Historical perspective (for a newbie)

[ixne]

Hey all,

I've been living under a rock for the past few years (read: grad school) and haven't heard about bitcoin until I stumbled across a random web article a couple of weeks ago.  I was absolutely blown away, both because I've been interested in cryptography for a long time (still get Schneier's monthly newsletters) and because I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it before.

So I immediately went about the convoluted process of setting up Dwolla, verifying accounts, etc., and I'm just about ready to buy a handful of bitcoins and start playing, but lo and behold bitcoins are going for 17 dollars a pop.

Now I can code, and I know the difference between MD5 and SHA2, but I'm most definitely not an investment banker.  I'd love to get started, but I don't want to play the sucker to some speculator running up prices.

For those of you who have been in the market for some time, is this sort of price fluctuation common? My gut instinct is to hold off and wait for this madness to settle, but what if that takes months?  I love the concept and want to participate, but it kinda feels like I've come too late and it's in the hands of some sleazy traders now.  And if I'm discouraged, I can imagine many other people are out there would like to start using bitcoins around town but won't until it comes back down to Earth - and who knows how long that will take.

Basically, do you guys think things are going to settle relatively soon so a newbie could get on board?  If my SO found out I was spending $17 for electronic magic beans (which is about all the explanation her attention span can handle on the topic of cryptography), I would never hear the end of it.

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[Nels]

I’m also a late comer to Bitcoin.  He’s my perspective.  I think the project is fantastic and vitally important for a lot of reasons.  The “equilibrium” price for Bitcoins is very hard to estimate.  Could be 10 could be 500,000.  Right now I consider my participation to be like giving to one of the best “charities” around.  I’m telling everyone I know about it.  And over time I hope to purchase and sell many things with Bitcions.  If the early adopters make tons of money (see Ponzi scheme critique) I will be happy cause they deserve it, especially the original code writers.   I plan to stay involved and hope for the best.

[stic.man]

i don't see there being an in-between for bitcoins, it will either catch on huge and explode, or end up down at zero when some flaw is found/improvements can be made.

I believe this sort of system will definitely be viable if not THE option of transacting in the future but I doin't know if this incarnation will be the client that ultimately plays that role.

[wareen]

If my SO found out I was spending $17 for electronic magic beans (which is about all the explanation her attention span can handle on the topic of cryptography), I would never hear the end of it.

LOL - I can so relate with that

Everything regarding the future price of Bitcoins is pure speculation and you should really be prepared to lose everything you put into it - don't invest what you can't afford to lose!

Ok, you probably knew that anyway but if you ask for opinions: I think that the next price correction will not come so soon or so severe as to expect prices significantly below 15$ anytime in the near future.

My reasoning is, that the mainstream press is really just catching on and there is always a delay of about a week until potential investors are ready to actually buy Bitcoins. In addition to that, I don't think Bitcoins are that much overpriced at the moment, given their current usefulness as a store of value. If it goes higher than silver for example one might be more worried. The risk of it failing completely might be outweighed to a degree by their additional usefulness as medium of easy and secure online payment. Then again, this is pure speculation and gut feeling!

Anyway - I'd suggest you don't drop all your money at once - maybe buy a few BTC now and wait with the rest for the next price correction.

[bitcoinBull]

The current rally is about on par with the past ones (double in price with each rally), thus far, tho it seems to be happening much quicker this time.  But because it seems the "critical mass" is being reached due to the extraordinary press coverage, this one has potential to be even more surprising IMO (doubling twice, from $10 to $20 and from $20 to $40).  If that happens, hard to say how low it will correct. (back to $20 or back to $10).

If you're hesitant to buy, maybe your SO would be more amenable to a small investment into a mining rig?  Most find it less risky to invest in hardware (which can be resold if bitcoin crashes and burns), and it could actually turn out to be a better investment, versus if you turned out to have bought in at a top right before a large correction.

Here is a good starter rig setup for ~$400.  Would be even less if you already have a desktop, you can simply add in a couple of video cards.  If you decide to do this, do it soon, because the video cards best for mining are selling out fast!

[bittrader]

FYI, Mt. Gox (the major exchange) has it's full price history available here: https://mtgox.com/trade/megaChart

Basically, yes, the value of BTC in USD does fluctuate a lot compared to most other currencies. The reason for this is that the market is still relatively small and each individual participant makes up a larger percentage of the total than in most currency markets.

[wareen]

If you're hesitant to buy, maybe your SO would be more amenable to a small investment into a mining rig?

On the other hand a mining rig is much more difficult to hide than a few $ spent online

Most find it less risky to invest in hardware (which can be resold if bitcoin crashes and burns), and it could actually turn out to be a better investment, versus if you turned out to have bought in at a top right before a large correction.

I would really think twice before giving such advice - I always hear about the possible resale-value of the mining gear but imagine how many heavily used 5850/5870 cards there will be on the market once Bitcoin crashes and how many you can expect to get for yours?

Additionally, future mining difficulty is pretty much as hard to predict as future Bitcoin prices and I think the vast majority of people would have been better off by investing in Bitcoins instead of mining gear (yes hindsight - I know...)

But you are right of course that if now Bitcoins are at their all-time high then buying them is a bad idea

[AllYourBase]

Right now speculators and other folks are counting on governments not being able to track bitcoins, therefore keeping it safe from confiscation and taxes.  If this were discovered to be incorrect, I'd expect the price would drop drastically, at least for a little while. 

Should you not wish to spend $17 dollars per bitcion (I personally don't expect it to drop significantly below this in the near future), offer a product or service that accepts bitcoins!  We could use more of an economy besides financial transactions. 

[againey]

I love the concept and want to participate...

While it's significantly more difficult than simply throwing money at it, you might look into ways you could sell items or services of some form and accept payment in bitcoin.  That way you can get your hands on some bitcoins without spending a lot of cash, just some time and effort.  This is also probably the single most important method of supporting the concept, since merchants are what bitcoin needs to ultimately be valuable as something more than a hedge investment.

[ixne]

I love the concept and want to participate...

While it's significantly more difficult than simply throwing money at it, you might look into ways you could sell items or services of some form and accept payment in bitcoin.  That way you can get your hands on some bitcoins without spending a lot of cash, just some time and effort.  This is also probably the single most important method of supporting the concept, since merchants are what bitcoin needs to ultimately be valuable as something more than a hedge investment.

That's an idea, although right now I'm a student and don't have a lot of "services" to offer.  Also, I haven't even made a single transaction yet and I'm not familiar with some of the more practical aspects involved, e.g. how long do transactions realistically take, how to manage multiple wallet files and addresses, etc.

On that note, maybe someone could send me something paltry so I can at least get my feet wet and make some transactions?  I got excited when I came across the bitcoin faucet but it's out of commission right now.  I'll send it right back if you want (muhaha).

[Hal]

Research dollar cost averaging.