if you're not buying

[arepo]

Everyone who wrests control of their money back from the banksters are richer for it. So is society. 

that is profound. i concede

[notme]

everyone buying BTC become rich

is there free candy and infinite energy, too?

this is such a joke. trading is zero-sum. everyone CANNOT become rich.

still following? take the bulls out of your ears. everyone cannot become rich.

okay, good. hopefully i've gotten to a few of you finally.

While your bold statement is correct, it is entirely possible for everyone that reads this forum regularly at this point in time can become rich.  There are a lot more people who haven't even heard of bitcoin yet.

[arepo]

everyone buying BTC become rich

everyone CANNOT become rich.

While your bold statement is correct, it is entirely possible for everyone that reads this forum regularly at this point in time can become rich.  There are a lot more people who haven't even heard of bitcoin yet.

this is true. i concede to this point as well. the post i quoted did not make that important distinction, though.

[johnyj]

everyone buying BTC become rich

everyone cannot become rich.

In a debt based fiat money system, it is a zero sum game, your saving comes from another people's debt, so your conclusion is correct

But in a debt free money system like bitcoin, it is totally possible that everyone are rich, since every BTC existed are not a kind of loan, the electricity, time and R&D cost of the mining equipment has all been paid and contains in each BTC, it is debt free and have value coined in, everyone can get BTC with their product/service without incur a debt somewhere else in the society

Ignore the USD exchange rate, that partly depends on the USD supply by FED, do not really represent the real value of BTC, market is discovering that value now

[niko]

everyone buying BTC become rich

everyone cannot become rich.

In a debt based fiat money system, it is a zero sum game, your saving comes from another people's debt, so your conclusion is correct

But in a debt free money system like bitcoin, it is totally possible that everyone are rich, since every BTC existed are not a kind of loan, the electricity, time and R&D cost of the mining equipment has all been paid and contains in each BTC, it is debt free and have value coined in, everyone can get BTC with their product/service without incur a debt somewhere else in the society

Ignore the USD exchange rate, that partly depends on the USD supply by FED, do not really represent the real value of BTC, market is discovering that value now

Yes. I will just repeat myself here:

Yes, we can all get rich if we keep voluntarily assigning value to bitcoins in terms of goods and services we trade via Bitcoin network. If more and more people keep valuing their labor, fiat, or property in terms of bitcoins, the value of coins will keep rising. The opposite applies, too.

[arepo]

everyone buying BTC become rich

everyone cannot become rich.

In a debt based fiat money system, it is a zero sum game, your saving comes from another people's debt, so your conclusion is correct

it's a zero-sum game regardless.

say bitcoin were a closed system. no more fiat influx, constant market cap. any gains any trader makes will be another traders' loss. someone selling coins they bought for $5 last summer for $27 picks $22 out of every pocket which bought coins at higher prices.

however -- and this is niko's point as well -- since the market cap is small compared to the potential market cap, there is an influx of fiat which might allow for huge amounts of deflation on the long term which means anyone holding btc now who is still holding btc then will get a really, really good return on that investment.

but even in this case, everyone will not become rich. if you mean everyone who has btc now, then sure, but that's a pitifully small number compared to the amount of people and fiat required to really blow the price that high, and the last ones to 'convert to bitcoin' will be the ones whose money we're taking.

[lebing]

no, not everyone will be rich. Only everyone reading these forums right now. 

[niko]

everyone buying BTC become rich

everyone cannot become rich.

In a debt based fiat money system, it is a zero sum game, your saving comes from another people's debt, so your conclusion is correct

it's a zero-sum game regardless.

say bitcoin were a closed system. no more fiat influx, constant market cap. any gains any trader makes will be another traders' loss. someone selling coins they bought for $5 last summer for $27 picks $22 out of every pocket which bought coins at higher prices.

however -- and this is niko's point as well -- since the market cap is small compared to the potential market cap, there is an influx of fiat which might allow for huge amounts of deflation on the long term which means anyone holding btc now who is still holding btc then will get a really, really good return on that investment.

but even in this case, everyone will not become rich. if you mean everyone who has btc now, then sure, but that's a pitifully small number compared to the amount of people and fiat required to really blow the price that high, and the last ones to 'convert to bitcoin' will be the ones whose money we're taking.

But how about extending this thought experiment beyond mere speculative trading? If people kept working and creating new value, and pricing it in btc, wouldn't everyone holding bitcoins become and remain "rich" in the sense that they would be able to exchange them for more and more goods/services?

[flaab]

I just bought gold with my bitcoins and cashed out from one bull market to another.
Buy I have some bitcoins to play with in case it goes parabolic :-)

[thoughtfan]

...the last ones to 'convert to bitcoin' will be the ones whose money we're taking.

Nobody's 'taking' anybody else's money.  At whatever level the 'last ones to convert' happens if they were buying purely in order to make money from increasing BTC value relative to fiat then they will have 'lost'.  They will have made a bad judgement call assuming the future to repeat the past.  However if they are buying Bitcoin for any other reason such as a store of value or in order to use it to buy stuff (which even if those buying today are the 'last ones' is reasonable) they will have not lost.

However the longer and wider the distribution goes on the more robust Bitcoin becomes, the less prone it is to being devalued overnight by one means or another.  The reward for 'early adopters' (whether you're talking 2010/11 folk or today's) will have come from having taken that risk.  People keep knocking hoarders.  With bitcoin being as divisible as it is it REALLY doesn't matter how many people just buy and hold nor does it matter how much they hoard.  The amount that's left, however tiny, is still plenty to be used for trading for day-to-day goods and saving.  It doesn't deprive anyone else of anything. It's all good

[xxjs]

...the last ones to 'convert to bitcoin' will be the ones whose money we're taking.

Nobody's 'taking' anybody else's money.  At whatever level the 'last ones to convert' happens if they were buying purely in order to make money from increasing BTC value relative to fiat then they will have 'lost'.  They will have made a bad judgement call assuming the future to repeat the past.  However if they are buying Bitcoin for any other reason such as a store of value or in order to use it to buy stuff (which even if those buying today are the 'last ones' is reasonable) they will have not lost.

However the longer and wider the distribution goes on the more robust Bitcoin becomes, the less prone it is to being devalued overnight by one means or another.  The reward for 'early adopters' (whether you're talking 2010/11 folk or today's) will have come from having taken that risk.  People keep knocking hoarders.  With bitcoin being as divisible as it is it REALLY doesn't matter how many people just buy and hold nor does it matter how much they hoard.  The amount that's left, however tiny, is still plenty to be used for trading for day-to-day goods and saving.  It doesn't deprive anyone else of anything. It's all good

All very successful businesses is based upon knowlege, means and ability to take action. Whatever I get from this, I surely deserve it.

[xxjs]

By the way, I still buy at this level. If it goes down half way, I really couln't care.

[KTE]

Yep I bought my last batch at 27.0 .. I don't expect to be able to predict any of these slopes so why try.

[Nesetalis]

good rule of thumb, if the price has gone up at least 50% in the past month, its probably a bubble.

[thoughtfan]

good rule of thumb, if the price has gone up at least 50% in the past month, its probably a bubble.

Doesn't 'rule of thumb' comes out of a sort-of common sense borne of experience?  My problem with this and many of the arguments coming out of 'typical adoption charts' or classic bubble charts etc. is that Bitcoin is too different to anything that has been before for us to be able to be able to reliably pin it to anything of that ilk.

Here's another one:  "If it sounds to good to be true it probably is".  Those who have been around Bitcoin some time have got used to a price range that 'seems' reasonable.  I don't need here to point out what its potential is.  We all know it.  But given that Bitcoin's valuation, should it fulfill anything near its potential is totally off the map by today's price and that we have no way of quantifying the various risks to its future I don't think we have anything other than 'best guesses' as to what today's value should be.

All those saying 'it's definitely overvalued' as with those saying 'no way does its price reflect anywhere near as high as its value' are simply expressing (and trading) their beliefs rather than 'what is'.  Currently I think the former, along with weak hands who just don't have the stomach for it, are the ones causing today's spikes and average price drop.  Good luck to them   I'm tending to think every time an opportunity for a big correction comes along (like today) and the bears aren't jumping on it to plummet the price the less likely it is that we will ever again see prices much lower than what we see today.

[notig]

Some people think it's too risky to invest right now after this recent surge in price. I think it's to risky not to be invested. Sure the price may go down. The bubble may burst. What if it's only a 3 dollar bubble?
I can sleep better at night if I have a stash of bitcoins. Even if the price is going down... better than I could sleep if I didn't have any and the price was rising, lol.

[KTE]

Some people think it's too risky to invest right now after this recent surge in price. I think it's to risky not to be invested.

I'm on the same boat. Luckily now my position is as big as I can justify in my portfolio, so I can just sit back, relax and watch what happens. Should I lose my whole BTC investment, I will consider it just like investing in a start up which didn't make it.

[johnyj]

it's a zero-sum game regardless.

say bitcoin were a closed system. no more fiat influx, constant market cap. any gains any trader makes will be another traders' loss. someone selling coins they bought for $5 last summer for $27 picks $22 out of every pocket which bought coins at higher prices.

however -- and this is niko's point as well -- since the market cap is small compared to the potential market cap, there is an influx of fiat which might allow for huge amounts of deflation on the long term which means anyone holding btc now who is still holding btc then will get a really, really good return on that investment.

but even in this case, everyone will not become rich. if you mean everyone who has btc now, then sure, but that's a pitifully small number compared to the amount of people and fiat required to really blow the price that high, and the last ones to 'convert to bitcoin' will be the ones whose money we're taking.

A bought one BTC from B for $2, and B bought back the coin for $4, and A bought it back again for $8, and B bought it back again for $16 ... Each time they made 100% return and both of them become rich in the process. The people who holding the BTC feel he is rich since the BTC price is high and he can sell it even higher later, and the people just profited from the trade also become rich and he want to buy again to enjoy the next ride

You might notice that there is only one BTC at any time and they just exchange it for more and more fiat at each trade. So how long the price appreciation will last depends on how much fiat they can put in the trade, before they exhausted most of their fiat reserve, the process will continue

And in current debt driven monetary system, fiat must increase exponentially to support it from collapsing, banks are getting fresh fiat money all the time and there will be people borrow these money to buy coins. Actually these people will become very important customers for banks, because in a mature economy, there will be less company who are willing to borrow