2014 could be a slow year for bitcoin

[harlenadler]

i agree, price must return to equity with a pizza for people to buy again. 

If it ever gets to that rate, I would happily buy all your bitcoins. And I would keep mining on, since difficulty would drop.

[Alphi]

This mean scarcity and scarcity means high price. High price means less buyers and less buyers mean less volatility.

1) Scarcity is a myth with something that is divisible by 8 decimal places. If you can easily break something up into a million pieces and trade it just as easily then it is not scarce.

2) do you think Googles share price of 1,150 stops people from buying it? sure some people are deterred by the high price. however, even though one Google share cannot be divided at all, the price still rises because there are more buyers than sellers.

3) as long as things are priced in the users local currency then the price of BTC doesn't matter at all. Ever bought something on ebay from china? if it was priced in Yuan then it would drive you crazy, thankfully though it is priced in whatever your local currency is to make it easier for you to understand. As long as websites selling things for BTC do this then BTC prices as crazy as BTC 0.00000012 Aren't a problem.

4) history has already solved the problem of diminishing coin supply. When gold became scarce and there wasn't enough gold coins they started using silver, when they ran out of silver they started using other metals like iron, tin and copper until eventually all we ended up with was silver and copper coloured coins with very little silver and copper in them at all.. This is where Altcoins come in. They perform the same function as silver and copper coins etc without society having to dilute Bitcoin directly in order to increase supply.... this means in the long run that BTC can only retain its value or increase until such time as it is fundamentally broken or superseded by some new technology that hasn't yet been invented.

5) as long a demand is high then the people who determine the price are the ones who control the supply. there are only two types of people who control the bitcoin supply.. the miners and the people who bought in before... neither type of person is likely to sell their bitcoins for less than they paid for them (whether they bought them directly or invested in mining gear to get them) unless they have a fundamental crisis in confidence... inevitably when there is bad news there are always some people who lose heart and sell out, but unless the system is fundamentally compromised in some way, there will always be new people to replace them.


So for these reasons I believe BitCoin will not stagnate in 2014.

[Tzupy]

Scarcity IS NOT a myth. While the number of total mined bitcoins increased, the number of bitcoins available for sale on the exchanges
has diminished a lot, and that's artificial scarcity. It's largely due to the belief that bitcoins are going to Mars, where they will reach a stable
plateau. There is no stable plateau when the price is close to an ATH, and the flow of fiat into the exchanges slows down.

[hdbuck]

Scarcity IS NOT a myth. While the number of total mined bitcoins increased, the number of bitcoins available for sale on the exchanges
has diminished a lot, and that's artificial scarcity. It's largely due to the belief that bitcoins are going to Mars, where they will reach a stable
plateau. There is no stable plateau when the price is close to an ATH, and the flow of fiat into the exchanges slows down.

+1 scarcity is bad and it makes it not a fully efficient market with 3/4 of coins out of it

[aminorex]

agreed: this will be a very slow year for bitcoin.  between 300 and 800% price increase, no more than that.  2015-2017 should all be much more exciting.

[skivrmt]

This mean scarcity and scarcity means high price. High price means less buyers and less buyers mean less volatility.

2) do you think Googles share price of 1,150 stops people from buying it? sure some people are deterred by the high price. however, even though one Google share cannot be divided at all, the price still rises because there are more buyers than sellers.

So for these reasons I believe BitCoin will not stagnate in 2014.

Google?  Let's be more optimistic.   Anyone heard of a little company called Berkshire?  Market cap $284 billion.  Current stock price $172,000.  Yet yes, people still buy it.  AND you can't break it down to buying only half of it...

Oh wait, you can.  How about Berkshire B share?  Only $115/share.  See what they did there?  Now its "cheaper" for the general public to buy!  Cool thing is, you can do the same with Bitcoin.     Let's own .001 Bitcoin, its easy. 

[bitrider]

Although I'm open to the possibility of a slower year (perhaps ala 2012), OP's case for this seems really off base, not logical and contrary to historical data & fundamental factors. A slow year might be 1 doubling or 2 doublings and of course that's possible - anything's possible. Markets do get tired, and need rest - but I suspect 3-6 months will be plenty.

But the more powerful reality is that as we go forward, we are getting to the steeper phases of the "adoption curve". If you think that price is going to stagnate for long while number of adopters, users, investors, businesses, addresses, customers, infrastructure, tools climbs exponentially, than I think you need a much better argument than "the price is too high".

[Alphi]

Scarcity IS NOT a myth. While the number of total mined bitcoins increased, the number of bitcoins available for sale on the exchanges
has diminished a lot, and that's artificial scarcity. It's largely due to the belief that bitcoins are going to Mars, where they will reach a stable
plateau. There is no stable plateau when the price is close to an ATH, and the flow of fiat into the exchanges slows down.

please look up the definition of scarcity before making comments like that.
Iliquidity and Scarcity are not the same thing and you would be wise to understand the difference.

even if there was only one bitcoin in the world it would be enough to satisfy the current trade volume of both bitcoin speculation and general commerce.

as I stated before the reasons the bitcoin price will continue to rise are fundamental and the only way it can collapse completely is for a fundamental flaw to be found in the system.

I would recommend watching the recent Q&A session by Andreas M. Antonopoulos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTPQKyAq-DM

he has a deeper understanding of the fundamentals and risks posed to Bitcoin and can explain it far better than I would care to...

[Alphi]

Google?  Let's be more optimistic.   Anyone heard of a little company called Berkshire?  Market cap $284 billion.  Current stock price $172,000.  Yet yes, people still buy it.  AND you can't break it down to buying only half of it...

Oh wait, you can.  How about Berkshire B share?  Only $115/share.  See what they did there?  Now its "cheaper" for the general public to buy!  Cool thing is, you can do the same with Bitcoin.     Let's own .001 Bitcoin, its easy. 

that's the advantage that Bitcoin has over B class shares.. you can divide it and its still completely fungible. with B class shares the voting power is not proportionally the same as A class.
I was trying not to get into wild speculation but as the history of Bitcoin has taught us... anything is possible.. even 50X increase in one year...  I doubt we will ever see that again but I'm sure we will do better than the 10-20% that most investments return annually.

and if your worried about Bitcoin breaking then invest in some of the altcoins too..

[disclaimer201]

i agree, price must return to equity with a pizza for people to buy again. 

If it ever gets to that rate, I would happily buy all your bitcoins. And I would keep mining on, since difficulty would drop.

No, you wouldn't. I saw what happened when the price fell month by month for half a year or more. People stopped mining, and people sold. You will in fact be very afraid if BTC sank down lower than 100 USD. You would read it is failure anywhere and stay away from it. Maybe not at 100 quite yet, but at 10 or less. BTC would be over if that ever happened. Luckily, it will not happen.

[impulse]

Stability breeds confidence, and increased confidence will push the price up. 2014 will not be slow, boring or stable.

[Syke]

Anyway, price is too high for regular people to buy, too high to be used in small transaction like pizza

I bought pizza for bitcoins for lunch on Friday. I'm pretty regular. Guess the price is not too high after all.

[Holliday]

This mean scarcity and scarcity means high price. High price means less buyers and less buyers mean less volatility.

2) do you think Googles share price of 1,150 stops people from buying it? sure some people are deterred by the high price. however, even though one Google share cannot be divided at all, the price still rises because there are more buyers than sellers.

So for these reasons I believe BitCoin will not stagnate in 2014.

Google?  Let's be more optimistic.   Anyone heard of a little company called Berkshire?  Market cap $284 billion.  Current stock price $172,000.  Yet yes, people still buy it.  AND you can't break it down to buying only half of it...

Oh wait, you can.  How about Berkshire B share?  Only $115/share.  See what they did there?  Now its "cheaper" for the general public to buy!  Cool thing is, you can do the same with Bitcoin.     Let's own .001 Bitcoin, its easy. 

Are you some kind of wizard?

[wobber]

Scarcity IS NOT a myth. While the number of total mined bitcoins increased, the number of bitcoins available for sale on the exchanges
has diminished a lot, and that's artificial scarcity. It's largely due to the belief that bitcoins are going to Mars, where they will reach a stable
plateau. There is no stable plateau when the price is close to an ATH, and the flow of fiat into the exchanges slows down.

+1 scarcity is bad and it makes it not a fully efficient market with 3/4 of coins out of it

I suspect we have in circulation have 1/4 or even 1/5 of the coins (exchanges, trading etc.)

[GigaCoin]

Look at it from marketcap value, not from price per bitcoin. As the marketcap goes up which is inevitable, so will the price. Fixed amount of bitcoin will insure quick price rise. If we hit $50 Billion market cap this year we're looking at around $4000 / BTC

[BTCisthefuture]

I disagree about the "long rest time in the 800's".... its only been like 2 weeks, and during that period it also hit 1,000 and 900+.

[jmumich]

Given the huge price increase in 2013 and the way 2014 started, with a sharp rise to ~1000 and long rest time in the 800s, I'm speculating that we'll see more price stabilization and less ups/downs for a looong time.

Anyway, price is too high for regular people to buy, too high to be used in small transaction like pizza and distribution of majority is in the hands of just a few people.

Check this:
http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top500

You'll see positions 33-36 (4 addresses) and 38, 40, 43, 44, 45 each one with ~30,000 coins, all wallets with last transaction in on Dec 20, 2013 9:07:23 PM. This means about 250,000 coins held by a single entity.

You'll also see positions 79-98 (20 addresses) with about 10,000 coins each, last tx in on Dec 25, 2013 11:26:40 PM. Total is about 200,000 coins.

If we sum first 500 address, that means 4,364,182 BTC. I'm assuming less than 50 people control these 4 million coins.

This mean scarcity and scarcity means high price. High price means less buyers and less buyers mean less volatility.

Welcome to 2014, year of bitcoin stagnation.

As others have said, divisibility defeats the "too high to be used in small transaction" argument.  Otherwise, stability is a good thing.  Hopefully, sometime soon, we'll all wake up to hear something like: "The US Dollar was down about 1% against Bitcoin in early trading this morning on rumors that the Federal Reserve will ...."

[keystroke]

As others have said, divisibility defeats the "too high to be used in small transaction" argument.  Otherwise, stability is a good thing.  Hopefully, sometime soon, we'll all wake up to hear something like: "The US Dollar was down about 1% against Bitcoin in early trading this morning on rumors that the Federal Reserve will ...."

I love this.

[skivrmt]

Look at it from marketcap value, not from price per bitcoin. As the marketcap goes up which is inevitable, so will the price. Fixed amount of bitcoin will insure quick price rise. If we hit $50 Billion market cap this year we're looking at around $4000 / BTC

Price is important but this is a way more important factor in the rising price of Bitcoin that so few people seem to grasp. Bitcoin from $1 to $100 was $1B is new money. From $100 to $1000 is was ~$10 billion in new money. The problem with exponential growth is ~$100B in new money for $10k for Bitcoin.

[gentlemand]

It wouldn't require 100 billion to reach $10,000 per coin. That's assuming every single one is for sale which isn't the case at all.

2014 is when Bitcoin will try to make the leap from a pool of tens or hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts to much, much bigger guns. If it can do that then slow is the very last thing this year will be.