What major factors affect bitcoin price?

[xrates]

I am a total newbie to this forum and don't know very much about crypto currencies.

What are major factors affecting bitcoin (or any other crypto currency) price? Is this mostly supply and demand, do other factors (difficulty of mining, hash rate, etc) play significant role in bitcoins price?

[swogerino]

Supply and demand is one factor, but here the bitcoin is not like other currencies, it is not regulated so the supply and demand doesn't impact it that much. Major trading is one of the major factors that determines the bitcoin price. There are other factors too, technological advancement which can only be accessible with bitcoin give bitcoin a huge boost. By technological I mean that you can save your money in your PC and this is a big advancement in technology. This only is reason enough for the price of bitcoin to be up or at least a bit more than gold.

[Dudeperfect]

First of all welcome on board, trust me you will learn a lot here. Spend some time in reading the topics, posts and do use that search box from the upper right corner.

Now coming back to your topic, Mining/difficulty etc factors affect the supply and it has nothing to do with the demand directly. The main reason of price fluctuation is the relation and volume of demand and supply. It is directly related to each other so when demand rises the price rises and vice versa. Any news or incident can affect the demand and indirectly the price of Bitcoin (eg - recent fork). Now Bitcoin has grown so big that the movement of traders don't affect the price of it because there are normal users and long term holders which keep the demand intact even if traders are highly selling it.

[craZyLovE0916]

Supply and demand is one factor, but here the bitcoin is not like other currencies, it is not regulated so the supply and demand doesn't impact it that much. Major trading is one of the major factors that determines the bitcoin price. There are other factors too, technological advancement which can only be accessible with bitcoin give bitcoin a huge boost. By technological I mean that you can save your money in your PC and this is a big advancement in technology. This only is reason enough for the price of bitcoin to be up or at least a bit more than gold.

You forgot about the fact that mining difficulty increases over time and this results in the need to get bigger mining rigs and hardware and makes it harder to acquire Bitcoin in general which leads to the price increases like we are seeing today.

[xrates]

You forgot about the fact that mining difficulty increases over time and this results in the need to get bigger mining rigs and hardware and makes it harder to acquire Bitcoin in general which leads to the price increases like we are seeing today.

i don't think that increase in cost mining bitcoins is proportionate to increase of bitcoins price.

what really amazes me is the recent volatility of bitcoin, the price is changing plus/minus hundred of dollars within single day.

I think bitcoin market is not that huge (yet), can there be some "shadow market makers" manipulating the price and making huge profits from this crazy volatility?

[darkangel11]

To understand how the price changes you have to understand how exchanges work. Only a small fraction of all coins in circulation are deposited on exchanges, and an even smaller fraction is being traded regularly, so most of those price movements are due to a small percentage of coins being traded. That is why the price can change only by a small percentage in a given time and it moves in waves.
When something happens in the world, like a country accepts BTC or there's a fork, like the one with BCC, traders react first and you get first wave. If that wave is big enough or the news significant and proven, investors will start moving money to exchanges to buy or coins to sell and start another wave. What affect the price the most is news.

[Ajinomoto40]

I am a total newbie to this forum and don't know very much about crypto currencies.

What are major factors affecting bitcoin (or any other crypto currency) price? Is this mostly supply and demand, do other factors (difficulty of mining, hash rate, etc) play significant role in bitcoins price?

It is the demand that affects the price of any cryptocurrency. Same as in Bitcoin wherein its market value depends on the market's demand. Bitcoin at this moment is expensive, which means it is now, in demand. And anything that is in demand will have a high value. It's a matter of supply and demand relation. The size of community will also count. Bitcoin is still the best cryptocurrency because it has a bigger and larger community compared to other cryptos, which also made its price, high.

[Lpim01]

The major factor that make bitcoin fluctuation price is because of high demand in the market but limited supply. Mining can affect the supply of bitcoin because it depend on them how many bitcoin are they mine in a day  in order to supply a huge number of users and investors.
Today's bitcion price attract more investor because their is a big chance for them to a big profit in return. And if still there is a lack of supply probably it will continue going up.

[Black tea]

Bitcoin prices are determined in absolute terms by supply and demand. If someone buys or sells Bitcoin in a big price, then the price will move in the extreme. Bitcoin price volatility will be dampened if more and more Bitcoin users are scattered and the number of Bitcoins scattered is also higher.

[Bagaji]

Currently there are positive news about bitcoin all over world which create more demand for it, and since the demand has become so high the holders becomes skeptical about whether to sell   or not and if we are to sell it should be on the higher side. That is to say, the demand for Bitcoin is higher than the supply of Bitcoin and that makes it price to go up.

[bentong talong]

I am a total newbie to this forum and don't know very much about crypto currencies.

What are major factors affecting bitcoin (or any other crypto currency) price? Is this mostly supply and demand, do other factors (difficulty of mining, hash rate, etc) play significant role in bitcoins price?

The factors that affects Bitcoin's price, in my opinion, is the market's demand and the size of community Bitcoin has. All cryptocurrency depends on the demand in terms of their market value, and Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency ,so it also does. The size of its community will trigger the demand. The reason why Bitcoin remained the no. 1cryptocurrency is because of its big community that also made its demand high.

[dongosquad]

In my opinion, the factors that most affect the bitcoin price are demand and supply, just like the other friends' opinions. Limited supply of Bitcoin, and the decreasing amount of Bitcoin produced every 10 minutes making bitcoin prices higher. Besides that the number of bitcoin enthusiasts is increasing

[daringdiscovered]

I am a total newbie to this forum and don't know very much about crypto currencies.

What are major factors affecting bitcoin (or any other crypto currency) price? Is this mostly supply and demand, do other factors (difficulty of mining, hash rate, etc) play significant role in bitcoins price?

It is all about what you have said, the supply, demand, difficulty in mining, transaction fee and the other issue in bitcoin, but whatever it is, it could affect the peice of bitcoin in a good way or in a bad way, for example is this SegWit activation, since this has been trashed by the people who supported bitcoin.

This SegWit warning caused a huge dumped, that is why there was so many people who sold their bitcoin in a low price, worrying that they could lost their profit if they are not going to sell it, it was like a big whale, then caused a huge pump price after this, and I know many people regretted their action when they sold their bitcoin on a low price.

[shimbark123]

Well the main factor is the supply and demand of it. When the demand increases the price increases also. So it is directly proportional. And for the supply, it is also involved for the growth of bitcoin. If the market cap is so high so as the price of it will also go high.

[Nissan-GTR]

I am a total newbie to this forum and don't know very much about crypto currencies.

What are major factors affecting bitcoin (or any other crypto currency) price? Is this mostly supply and demand, do other factors (difficulty of mining, hash rate, etc) play significant role in bitcoins price?

For me I think the supply and demand , just like in economics class, if the demand is high the supply was shortened and producers raise its value so that they can get more profit than how it should.

[LindaQ]

Supply and demand is one factor, but here the bitcoin is not like other currencies, it is not regulated so the supply and demand doesn't impact it that much. Major trading is one of the major factors that determines the bitcoin price. There are other factors too, technological advancement which can only be accessible with bitcoin give bitcoin a huge boost. By technological I mean that you can save your money in your PC and this is a big advancement in technology. This only is reason enough for the price of bitcoin to be up or at least a bit more than gold.

You forgot about the fact that mining difficulty increases over time and this results in the need to get bigger mining rigs and hardware and makes it harder to acquire Bitcoin in general which leads to the price increases like we are seeing today.

Is the fact that between mining difficulty and transaction fees have a relation? We've seen the bitcoin take a new ATH this week, but then, users are talking about the transaction fee also increase that must they pay for every transaction. Do you think there a relation between both things? more higher the bitcoin price, the lower the transaction fee, why doesn't like this.

[zarados]

To understand how the price changes you have to understand how exchanges work. Only a small fraction of all coins in circulation are deposited on exchanges, and an even smaller fraction is being traded regularly, so most of those price movements are due to a small percentage of coins being traded. That is why the price can change only by a small percentage in a given time and it moves in waves.
When something happens in the world, like a country accepts BTC or there's a fork, like the one with BCC, traders react first and you get first wave. If that wave is big enough or the news significant and proven, investors will start moving money to exchanges to buy or coins to sell and start another wave. What affect the price the most is news.

Absolutely, In my opinion,the news was made intentionally and unintentionally, but it could affect the price. Like we've see right now, the good news about bitcoin are more often to show than a bad news, So it makes a wave that affect the bitcoin price to climb up. if both are showing together and have it balanced, that will affect the bitcoin price stay still or stable.

[leirou]

One of the major factor in bitcoin price is it is a limited coin so does the smaller the stock left the higher the price will be. And also it is the faith and hope of the people that bitcoin is a better currency than fiat.

[Beerwizzard]

Usually the significant influance cause different major events like SegWit. But on short periods you can also see how market reacts on different exchange hacks, spam attacks and any other technical issues of any large service.

[pooya87]

I am a total newbie to this forum and don't know very much about crypto currencies.

What are major factors affecting bitcoin (or any other crypto currency) price? Is this mostly supply and demand, do other factors (difficulty of mining, hash rate, etc) play significant role in bitcoins price?

you are asking a very general question and it is different for altcoins.
for bitcoin it is currently based on supply and demand. the supply is not changing so it is the growing demand that changes the long term price.

for other altcoins depending on the size of their market and many other factors like if they have a pre mine or ICO,... they act differently. for example a small market there can easily be manipulated so it no longer is "supply and demand" it is what the manipulator says it is.
things like mining can affect it too. for example when a coin is profitable for mining, many will start doing it and while mining they will also advertise the coin and increase its popularity because their investment is at risk!!!
but also when mining reward is ridiculous and big it can cause a big sell pressure not letting price go up.