Long-Term Bulls

[netrin]

Only an idiot would trust some anonymous dude who pinkie-swears that he'll redeem gold for bitcoin indefinitely. A sufficient number of people were so Shocked by Nixon's default that they named it precisely that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1S9F3agsUA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzr1QU6K1o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvBCDS-y8vc

[pennytrader]

From my stock trading experience, a "long-term bull" usually becomes a "long-term bag holder"...

[Nesetalis]

just depends on if the venture succeeds or fails. So yes, the long term bulls are the bag holders, or the big winners.

[log0s]

I've grown tired of this discussion and don't have as much time to put towards it at this point.  So here's the last few thoughts I intend to post for a while:

Two main factors that go into whether or not someone chooses to adopt Bitcoin long term are if it provides a direct service to the adopter (they will adopt for as long as that expected serviceableness is worth the expected cost to them), and how strong their expectation is of Bitcoin gaining widespread long term adoption (according to their own idea of widespread).  Their expectation of Bitcoin's widespread long term adoption is based on how strongly they trust their own understanding (regardless of correctness) of why others are or might adopt it long term.

I do not think most people will be very confident in their understanding of why others are willing to adopt Bitcoin long term:

First most people do not and will just never understand Bitcoin at all.  All they know is that some people keep telling them it is a crypto-currency, and that it's secure, and that it's p2p, etc., but these assertions are near meaningless to most people, as are the technical details of how it works.

Second, they see that hardly anyone uses it, and no major merchants use it, so they quickly realize that can't spend it anywhere in any practical sense without costly research and perhaps a costly change in their lifestyle.

Third, it's not easy to acquire Bitcoins.

Fourth, most people don't feel like they gain anything by using Bitcoins when they could much more easily just continue using their government's fiat currency and credit/debit cards for trade.

The last three points are potentially fixable with time and effort, but the first one almost certainly isn't (most people have "better things to do").

I think the quickest and easiest way to overcome all of this and increase Bitcoin's chances of widespread adoption is for bitcoin to provide some direct service that the mainstream actually cares about (and of course at a cost people are willing to pay).  If they don't value the bitcoins or the system, and they aren't really sure why anyone else does, they aren't going to adopt it.  Very, very few will bother going out of their way to try to understand, either.  However, if they confidently understand what it can do for them and others at a small enough cost, they might be interested.  People don't understand all of the technical details of how paypal does what it does, but they do understand how it can help them send and receive already established government fiat currency easily online...Paypal's service is a directly serviceable good.  People are told that when using Bitcoin you can easily send and receive bitcoins...but this is practically meaningless to almost everyone.

Unless you believe pure hype can sustain the "bitcoin economy" indefinitely (I'd point to the fall in prices since $32+ as evidence suggesting it can't), Bitcoin needs to provide something a significant portion of the population would actually care about, and it's not doing so, yet.  This is why I keep coming back to bitcoins needing to be a directly serviceable good, because without that, adoption will almost certainly continue to be very low as very few people will be confident in their understanding of why anyone else would adopt it, eliminating the only reason left to adopt it themselves.

[322i0n]

First most people do not and will just never understand Bitcoin at all.  All they know is that some people keep telling them it is a crypto-currency, and that it's secure, and that it's p2p, etc., but these assertions are near meaningless to most people, as are the technical details of how it works.

this is precisely why it doesnt matter whether you call bitcoin money or not. most people dont understand monetary policy or the mechanics of money and they still use it because it is functional. whether people understand it or not bitcoin allows people to engage in finacnial exchanges across international boundaries without interference from government or corporate entities. you cannot do that by any other means at present.

[log0s]

First most people do not and will just never understand Bitcoin at all.  All they know is that some people keep telling them it is a crypto-currency, and that it's secure, and that it's p2p, etc., but these assertions are near meaningless to most people, as are the technical details of how it works.

this is precisely why it doesnt matter whether you call bitcoin money or not. most people dont understand monetary policy or the mechanics of money and they still use it because it is functional. whether people understand it or not bitcoin allows people to engage in finacnial exchanges across international boundaries without interference from government or corporate entities. you cannot do that by any other means at present.

Did you bother to read down my post just a little bit further?

People don't understand all of the technical details of how paypal does what it does, but they do understand how it can help them send and receive already established government fiat currency easily online...Paypal's service is a directly serviceable good.  People are told that when using Bitcoin you can easily send and receive bitcoins...but this is practically meaningless to almost everyone.

[BadBear]

First most people do not and will just never understand Bitcoin at all.  All they know is that some people keep telling them it is a crypto-currency, and that it's secure, and that it's p2p, etc., but these assertions are near meaningless to most people, as are the technical details of how it works.

this is precisely why it doesnt matter whether you call bitcoin money or not. most people dont understand monetary policy or the mechanics of money and they still use it because it is functional. whether people understand it or not bitcoin allows people to engage in finacnial exchanges across international boundaries without interference from government or corporate entities. you cannot do that by any other means at present.

Right, except the "most people" you are referring to in your post, that don't understand "monetary policy or mechanics of money" are also people who don't give two shits about international boundaries or interference by corporate entities or cryptocash.  That adds nothing of value for the majority of the public (in their perception).  

[322i0n]

Right, except the "most people" you are referring to in your post, that don't understand "monetary policy or mechanics of money" are also people who don't give two shits about international boundaries or interference by corporate entities or cryptocash.

ah! yes, this is true... at present.

[pennytrader]

Where are you bulls? I really need you guys to lift up the price so I can sell my remaining coins...

BTW, I like how people started to use stock indicators such as RSI to study the bitcoin price. (Of course the difference is if a company/currency is destined to fail, its RSI value won't really matter that much)...

[tvbcof]

From my stock trading experience, a "long-term bull" usually becomes a "long-term bag holder"...

As in $1000 face bags of junk silver?  Please don't throw me in that thar brier patch Brer Bear!

[Vandroiy]

Where are you bulls? I really need you guys to lift up the price so I can sell my remaining coins...

lol, you don't quite get it. The price is great the way it is going. We're not in a hurry or panicking, just silently refueling more and more in the drops.

I'm almost back at the level I held in May. It was fun watching people play bust with my coins, now it's time for them to return. I'll keep some extra if nobody wants them.

[Zotia]

From my stock trading experience, a "long-term bull" usually becomes a "long-term bag holder"...

Bitcoin is not a stock.

Companies can go bankrupt if they loose too much money.  Bitcoin is not as easy to kill.


If bitcoin was a company, it would be a company that doesn't have to pay for employees, a building, advertisement, etc.

[Nagle]

Companies can go bankrupt if they lose too much money.  Bitcoin is not as easy to kill.

Bitcoin needs an infrastructure of miners, exchanges, and merchants to survive. Without that, try to spend your Bitcoins. Maybe the alpaca-socks guy will take them. Or you could try selling them on eBay.

[imsaguy]

Companies can go bankrupt if they lose too much money.  Bitcoin is not as easy to kill.

Bitcoin needs an infrastructure of miners, exchanges, and merchants to survive. Without that, try to spend your Bitcoins. Maybe the alpaca-socks guy will take them. Or you could try selling them on eBay.

Just to throw this out there.  IXcoin was not only laughed at as being an altblockchain, it is known to be hacked and has been declared dead, yet people continue to mine on it. I think it has something like 8Ghash right now.  (I know, I was/am collecting old coins just for S&G) 

So for people to claim the same for Bitcoin, which hasn't been compromised AFAIK and enjoys a much higher mining pool, is extremely misguided. 

[dree12]

Companies can go bankrupt if they lose too much money.  Bitcoin is not as easy to kill.

Bitcoin needs an infrastructure of miners, exchanges, and merchants to survive. Without that, try to spend your Bitcoins. Maybe the alpaca-socks guy will take them. Or you could try selling them on eBay.

Just to throw this out there.  IXcoin was not only laughed at as being an altblockchain, it is known to be hacked and has been declared dead, yet people continue to mine on it. I think it has something like 8Ghash right now.  (I know, I was/am collecting old coins just for S&G) 

So for people to claim the same for Bitcoin, which hasn't been compromised AFAIK and enjoys a much higher mining pool, is extremely misguided. 

Emphasis mine.

[imsaguy]

Companies can go bankrupt if they lose too much money.  Bitcoin is not as easy to kill.

Bitcoin needs an infrastructure of miners, exchanges, and merchants to survive. Without that, try to spend your Bitcoins. Maybe the alpaca-socks guy will take them. Or you could try selling them on eBay.

Just to throw this out there.  IXcoin was not only laughed at as being an altblockchain, it is known to be hacked and has been declared dead, yet people continue to mine on it. I think it has something like 8Ghash right now.  (I know, I was/am collecting old coins just for S&G) 

So for people to claim the same for Bitcoin, which hasn't been compromised AFAIK and enjoys a much higher mining pool, is extremely misguided. 

Emphasis mine.

You don't have to have a specialized market like MtGox to be able to trade.  bitcoin-otc is an excellent example of that.  In fact, even if all 'exchanges' were to close, you'd still have people trading p2p without a middle man.

If you want to get all crazy about distinguishing between a 'merchant' vs 'barter' vs 'exchange', so be it.  All three of those are essentially the same thing when you think about it.

[dree12]

Bitcoin is not as easy to kill.

Bitcoin needs an infrastructure of miners, exchanges, and merchants to survive.

Just to throw this out there.  IXcoin was not only laughed at as being an altblockchain, it is known to be hacked and has been declared dead, yet people continue to mine on it. I think it has something like 8Ghash right now.  (I know, I was/am collecting old coins just for S&G) 

So for people to claim the same for Bitcoin is extremely misguided. 

Emphasis mine.

You don't have to have a specialized market like MtGox to be able to trade.  bitcoin-otc is an excellent example of that.  In fact, even if all 'exchanges' were to close, you'd still have people trading p2p without a middle man.

If you want to get all crazy about distinguishing between a 'merchant' vs 'barter' vs 'exchange', so be it.  All three of those are essentially the same thing when you think about it.

I wasn't very clear. I mean your anology doesn't apply since nobody accepts ixcoin for anything. Mining something doesn't mean it's accepted.