Bitcoin will never reach $20 again

[vulgata]

I won't start buying before $6.00. I would rather miss the whole thing and forget about bitcoins all together then buy above that price or EVER chase it higher. But that's just me. When/if I will start buying, I know already the whole plan, which I might fine tune as we go along, but I won't ever go outside my comfort zone. I know exactly how much I will buy, when, how much it will cost me and when I will/might sell. There isn't anyone who could influence me in a way that I would change my plan drastically. I would/will still read what people are saying but not react on it unless the price/volume tells me so. That's how I made money in the past and will do so in the future.

When bitcoin was $1 the daily trade volume (on MtGox) was around $10k USD on low days and $50k USD on strong days.  By the time daily volume was above $100k+ on average, price was above $5 and on its way to $10 (volume was growing to a million).

Unless we see a massive decrease in daily trade volume from the current $500k-$1m, down to under $100k, I'd be very suprised to see prices below $5.

Someone made a great post earlier and independently came to the same point as you and showed his work to boot:

Bitcoin will currently continue to lower in value as long as the following is satisfied:
- Miners can sell the BTC they make for more than they can easily invest it for (>5% annual, maybe >2.5% in the current economic atmosphere)
- The global economy is a downfall and people are looking to liquidate assets while they are still worth something.
- The BTC surplus as a result of high speed mining and immediate resale of mined BTC continues, that is, there is a low demand for BTC while the number of sellers remains high.

Eventually a point must be reached at which the miners are no longer willing to sell any BTC and an equilibrium must be established.  Where is this?

Average price of power in the US: 0.1109$ / KWh (2.66$ USD/day)
Typical hash rate/KWh: 1,750 MH/s (AMD 58xx/69xx cards), or 0.84 BTC/day
Average amount of time to mine 1BTC at this hash rate: 1.19 days
Total cost/BTC: 3.16$ USD

Let's looks at the current price of BTC, 7.5$ USD or so.  This represents an insane 99% profit after addressing for power.  Of course, hardware must be factored in here too, and it is assumed that at the end of the year most miners will have spent more on hardware than on power.  How much more?  A rig that can mine 1750 MH/s probably costs in the vicinity of 1000-1300$ USD.  The value of the hardware probably declines by about 30% each year.

Looking at each miner per year, let's say the rig costs 1200$ USD and by the end of the year just 840$ USD from devaluation.  The bitcoin miner must make 360$ to recoup this loss.  This makes our math easy, because it's clear than that he or she must make at the very least about 1.00$ per day.  We also know that we owe 2.66$/day of electricity, or about 971$ per year.  We mine 6.30$ USD a day (0.84 BTC), so our ROI (return on investment) is still 72% percent.  This is an enormous and unsustainable value.

Altogether, the cost of mining with this 1,750MH/s rig is 1330.90$ USD per year.

We need to make all this back plus at least 5% for ourselves.  That's about 1400$ that we'd need to make that year, to make this worthwhile.  That would mean we'd have to be mining 3.84$ USD of BTC a day, or that the value of BTC would have to be 4.57$ USD.

What matters is not the amount of BTC being mined each day or the difficulty or whatever.  What matters is the USD equivalents of whatever is being mined per day.  If the USD equivalent is less than the end of the year hardware costs and power costs plus a small 5% or so share, no one will mine, period, and the price must rise.  If the USD equivalent is more than the end of the year hardware costs and power costs plus a small 5% or so share, everyone will mine and the price must fall.

The current price seems to be unsustainable, as there is no reason to invest anywhere else if BTC mining returns such insane amounts.  For people investing in mining rigs there is another loss fear in case the market collapses and you lose the amount you spent on electricity and the devaluation of your hardware, but there is no way that price is an additional 65%.  There are no 70% junk bonds; at best it represents an additional maximum of 5%.

ASIC mining/other highly targeted hardware may not change this much because the resale value of something that can only mine BTC will be worth dickall in the event of the BTC market collapsing and must be purchased cautiously at the present time.

[proudhon]

I won't start buying before $6.00. I would rather miss the whole thing and forget about bitcoins all together then buy above that price or EVER chase it higher. But that's just me. When/if I will start buying, I know already the whole plan, which I might fine tune as we go along, but I won't ever go outside my comfort zone. I know exactly how much I will buy, when, how much it will cost me and when I will/might sell. There isn't anyone who could influence me in a way that I would change my plan drastically. I would/will still read what people are saying but not react on it unless the price/volume tells me so. That's how I made money in the past and will do so in the future.

When bitcoin was $1 the daily trade volume (on MtGox) was around $10k USD on low days and $50k USD on strong days.  By the time daily volume was above $100k+ on average, price was above $5 and on its way to $10 (volume was growing to a million).

Unless we see a massive decrease in daily trade volume from the current $500k-$1m, down to under $100k, I'd be very suprised to see prices below $5.

Someone made a great post earlier and independently came to the same point as you and showed his work to boot:

Bitcoin will currently continue to lower in value as long as the following is satisfied:
- Miners can sell the BTC they make for more than they can easily invest it for (>5% annual, maybe >2.5% in the current economic atmosphere)
- The global economy is a downfall and people are looking to liquidate assets while they are still worth something.
- The BTC surplus as a result of high speed mining and immediate resale of mined BTC continues, that is, there is a low demand for BTC while the number of sellers remains high.

Eventually a point must be reached at which the miners are no longer willing to sell any BTC and an equilibrium must be established.  Where is this?

Average price of power in the US: 0.1109$ / KWh (2.66$ USD/day)
Typical hash rate/KWh: 1,750 MH/s (AMD 58xx/69xx cards), or 0.84 BTC/day
Average amount of time to mine 1BTC at this hash rate: 1.19 days
Total cost/BTC: 3.16$ USD

Let's looks at the current price of BTC, 7.5$ USD or so.  This represents an insane 99% profit after addressing for power.  Of course, hardware must be factored in here too, and it is assumed that at the end of the year most miners will have spent more on hardware than on power.  How much more?  A rig that can mine 1750 MH/s probably costs in the vicinity of 1000-1300$ USD.  The value of the hardware probably declines by about 30% each year.

Looking at each miner per year, let's say the rig costs 1200$ USD and by the end of the year just 840$ USD from devaluation.  The bitcoin miner must make 360$ to recoup this loss.  This makes our math easy, because it's clear than that he or she must make at the very least about 1.00$ per day.  We also know that we owe 2.66$/day of electricity, or about 971$ per year.  We mine 6.30$ USD a day (0.84 BTC), so our ROI (return on investment) is still 72% percent.  This is an enormous and unsustainable value.

Altogether, the cost of mining with this 1,750MH/s rig is 1330.90$ USD per year.

We need to make all this back plus at least 5% for ourselves.  That's about 1400$ that we'd need to make that year, to make this worthwhile.  That would mean we'd have to be mining 3.84$ USD of BTC a day, or that the value of BTC would have to be 4.57$ USD.

What matters is not the amount of BTC being mined each day or the difficulty or whatever.  What matters is the USD equivalents of whatever is being mined per day.  If the USD equivalent is less than the end of the year hardware costs and power costs plus a small 5% or so share, no one will mine, period, and the price must rise.  If the USD equivalent is more than the end of the year hardware costs and power costs plus a small 5% or so share, everyone will mine and the price must fall.

The current price seems to be unsustainable, as there is no reason to invest anywhere else if BTC mining returns such insane amounts.  For people investing in mining rigs there is another loss fear in case the market collapses and you lose the amount you spent on electricity and the devaluation of your hardware, but there is no way that price is an additional 65%.  There are no 70% junk bonds; at best it represents an additional maximum of 5%.

ASIC mining/other highly targeted hardware may not change this much because the resale value of something that can only mine BTC will be worth dickall in the event of the BTC market collapsing and must be purchased cautiously at the present time.

Aren't those two different, somewhat contradictory points.  The first guy is implying the price should go up, the second is implying it should go down...

[skyhigh]

This is purely my view of the situation and my initial entry point $6.00 in the post you quoted.

$6.00 was a lucky fill, because someone dumped 26k in one large order tanking market down to $5.75. Some were saying who was this idiot or/and that Mtgox should look into it, because it was most likely criminal activity. All of this is possible but most likely its just another bullshit dream from hardcore bulls, coming up with 1001 excuse why this is happening.

If I was an early adopter who would go big into mining when GPU mining started I would probably have like 200k coins, if not more. Since I'm smarter than the average Joe, I would be unloading massive amounts around $20.00 right after the bubble popped and market bounced back up next day. I would be liquidating every coin to my name. Some might say this is a hindsight, but I'm almost 100% sure I would do that. But if somehow I wasn't as smart or if I didn't know what is the most likely path market will take in the next couple of weeks/months I would be selling below $20.00. Whenever there would be enough bids for me to unload 10k-20k I would do it. Even now, when the price got really low, if I was still holding coins I would be hitting that bid whenever I could. This is basically the only way a large coin holder can sell their stash. He/she can't sit around for hours and fight with all this bots and wannabe daytraders moving around 50 coins all day long. There is simply no liquidity in the market to unload big position. Every time someone wants to sell 15k+ market will have an earthquake. It might not seem like much if you consider market daily volume is 100k, but selling even 10k is a huge problem. Most of the time when we get 100k volume, it because this large seller is unloading ~30k.

Market will slide lower all the way until this big sellers are done and out completely. If they will be done soon, we might be close to the bottom at $4 to $6 range, but if this big sellers are still holding a lot, there is no way market can keep up with the supply. This seller isn't crashing the market, they just want to unload their position. When he/she sells ~30k they stop and market stabilizes for a few days, then gets hit by another 30k in a short time and lower it goes. Every time big seller shows up it creates shock waves, because all the small time traders follow. At first everyone is trying to sell as quickly as possible, then when market is way oversold we get this bots or human daytraders moving around tiny trades on which the market bounces, shoots into overbought on practically no volume at all, then sells down and stabilizes at its new trading range, sitting there until the big seller wants to unload again. Lower the market goes more money is waiting to get filled. This is how market will find its bottom. Then will the accumulation phase start. It might take weeks/months before this phase is over, then we would be finally ready to MAYBE start a new uptrend.


Where to next?

I'm sitting and waiting for big seller to done their thing. Whenever they show up and market tanks below what I consider decent entry based on the overall market picture and volumes we are getting at that time, I/you can buy some coins and sell them if the price gets high enough for you/me to be worth the risk/reward. Will we ever see $20 again? I don't know, but its not really important to me. Bitcoin isn't an investment, it's a trading vehicle designed to work regardless of it's price. Bitcoin functionality doesn't change if its worth $1 or $100.

[Oldminer]

I hope everyone's coined up

[proudhon]

I hope everyone's coined up

You still think there's going to be a rally today, don't you?

[joepie91]

This is purely my view of the situation and my initial entry point $6.00 in the post you quoted.

$6.00 was a lucky fill, because someone dumped 26k in one large order tanking market down to $5.75. Some were saying who was this idiot or/and that Mtgox should look into it, because it was most likely criminal activity. All of this is possible but most likely its just another bullshit dream from hardcore bulls, coming up with 1001 excuse why this is happening.

If I was an early adopter who would go big into mining when GPU mining started I would probably have like 200k coins, if not more. Since I'm smarter than the average Joe, I would be unloading massive amounts around $20.00 right after the bubble popped and market bounced back up next day. I would be liquidating every coin to my name. Some might say this is a hindsight, but I'm almost 100% sure I would do that. But if somehow I wasn't as smart or if I didn't know what is the most likely path market will take in the next couple of weeks/months I would be selling below $20.00. Whenever there would be enough bids for me to unload 10k-20k I would do it. Even now, when the price got really low, if I was still holding coins I would be hitting that bid whenever I could. This is basically the only way a large coin holder can sell their stash. He/she can't sit around for hours and fight with all this bots and wannabe daytraders moving around 50 coins all day long. There is simply no liquidity in the market to unload big position. Every time someone wants to sell 15k+ market will have an earthquake. It might not seem like much if you consider market daily volume is 100k, but selling even 10k is a huge problem. Most of the time when we get 100k volume, it because this large seller is unloading ~30k.

Market will slide lower all the way until this big sellers are done and out completely. If they will be done soon, we might be close to the bottom at $4 to $6 range, but if this big sellers are still holding a lot, there is no way market can keep up with the supply. This seller isn't crashing the market, they just want to unload their position. When he/she sells ~30k they stop and market stabilizes for a few days, then gets hit by another 30k in a short time and lower it goes. Every time big seller shows up it creates shock waves, because all the small time traders follow. At first everyone is trying to sell as quickly as possible, then when market is way oversold we get this bots or human daytraders moving around tiny trades on which the market bounces, shoots into overbought on practically no volume at all, then sells down and stabilizes at its new trading range, sitting there until the big seller wants to unload again. Lower the market goes more money is waiting to get filled. This is how market will find its bottom. Then will the accumulation phase start. It might take weeks/months before this phase is over, then we would be finally ready to MAYBE start a new uptrend.


Where to next?

I'm sitting and waiting for big seller to done their thing. Whenever they show up and market tanks below what I consider decent entry based on the overall market picture and volumes we are getting at that time, I/you can buy some coins and sell them if the price gets high enough for you/me to be worth the risk/reward. Will we ever see $20 again? I don't know, but its not really important to me. Bitcoin isn't an investment, it's a trading vehicle designed to work regardless of it's price. Bitcoin functionality doesn't change if its worth $1 or $100.

Finally. Someone who can LOGICALLY support his claims and speculations, and appears to know what he is talking about. +1

[vulgata]

Aren't those two different, somewhat contradictory points.  The first guy is implying the price should go up, the second is implying it should go down...

They are different, but not contradictory.

The first post was about how price is related to trading volumes, and that for this volume of trading the price should be around $5.

The second was about how price was related to mining, and how current mining hardware supports a price level of about $5 at the minimum (he also says that's the maximum, but whatever).

My point was just that both these people decided on ~$5 as the bottom using different approaches, and that plus the understanding that Bitcoin is not a company stock but a fundamentally different form of currency leads me to agree that is where we will bottom out.

[Oldminer]

You still think there's going to be a rally today, don't you?

I still think there will be a rally. When I dont know, but I will say with certainty - Bitcoin's not done. In my opinion its just getting started. The foundation of the currency and the community is still taking shape. All you have to do is take a look at the infrastructure going up around it to see that. The one BIG advantage Bitcoin has over mainstream currencies is ease of use. How else can you pay for something located on the other side of the globe within an hour or so, if not minutes? And mobile payments is the BIG growth area. The problem that still exists with this however is the slowness of the regular banking system. This is where Bitcoin has a huge advantage thats not yet been fully realised. And the as far as price goes, the best may still be yet to come. All it needs is a few big players to become interested and its value could skyrocket again overnight BUT with a bigger/stronger/more secure foundation beneath it, the price wont tank next time.

[Technomage]

Not predicting when the rally will start, but it is likely that there will be a rally eventually. A good article on the stages of Bitcoin. We are just finishing stage 1, Bitcoin 0.0. http://vermorel.com/journal/2011/8/3/bitcoin-thoughts-on-a-nascent-currency-system.html

[TraderTimm]

$9.55

Where's TraderTimm?

Sorry, been busy making money after one of your pals, Bernanke, got the rug pulled out from under by Standard and Poors.

If you're worried about my cost basis in bitcoin, don't be -- I got in way below parity

[Shinobi]

You still think there's going to be a rally today, don't you?

I still think there will be a rally. When I dont know, but I will say with certainty - Bitcoin's not done. In my opinion its just getting started. The foundation of the currency and the community is still taking shape. All you have to do is take a look at the infrastructure going up around it to see that. The one BIG advantage Bitcoin has over mainstream currencies is ease of use. How else can you pay for something located on the other side of the globe within an hour or so, if not minutes? And mobile payments is the BIG growth area. The problem that still exists with this however is the slowness of the regular banking system. This is where Bitcoin has a huge advantage thats not yet been fully realised. And the as far as price goes, the best may still be yet to come. All it needs is a few big players to become interested and its value could skyrocket again overnight BUT with a bigger/stronger/more secure foundation beneath it, the price wont tank next time.

The points you make about utility are valid, but the mistake you make is in thinking that This iteration of crypto currency will be the one that becomes the standard. I see Bitcoin more as a trial run of the crypto currency protocol, a way to see the strengths and shortcomings. The very fact that this is all open-source makes the possibility, in my mind, that a subsequent iteration of this system - likely one backed by a company with the ability to provide branding and a concerted and effective marketing effort - will be the future. Bitcoin's name has been tarnished beyond repair - you can argue this all you want, but you and I both know it. There is just no incentive by any interested party to waste time undoing negative perceptions when the code can be copied, tweaked and polished to provide the safety and convenience Bitcoin has always lacked and something which the Bitcoin developers have yet to address despite the passage of so much catastrophe. It is unforgivable that an update to the client has not been made which provides an encrypted wallet. Unforgivable - and a testament to the failure of the "community" effort.

[RandyFolds]

You still think there's going to be a rally today, don't you?

I still think there will be a rally. When I dont know, but I will say with certainty - Bitcoin's not done. In my opinion its just getting started. The foundation of the currency and the community is still taking shape. All you have to do is take a look at the infrastructure going up around it to see that. The one BIG advantage Bitcoin has over mainstream currencies is ease of use. How else can you pay for something located on the other side of the globe within an hour or so, if not minutes? And mobile payments is the BIG growth area. The problem that still exists with this however is the slowness of the regular banking system. This is where Bitcoin has a huge advantage thats not yet been fully realised. And the as far as price goes, the best may still be yet to come. All it needs is a few big players to become interested and its value could skyrocket again overnight BUT with a bigger/stronger/more secure foundation beneath it, the price wont tank next time.

The points you make about utility are valid, but the mistake you make is in thinking that This iteration of crypto currency will be the one that becomes the standard. I see Bitcoin more as a trial run of the crypto currency protocol, a way to see the strengths and shortcomings. The very fact that this is all open-source makes the possibility, in my mind, that a subsequent iteration of this system - likely one backed by a company with the ability to provide branding and a concerted and effective marketing effort - will be the future. Bitcoin's name has been tarnished beyond repair - you can argue this all you want, but you and I both know it. There is just no incentive by any interested party to waste time undoing negative perceptions when the code can be copied, tweaked and polished to provide the safety and convenience Bitcoin has always lacked and something which the Bitcoin developers have yet to address despite the passage of so much catastrophe. It is unforgivable that an update to the client has not been made which provides an encrypted wallet. Unforgivable - and a testament to the failure of the "community" effort.

Bitcoin is so tarnished it's useless? Why does this 'iteration' have to be abandoned and started anew to flourish? If the changes are beneficial, the community will accept them; no new blockchain needed.

Why don't you read up on the history of the US Dollar and come back with some historical knowledge to back your argument. That one was basically an open source build for longer than it has been stable and regulated.

[Oldminer]

I hope everyone's coined up

Just checkin'

[kano]

Hmm $11 to $12 range earlier ...
Looks like it didn't crash and burn today at least

[TraderTimm]

Hmm $11 to $12 range earlier ...
Looks like it didn't crash and burn today at least

But dude, it will never get back to 20! NEVER! EVER!

[flug]

Bitcoin's name has been tarnished beyond repair

That's like saying that gold's name was tarnished because of a few big gold robberies.

[FlipPro]

Can't wait till we hit $20 after Bitcon so I can come back into this thread and LAUGH.

[cypherdoc]

I hope everyone's coined up

You still think there's going to be a rally today, don't you?

uh yes.

[cypherdoc]

where is that weenie BTCEconomist anyway?

[Oldminer]

Bitcoin's name has been tarnished beyond repair

That's like saying that gold's name was tarnished because of a few big gold robberies.

After a while you learn to just ignore the negativity around here..

You still think there's going to be a rally today, don't you?

And yes that was a nice little rally..

Get ready for another push to $12