Bitcoin Forum

Was curious if anyone had any observations on "real world" events which affect BTC price.

For example, for real/sovereign/fiat currencies usually a rise in inflation decreases the value of that currency. External shocks, such as natural disasters, change in government, etc. also move currency price up or down.

So has anyone observed any correlation between real world events and BTC price?

As has been noted in other posts, difficulty does not in itself affect price. (Ok, before you flame me... Certainly difficulty may contribute to determining BTC price but it doesn't seem to be a strong enough factor by itself to significantly affect the price.) This is evidenced by the dramatic increase in difficulty in the last round without a corresponding dramatic increase in BTC price.

I noticed that in the days after Greece passed its austerity measures the price of BTC has dropped somewhat. To generalize rather broadly, perhaps the health of marquee real/sovereign/fiat currencies (USD and the Euro) is inversely proportional to the price of BTC.

I'm asking because I'm not satisfied with the explanation that BTC price goes up or down simply depending on when old miners who have been hoarding their stashes suddenly decide to cash in their chips   :P

It might be that the parity of bitcoin with the US dollar was the news back in April, and public interest peaked with 30 USD bitcoins.  Perhaps its the lack of news that is leading to the lack of firmness in the July bitcoin market.

I would like to hear more news about increased bitcoin transactions. For example, increased use in international trade.  I plan to start tracking bitcoin-days transaction volume as a possible predictive indicator, once the current speculative bubble is over with.

I'd pay several thousands dollars to somebody who can explain the correlation (with 85% accuracy) ... It's not because I want to waste my money, it's because you can make a lot of money on speculations...  And you want the right anwer... No,no, here in newbie section you don't have any chances to find the truth....

It would be interesting to see that data on the volume of BTC transactions and how it relates to changes in BTC value. I guess the assumption there is that the more BTC is used in the real world (ie. that it can be exchanged for goods and services just like any other currency) the higher its price will go up. That leaves me wondering though if BTC price right now is simply determined by the movements of speculators...


Maybe I'll post the topic again when I'm out of the ghetto of the newbie section  :D

This thread makes statisticians cry. Correlation does not imply causation. Even economists don't approach the economy with such large scale external input, they like to say "ceteris paribus."

So suggest your own way of attempting to determine which way BTC value will go  :)

I wonder how many tears were shed by economists when they devised leading indicators.  I cannot imagine how such economic tools could have been proposed without searching for correlations of time series having predictive power.

from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/leadingindicator.asp ...



http://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/saupload_1_11_10_ben_bernanke_crying-270x270.jpg

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'. -from XKCD