Why are all Crypto Predictions so Alarmist

[Jdoss]

I am a recent adapater of Crypto, but I like the idea. I think it has a place in the wider economy after innovaters are able to make it more consumer friendly, I mean come on guys we all know 80% of people cant concieve of "millibits" "block chains" "hash rates" "PGP Keys" and so forth. Anyway as I have researched BTC ( I bought my first .001 BTC this morning) I have run across an interesting trend.

The discussions, articles and predictions about Crypto either come from major media outlets or the Crypto community. However, regardless of the source articles on Crypto all seem alarmists and full of the most absurd predictions, let me illustrate:

MSM Case
When MT Gox exploded nearly every article I read in the MSM went something like this:
 
"Mt Gox a trader of Bitcoins has collapsed, experts say Bitcoin will collapse as another internet scam, good riddence Bitcoin."

" Thanks Tom, I have problems balancing my checkbooks, hehehe"

These kinds of articles a pervasive. But they are totally alarmist. I mean come on,  a Peer to Peer decentralized currency may be volitile but its not going to collapse because 9% of its float was stolen. Moroever, the hackers that attacked MT GOX didnt destroy the BTC  they stole it and presumably re-sold it. Still the alarmist predictions continue, every time BTC has a hickup the MSM pundits scream the sky is falling. They never say BTC will experience a correction or BTC will need to be revised. Its always BTC is doomed, its stupid, people who use it are stupid. Sadly I have found this same logic in several places in the Crypto community.

Alt Media Case

People who like BTC, really like it. This is understandable and if you bought 100 BTC at $1, you have reason to believe in the Crypto Market. However, in my research I have also found that some pro Crypto people are so positive about the currency that they sponser the most far fetched predictions, often to their own detriment. Let me illusrate

Crypto Person: "Hey BTC hit a new high of $1000 today, looks like the sheepal are abandoning fiat money, my math iindicates that BTC will be at $400,000/BTC by 2017. I am maxing out credit cards to buy more."

Crypto Person II: " Your wrong, I agree that Fiat Money is dead but the real play is Muppet Coin (MPC) I am in for 1 million MPC, it too will go to 1000 so I should have 1000 x 1 million, pwn"

 
Anyway as with the BTC haters many boosters take a trend and take it to the extremem with no thought of equilibirum. I mean I think BTC goes up year to year but will it really go to 400,000? Giving us what 400,000 x 21 million worth of stored wealth in a small community to spend on what few businesses will  ever accept BTC? I mean I love buying and selling stuff with BTC but its too complex and the tax implications are too confusing for  95% of businesses.

Anyway my long winded point is why arent more Crypto projections more conservative. Why dont more people say things like, "Buying at 600, hope for 1400 withing 3 years. Sure its not 1000% but its still better than what I get in my checking account"   


Thoughts, my Econ Professor who hates BTC went nuts on me for the same argument, aka that BTC wont just collapse.



Reality-Blog.com.........Its Not Random
Book Orders Use BTC: 13jv8LpiYjY2oAxRbUvVD4havyZt5rQUjJ

[aminorex]

Historical behaviour and rationalistic models of BTC pricing create an exhuberant future scenario.  Estimates of future value which use the actual real-world data on the growth of the Bitcoin network, and the Bitcoin economy, are extremely high in comparison to similarly rationalistic empirical estimates, for example of S&P 500.  Because the growth is so extreme, the error bars on future estimates will be very wide.  Every explosion in prey population results in an explosion in predator population.  Many will seek to feed on Bitcoin, which will reduce the energy available for it to grow.  Just as the dynamics of the predator-prey system are chaotic, we can expect a chaotic marginal dynamic to overlay the underlying growth trend.  These factors, under conditions of exponential or super-exponential growth lead to huge error bars.  But as events develop we can form models in accordance with the evolving series, which help to inform and refine predictive estimation.

Nobody wants to be the fool who invests in a ponzi.  Nobody wants to be the fool who didn't buy bitcoin for $0.25.  It is necessary to believe that bitcoin will fail in order to believe that one has avoided both of these pitfalls.  Thus, much hatred accrues.

The mature generation of economics ph.d.s are all jealous, and threatened.  They all desire to be the Bernanke.  The power of the Bernanke is the power of the helicopter.  Bitcoin is super-effective against the power of the helicopter.

[Undone]

Nobody wants to be the fool who invests in a ponzi.  Nobody wants to be the fool who didn't buy bitcoin for $0.25.  It is necessary to believe that bitcoin will fail in order to believe that one has avoided both of these pitfalls.  Thus, much hatred accrues.

OP, the above is the best answer you'll get. Spend a little more time around here and you'll come to understand it all too well.

And I believe that part of the problem with the attitude of such inexperienced/immature players is that it may very well be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the flip side, if more people come to actually believe in bitcoin and then buy enough now to both hold a reasonable amount as an investment as well as enough to spend occasionally on goods & services as it becomes more widely accepted, bitcoin has a bright future.

[Carlton Banks]

The exaggerations from both sides are there for the obvious reason of overselling their arguments. That's pretty easy to spot, as noted in the other replies here.

At the risk of sounding like a different kind of alarmist, however, I would suggest that the "pro" camp don't go far enough when considering the long term. I don't think people really take into account the effect that a prevalent or dominant fixed supply currency will have on a macro economic scale. The business dynamics of producing goods with designed obsolescence and disposable or temporary products changes hugely. The economics of insurance premiums also changes a great deal. Even those purely monetary/financial effects might be small in contrast to what may happen when cryptography becomes leveraged in other new information tools (there's alot of evidence to indicate that cryptocurrency will be just the start of an overall trend in cryptographic tools that verify the validity of a whole range of different information repos).

Whole industries in the end will be changed forever, or may cease to exist altogether. Finance and legal representation look like they will be badly hit, and there could be others equally as affected. The present positive trend in people employed in computer science disciplines increases even further in such a scenario.

This sort of picture isn't going to be realised next year or the one after, but the wheels are in motion. It will definitely inspire a bit of neo-luddism, and if you look at the fringe/alt media, you see the beginnings of an attempt to nurture that sort of rationale. So the scene is set, IMO, for a slightly sci-fi style transformation to our way of life over, say, 20 years. Who knows to what extent, but it's going to be interesting to experience it.

[bitinlet]

I am a recent adapater of Crypto, but I like the idea. I think it has a place in the wider economy after innovaters are able to make it more consumer friendly, I mean come on guys we all know 80% of people cant concieve of "millibits" "block chains" "hash rates" "PGP Keys" and so forth. Anyway as I have researched BTC ( I bought my first .001 BTC this morning) I have run across an interesting trend.

The discussions, articles and predictions about Crypto either come from major media outlets or the Crypto community. However, regardless of the source articles on Crypto all seem alarmists and full of the most absurd predictions, let me illustrate:

MSM Case
When MT Gox exploded nearly every article I read in the MSM went something like this:
 
"Mt Gox a trader of Bitcoins has collapsed, experts say Bitcoin will collapse as another internet scam, good riddence Bitcoin."

" Thanks Tom, I have problems balancing my checkbooks, hehehe"

These kinds of articles a pervasive. But they are totally alarmist. I mean come on,  a Peer to Peer decentralized currency may be volitile but its not going to collapse because 9% of its float was stolen. Moroever, the hackers that attacked MT GOX didnt destroy the BTC  they stole it and presumably re-sold it. Still the alarmist predictions continue, every time BTC has a hickup the MSM pundits scream the sky is falling. They never say BTC will experience a correction or BTC will need to be revised. Its always BTC is doomed, its stupid, people who use it are stupid. Sadly I have found this same logic in several places in the Crypto community.

Alt Media Case

People who like BTC, really like it. This is understandable and if you bought 100 BTC at $1, you have reason to believe in the Crypto Market. However, in my research I have also found that some pro Crypto people are so positive about the currency that they sponser the most far fetched predictions, often to their own detriment. Let me illusrate

Crypto Person: "Hey BTC hit a new high of $1000 today, looks like the sheepal are abandoning fiat money, my math iindicates that BTC will be at $400,000/BTC by 2017. I am maxing out credit cards to buy more."

Crypto Person II: " Your wrong, I agree that Fiat Money is dead but the real play is Muppet Coin (MPC) I am in for 1 million MPC, it too will go to 1000 so I should have 1000 x 1 million, pwn"

 
Anyway as with the BTC haters many boosters take a trend and take it to the extremem with no thought of equilibirum. I mean I think BTC goes up year to year but will it really go to 400,000? Giving us what 400,000 x 21 million worth of stored wealth in a small community to spend on what few businesses will  ever accept BTC? I mean I love buying and selling stuff with BTC but its too complex and the tax implications are too confusing for  95% of businesses.

Anyway my long winded point is why arent more Crypto projections more conservative. Why dont more people say things like, "Buying at 600, hope for 1400 withing 3 years. Sure its not 1000% but its still better than what I get in my checking account"   


Thoughts, my Econ Professor who hates BTC went nuts on me for the same argument, aka that BTC wont just collapse.



Reality-Blog.com.........Its Not Random
Book Orders Use BTC: 13jv8LpiYjY2oAxRbUvVD4havyZt5rQUjJ

Your econ professor is probably a Keynesian. Ask him/her about how QE does not cause inflation. If they admit QE does cause inflation, ask why a something with a relatively set supply would not increase in value. Explain that's probably one additional reason for the increasing price in Bitcoin. Ask them why they are Keynesian again. Watch. Head. Explode.

[verdun2003]

It's probably a keynesian, bring back hayek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc