Bitcoin does not have a volatility problem!

[Kipsy89]

I'm sick and tired of hearing this over and over.

Bitcoin has a "Market Cap" of 8 billion dollars where the perceived "value" hangs by a thread almost all the time.  What regulation will be passed?  Will China ban it?  OMG Amazon takes Bitcoin.  OMGWTFBBQ the banks are shutting down accounts.  Add to this the huge potential of Bitcoin itself and you have a recipe for volatility.  This is not a bad thing!  Price discovery for Bitcoin will continue for a long time.

Stocks regularly gain/lose huge percentages of value, do you ever hear that there is a "volatility problem" with the stock market?  NO

This perception that Bitcoin cannot be a currency because it is so volatile has to stop.  It IS a currency now.  The volatility is caused by normal price discovery on something that "could" change the world.

Is anyone else sick of this?

Yeah, but Bitcoin is a currency. And a currency needs to be somewhat stable. At least that's what I got over the last months I learned about bitcoins economic aspects here! It shouldn't be as volatile as some freaking stock!

[beetcoin]

seriously why are we still calling it a currency? at best, it's a quasi currency. it has some qualities that make it a medium of exchange, but it has other qualities as well. if it were 100% a currency, people wouldn't be hoarding it as much as they do.

[Kipsy89]

seriously why are we still calling it a currency? at best, it's a quasi currency. it has some qualities that make it a medium of exchange, but it has other qualities as well. if it were 100% a currency, people wouldn't be hoarding it as much as they do.

Well, a lot of people call it a mere protocol for transacting wealth. Yeah, so of course it is a protocol. It has to be to work between computers and stuff. But it also may become something like the backbone for other services. It's the first time there's an open world-wide way of transacting money! Blowing my mind every time!

[Cryptopher]

I'm intrigued to see what effect, if any, the block reward halving to 12.5 BTC will have when it happens.

Without going too far into the realms of speculation, currently Bitcoin's market value is holding strong despite coins being constantly minted. Of course we all know that this is largely thanks to the little volume that is going through exchanges at the moment.

There will occasionally be turbulent times where the price will shift $100 or so dollars in a day, but I haven't seen one of those days in quite a while now.

[IacceptBTC]

seriously why are we still calling it a currency? at best, it's a quasi currency. it has some qualities that make it a medium of exchange, but it has other qualities as well. if it were 100% a currency, people wouldn't be hoarding it as much as they do.

People hoard bitcoin because they think it is going to increase in value in the future. Bitcoin is very much a medium of exchange as it allows people to trade very easily. What bitcoin is missing is being a store of value because it's price varies so much from day to day.

[beetcoin]

seriously why are we still calling it a currency? at best, it's a quasi currency. it has some qualities that make it a medium of exchange, but it has other qualities as well. if it were 100% a currency, people wouldn't be hoarding it as much as they do.

People hoard bitcoin because they think it is going to increase in value in the future. Bitcoin is very much a medium of exchange as it allows people to trade very easily. What bitcoin is missing is being a store of value because it's price varies so much from day to day.

ok, and if it is a currency, then would you say "i'm going to hold onto cash because i think it is going to increase in value in the future"?

[Cryptopher]

seriously why are we still calling it a currency? at best, it's a quasi currency. it has some qualities that make it a medium of exchange, but it has other qualities as well. if it were 100% a currency, people wouldn't be hoarding it as much as they do.

Yeah I sometimes wonder this too. I mean it is much more comparable to gold. People hoard that against the USD/GBP etc. Just because places accept it is a means of payment doesn't make it a currency, it just makes it as a desirable asset that people will trade for - a quality a currency shares.

I see Bitcoin as a vehicle, a means for moving actual money without some of the red tape, and often costs too, associated with money transfer. It's value increases through speculation on its role as a tradable asset, not as an exchange rate currency for currency.

[beetcoin]

seriously why are we still calling it a currency? at best, it's a quasi currency. it has some qualities that make it a medium of exchange, but it has other qualities as well. if it were 100% a currency, people wouldn't be hoarding it as much as they do.

Yeah I sometimes wonder this too. I mean it is much more comparable to gold. People hoard that against the USD/GBP etc. Just because places accept it is a means of payment doesn't make it a currency, it just makes it as a desirable asset that people will trade for - a quality a currency shares.

I see Bitcoin as a vehicle, a means for moving actual money without some of the red tape, and often costs too, associated with money transfer. It's value increases through speculation on its role as a tradable asset, not as an exchange rate currency for currency.

yeah it's just basic economics.. gold can't be a standard for exchange because its supply cannot be manipulated, whether we like that or not. in that kind of an economy, not enough people would spend and growth can't occur. i know some people are sensitive to this issue, but it's just true. i do, however, think that the fed/treasury abuse their power.

look at this thread with a poll: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=613944.0;viewResults

25% of the people don't even spend it, because they are using bitcoin speculatively. 45% occasionally spends their coins.

[Kipsy89]

I'm intrigued to see what effect, if any, the block reward halving to 12.5 BTC will have when it happens.

Without going too far into the realms of speculation, currently Bitcoin's market value is holding strong despite coins being constantly minted. Of course we all know that this is largely thanks to the little volume that is going through exchanges at the moment.

There will occasionally be turbulent times where the price will shift $100 or so dollars in a day, but I haven't seen one of those days in quite a while now.

Yeah! That'll be an interesting day. And it's not that far away, either! We've seen a block halving before (well I personally haven't) but the Bitcoin ecosystem has! The last time everything went fine but the price didn't skyrocket immediately. But after some time it did. Maybe the Bubbles of 2013 were delayed effects of the block halving! Exciting times lie ahead!

[nutildah]

seriously why are we still calling it a currency? at best, it's a quasi currency. it has some qualities that make it a medium of exchange, but it has other qualities as well. if it were 100% a currency, people wouldn't be hoarding it as much as they do.

By itself, bitcoin is useless and worth nothing. Only because we assign it value does it become a medium of trade. Thus, bitcoin is a currency.

People (corporations) are hoarding dollars like never before. The federal reserve can barely print enough money to keep deflation from settling in.

Billions and billions of dollars of cash, just sitting around doing nothing but propping up the valuation of stocks.

[nutildah]

And by the way, sure, bitcoin isn't very volatile... until you compare it to 95% of all currencies currently used in the world.

[Cryptopher]

And by the way, sure, bitcoin isn't very volatile... until you compare it to 95% of all currencies currently used in the world.

Then my recommendation is to not compare Bitcoin to other currencies in the world

Bitcoin is a better fit to compare with gold.

[hamiltino]

I will not run around telling everyone to convert their fiat to bitcoin because bitcoin is volatile. Waiting for a currency that is not volatile or the bitshares bank may do for now.

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[franky1]

as the topic suggests

Bitcoin does not have a volatility problem!

this is true.

right now with my bitcoin i could easily buy 350 loaves of bread, i can predict that in a years time i can still get atleast 350 loaves of bread with a bitcoin (ill get more the 350 biut shhh thats not the point). in 5 years my bitcoin could still get 350 loaves of bread.

but i bet you in 6 years time you wont be able to get 350 loaves of bread for $600.

bitcoin is not volatile. FIAT is

[AliceWonder]

bitcoin is not volatile. FIAT is

Very rarely does the price of a consumable good (say a bag of frozen burritos or movie tickets) change.

They do change, but not often.

Try to buy those things with bitcoins and the price changes weekly if not daily.

Clearly it is bitcoin that is volatile and not the fiat currency. At least not USD fiat currency.

[nutildah]

bitcoin is not volatile. FIAT is

I don't think you understand what volatility actually means. Compared to a basket of world currencies, BTC is very volatile. Compared to stocks, its volatile. Compared to triple leveraged ETFs, its volatile. Compared to the VIX (volatility index), its volatile. Compared to bonds, its extremely volatile.

Volatility = measure of price variability compared to other tradeable assets and commodities.

I know people here want to love everything about bitcoin so badly and demolish any criticism of it, but when does fanboydom actually outweigh the quest to understand reality, and why?

[lihuajkl]

Volatility is not problem for many people. Specially the traders and speculators are like volatility and can make profit from the swing of price. Actually the current price doesn't fluctuate a lot and is near the mining expense.

[Este Nuno]

bitcoin is not volatile. FIAT is

I don't think you understand what volatility actually means. Compared to a basket of world currencies, BTC is very volatile. Compared to stocks, its volatile. Compared to triple leveraged ETFs, its volatile. Compared to the VIX (volatility index), its volatile. Compared to bonds, its extremely volatile.

Volatility = measure of price variability compared to other tradeable assets and commodities.

I know people here want to love everything about bitcoin so badly and demolish any criticism of it, but when does fanboydom actually outweigh the quest to understand reality, and why?

Thank you for bringing some sanity to this thread.

Clearly Bitcoin is volatile. Even without calculating it it's obvious to anyone who can look at a graph.

[Brooker]

Volatility is not problem for many people. Specially the traders and speculators are like volatility and can make profit from the swing of price. Actually the current price doesn't fluctuate a lot and is near the mining expense.

It's a problem for speculators when it doesn't go their way. It's also a problem for it as a currency. There's not much risk involved for companies who use a payment processor but for users who buy coins only to see them lose x amount of value before they can spend them it's definitly a problem.