Is hoarding bitcoins good or bad for it's growth?

[Tron Foundation]

Interesting thread and question - nice to see so much interaction on such an interesting topic

[niisarearning]

Even am not sure hodling for long time or Selling for good price like around 4000$ i am really confused so am selling half of my holding and keeping half for long term so that i will not regret if anything happens it raise too much or if it gone to deep . Always i am having something to get relax in both cases.

[KnightElite]

All the reason stated on your list are all true.  If people will hold, keep holding their bitcoins, its price would go up because its supply is less.  People who continue to know bitcoins and got interested will become many thus, the demand would be really high.  High demand less supply equals high price.  But as you also stated its main purpose was altered because everyone holds bitcoin.

Yeah it is good because there are many benefits that the holding bitcoin has. I believe that if we hold our bitcoins, for sure the value of the bitcoin will increase. The demand of the people to the bitcoin nowadays is very high.

[jtipt]

Isn't it obvious that hoarding BTC, will in turn increase its price. As people hold btc the available btc become less and and as demand increases if the available btc is less, the price will increase. But even the long time holders are not gonna hold btc till their death, sooner or later everyone sells it.

[Oo ako to]

I don't believe that most people will hoard their bitcoins for a long time. Most of the type of people who holds bitcoins are traders so basically they are just doing buy and sell to gain more profit on it. The only growth I see on bitcoin are all for its own good..

[xuan87]

I think it will bad for Bitcoin growth, the price of Bitcoin is depend on the transaction volume and if all people not spending their coin the cash flow will become stagnant and Bitcoin can't grow any further, it need a balance supply and demand to make a strong coin

[bitcoinmaniac52]

These days it is very hard to hoard Bitcoins. Truly, you would need millions in order to do so. However, it is good for Bitcoin because maybe there will only be 15,000,000 coins because many coins will be lost over time (there are supposed to be 21,000,000) but if you keep them the demand will rise and therefore the price will rise too.

[craZyLovE0916]

When you hoard Bitcoins it isn't cool because Bitcoins are meant to be spent also not only for investing but also spending, just like physical gold many years ago before fiat.

[sindikat]

The fact that people are hoarding bitcoins is good for the growth rates, but bad for the bitcoin. The main purpose of bitcoin is to become an alternative to Fiat money. Without circulation of currency this will not happen. I think you need to use the experience of the dollar. Why reinvent the wheel?

[Wingo]

It is good if you consider hoarding for growing the price of your money. It increases the demand for bitcoin and as a result, a continual increase in its price (law of demand and supply).  Bitcoin is unstoppable, it may be volatile but looking at the big picture, the price of bitcoin is continuously increasing.

[South Park]

Now there are many hodlers among us Is the practice of holding bitcoins good or bad for it's growth?

I had recently come across a statement that bitcoin is a settlement system rather than store of value/digital gold and holding bitcoins is somewhat making it accessible to rich people only.

Arguments in favor of hoarding bitcoins:

1. Since bitcoins are limited in numbers, holding would obviously increase the demand and thus the price.

2. Bitcoin as a commodity/hoarding, as a currency/spending. So once the price increases, what we earlier bought for 1 BTC can buy it now for 0.5.

3. Merchants would prefer BTC over USD. (In the hopes that prices would increase)

4. Bitcoin is divisible. Everyone cannot own 5 or 10 BTC, but still holding on to a few satoshis would be profitable in the long-term.

Now there are some arguments against holding:

1. Deflation.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deflationary_spiral

The ‘deflationary spiral’ is a real condition that affects the popular fractional reserve backing system. Bitcoin is not affected by this because it is fundamentally different from popular currency.

2. If the elites gets hold of majority of bitcoins, the demand and price would be high, but since the common man would not be able to afford it, demand decreases, elites dump, price crashes, common man buys some, market stabilizes a bit, and elites buys back more. It kind of becomes a centralized holding affair.

3. Rather than hoarding, an environment where bitcoins are more used as a mode of payment for buying goods or services is more beneficial for it's growth.

So what do you think, is hoarding bitcoins good or bad for it's growth?

Edited the poll.

Neither, a currency can be used immediately or it can be stored for later use that is the way currencies of the world work, if this was not the case then durability will not be one of the characteristics of money but it is and that is why gold and bitcoin are very good forms of money.

[panju1]

These days it is very hard to hoard Bitcoins. Truly, you would need millions in order to do so. However, it is good for Bitcoin because maybe there will only be 15,000,000 coins because many coins will be lost over time (there are supposed to be 21,000,000) but if you keep them the demand will rise and therefore the price will rise too.

You don't need millions to hoard bitcoins. You can hoard the few bitcoins that you have. Even the people scraping satoshis off faucets contribute to hoarding. In the end, it reduces the available supply and price increases.

[hatshepsut93]

Very often spending Bitcoin is the same as selling it, because businesses that accept it are selling it quickly to avoid losses from volatility. This is bad for the price in short term. But the fact that Bitcoin is used as money makes it somewhat better than just going to exchange and dumping your coins. But in the long term, speculative value of Bitcoin should play smaller role in its price forming, and factors like its usability, features, security will be determining its price.

[BitFinnese]

I believe hoarding is good for those who wish bitcoin price to increase since there will be limited supply of bitcoin.  Hoarding does not affect BTC badly since there is still a fresh supply from the mining pool every 10 minutes.  Aside from that, those who are hoarding a huge chunk of Bitcoin are knowledgeable on how they unload their BTC without affecting the market price.  Who whould want their holding to plummet in price, of course no one.  So they will unload or sell their BTC slowly.

[drm]

A tiny percentage of the world population really "uses" btc.
I'd say hoarding is good for price, yet it probably means the opposite for adoption.

[xFiber]

I don't think it's bad because if a lot is saved then bitcoin is harder to aquire and therfore a lot more valuable. This would only increase the price and if that is what you want it can be considered as good.

[South Park]

In the end all hoarders HAVE to "unhoard", i.e. offer. You can't live on bitcoins. On the off chance that you put every one of your belonging, reserve funds and income in BTC, each day of the year, you would even now need to exchange some of those BTC for sustenance and asylum - else you'd be dead.

So even the most insatiable hoarders should trade BTC for physical wares and services. The economy won't experience the ill effects of an "hoarding to death" situation - there will dependably be exchange!

We cannot live on bitcoins yet, it will come the day when we can and a hoarder will only need to spend as much bitcoin as it is needed for their survival and if things keep going in the same direction every year they are going to spend less and less since the price of bitcoin will keep going up.

[Victorycoin]

Hoarding from my point of view is the worst thing to happen to bitcoin and I am sure its not the intention of the founder because it would mean just restricting it to function as a "store of value" which will not increase the amount of users needed for it to achieve full potential of becoming a global currency.

On the contrary, hoarding does not actually portend bad for Bitcoin as it
favors it's value and stability. The value of Bitcoin and just about any cryptocurrency out there is all about people's perception of it. People don't get to hoard nothing except it is very essential or valuable. Suffice it to say that hoarding simply speaks volume of how valuable Bitcoin is. Take it away from Bitcoin, the dream of ever getting to the moon someday, would remain a forlone hope.

Hoarding will mean if I want to come into fresh in bitcoin because of what I have heard, I then cannot do that because I can't get to buy when no one is willing to sell.

You're rather adrift here, because at no point would there be a consensus to not sell Bitcoin. You would rather  have few seller and as long as you're okay with whatever the current rate is, you would always be able to buy as much as you can afford.

[pooya87]

the thing to remember is that we want bitcoin to be more of a currency than something that people "only" invest in. but at the same time there is absolutely nothing wrong with investing in bitcoin and "hoarding" it.
i say if people are willing to spend bitcoin that is more than enough even if they don't spend it. it will help the adoption, and if adoption grows the price rises too. otherwise the real boom to 100K$,... won't happen by just hoarding in my opinion.

[Irdina]

,Your reason makes sense and there is no harm in stocking bitcoin from today,.  as more and more people buy bitcoin supplies will decrease and it keeps the bitcoin price up, and can assume it's future savings.