Will Bitcoin cost $1,000 someday? $10,000? My opinion: No.

[cryptocoinsnews]

With the dawn of a new era in Bitcoin (the “China” era?), it may appear that this is the “final chance to get in on BTC” before it rises to some new astronomical value. I strongly disagree with this statement. Here’s why:

1) Very little has changed in Bitcoin from where it was 3 weeks ago.
To my knowledge, the only two things sparking the near doubling of BTC price are Baidu offering BTC as an accepted currency for a small part of their business (DDoS protection), and a BTC story appearing on Chinese television. This changes little from the “utility” standpoint of BTC- I cannot buy or sell goods quicker or more securely with BTC than I could 3 weeks ago.

However, you could argue that as a result of the recent publicity BTC has received, it will spark new innovations and more price support (buyers) for the coin, network, and community. I once again think this is incorrect. Here’s why:

2) Bitcoin’s code might be as good as gets.
The Bitcoin Foundation and all of the developers associated with the project have done an excellent job on making Bitcoin very technically secure and efficient. Even during a blockchain fork in March, the right people stepped up to fix it. Yet, problems still remain, and a number of alt coins are attempting to solve them. among them are:

    The speed of block confirmations (Coins take 30 minutes to confirm- imagine waiting on line for 30 minutes? See below for one solution)
    The length of the block chain
    The centralization of mining hardware
    The centralization of BTC owners (big corps, governments, rich people)

The first two problems are in the process of being solved by centralization, that is trusting other people to handle the problem for you. Payment processors and online wallets do a good job of providing conveniences for other people, but you have to trust them to solve problems for you. Other altcoins, like Mincoin and Peercoin, solved the problem with coding faster blocks (MNC) and developing other confirmation techniques (proof-of-stake in PPC).

The centralization of mining hardware and the big “whales” in BTC are alarming to me. The market is beholden to their whims- do they want to sell? Do they want to buy? Ideally, coins should be owned by a plurality of holders. For whatever reasons, BTC is increasingly going to the hands of a few, either through buying or mining.

Read more here: http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2013/10/24/will-bitcoin-cost-1000-someday-10000-opinion-voice/

What do you think?

[djalexr]

Relatively little had also changed just before the big run up in price we saw in march/april...but there were lots of these little itty bitty things that had happened, none of which by themselves were that significant or had much to do with the utility of bitcoin (fincen ruling, etc.) - but in the end led to a significantly higher overall price level, even after a big crash.

Along with Baidu, I also think the silkroad thing that happened recently is reasonably significant and worth a mention as a possible driver for the spike we are seeing at the moment - a lot of people I know personally, and just from reading general peoples opinion on it, there seems to be more genuine interest in it now, whereas before lots of people (including me) were pretty worried that the whole thing would fall apart if silkroad got busted

It seems that you are in favour of an alt-coin that solves the problems you outlined above - so do you think that this alt-coin, (whatever it may be) will someday cost $1,000 or $10,000? I think that either way, if the idea of decentralised currency does take off (whether bitcoin, or a superior alt-coin), it will be us that are currently following the development of bitcoin that would be first in line to catch wind of this superior alt-coin, if one ever does manage to emerge despite bitcoin now having a huge following - as other people have said, its a bit like the http: etc. infrastructure of the internet, email and all that stuff - there are probably more effective ways of doing this in hindsight, but these systems have caught on, and its not going to be possible to change our global dependence on them anytime soon, even if somebody does think of a better system.

I guess its still relatively early days yet, but I personally think that bitcoin will either demonstrate to the world that decentralised currency works as a concept, or that it doesn't. If it does succeed, then bitcoin (and possibly some alt-coins too) could end up massively valuable. If bitcoin doesn't succeed in this way, I don't think any alt-coin would either.

[qwk]

YABWNR$XT

Yet another bitcoin will never reach $X thread? Seriously?

[favdesu]

YABWNR$XT

Yet another bitcoin will never reach $X thread? Seriously?

yeah, this topic is being discussed at least once a month, only the OP name changes. 

[wumpus]

Nothing ever changes on this forum at least  
Let's just be honest: no one knows where this is going

[uMMcQxCWELNzkt]

Created this thread yesterday, I am guessing you must have seen it before posting this lol.

$10 VS. $10,000 - What Say You?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=317405.0

[tutkarz]

What do you think?

i'm creating service that will be accepting bitcoin and it will be possible thanks to bitcoin. Because i'm not going to deal with banks or other institutions hoping they will not ban my account or freeze money there. Not to mention their fees.
I think there is more people like me. You are not expecting those services fall from the sky, don't you?

[nerFohanzo]

    The centralization of mining hardware

The centralization of mining hardware and the big “whales” in BTC are alarming to me. The market is beholden to their whims- do they want to sell? Do they want to buy? Ideally, coins should be owned by a plurality of holders. For whatever reasons, BTC is increasingly going to the hands of a few, either through buying or mining.

What do you think?

No, a lot of people have, and even more preordered insane amounts of hashing miners. I do not see centralization here.

[phlogistonq]

1) Very little has changed in Bitcoin from where it was 3 weeks ago.

True, so that is not driving the current increase.
I think it is justified simply because a very large pool of interested users started joining (the Chinese) for all the things that are good about bitcoin, as they already were before the increase. More customers, more demand. Nothing wrong with that. Exactly according to plan, in fact.

Very much like the jan-apr peak, actually, when a lot of new people got introduced to bitcoin. However, at that time the increased usefulness (support from various companies, newly developed tools and services, etc) attracted new people.

[BitcoinAshley]

    The centralization of mining hardware

The centralization of mining hardware and the big “whales” in BTC are alarming to me. The market is beholden to their whims- do they want to sell? Do they want to buy? Ideally, coins should be owned by a plurality of holders. For whatever reasons, BTC is increasingly going to the hands of a few, either through buying or mining.

What do you think?

No, a lot of people have, and even more preordered insane amounts of hashing miners. I do not see centralization here.

Exactly - there are indeed large mining groups now, but the "hands of the few" argument is bullshit just designed to grab the attention of whiny keynesians. "Oh those evil rich people ruining Bitcoin"

[FTWbitcoinFTW]

[Akka]

Oh great, this again.

   The speed of block confirmations (Coins take 30 minutes to confirm- imagine waiting on line for 30 minutes? See below for one solution)

For the 10.000th Time.

Do you have any Idea just how much saver a 0 confirmation transaction is compared to a credit card payment. Have you ever been asked to wait in line for 180 days until your credit card payment can't be chared back?  

This is no problem for low value goods.

   The length of the block chain

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

7. Reclaiming Disk Space.

   The centralization of mining hardware

  there are more miners than ever in Bitcoin. Mining Hardware never was more decentralized as right now.

   The centralization of BTC owners (big corps, governments, rich people)

Don't see a problem here. There is nothing wrong with people getting rich. Last time I checked this was still OK.

[greaterninja]

Bitcoin is too volatile, exchanges are vulnerable to ddos and online exploits, pools and e-wallet computers are exploitable as well.
Second to that, you have groups of whales that sell off high volume of btc to create panic selling.   Exchanges do not have countermeasures to people trying to manipulate btc market by high-volume scaring.  In the SEC they have visibility on this type of action.  However, in bitcoin you do not.



As an investor in bitcoin, I will continue to mine and buy / sell btc.   However, I am done buying mining equipment.  That game is long over now.


All in all, bitcoin will change the way the world processes payments.  It will have value as well.  $100-$500 range is what I think.  I also think it would be better to back btc by Palladium, gold or silver.  Make the PMs have a lower value than the btc...not the other way around.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

I find your lack of vision disturbing

[adamstgBit]

altcoin offer the same service for cheap?
lol no, altcoins is a cheaper service.


its a fact that 99.99% of altcoins are set to die. buying in alts is CRAZY risky even LTC could easily die within a year.

true, I am buying into FTC, but Its not because i think bitcoin won't reach 1000$ its cuz i think FTC has a chance at 1$ / coin, once bitcoin takes over.

if bitcoin doesn't grow into something huge all altcoins are doomed, imo. but thats not to say there isn't huge opportunity in the alts. 1$ / FTC would mean a 12X increase, bitcoin going to 1000 represents a 6X increase.

by buying an alts, i'm adding a huge amount of risk for potentially higher returns, I honestly think the risk is not worth taking, unless you are willing to actually participate in the community of the alt you are buying.

[johnyj]

The wallet security and ease of use is still a big concern right now.  And many people won't have enough bandwidth to download the whole blockchain

Comparing with the banks, bitcoin are still limited for tech savvy people

[somestranger]

The ecosystem just needs to slowly develop like it has been up until now, and with it the price will continue rising. $1,000 definitely seems likely within just a couple years.

[anu]

    The centralization of BTC owners (big corps, governments, rich people)

Of all things, why would that prevent Bitcoin to rise in value?

I mean, we may not like it if Bitcoin develops that way, but don't confuse your personal likes and dislikes with the market.

[johnyj]

It is not because bitcoin is very valuable, it is because too much USD get printed every day

FED is printing 2.8 billion USD per day, and there is only 3600 coins per day generated, which gives a corresponding value of 780K dollar per coin if both are accepted as payment medium equally

[fleabag]

LOL that is great