volatility, can it really be overcome?

[guybrushthreepwood]

I should point out that in markets like ours volatility will always happen, while things will settle down you're still going to have price spikes and so on but that's just because that's what a real free market is like, people will always buy low and sell high because it benefits them, if you always bought and sold high you'd be constantly making a loss. That said as the currency spreads out and people use it more and more for buying stuff which is getting easier now things should settle down.

A prime example of something extremely manipulated are paper currencies and the long term/short term government bonds, the only reason they are at the prices they are is because someone in a central bank is pressing a button and buying them up when they think the price is too low or selling when they think it's too high.

Regular paper currency doesn't have much volatility.  But while some of it may be due to a central bank buying and selling, they don't do enough to control the daily prices.  The main reason is market cap.  Look at the market cap of the USD, Euro, etc vs. XBT?  Look at a large cap stock like GE, JNJ, versus something "new" like Telsa?  Shares outstanding and market cap.

Tell that to Zimbabwe.

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[skivrmt]

I should point out that in markets like ours volatility will always happen, while things will settle down you're still going to have price spikes and so on but that's just because that's what a real free market is like, people will always buy low and sell high because it benefits them, if you always bought and sold high you'd be constantly making a loss. That said as the currency spreads out and people use it more and more for buying stuff which is getting easier now things should settle down.

A prime example of something extremely manipulated are paper currencies and the long term/short term government bonds, the only reason they are at the prices they are is because someone in a central bank is pressing a button and buying them up when they think the price is too low or selling when they think it's too high.

Regular paper currency doesn't have much volatility.  But while some of it may be due to a central bank buying and selling, they don't do enough to control the daily prices.  The main reason is market cap.  Look at the market cap of the USD, Euro, etc vs. XBT?  Look at a large cap stock like GE, JNJ, versus something "new" like Telsa?  Shares outstanding and market cap.

Tell that to Zimbabwe.

I don't consider that a real currency.   Look at my examples.  USD, Euro, Yen, Yuan, and several others with huge market caps have the low volatility.  Other fringe currencies, and ones like Zimbabwe which is basically not even a currency, will have volatility just like XBT will. 

[pjviitas]

I am finding volatility to also be an issue.  Sitting on Bitcoin makes me nervous which seems to reduce its utility in some way.

After thinking about this for awile, I think that the volatility "problem" is mostly attributed to societies attitude that money should be easy.  There are many examples of "out of sight...out of mind" attitudes in our society and money is not any different.

Bitcoin forces everyone to lower themselves to speculator status to think about when they get Bitcoin and when they spend them.

I believe that if Bitcoin fails it will be because forcing people to get and spend their money wisely is non-utilitarian.

In a nutshell...too much work.

[Lethn]

I should point out that in markets like ours volatility will always happen, while things will settle down you're still going to have price spikes and so on but that's just because that's what a real free market is like, people will always buy low and sell high because it benefits them, if you always bought and sold high you'd be constantly making a loss. That said as the currency spreads out and people use it more and more for buying stuff which is getting easier now things should settle down.

A prime example of something extremely manipulated are paper currencies and the long term/short term government bonds, the only reason they are at the prices they are is because someone in a central bank is pressing a button and buying them up when they think the price is too low or selling when they think it's too high.

Regular paper currency doesn't have much volatility.  But while some of it may be due to a central bank buying and selling, they don't do enough to control the daily prices.  The main reason is market cap.  Look at the market cap of the USD, Euro, etc vs. XBT?  Look at a large cap stock like GE, JNJ, versus something "new" like Telsa?  Shares outstanding and market cap.

Tell that to Zimbabwe.

I don't consider that a real currency.  Look at my examples.  USD, Euro, Yen, Yuan, and several others with huge market caps have the low volatility.  Other fringe currencies, and ones like Zimbabwe which is basically not even a currency, will have volatility just like XBT will.  

Ahahahhahh! Oh boy are you about to have your world crushed, the reason that paper money has appeared to have low volatility ( note how I said appeared ) is because central banks have come together to make sure to stop any other form of currency taking place and they deliberately fix the exchange rates to hide all the evidence of what paper money is doing to our economies. Now that Bitcoin has entered the picture it has immediately come under attack by them because like with Gold/Silver it is honestly reflecting what is happening to those markets because it has a fixed supply and certain scarcity compared to paper.

Siding with these other paper currencies just because it hasn't happened to them yet is foolish and short sighted and I'll also point out another target that fiat currencies supporters go after, haven't you ever wondered why Americans are always attacking China's currency? Sure, there's is paper too and I don't like that either but because they actually produce things in their economy and pay off debt they're making the western countries look bad.

[stompix]

Ahahahhahh! Oh boy are you about to have your world crushed, the reason that paper money has appeared to have low volatility ( note how I said appeared ) is because central banks have come together to make sure to stop any other form of currency taking place and they deliberately fix the exchange rates to hide all the evidence of what paper money is doing to our economies. Now that Bitcoin has entered the picture it has immediately come under attack by them because like with Gold/Silver it is honestly reflecting what is happening to those markets because it has a fixed supply and certain scarcity compared to paper.

Siding with these other paper currencies just because it hasn't happened to them yet is foolish and short sighted and I'll also point out another target that fiat currencies supporters go after, haven't you ever wondered why Americans are always attacking China's currency? Sure, there's is paper too and I don't like that either but because they actually produce things in their economy and pay off debt they're making the western countries look bad.

USA is criticizing the yuan because the Chinese peg their currency to others , and don't let it float like it should be on a free market , by this encouraging their exports.
Also , I can laugh at the "things" China produces compared to your debtfull western countries.

1    China   $ 2,057,000,000,000   2012 est.
2    United States   $ 1,564,000,000,000   2012 est.
3    Germany   $ 1,460,000,000,000   2012 est.

1 billion people , helped by an under valuated currency managed to export 133% more than 80 millions germans.
Can I lol at that?

[Lethn]

I laugh at all the countries, no need to get defensive Also the U.S is even worse than China when it comes messing with things which makes it very ironic when they lecture others about 'running' a free market.

[nodroids]

Markets are not efficient, they are not stable, mostly because they aren't transparent so no one knows what to expect.

Markets tend towards monopoly-oligopoly, and indeed all crypto coins start out with oligopoly-monopoly. The monopolists tend to be able to exploit the lack of transparency a little better than most. So if the market blindly overshoots one way the consolidated power can more easily exploit that take advantage and shoot it back the other way.

Lack of transparency is, essentially, the seed of businness cycles imo.

Having the currency, or price signal itself be a market based mechanism is the horror of horrors, but then once the rediculous notion of a free-market is fully proven as impossible, maybe we could move on to a direct-democracy, internet governed economy ala Michael Albert's (the MIT physicist and economist (Amherst)) Parecon.

[guybrushthreepwood]

I should point out that in markets like ours volatility will always happen, while things will settle down you're still going to have price spikes and so on but that's just because that's what a real free market is like, people will always buy low and sell high because it benefits them, if you always bought and sold high you'd be constantly making a loss. That said as the currency spreads out and people use it more and more for buying stuff which is getting easier now things should settle down.

A prime example of something extremely manipulated are paper currencies and the long term/short term government bonds, the only reason they are at the prices they are is because someone in a central bank is pressing a button and buying them up when they think the price is too low or selling when they think it's too high.

Regular paper currency doesn't have much volatility.  But while some of it may be due to a central bank buying and selling, they don't do enough to control the daily prices.  The main reason is market cap.  Look at the market cap of the USD, Euro, etc vs. XBT?  Look at a large cap stock like GE, JNJ, versus something "new" like Telsa?  Shares outstanding and market cap.

Tell that to Zimbabwe.

I don't consider that a real currency.   Look at my examples.  USD, Euro, Yen, Yuan, and several others with huge market caps have the low volatility.  Other fringe currencies, and ones like Zimbabwe which is basically not even a currency, will have volatility just like XBT will. 

lol what exactly is a "real currency"?

[skivrmt]

I should point out that in markets like ours volatility will always happen, while things will settle down you're still going to have price spikes and so on but that's just because that's what a real free market is like, people will always buy low and sell high because it benefits them, if you always bought and sold high you'd be constantly making a loss. That said as the currency spreads out and people use it more and more for buying stuff which is getting easier now things should settle down.

A prime example of something extremely manipulated are paper currencies and the long term/short term government bonds, the only reason they are at the prices they are is because someone in a central bank is pressing a button and buying them up when they think the price is too low or selling when they think it's too high.

Regular paper currency doesn't have much volatility.  But while some of it may be due to a central bank buying and selling, they don't do enough to control the daily prices.  The main reason is market cap.  Look at the market cap of the USD, Euro, etc vs. XBT?  Look at a large cap stock like GE, JNJ, versus something "new" like Telsa?  Shares outstanding and market cap.

Tell that to Zimbabwe.

I don't consider that a real currency.   Look at my examples.  USD, Euro, Yen, Yuan, and several others with huge market caps have the low volatility.  Other fringe currencies, and ones like Zimbabwe which is basically not even a currency, will have volatility just like XBT will. 

lol what exactly is a "real currency"?

Kinda getting off the real topic originally, but still somewhat related.  That's the real subjective question, isn't it?!   I can name many that are real.  The questions remains to the ones with little or no value.  Obviously you can't buy, trade or barter with "currency" from Zimbabwe.  So how is it a currency?  Currency is defined as a medium of exchange.  You can't exchange anything for Zimbabwe "currency" because basically no one will accept it!

[pjviitas]

I should point out that in markets like ours volatility will always happen, while things will settle down you're still going to have price spikes and so on but that's just because that's what a real free market is like, people will always buy low and sell high because it benefits them, if you always bought and sold high you'd be constantly making a loss. That said as the currency spreads out and people use it more and more for buying stuff which is getting easier now things should settle down.

A prime example of something extremely manipulated are paper currencies and the long term/short term government bonds, the only reason they are at the prices they are is because someone in a central bank is pressing a button and buying them up when they think the price is too low or selling when they think it's too high.

Regular paper currency doesn't have much volatility.  But while some of it may be due to a central bank buying and selling, they don't do enough to control the daily prices.  The main reason is market cap.  Look at the market cap of the USD, Euro, etc vs. XBT?  Look at a large cap stock like GE, JNJ, versus something "new" like Telsa?  Shares outstanding and market cap.

Tell that to Zimbabwe.

I don't consider that a real currency.   Look at my examples.  USD, Euro, Yen, Yuan, and several others with huge market caps have the low volatility.  Other fringe currencies, and ones like Zimbabwe which is basically not even a currency, will have volatility just like XBT will. 

lol what exactly is a "real currency"?

Kinda getting off the real topic originally, but still somewhat related.  That's the real subjective question, isn't it?!   I can name many that are real.  The questions remains to the ones with little or no value.  Obviously you can't buy, trade or barter with "currency" from Zimbabwe.  So how is it a currency?  Currency is defined as a medium of exchange.  You can't exchange anything for Zimbabwe "currency" because basically no one will accept it!

Your example brings up an interesting point that I have tried to bring up before on these forums.

The value of a currency is simply a confidence game...nothing more...nothing less.

If a seller is confident that handing over the keys to his 2011 Ford Super Duty for some paper bits or digital bits then that is all that matters.

The seller is not thinking about all the implications of legal tender or intrinsic value.