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Sometimes, people forget that Bitcoin is a mechanism that allows P2P use .... aand also, more importantly, M2M (maching to machine) use.

Bitcoin is far better suited for use by machines than human beings, and the major difference here is that a machine doesn't have the ability to 'choose' whether or not to 'adopt' Bitcoin. In most cases a machine that engages in M2M Bitcoin transactions is part of this new iOT economy.

For every 1 person on earth, there are 4 devices (machines) with the capability to engage in M2M transactions. There are 7 Billion people on earth, this means that we are talking 28 BILLION devices here.

A new economy is being constructed right under our noses, and it will be a far more prosperous one than our current system.

If you're a miner, then yes the price matters.

If you're an investor.... then, yes, the price matters.

A trader? .. then, yes, the price matters.

But those that use bitcoin to make some personal, libertarian based, political statement - to them, the price can fall to $5 per coin and they'll be unmoved. To them, the price doesn't matter.

It all comes down to perspective.

When the Dollar loses value, do you notice how all the other fiat currencies in the world also lose value? In fact, the other currencies of the world don't just "lose vale" when the Dollar falls, they lose more value than the dollar lost.

Same thing happens when GBP moves lower.

This is why Saddam, Gaddaffi etc were deposed from power so that central banks could be installed in their countries. The Dollar has been losing value consistently since day one. But, if every other currency loses 'even more' value - what really changes?

When discussing the fiat system, there is alot more to discuss than what meets the eye.

If bitcoin were to reach $10,000 per coin, the fiat system will not be effected - at all. Bitcoin has a mere 12 Billion $ market cap, not even a blip on the radar of world economics at this point. (But, will be in the future.)

The question we all need to be more concerned with is, when will bitcoin ever have the liquidity to support a $10K per coin rate?

Bitcoin will do more to 'strengthen' the fiat system than destroy it.

Look at Bitcoin as an upgrade to the fiat system. A patch if you will. Much like how cash was an upgrade to the IOU system created by goldsmiths.... Just like how another upgrade, bank orders and cheques, were introduced by banks who would rather their customers did not pull depositsfrom their own vaults, but instead issued paper IOU's that would be cashed at other banks. And then credit cards were introduced to bolster the debt based economic system of today.... Now Bitcoin.

Cash was a very important upgrade for the fiat system, and the Internet is calling for similar technology because credit cards have failed. Hence, Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not really a currency, it's a digital ledger. With inputs and outputs.... A private key grants you access to 'one line' in this digital ledger. And the whole point of this system, is to allow users to move value around the internet - without having to part with personal information. i.e Cash.... Digital cash... "Digital currency"  

In the future a debt based mechanism will arise to be used in tandem with Bitcoin.

This always happens whenever an upgrade is made to the transactional side of an economic system.

It's a feasible argument. But, this is such a 2009 - 2013 perspective to take on Bitcoin. Quite immature and naive when you consider all that we've learnt about this market from 2013 and onwards.

Quite frankly, Bitcoin doesn't need to replace any established Fiat currency to be 'successful.'

Just imagine how ridiculous it would have been if the EU had ran some promotional campaign, promising that their new currency 'The Euro' would "replace the dollar" within 15 years. It would have been a foolish statement to make, because the point of a currency is to promote and enable economic activity - not to compete with other currencies.

By continuously touting this "Bitcoin will replace the dollar" nonsense, most people are forced to miss the more important bigger picture.

Bitcoin is the first, globally recognized currency of the internet.  

In the years ahead, this will have a much bigger impact on world economics than it does currently.

So I state again, Bitcoin is not in competition with the Dollar. It is designed to be used in tandem with the fiat currency system, not as an alternative. This is very important, if you can grasp what this means - as far as the internet is concerned.

The thing is, the way Bitcoin was designed and built - makes it very, very improbable to imagine there being any feasible "obstacles" that will arise and threaten it's existence.

Bitcoin may one day be heralded as the 8th wonder of the world. It really is that great when you take a step back and really asses what has been built here.

Personally, I am not anticipating any insurmountable hurdles or challenges for Bitcoin in the future. There are just far too many incentives for the world's best minds to come together and hammer these issues out before they even become "issues." So, in my opinion, Bitcoin is on a clean and clear path and will continue to grow

If that were ever to be the case, then hopefully this 'one world currency' is one that is governed by a system of decentralised issuance - or else we'd all be subject to one mega, monolithic, global, central bank.

Power will be concentrated within this one organisation, and they'll have the ability to do alot of crafty things to further empower themselves at the expense of the rest of the world's population.

However, if this one world currency was (or similar to) Bitcoin, then this may also bring about a fair share of turmoil. Bitcoin is a deflationary currency, which benefits it's earliest adopters - putting them in a position of power over 99% of it's users. Alot of interesting things can be done when you possess more than 20% of a digital currency's entire supply.

In short, a "one world currency" would be disastrous for the progression of economics in general - and will cause alot more harm than you'd naturally expect.

I personally think we are fast on track to a system of "niche currencies." Currencies based on specific markets, uses and functionalities. This is a departure from our current system of 'geo-political currencies.'

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The economy is a collection of segmented markets. Some 'segments' within this collection may collapse, but will always build themselves back up again. The economy is a self cleansing and self healing mechanism.

Barring certain currencies, there has never been an instance in human history of a financial market that has crashed and then disappeared entirely. The tech market plunged in the early 2000's but rebounded... Between 1930 and 1970, gold lost a TREMENDOUS amount of value... but that market has also recovered.

The "world economy" is never going to "collapse" simply because there isn't a world economy... Just a collection of segmented markets that are designed to go through cycles

It all depends which class of participant you identify yourself as

IOT developers and those that specialise in fintech understand the potential of the blockchain to dramatically reshape the entire financial industry. These class of participants may care about the price, but they care more about the innovative power of the blockchain.

But wall street alumni, day traders and the like tend to be more attracted to bitcoin's speculative value

Personally, I appreciate both aspects and consider myself a member of both classes

If you attend a government funded school then your "education" is being paid for by the same people that created a system that turns people who save their money into the biggest losers in the economy.

This same government are the ones that create your curriculum and thereby create an entire legion of accountants, financial advisers, bankers etc that are trained to either 'look the other way' or to unknowingly participate in stripping nations of their wealth.

Under a system of inflation, individuals that choose to save their money INADVERTENTLY end up LOSING the most money. And this occurs due to inflation.

Whenever the central bank prints money into existence, the preexisting supply loses value. In criminal law, this is known as theft by deception... In finance this is known as "inflation."

Under a deflationary financial system, scarcity prevails. The supply of money restricts over time... which causes the preexisting supply to become more valuable. Which causes savers to generate the MOST money out of all economic participants.

You have to understand that money is only a means of transaction. Money doesn't necessarily = wealth.

ASSETS that generate money = wealth.

Central banks print money, and then immediately turn this money into assets by loaning this money out to banks, large corporations and governments, slapping interest on top of the loans, thereby creating debt repayment obligations = ASSETS. And when the money circles back, they do the same thing again.. So it's almost like a share buyback scheme that allows them to perpetually generate revenues out of thin air.

However, in order to do this, they have to create the money first... which dilutes the value of the preexisting supply. It's the perfect robbery. Some poor old saver can look at his bank balance and see $100,000... and by the years end, his balance will still show $100,000 but will have LESS buying power because of dilution caused by "quantitative easing."  

The opposite of this would occur if we had a deflationary financial system

So, does deflation cause economic problems? 100% yes! But, only if you're a central banker who wants to print limitless amounts of monopoly money and plunge an entire nation into poverty and debt

I agree. The fact that they're delaying the inevitable is only going to multiply the magnitude of the eventual crash.

They aren't holding anything up at all... all they're doing is injecting the same poison into the economy that caused this recession in the first place. It's like prescribing aspirin to some drug addict that's suffering the effects of some weekend cocaine binge, instead of removing the route cause of the issue: the cocaine.

All they're doing is masking the symptoms. They aren't treating the actual disease. In fact, through trying to suppress the symptoms they are FEEDING the disease.

But, we can all only speak as spectators.

Who knows, the fed just might actually have something up their sleeves to pull the economy out of the abyss. Until we're sure, the only thing we can do is execute hedging strategy and position ourselves to take advantage. If the economy fails, there are multiple ways to benefit from this... If the fed pulls another rabbit out of the hat and things start to move upwards, there are also multiple ways to benefit from that.

So, either way, interesting times are ahead

Bitcoin represents the end of the fiat based financial freak show that was the dominant form of value transmission and value storage that existed prior to 2008.  

With the introduction of the Blockchain, the governments and globalist manipulators of the world have lost their monopoly on value creation.

With the introduction of Blockchain tech, anyone can generate their own version of currency from their kitchen table and instantly create value out of thin air just like the federal reserve and the bank of england - and this is the thing that most people just don't understand.

Bitcoin is only the first instance of a privately generated value transmission system that has gained worldwide adoption..... and MANY more will follow.

Bitcoin represents only a demonstration of this new society that is in it's early stages of formation.

Uber is the largest cab company in the world, but they own no cars. AirBNB is one of the largest providers of accommodation in the world yet, they don't own any real estate... Youtube, one of the largest distributors of media in the world produces ZERO content.... and Bitcoin, the most prominent, peer to peer, money transmission system exists WITHOUT a central issuance organisation

I invested in bitcoin due to this bigger picture that I described above.

There is a shift in the paradigm of the very idea of what a corporation is and how a corporation operates, and what with white collar workers now being automated out of their jobs due to advances in software and artificial intelligence, the Blockchain is CLEARLY custom built to play a BIG role in this

The blockchain represents the inclusion of, not only machines - but AI driven software into our global economy.

What with every one person, having at least one other smart device, this represents a potential inclusion of a further 7 billion participants in our economy, the equivalent of another planet of people.

Haven't you not noticed how reluctant the common man on the street is to adopting Bitcoin? ...Well, software and machines do not poses the ability to be "reluctant."

What if, in the future, a private corporation that develops self driving cars, builds out AI and software that allows these self driving cars to operate autonomously? What if these cars are then fitted with software that allows them to run blockchain tech, which will allow the cars to run economic transactions with passengers and other machines? Simply, these cars will not have the ability to reject bitcoin adoption and will contribute to boosting the daily BTC transactional volume... or the volume of some other digital currency that will be developed for this specific task.

Now this may be a futuristic concept, but there are a plethora of companies and IOT developers working on this very thing right now.

So as an investor and speculator, my role is simply to look at a bundle of facts and then to weigh up the probabilities. And it is my view that the blockchain is probably due to change the world in a major way, hence my interest in Bitcoin.

The halving looks set to take place in July but, remember, in 2013 the effects of the halving occurred before the actual halving itself

So bare that in mind when formulating your strategy

There are dozens of more efficient chips being built as we speak to counteract inefficiency as it relates to power consumption

So we should start to see energy consumption levels drop over the next few years

Bitcoin won't destroy the Fiat system. The Fiat system will destroy the Fiat system.

What most people aren't aware of is that the government can easily adopt some form of blockchain technology, create an alternative cryptographic currency, and then name that currency The United States Dollar. They own the rights to that name, and so can easily scrap the fiat system in favor of a blackchain based alternative.

So in the years to come, the entire US population may end up using some version of a national crypto currency without even knowing it. Whether this currency will be Bitcoin, or something else, I'm not entirely sure - but I do see the global economy heading toward blockchain adoption.

The only alternative is complete financial devastation, caused by repeated rounds of "Quantitative Easing" that has caused the dollar to lose 99% of it's value over the last 100 years, thereby depleting the worth of an entire nation's savings... which has brought about a complete lack of a capacity for the government to repay national debt.

In the long run, this financial crisis is only going to get worse, unless the system is completely overhauled... And the only mechanism in existence today that is capable of acting as an alternative to the current financial system is the Blockchain