A Noobs thoughts on BTC

[deisik]

As difficulty increases the price naturally will go up and the only reason why we're not in $1500 range price is because the uncertainty caused by BU and the possibility of a hard fork

I'm curious what makes you think so

That is, why should the price necessarily go up (and naturally at that) with difficulty increasing? After all, the price of Bitcoin is still determined by the law of supply and demand, but supply remains the same since the last halving and till the next. The same 12.5 bitcoins are mined every 10 minutes, so the supply side of the price balance simply cannot be affected by the mining difficulty. And still less it can impact demand. In most cases people who buy bitcoins don't care about the difficulty when they purchase coins

If you want ETH and LTC then go start mining them while it's much easier than bitcoin mining.

I don't think that ETH and LTC mining is available to ordinary people with just videocards in any profitable manner

[iamTom123]

There are many things that we can get excited about with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. However, there are also many ways we can get skeptical. Maybe because Bitcoin can not solve all of our financial problems on the global scale. It is not the messiah we have been waiting for to save the world. It is just another innovative man-made tool that can in a way revolutionize the way we look at money in conjunction with the digital age that we are already in. But it is not the kind of thing that can bring us to utopia. In fact, the current debate on how to fork Bitcoin is exposing the reality that we are still humans after all and that we are bringing many weaknesses into the table of cryptocurrency.

[CuriousGeorge]

you just remind me of mtgox back at 2011, that time people are rapidly joining the bitcoin network and everyone know the reason they all want to join and grow their money with mtgox exchange. although I never thought about trading so I never tried it but was really surprised when it got crashed and closed. those where really some dooms day that just crashed the price from 900$ to 200$ maximum people lost their money and hence because a historical day. I believe no other scenario can replace the damage made by mtgox

It is a lesson to remind all of us, never believe in the same things. The risk is always there if we are not careful.

i remember that day, when i still dont give a shit with bitcoin existence, that's basically chaos for the community, never keep all your bitcoin in an exchange for a long time or you will be risking it

[beerlover]

Bitcoin will never have a stable price, because bitcoin is not regulated, and you need regulation to keep a stable price, this is basic to understand

Could you explain how regulation will make Bitcoin more stable?

After all, price is still determined by the balance of supply against demand, and as I suspect, Bitcoin is no exception to this rule. So if you basically claim that Bitcoin regulation will somehow make Bitcoin prices more stable, that necessarily means that regulation should affect supply and demand. To make prices stable both sides of this balance should increase multifold, and how exactly Bitcoin regulation is going to do that?

Indeed, a collectible can never be stable value money.  So "regulated" probably means that one can change the emission scheme (the 21 million coins) by a centralized "miner" authority, and that one can also destroy coins. 

But this could also be established in another way, if a central authority lay its hands on, say 99.999% of the bitcoin supply, and only issued very very small quantities of it, it could still, with a given, fixed supply, regulate emission and hence offer, so that it meets demand at a given price totally pointless

But what's the purpose of that?

Apart from that, I don't think that it is technically possible, you could control 99% of all coins issued but would you be able to control the price? Obviously, you won't be the only one selling as well as buying, so your efforts would be mostly in vain (even if there were some purpose in that). I guess it would be like dancing on the tip of a needle. You would have to not only control most coins but also places where coins can be traded as well as those who can buy and sell. In other words, that would be an exercise in futility totally pointless

Of course you can control the price if you have most of the coins, if you want the price to go up you have to hold, if you want it to go down you just have to sell, I mean that is basically what is happening, every time big whales sell the price goes down, and that is why all people are racing to get as much as they can so that one day they can control its price.

[carlfebz2]

Bitcoin will never have a stable price, because bitcoin is not regulated, and you need regulation to keep a stable price, this is basic to understand

Could you explain how regulation will make Bitcoin more stable?

After all, price is still determined by the balance of supply against demand, and as I suspect, Bitcoin is no exception to this rule. So if you basically claim that Bitcoin regulation will somehow make Bitcoin prices more stable, that necessarily means that regulation should affect supply and demand. To make prices stable both sides of this balance should increase multifold, and how exactly Bitcoin regulation is going to do that?

Indeed, a collectible can never be stable value money.  So "regulated" probably means that one can change the emission scheme (the 21 million coins) by a centralized "miner" authority, and that one can also destroy coins. 

But this could also be established in another way, if a central authority lay its hands on, say 99.999% of the bitcoin supply, and only issued very very small quantities of it, it could still, with a given, fixed supply, regulate emission and hence offer, so that it meets demand at a given price totally pointless

But what's the purpose of that?

Apart from that, I don't think that it is technically possible, you could control 99% of all coins issued but would you be able to control the price? Obviously, you won't be the only one selling as well as buying, so your efforts would be mostly in vain (even if there were some purpose in that). I guess it would be like dancing on the tip of a needle. You would have to not only control most coins but also places where coins can be traded as well as those who can buy and sell. In other words, that would be an exercise in futility totally pointless

Of course you can control the price if you have most of the coins, if you want the price to go up you have to hold, if you want it to go down you just have to sell, I mean that is basically what is happening, every time big whales sell the price goes down, and that is why all people are racing to get as much as they can so that one day they can control its price.

Yes it does really give you the power to manipulate prices when you do hold most of coins then you can easily decide on when you would sell or buy  but thinking off on making us ourselves us a whales do really need huge capital or money to spend or invest such coin. We cant go back on those time which we can accumulate as much as we can specially talking to bitcoin.Its impossible for us on manipulating it even thousands of bitcoin doesn't really affect too much.

[bitart]

you just remind me of mtgox back at 2011, that time people are rapidly joining the bitcoin network and everyone know the reason they all want to join and grow their money with mtgox exchange. although I never thought about trading so I never tried it but was really surprised when it got crashed and closed. those where really some dooms day that just crashed the price from 900$ to 200$ maximum people lost their money and hence because a historical day. I believe no other scenario can replace the damage made by mtgox

It is a lesson to remind all of us, never believe in the same things. The risk is always there if we are not careful.

i remember that day, when i still dont give a shit with bitcoin existence, that's basically chaos for the community, never keep all your bitcoin in an exchange for a long time or you will be risking it

If you have a lot of bitcoin (I don't), and you trade with them (and alts), it's not possible (or very difficult) not to keep your coins on exchanges for a long time. If you trade with bigger amounts, you have to hold them on exchanges, because you get your income from the profit on trades. If you store your coins in a hw wallet, you won't have profit (but you don't risk them). Trading is about risk. It's a risk too, that the exchange crashes and you lose your money. If you can handle this risk or can diverse your portfolio between exchanges, you can be on the safe side, but ignoring the risks always cause loss. Just put as much coins on exchanges, that you can manage to lose without problem (similar to gambling), and that's all.

[deisik]

Bitcoin will never have a stable price, because bitcoin is not regulated, and you need regulation to keep a stable price, this is basic to understand

Could you explain how regulation will make Bitcoin more stable?

After all, price is still determined by the balance of supply against demand, and as I suspect, Bitcoin is no exception to this rule. So if you basically claim that Bitcoin regulation will somehow make Bitcoin prices more stable, that necessarily means that regulation should affect supply and demand. To make prices stable both sides of this balance should increase multifold, and how exactly Bitcoin regulation is going to do that?

Indeed, a collectible can never be stable value money.  So "regulated" probably means that one can change the emission scheme (the 21 million coins) by a centralized "miner" authority, and that one can also destroy coins. 

But this could also be established in another way, if a central authority lay its hands on, say 99.999% of the bitcoin supply, and only issued very very small quantities of it, it could still, with a given, fixed supply, regulate emission and hence offer, so that it meets demand at a given price totally pointless

But what's the purpose of that?

Apart from that, I don't think that it is technically possible, you could control 99% of all coins issued but would you be able to control the price? Obviously, you won't be the only one selling as well as buying, so your efforts would be mostly in vain (even if there were some purpose in that). I guess it would be like dancing on the tip of a needle. You would have to not only control most coins but also places where coins can be traded as well as those who can buy and sell. In other words, that would be an exercise in futility totally pointless

Of course you can control the price if you have most of the coins, if you want the price to go up you have to hold, if you want it to go down you just have to sell, I mean that is basically what is happening, every time big whales sell the price goes down, and that is why all people are racing to get as much as they can so that one day they can control its price

No one has most of the coins

It is known that Satoshi has about 1M bitcoins in his early wallets but it is not even known whether he is still alive and if these coins will ever get moved. Apart from that, I think there are not many people who continue to keep thousands of bitcoins. Maybe, these are the Winklewii bros and a few other guys like Vermin and Jihad, but they are only threatening to dump their stashes. But we all know that a barking dog never bites

[dinofelis]

Apart from that, I think there are not many people who continue to keep thousands of bitcoins. Maybe, these are the Winklewii bros and a few other guys like Vermin and Jihad, but they are only threatening to dump their stashes. But we all know that a barking dog never bites

Well, there's apparently M-PEX or what is his name, too which is not very far from a million coins either.   So we are already at about 30% - 40% of the coins in the hands of just a few people.  When people shout about the DASH scam, in fact, bitcoin is not better distributed.

[deisik]

Apart from that, I think there are not many people who continue to keep thousands of bitcoins. Maybe, these are the Winklewii bros and a few other guys like Vermin and Jihad, but they are only threatening to dump their stashes. But we all know that a barking dog never bites

Well, there's apparently M-PEX or what is his name, too which is not very far from a million coins either.   So we are already at about 30% - 40% of the coins in the hands of just a few people.  When people shout about the DASH scam, in fact, bitcoin is not better distributed

That's what I'm talking about

We have a few "superrich" in Bitcoin terms (gigantic cryptowhales) and the rest of the pack are just small fish with a few bitcoins at max. But this is good for trading since they can easily bring the price down if they decide to liquidate their stash (or some part thereof), and that would quickly lead to more balanced distribution. Though I don't think that they will be selling their coins in the open market (unless they sell really small amount to provide for their daily expenses) but selling off market will be just moving coins from one pocket to another and won't affect the prices

[cafucafucafu]

There are many things that we can get excited about with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. However, there are also many ways we can get skeptical. Maybe because Bitcoin can not solve all of our financial problems on the global scale. It is not the messiah we have been waiting for to save the world. It is just another innovative man-made tool that can in a way revolutionize the way we look at money in conjunction with the digital age that we are already in. But it is not the kind of thing that can bring us to utopia. In fact, the current debate on how to fork Bitcoin is exposing the reality that we are still humans after all and that we are bringing many weaknesses into the table of cryptocurrency.

Thats true, many people are way too much encouraged by all these endless threads about how bitcoin will "conquer the world" and "become national currency" etc.
But they simply forget that even when the price is really high (1300$ right now!) we are still having many issues, which has not been solved yet.
We have currently 42,5% support from miners to Bitcoin Unlimited and 33.8% for Segwit, but you need to remember that we need 95% to activate the SegWit.

And the problem about high mining fees and long confirmations is still present. We need to make up a conclusion to start thinking about something more.

[moviebuff777]

So i was skeptical back in 2013 when btc made their initial splash into the mainstream radar.

I recently became interested in cryptocurrencies because i was finally able to wrap my head the ideas behind blockchain and now firmly believe it is the future.

I went out and bought some BTC, ETH and LTC

Obviously Japan recognizing BtC as a form of currency is huge but i am wondering which of these cryptocurrencies will be around in 10-20 years time.

Most holders of these cryptos are in it for purely speculative reasons and in turn, creating large bubbles.

The only way thes bubbles will resolve is from 3 things that need to happen:

-wider usage . Btc needs to be able to be used to be able to purchase anything that traditional fiat is able to. This is obviously a no brainer. Btc needs to be spread out in the hands of more people

- price needs to stabilize - the fluctuation in price is insane and needs to stabilize, in order for this to happen btc needs further distribution. Hoarders (chinese farmers and early miners) are a negative, see below.

- fiat currency needs to disappear- this is obviously a radical thought but fiat cannot be an option. The reason is, guys like the mysterious satoshi nakamoto, chinese btc farmers, the vinklevoss twins etc or anyone holding a significant amount of btc can literally tank the btc ecosystem by trading out a large sum of btc to lets say us dollars.

This would create a huge price instability, loss of public trust and then we circle back to square one.

Just wanted to share my thoughts.

I am in as a skeptical long term buyer but did want to address some possible pitfalls to btc

I think bitcoin won't be spent much in the future because of the high value and high fees (by then). I think an altcoin will become more used for small purchases because it will be less scarce and cheaper.

[majeed]

I think bitcoin won't be spent much in the future because of the high value and high fees (by then). I think an altcoin will become more used for small purchases because it will be less scarce and cheaper.

In some points, you are right. However, as we are living in the third world countries ( I think so), we do not know how awful can the tax in developed countries are. The taxes are so high that may take all of your money away. That is why Bitcoin is used a lot in developed countries in order to avoid the tax

[hankyulpark]

Bubbles and volatility are inherent to all economic models in their early stages, especially when some disruptive concept is involved. That doesn't mean that the previous model needs to be extinct (like TV didn't kill the radio) to the new one be successful or to become the larger one.

[Ayers]

Anyone selling large amounts of bitcoin is literally doing the community a favor and helping a more fair distribution of it, if you want a stable market then go open a central bank in which you are able to control the market and have a stable price.
As difficulty increases the price naturally will go up and the only reason why we're not in $1500 range price is because the uncertainty caused by BU and the possibility of a hard fork.
Fiat doesn't need to go any where and we're good as long as people willing to pay fiat in exchange for bitcoin for now.
Bitcoin is not a replacement nor an alternative for fiat but just a new kind of currency which could be obtained in a decentralized manner.

If you want ETH and LTC then go start mining them while it's much easier than bitcoin mining.

man you are confusing the two thing, difficulty go up when the price increase, the difficulty always follow the price, if it was like you said the mining would be unprofitable, because there will be no guaranteed that the price will increase after the diff increase, recently the diff increased again because the value went up this prove the theory