I can make the trendline equation + adjust the targets, someone else can post the new graph and I update the OP.

At any rate, we are now seriously above/ahead of the trendline, which means that there is a much greater downside risk (more probable and more deeper) than most of us believe. I am afraid that if the current holders have not sold because it's going to the moon, the suddenly feel an urge to sell at $500 because even that price gives quite a return for bitcoins that have been owned for more than 2 months. Meanwhile the new money will dry up. That 2 weeks ago was not a crash does not mean that now would not be. It is much more probable now as we are higher.

The first bitcoin<->fiat transaction is hardly arbitrary.


Of course. You are embarrassing yourself with off-topic rant in a thread that is especially dedicated to finding out about the price history in pre-exchange period. It is like jumping in a surgery room and disturbing everyone saying: "surgery is arbitrary!!". Perhaps, but that's what we do here. Now, go attend to your own business.

Another way to look at it would be to divide the bitcoins in the same way as the total wealth of the world is distributed (the "eventual distribution") and then check, how you would do.


Considering that about 5 billion are in adult age, 1% is 50 million, and so on, the figures become approx as follows:

BTC5 => 0.0006%  (cost to purchase today = $6,000)
BTC0.5 => 0.02%  ($600)
BTC0.05 => 0.6%  ($60)
BTC0.005 => 8%  ($6)
BTC0.0005 => 28%  ($0.60)

It is so simple that it is ridiculous. How can I be a millionaire by just investing $60. Guess what? My friend had bought 0.5% of all bitcoins existing in 2010 (it cost less than $10k to do it). He told me to do likewise. I said: "Bitcoin is so small I don't care." He said: "When it is big, it just costs more to have the same number of them."

My purchase of 150kg of silver was in September. Guess it cost me a whole lot BTC's...

In the future, silver is still my favorite over gold, but I don't know where to get enough of it

I would say, no. It is "easy" to have a 1000x value appreciation with startups, perhaps 10,000x is possible. 100,000x hardly.

A MILLION TIMES INCREASE IN 4 YEARS 10 MONTHS IS A NEVER BEFORE IN WRITTEN HISTORY EVENT.

+1.

Wow, that was a fast ignore. Generally I ignore only after 30 days in the forum but this was an exception.

I am quite sure. It will be an utter failure, mostly for the reason that bitcoin would become public to all, and no matter how much short term damage they can cause, it will not be able to be kept down for long because its real network value is 1000x the exchange value. Only way they could wreak some havoc is by buying all the way to up, I mean 10,000x the current price, and then dumping it to the masses. But even that would be a win to Bitcoin. Everybody would use it from that on, and people who trusted in banks would have been made poor, and the independent thinkers enriched.

If I get enough feedback that the list is useful, I will update it

Very interested in methods, how to make a better one!

Even if this one is forgotten, it will still have contributed to the knowledge in other threads.

Two days more, then we will have November average, which looks quite different from October.

Also I received information from sirius, he said that definitely the first forex transaction involving Bitcoin happened in early 2009 and he was a counterpart. He gave away 5,000 bitcoins and received a certificate for $5. At that time Bitcoin "did not have even 10 users". Do you think we should try to populate the "2009-early 2010" section with better data or not, including this one?

In my opinion it is a great testimony that we just crossed 100,000,000% value appreciation  

Satoshi has (at least) BTC980k

Today I've been pruning the threads (see OP for all the nice threads where specific matters are discussed) and adding more content.

A few weeks ago we had a discussion about what to do as the bitcoin holdings seem over-concentrated and most of the world don't have much. I think bitcoin holdings are not that concentrated after all, and the current mechanisms for distribution are effective enough. Partly I realized this as I have been called über-bull and whatnot, but I still decided to throw a dice whether I get a retirement at an expense of thousands of bitcoins, or get to buy them back cheaper and merely get a car and a house as profits. The markets have decided that I need a retirement, so be it. But the fact is that thousands of bitcoins are now in somebody else's hands.

To be able to enjoy your retirement, I suggest you make a very solid plan on when and how much to cash out. If possible, you should structure the sales to very small increments, to avoid exchange risk. Only sell when the price is rising, and do sell. If you hold through the peak, it just makes you anxious to sell afterwards when it's clear that the price is not rising back in a few weeks.

That I am "suddenly" advocating selling is based on the math that during every double in price, on average 17% of the previous holders' bitcoins are sold. So why not sell according to a reasonable model that mathematically rewards you + takes away the anxiety?

We will soon have updated wealth distribution in that thread. Probably we will need to increase the Bitcoin usership significantly. The previous estimate is only 350,000. Now the price has risen 5x, which - if directly correlated - would put the usership at 1.75M.

Also I've been trying to move the bitcoins back from China. Just a few days ago I could buy there at cost and sell in Bitstamp. Now the premium is already about 13%, which makes it more interesting to sell them back, and wait for the price to equalize.

I am thinking that currently there is quite much momentum in bitcoin's price, so at the moment I would not sell speculatively. Just sell according to the plan when the price goes up. There will be peaks and crashes on the way, and considering how pathetic the exchanges are, they will continue to be unusable at the time of action. My original speculation of going to $2000+ and then crash to $500 looks quite viable now. But if I lose money on speculation, who are you to believe you win? 

Hopefully even next year we would no more have the need to transfer to fiat at all. It is just a pain, a sad reminder of the past.

Anyone with more bitcoins than 1,000 is cautious of the rise, and scheming to keep the price in check to solidify their own position in the real world. (Anyone with <1,000 coins does not have walls)

OK. I think for Mt.Gox, the "active" number 400,000 is what we should use. The total number possibly includes also accounts that have not been funded + the ones that have been emptied (and abandoned). The ratio of "active":"total" is about the same as in Silvervault.

Then we know that Localbitcoins has 120,000 accounts, with a growth rate of 2.5% per day. If you just buy from any of the merchants, you do not need to register afaik, so the total number of users could be larger. On the other hand, LB has quite many accounts with zero trades, since it has grown so rapidly. Perhaps 80,000 users would be a good estimate.  

Coinbase has 488,000 customer wallets. The number is probably "total", in which case about 300,000 would have a balance.

BTC China has to have quite many accounts, but I did not find the information publicly. Help!

Bitstamp ditto!

Number of Bitcoin clients downloaded is 4,350,000 over 5 years. How many of these is in use?

MyWallets (blockchain.info wallet) walletcount is 690,000.

Bitcoin network has used 11,462,000 addresses, of which 600,000 (exact) have non-dust (>1mBTC) balance.

Then there are other exchanges and wallet services, which you can add if you find nice figures.

In my understanding, the Bitcoin ledger (address usage and balance distribution), currently sets the upper limit for bitcoin number of users. Especially considering that 1mBTC only 2 months ago was only $0.13 or so, most of these accounts are not the sole acconts of bitcoin holders. On the other hand, most of the larger accounts

We need to evaluate, how many users should be added who only use exchanges for storing their bitcoins. This increases the total number.

On the other hand, there is a huge overlap in the numbers, since I alone have 8 accounts in the abovementioned sites only + several addresses with balance in the ledger.

Now, please try to keep this on-topic so that we get the december figures out.  

Yes, most can do with 500mBTC very well No srsly, I added the very highest levels below, so that you can see that they are available. In the former world order (including your article), there is no "100+ billion USD" level, as you can see: it unmathematically mysteriously disappears from all lists and charts. This shows that the level should host about 30 people.


* top 30 would have BTC5,000 or more (100 billion USD)
* top 300 would have BTC500 or more (10 billion USD)
* top 3,000 would have BTC50 or more (1 billion USD)


Notable is the size of BTC as the "basic" unit. It is a large unit, only applicable in displaying the total wealth of people who used to be called billionaires.

This cool guy with his entourage is also thinking to come (passwd=bitcoin). 

After coming public with my fiat millions, I have been interviewed in radio and tomorrow is one magazine etc. I hope that others will soon join me as the spokespeople If the reporter raises the bubble issue, I just quote sirius:

"When bitcoin had less than 10 users, I sold BTC5,000 for $5."

Now it is a million times more valuable. So is userbase a million times larger.

It is simple math that a further 1000-folding of userbase will raise the price approximately 1000 times higher from here.

If you believe bitcoin's growth will stall and go negative or the technology crashes, then it is a bubble. Otherwise it can hardly be a bubble.

Part of it was for the lulz sure, but another part was arbitrage with BTC China:

- China had gotten ahead because ppl there were betting that the stamp wall would fall resulting in a rally.
- Erect supporting bid walls everywhere
- Buy at a fixed price from the wall and feed china 7% higher.
- When the wall fell, china got its final spurt, which was duly capped with a market order.
- If net position was still +coins, the rest were dumped in stamp, capping that rally also.

Another day in bitcoinland. Now things are quiet again  

What's more, the spread is rising. Yesterday it was negative, now we are back in 4-7% territory.

What is the simplest way to short LTC?