Why is bitcoin price not going up?

[IggySe7ven]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

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[desert_beagle]

Most likely because little new fiat money is coming in.  Same people buying/selling.

[atlosas]

It has do with psychology too. 100 is "magic number".

[Peter Lambert]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

See what happened is a few months ago the price was at about 10, and the market decided that was too cheap and so it started rising. Nobody knows what the price of a bitcoin will be in the future, so the current price will continue until something interesting happens.

[Felipeo]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin need more user now, and some marketing action like "PayPal is accepting Bitcoins" IMO

[Tonko]

Well, you bought DVD burner, maybe some Reddit crap with it and now what you gonna do with it?
So why buy it?
You may as well use fiat on Amazon.
The whole thing is bullshit for kids anyway. Not ideally or technically, just when it comes to the real life.

[tiberiandusk]

*Tinfoil hat on*

It's that guy who wanted to peg Bitcoin to $100.

[Bitcoin Roll]

Well, you bought DVD burner, maybe some Reddit crap with it and now what you gonna do with it?
So why buy it?
You may as well use fiat on Amazon.
The whole thing is bullshit for kids anyway. Not ideally or technically, just when it comes to the real life.

Henry Ford said the same thing about cars that were different than the
model-t, but he changed his mind after the public spoke. The public bought GM instead of the model-t because they represented freedom of choice and the future. Before you talk bad about bitcoin check your history, than share an opinion that has credibility instead of vulgarity.

[Epoch]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Are you sure it's not increasing:

16 months ago: $4
12 months ago: $6
8 months ago: $10
4 months ago: $35
today: $100

It all depends on your perspective, doesn't it?

[notme]

*Tinfoil hat on*

It's that guy who wanted to peg Bitcoin to $100.

Max Keiser?

[culexevilman]

well, I guess you should be glad its not up yet and buy in while you can.

[Kake]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin is scheduled to trade in a narrow range of 102 to 108 dollars until September.  From September until January it will gradually increase reaching a high of about 118.  That is why I am holding strong to my bitcoins till then.  The 2014 schedule has not been decided yet.

lol, what's your source?

[donjonson]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Are you sure it's not increasing:

16 months ago: $4
12 months ago: $6
8 months ago: $10
4 months ago: $35
today: $100

It all depends on your perspective, doesn't it?

A nice but mainly a TRUE perspective.

[Rygon]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin need more user now, and some marketing action like "PayPal is accepting Bitcoins" IMO

Na, Paypal is busy working on irrelevant projects, like interplanetary payments:

http://www.myfoxny.com/Story/22701675/paypal-looks-to-conquer-space-payments

Pretty sure bitcoin is better suited for this application also, lol.

[N12]

Because we have had a massive media supported bubble, and are still in the process of deflating it.

[tom_o]

It was in one of those articles about stuff the NSA does.  If you can understand it it is in the MtGox source code.

omg insider trading wtf

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin need more user now, and some marketing action like "PayPal is accepting Bitcoins" IMO

Na, Paypal is busy working on irrelevant projects, like interplanetary payments:

http://www.myfoxny.com/Story/22701675/paypal-looks-to-conquer-space-payments

Pretty sure bitcoin is better suited for this application also, lol.

Depends if the latencies are too high, wouldn't want to try mining up there, even with the great solar power you could get.

[jamesc760]

I get interested in bitcoin in early May'2013, so I am a late-comer here, been doing lots of research, built a couple of mining rigs with 4 GPU's, getting around 1.5 Gh/s, seen the value of btc fall from $140 to $120 to $100 currently. Yes, over the long term the value has gone up from $2(?) a year or so ago; however, the short term trend right now is slow falling.

Simply, there are too many coins for sale. Probably the ASIC mfg/holders need liquidity, so they are dumping coins as fast as they mine them.

[legitnick]

It was steady around 13$ for months before, the same thing will happen until we see massive growth, again.

[justusranvier]

It's not going up because Zhoutonged hasn't made any new videos recently.

[AliceWonder]

Most likely because little new fiat money is coming in.  Same people buying/selling.

Once the FinCEN thing settles down and it becomes easier to aquire bitcoin in the United States prices will go up.

https://billpayforcoins.com/index.php

Services like that, assuming they survive and aren't shut down due to paperwork issues, will help make bitcoin a viable option in the United States and more mom & pop type businesses will start accepting bitcoin payment - peaking the curiosity of their customers and thus increasing demand.

[Yogafan00000]

It was the Bernake's hint at taper a few weeks ago.  It's affecting bonds, PM's, equities down and USD/interest rates up.

All the financial types are nervous as shit and going liquid for the moment.

[Ace5high]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin need more user now, and some marketing action like "PayPal is accepting Bitcoins" IMO

Ha, that's like saying Bill Gates is now endorsing apple products  

This simply will never happen. Ebay (PayPal) wants nothing more than to nuke bitcoin from existence along with the US government. Both are dependent on the failure of any alternative currency in order to continue their happy little monopoly...

[johnyj]

There should be more merchant accept bitcoin payment and pay with bitcoin should be easy enough so that people are encouraged to charge their mobile wallet with bitcoin and pay

If you can always buy things with bitcoin then you don't need to sell them for fiat anymore, means only buyers no sellers, the price will rise forever

[cbeast]

BitInstant allows larger USD withdrawals. I suspect some folks are dumping some bitcoins that have been tied up at Gox. It should correct upward again soon.

[cdog]

More businesses need to accept it. Thats the real driving factor. Products and services.

Ask if you can pay in Bitcoins. Demand that you be able to pay in Bitcoins. This is the only way.

[Felipeo]

Na, Paypal is busy working on irrelevant projects, like interplanetary payments:

http://www.myfoxny.com/Story/22701675/paypal-looks-to-conquer-space-payments

Pretty sure bitcoin is better suited for this application also, lol.

"interplanetary payments" that's good

Ha, that's like saying Bill Gates is now endorsing apple products 

This simply will never happen. Ebay (PayPal) wants nothing more than to nuke bitcoin from existence along with the US government. Both are dependent on the failure of any alternative currency in order to continue their happy little monopoly...

Seriously i don't have sh%* about PayPal, but about some "marketing" action that help Bitcoin be seen for that people who don't know about it, but will be happy to used Bitcoin 

[Wagner2014]

It was $13 in January...how fast do you want it to go up?

The question should be: why is it still in the $90s or $80s depending on exchange? If it breaks through $88 on Mt. Gox, watch out below.

[JessicaMILFson]

Because Apple is coming out with their own digital currency:

iMoney

http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/06/apple-files-imoney-patent-for-virtual-currency-digital-wallet-and-free-stuff/

[PeZ]

Because Apple is coming out with their own digital currency:

iMoney

http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/06/apple-files-imoney-patent-for-virtual-currency-digital-wallet-and-free-stuff/

More patent trolling from the patent troll company.

[MagicBit15]

A lot of negative attention in the news too, especially with this bullsh*t apprehension of funds that bitpay has to deal with. The U.S. is such garbage, they address so many issues slowly, poorly, and complete uninformative. It is a disgrace...

[tempestb]

Everybody invested and converted fiat to btc in order to buy a lot of Bitcoin chips, miners, etc.  Now everyone is either waiting for their miners/chips or they have them.  And those that have them are probably cashing out the coins they have to pay off any loans they made in order to afford the miner in the first place.

I suspect this causality will continue until the coin is around $30-$40.  At which point speculators will move in and buy up coins because they realize this is a temporary deflation. 

When the difficulty rises to where ASICs are like GPU's today, more people will invest directly in the coin and less on the mining hardware because they won't get a decent ROI.  At which point, I suspect we'll see the value take-off again.  The smart miner won't cash out right away, but there are not a lot of smart miners.

[PeZ]

The worldwide economy is worse than the numbers suggest and people need fiat to pay the bills.

[Tonko]

Asteroids are much more interesting computer game than Bitcoin.

[johnyj]

The worldwide economy is worse than the numbers suggest and people need fiat to pay the bills.

If they use fiat, they could never payback the bills

Each fiat dollar is backed by a equal amount of debt, when they get 100 dollar to pay the bill, they created a 100 dollar's debt to be paid somewhere else in the society, plus interest. So someone else might get a 103 dollar bill to pay, society as a whole become more and more debt laiden

[bitbryan]

It has do with psychology too. 100 is "magic number".

tru ster! its gonna stablize from 95-105 yawn!

[SilentSonicBoom]

Why does it have to go up? Price stability to some degree can help build trust in Bitcoin as an alternative to traditional currencies. Retailers that might accept bitcoin might not if prices fluctuate to violently with volatility.

[Lohoris]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin is scheduled to trade in a narrow range of 102 to 108 dollars until September.  From September until January it will gradually increase reaching a high of about 118.  That is why I am holding strong to my bitcoins till then.  The 2014 schedule has not been decided yet.

lmao gg

The worldwide economy is worse than the numbers suggest and people need fiat to pay the bills.

If they use fiat, they could never payback the bills

Each fiat dollar is backed by a equal amount of debt, when they get 100 dollar to pay the bill, they created a 100 dollar's debt to be paid somewhere else in the society, plus interest. So someone else might get a 103 dollar bill to pay, society as a whole become more and more debt laiden

dafuq?

Why does it have to go up? Price stability to some degree can help build trust in Bitcoin as an alternative to traditional currencies. Retailers that might accept bitcoin might not if prices fluctuate to violently with volatility.

+1

[brooksby]

Ah no worries.  It will go up eventually.  It may need to come down more first, but long term Bitcoin will rise.  Take advantage of the lower prices to buy more!

[msweb]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin is scheduled to trade in a narrow range of 102 to 108 dollars until September.  From September until January it will gradually increase reaching a high of about 118.  That is why I am holding strong to my bitcoins till then.  The 2014 schedule has not been decided yet.

lol, what's your source?

It was in one of those articles about stuff the NSA does.  If you can understand it it is in the MtGox source code.

I've no idea if that is true or not. But the point is it could be. Gox still has too much impact on the prize and so it's very easy for the authorities to prevent the creation from rising in value. And they sure do. We can't really know how much a Bitcoin is worth as long as we let the decision to centralized exchanges. A decentralized creation like bitcoin also needs decentralization when it comes to defining the prize. There is a lot of work to do before we are able to get there. Until then you can't expect any rise in value at all.

[EvilPanda]

For the last few days it's been dropping quite fast and that 102-108$  range you were talking about is now a distant memory. 

[tokeweed]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

who knows. but the same thing happens in stocks, commodities and forex. such is trading.

[yona]

Well, maybe satoshi is back and he is fed up with the volatility so even though there is huge demand, he sales bitcoins around 100$ a bitcoin to keep it from climbing... He could go at it for ages...

[nofuture]

http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD.html

Not much sell-side resistance

[bitcoin_max]

I get interested in bitcoin in early May'2013, so I am a late-comer here, been doing lots of research, built a couple of mining rigs with 4 GPU's, getting around 1.5 Gh/s, seen the value of btc fall from $140 to $120 to $100 currently. Yes, over the long term the value has gone up from $2(?) a year or so ago; however, the short term trend right now is slow falling.

Simply, there are too many coins for sale. Probably the ASIC mfg/holders need liquidity, so they are dumping coins as fast as they mine them.

...and there is not enough activity going on in the bitcoin ecosystem to absorb it.

[prophetx]

I get interested in bitcoin in early May'2013, so I am a late-comer here, been doing lots of research, built a couple of mining rigs with 4 GPU's, getting around 1.5 Gh/s, seen the value of btc fall from $140 to $120 to $100 currently. Yes, over the long term the value has gone up from $2(?) a year or so ago; however, the short term trend right now is slow falling.

Simply, there are too many coins for sale. Probably the ASIC mfg/holders need liquidity, so they are dumping coins as fast as they mine them.

...and there is not enough activity going on in the bitcoin ecosystem to absorb it.

Anyone know the volume of purchasing activity on SR over the last 6 months?

[Kiders]

correct me if im wrong but isnt mtgox the majority of the reason btc is so low? mtgox has legal problems. and cash problems. i heard lots of ppl cant withdraw stuff from there = less people put money inn there and less volume is being moved . less volume = smaller price changes .

this is exactly why we need to break free from mtgox. they/he cant keep deciding what the price of btc is .

i would love to see something like average price from top 3-4 exchanges with most volume = price of Bitcoin.

[vokain]

I get interested in bitcoin in early May'2013, so I am a late-comer here, been doing lots of research, built a couple of mining rigs with 4 GPU's, getting around 1.5 Gh/s, seen the value of btc fall from $140 to $120 to $100 currently. Yes, over the long term the value has gone up from $2(?) a year or so ago; however, the short term trend right now is slow falling.

Simply, there are too many coins for sale. Probably the ASIC mfg/holders need liquidity, so they are dumping coins as fast as they mine them.

...and there is not enough activity going on in the bitcoin ecosystem to absorb it.

Anyone know the volume of purchasing activity on SR over the last 6 months?

you can never measure accurately on that site as just a merchant or customer

[bitmateco]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Are you sure it's not increasing:

16 months ago: $4
12 months ago: $6
8 months ago: $10
4 months ago: $35
today: $100

It all depends on your perspective, doesn't it?

A nice but mainly a TRUE perspective.

that was before asics.
now you can say this

2 month ago $250
1 month ago $130
today $80

also true.

so huge as peak and big fall.
i think asics are bitcoin biggest devaluer

[nofuture]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Are you sure it's not increasing:

16 months ago: $4
12 months ago: $6
8 months ago: $10
4 months ago: $35
today: $100

It all depends on your perspective, doesn't it?

A nice but mainly a TRUE perspective.

that was before asics.
now you can say this

2 month ago $250
1 month ago $130
today $80

also true.

so huge as peak and big fall.
i think asics are bitcoin biggest devaluer

yeah I agree that ASICS are what is driving prices down.  if that's the case it's best to sell now.  if you can hang on long enough (the next halving day) you will be rewarded.  By Then ASICS will be > 80% of the mining and bounded by the cost of energy.  To produce one bitcoin in that environment will be costly no whether you are using an ASIC or not. 

[Fugger]

One other aspect to consider is simple supply and demand of Bitcoin in the market. Could it be that a few miners who started over a year ago and had "many" Bitcoins are selling? This would be quite understandable.

The farther we look in the future the more importance will be on demand of BTC than on supply from mining. The demand will be driven by how much BTC is actually used as a means of payment. So if people want BTC prices to go up, they should use BTC for what it is actually meant for - to pay goods and services with it and not simply regard it as another asset. The value of BTC comes not from speculation but from the acceptance as a currency.

[bitbitcoins]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Good question ... market is irrational by definition

[Bitcoinorama]

Because ASICminer who are awarded 25% of all Bitcoins are surprising the price whilst relinquishing coins. They are now powerful enough to manipulate the market is a definite possibility...

[Asrael999]

The worldwide economy is worse than the numbers suggest and people need fiat to pay the bills.

If they use fiat, they could never payback the bills

Each fiat dollar is backed by a equal amount of debt, when they get 100 dollar to pay the bill, they created a 100 dollar's debt to be paid somewhere else in the society, plus interest. So someone else might get a 103 dollar bill to pay, society as a whole become more and more debt laiden

Ah no you see - that is unfortunately the beauty of fiat, consider this story.
A man stops for a beer in a small town and leaves his wallet behind. The bartender, Fred, collects the wallet and finds $20 in it, after about half an hour with no sign of the man coming back he decides to keep the money. Knowing that he owes Mildred who makes the cakes he sells in the bar $20 he pops round to her shop and pays back the $20 he owes her. She owes $20 to Albert the repairman who repaired her ovens the other week , so she hands him $20 when she sees him. Now Albert owes a local hooker $20 for the quick one they had behind Freds bar the other night so he duely pays her back, and the hooker goes back to Freds bar and pays her bartab with the $20.

Half an hour after Fred gets the $20 back, the wallets owner walks back into the bar and asks if he left his wallet behind. Fred checks behind the bar and quickly puts the $20 back in it, smiles and hands over the wallet.

Net Net, no one lost out and $80 of debt got repaid.

[joae1975]

The worldwide economy is worse than the numbers suggest and people need fiat to pay the bills.

If they use fiat, they could never payback the bills

Each fiat dollar is backed by a equal amount of debt, when they get 100 dollar to pay the bill, they created a 100 dollar's debt to be paid somewhere else in the society, plus interest. So someone else might get a 103 dollar bill to pay, society as a whole become more and more debt laiden

Ah no you see - that is unfortunately the beauty of fiat, consider this story.
A man stops for a beer in a small town and leaves his wallet behind. The bartender, Fred, collects the wallet and finds $20 in it, after about half an hour with no sign of the man coming back he decides to keep the money. Knowing that he owes Mildred who makes the cakes he sells in the bar $20 he pops round to her shop and pays back the $20 he owes her. She owes $20 to Albert the repairman who repaired her ovens the other week , so she hands him $20 when she sees him. Now Albert owes a local hooker $20 for the quick one they had behind Freds bar the other night so he duely pays her back, and the hooker goes back to Freds bar and pays her bartab with the $20.

Half an hour after Fred gets the $20 back, the wallets owner walks back into the bar and asks if he left his wallet behind. Fred checks behind the bar and quickly puts the $20 back in it, smiles and hands over the wallet.

Net Net, no one lost out and $80 of debt got repaid.

Nice!  But there is a net. 1 cake, 1 fixed oven, 1 quicky, & beer.  Funny how that capitalism works.

[RapidCoinz]

We've experienced a fairly notable drop in price the last few days as gox appears to be once again under the gosh with their legal requirements and FinCen breathing down their necks...

It's driven by speculation and that psychological outlook of 'magical numbers' ie $100 is sending speculators running as it drops and drops.  First time we have seen a drop to $83 on Bitstamp since April...

A lot of activity on the exchanges these last 24 hours... question is, will it level this week and climb slightly higher edging towards that 'magical number' so many speculators hold so dearly..

The life and times of bitcoin.. exciting 

[Lohoris]

Ah no you see - that is unfortunately the beauty of fiat, consider this story.
[...]
Net Net, no one lost out and $80 of debt got repaid.

This story isn't much different from those used to explain you why money exists in the first place...

PS: fun thing, Ripple actually kind of solved this kind of issue...
(not implying that it isn't without issues itself)

[Zoznoz]

I believe that Bitcoins was hyped up in the media for sometime around the early part of this year which probably caused the bubble. At that time many people wanted Bitcoins only to discover how difficult it is to purchase them. I believe it is fundamentally supply and demand. As others have raised Mt Gox may be contributing to the decline and subsequent stagnation of the price but that depends on how large of a stake in the currency that the exchange has. However, I don't believe the price will be going down very much soon, it appears that even with a small amount of attention causes a huge surge in price. Not only that but bitcoins are designed to be limited in number and as we are aware can be divided to 0.00000001 BTC, I believe this could allow Bitcoins to reach even thousands of dollars one days yet at the same time we can comfortably divide the currency into very small portions.

[johnyj]

The worldwide economy is worse than the numbers suggest and people need fiat to pay the bills.

If they use fiat, they could never payback the bills

Each fiat dollar is backed by a equal amount of debt, when they get 100 dollar to pay the bill, they created a 100 dollar's debt to be paid somewhere else in the society, plus interest. So someone else might get a 103 dollar bill to pay, society as a whole become more and more debt laiden

Ah no you see - that is unfortunately the beauty of fiat, consider this story.
A man stops for a beer in a small town and leaves his wallet behind. The bartender, Fred, collects the wallet and finds $20 in it, after about half an hour with no sign of the man coming back he decides to keep the money. Knowing that he owes Mildred who makes the cakes he sells in the bar $20 he pops round to her shop and pays back the $20 he owes her. She owes $20 to Albert the repairman who repaired her ovens the other week , so she hands him $20 when she sees him. Now Albert owes a local hooker $20 for the quick one they had behind Freds bar the other night so he duely pays her back, and the hooker goes back to Freds bar and pays her bartab with the $20.

Half an hour after Fred gets the $20 back, the wallets owner walks back into the bar and asks if he left his wallet behind. Fred checks behind the bar and quickly puts the $20 back in it, smiles and hands over the wallet.

Net Net, no one lost out and $80 of debt got repaid.

You misunderstood me, by debt I did not mean private debt, I mean the debt incured when the money was created

In order to pay your $100 bill, you have to first earn $100 cash. Maybe you received this $100 cash as part of your salary, but have you ever given it a thought where this money originally come from?

It is created by FED by purchasing government bonds or MBS, both are debts. So behind every $100 cash note flown into the society (and eventually reaches you as a form of salary), there is a corresponding debt from government or household is generated, and they could not payback this debt since even if they get all the money back, the amount of money will never reach the amount of debt + interest

[Tzupy]

Maybe someone wants to buy a ton of BTC at a lower price and has started this pump-down.
Looking at the order distribution, the price should be around 92 right now, and it's 82, the pump-down is obvious to me.
Once the sell orders accumulate at the desired value and volume, IMO there should be a massive buy.
Or it's just the market deciding that BTC has been overvalued for months... We'll see.

[NewLiberty]

correct me if im wrong but isnt mtgox the majority of the reason btc is so low? mtgox has legal problems. and cash problems. i heard lots of ppl cant withdraw stuff from there = less people put money inn there and less volume is being moved . less volume = smaller price changes .

this is exactly why we need to break free from mtgox. they/he cant keep deciding what the price of btc is .

i would love to see something like average price from top 3-4 exchanges with most volume = price of Bitcoin.

Or weighted by volume per exchange and use all exchanges with more than 5% volume/week?

[nexus99]

BTC value has dropped 15ish% in the last week?

[mdude77]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

[ask]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

If you buy then and destroy those X which you bought, then only 21M-X will remain on the market and price will be bigger. You can not destroy them...

THAT'S THE BEAUTY OF BITCOIN

[NewLiberty]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

It would be cheaper, and maybe even profitable (especially for those in the know), to create so much volatility using ETFs that it becomes difficult to use as a currency.

[mdude77]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

If you buy then and destroy those X which you bought, then only 21M-X will remain on the market and price will be bigger. You can not destroy them...

THAT'S THE BEAUTY OF BITCOIN

You don't understand.  There's a finite number of bitcoins.  Governments can and do make money out of thin air.  They can buy every single one and destroy them, it won't even appear as a blip on the deficit.  Yes, some people will make a lot of money off of it.  But bitcoin as we know it will be destroyed.

M

[mdude77]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

It would be cheaper, and maybe even profitable (especially for those in the know), to create so much volatility using ETFs that it becomes difficult to use as a currency.

Governments don't care about cheap ($500 hammer anyone?).  All they care about is power and control.  Buy every single coin for sale from every exchange.  It would be the beginning of the end.

M

[ninjapug]

Isn't it going up now?

[johnyj]

Governments can and do make money out of thin air.  They can buy every single one and destroy them, it won't even appear as a blip on the deficit.  Yes, some people will make a lot of money off of it.  But bitcoin as we know it will be destroyed.

Actually this is expected, they need another big bubble to save them from the current mess

And bitcoin will not be destroyed, since most of the bitcoin owners will sell only a fraction of their coins, even the price goes to infinite, it doesn't hurt to have more coins at hand

[mdude77]

Governments can and do make money out of thin air.  They can buy every single one and destroy them, it won't even appear as a blip on the deficit.  Yes, some people will make a lot of money off of it.  But bitcoin as we know it will be destroyed.

Actually this is expected, they need another big bubble to save them from the current mess

And bitcoin will not be destroyed, since most of the bitcoin owners will sell only a fraction of their coins, even the price goes to infinite, it doesn't hurt to have more coins at hand

You seriously believe that?  If the government always bought, and destroyed, every coin that every became available, it wouldn't hurt bitcoin?

M

[Lohoris]

You seriously believe that?  If the government always bought, and destroyed, every coin that every became available, it wouldn't hurt bitcoin?

If someone constantly bought coins "at whatever price", miners would be rich...

[mdude77]

You seriously believe that?  If the government always bought, and destroyed, every coin that every became available, it wouldn't hurt bitcoin?

If someone constantly bought coins "at whatever price", miners would be rich...

And BTC as a currency would be destroyed.

Mission accomplished.

M

[Lohoris]

And BTC as a currency would be destroyed.

Mission accomplished.

What are you talking about?

Of course it wouldn't, people would be mining like crazy to get that reward...

[mdude77]

And BTC as a currency would be destroyed.

Mission accomplished.

What are you talking about?

Of course it wouldn't, people would be mining like crazy to get that reward...

Selling BTC and having BTC as a currency are two different things.

M

[Moogle]

exaclt.y if one bloke buys everything and refuses to sell then its game over. yeah people will make some money but the 'currency' wont exist anymore

[vokain]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

It would be cheaper, and maybe even profitable (especially for those in the know), to create so much volatility using ETFs that it becomes difficult to use as a currency.

Doubtful. When they short sell, the price for the ETF goes down. The max that can be sold is the amount that is in the trust, 200000 BTC. If the ETF were to dump those shares on the actual market, 200000 would be sold to cover the sale, but really, that's it. They can only do it once. How many BTC are outstanding? The market would get artificially cheap coins! Done, bear out of ammo.

[joae1975]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

It would be cheaper, and maybe even profitable (especially for those in the know), to create so much volatility using ETFs that it becomes difficult to use as a currency.

Doubtful. When they short sell, the price for the ETF goes down. The max that can be sold is the amount that is in the trust, 200000 BTC. If the ETF were to dump those shares on the actual market, 200000 would be sold to cover the sale, but really, that's it. They can only do it once. How many BTC are outstanding? The market would get artificially cheap coins! Done, bear out of ammo.

thats exactly whats happening to Gold right now.  Nice!

[BitcoinBarrel]

They wouldn't be able to buy up all the coins. And if they did then the price of 1 satoshi would SKYROCKET. Can you imagine 1000 dollars per satoshi?

[Wekkel]

thats exactly whats happening to Gold right now.  Nice!

Unless Gold supply is unlimited (paper Gold supply, that is). That's the big question.

[joae1975]

thats exactly whats happening to Gold right now.  Nice!

Unless Gold supply is unlimited (paper Gold supply, that is). That's the big question.

All gold etf's have to have the physical to back them up.  The caveat being owners of a gold etf can never convert it directly to physical.  The physical price can go lower and at the same time the etf could dry up, loosing almost all value.  paper gold is dying a fast death. IMHO.  Never never never buy a bitcoin etf. For the record.

Peter Schiff on the winkle twins:
http://db.tt/2qZpfEG6

[BobMarley]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=249441.msg2656686#msg2656686

[porcupine87]

Why is bitcoin price stuck around the same number and not  increasing, how likely  is it for bitcoin to steadily start going up again?

Bitcoin is scheduled to trade in a narrow range of 102 to 108 dollars until September.  From September until January it will gradually increase reaching a high of about 118.  That is why I am holding strong to my bitcoins till then.  The 2014 schedule has not been decided yet.

lol, what's your source?

It was in one of those articles about stuff the NSA does.  If you can understand it it is in the MtGox source code.

That was a funny one

[JoelKatz]

BTC value has dropped 15ish% in the last week?

The person I know who knows the most about the business side of Bitcoin shared an insight with me. A significant fraction of Bitcoins are held by miners. They are long-term bullish on Bitcoins, so they hold rather than selling, essentially hoarding Bitcoins and keeping the price high. Now, ASICs are about to totally change the mining landscape. They either have to give up on mining or buy ASICs. Since they're long-term bullish on Bitcoins, they believe it makes sense to buy ASICs and invest in mining. But to do that, they need cash. So they're selling their Bitcoins to get cash to buy ASICs. This is pushing the price down. Essentially, the value in the Bitcoin economy is being sucked out by ASIC manufacturers. If this person is right, we could see low prices at least until the vast majority of miners are on 28nm ASICs.

[Wagner2014]

Why doesn't it keep going up? Are you serious?

It went from $13 in January to $260 in April. Maybe in needed a breather.

It's still up "only" 600% since January.

What would make you happy? Up 100% each month? With no retracement ever?

[niothor]

I think that the price isn't going up because it's going down.

[lucasjkr]

Bitcoin is perfectly usable at todays value. Too many people (almost all, actually) are viewing it as an an investment and not a currency. No one holds dollars (or any other currency) expecting to get rich off of those and those alone, yet everyone seems to think that simply by holding their Bitcoins, they should get rich. Nah. Use your bitcoins the way you would dollars, spend them or bank them. But it seems silly to hold them hoping they'll go up when there's no real reason it should - it's primary purpose right now (aside from speculative trading) is in transfering value; if you exchange Bitcoins for dollars on one end of a transaction and the other person exchanges those Bitcoins back to dollars at the other side, whether a bitcoin is worth one penny or $100 makes no difference. Now, if you do insist on seeing the value of the Bitcoins themselves go up, there needs to be a reason for people to want to buy them, ie, more vendors offering to accept them, for instance. With out that, there's no more reason why a bitcoin should be worth $200 as there is that it should be worth $10. Even better than vendors selling in Bitcoin would be if they passed along some of the benefits to the users (ie, discount their products AT LEAST by the amount the credit card companies would have taken, and even better, pass along some of the savings for not having to deal with unexpected chargebacks.

Yes, there are a few shops that accept Bitcoin, they mostly ONLY accept Bitcoin. Offer things for sale via traditional methods (paypal, credit cards, etc) and then pass along a Bitcoin discount that's more than just a token discount, and you might see more people clamoring to get their hands on it...

My two satoshi's, at least....

[lucasjkr]

If I was in a government and I wanted to destroy bitcoin...

I'd figure out how to buy up all the coins with fiat and then destroy them.

M

So, you'd buy up $900 million worth of Bitcoins, throw away the private key, and watch as people mined more?  Wouldn't that set a precedent and have everyone clamoring to create more and more virtual currencies in the hopes that you'd buy them out, too?

Why wouldn't you just invest a fraction of that and destroy the network? I'd think all it would take is $10 or $20 million to do it. Maybe $50, but i doubt that. The government has plenty of people with encryption know-how, plenty more with experience designing custom hardware, they could easily roll out their own ASIC and cream Bitcoin, a la what I think I heard Luke-Jr did to a competing coin - just mine the snot out of Bitcoin so that the difficulty gets so high that the rest of the miners don't stand a chance at being able to find new blocks anymore. Or just 51% (more logically, 70 or 80%) the network and refuse to relay transactions.

That's how they'd destroy Bitcoin - buying them up would be the most expensive option with zero guarantee of success when there are other options with much greater likelyhood of not only succeeding but dissuading anyone from trying again.

[Keldel]

The price is not going up, because there just isn't enough demand for bitcoin at this price.

3600 BTC is created each day, that is some heavy supply.

[lucasjkr]

As reference for my second post (re the Government attacking Bitcoin);

Blockchain.info reports the total network hashrate as being 184,000GH.

So, you'd need another 184,000 on top of that to have 50%. Then, account for all the other ASICs that are on the verge of shipping, lets call it that the government needs 500,000 GH to be reasonably certain they can shut it down quickly.

One BFL Jalapeno retails for $249 and provides 5 GH. You need 100,000 of them to achieve that much hashing power. That means at WORST, any interested party could pull off an attack for $24,900,000. But, wasn't BFL offering to sell their chips for $70 or so in quantity? So buying directly from them, eschewing cases, and such would bring the cost of the silicon down to $7 million. And that $70 cost likely includes a bit of profit margin not just for Butterfly Labs themselves, but their foundry too. At the end of the day, the gov't could probably go to a foundry and get what they needed for $3 or $4 mm. Even if assembly costs are $1 million, that brings the cost of attack up to $5 million.

Seems quite vulnerable if you ask me.... the ASIC's deployed certainly don't provide much protection against any "real" attacker, as much as people seem to think they do. And with all that said, the original question is "why is it not going up?", I'd now ask "Why should a virtual currency that can be attacked and nullified at a cost of $5 million have a market cap close to 200 times that?" Or, have I missed something?

[niothor]

As reference for my second post (re the Government attacking Bitcoin);

Blockchain.info reports the total network hashrate as being 184,000GH.

So, you'd need another 184,000 on top of that to have 50%. Then, account for all the other ASICs that are on the verge of shipping, lets call it that the government needs 500,000 GH to be reasonably certain they can shut it down quickly.

One BFL Jalapeno retails for $249 and provides 5 GH. You need 100,000 of them to achieve that much hashing power. That means at WORST, any interested party could pull off an attack for $24,900,000. But, wasn't BFL offering to sell their chips for $70 or so in quantity? So buying directly from them, eschewing cases, and such would bring the cost of the silicon down to $7 million. And that $70 cost likely includes a bit of profit margin not just for Butterfly Labs themselves, but their foundry too. At the end of the day, the gov't could probably go to a foundry and get what they needed for $3 or $4 mm. Even if assembly costs are $1 million, that brings the cost of attack up to $5 million.

Seems quite vulnerable if you ask me.... the ASIC's deployed certainly don't provide much protection against any "real" attacker, as much as people seem to think they do. And with all that said, the original question is "why is it not going up?", I'd now ask "Why should a virtual currency that can be attacked and nullified at a cost of $5 million have a market cap close to 200 times that?" Or, have I missed something?

Pull the plug on two pools , and those numbers dwindle , a lot ))
If indeed a goverment as powerfull as the US whould declare war on all fronts against bitcoin... god helps cause nobody else could.

And don't start about torrenting and drugs or so...
I said total war.
Imagine if the US puts a bounty on the head of the top 100 filesharing website owners and silences a few of them osama style......would you still run a torrent website? lols

[johnyj]

Today's economy development is always a ponzi style development, driven by one after one bubble, government and central bank need bitcoin to save them from the current mess, they have no better options, because they have been on the current route for too long time. Things will unfold in 3-4 years time

With traditional bubbles, they have a difficult situation: If they print too much money, there is a risk of inflation, and they have to tighten the money supply, which cause the bubble to burst. But they don't have this worry for bitcoin, since when they tighten the money supply and reduce the available fiat money, people will just directly spend bitcoin, so there won't be mass liquidation of bitcoins, bubble just shrinked. And due to limited supply, the volatility for bitcoin is always high, so people are all well prepared for the risk, this also reduce the impact when FED tightens. Longterm wise this bubble can last for hundreds of years and becomes the biggest driven power for world economy

[Rampion]

BTC value has dropped 15ish% in the last week?

The person I know who knows the most about the business side of Bitcoin shared an insight with me. A significant fraction of Bitcoins are held by miners. They are long-term bullish on Bitcoins, so they hold rather than selling, essentially hoarding Bitcoins and keeping the price high. Now, ASICs are about to totally change the mining landscape. They either have to give up on mining or buy ASICs. Since they're long-term bullish on Bitcoins, they believe it makes sense to buy ASICs and invest in mining. But to do that, they need cash. So they're selling their Bitcoins to get cash to buy ASICs. This is pushing the price down. Essentially, the value in the Bitcoin economy is being sucked out by ASIC manufacturers. If this person is right, we could see low prices at least until the vast majority of miners are on 28nm ASICs.

Well, I can confirm that I did that. Cashed out a big chunk of my holdings a few weeks ago to invest in ASICs. And there will be more selling as soon as the ASICs arrive, because people will want to recover their investment ASAP.

[NewLiberty]

As reference for my second post (re the Government attacking Bitcoin);

Blockchain.info reports the total network hashrate as being 184,000GH.

So, you'd need another 184,000 on top of that to have 50%. Then, account for all the other ASICs that are on the verge of shipping, lets call it that the government needs 500,000 GH to be reasonably certain they can shut it down quickly.

One BFL Jalapeno retails for $249 and provides 5 GH. You need 100,000 of them to achieve that much hashing power. That means at WORST, any interested party could pull off an attack for $24,900,000. But, wasn't BFL offering to sell their chips for $70 or so in quantity? So buying directly from them, eschewing cases, and such would bring the cost of the silicon down to $7 million. And that $70 cost likely includes a bit of profit margin not just for Butterfly Labs themselves, but their foundry too. At the end of the day, the gov't could probably go to a foundry and get what they needed for $3 or $4 mm. Even if assembly costs are $1 million, that brings the cost of attack up to $5 million.

Seems quite vulnerable if you ask me.... the ASIC's deployed certainly don't provide much protection against any "real" attacker, as much as people seem to think they do. And with all that said, the original question is "why is it not going up?", I'd now ask "Why should a virtual currency that can be attacked and nullified at a cost of $5 million have a market cap close to 200 times that?" Or, have I missed something?

Right.  If some government REALLY felt threatened (pro tip: they don't) they could issue an order to a major chip fab corp (AMD/INTEL/broadcom or any of the smaller ones even) to produce a couple million ASICs at sub 25 nm.  Our chip makers are tiny compared to the big guys. 
Bitcoin remains fragile and at the mercy of these factories.  So play nice, we aren't the biggest or even the smartest kids in the sandbox by a long shot.  500TH is a small datacenter and a couple months work if they want to break us.  Its not like they can't, they just aren't.
If they did, it would expose that they are afraid in a very visible way.  So....  It won't be the US, though it might be an "ally" that could do this.

The other option is to paint Bitcoin as Illegal druggies and gun-toting evil devil people, and then they can end us as a "public service".  So... be nice.

[Stephen Gornick]

Essentially, the value in the Bitcoin economy is being sucked out by ASIC manufacturers.

That very well could be a valid theory.  The miners are convinced that there is a decent chance of spending 1 BTC today and earning more than 1 BTC over the next year or so as a result.  It's a gamble because nobody (except the manufacturers themselves) knows how many Thash/s are on order -- but gambling never is a rational act.

[mechs]

We are now in the mid 60s with a low of 65 today.  The speed of this drop has been extreme. 

[Smidge]

It has happened before... hold on to your bits

[Geez]

Interest for Bitcoin is going down after all the hype. And the problem is that most people are extremely impatient and they wanna sell more BTC than there is demand so they keep going cheaper. There needs to be more places where you can pay with Bitcoin so that people don't see it purely as an investment but more like a useful trading tool.

[Bitweasil]

Seems to react with precious metals. People dumping btc to buy fire sale silver?

The btc to silver ratio has been going the wrong way for that, though.  The price of silver is going /up/ in btc, not down.

[nwfella]

BTC value has dropped 15ish% in the last week?

The person I know who knows the most about the business side of Bitcoin shared an insight with me. A significant fraction of Bitcoins are held by miners. They are long-term bullish on Bitcoins, so they hold rather than selling, essentially hoarding Bitcoins and keeping the price high. Now, ASICs are about to totally change the mining landscape. They either have to give up on mining or buy ASICs. Since they're long-term bullish on Bitcoins, they believe it makes sense to buy ASICs and invest in mining. But to do that, they need cash. So they're selling their Bitcoins to get cash to buy ASICs. This is pushing the price down. Essentially, the value in the Bitcoin economy is being sucked out by ASIC manufacturers. If this person is right, we could see low prices at least until the vast majority of miners are on 28nm ASICs.

Very compelling argument sir.

[Bitweasil]

In the gold rushes, the bulk of the value was sucked out by the suppliers - those selling the mining supplies, food, etc.  Why would anything be different this time around?

[miernik]

BTC value has dropped 15ish% in the last week?

The person I know who knows the most about the business side of Bitcoin shared an insight with me. A significant fraction of Bitcoins are held by miners. They are long-term bullish on Bitcoins, so they hold rather than selling, essentially hoarding Bitcoins and keeping the price high. Now, ASICs are about to totally change the mining landscape. They either have to give up on mining or buy ASICs. Since they're long-term bullish on Bitcoins, they believe it makes sense to buy ASICs and invest in mining. But to do that, they need cash. So they're selling their Bitcoins to get cash to buy ASICs. This is pushing the price down. Essentially, the value in the Bitcoin economy is being sucked out by ASIC manufacturers. If this person is right, we could see low prices at least until the vast majority of miners are on 28nm ASICs.

Why would they need to sell Bitcoins to buy ASICs?

Aren't ASIC sold mostly for Bitcoins now?

Didn't Avalon switch to Bitcoin pricing?

[tigereye]

BTC value has dropped 15ish% in the last week?

The person I know who knows the most about the business side of Bitcoin shared an insight with me. A significant fraction of Bitcoins are held by miners. They are long-term bullish on Bitcoins, so they hold rather than selling, essentially hoarding Bitcoins and keeping the price high. Now, ASICs are about to totally change the mining landscape. They either have to give up on mining or buy ASICs. Since they're long-term bullish on Bitcoins, they believe it makes sense to buy ASICs and invest in mining. But to do that, they need cash. So they're selling their Bitcoins to get cash to buy ASICs. This is pushing the price down. Essentially, the value in the Bitcoin economy is being sucked out by ASIC manufacturers. If this person is right, we could see low prices at least until the vast majority of miners are on 28nm ASICs.

Why would they need to sell Bitcoins to buy ASICs?

Aren't ASIC sold mostly for Bitcoins now?

Didn't Avalon switch to Bitcoin pricing?

Yes, but play it through...

I buy an ASIC miner for bitcoin, and send bitcoin to the manufacturer.
The manufacturer needs to buy components, pay staff for labour, and otherwise spend bitcoin to make the ASICs. Many vendors and people don't accept bitcoin, which means the manufacturer needs to sell bitcoin to get cash.

[computerparts]

I saw this coming 3 months ago. This drop in price is just the beginning. You ain't seen nuthin yet 

[Fugger]

It's called 'cashing out' 

[NewLiberty]

The price decline is not due to ASIC.
Consider the amount of BTC that was liquidated. about US$5-10M/day.
Are the ASIC sales quotas that high?  What fraction of that might be ASIC business 3%?
(and that is just what shows on the exchanges, very much is NOT on the exchanges.)

[mechs]

Soon you will be able to get a condo on the moon, it will be made with a 3d Printer which you will be able to purchase with bitcoins.  A true libertarian geek utopia!

[Tonko]

Two things should be distinguished:

1) Bitcoin as a technological achievement, enabling (almost) anonymous, (almost) instantaneous, irreversible payments.

2) The vermin that jumped on it: script-kiddie Internet 'enterpreneurs', thieves/hackers and all the rest of starry/$$$-eyed bozos. The vermin just couldn't create economy around the Bitcoin because they are essentially leeches. The days when you can pull some shitty HTML/JavaScript and make a business out of it are long gone.

Thus, for a few years, until somebody honest and creative comes into the picture, it is all downward.

And let's not forget:

3) The elephants in the room, the biggest of which is US Gov and Financial 'elite' that owns it.

[m3ta]

The price decline is not due to ASIC.

To some extent, it is.
When anyone with a GPU could mine and make some coins, the economy was healthy.
Now, to truly create the aforementioned coins, you need to invest (a lot) in ASICs. Thus, it's not a "for all" game. It's elitist.
An elitist currency is not healthy. It's as simple as that - BTC needs "John Doe" to be able to mine, not only "John Trump".
What Bitcoin was at the start is no longer valid. John Doe is cashing out, and I do not blame him.

[joae1975]

Okay, BTC is at ~$68 as I write this.  I think it was just simply over inflated.  The March/April hype we saw is just now coming down.  But it's still up from it's pre-March price.  I don't see this as bad.  It'll take time for BTC to catch on.  The seeds are being planted and cultivated.  The crisis in Cyprus was a speck of dust.  Wait until the USD chickens come home to roost.  It's not over folks.  Just a bump in the road.  Imho.

[NewLiberty]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf0Amcgxot8

[mdude77]

The price decline is not due to ASIC.

To some extent, it is.
When anyone with a GPU could mine and make some coins, the economy was healthy.
Now, to truly create the aforementioned coins, you need to invest (a lot) in ASICs. Thus, it's not a "for all" game. It's elitist.
An elitist currency is not healthy. It's as simple as that - BTC needs "John Doe" to be able to mine, not only "John Trump".
What Bitcoin was at the start is no longer valid. John Doe is cashing out, and I do not blame him.

I disagree only on one point: it was always an elitist game.  The same people who had hoards of money to set up massive GPU farms now have hoards of money to get ASICs. 

It's the same story - the rich get richer.

M

[Lohoris]

And BTC as a currency would be destroyed.

Mission accomplished.

What are you talking about?

Of course it wouldn't, people would be mining like crazy to get that reward...

Selling BTC and having BTC as a currency are two different things.

M

It would become a currency backed by dollars.
You can still use it as a currency, they can't force you to sell.
And knowing that there is an infinite bid wall, actually would help the currency a great deal.

[Bitweasil]

It's the same story - the rich get richer.

I prefer the phrasing, "It takes money to make money."

Maybe we could try one of those other systems that has always failed?  Do it somehow differently, and see if we can avoid the problem of running out of other people's money?

[mdude77]

It's the same story - the rich get richer.

I prefer the phrasing, "It takes money to make money."

Maybe we could try one of those other systems that has always failed?  Do it somehow differently, and see if we can avoid the problem of running out of other people's money?

I didn't claim to have a solution. Was just pointing out the game didn't change with ASICs.  It was the same game as before, just magnified a bit more because the profit gained before by the rich make them richer this time than last time.

M

[tstang]

Personally,

Bitcoin started as proof of concept and mostly geeks are into it.

Then it grew big and financial people got into the bandwagon.

As with all financial instruments, speculation and hedging got into the game too.

Hence, price will move up and down.

The big boys will try to push up the price, and the rest of the boys will be chasing it. Then they will sell out (cash out), then there will be panic selling.  This is VERY COMMON in stock market .

There are two players in Bitcoin Price :

1. The Miners
2. The Traders.

Price will eventually stablised when it makes more sense to Trade rather than to mine. Anything BELOW that, is a BUY for Bitcoin, anything ABOVE that is speculative price.

This is the basic of ECONOMICS, DEMAND and SUPPLY curve.

[justusranvier]

1. The Miners
2. The Traders.

Price will eventually stablised when it makes more sense to Trade rather than to mine. Anything BELOW that, is a BUY for Bitcoin, anything ABOVE that is speculative price.

This is the basic of ECONOMICS, DEMAND and SUPPLY curve.

No.

The purchasing power of a Bitcoin is going to stabilize in one of two conditions: failure, or at ubiquitous adoption.

In a condition of ubiquitous adoption Bitcoin's purchasing power will be determined by the supply and demand of commerce, not currency trading. In fact, if everybody in the world was using Bitcoin, why would there be any need for currency traders at all?

Bitcoin is not like other currencies. There's no central bank to print it out at will and hand it to cronies in the financial sector to gamble with while they all pretend to be adding value to the economy instead of leeching off of it like parasites.

[tstang]

1. The Miners
2. The Traders.

Price will eventually stablised when it makes more sense to Trade rather than to mine. Anything BELOW that, is a BUY for Bitcoin, anything ABOVE that is speculative price.

This is the basic of ECONOMICS, DEMAND and SUPPLY curve.

No.

The purchasing power of a Bitcoin is going to stabilize in one of two conditions: failure, or at ubiquitous adoption.

In a condition of ubiquitous adoption Bitcoin's purchasing power will be determined by the supply and demand of commerce, not currency trading. In fact, if everybody in the world was using Bitcoin, why would there be any need for currency traders at all?

Bitcoin is not like other currencies. There's no central bank to print it out at will and hand it to cronies in the financial sector to gamble with while they all pretend to be adding value to the economy instead of leeching off of it like parasites.

At USD 1-2 Billion Market Cap for Bitcoin, I think we can say it has already passed the Failure and Adoption Side.

Centralised or de-centralised currency also depends on Demand And Supply Curve.
(Do you know that the Forex market is trading at more than 1 Trillion a day?)

IF the US Gov prints too much notes, then it will lose it's value and price will go down.

It's similar with Bitcoin, IF mining is profitable and easy, it will devalue the Bitcoin price. At USD 200 per Bitcoin, that is highly speculative price and it cannot sustained there.

I haven't got the time to calculate the FAIR value of Bitcoin. Maybe someone here already did that.

[Tzupy]

I believe that BTC will first drop to the 50-60 range, then major investors will push it to 120-140 through a massive buy,
just before the next financial crysis. Adoption of BTC has little to do with price now, this large price drop is mostly speculative.

[McGinS]

It's the same story - the rich get richer.

I prefer the phrasing, "It takes money to make money."

Maybe we could try one of those other systems that has always failed?  Do it somehow differently, and see if we can avoid the problem of running out of other people's money?

Avoiding the problem of running out of other people's money is generally how wealth is gained. It really only differs in how happy you make them about parting with it, and how much you have to fool them to do so.

I prefer the phrasing "the rich get richer" as it applies to systems without money, I think it causes the failure of a lot of systems, as well as the repeated failure of the most popular.

[polarhei]

The big bankers have been doing very well, Also the market is not fully ready for this.

So the dynamic is still great.

[Peter Lambert]

i would love to see something like average price from top 3-4 exchanges with most volume = price of Bitcoin.

Why would anybody be so stupid as to use only one exchange when there are several with slightly different rates? Of course the price of bitcoin is the average of all the exchanges, it has been since there were multiple ways of exchanging.

For an example, the Winklvoss ETF filing document says they will compute the price of bitcoins as the weighted average of MtGox, BTC-E and Bitstamp.

[Peter Lambert]

It's the same story - the rich get richer.

I prefer the phrasing, "It takes money to make money."

Maybe we could try one of those other systems that has always failed?  Do it somehow differently, and see if we can avoid the problem of running out of other people's money?

Avoiding the problem of running out of other people's money is generally how wealth is gained. It really only differs in how happy you make them about parting with it, and how much you have to fool them to do so.

I prefer the phrasing "the rich get richer" as it applies to systems without money, I think it causes the failure of a lot of systems, as well as the repeated failure of the most popular.

The rich are the people who made money. They know how to make money, so that is what they do, they make more money. The poor do not know how to make money, so they don't or else they would be rich.

[Lohoris]

The rich are the people who made money. They know how to make money, so that is what they do, they make more money. The poor do not know how to make money, so they don't or else they would be rich.

The first part is true, but the second one is a bit off.
The "know" is never enough, you also need the "opportunity".

[Dealer]

Because it is a currency based upon speculation. You can't expect infinite rises. The price is supposed to go up and down.

[Peter Lambert]

The rich are the people who made money. They know how to make money, so that is what they do, they make more money. The poor do not know how to make money, so they don't or else they would be rich.

The first part is true, but the second one is a bit off.
The "know" is never enough, you also need the "opportunity".

Maybe knowing how to spot an opportunity or create your own is the first thing you need to know?

[johnyj]

From an investment point of view, there are 3 types of investors in mining industry:

1. Investors who bought ASIC devices using bitcoin
These investors are pure bitcoin only, they will never cash out to fiat since they believe the bitcoin is the way to go, they will not affect the market price

2. Investors who pre-ordered ASIC devices last year using fiat money
For them, they might want to get the invested fiat money back, since currently the ASIC devices are very efficient, they only need to sale small amount of coin to break even, and then they can keep it running risk free

3. Investors who pre-ordered ASIC devices recently using fiat money
They will get delivery in autumn, by that time, to return on investment is not that easy, they might need to continuously sell the coins until they reach break even, they will put a pressure on the price

We might see much more sell presure on the market when difficulty went enough high this autumn

[notme]

From an investment point of view, there are 3 types of investors in mining industry:

1. Investors who bought ASIC devices using bitcoin
These investors are pure bitcoin only, they will never cash out to fiat since they believe the bitcoin is the way to go, they will not affect the market price

2. Investors who pre-ordered ASIC devices last year using fiat money
For them, they might want to get the invested fiat money back, since currently the ASIC devices are very efficient, they only need to sale small amount of coin to break even, and then they can keep it running risk free

3. Investors who pre-ordered ASIC devices recently using fiat money
They will get delivery in autumn, by that time, to return on investment is not that easy, they might need to continuously sell the coins until they reach break even, they will put a pressure on the price

We might see much more sell presure on the market when difficulty went enough high this autumn

ROI in fiat terms has historically been easier if you don't sell immediately.

[joae1975]

Just buy gold with Bitcoin, end of story.

[Chrstian]

the bitcoin price is going up o.o? what charts are you looking at.

[Tzupy]

Well, I was wrong about price dropping to 50-60 before rising high.
The pump-up of these last 2 days is quite sharp. And no one seems to dump yet.
The attempted pump-up of the 25th June got squashed down immediately.
Question: where are those desperate sellers that on the 6th July drove the price down to 65?

[desired_username]

Just buy gold with Bitcoin, end of story.

Maybe the worst advice anyone can give.

Diversify instead. I wouldn't put more than 5% of my wealth in gold. Also, I would steer away from "paper gold".

[lucasjkr]

To date, none of the "paper gold" etf's have experienced any issues. There's ishares, SPDR, the sprott physical ETF, no problems with any of them. They have acted just as gold has on the markets, and the advantage is that you can buy and sell them by paying just a trade commission, not 2% or more dealer mark up.

I think the fear of paper gold is vastly unfounded, myself.... still don't like gold much as an investment, but if people are enamored by it, i don't see the downfall of buying the paper version... Lots of people smarter than us have no issues holding those shares.

[trashymonkey]

Have you seen how fast gold has increased the last few years? Everyone says its just going to go up. Its also a very safe investment. If you hold on to your gold for a while, your not going to lose money.

[desired_username]

Have you seen how fast gold has increased the last few years? Everyone says its just going to go up. Its also a very safe investment. If you hold on to your gold for a while, your not going to lose money.

It depends when you buy. for example: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XAU&to=USD&view=1Y there were and will be many timeframes which are bad times to buy or hold gold, hence part of your statement is false.

Anyhow, I have some gold, I call it the armageddon fund

If the time comes when I need to use precious metals to get something or survive then the value expressed in USD will be rather irrelevant

If someone trades frequently then paper gold is OK. if you want to hold it long or indefinitely then it's quite irresponsible to have in my opinion.
I also don't like the fact that the quantity of the actual physical gold is less than what is speculated on. But correct me if I'm wrong.

[Peter Lambert]

Well, I was wrong about price dropping to 50-60 before rising high.
The pump-up of these last 2 days is quite sharp. And no one seems to dump yet.
The attempted pump-up of the 25th June got squashed down immediately.
Question: where are those desperate sellers that on the 6th July drove the price down to 65?

They are still waiting for the price to get down to 50 so they can buy back in. They might be waiting a while.

[lucasjkr]

Have you seen how fast gold has increased the last few years? Everyone says its just going to go up. Its also a very safe investment. If you hold on to your gold for a while, your not going to lose money.

It depends when you buy. for example: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XAU&to=USD&view=1Y there were and will be many timeframes which are bad times to buy or hold gold, hence part of your statement is false.

Anyhow, I have some gold, I call it the armageddon fund

If the time comes when I need to use precious metals to get something or survive then the value expressed in USD will be rather irrelevant

If someone trades frequently then paper gold is OK. if you want to hold it long or indefinitely then it's quite irresponsible to have in my opinion.
I also don't like the fact that the quantity of the actual physical gold is less than what is speculated on. But correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, if you want gold for fear the world will collapse, physical is the way to go. For most anyone else, the paper version has all the same merits and is convertible to cash without even leaving your computer.

I wonder what you mean about amount of physical gold vs what's speculated?

[notme]

Have you seen how fast gold has increased the last few years? Everyone says its just going to go up. Its also a very safe investment. If you hold on to your gold for a while, your not going to lose money.

It depends when you buy. for example: http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XAU&to=USD&view=1Y there were and will be many timeframes which are bad times to buy or hold gold, hence part of your statement is false.

Anyhow, I have some gold, I call it the armageddon fund

If the time comes when I need to use precious metals to get something or survive then the value expressed in USD will be rather irrelevant

If someone trades frequently then paper gold is OK. if you want to hold it long or indefinitely then it's quite irresponsible to have in my opinion.
I also don't like the fact that the quantity of the actual physical gold is less than what is speculated on. But correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, if you want gold for fear the world will collapse, physical is the way to go. For most anyone else, the paper version has all the same merits and is convertible to cash without even leaving your computer.

I wonder what you mean about amount of physical gold vs what's speculated?

No need for the world to collapse.  If your broker, or the paper gold issuer goes bust, you will be SOL.

[desired_username]

I wonder what you mean about amount of physical gold vs what's speculated?

Let's say that there are x tonnes of gold existing now in circulation in physical form. As far as I know there have been much more "paper" gold issued and speculated on. I think it's a recipe for a disaster.

I too share lucasjkr's view. It will be interesting when these issuers go bust.

[JoelKatz]

Yes, if you want gold for fear the world will collapse, physical is the way to go. For most anyone else, the paper version has all the same merits and is convertible to cash without even leaving your computer.

Paper gold has a risk cost and a convenience premium relative to physical gold. For most use cases, the convenience outweighs the risk. But it is a decision you have to make, and you must always keep in mind the fact that there is counter-party risk.

[justusranvier]

The entire world's never going to collapse all at once, but the certain parts of it will see periods of extreme turmoil from time to time.

If you happen to be located in one of those parts of the world and see the signs of impending turmoil, it's far better to move to some calmer part of the world before it's too late rather than try to shelter in place.

In this scenario gold is nearly useless, even in physical form. If you really need to leave a country quickly you can't take significant quantities of gold with you.

Bitcoins, on the other hand...

[NewLiberty]

The entire world's never going to collapse all at once, but the certain parts of it will see periods of extreme turmoil from time to time.

If you happen to be located in one of those parts of the world and see the signs of impending turmoil, it's far better to move to some calmer part of the world before it's too late rather than try to shelter in place.

In this scenario gold is nearly useless, even in physical form. If you really need to leave a country quickly you can't take significant quantities of gold with you.

Bitcoins, on the other hand...

At such times, Having both is best.

[desired_username]

The entire world's never going to collapse all at once, but the certain parts of it will see periods of extreme turmoil from time to time.

If you happen to be located in one of those parts of the world and see the signs of impending turmoil, it's far better to move to some calmer part of the world before it's too late rather than try to shelter in place.

In this scenario gold is nearly useless, even in physical form. If you really need to leave a country quickly you can't take significant quantities of gold with you.

Bitcoins, on the other hand...

At such times, Having both is best.

+1