Crash to $2 imminent. Willing to bet.

[P4man]

I hope price drops to $1 or below. The resulting difficulty will make solo mining feasible again.

i agree, but there would be a long delay before we'd see such a difficulty... i wonder if it will go under a million soon.

If difficulty doesn't suffer another hefty drop in the next two weeks, miners are irrational.  The bottom appears to be falling out of the market and it doesn't make sense to keep mining at a hefty loss.

Difficulty will drop whether they are rational or not. Hashrate is already down to ~8000GH, almost half what it was in august:
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin.png

But the above poster is right, there is a delay. It takes time for miners to realize the price drop is not short lived and decide to pull the plug and possibly sell their equipment, and after that it still takes time for the network to adjust the difficulty.  The opposite will be true if or when bitcoin value starts rising again.

I think this is all great though. A correction like this was sorely needed.

[proudhon]

I think this is all great though. A correction like this was sorely needed.

To what, finalize the humiliation of bitcoin?  Nobody not already in this thing is going to join in at this point.  What price point is bitcoin dead?  This one.  Right now.  It's over.  Sure, bitcoin will hang around, but any hope of it becoming a legitimate way to pay for things, or of it even a 1% share of online payments has been utterly extinguished.  Nobody is going to take this thing seriously again.

[worldinacoin]

The hash rates has gone down to below 8 Thashes/s.  Not too encouraging.  Even deepbit hashing rates are at 3.2 Thashes/s

[P4man]

To what, finalize the humiliation of bitcoin?  Nobody not already in this thing is going to join in at this point.  

Join what? Another mad round of speculating frenzy? maybe not anytime soon. Good.
Use bitcoin as a way to transfer funds? Why not, who the hell cares how much a bitcoin is worth for that? It doesnt matter if one sends 0.1BTC or 10000BTC. All that matters is that the price is relatively stable, doubling in value in a month is just as harmful for that as halving in a month. Its absolute value is utterly unimportant.

BTW, the notion that $1 per BTC is somehow low is laughable if you look at only a year ago.

[Fiyasko]

I bet on $100 that bitcoin will crash to $2. I am certain because everytime it crashed, it first went up 1-1.5 dollars. Today happened the same, from 4.7 to 6 or more.

you FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU ing liar, You just sold all your coins and bailed out last night. Lol You jerk, You killed the market with your bailout

[Technomage]

Bitcoin desperately needs stabilization from the continuous trend of new lows after new lows. We will finally see this happen after the capitulation. It doesn't mean the price will skyrocket, it probably won't for many months, but the downtrend will stabilize. This is very important because a currency is pretty useless if there are radical drops in value every month.

[Cluster2k]

Wow, I leave for a couple of hours and someone broke bitcoin.  $2.26.  Just... wow.  I'm honestly surprised the market has capitulated so fast and deep.

Some posters have blamed the bears on this forum for the fall from $20+ to $2.  Well, if a few bears are enough to crash an entire market then bitcoin has very serious problems. 

Can we finally bury the notion that bitcoin is in a bull market?  Even the fanciest log graph isn't likely to put a gloss on 90% price drop from peak.

At least now we should see miners quitting en mass, and returning the difficulty level to something more realistic.  50% off would be nice.  I can't believe the majority of miners left out there are power thieves or on fixed contracts.

[worldinacoin]

The volume is also quite heavy, seems to be a lot of people clearing out their bitcoins.

[P4man]

Even the fanciest log graph isn't likely to put a gloss on 90% price drop from peak.

But why compare to a peak that was nothing but a speculative bubble? Compare it to 12 months ago and it still looks good Particularly if you take into account the increased numbers of coins since then.

I really dont understand why people think this is somehow dramatic for bitcoin.  Let it go back to $1 or $0.1, so what? it doesnt matter (unless you happen to hold BTCs you bought at $15 thinking youd get rich). $0.1 is as much a speculative value as $10 or $100. At this point, none of them are "correct", and all that really matters is if it gets used more widely, and that is not dependent on its value.

[anu]

I really dont understand why people think this is somehow dramatic for bitcoin.  Let it go back to $1 or $0.1, so what? it doesnt matter (unless you happen to hold BTCs you bought at $15 thinking youd get rich). $0.1 is as much a speculative value as $10 or $100. At this point, none of them are "correct", and all that really matters is if it gets used more widely, and that is not dependent on its value.

Even $15 is quite low is Bitcoin really catches on. You don't lose until you sell. Expect the value to double each year which means that we're back at $15 in 3 to 4 years. Sell then if you feel like chicken out. If you bought at 15 and chicken out now it's almost total loss. What's the big difference between total loss and almost total loss. No point selling now.

[Cluster2k]

Even the fanciest log graph isn't likely to put a gloss on 90% price drop from peak.

But why compare to a peak that was nothing but a speculative bubble? Compare it to 12 months ago and it still looks good Particularly if you take into account the increased numbers of coins since then.

Why compare today's bitcoin price to 2010, when hardly anyone mined or even knew about bitcoins?  The vast majority of miners joined in April and May, when prices were already above $5.

[grod]

I really dont understand why people think this is somehow dramatic for bitcoin.  Let it go back to $1 or $0.1, so what? it doesnt matter (unless you happen to hold BTCs you bought at $15 thinking youd get rich). $0.1 is as much a speculative value as $10 or $100. At this point, none of them are "correct", and all that really matters is if it gets used more widely, and that is not dependent on its value.

Even $15 is quite low is Bitcoin really catches on. You don't lose until you sell. Expect the value to double each year which means that we're back at $15 in 3 to 4 years. Sell then if you feel like chicken out. If you bought at 15 and chicken out now it's almost total loss. What's the big difference between total loss and almost total loss. No point selling now.

A bit late now, but people who sold at $4 could have bought back in today and cut that 3-4 year wait down to 1-2 years.  That's the thing, this dog CAN be traded on the way down.  It's just bagholding that is a terrible strategy in a bear market.  And people selling today at $3 might yet have an opportunity to get back in at $1.25.

[anu]

Even $15 is quite low is Bitcoin really catches on. You don't lose until you sell. Expect the value to double each year which means that we're back at $15 in 3 to 4 years. Sell then if you feel like chicken out. If you bought at 15 and chicken out now it's almost total loss. What's the big difference between total loss and almost total loss. No point selling now.

A bit late now, but people who sold at $4 could have bought back in today and cut that 3-4 year wait down to 1-2 years.  That's the thing, this dog CAN be traded on the way down.  It's just bagholding that is a terrible strategy in a bear market.  And people selling today at $3 might yet have an opportunity to get back in at $1.25.

That's all OK if you're sitting in front of the screen all the time. But Bitcoin is traded 24/7. What if I sell my Bitcoin, go to bed and then some stupid online book store in the US makes an announcement that they'll accept Bitcoin? Buy it back at $200? I think I'd have to iron my fingers like Dobby the house elf the next morning.

[P4man]

Why compare today's bitcoin price to 2010, when hardly anyone mined or even knew about bitcoins? 

Because hardly anyone knows about bitcoin today. If that isnt going to change, a price drop to $1 or less is completely logical. The speculation was that bitcoin would gain more widespread use, it still hasnt happened. You rightly say miners joined this summer, expecting to make a killing by just running their computers, that bubble has burst. What will or wont drive longterm bitcoin price is its acceptance as a currency, something which hasnt progressed a lot since last year. Thats far more important than short term speculation which is driving prices currently.

[Technomage]

Because hardly anyone knows about bitcoin today. If that isnt going to change, a price drop to $1 or less is completely logical. The speculation was that bitcoin would gain more widespread use, it still hasnt happened. You rightly say miners joined this summer, expecting to make a killing by just running their computers, that bubble has burst. What will or wont drive longterm bitcoin price is its acceptance as a currency, something which hasnt progressed a lot since last year. Thats far more important than short term speculation which is driving prices currently.

+1

I've been talking about a recovery within 12 months but honestly, it could take years before Bitcoin really takes off. You can't build an economy in one day, it takes a lot of time.

These forums are just as ridiculous as an economy based on quarters. Everything is short term, mid term. If Bitcoin really takes off we're talking about work that requires years, everything else is just hype and speculation bubbles based on that hype.

But no worries, if we're going to have a new bubble it'll be more grounded and based less on pure hype and more on actual developments. There's a lot going on so maybe we'll start to see the fruits next year.