Only way we'll be at $5k by the end of the year is if someone unleashes another Markus and Willy.

There seem to be many threads recently along the lines of 'when will we see $1k again?', probably posted by people who bought around the $1k mark and are currently sitting on losses.

My advice is: sit tight.

The current market is excellent for bitcoin.  I hope we sit around the $450 mark for months, if not a year or two.  Why?  Because we don't want the world to view bitcoin as a get-rich-quick, tulip mania con.  If the price rockets up like it did in 2013 that's good for people who bought in early, but it does no end of harm for bitcoin's ultimate goal of being a currency that can be used in the real world for everyday transactions.

Imagine a store that would have to change its pricing almost daily as bitcoin has risen or fallen 5, 10, or even 20% in a day.  That's not a viable currency.  I know inevitably someone chimes in with the argument of 'but just use an exchange to instantly convert the bitcoins to dollars, thus removing the bitcoin price volatility'.  This of course glosses over the middleman risk (exchange going bust) and the extra fees involved (currency conversions and services aren't free).

It could have been a really bad decision to sell now after the fall, or a great one.  Past performance is not an indicator of the future in many investments, and bitcoin does not break the rules despite what many people want to believe.

The concerning thing about bitcoin is the number of people who believe that increasing bitcoin value versus just about every other asset class is inevitable and assured because of the mathematics involved.  If too many people believe this bitcoin will collapse.  Why?  Because if most people believe bitcoin will continue to rise in value against other assets it becomes a stupid act to spend on services or even trade one for another asset.

If a currency is hoarded and seldom spent, is it still a currency?

There are been countless graphs posted to this forum regarding the price of bitcoin going to $10k within 2 years, and possible $100k and beyond within 3 or 4.  With so many graphs published and so many people believing it will happen I cannot see it not happening now.  I'll be buying all the houses on my street with a single bitcoin by 2020.

I understand that this would be bad news for other holders of bitcoin, but really when it comes to cryptocurrencies we have lots of choice.  The alleged bitcoin thieves know that if they dump their holdings or otherwise misuse the stolen loot they can destroy the value of bitcoin before they can fully cash out.  They also know we have many other currencies that users could switch to.  Bitcoin has the first mover advantage, brand name, and the fact that people have for whatever reason piled massive amounts of money in to it.  But that's it.  Bitcoin doesn't do anything unique that dozens of other cryptocurrencies do.

Between the claims of theft and gross mismanagement bringing MtGox down, the court, trustee and lawyer fees that need to be paid, I would summarize the total pool of funds waiting to be paid out to MtGox's customers as:

0

The problem is simple to solve.  Just get someone trustworthy like MtGox to hold the assets.

The one thing governments can do, and often do very well, is print money to pay off existing liabilities and generate money that they first spend before it trickles to the rest of the economy.  United States debt is denominated in USD$.  There is no problem paying it off if the USA can print as much money as it needs.  The resulting hyperinflation however... well, people would get rather testy losing their life savings.


If hyperinflation hits it's the army and police who are kept happy and paid enough to maintain loyalty, bugger the rest of the population. 

Bitcoin is a very interesting experiment but it's not a panacea for government currencies.  The best way to crash bitcoin is to cut off the money supply to exchanges through sanctions on banks.  It's quite easy.

Honesty is the best policy.  She'll find out sooner or later.  As they say, you can't trade your way out of a hole and you can't gamble your way out of debt. 

Hopefully $10k is many years away.  I say this as I'm interested in the long term health and viability of bitcoin.  If we continue to act like thousands of percent of growth in a year is normal we just look like massive pump and dump merchants looking for a sucker.

If bitcoin continues to appreciate in value like mad, why would you, or anyone else, ever spend one?  As soon as you get your hands on a bitcoin you're going to hold on to it for dear life as it's going to buy ten times more goods in a year's time.  This is not normal or healthy.

Mmm, $419 right now on bitstamp.  There was a huge dump about 14 hours ago that forced the price downwards.  We've seen this before.  Expect the price to suddenly shoot up to maybe $460 or $480 within the next 12 hours or so.  Hovers there for a while before deflating again.  Someone is making a small fortune on this trading.

Yeah, I can see Russia dropping the USD and heading for... bitcoins.  For all they know, a USA government invention.  Traded on a few exchanges around the world that can easily have their money supply shut off.  I can't see a reason for Russia needing more than 7 transactions per second that bitcoin supports.

If you think bitcoin is having a fire sale, check out litecoin.  Down 45% or so from its peak a couple of weeks ago.   

I find following your wife's investment instructions to be the correct way to go.  If she's right she gets to bask in the glow of being the astute investor.  If she's wrong you earn points for listening to her and not arguing.  Either way it's a win win.

Has BFL shipped any Monarch cards to end customers?  They promised delivery in November/December 2013.  Their web page currently states they have much greater clarity in the whole process so plan to begin shipping in February 2014.  It's now April, so has anyone received a card?

I've seen so many graphs stating the price of bitcoins will soon be over $10k each that I'm not worried about the current price correction.  Just keep buying, holding, and don't spend any bitcoins.  The graphs can't be wrong.

These posts such as the OP's bear no purpose other to reinforce how the OP bought at a higher price, is concerned about the price dropping so pretends to express glee at the lower price and make fun of sellers.  The sole purpose of the post is to stop people selling at ever lower prices, and certainly not because the OP is happy the price is falling.  If a falling price made cheap bitcoins even cheaper the OP would be sitting quietly buying up bargain bitcoins and would do nothing to stop people selling.

Where I am businesses have a choice in regards to power availability: pay a premium for guaranteed supply whether it's peak or not, or pay much less with the understanding that on a very hot day when everyone is running their air conditioning they will be the first to be cut off.  These days are pretty rare but many businesses can't afford to be offline for 10 or 20 days a year.  A bitcoin mining operation can in exchange for much lower power prices for the other 350 or so days.

While retail electricity consumers may be paying US$0.15 per kWh (sometimes more), you can bet the large ASIC farms are located in areas with some of the cheapest electricity on the planet and with nice wholesale rates to boot.  I would be surprised if the farmers were paying a lot more than US$0.05 per kWh.