Disclaimer: Im not necessarily a skeptic of bitcoin going past $1000-$2000 and staying there but I do want honest opinions here.

1. If you look at a chart of AAPL over the last 5 years you'll see it went from about 100 to a high of 700 - so 700% increase.

2. Over this period, AAPL revenue grew about 4-fold, from $40 billion to $170 billion. AAPL is one of the success stories of our time

3. How does AAPL differ from bitcoin here? (Its an honest question, and no vague comments please)

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So now we look at bitcoin, which many people say could go to $100,000+

1. Obviously bitcoin doesn't have "revenue" and so it's hard to compare. But what we can do is look at its market capitalization which I read is around $6 billion in terms of value out there.

2. So for bitcoin to really grow like people say, people who think they'll become millionaires off bitcoin buying now, its cap must grow to $600 billion

- What could cause bitcoin to have such a high capitalization?
- How likely do you think it is that this capitalization is reached?
- What time frame would you give it?
- How is bitcoin massively different from the true success stories of companies like AAPL? Why is there an expectation that it should grow 100 fold or something like that?


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So my opinion:

I think, like most people do who have bought into it with some thought given beforehand (rather than a pure gamble but rather speculation) that bitcoin is like a long call option. There's a solid chance of bitcoin failing and literally dropping down below $100 or worse. However, there's a smaller possibility, say around 30%, that bitcoin really takes off. For this to happen it would have to have:

- commerical use beyond the black market on a MASSIVE scale
- Governments that won't interfere too much with it
- The attention of people, much like how paypal slowly became a necessity for ebay for example

Right now the price move is mostly just speculators I believe (including myself). So the momentum could certainly carry it higher, say to $2k or $3k, especially now that news outlets are reporting on it. However I am skeptical when people act like bitcoin is a 50%+ probability play that it really takes off and shows the consistent triple digit returns people expect.



What are your thoughts?

....Since you can transfer all your coins to mt gox and other sites, do you think this is a fair assumption? I have bitcoins held at bitfinex and the spread b/w mt gox is getting wider (currently bitfinex = 980 and mt gox = 1080). But ultimately even if bitfinex doesn't move up as much as the others, you can just transfer the coins. Am I missing something here?

Disclaimer: I know this probably wont work because it's way too easy. So can someone educated in bitcoin arbitrage maybe offer some insight?

1. Bitcoins in bitfinex are priced at 950, mt gox at 1000 for example

2. I transfer bitcoins to mt gox make $50

3. I need to repeat this process:
a. Get bitcoins into bitfinex
b. Transfer to Mt. Gox etc.
c. Convert to USD - make profits
d. Use USD to get more bitcoins
e. Transfer bitcoins to bitfinex again
f. Repeat


I know you can do this slowlike with a bank account, but is there any other way to do it faster?