How is Bitcoin "cheap" if its price is up more then 399 million percent?

[fxsurfer]

I hear people constantly say that the price of Bitcoin at 5,000 USD or 4,000 USD is "cheap". But, the initial price of Bitcoin was at 0.001 USD. At that time, Bitcoin had absolutely the same properties and function as it has today, which is a payment protocol and means of exchange. But in order to have that function today, one has to pay it 4,000 USD. Meaning, in order to get the same thing, a person has to pay 399 million percent more than what she or he paid in the past. How can a rational person call this "cheap"?! If someone would want to sell you iPhone 3 for 2,000,000,000 USD, would you call this "cheap"!? What is wrong with people today?

[avikz]

Good Point! That's the reason why you won't find any people who started with bitcoin back in 2009, screaming when the price is going down. The majority of the screaming people are the ones who entered into bitcoin market at a wrong time and with an investment mindset. Back in 2017, bitcoin was heavily promoted as a "get rich quick" scheme to many people which never turned out to be a reality!

I know few people from my office who had used their entire credit card balance to buy bitcoins back in 2017 due to the hype it had created in the market. Majority of them are now defaulters with a bad credit score. It's a basic mistake we are making by considering bitcoin as an investment, while it's not! It must be used as a currency if we really want to see an organic growth of bitcoin!

[BitcoinHodler]

"cheap" is a relative term and it is relative to bitcoin's true value not the value it had before and how much it has risen. and bitcoin's true value is a lot higher than $4k- $6k-etc...
it is also based on its supply and demand, which it has a limited supply the demand for bitcoin is constantly rising.

[Iwillgotothemoon]

The United States bought the entire Alaska for $7.2 million. Do you think it is cheap?
Of course, anyone now thinks this is simply cheap and incredible.
But at that time, Americans laughed at their secretary of state is a big fool, because they thought that Alaska was a big refrigerator and only fools would buy it.
So,determine if it is cheap or not, you can't get away from the era you are in, you know that the current idea is completely different from the past.

[Dreamace7]

Well we don't leave in the far past. Last year bitcoin reached it hugest price $20000 so that's is a very huge price to investing compare to the prices it fluctuating at the moment

[shield132]

I hear people constantly say that the price of Bitcoin at 5,000 USD or 4,000 USD is "cheap". But, the initial price of Bitcoin was at 0.001 USD. At that time, Bitcoin had absolutely the same properties and function as it has today, which is a payment protocol and means of exchange. But in order to have that function today, one has to pay it 4,000 USD. Meaning, in order to get the same thing, a person has to pay 399 million percent more than what she or he paid in the past. How can a rational person call this "cheap"?! If someone would want to sell you iPhone 3 for 2,000,000,000 USD, would you call this "cheap"!? What is wrong with people today?

Oh man, haven't you heared anything about demand and supply? Do you know how much bitcoin we have in circulation today and how much will be available finally? If no, then go and see on coinmarketcup. Well, bitcoin was 0.001, imagine it's 10$ which is 10Kx and maybe it will satisfy you. There are so many users with so much budget, currently one man makes so valuable transaction that with that price he/she would buy/sell whole bitcoin. So this clearly shows why your opinion is illogical. Don't forget miners too, if they won't mine, your transactions stuck. If you see mining profitability on whattomine.com or on nicehash, you'll clearly see that with free electricity and antminer s9, mining is unprofitable, you lose much, nearly 15$ in month.
Well, what to say more? Hope I explained everything clearly.

[talkbitcoin]

lets say an iPhone that is sold for more than $600 is being sold at $200. wouldn't you call that cheap? the value of it has gone up because of supply and demand anyways. in other words if people stopped buying iPhones the price would drop down to $1 but the demand is keeping it up.

now imagine something that is up and coming in the market and growing. a new technology as it is with bitcoin. obviously the demand for that technology will grow and with it the price of it will also grow. there will be times when the market gets excited and does a bigger sell off to crash the price below real value. that is when it is considered "cheap". and that is this time.

[NeuroticFish]

What is wrong with people today?

Absolutely nothing wrong. It always depends on the point of view.
Some compare it to the ATH (and the chance to reach again that ATH), and then you can call it cheap.
You compare it with the prices from early days and you call it expensive.
Some others compare it with the amount of money they afford to invest and they may call it cheap or expensive too.


A more or less similar thing to think about. The gold price. In about year 1492 Christopher Columbus men could exchange a knife for gold (much more earlier somewhere it was surely even cheaper). Now gold price is more than 39000 USD/kg. If something happens and you can buy gold at 15000 USD/kg, would you call it cheap or expensive?

[bit:boy]

views are different you are seeing the staring price of bitcoin and comparing current price and telling that its not cheap  , many people view is all time high and they are saying has its cheap now  

[dothebeats]

The term "cheap" is relative, and we're so fixated by the idea that "cheap" means anything with incredibly low value, while there are items worth thousands of dollars that are still considered cheap by a lot of buyers but are not appealing to some. From the cost of producing 1 bitcoin alone, I'd say <$4000 is dirt cheap and does not meet what the amount the miners need to take profit, let alone breakeven. As price rises, so does the competition to produce bitcoin, next is the amount of machines the miners need to source in order to stay afloat.

[Marcel666]

Well, bitcoin does not have the same features as I had ten years ago, and it was a couple of months after it's launch the it actually had any value at all, after getting on it's first exchange.
The idea is, you can not start at the top, you do not expect bitcoin, a relatively unknown currency created by an anonymous developer to trade at anything but a few cents. The price consolidated over the years.
I wouldn't still say it's cheap those though when weighing it with my pocket, but compared to what it could be in a couple of years.

[squatter]

I hear people constantly say that the price of Bitcoin at 5,000 USD or 4,000 USD is "cheap". But, the initial price of Bitcoin was at 0.001 USD.

"Cheap" is a judgment about value -- it means it's "worth more than its cost." It doesn't matter what the initial price was; it only matters what the value is now.

I believe that Bitcoin's value is derived from Metcalfe's Law, i.e. its network size. Today, buying BTC means buying into a vastly larger network than in 2009 when it cost 0.001 USD. If adoption continues to grow in the coming years, then 4,000 USD will surely turn out to be cheap, don't you think?

[bitfocus]

when it was damn cheap, nobody except some enthusiastic were in it, now as it grew higher in cost, everybody is in it. and the cheap is compared to the huge $20K price.

[Red-Apple]

how? the same way gold was cheap when it was found at the bottom of rivers and the gold fever was just starting many years ago although at that point some people thought how come gold that has gone up x% is considered cheap!

[brotherwood12]

because people just know bitcoin at price 10k usd and just started join in it at that time , so after they just know that bitcoin price might down to 3k-4k usd , they will said bitcoin was cheap

[phimgiatinhthat]

I also do not think the price of bitcoin is cheap, sometimes $1 is expensive if not recognized. But we keep investing if it is reasonable

[aplistir]

The price started from 0. It is quite pointless to count how many %:s the value has risen from 0. You would be at infinity.

You should instead estimate the value of the whole bitcoin system, including how much money has been poured to it, and compare the estimated value to the current value.

It is hard to make any good estimates, and that is why we often see it compared to 0.

PS. in the beginning the value was 0, because it had no use cases, and it was just an idea

[amishmanish]

Good Point! That's the reason why you won't find any people who started with bitcoin back in 2009, screaming when the price is going down. The majority of the screaming people are the ones who entered into bitcoin market at a wrong time and with an investment mindset. Back in 2017, bitcoin was heavily promoted as a "get rich quick" scheme to many people which never turned out to be a reality!

You cannot fault the people who started in 2017 by comparing their reaction with someone who "stumbled upon" BTC and found some in old hard drives and computers to suddenly become rich. Of course those people wouldn't complain. This doesn't change the fact that bitcoin was promoted as a "get rich quick" scheme. We were sold on the idea of a truly decentralized currency. This may yet happen but it is not something that most people will see in their lifetimes. People who support BTC for this reason alone won't worry about the price. But they also wouldn't support the "market price" by buying 1000s of BTC at today's prices. No serious investor will bet that much on ideals.

Ultimately, the price support is still from the people who got their BTC dirt-cheap and are holding because they will stay in profit even if it goes <1000. There is nothing great about being a hodler. That is what the newcomers need to realize. We must not project our experiences onto theirs. You cannot be a hodler cuz you don't have enough to hoard.

I know few people from my office who had used their entire credit card balance to buy bitcoins back in 2017 due to the hype it had created in the market. Majority of them are now defaulters with a bad credit score. It's a basic mistake we are making by considering bitcoin as an investment, while it's not! It must be used as a currency if we really want to see an organic growth of bitcoin!

And these bad credit scores went into the pockets of the smart hodlers/ traders that cashed out. Although nobody can be held responsible except people's own greed, I do think that we all (2017 people) made the mistake of being overly idealistic. I am totally for organic growth and it will come only when regulation has had its run AND we start seeing some real products and users. Till then, the "price" is at the mercy of those who mined thousands of BTC when it was under a dollar.

[Herucooles]

Please forget the past ... Now is a different time. The fact is when bitcoin prices start at $ 6k two weeks ago and now cost $ 4k, the price is still cheap.