$5000+ bitcoin?

[tinus42]

I believe in Santa, and $1M BTC.

     You are much more likely to see 1 million BTC than Santa... saint nicholas the turkish/anatolian priest died more than 1600 years ago.

He wasn't a Turk, he was a Byzantine Greek. The Turks hadn't even settled there when he died.

[semaforo]

I believe in Santa, and $1M BTC.

     You are much more likely to see 1 million BTC than Santa... saint nicholas the turkish/anatolian priest died more than 1600 years ago.

He wasn't a Turk, he was a Byzantine Greek. The Turks hadn't even settled there when he died.

   You are correct. I was conflating modern political geography with ethnic and linguistic identity to locate the regional center of the historical Santa's physical remains to make the point that seeing Santa and a bitcoin valued at $1 million are both distinct possibilities.

   If there was something wrong with conflating regional national sovereign boundaries with ethnic and linguistic identity, I'm sure the Turkish Kurds would have taken issue with it by now. Oh...

   And by the way, the Byzantine legacy is a big part of modern Turkey in every sphere of society. Modern Turks are by no means pure blooded descendents of their nomadic Turkish forebears from the Central Asian steppe. Therefore, someone whose genetic material is primarily derived from Byzantine ancestors who today lives in the sovereign territory of Turkey would also be called a Turk.

[BitChick]

I am a strong believer in at least a $5000 BTC, as long as BTC survives (and it has already overcome impressive hurdles as it is).  How long will it take to get there?  Well that is the question isn't it!?

What I have missed in this thread in the calculations is the theory that some of the early BTC has been lost, or will be lost, which in turn will cause the number of BTC divided among the population to be even less, which in turn makes the value go up even more. 

Is there any way to look up the number of BTC that has never been "used"?  I would wonder if there would be a way to find out if those had been potentially lost?  Even knowing the number that had never been used could be interesting for sure.

[painlord2k]

Is there any way to look up the number of BTC that has never been "used"?  I would wonder if there would be a way to find out if those had been potentially lost?  Even knowing the number that had never been used could be interesting for sure.

There are, at least, a couple of millions of BTC never touched.
Someone call them the Satoshi Retirement Stash.

We know, for sure of at least 20.000 BTC lost, some others stolen from some exchange by hackers, but apparently none of these are ever touched.
And they will probably remain untouched for a long time (I suppose until the crime law limitations kick in).

So, we could suppose at least 2 M BTC frozen or lost, probably something more.

I wrote:
"A lot, and they are really a lot, of BTC are stashed away and never touched by anyone.
This imply the real cap of bitcoin is a lot lower. Probably just 2-3 M of BTC are available on the market."

The rest, IMHO, is sleeping in long term addresses or lost.

[jubalix]

here have a graph

[painlord2k]

Good job jubalix.

Ideally, the lowest line bring us to 10K in April 2016, 100K in May 2017 and 1 M$ in July 2018.
The "median" line to 10K in June 2016 and 100K in July 2017 and 1 M in August 2017.

[600watt]

Good job jubalix.

Ideally, the lowest line bring us to 10K in April 2016, 100K in May 2017 and 1 M$ in July 2017.
The "median" line to 10K in June 2016 and 100K in July 2017 and 1 M in August 2017.

confirmed.

[BitChick]

Good job jubalix.

Ideally, the lowest line bring us to 10K in April 2016, 100K in May 2017 and 1 M$ in July 2018.
The "median" line to 10K in June 2016 and 100K in July 2017 and 1 M in August 2017.

I hope this is correct.   I am patient enough to wait until 2016, 2017 or 2018.  Maybe some others are not though?  I guess there are reasons why some need to sell earlier than that.

[painlord2k]

I hope this is correct.   I am patient enough to wait until 2016, 2017 or 2018.  Maybe some others are not though?  I guess there are reasons why some need to sell earlier than that.

Well, if he bough enough BTC he could sell/spend them a bit in 2015, a bit in 2016, a bit in 2017 and by 2018 he will have enough to need help to spend them.

[mp420]

I'm pretty much certain that the scalability issues can't be solved soon enough for the exponential trendlines to hold. My old back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested a max price of $400/BTC in the long term, unless the MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue is solved. Of course it can momentarily shoot to 10 times that.

[jubalix]

I'm pretty much certain that the scalability issues can't be solved soon enough for the exponential trendlines to hold. My old back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested a max price of $400/BTC in the long term, unless the MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue is solved. Of course it can momentarily shoot to 10 times that.

um what scale ability issues? Its just moving a decimal point for price. I think it will go the other way, price will go up which will drive solutions, because there is more money on offer. Also processing fees will drop as the price goes up because btc it worth more.

finally block size can be increased

[mp420]

I'm pretty much certain that the scalability issues can't be solved soon enough for the exponential trendlines to hold. My old back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested a max price of $400/BTC in the long term, unless the MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue is solved. Of course it can momentarily shoot to 10 times that.

um what scale ability issues? Its just moving a decimal point for price. I think it will go the other way, price will go up which will drive solutions, because there is more money on offer. Also processing fees will drop as the price goes up because btc it worth more.

finally block size can be increased

As of now, the maximum block size that's going to be relayed by Bitcoin nodes is 1MB, which corresponds to about 7 transactions per second. If there's demand for more than that, fees will start to limit who gets to use the blockchain.

If Bitcoin's popularity grows tenfold, we'll actually hit the limit and see its consequences. If bitcoin is deemed useful despite this restriction, expect to see a minimum fee for ANY TRANSACTION of several dollars.

Currently there is no consensus among developers on whether this restriction will EVER be lifted.

[Spaceman_Spiff]

I'm pretty much certain that the scalability issues can't be solved soon enough for the exponential trendlines to hold. My old back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested a max price of $400/BTC in the long term, unless the MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue is solved. Of course it can momentarily shoot to 10 times that.

um what scale ability issues? Its just moving a decimal point for price. I think it will go the other way, price will go up which will drive solutions, because there is more money on offer. Also processing fees will drop as the price goes up because btc it worth more.

finally block size can be increased

As of now, the maximum block size that's going to be relayed by Bitcoin nodes is 1MB, which corresponds to about 7 transactions per second. If there's demand for more than that, fees will start to limit who gets to use the blockchain.

If Bitcoin's popularity grows tenfold, we'll actually hit the limit and see its consequences. If bitcoin is deemed useful despite this restriction, expect to see a minimum fee for ANY TRANSACTION of several dollars.

Currently there is no consensus among developers on whether this restriction will EVER be lifted.

I agree scalability is an issue, but its mainly an issue for bitcoin as a medium of exchange, if people mainly want to use bitcoin as a store of value, you don't need that many transactions.  Regardless, resolving scalability problems would obviously have a positive impact on price.

[semaforo]

I'm pretty much certain that the scalability issues can't be solved soon enough for the exponential trendlines to hold. My old back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested a max price of $400/BTC in the long term, unless the MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue is solved. Of course it can momentarily shoot to 10 times that.

um what scale ability issues? Its just moving a decimal point for price. I think it will go the other way, price will go up which will drive solutions, because there is more money on offer. Also processing fees will drop as the price goes up because btc it worth more.

finally block size can be increased

As of now, the maximum block size that's going to be relayed by Bitcoin nodes is 1MB, which corresponds to about 7 transactions per second. If there's demand for more than that, fees will start to limit who gets to use the blockchain.

If Bitcoin's popularity grows tenfold, we'll actually hit the limit and see its consequences. If bitcoin is deemed useful despite this restriction, expect to see a minimum fee for ANY TRANSACTION of several dollars.

Currently there is no consensus among developers on whether this restriction will EVER be lifted.

Can you explain why a minimum transaction fee of the equivalent of several dollars would be necessary given a tenfold increase in transaction volume and why there would be no possible alternative? Please be as technical as possible.

[mp420]

I'm pretty much certain that the scalability issues can't be solved soon enough for the exponential trendlines to hold. My old back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested a max price of $400/BTC in the long term, unless the MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue is solved. Of course it can momentarily shoot to 10 times that.

um what scale ability issues? Its just moving a decimal point for price. I think it will go the other way, price will go up which will drive solutions, because there is more money on offer. Also processing fees will drop as the price goes up because btc it worth more.

finally block size can be increased

As of now, the maximum block size that's going to be relayed by Bitcoin nodes is 1MB, which corresponds to about 7 transactions per second. If there's demand for more than that, fees will start to limit who gets to use the blockchain.

If Bitcoin's popularity grows tenfold, we'll actually hit the limit and see its consequences. If bitcoin is deemed useful despite this restriction, expect to see a minimum fee for ANY TRANSACTION of several dollars.

Currently there is no consensus among developers on whether this restriction will EVER be lifted.

I agree scalability is an issue, but its mainly an issue for bitcoin as a medium of exchange, if people mainly want to use bitcoin as a store of value, you don't need that many transactions.  Regardless, resolving scalability problems would obviously have a positive impact on price.

A hundred million people using Bitcoin as a savings plan and making each one monthly transaction would mean a transaction rate of 38 tps. With the 1M limit we can sustain only some 18 million such savers.

[mp420]

I'm pretty much certain that the scalability issues can't be solved soon enough for the exponential trendlines to hold. My old back-of-the-envelope calculation suggested a max price of $400/BTC in the long term, unless the MAX_BLOCK_SIZE issue is solved. Of course it can momentarily shoot to 10 times that.

um what scale ability issues? Its just moving a decimal point for price. I think it will go the other way, price will go up which will drive solutions, because there is more money on offer. Also processing fees will drop as the price goes up because btc it worth more.

finally block size can be increased

As of now, the maximum block size that's going to be relayed by Bitcoin nodes is 1MB, which corresponds to about 7 transactions per second. If there's demand for more than that, fees will start to limit who gets to use the blockchain.

If Bitcoin's popularity grows tenfold, we'll actually hit the limit and see its consequences. If bitcoin is deemed useful despite this restriction, expect to see a minimum fee for ANY TRANSACTION of several dollars.

Currently there is no consensus among developers on whether this restriction will EVER be lifted.

Can you explain why a minimum transaction fee of the equivalent of several dollars would be necessary given a tenfold increase in transaction volume and why there would be no possible alternative? Please be as technical as possible.

Actually it won't be necessary because I believe if the limit is not raised bitcoin won't be considered useful and most people will get out of bitcoin, thus lifting the pressure to raise the limit.

The 1MB limit is a part of the protocol, as it now is. Changing the limit constitutes a hard fork, and it does seem that several very influential people in the Bitcoin community are set against any alteration of the limit.

I don't want to get to the technicalities here, just search the forum for MAX_BLOCK_SIZE and you get an endless argument over this. Changing the limit (my current opinion is that the best alternative is to make it a function of both recent average block size and difficulty) is necessary to allow bitcoin to grow. Many people seem to want to centralize bitcoin into the hands of a few big enough organizations that could act as banks and could actually use the blockchain and let the general public just trust those bitcoin banks. Just because they want everyone to be able to run a full node with a ten year old laptop and substandard internet connection.

[flipperfish]

The 1MB limit is a part of the protocol, as it now is. Changing the limit constitutes a hard fork, and it does seem that several very influential people in the Bitcoin community are set against any alteration of the limit.

The "very influential people" don't decide alone. Every user of a bitcoin-client decides which blocks are relayed. Every miner decides on which blocks expansion of the blockchain will take place.

Just because they want everyone to be able to run a full node with a ten year old laptop and substandard internet connection.

Which will still be possible with approaches like this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204283.0

[solex]

Currently there is no consensus among developers on whether this restriction will EVER be lifted.

Incorrect. Progress is being made on it:

The block size will be raised, that is the overwhelming consensus among the people who are actually writing code and using Bitcoin for products and services that it needs to happen.

And there is a tiny minority of people who will loudly proclaim that isn't true and that the core developer are going to destroy Bitcoin if the block size is raised.

If you want to be helpful, please organize a list of objections to raising the block size limit and responses to those objections.

I believe the last objection raised was that a higher block size limit would make it impossible to mine anonymously, but I think that has been debunked with the notion of "read the firehose of transactions non-anonymously, then broadcast just new block header + coinbase + listof(truncated transaction hashes) anonymously."

I'll soon be writing up a plan for how we can safely raise the block size limit.


RE: central planning:

No central planning is why I would like to eliminate the hard, upper blocksize limit entirely, and let the network decide "how big is too big."

RE: "the plan"  :   The plan from the beginning was to support huge blocks.  The 1MB hard limit was always a temporary denial-of-service prevention measure.

This, plus the blockchain optimization work, once live, will enable the next leg of growth for Bitcoin and see the widespread market usage which is needed to justify a four-figure fx rate.

[jubalix]

Currently there is no consensus among developers on whether this restriction will EVER be lifted.

Incorrect. Progress is being made on it:

The block size will be raised, that is the overwhelming consensus among the people who are actually writing code and using Bitcoin for products and services that it needs to happen.

And there is a tiny minority of people who will loudly proclaim that isn't true and that the core developer are going to destroy Bitcoin if the block size is raised.

If you want to be helpful, please organize a list of objections to raising the block size limit and responses to those objections.

I believe the last objection raised was that a higher block size limit would make it impossible to mine anonymously, but I think that has been debunked with the notion of "read the firehose of transactions non-anonymously, then broadcast just new block header + coinbase + listof(truncated transaction hashes) anonymously."

I'll soon be writing up a plan for how we can safely raise the block size limit.


RE: central planning:

No central planning is why I would like to eliminate the hard, upper blocksize limit entirely, and let the network decide "how big is too big."

RE: "the plan"  :   The plan from the beginning was to support huge blocks.  The 1MB hard limit was always a temporary denial-of-service prevention measure.

This, plus the blockchain optimization work, once live, will enable the next leg of growth for Bitcoin and see the widespread market usage which is needed to justify a four-figure fx rate.

i think increasing processor power and internet speeds makes larger blocks ok.

[halfawake]

I watched the Bitcoin 2013 conference talk on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7LQu-eIOO0&list=PLUOP0P68GJ3BGjfqoLLnzAefk3ZzXQtJ7&index=9) earlier today about why you should invest in bitcoin.  In it, Demeester said that if bitcoin becomes the world reserve currency, replacing the dollar, the price will end up being $500,000 / Bitcoin.  So that's likely the upper limit on bitcoin price.  I certainly wouldn't complain if that happens, it'd make me a millionaire and I don't even have all that many bitcoins.  But I'd be very surprised if it ends up being THAT successful.