Is the hype/awareness stage over?

[bootlace]

I agree with all the points that there are still billions of people with just a faint understanding of what Bitcoin is or how it could benefit them and perhaps many who don't even read the technology side of their news sources. My point though is that no amount of generic news or hype will get these people into Bitcoin. Most people aren't aware of the problems associated with governments fiat printing and probably couldn't be asked to do anything about it if they did. As far as they're concerned Bitcoin is a solution without a problem to fix. Think about something like 'Evernote' app - people who use it swear by it and think its the greatest thing ever, those who have heard about it once have already gotten into it or thought its not for them.

Another cycle of hype/awareness and a series of news reports is not going to be whats going to convince those lazy sheep of the population to finally get into Bitcoin. The type of people who would be interested in being early adopters in Bitcoin have probably all been exposed to BTC and already made their decision.

So if we have really run out of early adopters that will jump into Bitcoin sheerly through awareness/hype - then any further growth has to come from actual improvements in usability, practicality, and yes trust. What I'm saying is we can't rely on a subset of a population (early adopters) just 'hearing' about Bitcoin for it to skyrocket any longer. The news from now on has to be things like major businesses offering attracting discounts for BTC users, or maybe some businesses accepting only BTC (forcing users to it), or perhaps a new application of BTC that is so much more conveniant than anything else (perhaps in gaming or something), or a major financial catastrophe etc..

People have gotten abit greedy over the last 2 boom cycles that its super easy for BTC to appreciate in value - but I feel those 'easy' manic growths are over and from here onwards its going to be a slow gradual grind gaining increasing acceptance. Institutional investors are the exception here, if they get into it we can see huge gains again without much infrastructure/usage developments to back it.

Why don't you just sell your bitcoins and leave the forum. You were talking about how China's new was a gamechanger and it was over.

Ok. Maybe you are right. So why are you here?

Obviously most people on here believe that bitcoin has a viable future and will flourish.  Most of us weren't expecting to be at $1200 by November. But it happened. What can you do?

We only have to grow 10x more to get to 10k. We grew at 700x+ this year.  So do you really think its unreasonable? With the ETF coming out. With more merchant adoption. With exchanges opening up in different countries. With VC projects like Circle.com working on creating killer apps and merchant adoption type online applications.

So, this is as high as it EVER goes?

If you think so, great.

Most of us have a different opinion obviously.

First of all I never said China news was going to kill BTC, I said it was going to be impactful and lead to a slide to mid hundreds and it did just that. (I think the repercussions of that news will be felt more in the long term but that's another story).

Second of all I never said Bitcoin doesn't a have a future and that it wont flourish in this thread either. I merely am asking the question whether the hype/awareness stage is over. The hype/awareness stage as far as my understanding of it goes is the stage with fast/easy rises without much other requirements than just being talked about in the general media (which is essentialy what has happened in March and November). I'm trying to establish whether we are through with this stage or there's still a possibility lets say in a couple of months we get another wave of media attention and rises exponentially again. Is it a criminal offense to ponder such things on a speculation forum?

Why does everyone always try to attack a person trying to make a point here and ask them to leave Bitcoin if they don't think its going to shoot to 10k over night...

[Hfertig]

I agree with all the points that there are still billions of people with just a faint understanding of what Bitcoin is or how it could benefit them and perhaps many who don't even read the technology side of their news sources. My point though is that no amount of generic news or hype will get these people into Bitcoin. Most people aren't aware of the problems associated with governments fiat printing and probably couldn't be asked to do anything about it if they did. As far as they're concerned Bitcoin is a solution without a problem to fix. Think about something like 'Evernote' app - people who use it swear by it and think its the greatest thing ever, those who have heard about it once have already gotten into it or thought its not for them.

Another cycle of hype/awareness and a series of news reports is not going to be whats going to convince those lazy sheep of the population to finally get into Bitcoin. The type of people who would be interested in being early adopters in Bitcoin have probably all been exposed to BTC and already made their decision.

So if we have really run out of early adopters that will jump into Bitcoin sheerly through awareness/hype - then any further growth has to come from actual improvements in usability, practicality, and yes trust. What I'm saying is we can't rely on a subset of a population (early adopters) just 'hearing' about Bitcoin for it to skyrocket any longer. The news from now on has to be things like major businesses offering attracting discounts for BTC users, or maybe some businesses accepting only BTC (forcing users to it), or perhaps a new application of BTC that is so much more conveniant than anything else (perhaps in gaming or something), or a major financial catastrophe etc..

People have gotten abit greedy over the last 2 boom cycles that its super easy for BTC to appreciate in value - but I feel those 'easy' manic growths are over and from here onwards its going to be a slow gradual grind gaining increasing acceptance. Institutional investors are the exception here, if they get into it we can see huge gains again without much infrastructure/usage developments to back it.

Why don't you just sell your bitcoins and leave the forum. You were talking about how China's new was a gamechanger and it was over.

Ok. Maybe you are right. So why are you here?

Obviously most people on here believe that bitcoin has a viable future and will flourish.  Most of us weren't expecting to be at $1200 by November. But it happened. What can you do?

We only have to grow 10x more to get to 10k. We grew at 700x+ this year.  So do you really think its unreasonable? With the ETF coming out. With more merchant adoption. With exchanges opening up in different countries. With VC projects like Circle.com working on creating killer apps and merchant adoption type online applications.

So, this is as high as it EVER goes?

If you think so, great.

Most of us have a different opinion obviously.

I could ask you the same question. What are you doing in this thread. Why not just leave and keep quiet. What are you doing here ?

Just join the "price goes to 10.000" guys. No reason to attack people who obviously have a greater sense of risk coming with Bitcoin. Some people are shouting even 5000 next year.

It is very rude to discredit people who have valid points. For me you look like another angry bull who is fearing to lose part of his investment.

[Sindelar1938]

Nope, it has only just started

[windjc]

I agree with all the points that there are still billions of people with just a faint understanding of what Bitcoin is or how it could benefit them and perhaps many who don't even read the technology side of their news sources. My point though is that no amount of generic news or hype will get these people into Bitcoin. Most people aren't aware of the problems associated with governments fiat printing and probably couldn't be asked to do anything about it if they did. As far as they're concerned Bitcoin is a solution without a problem to fix. Think about something like 'Evernote' app - people who use it swear by it and think its the greatest thing ever, those who have heard about it once have already gotten into it or thought its not for them.

Another cycle of hype/awareness and a series of news reports is not going to be whats going to convince those lazy sheep of the population to finally get into Bitcoin. The type of people who would be interested in being early adopters in Bitcoin have probably all been exposed to BTC and already made their decision.

So if we have really run out of early adopters that will jump into Bitcoin sheerly through awareness/hype - then any further growth has to come from actual improvements in usability, practicality, and yes trust. What I'm saying is we can't rely on a subset of a population (early adopters) just 'hearing' about Bitcoin for it to skyrocket any longer. The news from now on has to be things like major businesses offering attracting discounts for BTC users, or maybe some businesses accepting only BTC (forcing users to it), or perhaps a new application of BTC that is so much more conveniant than anything else (perhaps in gaming or something), or a major financial catastrophe etc..

People have gotten abit greedy over the last 2 boom cycles that its super easy for BTC to appreciate in value - but I feel those 'easy' manic growths are over and from here onwards its going to be a slow gradual grind gaining increasing acceptance. Institutional investors are the exception here, if they get into it we can see huge gains again without much infrastructure/usage developments to back it.

Why don't you just sell your bitcoins and leave the forum. You were talking about how China's new was a gamechanger and it was over.

Ok. Maybe you are right. So why are you here?

Obviously most people on here believe that bitcoin has a viable future and will flourish.  Most of us weren't expecting to be at $1200 by November. But it happened. What can you do?

We only have to grow 10x more to get to 10k. We grew at 700x+ this year.  So do you really think its unreasonable? With the ETF coming out. With more merchant adoption. With exchanges opening up in different countries. With VC projects like Circle.com working on creating killer apps and merchant adoption type online applications.

So, this is as high as it EVER goes?

If you think so, great.

Most of us have a different opinion obviously.

I could ask you the same question. What are you doing in this thread. Why not just leave and keep quiet. What are you doing here ?

Just join the "price goes to 10.000" guys. No reason to attack people who obviously have a greater sense of risk coming with Bitcoin. Some people are shouting even 5000 next year.

It is very rude to discredit people who have valid points. For me you look like another angry bull who is fearing to lose part of his investment.

Ok. But I do not think the hype/awareness "stage" is over. I do not think a majority of the worlds population knows about bitcoin. Also, most people have to hear about a thing several times before they adopt it.

Yes, bitcoin has been all over the news for two months. But most people still dont understand it and its not easily accessible either.

If there was a cool app that allowed people to easily grab and use some, then that would be another story.

I think there is plenty of more awareness to go. As far as hype, news stories run in cycles. If bitcoin goes to 2k there will be more hype. 3k? More hype. ETF. More hype. U.S. exchange. More hype.

Plenty of room for hype.

[Hfertig]

That is fine if you believe in it, and I will not say that you are wrong. I for myself believe that the hype has peaked with SR closing, the senate hearing and the ETF coming. All these things are old news and the price has already anticipated the news. Am I right ? I wish I knew...

Governments are watching Bitcoins closely and I am personally rather preparing for bad news as governments and central banks will not just sit there and will be watching how some new technology will take their most powerful tool away.

I might be wrong, but are we not here to speculate ?

[piramida]

We are not yet even close to the step where central banks would feel danger from bitcoin. At this stage, countries wonder how they can profit by carefully adopting bitcoins.

If they would deem it as dangerous for the financial system, tone of messages would be completely different. I think it would start with US one day claiming that bitcoin is extensively used by terrorists and would follow it with some staged bitcoin terror attacks, leading to complete ban. That would be a sign that governments started worrying. Now, they just learn to play with the new toy.

[Hfertig]

I think you are mistaken. The ECB for example has already issued a report in October 2012 on Virtual currencies and their risks to the reputation of central banks. I would be very surprised if they are just sitting there and think how then can profit by adopting bitcoins.

http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf

A lot of other governments have already commented and have taken action, others are working on it. I believe more bad news to come...

[JakeGold]

These "booms and busts" happen in waves, and I believe this most recent one has hit its peak.

I think what we're seeing now are people who have been waiting for weeks to have their accounts verified slowly trickle in, and this is smoothing out the major inflections.

All the popular exchanges are seeing large backlogs for user verifications, which seems to be drawing out this latest cycle.

[bootlace]

I agree with all the points that there are still billions of people with just a faint understanding of what Bitcoin is or how it could benefit them and perhaps many who don't even read the technology side of their news sources. My point though is that no amount of generic news or hype will get these people into Bitcoin. Most people aren't aware of the problems associated with governments fiat printing and probably couldn't be asked to do anything about it if they did. As far as they're concerned Bitcoin is a solution without a problem to fix. Think about something like 'Evernote' app - people who use it swear by it and think its the greatest thing ever, those who have heard about it once have already gotten into it or thought its not for them.

Another cycle of hype/awareness and a series of news reports is not going to be whats going to convince those lazy sheep of the population to finally get into Bitcoin. The type of people who would be interested in being early adopters in Bitcoin have probably all been exposed to BTC and already made their decision.

So if we have really run out of early adopters that will jump into Bitcoin sheerly through awareness/hype - then any further growth has to come from actual improvements in usability, practicality, and yes trust. What I'm saying is we can't rely on a subset of a population (early adopters) just 'hearing' about Bitcoin for it to skyrocket any longer. The news from now on has to be things like major businesses offering attracting discounts for BTC users, or maybe some businesses accepting only BTC (forcing users to it), or perhaps a new application of BTC that is so much more conveniant than anything else (perhaps in gaming or something), or a major financial catastrophe etc..

People have gotten abit greedy over the last 2 boom cycles that its super easy for BTC to appreciate in value - but I feel those 'easy' manic growths are over and from here onwards its going to be a slow gradual grind gaining increasing acceptance. Institutional investors are the exception here, if they get into it we can see huge gains again without much infrastructure/usage developments to back it.

Why don't you just sell your bitcoins and leave the forum. You were talking about how China's new was a gamechanger and it was over.

Ok. Maybe you are right. So why are you here?

Obviously most people on here believe that bitcoin has a viable future and will flourish.  Most of us weren't expecting to be at $1200 by November. But it happened. What can you do?

We only have to grow 10x more to get to 10k. We grew at 700x+ this year.  So do you really think its unreasonable? With the ETF coming out. With more merchant adoption. With exchanges opening up in different countries. With VC projects like Circle.com working on creating killer apps and merchant adoption type online applications.

So, this is as high as it EVER goes?

If you think so, great.

Most of us have a different opinion obviously.

I could ask you the same question. What are you doing in this thread. Why not just leave and keep quiet. What are you doing here ?

Just join the "price goes to 10.000" guys. No reason to attack people who obviously have a greater sense of risk coming with Bitcoin. Some people are shouting even 5000 next year.

It is very rude to discredit people who have valid points. For me you look like another angry bull who is fearing to lose part of his investment.

Ok. But I do not think the hype/awareness "stage" is over. I do not think a majority of the worlds population knows about bitcoin. Also, most people have to hear about a thing several times before they adopt it.

Yes, bitcoin has been all over the news for two months. But most people still dont understand it and its not easily accessible either.

If there was a cool app that allowed people to easily grab and use some, then that would be another story.

I think there is plenty of more awareness to go. As far as hype, news stories run in cycles. If bitcoin goes to 2k there will be more hype. 3k? More hype. ETF. More hype. U.S. exchange. More hype.

Plenty of room for hype.

This kind of reply I can appreciate. Here are my responses to your points:

-People have to hear about something multiple times before adopting: This is true , some people behave this way. However this is a gradual drawn out process whereas early adopters are quick to jump on something almost immediately. At this point the people who will jump on Bitcoin almost immediately upon hearing about it, I would argue, are exhausted. There are millions of people who will adopt it later when it makes more sense for them, but thats another stage I believe like 'mass adoption'.

-Bitcoin not easily accessible yet/no cool app: These are developments that will bring in more people I agree but this is what I would call technological/infrastructure/usage developments. This is not part of the hype/awareness stage.

-Hype will keep building at 2k, 3k etc: I don't think those milestones will be as impactful as when we hit 100 or 1000, perhaps at 10,000 it will be enough to turn the heads of some real whales, who knows. This is kind of a circular logic though, you're saying if it keeps rising then it will keep giving itself hype to make it rise more and so forth. And the point is hype only affects a certain segment of the population so this tactic has to stop being effective at some point.

I guess what I'm saying in a short sentence is: we might have reached a point where new hype should start to give diminishing returns in terms of adoption and consequently price appreciation.

[Salivan]

people  keep  talking  about more merchant accepting bitcoin like it  somehow make a difference, I don't  think so
What  we  really need at  this point to create proper store of  value/ payment system purely for internet purposes.
Awareness of feeling of "control" over  your money  will came later
Specifically we  need fast distributed easy to use network for dust operation on top  of the bitcoin  protocol. If  we  get  one people  will rash into it
Otherwise we  will be effectively  marginalised by  financial  world

[nwbitcoin]

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!

[tutkarz]

people  keep  talking  about more merchant accepting bitcoin like it  somehow make a difference, I don't  think so
What  we  really need at  this point to create proper store of  value/ payment system purely for internet purposes.
Awareness of feeling of "control" over  your money  will came later
Specifically we  need fast distributed easy to use network for dust operation on top  of the bitcoin  protocol. If  we  get  one people  will rash into it
Otherwise we  will be effectively  marginalised by  financial  world

wrong. the more merchants are accepting bitcoin, the less chance they will sell them. Why? because if they accept bitcoin they will prefer to buy something for it instead of going through exchange. And this mean there will be less and less reasons to sell bitcoins and this will drive price up badly.

[Salivan]

people  keep  talking  about more merchant accepting bitcoin like it  somehow make a difference, I don't  think so
What  we  really need at  this point to create proper store of  value/ payment system purely for internet purposes.
Awareness of feeling of "control" over  your money  will came later
Specifically we  need fast distributed easy to use network for dust operation on top  of the bitcoin  protocol. If  we  get  one people  will rash into it
Otherwise we  will be effectively  marginalised by  financial  world

wrong. the more merchants are accepting bitcoin, the less chance they will sell them. Why? because if they accept bitcoin they will prefer to buy something for it instead of going through exchange. And this mean there will be less and less reasons to sell bitcoins and this will drive price up badly.

agree but  ordinary people will not  use bitcoin  only because  some  merchants  accepting them. They  need something  else, much simpler much more powerfull. Something  on top of bitcoin I  don't  know  really  what exactly 

[GriTBitS]

9 of 10 people I talk to, don't even want to understand the concept of cryptocurrencies and just dismiss it from the beginning.
1 of 10 people I talk to, would like to understand, but can't wrap their head around the concept (yet).
Once in a while someone gets it and join the movement.

2 hours ago I sat in a bar with 2 friends when the topic changed to bitcoin. After 10 min of discussion they said "lets talk about something else, this bitcoin thing is boring." And thats from people who heard about Bitcoin for the first time a year ago.

I sat there just thinking "WTF?" I tried to explain to them, why cryptocurrencies may be important for the financial future of humankind and that it's worth to take the time trying to understand the possibilities and consequences.

They brushed it off like the financial system we live in right now is Ok and there is no need to question it at all.

We have still a long way to go...

broke ppl stay broke!

[GriTBitS]

I agree with all the points that there are still billions of people with just a faint understanding of what Bitcoin is or how it could benefit them and perhaps many who don't even read the technology side of their news sources. My point though is that no amount of generic news or hype will get these people into Bitcoin. Most people aren't aware of the problems associated with governments fiat printing and probably couldn't be asked to do anything about it if they did. As far as they're concerned Bitcoin is a solution without a problem to fix. Think about something like 'Evernote' app - people who use it swear by it and think its the greatest thing ever, those who have heard about it once have already gotten into it or thought its not for them.

Another cycle of hype/awareness and a series of news reports is not going to be whats going to convince those lazy sheep of the population to finally get into Bitcoin. The type of people who would be interested in being early adopters in Bitcoin have probably all been exposed to BTC and already made their decision.

So if we have really run out of early adopters that will jump into Bitcoin sheerly through awareness/hype - then any further growth has to come from actual improvements in usability, practicality, and yes trust. What I'm saying is we can't rely on a subset of a population (early adopters) just 'hearing' about Bitcoin for it to skyrocket any longer. The news from now on has to be things like major businesses offering attracting discounts for BTC users, or maybe some businesses accepting only BTC (forcing users to it), or perhaps a new application of BTC that is so much more conveniant than anything else (perhaps in gaming or something), or a major financial catastrophe etc..

People have gotten abit greedy over the last 2 boom cycles that its super easy for BTC to appreciate in value - but I feel those 'easy' manic growths are over and from here onwards its going to be a slow gradual grind gaining increasing acceptance. Institutional investors are the exception here, if they get into it we can see huge gains again without much infrastructure/usage developments to back it.

Why don't you just sell your bitcoins and leave the forum. You were talking about how China's new was a gamechanger and it was over.

Ok. Maybe you are right. So why are you here?

Obviously most people on here believe that bitcoin has a viable future and will flourish.  Most of us weren't expecting to be at $1200 by November. But it happened. What can you do?

We only have to grow 10x more to get to 10k. We grew at 700x+ this year.  So do you really think its unreasonable? With the ETF coming out. With more merchant adoption. With exchanges opening up in different countries. With VC projects like Circle.com working on creating killer apps and merchant adoption type online applications.

So, this is as high as it EVER goes?

If you think so, great.

Most of us have a different opinion obviously.

I could ask you the same question. What are you doing in this thread. Why not just leave and keep quiet. What are you doing here ?

Just join the "price goes to 10.000" guys. No reason to attack people who obviously have a greater sense of risk coming with Bitcoin. Some people are shouting even 5000 next year.

It is very rude to discredit people who have valid points. For me you look like another angry bull who is fearing to lose part of his investment.

Ok. But I do not think the hype/awareness "stage" is over. I do not think a majority of the worlds population knows about bitcoin. Also, most people have to hear about a thing several times before they adopt it.

Yes, bitcoin has been all over the news for two months. But most people still dont understand it and its not easily accessible either.

If there was a cool app that allowed people to easily grab and use some, then that would be another story.

I think there is plenty of more awareness to go. As far as hype, news stories run in cycles. If bitcoin goes to 2k there will be more hype. 3k? More hype. ETF. More hype. U.S. exchange. More hype.

Plenty of room for hype.

This kind of reply I can appreciate. Here are my responses to your points:

-People have to hear about something multiple times before adopting: This is true , some people behave this way. However this is a gradual drawn out process whereas early adopters are quick to jump on something almost immediately. At this point the people who will jump on Bitcoin almost immediately upon hearing about it, I would argue, are exhausted. There are millions of people who will adopt it later when it makes more sense for them, but thats another stage I believe like 'mass adoption'.

-Bitcoin not easily accessible yet/no cool app: These are developments that will bring in more people I agree but this is what I would call technological/infrastructure/usage developments. This is not part of the hype/awareness stage.

-Hype will keep building at 2k, 3k etc: I don't think those milestones will be as impactful as when we hit 100 or 1000, perhaps at 10,000 it will be enough to turn the heads of some real whales, who knows. This is kind of a circular logic though, you're saying if it keeps rising then it will keep giving itself hype to make it rise more and so forth. And the point is hype only affects a certain segment of the population so this tactic has to stop being effective at some point.

I guess what I'm saying in a short sentence is: we might have reached a point where new hype should start to give diminishing returns in terms of adoption and consequently price appreciation.

10k not till 2015,   Ouija board told me so!

[immortal4now]

people  keep  talking  about more merchant accepting bitcoin like it  somehow make a difference, I don't  think so
What  we  really need at  this point to create proper store of  value/ payment system purely for internet purposes.
Awareness of feeling of "control" over  your money  will came later
Specifically we  need fast distributed easy to use network for dust operation on top  of the bitcoin  protocol. If  we  get  one people  will rash into it
Otherwise we  will be effectively  marginalised by  financial  world

wrong. the more merchants are accepting bitcoin, the less chance they will sell them. Why? because if they accept bitcoin they will prefer to buy something for it instead of going through exchange. And this mean there will be less and less reasons to sell bitcoins and this will drive price up badly.

agree but  ordinary people will not  use bitcoin  only because  some  merchants  accepting them. They  need something  else, much simpler much more powerfull. Something  on top of bitcoin I  don't  know  really  what exactly 

Bitcoin could overtake Western Union if you could make buy/sell/transfer Bitcoin in every ATM.