Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin's price seems to be caught in a limbo between bull and bear market. Even if we're still 60% above the November 2022 heights, there is again some fear lurking around. I think thus, it's time to remember why Bitcoin could be a much bigger success than it currently is.

Some will know the blog article The Bullish Case for Bitcoin (https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1) by Vijay Boyapati, which has been transformed into a general introductory book about Bitcoin (https://www.bullishcaseforbitcoin.com/).

I agree with many of the ideas displayed in the article, but I get the impression that the linear "adoption timeline" the author pleads for, needs an update.

Basically the author argues that Bitcoin adoption will have four stages:

1. Collectible: A thing some people like to collect, even if its value is still undetermined.
2. Store of value: An asset used to store an abstract "value", for example to invest money in it and get the same or more value/money in the future.
3. Medium of exchange: A currency used to purchase goods and services.
4. Unit of account: A currency which can be used as a base to calculate prices.

We've successfully moved away somewhat from Phase 1. But I've got the impression that Bitcoin is currently caught in an intermediate "limbo" with characteristics of the first three stages, but without progress to evolve into the fourth (unit of account) stage. Even more: it seems that people's hopes currently are linked to the store of value concept, and usage as a medium of exchange was already more popular a few years ago. And as a store of value, it's only useful considering very long timespans (>2-3 years) due to harsh volatility.

My theory is that the order for Bitcoin's "bullish case" has to be updated. For me the stages are:

1. Collectible
2. Medium of exchange
3. Store of value
4. Unit of account

Why? There are basically two reasons.

1) The first one is liquidity and demand. Bitcoin's liquidity is better than 10 years ago, but hasn't made significant progress in the last 2-3 years. This makes its market still vulnerable to panic, FOMO, manipulation and other plagues which lead to its erratic price behavior.

If Bitcoin was used more as a medium of exchange, it would have significantly higher liquidity. Because each time you buy and sell something for Bitcoin it's a market operation where you're establishing its value. Even more important: Each time somebody agrees to sell something for Bitcoin, this can be considered a buy offer in the order book.

Thus, with more usage as medium of exchange and "boosted" liquidity, Bitcoin's volatility would probably lower, and it would become a safer store of value. Imagine you wouldn't have to fear an 70-85% depreciation in a bear market cycle but only 30% in the worst case. Would you invest more in it than now?

People also seem to misunderstand the concept of "scarcity". Scarcity is not equal to "limited supply". Scarcity exists when there is more demand than supply. A limited supply helps, but it does not mean something is really scarce. Many altcoins have a more limited supply than Bitcoin but have dramatically failed. Demand is crucial. If demand is erratic and only depends on FOMO cycles, then no reliable store of value can be achieved.

While if there is an explosion of merchants and everyday people accepting Bitcoin, then this means that there's also an explosion of demand. Again: Each of these offers is an offer in an imaginary orderbook where Bitcoin is traded against "real value".

Of course if volatility lowers then the bull runs will become less steep too. But that isn't a problem because Bitcoin has anyway the potential for values largely above $100,000. And that leads us to the second issue:

2) Many people forgot why Bitcoin is such a big innovation. It is the first digital value exchange medium which lacks central intermediaries completely and thus has its known advantages like censorship resistance. All previous attempts needed some kind of "bank" controlling the system.

This is Bitcoin's USP. Bitcoin can be used by anyone, anywhere (where there is Internet access) and anytime, without the need that someone "allows" you to do so. And this characteristic is most useful for a currency, not so much for a store of value. The internet (and this forum) is full of complaints about banks having closed accounts of people and made your life a pain. Bitcoin fixes this (And no, Ethereum and other centralized coins do not really fix it, as their censorship resistances is much lower).

In my opinion, Bitcoin's big advantages all really shine when it's used as a currency. And thus long term success in the future depends if it's used as a medium of exchange or not.

Once a path to currency usage becomes clear, Bitcoin will thus become a reliable store of value. Not before - before it will be subject to the same wild swings we've seen in the past years.

I would even say: There'll be no $200,000+ ("digital gold") Bitcoin without usage as a currency.

(And if you are worried about scalability: There's LN, there's even progress with sidechains, like projects like Stacks or Nomic and rollups show. It's nothing unsolvable.)

Is bitcoin ever in a bear market? If it goes to 10k, falls to 5k, goes to 20k, falls to 10k, goes to 60k, falls to 30k, and so on, Is there even a bear market? Someone could argue that these are simple corrections in one big bull market, since it keeps going higher, making higher highs and higher lows.
IMO there's a clear growth pattern that we're witnessing here.

I have to agree that at this moment I only see it as a store of value. There's not enough acceptance for me to be able to spend it on the things I need and I don't want to sell it on exchange, especially now when it's so undervalued.

This is just survivorship bias. People who encounter problem write a negative review or share their story on social media, while those who don't have any problems have no reason to voice their opinion. I've been using online banking and credit cards for years and haven't encountered any restrictions not even once. All the people that I know in real life also never encountered anything like that. If bank account freezes were a major problem, I would have likely encountered it by now.

If most people don't run into problems with banks, they have no reasons to look at Bitcoin, especially if you consider just how many trade-offs Bitcoin has.

Of course, as I wrote in the long term (>2-3 years) Bitcoin already works as a store of value. However, not all people have that much time. But much more important: There is no guarantee that this long term bull market will continue. S2F and similar theories assume an "automatic growth", but I have severe doubts if demand can be sustained that high ... without the "usage as a currency".

That is highly dependant on where you live. In my country for example it's mandatory for people to show an address proof to get a bank account. For example, many students which do not live in an own appartment (most do not) often fail to meet this requirement and stay unbanked or depend on their parents opening an account for them. (Situation has however improved a bit with online wallet providers which do not require address proof, but may be unreliable). I have also heard personally from people getting their account closed, although it isn't very frequent.

And: Even if the risk to get your account closed is small, it is not non-existant and if it happens it can be an extremely big hassle for your personal finances, and in the case of Bitcoin it "is 100% solved". The censorship problem, above all if you're any kind of "dissident", is even bigger.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Bitcoin will have less tradeoffs if its use is already more established, i.e. if solutions like Lightning are reliable and widely accepted by merchants. As a solution to the problem, what I'm advocating for is that current Bitcoin users should try to use Bitcoin more to pay for goods and services if possible. For example, if one wants to take profits in a bull market or cut losses in a bear market, this can be done buying some goods instead of selling the coins at an exchange.

Let's say Bitcoin beats the all time high and reaches 100k and due to the volatility it goes down to 70k I think people would still consider it as a bear market season. Spreading your time worrying about which market Bitcoin is either bull or bear can be extremely frustrating.

I am interested in how I can make Bitcoin work more for me and that has to do with the adoption level, this is the best value for Bitcoin (the utility) we haven't yet started to experience that at its peak, and I hope we do

Bitcoin should be seen far fetch from what it's current market price is today because it a digital currency we can trust it delivery future plan for the economy sustainability on it investors, this same assurance is what we have that bitcoin will not fail us no matter the downside of it market, it is known for that, being a volatile cryptocurrency, it fall and rises and we also trust it's process, the hope is sure that all aimed objectives on bitcoin investment  surely come to pass with time, not even now that we are getting closer to halving, which will soon mark the beginning of a new era or season for the market to pump, well this new week is not left out, anything new can come up at anytime from now in seing the market rising.

Not really scared of what bitcoin is at currently. It could be worse that's one thing I'll give ya. Last bull season it literally took us 10 months before bitcoin was even able to recover and that was even past the halving period mind you. So for bitcoin to be in this state of limbo at a very healthy price point, I don't think there's a massive cause for concern here. Sure it could be better, we could be getting 40k now considering we're almost at the end of the year and the halving is just around the corner, but bitcoin doesn't have a general timeline that it follows to a T. So I say we keep at it with the information campaigns and all that awesome stuff to clear out all the confusions and negative connotations that bitcoin received in the past, but not so much as to do it because we're worried that bitcoin is going to fall in value real soon.

This isn't very realistic, the amount that you plan to sell must coincide with the amount you plan to spend, at the timing must coincide too. For most investors this will not be the case and they will just sell BTC for a liquid asset - fiat.


The difficulties of being your own bank - key management and irreversibility of transactions are not correlated with the levels of adoption. Maybe in the future someone will release a more idiot-proof wallet software for mass use, but for some reason no one made such wallet in all these years.

Volatility also won't be gone completely with mainstream adoption. The biggest factor of Bitcoin volatility is that there's no mathematical formula for estimating Bitcon's "objective" value, so it's all just based on pure guess of traders.

The demand and limited supply of bitcoin work together to affect the price of bitcoin. The halving event has proven to be a good catalyst in the growth of bitcoin price.  But, after the halving, or bullish run that follows it, the price also falls back to a low amount. Because the bear market scare many users away and makes them feel like they're not good investors. like Op said, without the demand, bitcoin price won't make any much positive changes. Hence, when more people stop investing or trading bitcoin, because of its price volatility the price begin to drop, causing more users to pull off their money into fiat. It's realistic that bitcoin will not fail us, if a good number of countries, facing inflation adopts bitcoin as a means of exchange or payment. And the high expectation that bitcoin price will hit fresh ATH, may get the attention of the media. If they begin to publish such trend, more people, who wish to profit money through bitcoin will throw in some money into it.

Your thoughtful insight about factors those can potentially influence the future of Bitcoin's price is indeed valuable. In particular, when assessing the Bitcoin price trajectory within the historical context of halving event and its consequent impact on Bitcoin market. It is important to acknowledge the prevailing economic conditions worldwide. Factors such as, high inflation and interest rates, declining GDP across major economies, tensions among USA, Russia and China, are creating unfavorable environment for investment in risky assets. Therefor despite the historical role of halving event to act as catalyst for price surge, it is possible that substantial increase in Bitcoin price in 2024 may not materialize, what most of Bitcoin enthusiasts are expecting.

This was the initial goal of creating Bitcoin but it has not been achieved until now, after more than a decade, those who have Bitcoin are still very limited in using it as a means of payment that can be used every day. The step that is always used is to first exchange it for fiat and shop while the merchant accepts it. Bitcoin is not one that provides products for daily needs, such as Namecheap which accepts Bitcoin, only certain groups benefit from it.

I've read news about people experiencing problems with their banking accounts, and that happens in countries with weak banking systems, there are more countries where the banking system is stronger so banks won't be able to just freeze user accounts if there's no reason which is strong for that unlike what CEX can do which can't even answer complaints other than saying to comply with the law where the CEX is registered, and as long as I use the bank I have never experienced problems like that, everything goes well. So when there is bad news about banks, it doesn't reflect the valid truth and it's only case by case and not many compared to those who continue to use banks smoothly.

I would say Bitcoin doesn't even need to meet the definition of money in terms of medium of exchange or unit of account to have value and to hold value.

My opinion is that Bitcoin would be valuable even solely as a store of value definition of money.

However, I do think that Bitcoin will become a medium of exchange once the price stabilises after the price discovery phase when that occurs.

If Blackrock and other ETFs are approved and we see inflow of capital into BTC ETFs, assuming 1-to-1 holding requirement for 1 BTC ETF with 1 BTC actual coin, I think BTC could get to $200k ceteris paribus.

Interesting analysis, and glad to see the presence of arguments !
The last sentence is a KEY phrase.
As long as Bitcoin does not acquire the status of a real asset for mutual settlements, all dreams about its future are a meaningless pastime, as only a speculative manipulative asset remains.
As soon as bitcoin enters the real market, and gets the status of currency - the speculative component will begin to come to naught. And with it volatility and other disadvantages.
The only remaining issue is technological - the speed and cost of transactions

This statement could be debatable, though, in my opinion. How can you say that it's undervalued when there's currently not enough acceptance for bitcoin? Remember that bitcoin has pumped many times, causing FOMO where some people make a lot of money while others experience the opposite. If we believed the price wasn't overvalued at that time, then I think it should not have dumped due to the so-called correction. Isn't it wiser to also consider that at some point, the price is manipulated?

The thing is, if we talk about the basics, only demand would result in an increase in the price of bitcoin. But how is the status of that now? Is the demand really growing? If the answer is yes, then the price could be undervalued currently.

value is found outside the speculative market
value is NOT the market price

value sits beneath the market price

imagine value as the wholesale manufacturing cost of a product
imagine price as the retail sales cost of a product

the easiest way to find the value. is find the most efficient acquisition cost of btc on the planet.. and if smart enough you will learn that is mining in an efficient region..

this efficient mining cost sets the limit of anyone on the planets ability to sell and make a profit. because its the lowest.. no one is left to sell for less and break even. so it sets a support wall no one is willing to sell below. this support wall is the value line

you will notice because bitcoin mining is (currently) over $20k efficient. it gives good reason why the market this quarter is $25k+ instead of being just $100

you notice this support more when you look at things like crap coins with low PoW costs. their market speculates at a lower rate too

there are some PoS that have no real world mining cost. so their market is 99% speculative and <1% store of value. those PoS coins with high price can burst their bubble if their speculation reasons stop

We are waiting for this to happen in the last several years and it isn't happening.
You have the assumption that once BTC becomes an actual currency, everything will be fine and there won't be any problems with BTC.
The problem is that most of the Bitcoiners don't want BTC to become an actual currency. They simply want to buy BTC at 20K and sell it at 100K USD. As long as they have this kind of mentality, Bitcoin will never become a true currency and it will always stay in the category of speculative financial assets.
I will never stop repeating the same question over and over again. If Bitcoin was so awesome and so much better than the fiat payment systems, then why didn't everyone in the world just dump fiat and use BTC?
The answer seems obvious. The fiat payment systems aren't that bad and Bitcoin isn't perfect.

The next 2 years will say a lot more about Bitcoin and will be a litmus test for how people will continue to view the coin. For now, it's a bullish-bullish aspiration, this is my disposition as well, but I still have some reservations and will ever let my chart guide me. I believe that the true nature of the coin will be better unveiled this time that people are more aware of it and truly ready for it so that we would know its true behaviours.

The market is extremely bearish at the moment but even if there is no tradition like halving, there is no reason why a market like Bitcoin will be bearish forever, we are only in the bearish season yet. This is also a time of opportunity for those who value it and are smart enough to take advantage of it. Regardless of what's happening now, Bitcoin should be getting prepared to start another bullish phase a few months from now, and this might be relentless in giving profits to the Bulls.

when large institution are doing collateral deals extending upto and beyond 2028 you soon realise that things are not going to slow down any time soon

I am agree with your status that lots of people are unaware of bear and bull market because when the price reduces 5 percent then they consider that time as a bear market but they don't remember the time when bitcoin price was 12k$ or 15k$.

It will be good if investors don't think about bull and bear market because they cannot understand it. Without considering ups and downs just focus on your profit that if investors can manage investment at a specific price then they should do and wait until it increases in value.

I don't see it. In other words, I am bullish on Bitcoin in the long term, but not for the reasons mentioned above, and I don't see this transition between currency and store of value, in whatever order, to end up as a unit of account. Today it has a certain use as a currency but I think it will lose meaning over time.

I think it will remain a store of value like gold, but as a digital asset.


It's just like that. I've never had any problem either.


I totally agree with your view which I understand to be more pragmatic, and in my opinion realistic.

If you sugarcoat stuff that much you're going end with diabetes and never touch chocolate again!
Let's not try and change things that have been established for decades just because it doesn't look good to us!

Bitcoin is up 400% since 2020?, it is, it is up 30% since 2017, yes, but at the same time it's down 62% since the ATH , yes it is, we're in a bear market of low after low and that's it.

Let's look and those two, so basically the <let's not name it here company> will also never end in a bear market, right?
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/11/6aV61.png
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/11/6ayll.png

We also didn't have a bear market in 2009, right? Cause continuous growth!

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/09/11/6ajjm.png

Back to the main topic:

Although I totally agree with you d5000 on the main point, so that's it on the theory, I have to correct you on this one and on the reality we see around us. It's not that they forgot. They never cared!

You say growth from usage, you say being your own bank, where is it cause it pains me to say but there is none!
Some brag about having millions for crypto users, crypto(dot)com is claiming some 40% of Turkey population owns crypto and there I look at the blockchain and see 1/3 of that in total number of addresses with over 100$ worth of coins!

As blunt as I can be, if you or anyone else thinks that the "growth" will com from real-life use then you're just as delusional as me! It's nice to dream but reality will hit us hard every single time.

This is only true if you replace all your trades on exchanges by buying/selling goods. You can do it partially, and if you want to buy or sell more, then you can combine both methods. Of course if you have complex trading strategies then you can't replace all your trades by buying and selling goods.
It isn't an "one or another" thing. It's more like that it would be better to gradually shift more to buying goods instead of selling on exchanges.
 
I don't see current (particularly mobile) wallet software as that difficult to use. However, I think you're correct that there is room for improvement particularly in the field "protect the user from him/herself". I don't know that many mobile wallets, but for example a simple function only allowing to spend a certain amount per day (as it's common in bank accounts) could help there.

Key management is something you generally have to learn in the digital world, also for fiat transactions and identity management. Irreversibility is mainly an issue if you trade with anonymous trading partners, while when buying goods at a merchant you are entering a legal contract with an established entity. At least that's what most people would do when they buy goods and services. So if they scam you then you've to take legal action, as if you had paid with cash.

There's also no convincing mathematical formula of the value of other, less volatile goods like gold. There are machine learning based models being developed but that could also be possible for Bitcoin. Trading volume of gold is however 10 times higher (https://www.gold.org/goldhub/data/gold-trading-volumes) than Bitcoin's. So this can explain its lower volatility.

Yup. That's also what I meant with the "limbo" Bitcoin is currently in.

Again yup, this is the current most common usage pattern. The idea of this thread is to think a bit about how a transition to the next stage could become possible. :)

There could be technical solutions, like for example what hatshepsut93 wrote above (more "idiot-proof" wallets). I for example think also that a reloaded OpenBazaar-like marketplace software would help a lot. Also we can think about smart-contract-based solutions to hedge against volatility. There are a lot of possible options, but they're not taking off.

I actually agree here and I'm not among these ultra-maximalists who think Bitcoin will replace all fiat operations. However, I think it's also not correct to downplay Bitcoin's advantages. Needing no centralized intermediaries nor human intervention (apart from development and bugfixing) makes Bitcoin the first completely automatized payment system in the world. For quite big markets like international payments/remittances and for the unbanked there aren't much better options.

Sometimes I'm becoming as fatalist as you ;) But even if many people don't care, it can make sense to think about the reasons for Bitcoin being "stuck" at this "speculative asset stage" and how this could improve, in particular which incentives could get people to get "on track" to a more P2P cash-friendly stance again.

So what is the alternative?

We have the bull market incited by several factors:
-Internet penetration with more people being introduced to bitcoin
-Institutional interest with ETFs coming and more billionaires dipping their feet. Recently there was a story about that billionaire from Mexico.
-People waking up to the game the FED and central banks are playing with their money
-Fear of CBDC?
-Countries going the path of El Salvador.
-Increasing cost of mining

Let's say we won't have currency usage for another 4 years, until the next post-halving cycle. Do you expect the price to stop growing because of that? If it doesn't go up it's going to have to go down, against all these positive factors, because I just don't see bitcoin as a stable commodity. It will keep going up, or it will have to come down, but IMO there so many strong points supporting the bullish case for bitcoin that it's going to keep on giving to those who appreciate it.


It's a matter of perspective. If you bought bitcoin for 60k, you'll say the price is bearish. If you bought it for 10k, it's bullish.
If you measure bitcoin only from its highest point, 99% of time it's going to be lower, so that doesn't say anything. A week from when it hit 68k, people who bought that price point were already at a loss. Was that a bear market? I'd say it wasn't.

When bitcoin went down 50% from 60k to 30k, was that a bear market?

Why would you refer to bitcoin as down because of it's ATH? Bitcoin's history is based on roughly 14 years of existence. How long was it trading for 60k? A month? So around 1/168th of its existence you were able to buy or sell it for 60k. It was very easy for an average bitcoiner to completely miss it.

I'm not really a fatalist, a tiny variation, I don't see it happening based on the current situation, so the radical difference is that I believe change can happen only that we don't have the right ingredients right now, there is no carrot, there is no stick, and the other side is just too tempting.

I've seen it way to many times around here, with users cheering for every shop opening, and then when it comes to buying something they will not do it because Lazlo was stupid for buying a pizza with BTC so I can say it without hesitation that growth based on usage will only start when the possibility of earning x2 or x5  will be the same as from holding Coca cola or Walmart shares. Till then, the coins are too precious to be spent!

And you said incentives? Which ones?
Remember that credit cards and their chargebacks are good for the consumers, but businesses hate them, Bitcoin is good for the business as there are none but consumers won't like it! Cheap fees? Oh, let's not even bring this into the discussion right now in this orc borg monkey clusterfuck!

Oh and one more thing:


Out of twenty or thirty people I've gone on holiday this year and managed to take a glimpse at their phone when sharing stuff or videos, me and my wife were the only ones that used an adblock. Everyone who noticed this asked us how, as right now I don't know if a single one of them really installed it. Don't underestimate the difficulty of using a wallet, it might be child's play for us, but you can see for yourself in this forum alone how many crypto users still have problems with basic things like setting up fees!

And I don't think it will improve with future generations. Using smartphones many hours per day is not increasing people's tech literacy if they just scroll a few apps and never bother to learn about safety. Managing passwords is also not something most people do, because they can always just  reset them via email. And people still download files from the first results of google search, which can often contain malware.

That's great, the problems as you mentioned, inflation, conflicts etc affects bitcoin price, yet given time bitcoin outperforms the underlying issues. If the media teaches or promotes the importance of the next halving to their readers and listeners, the growth of bitcoin will still emerge. Regardless of all additional price effects on bitcoin, the most important is adoption; investing more money into bitcoin. Bitcoin have multiple channels where it's promoted, if these people invest time in providing valuable information as other niches do, the price of bitcoin can increase.. The task is meant for everyone to explain carefully to anybody interested into bitcoin. Not about what's happening in the world. The 2021 bull run followed through the pandemic and made it to ATH. And the news about the problems in Ukraine and Russia is no longer hot or trending in some locations, like when it began. Similar to the tensions between USA, China etc, some days it'll no longer be trending, so if bitcoin gets to trend again at any moment, the price will increase. Bitcoin works mostly with adoption and high amount of investment.

I think so but it seems that most of merchants still afraid to use btc as medium of payment because the price is still volatile. I think this problem should be fixed, what if in every transaction merchants always get money in form of fiat and cryptocurrency from the customers automatically traded in exchange? it will need certain app to do that. I think BTC still can reach $200k although its mostly traded in exchange site rather than being used by merchants because speculative investors always looking for opportunity to gain their money and BTC provide big opportunity for them.

Yes bitcoin as medium of payment  will be accepted by minimum merchants because all the time it is not successful as if they take it as a payment and suddenly market goes down then they will surely be afraid and will regret for their act. Those businessman who are familiar with bitcoin will not take it serious because they know about the reality of bitcoin but other merchants who don't know prior to it will think that they are in risk.

In past people were innocent so they exchange bitcoin as a payment but today no one will do it as everyone in struggling to make huge money by utilizing less money so they will keep bitcoin for years until they get the cash three times more than the amount they have been used.

The people that should be unaware of bearish and bullish season should be the new investors, but the investors that knows the cranium or the rudiments of cryptocurrency and mostly bitcoin should be able to detect when their is a bearish and when their is no bullish, concentrating on a bearish or bullish as investor it depends on your target and what you want to invest more in bitcoins will determine your target, so I believe a lot of investors scrutinised cryptocurrency price both increment and decrement with the graph or chart of the market to know the exact period that will be the season of bullish and bearish before investment.

I hope I interpret your post right - you consider then Bitcoin has to become less volatile (above all to the upside) to boost growth based on usage? (judging from the price of the shares you mention)

The problem is that I see a chicken-egg problem here. Many believe that Bitcoin has to become more popular and only then volatility will lower. Current volatility stats seem to point in that direction but are not totally convincing, because in 2015/2016 volatily also froze down almost to today's levels (https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/) but then rose again. I think we have still not really made progress here.

So some argue there need to be more bull-bear cycles until that could happen, with a much higher Bitcoin value being expected. I have however my doubts that can work. The market is already much more saturated than in earlier cycles: the upside volatility is going down indeed (2021 high was x3 compared to 2017 high, but 2017 high was x15 compared to 2013 high), but the downside is not. We still lose more than 75% at the lows compared to the previous ATH. I believe thus that we have at most 2 such pure speculative cycles ahead, and they could be disappointing for some, for example the next one could reach a new ATH but fail to cross $100.000. I guess in this case we would simply fall to the current values again, not to 40-50.000. And the next cycle then could be even a double top.

Another option is a really long bear market because the "cycles already don't work". A "Bitcoin is dead" scenario with more than 5 oir even 10 years of bearish action like it occured already with many altcoins, where not even halvings help. Until people wake up and start using it again. The problem is: the speculative action could then re-emerge once there's a light behind the tunnel and nothing would have changed.

So I think there is a mentality change needed in the community, as Bitcoin is not only a technology but also a social system. Of course you can't impose such a change, that's why I wrote about incentives.

One factor indeed is that fees must be cheaper, and my best guess is that this could become possible with a combination of better LN software and sidechains/rollups to circunvent the "monkey issue". :)
I could also imagine more mechanisms to hedge against the crash risk with decentralized options (atomic-swap based or DLC-based) and such stuff. Of course the masses won't use options, but more like an "insurance contract" based on options. I'm quite sure this can be done with smart contracts and stablecoins.
Also better wallet software. I totally get what you mean with your last sentence.
What definitely also would help is a better price theory/model, I think this is not impossible. S2F and similar stuff is "not" a candidate for me.

But yeah, the thread's idea is also to collect more ideas. :)

Without usage as a currency is not something you need to worry about because it is used as a currency every single day. Maybe we do not hear about it because it is not talked about that much but online payments are shifting towards more and more bitcoin, a lot more online websites that started to accept bitcoin and that means that it is going to be possible way more.

I am just waiting for amazon and steam type of companies to get back on the ship, if they do that, even if with just stablecoins, that would be amazing. Something like CBDC could make that work, because seeing the government behind something could make them work a lot better on the long run and should be doing a great return on profit as well for those companies.

I agree. this is because paper currency is still necessary and also bitcoin is an investment asset. Even if it is used as a medium of exchange it will still not reduce its effectiveness in becoming an asset to invest in. This is because there are only 21 million bitcoins in the world minus the bitcoins that have been completely lost as those held by their creators. If we continue to study Bitcoin and many people invest here, it is not impossible for Bitcoin to reach a price of $200,000.

While I don't question that "every single day" there should be at least one real "payment"  with Bitcoin ;) , I don't really see the "shifting" happening at this time, and I'd guess payments make up much less than 5% of transactions (perhaps some hundreds to thousands per day, in reality). Of course there are certain segments like hosting, domains, or gift cards where payments in Bitcoin are somewhat common and there is some acceptance also in mainstream shops, but that was already the case 5-10 years ago.

You may be on something I don't know however. Do you have some stats or examples perhaps? Or why do you think that more payments are happening than people think?

I don't see any connection between CBDC and Bitcoin acceptance. CBDC is more similar to a state-managed Paypal (the central bank providing services they traditionally provided to banks also to the general public).

What I have heard till now Bitcoin is used as a store of value. It was created to be a global currency but it has some limitations that won't let it work as a currency. Its legacy network takes a few minutes to transfer when the network is congested. Transaction fees are also high compared to fiat currencies. Just think you had to pay a 10$ transaction charge for a 20$ coffee. This doesn't make sense. Some gambling sites and few merchants accept it as a currency which doesn't make it one. When you can buy vegetables, fruits, and other daily essentials with Bitcoin it will be considered as a real currency. Till then it is a store of value for me and I am happy about that.

The example you have provided in your post refers to extreme volatility in Bitcoin price, where Bitcoin price often falls to the extent of 80% from its all time high (ATH). However, in the long term, Bitcoin has consistently demonstrated outstanding performance. This reflects one of its core characteristics. In the financial terms, the concept of bear market refers to sustained decline in price of any trade-able asset, often 20% or more from its recent high.

I agree with your viewpoint that Bitcoin primarily functions as store of value, and its role as method of of payment is undergoing evolutionary process that may take long time to fully develop.

Yes, you're right. But bitcoin has an undeniable advantage - you can pay with bitcoin in almost any country without changing it for local currency. But still, because of the disadvantages you pointed out, bitcoin may eventually be replaced by some other cryptocurrency

And so what does the model say about the linear timeliness adoption of bitcoin? You never mentioned the actual timeline you just listed the bullet points of it

It is correct that Bitcoin can be used for cross border transactions without the need of middleman, as well as serves as convenient method of payment without the hassle of exchanging to other local currencies. However, its widespread adoption as means of purchasing goods and services from any retailer remains an uphill battle due to various hurdles, such as regulatory complexities and need for technological advancement. It may take significant amount of time before these issues are completely resolved.

Everybody who's trying to sell you a "timeline of adoption" is probably a scammer or simply naive.

The exact evolution of demand and usage for Bitcoin is not predictable. There's Metcalfe's Law, for sure, but in the case of Bitcoin it doesn't help that much, as we don't have good metrics to measure the "user base". You can estimate if adoption/the number of users is improving or not, but the stats you would use for that are too inexact to be able to build a timeline.

In the particular model I've presented in the OP the state of "usage as a currency" depends on many factors. It depends on technologic evolution (for example, Layer-2 solutions to keep fees low, easily usable wallet software), but also of social factors, like the composition of the Bitcoin users universe (hodlers, traders, currency-users) and their beliefs and "mentality". For example, the current mentality of the average Bitcoin user ("Buy Bitcoin to become rich") tends to slow down the currency usage because they spread ideas like "Don't spend your precious Bitcoins!" (forgetting that you can also earn them). Just read a Reddit thread which concludes with exactly these words (https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/16i0ati/i_used_to_have_20_btc_now_i_only_have_1_its/) (although I think this user more likely sold most of his BTC for fiat, and this is not what this thread is about at all, but people then develop a "hoarding" mentality and tend to not use their BTC as a currency).

What must be achieved for bullet point 2 to become true and open the path to bullet point 3 and 4 is more "circularity" in Bitcoin usage. I.e. people should consider both spend and earn (or re-buy, if your work is incompatible with that) Bitcoins, and if they want slowly accumulate this way even better, but not only hoard (hodl) them.

Those have been around for years, Bitpay was established in 2011!


Not quite!
It can still be volatile but it has to reach a point where future growth can't be possible in double digits no matter how bullish you are, all currencies can become volatile for a period and even now with all the drops and ups Bitcoin is doing any major ones either, still confined in 10% a month. The problem is that many see the 1 million or more mark as possible in a bull run or even believe Saylor dribbles about $5 million, would those spend if they think at least 100x from now on is possible in a year time? Of course not, they will keep their coins in their wallets and not spend a dime and you can't really blame them.


Agree with you but the change has happened and continues to happen in the opposite direction.


LN alone is proving to be too much of a hurdle for the average Joe and even for merchants, if we're going to overcomplicate this is going to end in failure.


We don't need to hear about it because we have the blockchain.
Before the ordinals,  periods of 1sat/b fee were common which meant that the usage was below the 400k/tx a day possible, if you look at the number of confirmed tx you can see that it averaged 250k a day for the last year, way below 2021.
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/n-transactions
Merchants accepting bitcoin was part of the problem but right now it's people willing to buy something for Bitcoin!

The solution for that problem is to remind people that if they use Bitcoins for payments they would have done with fiat anyway, these Bitcoins aren't lost. They can re-buy the BTC instantly for fiat, or alternatively try to earn Bitcoins in some way, depending of course of your profession/work.

I'm sure for example Laszlo (the "stupid" Pizza buyer) after he bought that pizza continued to accumulate Bitcoin and should have recovered them in a few weeks at most.

When people do this, they strengthen the social "value" network/ecosystem (containing consumers, merchants and of course also traders, but the two first groups are more important for the "currency" aspect) and don't lose anything for the bull run they expect. If this is done massively that would counter the Bitcoin critics arguing that "it's only used for speculation". And every time the "skeptics" lose an argument then there's less potential for FUD, and bullish predictions could even become true ;)

I agree that the transaction fee problem is not trivial, and as you already wrote LN is still a bit difficult to use. My hopes are largely centered on sidechains as they are as easy to use as any altcoin. With Stacks (https://stx.is/nakamoto) an interesting and working model already exists, but it's still too centralized. If we had a Stacks fork without a single business behind it that benefitted from premined coins, then I'd happily try it out and promote it :) (same goes for rollups but they're still not possible with current Bitcoin Script opcodes).

Judging from the lukewarm response to this thread, I agree that the "currency/cash" aspect is currently not very popular.

However, we could be close to a turning point. The ICO, DeFi and NFT waves (which benefitted mostly Ethereum, by the way, although Bitcoin had its own recent NFT monkey wave) have ended or are fading out. So while currently the "hodler"/"digital gold" narrative is perhaps the most popular one, the "hole" left from the other failed trends creates some space for alternative narratives, and the "currency" aspect could grow again.

If an investor targets a price at which he will buy bitcoin then it will be easy for him to take the advantage of bear and bull season and also there is a possibility that he will know about the bear season.

For example if the price is now 30k$ then try to target the price of 24k$ or 25k$ for buying bitcoin so when the price reach to targeted cost then complete your task for processing the procedure of your profit.

Then also fix the value 10 or 20 percent that if you enables to get such percentage then be quite to wait until your invested coin reach to such value so if one don't know about bear and bull then try to follow this rule you will definitely be an investor with great achievement

Firstly, I have to point out that we're obviously in the bull market atm. You should trust a person who survived 3 bear markets (or was it 4?). And as to the quote marked in bold, I strongly disagree: Bitcoin can and will reach $200k, possibly in 1-2 years already, without becoming a widely-used currency. Just wait and see for yourself.