low price because of repeated large sells

[Oldminer]

And/or they don't want to sell but are being forced to by unforeseen personal circumstances. (i.e. Need cash urgently, must sell bitcoins)

And this ^^

I think also (as someone else in this forum suggested) that anyone into Bitcoins now, that stays in, will be considered one of the the new generation of 'early adopters' in 6 - 12 months from now. There will always be those that were the original early adopters, but I think we're seeing their numbers dwindle, for reasons already stated, but also perhaps because they never really were 'true believers' in Bitcoin. They were in the right place at the right time, and were the first to make a handsome profit from the first major price jump, but over time they will be a minority group of ever reducing numbers.

[nazgulnarsil]

there are still at least 3-4 players with 100k+ coins.

Few are interested in a market where one person can crash the price at will.

[ThomasV]

Few are interested in a market where one person can crash the price at will.

Nobody can crash the price at will.
When mtgox was hacked, in the minutes that followed the 500k sale which crashed the price from $17 to $0.01, and before mtgox cancelled all those trades, prices had gone back up to $13, because people were buying en masse.
And that, of course, is an extreme case...

[nazgulnarsil]

losing 24% of your wealth in a span of 30 minutes. 

You can't deny that all it takes is one of those 3-4 individuals to make a massive sell orders for bitcoin to decrease say another 25-50% almost instantly.

I believe this will happen several times, but once it is done with the massive upside will start to rear its head.

[Cluster2k]

If you're mining and hoarding Bitcoins, you're speculating. It's exactly as if you made some money, then spent it by buying Bitcoins for speculation purposes.

ROTFL. If you're not buying Bitcoins, you're speculating. It's exactly as if you bought thousands of Bitcoins, then sold them for speculation purposes.

So, does that mean I'm also speculating in postage stamps, baseball cards, vintage vases, old wine, and classic cars.... by not buying them?  Great :-)

[Grinder]

You don't lose any money until you cash out. If you do not sell when the price drops, you have not lost any money.

That's only true if you consider all the money you've spent on Bitcoins as lost already.

[Vladimir]

low price because of repeated large sells

wow! that's quite a revelation...

turned out more supply than demand makes prices to go down  

[Cluster2k]

losing 24% of your wealth in a span of 30 minutes. 

You can't deny that all it takes is one of those 3-4 individuals to make a massive sell orders for bitcoin to decrease say another 25-50% almost instantly.

I believe this will happen several times, but once it is done with the massive upside will start to rear its head.

You don't lose any money until you cash out. If you do not sell when the price drops, you have not lost any money.

That is of course true.  If you don't sell the asset at a lower price then you haven't realised the losses.

However, it's also the game US banks are playing with toxic CDOs.  They're currently marked to model, not marked to market.  The bank may say they're worth 90c in the dollar when really they're 30c.  Even though the bank has not sold the asset, and therefore not realised the losses, those losses are real and genuine.  They affect bank reserves and can cripple future lending.

Recently I applied for a mortgage and the broker wanted to know what my assets are worth right now, not when I bought them or what I think they're worth.

[bitcon]

IF someone crashes the market by making a large sale, then that just gives us an opportunity to purchase BTC at early adopter prices..

[Noam]

Guys, the shifts between $30 and $12 are temporary and quite frankly - completely insignificant.

Just looking at the medium/long term trends going on in this world (dwindling USD value, other world currency inflation, global government instability and people uprising) I have no doubt that BTC will be worth thousands of USD and possibly more in future years.

[Vladimir]

True. In medium term bitcoin goes either to 1000$ or to 0$. If so, than it really makes not such a big difference whether it was bought at 10$ or at 30$.

[johnyj]

Actually I think the price is reasonable, if it is higher, there will be more people buying mining equipment to make coins and drive up the difficulty and lower the profitability further.

Currently the return of the investment is just at normal business level. If it is too profitable, then all the money will rush into this business thus make competetion harder and drop the profitability

[Jack of Diamonds]

If you're mining and hoarding Bitcoins, you're speculating. It's exactly as if you made some money, then spent it by buying Bitcoins for speculation purposes.

ROTFL. If you're not buying Bitcoins, you're speculating. It's exactly as if you bought thousands of Bitcoins, then sold them for speculation purposes.

So, does that mean I'm also speculating in postage stamps, baseball cards, vintage vases, old wine, and classic cars.... by not buying them?  Great :-)

Well.. Take gold for example. Assuming you don't own nor have previously owned gold bullion, you are speculating the price will not hold up and will crash at any time.

Your opportunity cost is a few hundred % over the years.

If you believed it's a sound investment & had the courage to invest in it, you would speculate by buying gold.
Similarly, by not buying relatively cheap BTC at $13 per piece, you are speculating it's overpriced and not worth spending your money on as an investment.

Opportunity cost of not buying BTC at current rates is unknown, but previous people who had the chance to buy at $0.2, $0.5 per coin etc.. Were obviously speculating there would be a bear market & potentially lost tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars.