How stable will bitcoin be?

[hase0278]

To be honest I don't see that bitcoin would ever replace paper money. Most probably it will just be used like credit card that is accepted by stores because they can get some paper money if they accept it. If this scenario were to happen, bitcoin would still have a volatile price, since it is a decentralized currency and the price will always move if someone buys or sell.

[grta14]

thinking of how stable bitcoin will be  for the now bitcoin has beginning to be know by many people  today and been that is been decentralize and is mostly likely to be equal to dollar as soon as people get to know this fact people will begin to use it and i see it becoming more stable in the future say some few years from now. 

[X-ray]

So, supposing bitcoin, or some variant, manages to completely replace the world's currencies.  This will certainly make some governments unstable, some might well collapse - see http://freedomainradio.com/board/forums/t/19983.aspx

But, there's a big problem here, bitcoin requires electricity and global internet to function well, and these kinds of services probably won't be so stable without working government.

So... bitcoin substitutes currency, government is destabilized, society descends (or ascends?) into anarcy, electricity & internet become unstable, society descends into the next dark age.  Has anyone thought about that?

Welcome fergalish

Bitcoins will 'never' replace other 'world currencies'. That's a bit like suggesting that PayPal will replace the USD or that Gold will replace Oil or that credit cards will replace paper money. They are just not the same thing, however which ever way you look at it they all help the world go around. Bitcoins are just another currency.

Yes Bitcoin requires electricity and the internet to function. However, this hopefully doesn't rely only on Governments, you are ignoring Capitalism, the 'Corporation' and the free market. Are you suggesting that Bitcoin runs on the cypher net ?  

Anarchy ? That's wishful thinking ! Such is the price of progress... lol

Credit card or paypal defiintely can't replace currency.it's the way government could digitalize the currency so the current currency will be digitalized by those.credit card and paypal is basically a service and not a currency therefore the currency will remain there and not going to be annihilated

[NEWGOODOUBLE]

you can see the price of bitcoin will be stable, but it only happens for a short while only. then the speed of change in price will again changed very quickly. practically stable prices only temporary

[gredisgold88]

bitcoin does not have a definite stability, bitcoin has a very asharp exchange value, maybe this moment we are faced with a steep ravine next

[blazin4with20]

So, supposing bitcoin, or some variant, manages to completely replace the world's currencies.  This will certainly make some governments unstable, some might well collapse - see http://freedomainradio.com/board/forums/t/19983.aspx

But, there's a big problem here, bitcoin requires electricity and global internet to function well, and these kinds of services probably won't be so stable without working government.

So... bitcoin substitutes currency, government is destabilized, society descends (or ascends?) into anarcy, electricity & internet become unstable, society descends into the next dark age.  Has anyone thought about that?

I don't think that bitcoin will ever be stable

[deisik]

volatility is being reduced as market cap is growing, you may think a increase of 50 usd in value is very volatile now but reading the history charts they show pumps or dumps of more than 25% in a single day was a daily basis. 
hopefully we are now inside a steady uptrend.

That's probably the area we are in. The bullish trend at the moment is gradual, yet strong and without large scale dumps. And with respect to the volatility years ago, in fact Bitcoin is reaching better levels as time passes, I think this is good for the general user, who tries to adopt a new currency

If this strong uptrend is an outcome of expanding Bitcoin adoption, it could last for very long time with only minor corrections now and then. Bitcoin has been rising for over three months starting an early September after the price had recovered from the consequences of the Bitfinex hack. And these consequences themselves could have been just the thieves massively selling the stolen bitcoins...

If they just kept the coins, or the hack didn't happen at all, we might have already been with 4 digits

[btcdiggingmaster]

To be honest I don't see that bitcoin would ever replace paper money. Most probably it will just be used like credit card that is accepted by stores because they can get some paper money if they accept it. If this scenario were to happen, bitcoin would still have a volatile price, since it is a decentralized currency and the price will always move if someone buys or sell.

I agree with you many people will not support for paper money because already many people have invested into bitcoin. Because after may people supporting the bitcoin it already enforces that many countries are completely willing to go with cash less transaction in coming days. Really if this happen every country will start using the same technology to go with cash less in future.

[Mastsetad]

you can see the price of bitcoin will be stable, but it only happens for a short while only. then the speed of change in price will again changed very quickly. practically stable prices only temporary

Price keeps changing because of the transactions and the increasing demand in the markets, the more people or companies buying bitcoin increases the more volatile its price would become because as the demand increases it would increase the price as well with itself.

[kryptqnick]

I don't think that bitcoin will ever be stable

Why not? I think there are certain factors which can make btc stable: 1) prosperous society, making people believe more into ideal thigs like btc; 2) governmental control, which will allow to regulate the price; 3) More btc users. The more users we have the less changes can be made by some specific ones, because there tend to be less people having a lot of btc and so the influence potential is becoming more equal.

[d@nte]

you can see the price of bitcoin will be stable, but it only happens for a short while only. then the speed of change in price will again changed very quickly. practically stable prices only temporary

Price keeps changing because of the transactions and the increasing demand in the markets, the more people or companies buying bitcoin increases the more volatile its price would become because as the demand increases it would increase the price as well with itself.

These are some points that some people ignore. The price is a result of supply and demand, and while Bitcoin works in a free market, the price will always vary, as varies the price of the fiat currencies and many other assets. The reason why the price of Bitcoin varies more strongly is related to the fact that the network is still maturing.

[deisik]

I don't think that bitcoin will ever be stable

Why not? I think there are certain factors which can make btc stable: 1) prosperous society, making people believe more into ideal thigs like btc; 2) governmental control, which will allow to regulate the price; 3) More btc users. The more users we have the less changes can be made by some specific ones, because there tend to be less people having a lot of btc and so the influence potential is becoming more equal.

This is kinda idealistic approach

So let's take a more realistic one. A prosperous society may make Bitcoin more popular indeed, but that alone could only contribute to wider Bitcoin adoption (which is good) and higher prices (which is also good), but which will work more toward volatility than stabilization of prices. More users would just make the market thinner simply because users tend to hoard bitcoins, thereby making it more prone to severe price swings. Further, governmental control over prices (whichever form it might take) will instantly kill Bitcoin before they even manage to fully employ it, thereby it can only stabilize prices at zero. But that's likely not what you meant

[Superways]

thinking of how stable bitcoin will be  for the now bitcoin has beginning to be know by many people  today and been that is been decentralize and is mostly likely to be equal to dollar as soon as people get to know this fact people will begin to use it and i see it becoming more stable in the future say some few years from now. 

I agree with you but for that time to come we have to see the time when everyone adopt bitcoin and the flow of it becomes constant all over the world so in that time the demand of bitcoin will remain constant and the price will be stable too.

[olubams]

The stability of Bitcoin is actually like a two-edged sword which has its advantages and disadvantages in the sense that the instability of the price is actually bringing more people into Bitcoin because the increase or decrease cannot be predicted as I can buy at $750 and the next week its $780. On the otherhand, its what is keeping major merchants out as it means they have to keep changing their price tag to reflect to changes in the price of Bitcoin every time...

[Yakamoto]

The stability of Bitcoin is actually like a two-edged sword which has its advantages and disadvantages in the sense that the instability of the price is actually bringing more people into Bitcoin because the increase or decrease cannot be predicted as I can buy at $750 and the next week its $780. On the otherhand, its what is keeping major merchants out as it means they have to keep changing their price tag to reflect to changes in the price of Bitcoin every time...

The volatility/instability is a plus for some risky investors, while it is a detractor for those interested in holding it for longer periods of time, shoppers, and so on and so forth. Bitcoin with the value fluctuations it has right now is great for workers and investors (when it goes up) and bad for everyone when it goes down.

As for retailers changing their prices, they could just sit with a fiat price and adjust the required BTC to meet that requirement. They do that with steam already.

[deisik]

As for retailers changing their prices, they could just sit with a fiat price and adjust the required BTC to meet that requirement. They do that with steam already

It is not as simple as it appears to be

Some purchases take longer time to make (e.g. buying a car), and the buyer can cancel the purchase any time until he actually pays for the goods. Needless to say that sellers will be at a disadvantage here. If the price changes in the favor of the seller, the buyer will be inclined to refuse from making a purchase and restart the process all over again. On the other hand, if the price changes in the favor of the buyer, the seller will be effectively subsidizing him

[coinplus]

I think that Bitcoin will never be stable. This is its specificity. He is not subject to the laws of economics. It is interesting for many investors, which means that its price will fluctuate always

I think the instability of bitcoin is not permanent it is unstable because people are continuously accepting bitcoin and are investing here, so the demand is continuously increasing and the supply is constant (for time being) bitcoin price  remain unstable but I think when all the people will start using bitcoin then bitcoin will certainly become a successful yet fluctuating for at least next 100 years.

[Ewinsane]

you can see the price of bitcoin will be stable, but it only happens for a short while only. then the speed of change in price will again changed very quickly. practically stable prices only temporary

i agree with you that stable price of bitcoin is for temporary and i also hope that bitcoin price will be sooner start to rise up again and i am sure that bitcoin will be reach its price to above 1000$ in the year of 2017 so the next year will be year of bitcoin and we will be get a big profit from bitcoin.

[cpfreeplz]

If you look at normal currency vs. Bitcoin I'm assuming bitcoins will be constantly on a 2-3% rise because of inflation on any other currency. So it depends what you're comparing it to. If we're talking about a currency with normal inflation then yes it'll be relatively stable at some point but if we're talking about currencies that are new or currencies that have a higher rate of inflation (3rd world countries) bitcoins will seem less stable there even if it's stable in terms of the value in another country. Either way you'll be better of with bitcoins rather than fiat!

[Positid]

If you look at normal currency vs. Bitcoin I'm assuming bitcoins will be constantly on a 2-3% rise because of inflation on any other currency. So it depends what you're comparing it to. If we're talking about a currency with normal inflation then yes it'll be relatively stable at some point but if we're talking about currencies that are new or currencies that have a higher rate of inflation (3rd world countries) bitcoins will seem less stable there even if it's stable in terms of the value in another country. Either way you'll be better of with bitcoins rather than fiat!

By looking at one side you can tell that bitcoin is better than fiat, but when it comes to being use for daily transactions fiat is not question the best. The reason why we are using fiat as we can easily use it even in the physical world and everybody recognize it as a legal tender, while bitcoin is not that popular.