Yup, still feeling bearish.

[evolve]

In this religion, however, I suppose it is heretical to make those kinds of statements.

Welcome to the Cult of Bitcoin, your black tracksuit and kool-aid awaits...

[Manticore]

Welcome to the Cult of Bitcoin, your black tracksuit and kool-aid awaits...

Awesome.

[humanitee]

You say that you are using it for a store of value, but you also say you would continue sinking money into it even if the price declined for a decade without sign of recovery? That doesn't make sense. At all.

LOL

I see why you have the sweet ignore.

My beliefs do not have to be validated by you. Bitcoin is very, very important to me, therefore I will defend it to its' grave. It promotes freedom.

Unless something comes along that is noticeably better, I will stay on the bitcoin train. I would most likely spend it if it went down perfectly like that. Also, if the fundamentals indicated that this action was in fact necessary, I would wait to buy until I thought it's valuation was correct.

I don't care what ignorant pundits think of Bitcoin.

There is not a "divorce" from fundamentals. I can buy cars, houses, and other high cost goods with it, do you expect it to be worth 1 dollar?
I'm not trying to hype this thing up, I actually called it going down right before it did. It was obviously overextended.

Making money is not the goal, PROTECTING MY MONEY is. You might think I'm crazy, and that's ok. Hopefully there are more crazies out there, buying coins from the speculators. I got a bank account on my computer worth more than my bank account down the street.

I'm going to continue to buy as the price goes up.

News flash, I hold bitcoins. I can hold bitcoins and not be delusional.

I don't think you're crazy, but you don't put forth any kind of argument other than 'I am protecting my money' and 'I can buy cars and houses with bitcoin.' You think it's going up because that's what it does. Fair enough.

I am medium-term bullish on bitcoin but do think it's grossly overvalued.....and do think it may rise and continue to be overvalued despite fact that it should trend lower. I am willing to profit on this over-valuation, but I am not willing to become irrational because of it.

In this religion, however, I suppose it is heretical to make those kinds of statements.

And before one calls others ignorant, one may want to stop using words that don't exist (irregardless). Just a thought.

Irregardless  is considered nonstandard because of the two negative elements ir-  and -less.  It was probably formed on the analogy of such words as irrespective, irrelevant,  and irreparable.  Those who use it, including on occasion educated speakers, may do so from a desire to add emphasis.

I've read the word in many books. Pundits are ignorant. "It halves and then it multiplies"

Anyway, the latest news cycle was suggesting that people should think about putting it in their portfolio. More and more businesses are accepting it. The bitcoin community is experiencing huge growth. Bitcoin ATMs are real, they will allow people a quick, efficient way to purchase and exchange bitcoin. Its got more and more going for it. As the world economy goes down the toilet it provides a store of wealth. ASICs and the block halving are a big deal. Those are just some of my thoughts. The amount of rumors as well - from legitimate people in the bitcoin community, point to big things coming down the drain.

I gotta run though, I'll talk to you fellas later.

[evolve]

My beliefs do not have to be validated by you.

Who is trying to validate your beliefs? This doesn't even have anything to do with BTC....You said that you would put money into a depreciating asset as a store of value.  That makes no sense. Period.

How exactly are you storing value in a asset that is losing value?

I see why you have the sweet ignore.
 

Yeah, the cult doesnt tolerate dissent....or you know, facts.

[BrightAnarchist]

I'm the biggest Bitcoin fanboy ever, but that doesn't change my resolution that we've started a multi-year bear market

[awakening]

I'm changing from mid bull doubting to buy coins now at 95$ to mid bearish.
Time will tell, but I'm gonna wait to see the 80$ and 70$ walls been eaten, maybe next week, maybe never.. If It goes up like fuck, just take out the fiat and go to Punta Cana/whatever cool caribbean place and fuck some whores, to forget the second bad prediction I made. 

[warpio]

My beliefs do not have to be validated by you.

Who is trying to validate your beliefs? This doesn't even have anything to do with BTC....You said that you would put money into a depreciating asset as a store of value.  That makes no sense. Period.

How exactly are you storing value in a asset that is losing value?

he's probably one of those that is thinking in terms of bitcoin becoming the new standard for "value", making the dollar amount irrelevant. that's a pretty wild belief to have for a digital currency that is still in its experimental stage, and still only has an economy tied to dollars... but who knows he could end up being right

[Pruden]

I'm the biggest Bitcoin fanboy ever, but that doesn't change my resolution that we've started a multi-year bear market

In several years Bitcoin will have found a successor, so either you are predicting the end of Bitcoin, which is hard to reconcile with being a declared fanboy, or you're wrong.

The time for adoption is now, and it is happening.

[Rampion]

I think is bad we didn't had a REAL correction, down to $30ish and then stabilizing at no more than $50ish. I think $100 per coin is overvalued at this point, and the price is so high only because newcomers feel that they are getting cheap coins and want to be part of the next bubble.

There is a fundamental difference with the 2011 bubble: now everybody expects BTC to recover and go into bubble mode again, sooner or later. People is not screaming SCAM! like in 2011, people today is screaming WHAT A NICE PONZI! I WANT TO GET IN EARLY AND BE PART OF IT!

In fact, after the bubble burst I've been called by 5 friends who wired me A LOT of fiat to buy them bitcoins through my Gox's verified account. It's crazy, I could live all we have left in 2013 just taking 10% of what they gave me. All of them say: hey, now that the bubble popped, is a good time to enter and wait for the next one!

I have to admit that I'm amused by the fact of making a very nice profit doing NOTHING, but at the same time all this makes me sad. I hate seeing friends I love and respect entering into Bitcoin ONLY because is bubble-prone and ponzi-like (let's state the truth, as all commodities Bitcoin has all the characteristics of a Ponzi except that no one is promising you guaranteed returns... Well, some hardcore true believers do)

At the end of the day, buying $30K in BTC it's a PAIN IN THE ASS for the average Joe. Going through MtGox, etc... Is slow and painful. And then, cashing out significant amounts of fiat from the system is even more difficult. This for me means that $100 BTC/USD is very overvalued, and that price is just based on the expectation of riding the next bubble. I think this is not healthy, and I would prefer much more a rapid downtrend to $30ish, to then grow again with people really USING BTC, while businesses acceptance of the currency grows in parallel.

[Rampion]

Forgot something: all the guys speaking about bitcoin being deflationary... Well, didn't you see how its value just got from $266 to $100? What was that, the USD deflating?

Don't fool yourself. Bitcoin is not going to be deflationary if we don't break the loop. While the "value" of Bitcoin is established with its exchange rate for FIAT... We are just fucked, and it will just be a TOY for speculation.

Think about the FED: they own fiat money, and if they feel BTC is a danger for them, they can just pump it to the sky to crash it to almost $0. How do you avoid that? Breaking the fucking loop.

We need business that set the price in BTC, and pay all their costs (including salaries) in BTC. We need to break the laces with fiat money. When we do that, then we will have a really deflationary currency that will serve as store of value. Until it's value its related to the exchange rate with fiat... We are fucked.

[BrightAnarchist]

I'm the biggest Bitcoin fanboy ever, but that doesn't change my resolution that we've started a multi-year bear market

In several years Bitcoin will have found a successor, so either you are predicting the end of Bitcoin, which is hard to reconcile with being a declared fanboy, or you're wrong.

The time for adoption is now, and it is happening.

Your statement seems logical, yet financial markets are rarely logical or rational... Prepare to be surprised at what they can do

[ElectricMucus]

Ok lets say we go down from here 1% a day for a year. You bought all the way down prices are now 2.6 dollar, at which point do you stop?

He wouldn't really need to stop as, by your calculations, after a few years he would be able to own all the bitcoins in the world for almost nothing.

It won't be 1% daily for that long. There will be ups and downs, obviously and some floor. Everybody has a plan, mine is to play volatility and earn some extra income.
I have no idea what his plan is... retire on it?

The point I am trying to make is: As for as store of value bitcoin isn't well suited, not because of it's volatility, that is only the symptom. There is something called elasticity of an asset.
What it tells you is how much prices influence demand and with bitcoin that is very high, a very high elasticity.

Low elasticity is something for which there is always demand, regardless - the things out society is built on, machinery, energy, and land. Of course they are subject to their own bubbles and pops but it is nowhere as dramatic.

[Manticore]

I'm the biggest Bitcoin fanboy ever, but that doesn't change my resolution that we've started a multi-year bear market

This should be the start of a multi-year bear market. We have no fundamental reason to go up substantially anytime soon and should trend downwards.

But, we may have another media hype cycle on the horizon. Because this is driven entirely by the media, I don't think we can hit single digits in the short/medium-term. I see potential for more speculation before things get dire in the market because everyone is waiting for the next big news cycle. If nothing materializes we will begin to move down a little later than I had anticipated, IMO. I did not think the price would hold up this well, although we could/should still retrace the recent lows.

I see further adoption and development of Bitcoin, so in that sense I am 'bullish'.....but the long-term trend is a complete divorce of fundamentals and pricing action. At some point, this deviation will be rectified (likely lower). Even with new infrastructure, the price will have to go down once reality takes hold. The general public and most analysts will never accept $10K BTC. They may temporarily accept Bitcoin as a vehicle for speculation in hopes of more big news. But once the big news has finally all been factored, we will see wholesale dumping from which we won't recover. This could happen years from now, I suppose.

I suppose there is the tiny likelihood that Wall Street picks this up as the next big slot machine. That is what will need to happen to actually pull this whole thing off. It will never come through adoption (although adoption can keep Bitcoin alive for a very long time). The full embodiment of Bitcoin will require serious backing. I suspect this is where some former bears are deriving their newly found bullish outlook.

I've read the word in many books.

You have obviously never written a graduate level paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irregardless

'The definition in most dictionaries is simply listed as regardless (along with the note nonstandard, or similar). Merriam–Webster even states "Use regardless instead."'

[Manticore]

Also, VCs getting more involved means that their buddies in the media might start pumping this a little harder in the future. IMO The Winklevoss news was clearly a timed release with an intent to keep the price from falling further. The media could begin playing a bigger role in the future. They accidentally pumped it previously. In the future there will likely be more intent.

[Flanelcoin]

Gentlemen,

Keep in mind that Bitcoin value is a very complex thing on a systems scale.
Uranium might be cheap if you have no nuclear power plants. Once you do, it is no longer so.

The perhaps paradox with Bitcoin is this: as a pure currency in the price mechanism sense (a calibration unit for measuring relative values) it might indeed very well be overvalued, but then Bitcoin right now is mostly an extremely convenient value carrier and not so much a currency.
But.
The benefits of it, as a tool, as a resource for financial operations engines of great power, can save up a lot of relative value and energy (in terms of transaction speeds, fees, ...). So the question is:
How much value would it generate when compared to today's systems while integrated into an X-sized financial market?
Please note, that this is the same as: "how much energy would lubricating oil save in mechanisms when adopted?" and practically boils down to "how much energy would uranium fission free?".
So the value of bitcoin in a extratemporal, systems perspective is in fact for a large part the value of the energy freed by the technical advantages of it in a market of a certain size. How big will the market be? Well, that's the question.
Oh, right, the paradox part. In order to be adopted by such a market, the bitcoin price needs to be massively higher than this to offer good liquidity and use for abstract financial operations.
So, it's overvalued now, but undervalued considering what can come, so overvaluation leads to correct value?!

[impulse]

Gentlemen,

Keep in mind that Bitcoin value is a very complex thing on a systems scale.
Uranium might be cheap if you have no nuclear power plants. Once you do, it is no longer so.

The perhaps paradox with Bitcoin is this: as a pure currency in the price mechanism sense (a calibration unit for measuring relative values) it might indeed very well be overvalued, but then Bitcoin right now is mostly an extremely convenient value carrier and not so much a currency.
But.
The benefits of it, as a tool, as a resource for financial operations engines of great power, can save up a lot of relative value and energy (in terms of transaction speeds, fees, ...). So the question is:
How much value would it generate when compared to today's systems while integrated into an X-sized financial market?
Please note, that this is the same as: "how much energy would lubricating oil save in mechanisms when adopted?" and practically boils down to "how much energy would uranium fission free?".
So the value of bitcoin in a extratemporal, systems perspective is in fact for a large part the value of the energy freed by the technical advantages of it in a market of a certain size. How big will the market be? Well, that's the question.
Oh, right, the paradox part. In order to be adopted by such a market, the bitcoin price needs to be massively higher than this to offer good liquidity and use for abstract financial operations.
So, it's overvalued now, but undervalued considering what can come, so overvaluation leads to correct value?!

Awkwardly worded, but yes, this is the crux of the problem. Everyone is always saying that in order for Bitcoin to be useful it must necessarily be worth much more than it is now, which is a true statement. It is a classic chicken-and-egg problem. So how do we get from here to there? I think the only real answer may be, unfortunately, speculation.

[evolve]

So how do we get from here to there? I think the only real answer may be, unfortunately, speculation.

No, we need less speculation, way less volatility, we need to make the blockchain scaleable to be able to handle an exponentially higher amount of transactions (as it is now, a single gambling site [satoshi dice] has clogged the blockchain to an almost unusable amount), we need a user friendly way to get money into and out of the system, a better exchanges that are trustworthy and can handle increased volume, a non poisonous community that doesnt allow scammers and ponzis to flourish (the lending board was an abomination last time I checked), increased and ubiquitous vendor support, ....and thats just the tip of the iceburg.


What we dont need (assuming we want BTC to succeed as an experiment) is for BTC to be just a speculative tool for internet nerds, that gets pumped and dumped repeatedly until everyone loses interest.

[impulse]

So how do we get from here to there? I think the only real answer may be, unfortunately, speculation.

No, we need less speculation, way less volatility, we need to make the blockchain scaleable to be able to handle an exponentially higher amount of transactions (as it is now, a single gambling site [satoshi dice] has clogged the blockchain to an almost unusable amount), we need a user friendly way to get money into and out of the system, a better exchanges that are trustworthy and can handle increased volume, a non poisonous community that doesnt allow scammers and ponzis to flourish (the lending board was an abomination last time I checked), increased and ubiquitous vendor support, ....and thats just the tip of the iceburg.


What we dont need (assuming we want BTC to succeed as an experiment) is for BTC to be just a speculative tool for internet nerds, that gets pumped and dumped repeatedly until everyone loses interest.

Their is a high probability this will all happen. We have come very far in 3 short years and the signs point to these barriers being passed in time. Speculation provides liquidity that allows the bitcoin market to actually grow and take on additional, larger-scale roles.

- new and better exchanges/services are being built at an incredible rate
- the devs continue to make excellent progress at improving the core software
- the general public's understanding of bitcoin, how it works, and the type of questions/ideas that spurred its creation continues to improve

Lastly, I strongly believe that even if some aspect of bitcoin ultimately causes total failure, there will be a successor. The more people who are exposed to the idea that it is possible to create an entirely new and superior system, the better. If speculation contributes to that, I don't think its so bad. As long as we continue to caution people (which has happened to a pretty good extent).

Speculation has become a bit of a loaded term and people tend to think of speculation as being equivalent to manipulation, but I don't see it that way. Every new service and merchant who chooses to accept Bitcoin is also speculating, they are speculating that Bitcoin is a viable technology and that it will open their business to a new and growing market. That certainly does not make them manipulators. I think we can all agree that it would be nice if the pump-and-dumpers, schemers, get-rich-quick types and legitimate manipulators could be removed, but that is obviously not possible in a truly free and open market. If Bitcoin is really a viable idea, it will have to be robust enough to survive the growing pains of a nascent emerging market, and if it is not, then it was probably destined to fail anyway. Just my opinion.

[humanitee]

Welcome to the Cult of Bitcoin, your black tracksuit and kool-aid awaits...

Awesome.

 

My beliefs do not have to be validated by you.

Who is trying to validate your beliefs? This doesn't even have anything to do with BTC....You said that you would put money into a depreciating asset as a store of value.  That makes no sense. Period.

How exactly are you storing value in a asset that is losing value?

I see why you have the sweet ignore.
 

Yeah, the cult doesnt tolerate dissent....or you know, facts.

I said I would buy when I thought it was valued correctly. If I think it's overvalued, I won't buy. It makes sense. Go look when I told people not to buy in the $200's because I thought it was going down. I wouldn't have bought that high. Last amount I bought was at $120.

[warpio]

So how do we get from here to there? I think the only real answer may be, unfortunately, speculation.

No, we need less speculation, way less volatility, we need to make the blockchain scaleable to be able to handle an exponentially higher amount of transactions (as it is now, a single gambling site [satoshi dice] has clogged the blockchain to an almost unusable amount), we need a user friendly way to get money into and out of the system, a better exchanges that are trustworthy and can handle increased volume, a non poisonous community that doesnt allow scammers and ponzis to flourish (the lending board was an abomination last time I checked), increased and ubiquitous vendor support, ....and thats just the tip of the iceburg.


What we dont need (assuming we want BTC to succeed as an experiment) is for BTC to be just a speculative tool for internet nerds, that gets pumped and dumped repeatedly until everyone loses interest.

You are missing the point. Yes, bitcoin needs to build its economy more to become a viable currency. But the ONLY way that can happen is if bitcoins are worth a lot more than they are right now. Currently, bitcoins are in a very niche market, and companies aren't going to want to support it if not many people are using it. Bitcoin needs users before it needs merchants. The volatile, speculative aspect of bitcoin is a side-effect that can't be avoided if bitcoin is to grow past its niche stage.

So yes, speculation DOES need to happen alongside mass-adoption. I don't see any other possible way for bitcoin to become successful, unless you outright ban speculation and close down all exchanges that engage in it.