Why has the price of Bitcoin become stable recently?

[Malawi]

From your source:

Electricity consumption is estimated based on power consumption of 650 Watts per gigahash and electricity price of 15 cent per kilowatt hour. In reality some miners will be more or less efficient.

I just started up 3 GH today @ under 30 watts with $0.09/kwh electricity costs.

I'd say the estimate is way off.  It was decent when GPUs were king, but that has been several years now.

And even with regular CPU's it's more like 500 W/Gh

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[ThatDGuy]

Personally, I think the bitcoin price is still a little on the high side.

I don't think it has reached a stable equilibrium state in term of supply (3600 coins per day) and demand.   Moving forward, I think the market will face sell pressure from the miners.   

The media hype attracted many curious people to buy a few bitcoins to see what the buzz is all about.    But I don't think these demand can sustain for the next 3.5 years.

The attention Bitcoin received in March/April has generated quite a lot of interest, but learning about Bitcoin is hardly something that can be done in one day.  It takes a little bit of time, as it is a very new concept to most people.

I would think given the investments into the actual infrastructure recently in BTC's economy and that much more attention paid to the work being done will translate to quite a bit more demand in the future.  Right now I know only a few people who have heard about it outside of me telling them, and even then most are hesitant to have any - and the limited (but growing) uses of it don't give them additional reason to.

[Le Happy Merchant]

They rock when it's 20 below (C or F irrelevant)

40 below is actually the crossing point.

[Pokerfan]

Personally, I think the bitcoin price is still a little on the high side.

I don't think it has reached a stable equilibrium state in term of supply (3600 coins per day) and demand.   Moving forward, I think the market will face sell pressure from the miners.  

The media hype attracted many curious people to buy a few bitcoins to see what the buzz is all about.    But I don't think these demand can sustain for the next 3.5 years.

This person has a strong point. There will be selling pressure from miners and it will last a long 3.5 years! What if fiat money doesn't collapse? If there's an economic recovery, bitcoin might get laughed off as useless store of value. If exchanges and merchants get regulated to death, bitcoin as a payment system will be crippled.

Bitcoin needs $500,000,000 fresh USD to sustain the current price. That's not cheap!

[davidpbrown]

It's only 35% of market cap now.. that not too expensive.. quite likely even, given the interest in projects relating to Bitcoin and the prospects in India; Africa and elsewhere where traditional providers are less dominate/less available. Even if it remained the same market locations as now, 35% is quite likely given how many if's you've suggested for a reasonable scenario for fiat.

Fiat and traditional economics have themselves in a real fix and if you ever have a moment of doubt, there are no shortage of reminders of how dangerous that situation is. Pig might fly but I'll hedge my bets until I see them..

.. and obviously the pressure beyond 2017 could be substantial if both there is a smaller number of new coins compounded with the interest relative to what there is now.. but imagine if fiat shudders again or the central banks begin to withdraw from their insane fiat printing, appetite for something new and something stable could well be huge. Face it the traditional powers are afraid of consequences they might be held accountable for, that doesn't suggest change and a correction back to reality will be a bad outcome overall in the longer term.

[Miz4r]

Personally, I think the bitcoin price is still a little on the high side.

I don't think it has reached a stable equilibrium state in term of supply (3600 coins per day) and demand.   Moving forward, I think the market will face sell pressure from the miners.   

The media hype attracted many curious people to buy a few bitcoins to see what the buzz is all about.    But I don't think these demand can sustain for the next 3.5 years.

This person has a strong point. There will be selling pressure from miners and it will last a long 3.5 years! What if fiat money doesn't collapse? If there's an economic recovery, bitcoin might get laughed off as useless store of value. If exchanges and merchants get regulated to death, bitcoin as a payment system will be crippled.

Bitcoin needs $500,000,000 fresh USD to sustain the current price. That's not cheap!

I stopped reading after ''economic recovery''.

[ElectricMucus]

Personally, I think the bitcoin price is still a little on the high side.

I don't think it has reached a stable equilibrium state in term of supply (3600 coins per day) and demand.   Moving forward, I think the market will face sell pressure from the miners.  

The media hype attracted many curious people to buy a few bitcoins to see what the buzz is all about.    But I don't think these demand can sustain for the next 3.5 years.

lol.. that only reminds me of, who was it suggesting that ~32kb was enough memory for any computer.. Bill Gates?

At least PC architecture could in theory support the levels we have at the date. Bitcoin on the other hand is not like a PC it's more like the eniac. A proof of concept.
The scenario you ulta-bulls are hoping for would be as if one mainframe would have been continuously upgraded to this date for all the worlds computing done on it.

Cryptocurrencies can become a big thing, but their numbers would explode just like the number of computers did. Bitcoin would become a historical reference and maybe a novelty for collectors.

[davidpbrown]

You don't need to be an ulta-bull to believe in Bitcoin's success.. you do need to be an ulta-bull to believe in Ripple.

[Crypt_Current]

You don't need to be an ulta-bull to believe in Bitcoin's success.. you do need to be an ulta-bull to believe in Ripple.

  well said

[Chaplin]

If difficulty was going up at this rate with only GPU miners, in the interest of their own profitability I think they'd all be asking for higher prices. ASIC miners are in their own golden age now, making money hand over fist, and are willing to take this price.

Meanwhile, volume is affected by the moderate drop in media attention post-crash, and the most "user-friendly" exchange becoming significantly less so, with a lack of comparable alternatives stepping up to fill the gap. The higher barrier to entry and lower volume reduces speculation that could jump the price up more regardless of miner profits.

[davidpbrown]

^ which is interesting but then you stopped short of suggesting what comes next regards mining. How long before ASIC are outside their comfort zone?

[chufchuf]

The only thing that changed in the last month is that there is currently $9.000.000 per month of electricity wasted to keep bitcoin healthy as opposed to $6.000.000 per month 4 weeks ago

miners are going to start taking profits soon enough.. and some have been doing in the past few days as we've seen

goodluck to you if you hold bitcoins trying to make a profit

source: http://blockchain.info/stats

the electricity cost goes up after the btc price does, surely you understand that?