theft only happens when precautions aren't taken. Plus, paper wallets are easy to print, people realize to keep their bitcoins in "cold storage", and the occasional thefts don't even register as blips on the news anymore. This is a major problem. We need to lobby for legislation forming a Bitcoin oversight board and to protect people we need to form an FDIC for bitcoin owners so that moral hazard develops and increases inefficiency. All in the name of make work to create jobs. legislation? oversight board? wtf, no thanks. consumer choice! Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: Akka on August 08, 2012, 08:36:59 PM I don't understand why I read everwhere that the userbase grows. Where do you get it from?
If I look at http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/ it looks like the user base is still declining. Or do I read this wrong? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: dissipate on August 08, 2012, 08:38:41 PM It's really hard to predict what will happen in the next 4 months, but in my opinion Bitcoin is still in a bootstrapping phase and will be there for a long time. Bitcoin has 4 main uses right now (besides speculation) in this bootstrapping phase: ... Unfortunately, I don't think online retail sales are there yet. The reason is not because of merchant problems. I think bit-pay and mtgox can probably provide merchants with enough tools to integrate bitcoin checkouts and allow them to mitigate risk by selling the coins immediately. The problem is on the consumer end. There isn't a huge incentive for consumers to acquire Bitcoins right now. The cost (or at least perceived cost) of acquiring them is going to be greater than the cost of just whipping out a credit card. Furthermore, holding bitcoins for any significant amount of time carries risk. A consumer would have to buy the bitcoins and get some kind of discount with the retailers to make it worth their while, and then spend them all rather quickly before they had a chance to drop in value. Bitcoin is going to have to bootstrap from the rather menial niches it can worm its way into for a long time because the cost of acquiring Bitcoin and the volatility is not going away anytime soon. This ignores that fact that many consumers cannot get a credit card or a debit card that works as a credit card. It is the same reason that cash is still around despite that efforts of the financial industry for the last two decades to eliminate it. For an online merchant accepting Bitcoin is not about changing the habits of existing customers. It is about getting an entirely new customer that before Bitcoin had no cost effective way to pay for goods or services online. That could be true to some extent, but how do those people mitigate the risk of holding Bitcoin? These people are going to be the ones least able to afford to lose money on something as risky as Bitcoin. A loss of a couple hundred dollars even could mean they wouldn't be able to pay their rent. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: drakahn on August 08, 2012, 08:39:34 PM I don't understand why I read everwhere that the userbase grows. Where do you get it from? I'm pretty sure that is the number of full nodes running, as the blockchain grows more and more people are using online wallets or something elseIf I look at http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/ it looks like the user base is still declining. Or do I read this wrong? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: ArticMine on August 08, 2012, 08:54:03 PM It's really hard to predict what will happen in the next 4 months, but in my opinion Bitcoin is still in a bootstrapping phase and will be there for a long time. Bitcoin has 4 main uses right now (besides speculation) in this bootstrapping phase: ... Unfortunately, I don't think online retail sales are there yet. The reason is not because of merchant problems. I think bit-pay and mtgox can probably provide merchants with enough tools to integrate bitcoin checkouts and allow them to mitigate risk by selling the coins immediately. The problem is on the consumer end. There isn't a huge incentive for consumers to acquire Bitcoins right now. The cost (or at least perceived cost) of acquiring them is going to be greater than the cost of just whipping out a credit card. Furthermore, holding bitcoins for any significant amount of time carries risk. A consumer would have to buy the bitcoins and get some kind of discount with the retailers to make it worth their while, and then spend them all rather quickly before they had a chance to drop in value. Bitcoin is going to have to bootstrap from the rather menial niches it can worm its way into for a long time because the cost of acquiring Bitcoin and the volatility is not going away anytime soon. This ignores that fact that many consumers cannot get a credit card or a debit card that works as a credit card. It is the same reason that cash is still around despite that efforts of the financial industry for the last two decades to eliminate it. For an online merchant accepting Bitcoin is not about changing the habits of existing customers. It is about getting an entirely new customer that before Bitcoin had no cost effective way to pay for goods or services online. That could be true to some extent, but how do those people mitigate the risk of holding Bitcoin? These people are going to be the ones least able to afford to lose money on something as risky as Bitcoin. A loss of a couple hundred dollars even could mean they wouldn't be able to pay their rent. The cost of the alternatives is far higher. I have seen people on welfare pay $50 for a prepaid debit card in order to pay for a $20 item online. The balance then gets eaten by fees and charges. With Bitcoin the balance will likely appreciate over time. The group that will benefit the most from Bitcoin are the poor. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: ElectricMucus on August 08, 2012, 09:02:46 PM I don't understand why I read everwhere that the userbase grows. Where do you get it from? I'm pretty sure that is the number of full nodes running, as the blockchain grows more and more people are using online wallets or something elseIf I look at http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/ it looks like the user base is still declining. Or do I read this wrong? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png Online wallets (it's only really blockchain.info) cannot alone compensate for the decline, and nobody was able to tell me if electrum clients would show up or not or what their numbers are. There isn't 'something else' than that. Plus the decline started to manifest before those 2 came up. Why is it so hard to accept that bitcoin is loosing excess userbase? Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: dissipate on August 08, 2012, 09:18:14 PM The cost of the alternatives is far higher. I have seen people on welfare pay $50 for a prepaid debit card in order to pay for a $20 item online. The balance then gets eaten by fees and charges. With Bitcoin the balance will likely appreciate over time. The group that will benefit the most from Bitcoin are the poor. It might appreciate over time but it might lose half it's value in one day. Suppose one of these poor people bought when Bitcoin was at $30, and then had their coins drop to $16 each the next day? I don't think they would be rushing to buy Bitcoin anytime soon after that. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: Kupsi on August 08, 2012, 09:23:46 PM I don't understand why I read everwhere that the userbase grows. Where do you get it from? I'm pretty sure that is the number of full nodes running, as the blockchain grows more and more people are using online wallets or something elseIf I look at http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/ it looks like the user base is still declining. Or do I read this wrong? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png Online wallets (it's only really blockchain.info) cannot alone compensate for the decline, and nobody was able to tell me if electrum clients would show up or not or what their numbers are. There isn't 'something else' than that. Plus the decline started to manifest before those 2 came up. Why is it so hard to accept that bitcoin is loosing excess userbase? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43496.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43496.0) Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: ArticMine on August 08, 2012, 09:30:04 PM The cost of the alternatives is far higher. I have seen people on welfare pay $50 for a prepaid debit card in order to pay for a $20 item online. The balance then gets eaten by fees and charges. With Bitcoin the balance will likely appreciate over time. The group that will benefit the most from Bitcoin are the poor. It might appreciate over time but it might lose half it's value in one day. Suppose one of these poor people bought when Bitcoin was at $30, and then had their coins drop to $16 each the next day? I don't think they would be rushing to buy Bitcoin anytime soon after that. If our poor person timed the market perfectly for the worst possible outcome and bought right at the top at $31.89 and then absorbed the 50% market risk, they are still ahead of my example of using a pre-paid debit card as they would have $5 worth of BTC left. So even in the worst possible scenario with perfect negative market timing they are still ahead using Bitcoin. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: k9quaint on August 08, 2012, 09:59:10 PM I think the calender will say September, October, November, and December. Tailor your Bitcoin plans accordingly.
Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: Tittiez on August 09, 2012, 03:04:09 AM Online wallets (it's only really blockchain.info) cannot alone compensate for the decline, and nobody was able to tell me if electrum clients would show up or not or what their numbers are. There isn't 'something else' than that. Plus the decline started to manifest before those 2 came up. Why is it so hard to accept that bitcoin is loosing excess userbase? Multibit wouldn't because it doesn't host the entire blockchain, I don't know about electrum. Cold wallets/Paper Wallets/Online Wallets/Smaller Clients are all becoming very popular, and most all of those things don't count for full nodes. Bitcoin isn't loosing its userbase, just look at the forums as an example: http://storage6.static.itmages.com/i/12/0809/h_1344481377_6862636_75731e7ce4.png A steady rise in threads, posts, etc, and a steady amount of users coming in every month. Plus the forums aren't everyone, there plenty of non members that use bitcoin. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: ElectricMucus on August 09, 2012, 03:08:23 AM The number of signups will always be positve and you cannot account for the outflow of users. Added to that there are unknown numbers of sockpuppets, bot accounts and so on. I can't see that as useful.
I find it interesting that some of you die-hard fanatics cannot even account for the possibility of a shrinking userbase with growing involvement of the people left. Nobody has suggested that this trend must continue but it will only change when the fundamentals are there. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: Serge on August 09, 2012, 04:17:10 AM ElectricMucus, there can't be shrinking user base when we have constant exposure in the media (see Press subforum), the screenshot above is missing thread views which is also hints at increasing interest. More people talk or mention bitcoins elsewhere too besides online media and news blogs
You are basing your reasoning on a single graph of decreasing nodes. I'm not sure how it's calculated, I know previously node count was done through IRC where all nodes by default found each other, recent client updates have "noirc" flag set to default. then on top of that there are some router settings which prevent bitcoin client's good network connectivity (i forgot what is it) - i'm pretty sure those things are not enabled by default and most users would not bother with them, these nodes may not be seen in that graph too. then there are users who don't constantly run bitcoin client. Wide use of light clients which may not be see as nodes. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: FreeMoney on August 09, 2012, 09:53:32 AM ElectricMucus, there can't be shrinking user base when we have constant exposure in the media (see Press subforum), the screenshot above is missing thread views which is also hints at increasing interest. More people talk or mention bitcoins elsewhere too besides online media and news blogs You are basing your reasoning on a single graph of decreasing nodes. I'm not sure how it's calculated, I know previously node count was done through IRC where all nodes by default found each other, recent client updates have "noirc" flag set to default. then on top of that there are some router settings which prevent bitcoin client's good network connectivity (i forgot what is it) - i'm pretty sure those things are not enabled by default and most users would not bother with them, these nodes may not be seen in that graph too. then there are users who don't constantly run bitcoin client. Wide use of light clients which may not be see as nodes. Yeah, and on top of all that there are more and more fine ways to use bitcoins without being a node yourself. Electrum, blockchain.info etc. Some people just use Gox and Seals. Plus even with the download speed improvements it gradually becomes slower to get started with the standard software. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: molecular on August 09, 2012, 11:10:10 AM I don't understand why I read everwhere that the userbase grows. Where do you get it from? I'm pretty sure that is the number of full nodes running, as the blockchain grows more and more people are using online wallets or something elseIf I look at http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/ it looks like the user base is still declining. Or do I read this wrong? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png Online wallets (it's only really blockchain.info) cannot alone compensate for the decline, and nobody was able to tell me if electrum clients would show up or not or what their numbers are. There isn't 'something else' than that. Plus the decline started to manifest before those 2 came up. Why is it so hard to accept that bitcoin is loosing excess userbase? Electrum clients don't show up. Popular android client bitcoinspinner doesn't show up. Exchange "wallets" don't show up. Paper wallets, brainwallet, casascius "wallets" don't show up. Hell, even I dont continuously run a node these days. I'm still a member of the userbase however, entertaining at least 4 wallets that all don't show up in above graph. I highly doubt bitcoin is loosing userbase. Title: Re: What do you think will happen in the next 4 Months??!?? Post by: minorman on August 09, 2012, 06:12:11 PM I don't understand why I read everwhere that the userbase grows. Where do you get it from? I'm pretty sure that is the number of full nodes running, as the blockchain grows more and more people are using online wallets or something elseIf I look at http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/ it looks like the user base is still declining. Or do I read this wrong? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png Online wallets (it's only really blockchain.info) cannot alone compensate for the decline, and nobody was able to tell me if electrum clients would show up or not or what their numbers are. There isn't 'something else' than that. Plus the decline started to manifest before those 2 came up. Why is it so hard to accept that bitcoin is loosing excess userbase? Electrum clients don't show up. Popular android client bitcoinspinner doesn't show up. Exchange "wallets" don't show up. Paper wallets, brainwallet, casascius "wallets" don't show up. Hell, even I dont continuously run a node these days. I'm still a member of the userbase however, entertaining at least 4 wallets that all don't show up in above graph. I highly doubt bitcoin is loosing userbase. not to mention that many run the client through a vpn. As a matter of principle I run all my internet traffic through a vpn - and I'm not even a nerd. Multiple users would count as one IP (that of the vpn). As for bitcoin losing users. I don't know of any intelligent person who has been properly introduced to bitcoin who hasn't been seduced by the sheer genius of the system and become "hooked". I'm sure that many less imaginative minds quickly go back to watching tv (or whatever else), but bright people are simply drawn in by the awesomeness of Bitcoin. |
