Bear market? Will NEVER HAPPEN because of increasing # of unretrievable bitcoin

[Tyr808]

Following this thread.. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4545260.0

Here's reason number 2 of why an actual prolongued bear market for bitcoin is highly unlikely to happen:
The number of unretrievable lost bitcoin is growing every second and the trend is never going to stop.

People die every day, private keys get lost, dust amounts evaporates each transaction.. all of this compounds every moment and right now approximately 17-23% of the total bitcoin supply, according to Chainalysis, are irremediably forever lost.
Bitcoin has been around since not even 10 years and already 20% of it is gone, therefore I do not see a mathematical possibility for a prolongued decrease of the price from the current 6500$/btc.

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28.5% gone according to this article
https://www.ccn.com/6-million-bitcoin-is-lost-or-stolen-should-the-real-value-of-btc-higher/

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[bitebits]

There still needs to be demand.

[gentlemand]

Maybe 0.1% of all coins are on exchanges? maybe far less. The vast majority are sat there doing nothing. Exchanges are so thinly traded the price could go down to 10 bucks in a few minutes if a few thousand coins were sold.

Overall supply is absolutely irrelevant.

[Tyr808]

Maybe 0.1% of all coins are on exchanges? maybe far less. The vast majority are sat there doing nothing. Exchanges are so thinly traded the price could go down to 10 bucks in a few minutes if a few thousand coins were sold.

Overall supply is absolutely irrelevant.

Wrong.
With a circulating supply of 17m, price of 10$ would make the total market cap 170m.
Eos alone raised 25 times that.

Current supports and resistances are DYNAMIC indicators only and should be interpreted as such, never as static ones like you do.

[gentlemand]

With a circulating supply of 17m, price of 10$ would make the total market cap 170m.

So?

The market cap is set by a tiny number of coins. The coins not for sale have no effect on price and there are millions more of them. They count for nothing. Market cap is largely bollocks and totally decided by a handful of sales on exchanges.

One decent sized sale of $1 million worth of BTC can easily knock 1 or 2 billion or more off the market cap in one go.

[XinXan]

There still needs to be demand.

Exactly, this ''argument'' is absolutely wrong. ''The number of unretrievable lost bitcoin is growing every second and the trend is never going to stop.'' That has always been the case and yet we had 2-3 years of bear market not long ago. DASH has less supply than bitcoin and yet it's not worth more. Any bad news, like making bitcoin illegal somewhere or tough regulations will prolong this bear market for years easily.

[pereira4]

It's a mixture of the total supply, available supply, actual circulating coins, demand... everything matters.

The amount of bitcoins in actual circulation seems to be tiny. This shows the #1 use for bitcoin is to hold it basically. There's no economic activity or much of it in bitcoin... no one wants to spend money that goes up in value. Maybe when it replaces fiat currencies and a single BTC is worth a massive fortune, we will have viable economic activity because the price will be stabilized and it will be worth moving coins around in exchange of goods and services more often.

[Tyr808]

I hear you, but my point is: how long you think that would last?
My impression is that you look at books' intrinsics as static rather than dynamics.

[Tyr808]

There still needs to be demand.

Exactly, this ''argument'' is absolutely wrong. ''The number of unretrievable lost bitcoin is growing every second and the trend is never going to stop.'' That has always been the case and yet we had 2-3 years of bear market not long ago. DASH has less supply than bitcoin and yet it's not worth more. Any bad news, like making bitcoin illegal somewhere or tough regulations will prolong this bear market for years easily.

Demand. Here it helps to see it as a relative rather than absolute factor.
For example, I utterly dislike facebook. But it couldn't drop 99% of its value because even I myself would buy the heck out of it once it's dropped 98%, i.e. I would become the demand in that case..

[Gaaara]

Maybe 0.1% of all coins are on exchanges? maybe far less. The vast majority are sat there doing nothing. Exchanges are so thinly traded the price could go down to 10 bucks in a few minutes if a few thousand coins were sold.

Overall supply is absolutely irrelevant.

Supply is relevant, for what I can see there are more investors to choose a limited supply over a unlimited supply. If you study economy you will understand that demand is necessary but of course needs to consider its scarcity if the supply will be less and there are more people to use it here would be an increase of value same as the necessity in the market.

[XinXan]

There still needs to be demand.

Exactly, this ''argument'' is absolutely wrong. ''The number of unretrievable lost bitcoin is growing every second and the trend is never going to stop.'' That has always been the case and yet we had 2-3 years of bear market not long ago. DASH has less supply than bitcoin and yet it's not worth more. Any bad news, like making bitcoin illegal somewhere or tough regulations will prolong this bear market for years easily.

Demand. Here it helps to see it as a relative rather than absolute factor.
For example, I utterly dislike facebook. But it couldn't drop 99% of its value because even I myself would buy the heck out of it once it's dropped 98%, i.e. I would become the demand in that case..

Well if something drops 98% you would be a fool to buy that. In this case I don't think demand is relative since bitcoin does not have any application whatsoever, it's not like gold where you can use it to create stuff.

[exstasie]

Maybe 0.1% of all coins are on exchanges? maybe far less. The vast majority are sat there doing nothing. Exchanges are so thinly traded the price could go down to 10 bucks in a few minutes if a few thousand coins were sold.

Overall supply is absolutely irrelevant.

Price could wick down there, sure. But there's no logical reason to assume it'll stay there. Likely to be a fat-fingered sell on one exchange. (Anyone remember the BTC-e flash crash to $102 in 2014?) 

You're right that liquidity is low, but that works in both directions. The immensely shallow supply on exchanges is largely what allows price so high during the bubbles.

[Tyr808]

Maybe 0.1% of all coins are on exchanges? maybe far less. The vast majority are sat there doing nothing. Exchanges are so thinly traded the price could go down to 10 bucks in a few minutes if a few thousand coins were sold.

Overall supply is absolutely irrelevant.

Price could wick down there, sure. But there's no logical reason to assume it'll stay there. Likely to be a fat-fingered sell on one exchange. (Anyone remember the BTC-e flash crash to $102 in 2014?) 

You're right that liquidity is low, but that works in both directions. The immensely shallow supply on exchanges is largely what allows price so high during the bubbles.

Exactly this.

[Tyr808]

There still needs to be demand.

Exactly, this ''argument'' is absolutely wrong. ''The number of unretrievable lost bitcoin is growing every second and the trend is never going to stop.'' That has always been the case and yet we had 2-3 years of bear market not long ago. DASH has less supply than bitcoin and yet it's not worth more. Any bad news, like making bitcoin illegal somewhere or tough regulations will prolong this bear market for years easily.

Demand. Here it helps to see it as a relative rather than absolute factor.
For example, I utterly dislike facebook. But it couldn't drop 99% of its value because even I myself would buy the heck out of it once it's dropped 98%, i.e. I would become the demand in that case..

Well if something drops 98% you would be a fool to buy that. In this case I don't think demand is relative since bitcoin does not have any application whatsoever, it's not like gold where you can use it to create stuff.

Industrial use of gold is minimal and is a highly irrelevant determinant for its price.

[Tyr808]

Maybe 0.1% of all coins are on exchanges? maybe far less. The vast majority are sat there doing nothing. Exchanges are so thinly traded the price could go down to 10 bucks in a few minutes if a few thousand coins were sold.

Overall supply is absolutely irrelevant.

Supply is relevant, for what I can see there are more investors to choose a limited supply over a unlimited supply. If you study economy you will understand that demand is necessary but of course needs to consider its scarcity if the supply will be less and there are more people to use it here would be an increase of value same as the necessity in the market.

Correct.
What Gentlemand fails to understand is that books' supports and resistances are just highly dynamic factors which adapt to market conditions, rather than determine them.

[gabmen]

Lol. Half a year in the bear market is for me, quite prolonged already. People still need to buy bitcoins to push the price up and at the moment, i don't see a lot of peoole eager to get in yet.

[Herbert2020]

you got a couple of things wrong.
1. the bear market happens and will happen in the future also. it happens in every market out there not just bitcoin.
2. a long bear market as some people love to see is most probably not going to happen this time but i disagree with your reasoning. it doesn't have anything to do with the supply it is mostly the demand and since the market is now a lot bigger than before and also because the demand is increasing faster the bear market can be a lot shorter too.
3. there is no way of telling the number of lost bitcoins. it may be 0.1% or it may be 20% or higher. it is all a guess. and again the important thing is the demand. and speaking of demand and guesses, the analysts say less than 0.1% of the world population is involved with bitcoin. that means we still have a LONG way to go.

[Tyr808]

And again, "legendary" users who think supply is irrelevant.

[Pursuer]

supply is not irrelevant at all but it is irrelevant when you ignore everything else and only focus 100% on supply and nothing else.

we can have bear markets if bitcoin supply was 21,000,000 and price per 1BTC was $10,000,000.
we can also have a bear market if bitcoin supply was 1,000,000 and price of it was $10,000,000
or we can have bear market if bitcoin supply was 1,000,000 and price of it was $6000

the only difference with a lower supply is that the price will go higher with the same demand. for example if nothing were lost bitcoin price could go up to $1 million but if (as you said) 20% is lost then price can go up t to $1.2 million for example. but that still doesn't mean "bear market will never happen". we will reach $1.2 million and then have a bear market where price comes down drastically and reaches $700k

[Tyr808]

the only difference with a lower supply is that the price will go higher with the same demand. for example if nothing were lost bitcoin price could go up to $1 million but if (as you said) 20% is lost then price can go up t to $1.2 million for example. but that still doesn't mean "bear market will never happen". we will reach $1.2 million and then have a bear market where price comes down drastically and reaches $700k

20% less supply = price will raise 20% more than it normally would
You are right with this, however you also have to add the fact that due to the amount of lost bitcoins growing and growing, such 20% and related price multiplier will grow every day.
Thus my conclusion, purposedly extreme, that a prolongued (e.g. gold and silver) bear market from the current state (6k$ per btc) won't happen.