Bitcoin: Should you stay or should you go?

[BruceSwanson]

at that point it's dead by any means, anything below 10 is the death of bitcoin, actually i would say sub 100, miners can't sustain their business with such price...

I'm not sure I understand. If today's crop of miners start to bail out because falling bitcoin prices cannot pay for their electricity and hardware, then won't the difficulty level required to find successful hashes fall proportionately? This would invite new miners to enter the field using lower-powered computers. I don't see why theoretically this could not continue all the way back to ordinary desktop PCs, like in 2009. 

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[Alley]

That simply won't happen.  At 2009 prices a big player could simply buy most of the coins in existence for a couple million bucks.  That truley would be the death of bitcoin and people would likely mine some altcoin.

[BruceSwanson]

Here is a good corrective to the Bitcoin Reality Distortion Field: Los Angeles' public radio station KPCC has a respected finance show called Marketplace. Today they have a five-minute segment on international money remittances. Now you would really think that Bitcoin would at least be mentioned as a possible force for change on the horizon.

Nope. Not a syllable. Go to http://www.scpr.org/programs/marketplace/2015/06/01/9631/ and click the "Listen to this episode" link and then move the media slider to 8:44.

Listen and weep! Or scream with outrage. Either way it won't make any difference -- the world will take its own sweet time in recognizing Bitcoin.

[Daniel91]

I will stay, in any case.
I'm sorry that I wasn't in Bitcoin from the very beginning, when I could get it very cheap, but I believe in the future of BTC and I will stay.
Many virtual currencies have come and gone but Bitcoin is still here, despite the many problems and obstacles.
When BTC become mainstream, we will finally be rewarded for our patience and faith.

[Kprawn]

I for one, am loving the opportunity to get my hands on all of these "Panic" sell off's 

This for me is a temporary setback, and a small bump in the road. I drive a 4x4 when I invest in crypto currencies, so I can handle all the small bumps 

You also need to see this as a 4x4 ride.... When you travel with a off-road vehicle, you look for the rougher roads less travelled. If everyone drive the same roads, it gets polluted and congested.

Let the city sleakers {Day traders & Speculators and the people looking for the Get Rich quick schemes} drive on the common public roads, whilst we enjoy the country roads. 

[Herbert2020]

i think bitcoin price is going to continue to have this downward trend for much longer now. it is slowly going down but it is not gonna reach the 2009 state again.
i think it is going to stop eventually and start going up again after this phase is completed. and we are gonna have another bubble, not as big as before but still a bubble.

[Amph]

at that point it's dead by any means, anything below 10 is the death of bitcoin, actually i would say sub 100, miners can't sustain their business with such price...

I'm not sure I understand. If today's crop of miners start to bail out because falling bitcoin prices cannot pay for their electricity and hardware, then won't the difficulty level required to find successful hashes fall proportionately? This would invite new miners to enter the field using lower-powered computers. I don't see why theoretically this could not continue all the way back to ordinary desktop PCs, like in 2009. 

because we have better technology, this mean that even one random guy with one tera could performs a 51% attack if we return below $10 in price

[1Referee]

i think bitcoin price is going to continue to have this downward trend for much longer now. it is slowly going down but it is not gonna reach the 2009 state again.
i think it is going to stop eventually and start going up again after this phase is completed. and we are gonna have another bubble, not as big as before but still a bubble.

It's easy to say the price will continue to go down as it has been doing so for quite a while now. Nothing new here. Stop waiting for bubbles, they always pop.

I prefer a stable growth spreaded over several years instead of 1 or 2 bubbles. Have patience.

[BillyBobZorton]

i think bitcoin price is going to continue to have this downward trend for much longer now. it is slowly going down but it is not gonna reach the 2009 state again.
i think it is going to stop eventually and start going up again after this phase is completed. and we are gonna have another bubble, not as big as before but still a bubble.

It's easy to say the price will continue to go down as it has been doing so for quite a while now. Nothing new here. Stop waiting for bubbles, they always pop.

I prefer a stable growth spreaded over several years instead of 1 or 2 bubbles. Have patience.

There will be more bubbles in the future while the overall mean goes up. Insanely huge bubbles. Millonaries are at play here. It will be a matter of knowing when to get out an buy back again at the bottom. IT take a lot of risk and luck tho.

[BruceSwanson]

at that point it's dead by any means, anything below 10 is the death of bitcoin, actually i would say sub 100, miners can't sustain their business with such price...

I'm not sure I understand. If today's crop of miners start to bail out because falling bitcoin prices cannot pay for their electricity and hardware, then won't the difficulty level required to find successful hashes fall proportionately? This would invite new miners to enter the field using lower-powered computers. I don't see why theoretically this could not continue all the way back to ordinary desktop PCs, like in 2009.  

because we have better technology, this mean that even one random guy with one tera could performs a 51% attack if we return below $10 in price

I suppose it is possible that in the foreseeable future a machine that performs at a thousand times the current rate will be available at a price that will make mining $10 bitcoins profitable. If one random guy has that rate, so will lots of other random guys and a 51% attack won't happen. The important thing is that the blockchain's utility to non-mining users is independent of its price. If you are doing instantaneous conversions from bitcoin to fiat, who cares what the bitcoin price is? But a defining killer app would probably encourage all those casual users to hold bitcoin, if only to make things that much simpler for themselves -- they've already got the bitcoin loaded in their gaming account and aren't worried about an immediate or ongoing fall in fiat value.

We can only wait and see. In the meantime, look for a sort of stair-step pattern of declines. In my view, those declines won't stop -- there is no floor except the Satoshi -- until the defining killer app happens. And nobody knows when or what that is going to be.

[herzmeister]

who had bought an Apple II. The reporter asked the man what he thought of his purchase. The man stared glumly at the Apple for a moment and then sourly commented: "The damn thing just sits there."

That's a pity really, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc already existed back then for the Apple ][.

[BruceSwanson]

You're right. But I think VisiCalc had to be purchased separately. It didn't come with the computer. That probably was the final straw for the guy.

The cost of new programs and peripherals was discussed in the WSJ story. The reporter accompanied an Apple II salesman. At a library he recommended some peripheral piece of equipment, and said the cost was "two fifty" [or something like that -- all this from memory]. The librarian said "That sounds reasonable." When the salesman clarified that "two fifty" actually meant $250.00, the librarian just laughed.

No sale!

[Amph]

at that point it's dead by any means, anything below 10 is the death of bitcoin, actually i would say sub 100, miners can't sustain their business with such price...

I'm not sure I understand. If today's crop of miners start to bail out because falling bitcoin prices cannot pay for their electricity and hardware, then won't the difficulty level required to find successful hashes fall proportionately? This would invite new miners to enter the field using lower-powered computers. I don't see why theoretically this could not continue all the way back to ordinary desktop PCs, like in 2009.  

because we have better technology, this mean that even one random guy with one tera could performs a 51% attack if we return below $10 in price

I suppose it is possible that in the foreseeable future a machine that performs at a thousand times the current rate will be available at a price that will make mining $10 bitcoins profitable. If one random guy has that rate, so will lots of other random guys and a 51% attack won't happen. The important thing is that the blockchain's utility to non-mining users is independent of its price. If you are doing instantaneous conversions from bitcoin to fiat, who cares what the bitcoin price is? But a defining killer app would probably encourage all those casual users to hold bitcoin, if only to make things that much simpler for themselves -- they've already got the bitcoin loaded in their gaming account and aren't worried about an immediate or ongoing fall in fiat value.

We can only wait and see. In the meantime, look for a sort of stair-step pattern of declines. In my view, those declines won't stop -- there is no floor except the Satoshi -- until the defining killer app happens. And nobody knows when or what that is going to be.

ok but my point is that it will be far easy to overcome the netowork hashrate, because the diff will not be 300peta as it is right now, if the price decrease below 10

this will force the big farms to leave, and thus creating an opportunity for malicious users that want to attack the network

[Buttknuckle]

I think the idea of bitcoins hitting the 2009 prices is laughable.  There would need to be a total collapse of the system, and Gavin's plan is trying to prevent that.  Even if nothing is done bitcoins will drop in price because transactions won't go through anymore, but it wont drop to nothing.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Without a defining killer app, I am confident that Bitcoin will, in fits and starts, inevitably return to its 2009 levels. It would be pointless to guess how long that process will take; or when that killer app will appear although I am also confident it will appear at some entirely unpredictable point.

...

in the meantime: Nasdaq and Nyse are joining the bitcoin club 

[BruceSwanson]

Yep, and that's a very good thing. But the price isn't shooting through the sky in celebration. Nor will it. We need big institutional use *and* easy, enjoyable use.

[anderson00673]

I think you should all go.  Then come back after I buy on the dip   But seriously bitcoins are not going anywhere.  What we are seeing is just a bump in the road.

[melody82]

Yeah I see what you are saying.  I think the first step is to simplify the exchange process.  I had to read up on how to buy bitcoins and tbh it was a total pain to get some.  If you could just buy them direct from a bank account in stead of having to wait a week or pay a hefty transfer fee then that would go a long way to better adoption.  That will be the first barrier to cross.  The second will be transaction speed.  The average person does not want to wait so long for a transaction to go through.  They are used to credit cards and instant money.  Third there needs to be some advantage that bitcoins have.  Why would the average person use bitcoins in stead of dollars?  If I get ripped off using my CC then I just call them and have the transaction reversed.  BTC has no such thing.  It needs to have an advantage for the average person and not just us.

1. Making an account at an exchange is most times easier than making an account in a bank. The only difference is, that people already have a bank account for a long time.
2. Transactions are instant. Did you ever buy something with Bitcoin? I don't think so. For me it always takes less than 2 seconds.
3. Sure, reversing transactions seem like a good idea, until somebody reverses the transaction made to you. That happens all the time.

1. Ok true, there is one exception which is Kraken.  Making an account there was a total pita for me.
2. Ha!  no they are not.  Money transfers between point a and point b can take up to 6 confirmations, and you are not guaranteed a confirmation every 10 minutes.  Can you imagine waiting at starbucks for 20 minutes for your confirmations?  Most of the time the site only needs 2 confirmations from me, but I have seen up to six.  So in my experience transactions are not instant.  Credit cards are instant.  Bitcoin is not.
3. I have never had a transaction reversed on me, but I have done it twice to bad companies that tried to rip me off.  I am not saying that reversals are a good idea, but it is super easy to get scammed using bitcoins.  Until this changes it will be a barrier for wider adoption.

[spazzdla]

As long as there are capital controls, there will be a reason for Bitcoin. It already has it's killer app, most people just don't care. That's fine, enough do care to keep it going.

This person gets it

[crazyivan]

Bitcoin ll grow.

No doubt about it in my mind.

What we need is legislation to allow Wall Street entrance and some form of wider adaption via that chip 21 s about to make.

That would be enough for BTC reaching the sky.