Reality Check

[bootlace]

Hate to reign in on the party, but perhaps some will appreciate a little bit of reality check so they can cash out while they still can at these ridiculous prices.

First of all there's the matter of price. Pretty much everyone going crazy over these bitcoin surges are those that are interested in making money. For all the USD and fiat bashing we see here, everyone's measure of excitement is measured by how much of 'it' (fiat) they can get for their BTC. And contrary to popular remarks, everyone has a fiat price they want to cash out at. So let's not get carried away with how Bitcoin has 'made it' because in terms of adoption it has barely moved an inch - it is largely being carried by the speculators.


The fact that not one major corporation has started to use Bitcoins as a major part of their business (and not talking as a quick and cheap marketing/attention ploy) since the boom in price and supposed popularity is concerning. I'm not talking about some Subway branch in Russia or a tiny subsidiary of Baidu. Don't expect any of the tech giants to help push this to widespread adoption - they all already have their own digital payment solutions.

Now lets get back to the current price for a second. Bitcoin market cap is north of $10 billion now - that's a lot of money created out of nowhere but that's not even the concern I have - afterall tech startups being overvalued is a norm these days.

What does concern me is what is needed to sustain this price point.  Everyday loads of BTC needs to be sold: miners are one part of it but the other part is companies like BitPay - who are suppose to be the leaders behind this adoption revolution.

As many already know, any half serious business needs fiat capital to function: selling things in BTC and not converting is just not an option. So let's say a couple Bitcoin millionaires decide to buy a Ferrari. Let's also assume Ferrari accepts Bitcoins. So Ferrari sells 10 cards in one day through BitPay - they immediately ask to convert the BTC they received for the cars into USD. That's couple of million dollars that BitPay has to sell on the BTC exchanges. How can BitPay even offer Ferrari the exchange they promised when all that BTC selling will obviousy drop the price? Let's even go to the extent to say that there is enough demand and the price doesn't drop THAT much -  which exchange has the capability to make millions of dollars worth of payments everyday.

As far as I know the largest US exchange is facing severe problems in this domain and the largest one in EU (BTC-24.com) shut down in April and has still not returned its users their money. Other ones like BTC-E and BTCChina are very shady to begin with so not even getting into that.

Bitcoin exchanges have already so many problems - limited liquidity, being run by small time novices, being hated by banks, hacks/security - that I can't imagine them really paying a lot of people when the eventual mass cashing out occurs.

So in reality that price you see is only an illusion. Some out there can actual get that money out but most of the people can not. Once this realization happens the price crashes and all the speculators that have pushed this wave so high will also naturally make it crash just as hard. So don't count on speculators to create a sustained value increase in coin value.

For many of the popular and useful uses of Bitcoin - like spending on gambling for example - the purchase of BTC is neutral on its price because users use it as a tool USD -> BTC -> USD. That, in the long term, should not affect the price because money in should equal money out. So what is it that remains? Ah yes, actual BTC use that always remains in BTC.

As I've said, we've not seen this behaviour yet. So that's why Im highly skeptical this price increase is in any way warranted or sustaintable.

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[Apostata]

What people like you don't seem to understand is just how disruptive Bitcoin truly is.  Bitcoin completely replaces the banking and payment processing industry, and rewrites the book on how trillions of dollars are transferred around the world. Every.single.day.  Banks rely on systems that were developed decades ago; at the very least they will learn from bitcoin and utilize its ingenious ideas to improve on their existing infrastructure.  At the most it wil replace them altogether, and could very well do so.

The fact that major corporations haven't adopted bitcoin is partly due to lack of understanding, but also due to regulatory cloudiness and quite frankly greed; amazon wants their own bitcoin that they can control and profit from, as do facebook and google.  And keep in mind that Bitcoin is still in its infancy, most corporations didn't start a website the first day or even first decade the Internet was created. And if I may add, Bitcoin has the potential to disrupt the world just as much as the Internet did.  Seriously.

Your comments about BTCchina show just how uninformed you are; have you researched anything about the background of the largest exchange in the world, it's founder, his family, or its history?

The price of bitcoin is currently being driven purely by speculation, absolutely.  However, there really is no limit to what the value of one bitcoin could be, if you understood the potential it has to disrupt the banking and financial industry.  But its clear that you do not so i will finish this reply with that.  I suspect that you either missed the boat, sold too early, or are just trolling without anything better to do, but more than likely your post is a result of a combination of all of the above.

[piramida]

at what price did you get out? and yes, stop "reigning" on our parade, you're quite bad at it because all of your "facts" are bullshit. there is about 100 million usd volume daily across exchanges. take out calculator and subtract your ferraris if you will now.

[Apostata]

at what price did you get out? and yes, stop "reigning" on our parade, you're quite bad at it because all of your "facts" are bullshit. there is about 100 million usd volume daily across exchanges. take out calculator and subtract your ferraris if you will now.

No, he should calculate the number of Hyundai's.  Bears like this don't even dream of ferraris

[bootlace]

I don't care how much 'transaction' there is in intra-BTC or the hypothetical  dollars in these exchanges - if the price shot up to 10,000 on a few crazy investors taking advantage of the limited liquidity on the exchanges - the market cap would stand at 100 billion dollars. You think any of the exchanges or any one for that matters has the money to pay out anyone significant their positions? No, the first couple who cash out will make bank and the price will then correct MAJORLY.

How much Bitcoins -> USD transaction per day is there actually? All these exchanges have very tight payout policies. I presume it has not been a problem until now because like I said no serious company is actually using Bitcoin/BitPay or getting that much transaction.

Apostata: I don't need to hear a lecture about Bitcoin's potential from someone who joined the forums a week ago. I'm very well aware of its potential. Having said that if you've spent any time in the real world, you will know that revolutions like the banking sector collapsing doesn't happen overnight and certainly won't go down without a major fight.

Oh and I dont need to have done any reasearch about BTCChina - I have lived and worked in China for 5 years and I know the Chinese authorities can shut down that shit in seconds wihout blinking an eye. Having been subject to that in Europe with BTC-24, I doubt things are gone end well over there.

[sickpig]

As far as I know the largest US exchange is facing severe problems in this domain and the largest one in EU (BTC-24.com) shut down in April and has still not returned its users their money. Other ones like BTC-E and BTCChina are very shady to begin with so not even getting into that.

Sorry to derail the thread but btc24 gave back all Bitcoin present in the exchange, all the money held in their German bank and now are in the process of returning 72% of the remain found being held on a Polish bank.

Of course there are plenty of  reasons for what happened to btc24 and they're more related to the unprofessional (not dishonest) way the owner managed the exchange rather than not.

[piramida]

It does not matter if some exchange is closed, have not you noticed this by now? There is no "tight pay out", you can withdraw all you want. Any merchants use bitpay so they don't even need to worry about exchanges. You really do not have a point, only an unfounded wish for a lower price.

You still did not answer at what price you cashed out, so we can advise you should you wait for the dip to that price or buy in now while you still can.

[superduh]

10 billion market cap is nothing. get rid of gold's insane store of "intristic value" and move that aspect to bitcoins and each bitcoin is worth $500,000. i'll let you think a bit more about that

[NUFCrichard]

I don't know how high we will go, the "new normal" is a bit worrying, but then it has been since about $350.
You could well be right that a bubble burst is imminent, but then it might be $2000 in the next few days, to be honest I think $2000 is more likely than $500 short term

[bootlace]

It does not matter if some exchange is closed, have not you noticed this by now? There is no "tight pay out", you can withdraw all you want. Any merchants use bitpay so they don't even need to worry about exchanges. You really do not have a point, only an unfounded wish for a lower price.

You still did not answer at what price you cashed out, so we can advise you should you wait for the dip to that price or buy in now while you still can.

I didn't really cash out, I sold in middle of 200's when the April bubble was crashing (it was so obvious with the Gox lag that it would have been criminal not to) and was planning to buy back in upper double digits but the exchange has been frozen ever since then.

Am I bitter? Yes. But Im not here to try to fool anyone or try to get cheap coins or anything because like I said all my money for investment is frozen.

I just shared some of the Bitcoin worries I had after thinking about for the past couple of months - you don't need to treat anyone who voices concerns as some evil person hellbent on getting your coins.

[kireinaha]

Bootlace, don`t even bother. The people here hate `reality` and they all live in lala land where bitcoin  is going to `da moon`, and they`re rock solid in their belief that consumers are going to want to enroll in a currency that offers no protections against fraud, and requires costly conversions from fiat. They also believe that bitcoin is a superior store of value over gold, for reasons unexplained. I`m sure all kinds of investors are just foaming at the mouth at the idea of bitcoin, given that you need to first store it on a computer. And second, you need to make regular backups, and it`s best to store it on a Linux OS (which I`m sure your average gold investor is well versed on). Then, there`s always the worry that if your HD does crash, you might not be able to successfully backup your bitcoins.

Given all this, why a gold investor would choose to invest in bitcoin, nobody has been able to explain.

But hey, bitcoin is `new` it`s digital, and it`s `sexy`. This is basically the gist of their arguments.

[isov]

Surely I'm just a noob without any real knowledge but I guess my speculation/opinion or whatever is just as good as anyone elses but to me the 10billion or so market cap doesn't seem that much if you just think the massive amount of money moving around the world so I have to come to conclusion that even if this is going to crash there is still huge potential to go upward before that. I'm only owning like a bit over 5coins atm, planning to cash out my original investment at maybe 10k or so and then just see what is going to happen with the rest and after that start selling some % of my coins every time the price doubles as rpietila my fellow finnish citizen has suggested in his investment plan. Interesting times the ones we are living, only time will tell hows it going to end up.

[emanymton]

Bootlace, don`t even bother. The people here hate `reality` and they all live in lala land where bitcoin  is going to `da moon`, and they`re rock solid in their belief that consumers are going to want to enroll in a currency that offers no protections against fraud, and requires costly conversions from fiat. They also believe that bitcoin is a superior store of value over gold, for reasons unexplained. I`m sure all kinds of investors are just foaming at the mouth at the idea of bitcoin, given that you need to first store it on a computer. And second, you need to make regular backups, and it`s best to store it on a Linux OS (which I`m sure your average gold investor is well versed on). Then, there`s always the worry that if your HD does crash, you might not be able to successfully backup your bitcoins.

Given all this, why a gold investor would choose to invest in bitcoin, nobody has been able to explain.

But hey, bitcoin is `new` it`s digital, and it`s `sexy`. This is basically the gist of their arguments.

How about the fact that bitcoin has outperformed every traditional investment by orders of magnitude since it's inception?

[Crazy]

How about the fact that bitcoin has outperformed every traditional investment by orders of magnitude since it's inception?

Because it was born a few years ago in a new age of instant communication and money transfering? Heh, kind of silly to compare it to anything in the past.

[windjc]

Bootlace, don`t even bother. The people here hate `reality` and they all live in lala land where bitcoin  is going to `da moon`, and they`re rock solid in their belief that consumers are going to want to enroll in a currency that offers no protections against fraud, and requires costly conversions from fiat. They also believe that bitcoin is a superior store of value over gold, for reasons unexplained. I`m sure all kinds of investors are just foaming at the mouth at the idea of bitcoin, given that you need to first store it on a computer. And second, you need to make regular backups, and it`s best to store it on a Linux OS (which I`m sure your average gold investor is well versed on). Then, there`s always the worry that if your HD does crash, you might not be able to successfully backup your bitcoins.

Given all this, why a gold investor would choose to invest in bitcoin, nobody has been able to explain.

But hey, bitcoin is `new` it`s digital, and it`s `sexy`. This is basically the gist of their arguments.

Kireinaha, you make some decent points. However, let's take the speculation rise in price we have currently and set it aside for a moment.

Now, once we do that, your arguments against bitcoin are similar to many others. And the arguments resemble screaming at a 2 year old because they can't wash the dishes, they can't drive the car, they can't play basketball very well, etc. etc.

You wouldn't (I would hope) expect too much from a small child. Yet, you expect so much from Bitcoin. Bitcoin will not solve the problems you mention. But the bitcoin eco-system - the one that is just starting - the one that has companies like Circle.com in it - those companies will be the ones that solve these problems using bitcoin.

Bitcoin has spent most of its time and energy so far creating the one thing that was needed before all else - security within its system. Bitcoin cannot be breached. Now Bitcoin and can go in what ever direction it needs, supported by a growing eco-system of companies. (much like the early internet).

So, let's cut bitcoin a break here, shall we. Quit screaming at the baby for christ sakes.

[Apostata]

Bootlace, don`t even bother. The people here hate `reality` and they all live in lala land where bitcoin  is going to `da moon`, and they`re rock solid in their belief that consumers are going to want to enroll in a currency that offers no protections against fraud, and requires costly conversions from fiat. They also believe that bitcoin is a superior store of value over gold, for reasons unexplained. I`m sure all kinds of investors are just foaming at the mouth at the idea of bitcoin, given that you need to first store it on a computer. And second, you need to make regular backups, and it`s best to store it on a Linux OS (which I`m sure your average gold investor is well versed on). Then, there`s always the worry that if your HD does crash, you might not be able to successfully backup your bitcoins.

Given all this, why a gold investor would choose to invest in bitcoin, nobody has been able to explain.

But hey, bitcoin is `new` it`s digital, and it`s `sexy`. This is basically the gist of their arguments.

Kireinaha, you make some decent points. However, let's take the speculation rise in price we have currently and set it aside for a moment.

Now, once we do that, your arguments against bitcoin are similar to many others. And the arguments resemble screaming at a 2 year old because they can't wash the dishes, they can't drive the car, they can't play basketball very well, etc. etc.

You wouldn't (I would hope) expect too much from a small child. Yet, you expect so much from Bitcoin. Bitcoin will not solve the problems you mention. But the bitcoin eco-system - the one that is just starting - the one that has companies like Circle.com in it - those companies will be the ones that solve these problems using bitcoin.

Bitcoin has spent most of its time and energy so far creating the one thing that was needed before all else - security within its system. Bitcoin cannot be breached. Now Bitcoin and can go in what ever direction it needs, supported by a growing eco-system of companies. (much like the early internet).

So, let's cut bitcoin a break here, shall we. Quit screaming at the baby for christ sakes.

Bingo.  Well said

[beetcoin]

Bootlace, don`t even bother. The people here hate `reality` and they all live in lala land where bitcoin  is going to `da moon`, and they`re rock solid in their belief that consumers are going to want to enroll in a currency that offers no protections against fraud, and requires costly conversions from fiat. They also believe that bitcoin is a superior store of value over gold, for reasons unexplained. I`m sure all kinds of investors are just foaming at the mouth at the idea of bitcoin, given that you need to first store it on a computer. And second, you need to make regular backups, and it`s best to store it on a Linux OS (which I`m sure your average gold investor is well versed on). Then, there`s always the worry that if your HD does crash, you might not be able to successfully backup your bitcoins.

Given all this, why a gold investor would choose to invest in bitcoin, nobody has been able to explain.

But hey, bitcoin is `new` it`s digital, and it`s `sexy`. This is basically the gist of their arguments.

How about the fact that bitcoin has outperformed every traditional investment by orders of magnitude since it's inception?

because it is the first of its kind.. in the history of mankind, there has never been an asset that shares striking similarities with bitcoin. to me, that means there is gigantic possible demand for it.

[GriTBitS]

hahahahahahaha people already wanna sell, get a grip why sell ever! Its a global currency you never need to sell. Just buy stuff with it! And quit looking at the damn fiat price! If you just look at the Tech you would never sell, especially Namecoin!!!! Its going to be one big world wide ownership database of who owns what!!!! 21m bitcoin 100+ years of mining, 7 billion ppl so far. hmmmm get out of the house and quit thinking so small. Im so glad that the computer geeks like myself that love to nerd with new tech, own most of the coin. Cuz its not about the price for us!

[Bitcopia]

Bootlace, don`t even bother. The people here hate `reality` and they all live in lala land where bitcoin  is going to `da moon`, and they`re rock solid in their belief that consumers are going to want to enroll in a currency that offers no protections against fraud, and requires costly conversions from fiat. They also believe that bitcoin is a superior store of value over gold, for reasons unexplained. I`m sure all kinds of investors are just foaming at the mouth at the idea of bitcoin, given that you need to first store it on a computer. And second, you need to make regular backups, and it`s best to store it on a Linux OS (which I`m sure your average gold investor is well versed on). Then, there`s always the worry that if your HD does crash, you might not be able to successfully backup your bitcoins.

Given all this, why a gold investor would choose to invest in bitcoin, nobody has been able to explain.

But hey, bitcoin is `new` it`s digital, and it`s `sexy`. This is basically the gist of their arguments.

Kireinaha, you make some decent points. However, let's take the speculation rise in price we have currently and set it aside for a moment.

Now, once we do that, your arguments against bitcoin are similar to many others. And the arguments resemble screaming at a 2 year old because they can't wash the dishes, they can't drive the car, they can't play basketball very well, etc. etc.

You wouldn't (I would hope) expect too much from a small child. Yet, you expect so much from Bitcoin. Bitcoin will not solve the problems you mention. But the bitcoin eco-system - the one that is just starting - the one that has companies like Circle.com in it - those companies will be the ones that solve these problems using bitcoin.

Bitcoin has spent most of its time and energy so far creating the one thing that was needed before all else - security within its system. Bitcoin cannot be breached. Now Bitcoin and can go in what ever direction it needs, supported by a growing eco-system of companies. (much like the early internet).

So, let's cut bitcoin a break here, shall we. Quit screaming at the baby for christ sakes.

Hahaha. Well said.

[bootlace]

So, let's cut bitcoin a break here, shall we. Quit screaming at the baby for christ sakes.

Sorry but at $10 billion it stopped being a baby. Any tech in 'baby' stage should be valued at a fraction of that  - which is the underlying point here.