The hype / awareness stage is barely started!

Its going to be here for another few years, until everyone understands the potential of Bitcoin - and listening to how wrong respected financial experts are, that is going to take time!

Thank you for the examples - just imagine how the answers would be for a non technical audience!

Looking at the answers, there is a gap of years between having heard of the Internet, and using the internet to make contact with someone else. Bitcoin is going to have the same sort of gap between people having heard of it, and actually using it - and that looks to be a good 5 years or more.

So, if you are non technical and just heard of Bitcoin, its going to be 5 years before you actually spend your first BTC.

As soon as that happens, BTC will stop increasing in value except for inflation, so I would guess that we are looking at a final value of Bitcoin being in the range of $30,000 per coin by 2020.

Anyone agree?

What brand of tin foil do you use? ;-)

Firstly, caring as in professionally looking after people is a low wage economy kind of thing - not a job to aspire to so nobody wants to do it. That is where robots kick ass! Otherwise, we should ban pneumatic diggers, and employ hundreds of people to dig holes using spoons if jobs is the only thing that counts!

The irony of your sentence talking about technology destroying the bond between people written on an Internet forum where people chat but never meet in real life is almost beyond words!

Finally, a lower fertility is advancement, and the sign of a mature country.  Most European countries have a negative natural population - especially Germany - the most advanced country being Japan.  Statistically, we will see the population of the Earth dropping within the next 200 years as we get to a point where we don't need as many people to keep the species going.

The problem of immigration is a different issue for a different forum, although I can totally guarantee that while there are a lot of non British born people in London, they are not the majority and Sharia courts are not legal.  In fact a few nut jobs who were trying to set up Sharia areas in East London were jailed a week or so ago for spreading religious hate - The UK may not be Christian like the US, but it certainly isn't for any other religion either! ;-)

What if you were to do as they have done in advanced cultures who are already suffering from a shrinking population?
The Japanese are investing in medial care robots, to look after their old people - seeing as the younger population are better at earning money doing clever things!

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/06/19/national/robot-niche-expands-in-senior-care/

This could be technology and the capitalistic way of dealing with problems rather than the socialist way of just throwing tax money at welfare!

Here is a simple test to highlight how few people have a practical knowledge of bitcoin.

When did you first hear about the internet?
When did you get your first email address?
When did you send your first email to someone you didn't know about something you wanted to buy?
When did you first use the internet to chat to someone you didn't know?
When did you first use the internet to do something with your local government office?
When did you first buy something online, and how much did you spend?

The answers will give you an idea of how long it will take before bitcoin is mainstream.

I am an Uber geek, and a reasonably old one, so I've been online since the early 90s - but my relatives are different, and that is who you ask the questions above to!

We need to get to at least 30% of the population being able to answer yes to a bitcoin version of the above before you can say its reached mainstream!

Bitcoin will change lives, but only in the same way that Facebook did! ;-)

The problem with forecasting the future is that unless you know everything that is planned, and can estimate all the relationships that are yet to be made, and are very lucky - its not going to happen the way you think.

Maybe if Bitcoin was described as programmable money, it would give laypeople an idea of how much it will change their lives.

I would forecast this
$1200 Jan 2014
$2000 Mar 2014
$4000 Oct 2014
$5000 Dec 2014

Based loosely on what happening in 2013

There are a few altcoins I follow, and what I've noticed is that its the ratio to bitcoin that hasn't changed, and so that is why they are not dropping like a stone.

Maybe its because its now become easier to see their value in Fiat, and that makes them look cheap. Maybe its because nothing changed in their market, and so there is no reason for their value in relation to bitcoin to change.

One of the things that happened after the 'big' crash of April 13 was that all the altcoins gradually lost their value in relation to bitcoin, as we all realised they were mostly being pumped and dumped to earn bitcoin.

Its only recently that Litecoin has got back to its old level of 0.03+ BTC - but even that is a good 30% down on its peak from a few weeks ago.

But storing your own money isn't a reason to use it - people have a low level of confidence when it comes to financial transactions. I would say that at least 80% would prefer to have someone else do the hard work, and offer 100% security while they are at it!

;-)

You missed out all the practical parts of why I think as I do.

If you want to see change, then just make it happen under the system we have now - that is how politics works. Having a revolution is just proof that your ideas need violence to make them work, otherwise you could just put them to a vote - but it takes time for an idea to flourish!

The problem for any ideology is that the people don't care for thinking, they just want to live in a safe place where food is plentiful and stress is low.  However, ideology appeals to power hungry people who don't have the ability to format their ideas into a way that can make the life of the people any better without lying! - because people don't want to hear about compromise, which is what politics is all about!

Maybe you need to spend some time reading about the early days of the various revolutions we have had world wide in the last 100 years. Revolutions are lead by very focused individuals, unpaid politicians, they are the ones who get the people to move - but as I keep telling you, history shows us, they don't do it for altruistic reasons!

;-)

This is exactly what I have been telling people - BTC is the transport, not the end result, although it does have some basic value in it as a store.

What people are also not seeing is that it isn't people buying 1 BTC for $10K, they will be buying 0.1 BTC for $1000 - knowing that its still worth $1000 for the internet sale they are arranging later that day.  Its long term value will be irrelevant to people when it becomes mainstream!

This is why I don't see it having a long term value - much like Domain names were going for $100k+ during the dotcom days and today, people are smarter in how they buy their online company names.

I had a nice chuckle there! ;-)

I have spent far too much time in the company of socialist politicians to be in any doubt of my view!

Imagine you actually had a revolution - what would be the result?

The only people who ever win in a revolution are the politicians who lead them.  The people are ALWAYS the losers - it doesn't matter what ideology you use, however, of the ones available to us, socialism is the worst!

Its the worst because when they are out of power, socialist politicians promise the earth, based on a nice warm feeling of goodness! When they finally get into power they only look after themselves and their friends.

This isn't me having a bad experience, its the experience of every European country that has any left leaning government in charge.

From what you describe, you would possibly see European and UK centralist and right wing parties as being socialist enough for you, even though they themselves don't see themselves under that banner.

And that leads to the last point that the name of your ideology and its definition is ultimately pointless because its all about power - and as we all know, power corrupts, especially socialists! ;-)

I have some Kool Aid for you. ;-)

Firstly, Libertarian Socialist is an oximoron. Your statement regarding a flat tax proves that! No socialist would support a flat tax because it would seen as a tax cut for the rich, and that isn't equality!

Secondly, All socialists are basically the same, the only difference is that they want themselves to be in charge.  More taboo is that socialism is just the friendly version of communism. The differences between the two ideologies are very limited, and the long term ideal of socialism is the implementation of communism.

While I totally agree that what we have now isn't perfect, it just seems easier to get what you want by learning how to play the game, than to try and get everyone playing a new game!

Oh, and the sub prime mortgage crisis was the unintended consequence of a law created by democrats in the 1970s. They implementing an equality bill where minorities could buy houses they couldn't afford - based on the idea that the reason they couldn't get loans was that they were being discriminated against (yeah, they were too poor!)

The worst thing with socialists is that they use emotion to solve problems! ;-)

As a European, let me give you an idea about why socialism sucks.

Firstly, socialists seem to spend all their time trying to make everything equal. They tell people they want everyone to get an equal chance at opportunity, however, this is where things go wrong.

The one thing that socialists don't like, is someone using their initiative and getting richer due to it. 

Socialists would prefer everyone has an awful level of service, than that some people can pay for a better level of service.  It may be awful, but everyone can use it is a success for a socialist.  The fact that its awful is because the government isn't spending enough on it.  Socialists can then campaign that governments can pay more for a better service, and they can get the money from the people who have 'cheated' and grabbed an opportunity through using their initiative!

The end result is that nothing works, except for people in the higher levels of central government and socialist organizations!

The worst part is that anyone who tries to better themselves has to pay twice to do so - once to actually make the opportunity work, and twice when they become successful!

Put it this way, I am forced to pay for a health service through my taxes.  The cost is similar to what I would pay if I wanted medical insurance. However, because I have to pay for the former, I can't afford the latter!

Socialists make sure that everyone is equally downtrodden.

That is why socialists suck!

My own view is that it will reach $5k within 12 months.

Its just frustrating having no money to throw at it, although, I know if I was borrowing money, I would have wasted it on various alt coins! ;-)

Its a stupidly long book, that, if it was re-written well could be half the size and get the point over far better!

Its a good little story, but doesn't prove anything other than similar types of people like to stick together!

I used to consider Libertarianism as a good ideology, but slowly realized that it was just as ideologically impossible as socialism.

What the real world system that we have does, which is better, is that it creates a number of levels of trades for each trade, through adding various levels of bureaucracy. The result is that one trade which would only be of benefit to two people under libertarianism, actually benefits 10+ people under whatever you want to call what we have in the real world.

This is a very simplistic example, and to break down a real world example to prove it would take many 1000s or words - maybe even a book the size of Atlas Shrugged! ;-)

My point is that while some think we are in despair, I don't think we have even got close to the mania stage yet.

We are still playing with potential at the moment, its not as if we are in the same place as Facebook and Twitter and their IPOs - its going to take at least 5 years before we can look back at Bitcoin and see this graph reflected!

The other point conveniently forgotten is that bitcoin pumps and dumps can be done anywhere in the world.  While the US Empire thinks it has jurisdiction world wide, the reality is it doesn't -  pumping and dumping will happen with no penalty!

Welcome to the free market! ;-)

Thought I would add some free advice, based on my first crash experience.

First point is that bitcoin is going to crash on a regular basis, so don't panic.

Its also possible to work out when its going to crash, because nothing should double in value within days - that is just stupid!

When it does that, you need to sell a little of your investment so that you get some profit.

Within a week or so, it will drop in value by about 30%, and that price will almost be stable and will last for a month or two, before it all starts to go nuts again. 

The point is that in the medium term, the next 36 months or so, the price is just going up.

On a daily basis, it goes up and down like a yoyo.  That is stressful, especially if you borrowed money to invest.

Don't check the prices daily! ;-)

Many people would consider an old Ferrari as an investment, does that make classic cars a financial product too? ;-)