Bitcoin Forum

They say that as Bitcoins are lost or destroyed, the value of the remaining coins goes up.

Well I have finally internalized today that every crash is a "purifying" process as well.  Making the value of my holdings rise.

Because the number of people holding goes down.  

Each time there is a crash, the weak hands sell.  Hundreds (thousands) of people who were holding batches of coins, no longer are.

By the time the price recovers, they can't get as many if they try to buy in again.  

I know that every crash I ride out, makes the fact that I'm holding "X" number of coins that much that much more rare.  

Those who hold, have just moved up a few notches on the Bitcoin Rich List.

-B-

I like the positive outlook however I don't think economics are that simple  ;)

You don't think that there is panic selling during crashes?

A *ton* of people bailed after the first crash.

A *ton* more bailed the second time.

I believe people who continued to hold through those, and this current one, are becoming more rare individuals.

-B-

Incorrect . Fewer people in the market is a bad thing. And less fiat flowing in to Btc is bad.

What a naive and simplistic view. Have you ever considered that during every crash there are also tons of people without any btc waiting to buy in? This is how bitcoins gets distributed among more hands not fewer. Crashes are great for getting more people onboard.

I don't understand OP's logic, but I think the price going down is good to get more people involved.

I think the mentality of the general public is you need to buy-in for at least 1 bitcoin. Most people don't have an extra $1000 to buy that one bitcoin and most newbs won't just buy in originally for .1 bitcoins.

If it goes down to a couple hundred bucks they may be more willing to buy in.

I think a movement needs to be made for the standard denomination to be a mBTC rather than a BTC. People would love to buy in a get a couple hundred pieces rather than just 1 piece. Even though it's worth the same, intuitively more is better.

It doesn't matter since they still aren't getting a full BITCOIN!

One day they will realize that they've been duped. This is NOT a good idea. It's Bitcoin not mBitcoin.

I am sure that the crashes shake out the weak hands.  However, many of these people will buy back, perhaps at a small loss but they will most likely still hold close to the amount that they started with I would think?  I know that there have been some that have posted on this forum that they are done with BTC forever.  It does happen.

I am just thankful that with news such as "Mt.Gox has failed" that the price is still at around $700.  I would have thought news like that would have sent the price plummeting to $300 or so.  I am feeling relieved and quite bullish based on this alone!  ;D

Once people realize that governments value gold by the ton they will understand that the decimal point isn't that important... If you can afford to buy 1/1000th of a ton of gold then you're doing pretty well... What difference does it actually make?

Never.

The decimal point is a psycological thing. Even if the price recover really well the news is still a step-back for bitcoin. Bad press.

Huh, what. OP's premise is flawed.  Or at least, will need some proof.

If coins are cheaper I'd imagine more people would get into bitcoin, not less.

You know those people that complain about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?

They sell in panics too.

Welcome to your first step toward joining the wealthy elite.

What even is a "full bitcoin"? It's just a standard unit consisting of an arbitrary number of satoshis. A "bitcoin" could just as easily been 10 million satoshis rather than 100 million. Or perhaps 1 billion.

What if the protocol were EXACTLY the same as it is now, but bitcoin-qt was set to display 1BTC=1,000 satoshis? Despite the fact that you still own the same number of base units, you have more "full bitcoins". What's the difference?

Most people don't own any $1 million chunks. Why would they want to own $0.00365 million? It's such a small number.

I understand many governments and central banks around the world now tackle that problem. I believe his Excellence, Mr. Kuroda, will be spectacularly successful. But Mrs Yellen won't be far behind.

Maybe 2014 will be the year when exchanges switch to mBtc.

Because at that point, your scarce resource of 21M Bitcoins suddenly becomes less scarce at 210M or 2.1B Bitcoins. At which point, the mining reward is also modified from 25 BTC to 250 or 2,500 BTC per block. It kinda sounds like something familiar, doesn't it?
It's an arbitrary number of base units, yes, but it's the number that was chosen to represent 1 full Bitcoin. If anything, price goods in satoshis'. Have minimum volume on exchanges in satoshis'... At least then, it's not like you're tricking people into buying because "you get more for your buck" the same as tricking a child into trading his dumb old single $10.00 bill for two crispy $1.00 bills because "hey, 2 is better than 1!".

Why not turn it another way around? Instead of talking how many bitcoins you have, let's talk about how many bitcoins you DON'T HAVE.

So the total number of bitcoins that could ever exist is 21 000 000.
A person has 0.10000000 bitcoin. In his wallet it could show:
You don't have 20 999 999.90000000 bitcoins. :D

I was thinking... we all speak of the 21 million coins but in our lifetime, it will never be 21 mil. So, instead, I think we should speculate for the next 20-30 years.