At what pricepoint is bitcoin dead?

[bitcoinminer]

At present difficulty levels, for me personally, anything below $8-$10/BTC is mostly a waste of time mining wise.  The video cards are paid for, but at 0.50 BTC a day, I'm getting what, $60 a month so basically just covering electric.

As the price continues to fall like the last month or two, at what point should we consider it "dead"?

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[bitcoinminer]

Well unless everybody is doing short sells, I can't see making any money on the trading either really.

[Gerken]

Depends on what you mean by dead.  If you are in bitcoins to make money/mine, and you haven't gotten out yet, you are dumb as bricks. 

[wareen]

At what pricepoint is bitcoin dead?

What do you mean? Bitcoin survived two years being worth less than a dollar - what makes you think it would die because of a price drop?
For the most part, Bitcoin works just as well at 0.1 USD or 10 USD - difficulty will adapt for the changed mining reward, as it has ever since its conception.

Everybody knew right from the start that mining profitability tends to go towards zero - that's how the system is designed and how the market works. Mining was never supposed to earn people large amounts of money, it's just a pretty clever way to get Bitcoin in circulation and secure the transactions at the same time.

Well unless everybody is doing short sells, I can't see making any money on the trading either really.

I think you really have a serious misconception about a currency. Money is not supposed to earn you money all by itself. Of course you can speculate on anything but that's not what Bitcoin was made for.

Bitcoin will not die because you can't profit from it anymore directly. Start a business with it and be more competitive due to some of its unique features. That's a good way to still profit from Bitcoin - regardless of the price.

Bitcoin is just a sounder form of money - nothing more, nothing less.

[elggawf]

Bitcoin's "dead" if the price drops suddenly, so no one's mining, so no one's there to cause the difficulty to adjust back down.

It can be resuscitated, but it's technically "dead in the water" at least a little while when that happens.

No other price point or factor will spell the "death" of Bitcoin until you are completely and utterly unable to find anyone who will take them off your hands in exchange for anything.

[DeathAndTaxes]

"At present difficulty levels,...."

However difficulty is changing continually.  We have had 3 reductions and looking at a ~9% reduction in the next block.

Price by itself is immaterial.  BTC can go back to $1 and it wouldn't hurt me as long as difficulty falls 75%+.

I like bitcoinx charts (although I would adjust them for GH instead)



It graphs the daily return in USD for 100MH of hashing power (thus taking into account both price & difficulty).

My power cost is roughly $0.12 per 100MH per day.  So that is the "dead" line for me.  I think it would be more healthy if we could get >$0.30 per 100 MH.  I wouldn't be looking to expand my rigs until >$0.50 per 100 MH.

[defxor]

I can't see making any money on the trading either really.

Great. I'm all for a rapid fall in the BTC/$ exchange rate followed by an immensely stable price point if so only to drive away all the traders.

If we want to replace the way the economy works I see no point in creating a second Wall Street. The worst part of Wall Street even, the ponzi schemers.

[joepie91]

Bitcoin is dead when it has no use for anyone anymore.

Has absolutely nothing to do with 'price point' whatsoever (which is only an exchange rate to another currency anyway).

[Steve]

At present difficulty levels, for me personally, anything below $8-$10/BTC is mostly a waste of time mining wise.  The video cards are paid for, but at 0.50 BTC a day, I'm getting what, $60 a month so basically just covering electric.

As the price continues to fall like the last month or two, at what point should we consider it "dead"?

That's easy....$0.

[phatsphere]

bitcoin is dead when there is no longer any single client running.

[the joint]

Depends on what you mean by dead.  If you are in bitcoins to make money/mine, and you haven't gotten out yet, you are dumb as bricks. 

Actually, I find the lower the price goes the easier it is to make money (though not mine).

When 40 cent changes = 10% market swings, there is a LOT of money to be made at these prices.

[Sannyasi]

when people stop mining it's dead- how would transactions get verified without miners?.... plus not everyone sells their coins right away, selling your coins right now is a bad idea.... and it just drives prices even lower.

[danman87]

when people stop mining it's dead- how would transactions get verified without miners?.... plus not everyone sells their coins right away, selling your coins right now is a bad idea.... and it just drives prices even lower.

Unless the eventual outcome is $0 then selling now is a damn good idea.

[ElectricMucus]

bitcoin is dead when there is no longer any single client running.

Actually its 2 clients

I would consider bitcoin invaluable if the purchasing power drops significantly under the cumulative average cost of creating them which is around one order of magnitude under the current price. But even then the hashrate would probably adapt and the new difficulty would adjust so this will never happen unless there is a sudden collapse of the network.

[defxor]

I don't mine, and never have. I don't consider "mining" to be of interest until we're at the level of ASIC/sASIC/FPGA. At that point (and we're very near) I'm going to put together a wall-socket mining system drawing almost no power and using the Wifi everyone has already.

It's not meant to make the owner money, it's meant to make sure that Bitcoin works and can be trusted. It's your own cheap little way of supporting a better currency and financial system, and there are a lot of people who'd buy and install one just to show their support.

Hopefully none of them will join pools, or ever sell any coins that might be "mined":

[Littleshop]

For me price is not to important so long as transactions move.  I can run my store with bitcoin being 2 cents.  

With the price drops, the difficulty is slowly dropping as well.  I can see bitcoin going all the way down to $2, with difficulty going to about half of what it is.  At that point the network size will be closer to 6TH and electricity costs will be less of a drain on the system.  

[BkkCoins]

1 BTC = $1 would be nice, at least for people used to dealing in $US.
Similar to how CAD, AUD, NZD plug along at close to par values.
And difficulty about 1/4 what it is now.

What matters is that people see a need to transact in BTC, that it provides something that they can't get with the banking system - the ability to quietly exchange money without being "watched", without needing approval to open an account, to trade without being managed, out from under the thumb of a gangster/bankster mafia.

If the majority would wake up and take hold of their future they could break free of the oppression and terraform a new economic reality. Hooooowl. Is that enough of a rally cry...

[FreeMoney]

1 BTC = $1 would be nice, at least for people used to dealing in $US.
Similar to how CAD, AUD, NZD plug along at close to par values.
And difficulty about 1/4 what it is now.

What matters is that people see a need to transact in BTC, that it provides something that they can't get with the banking system - the ability to quietly exchange money without being "watched", without needing approval to open an account, to trade without being managed, out from under the thumb of a gangster/bankster mafia.

If the majority would wake up and take hold of their future they could break free of the oppression and terraform a new economic reality. Hooooowl. Is that enough of a rally cry...

How could bitcoin thrive at 1 dollar? That doesn't give 10000 people enough for a small house or everyone in the US enough for one meal. Bitcoin is a little toy at $1.

[Giraffe.BTC]

I can't see making any money on the trading either really.

Great. I'm all for a rapid fall in the BTC/$ exchange rate followed by an immensely stable price point if so only to drive away all the traders.

If we want to replace the way the economy works I see no point in creating a second Wall Street. The worst part of Wall Street even, the ponzi schemers.

This.  The sooner we lose the skeevy pump and dump crowd, the better.  People like Atlas who just want to attract buyers of Bitcoin as a get rich quick commodity make it impossible for Bitcoin to succeed as a currency.  I hope they all go broke.

[the joint]

1 BTC = $1 would be nice, at least for people used to dealing in $US.
Similar to how CAD, AUD, NZD plug along at close to par values.
And difficulty about 1/4 what it is now.

What matters is that people see a need to transact in BTC, that it provides something that they can't get with the banking system - the ability to quietly exchange money without being "watched", without needing approval to open an account, to trade without being managed, out from under the thumb of a gangster/bankster mafia.

If the majority would wake up and take hold of their future they could break free of the oppression and terraform a new economic reality. Hooooowl. Is that enough of a rally cry...

How could bitcoin thrive at 1 dollar? That doesn't give 10000 people enough for a small house or everyone in the US enough for one meal. Bitcoin is a little toy at $1.

...What?

You want the price to be like $100/BTC with 10,000 people?  We only have like 50,000 users or something.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting.  Is a dollar at little toy at...$1?  I assume you're suggesting that 21,000,000 coins spread among a population of ~7 billion would be pointless if they are worth $1 each.  

The point is that if 7 billion people are using BTC there won't be a fiat/BTC conversion rate.  If BTC is used by so many people, deflation would have long ago kicked in.  

Or, another way to look at it would be that if BTC was worth a dollar (but still accepted by everyone), the same dollar today would be worth thousands then.

But, I must say you allude to a very interesting point.  That point can be phrased as a question:  How do we build a large economy if people can't buy houses?  The housing example is a good one because there simply cannot be enough coins in existence to support everyone buying their houses, cars, etc. in BTC if it's worth $1.  This isn't even close to being feasible at it's current exchange rate or even $30.  And yet, even on this forum we see things like people selling businesses and gemstones that cost like 20 grand.  Nobody should have that many BTC unless they paid for them with cash.  Too few people with too many BTC.

So, we need to learn from the implications of this.

1.)   Don't start out worrying about whether or you can buy a huge house or a car with BTC.  It needs to start small.  If the current supply-to-value ratio of BTC wouldn't support everyone in the whole world buying the same product as you intend to purchase, then you shouldn't buy it anyway.

2.)  This means that you need interest.  Interest comes from desire.  Peoples' desires include wanting to be safe and connected, so focus on that.  Security and ease of connectivity need to be of primary focus.  Security basically comes down to having your BTC insured so you don't have to worry about your account getting hacked.  

3.)  Ease of connectivity means we need coders who will actually make the Bitcoin client easy to use -- and I said easy as in easy for a kindergartener to understand and use.  Something like "Download?"  And after the download, you now have the client, a miner (preconfigured), an account at a pool, and an account at an exchange.  And maybe like a hotline number to call.  How about a Bitcoin business where it is the job of the employees to simply explain the whole goddamn thing to people?

4.)  If and when interest grows such that deflation truly sets in, you will finally be ready to think about purchasing houses and cars.  By that time, you will also be able to make all the repairs on your house and buy all the tools to do them with BTC.

There is a serious flaw with any currency (or in any economy) in which a very small number of people hold a great % the currency.  This is one reason I hate SC and it's dipshit spokesman.  But right now I suspect a very number of people hold at least 50% of BTC.  There's not nearly enough volume on the exchanges to explain the distribution of all 7 million+ BTC.