That quote is from Animal Farm.. last page, last paragraph..

Yeah, he was exaggerating a bit and he came off of it a bit.  I have nothing against making assertive predictions;however when people begin to talk in absolutes, my antenna go up, and I will tend to discredit them... at least their communication skills...   

Dealing with the local contractors and also dealing with the local government officials.  There's gotta be some regulatory restrictions when we are dealing with historical landmarks.. which will likely cause building restrictions.

It seems that a lot of us can see to where this story is going b/c in 2015, they will be saying, "Why didn't you get me in at $590?"  B/c in 2015, $590 will be like $150 is today... and people keep thinking that they want to go back and get the cheaper BTC prices, but there is NO going back.  You gotta act now at $590, rather than waiting and hoping for $150 b/c $150 is NOT gonna happen again, absent some flash crash or some amazing fluke.. and if it does happen, NONE of these on the fence people are gonna be "ready to buy."

I agree with you Davyd05 that regular people do NOT really have much of a clue about BTC (and even otherwise informed people) - however, the whitepaper and reading about wallets is probably NOT going to get "regular" people excited.. well, probably NOT. 

However, there are various resources for beginner bitcoiners.  I think almost all bitcoin exchanges, and blockchain and other bitcoin websites have FAQs and also bitcoin information for beginner sections.

Certainly, I am NO successful evangelist regarding these kinds of beginning bitcoin matters; however, i did put together an e-mail that I sent to several people who I thought may have been interested in investing in BTC, and my introductory e-mail has several of the basics about BTC and links to beginner information sources. 

I must have sent my e-mail to more than 50 people; however, I do NOT know about any of them who have actually taken action to set up a bitcoin account and to buy a bitcoin (or even a fraction thereof).  I had a few more than 10 out of those about 50 people ask me further questions about bitcoin and to engage in detailed conversations with me and each of them almost seemed as if they were interested in taking the next step to set up an account or something... but NOTHING, yet (NOT that I know of). 

It seems that "regular" people are fairly disinclined to get involved, in spite of the various good pieces of news and the increased number of large vendors coming on board; however, if we get another bubble to the $1k or $2k price range, some "regular" heads may begin to turn and some "regular peeps" may begin to open up accounts.. and buy some BTC.

Join the club, FattyMcButterpants.  I love your name, by the way... well, maybe love is a bit strong, but I am getting that "loving feeling" regarding your name.        

I understand that we cannot really completely discount China... even though frequently we want to discount China... and also, at times it was beginning to feel as if ONLY Jorge was talking about China... NONETHELESS, when we are talking about BTC price, I thought that ULTIMATELY, Bitstamp was our most standardized measuring point.   Accordingly, so far, as of earlier today, Bitstamp has only risen to $595 per BTC.


Also, when you referred to 0% territory.. I thought that you were referring to some earlier discussion in this thread about the prediction that Sandia had made that there was 0% chance that we would see $600  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg8228770#msg8228770).  There was further discussion about that prediction and about some bets that were proposed to him about his 0% chance prediction.  Sandia did NOT respond to any of those posts, even tough they were making good fun out of his 0% chance prediction.

At this point, even though BTC prices (on Bitstamp) are hovering in the lower $590s territory, I think that it is possible that they could go up to $600 on Bitstamp as well.... although it is possible that they will trickle back down to the lower $580s territory... who really knows?  except possibly a few up-all-night (24/7) whale manipulators?

You mean that BTC prices may rise possibly to "never" "never" land?  

That is the $600+ arena.... 


OMG!!!!    

O.k.  I agree with WindJC's above explanation.

 Marbit, if you read through various above discussions in this thread including a bunch of my speculations regarding how market cap relates to price, we can envision a large number of scenarios in which BTC's market cap has to go up in order to accommodate the increasing use, network effect and all of that.  You can look at the growth of any budding technology or innovation and you will see gianormous increases in value as these new innovations are developing and from the early adoption stages into their later stages... Bitcoin brings a lot of innovations to the table, and if you have studies BTC the network (rather than merely BTC the currency), you can  come to appreciate the multiple innovations that BTC brings to the table.. and appreciate that BTC is far and beyond (at the moment) the king of cryptos. 

Surely bitcoin may NOT accomplish as much growth as it is hyped up to achieve and it may be surplanted, but that does NOT mean that the potential is NOT there or that we are engaging in wild and crazy speculations in order to achieve these kinds of numbers, especially numbers in the $10k to $50k range within the coming years. 

I personally think it is wild and crazy (but not impossible) to expect $1 million value in 5 years, but $10K to $50K is totally within realistic and doable parameters.

The answer to your question about putting numbers on each BTC seems to have already been answered, no?  We are NOT merely talking about the price of 1 BTC b/c that is a fairly random unit, and maybe the BTC space should adopt a different unit of value, but we need to think about the BTC space as a whole and as a network and its market cap.  I think you put numbers on this price per BTC by considering the systems that BTC would be replacing, competing with and/or supplanting as it gains in popularity (that is gold, western union, pay pal, credit cards, banks, various currencies, etc).  There is value in getting into that currency, value transmittal and storage of value space.

Citing to authority regarding the ludicrous nature of the all or nothing concept does NOT bring it greater legitimacy. 

I agree and I have NO problem with the disruptive technology of bitcoin, and I have NO problem with the concept of exponential growth caused by adoption and networking - however, for the most part, the world does NOT work in all or nothing .. there are transition periods... and even if bitcoin is revolutionary and takes over a large segment of the financial world, money transmission and the storage of value, it is going to take a bit of time to arrive at that point - the btc infrastructure is JUST NOT ready at this time to go to $1million per BTC and I doubt it can handle $20k per BTC, at this time.  Accordingly, there is going to be some transition and there is going to be some up and down in the BTC market prices.

ON the other hand, there could be a technological glitch that causes BTC to go to zero; however, there are other potential outcomes, including governmental and bank hostility to attempt to cause BTC to go underground, which could cause lower prices (but NOT zero).

Were these the days of sub-$100 BTC?   Probably.

Probably, whales just love it when people begin to bank on a pattern, so that they can lock in their profits when people expect the pattern.   You can believe what you want, but I have my doubts about any kind of day of the week pattern that is so formulaic as you describe as being a reliable predictor for what is going to happen this weekend.

These are NOT wild guesses, if we are considering the market cap and how much storage of wealth could be contained within the bitcoin and also used for value transmission, plus additional public ledger features.

GiveBTCpls: 

What's your current investment plan in BTC...?  Are you following the DCA plan?  Will you have 1 BTC by the end of the year, or sooner?  How much are you putting in and how frequently? 

Currently, I put in as my cash (fiat) comes in.  So, whatever that I have left after my expenses goes towards BTC... So on a monthly basis, I am probably putting about 20 to 30% of my income into BTC.. and I am trying to time my purchases for the dips in BTC prices.. so I always have some fiat in reserve, just in case there is an additional dip in BTC prices.

I have less than 10% of my total liquid assets in BTC... but I am working on adding to my BTC proportion of my investment portfolio, and if BTC prices appreciate considerably, then I am going to allow BTC to occupy a large proportion of my total investment portfolio.

This is a good explanation b/c dadugan was over simplifying the matter and suggesting that bitcoin is a game of luck.   Even though there is some luck involved, bitcoin is NOT such a game of luck, unless you do NOT know anything about it. 

If you randomly chose to invest in some of the alt currencies, then that would be more analogous to gambling - unless you did some research on them and chose according to the results of your research.

Generally, I am talking about traditional investment vehicles that are used for retirement.  With traditional investment vehicles, in which people are planning for retirement and to preserve the principle of their investment, investment planners tend to calculate a 3-5% withdrawal rate - 3% being conservative and 5% being more ambitious.

The withdrawal rate assumes that the fund can on average generate that level of interest from a variety of investment assets - of course some years will achieve better returns than other years and some years will lose value..

Since we were talking in the bitcoin sphere, I used the higher rate of 5%.  I was NOT strictly assuming that BTC would earn interest and I was NOT necessarily crossing any kind of bridge to talk about whether or how to secure the funds by diversifying them.  But, since we are in the bitcoin sphere, I was using the higher rate of 5% in part based on higher expectations of BTC appreciation.

In a traditional retirement investment portfolio, interest from such could be achieved through a diversified investment portfolio combined with a variety of stocks, bonds, index funds and precious metals (and even property investments or funds) - usually very little would be put into any kind of savings account b/c the anticipated returns are so low.

In this case, the interest from such principle amount ($5 to 10 million) could ALSO come by assuming a 5% per year appreciation in the value of bitcoins - of course if a person was wanting to rely on a steady 5% withdrawal rate without eating into the principle, then that person may want to diversify the fund in order that all the eggs are NOT in one basket (the bitcoin basket).  On the other hand, sometimes people become fairly bullish and optimistic about a certain asset class and fail to hedge their bets accordingly.. which may or may NOT be o.k. with bitcoin (each of us will likely have differing risk tolerances).

Hopefully, that explains a little better some of my assumptions and presumptions.. . 

I think that there is a chance that Bitcoin could be worth $1 million in 30 years - and that is about a $20 trillion market cap.  Actually, the odds may be greater than one in a million... it could be as great as 1 in 10..... I really don't know, but I would put the odds at close to 1 in a million that BTC could reach $1million in 5-6 years.. that seems way too dreamy for me, and I am NOT going to take those kinds of chances...   Others may NOT mind betting differently, and some of that may have to do with age or with other factors including already acquired assets and risk tolerance.

We better save this post, just in case.  Cbeast is going to want to receive his fleet of 10 leer jets.. .whatever is that model?

I agree that Azguard seems to NOT have thought through his plan very well, but he still has time to adjust, hopefully (unless he is nearing his 100BTC holdings amount). 

That's a good point!!!   I was pulling the number out of my ass somewhat regarding how many new millionaires and billionaires would result by giving a rough estimate. 

Of course we are going to have gradations of such wealth transfer(s), and maybe in the end, no one would really notice too much b/c some of the wealth would be transferred to new groups; however, some of the wealth would be kept with the wealthy and by the wealthy to move from one kind of wealth to another kind of wealth. 

At this time, it seems that quite a few of the already wealthy are beginning to get into bitcoin in order to prevent too much wealth being transferred to a bunch of snot-nosed tech geeks.... and some of this occurs during the consolidation periods and the pushing the price down and the spreading of the FUD in order to discourage some weaker hands and to buy up some of the BTC at lower prices.