Why is bitcoin so unstable?

[BlackHatCoiner]

Gold is another store of value, but not that unstable. It reached 2000$ recently and was above 1000$ for many years. Those who invested in gold back in 1900 would have made a great choice since it costed only 20$ back then if I'm not wrong. (Although dollar was way more strong than now)

Bitcoin can lose 500$ within one night. Gold can't. Why that?

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[Poker Player]

Because Bitcoin was created in 2008 whereas gold has been a store of value for thousands of years.

[ChiBitCTy]

You have to keep in mind that Gold has been around and used as a form of currency for thousands of years.  It's been used by modern day governments as a back to their currency.  Gold has physical real world uses to boot.  Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency in it's infancy.  Stabilization will take time.

[LeGaulois]

If the gold's price was stable, a chart would be like this all the time.



(Yep, I'm a charts expert, glad you noticed it  )

But that isn't the case at all.
There is a big difference between something stable and something less volatile. The fact is, gold is not so stable but has much less volatility compared to Bitcoin.

While you say gold doesn't lose $500 as it does with Bitcoin, that's not entirely true. Firstly $500 for BTC is not the same for gold as they don't have the same value basically. You need to talk with percentages, not monetary value.

Now continuing with your argument, you're wrong, as it happened gold has taken a big plunge, just like it did in 2013. On Comex, the fall in 1 session was close to 10%, the biggest drop in 30 years by the way.

Perhaps it happens less often than BTC but it really happens

[wxa7115]

Gold is another store of value, but not that unstable. It reached 2000$ recently and was above 1000$ for many years. Those who invested in gold back in 1900 would have made a great choice since it costed only 20$ back then if I'm not wrong. (Although dollar was way more strong than now)

Bitcoin can lose 500$ within one night. Gold can't. Why that?

Another reason besides the one stated above is that the supply of bitcoin is inelastic, what does this means? In the case of gold we do not really have an idea of how much gold is still buried underground, we have estimations but now thanks to new technology we can extract gold from below the sea, and as such you have virgin territory that could be full of gold.

In the case of bitcoin we know how many coins will ever exist and unless there is a fork that changes this that amount will never change, this means that as soon as there is a change in the demand the supply side is unable to keep up with it and this increases the volatility, and when you add that there is only a few million people using bitcoin in a world of seven billion this means that the volatility is nowhere close to come to an end and you must accept this even if it seems as if you do not like it that much.

[hatshepsut93]

Basically, Bitcoin's future is very unclear. It may become more widely adopted, it may stagnate and keep being a niche tool for certain groups, it might even lose users with time. It also may get banned by more government, or maybe more governments will regulate it and allow to use. This uncertainty makes it nearly impossible to make a good prediction about Bitcoin's future, so people are just guessing, and guessing causes these speculative bubble cycles. It's a feedback loop, because speculation fuels more speculation, a lot of investors come to Bitcoin to simply ride the waves of bull/bear cycles.

With gold, there's nothing to speculate about. Stocks can be analyzed with calculations. Commodities can be analyzed too. Currencies have central banks to support their price.

[NeuroticFish]

Gold is not stable. It's just low volatility.
Bitcoin volatility is indeed high. Altcoins' is even higher.

Why? This is a difficult question. It is a combination of multiple "problems":
- Bitcoin is still young
- the market is not properly regulated
- the exchanges don't report correctly the volumes
- rich entities, trading bots and social media manipulation can affect the price heavily
- possibly other problems I didn't think of

[Gozie51]

Gold is not stable. It's just low volatility.

You are right and indeed no trading commodity or even product can be stable because if it is stable, it won't have that trading attraction and therefore won't be traded. Bitcoin is highly volatile because of majorly no proper regulation.
Also, all of the point you raised in your postage good reason for bitcoin high volatile.

[adzino]

Gold is another store of value, but not that unstable. It reached 2000$ recently and was above 1000$ for many years. Those who invested in gold back in 1900 would have made a great choice since it costed only 20$ back then if I'm not wrong. (Although dollar was way more strong than now)

Bitcoin can lose 500$ within one night. Gold can't. Why that?

Why are people still comparing bitcoin with gold! Bitcoin is new over here. It is still in its infant stage. So much to develop. People have adopted the usage of gold. We are yet to adopt cryptocurrencies and make it main stream. Gold isn't stable. The price does go up and down, but less volatile compared to bitcoin. Where as any news or event might affect the price of bitcoin since the future of bitcoin itself isn't clear. You should look at the long run results. If bitcoin ever gets accepted like gold, we will be seeing that bitcoin is less volatile.

[pixie85]

It's unstable because of many reasons.

Only small amount of all bitcoins in existence is traded and prices depend on the average from a few biggest exchanges.

Bitcoin is still following trends in global economy. If stocks fall cryptocurrencies will follow like they did during the pandemics.

[tabas]

Bitcoin is very volatile and it can go as high as it can overnight and vice versa. But that characteristic of bitcoin is what makes it simply amazing.
You buy low, hold it, and wait until you see the price you want to sell. And another good reason of having it is that you can be simply low-key. Nobody will know that you have bitcoins and its storage is easy to keep and bring everywhere you want. Unlike gold, it consumes space and weight.

[Zemomtum]

Most countries back up with Gold as their reserve which will make its volatility to be minimal. Few people control Bitcoin price in time of movement, until their is a widely adoption where we have equilibrium distribution, this craziness will not end soon. Gold is less volatile and it happen on a rear occasions but BTC is unpredictable due to lack of regulation which makes reporting from most exchanges questionable.

[dimastegar]

We know that Gold is a real asset that has always been an investment for the majority of people in the world. The price of gold continues to increase from year to year. Even though the price has increased only slightly, gold is still a safe investment option because its price has never dropped sharply. And the supply of gold on earth from ancient times can still be mined until today.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is a digital asset that has a limited total supply, and is hard to come by. As well as in its use in the digital world, Bitcoin is very useful in various crypto transactions. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin price itself is volatile, depending on the buying and selling transactions of these Bitcoin traders.

[Vaskiy]

Both are entirely different by the way of valuation. Gold through its rare availability got its value having years and years of history. This means it grew in a much slower phase, with no value during the early days. This is the reason why it is less volatile. Further it got its importance and the demand led to growth. This in turn is preferred as the reserve by most of the countries.

When we talk about bitcoin. It is technology based, and is completely manipulative. What it has reached in a short time period is much big compared to the gold. Fixed supply is another reason for the market volatility of bitcoin. Gold is spread around, with bitcoin there are whales who hold a big volume and manipulate the market which reflects as high volatility.

[LogitechMouse]

~

Volatility.

Gold has been here for a long time already so many investors have it already. Compare it to the investors of Bitcoin, gold has way more investors than Bitcoin thus it affects the volatility of the 2. Bitcoin can lose 500$ in one night yes because there are times where the only buyers are those rich people and institutions and they can pump and dump it if they want too unlike in Gold where there are many buyers so it is distributed.

[Wexnident]

Bitcoin is still currently increasing in supply, hence there's still changes with its price, not to mention that demand for it is currently increasing with more and more people learning about it, compared to how gold has been there for years already. Also, I wouldn't call gold stable, but rather less volatile than Bitcoin, by a LOT. It's like how there's already a steady foundation for Gold, so even if you lose some of it, the price would still remain around the same, and even if you add more of it, the same issue would occur, unless a great amount was added or reduced, which wouldn't happen due to its already strong foundation. Bitcoin on the other hand, something like a feeble foundation but the support, and the item it supports still continuously changes, hence why it's a lot more volatile.

[Astvile]

Gold has been here for a long time already compared to bitcoin. Majority of country has gold reservers thats why gold was way more stable, volatility of gold is nothing compared to bitcoin bitcoin is decentralized plus the fact that bitcoins supply decrease ( by means of lost wallet) and increase in daily basis affects its volatility thats why bitcoin is really unpredictable.

[wack slacker]

Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market are in their infancy compared to all other markets. First of all, bitcoin's widespread use in payments, in the reserves and application of the entire Crypto market is new and only being noticed.
Bitcoin is volatile in the 10% range and is heavily influenced by news. Besides, the manipulation of bitcoin investors greatly affects the value of bitcoin as well as the variation in the various derivative markets.

[witcher_sense]

Gold is another store of value, but not that unstable. It reached 2000$ recently and was above 1000$ for many years. Those who invested in gold back in 1900 would have made a great choice since it costed only 20$ back then if I'm not wrong. (Although dollar was way more strong than now)

Bitcoin can lose 500$ within one night. Gold can't. Why that?

Try look at this situation from your own position. If you wanted to preserve value of you funds, what would you choose, an asset that has proven to be strong store of value, or new digital cryptocurrency, future of which is still uncertain albeit looking interesting and promising. If you choose gold than bitcoin is not ready to become store of value whatsoever. If you can't decide whether you should be conservative or risky, then you are in the process of understanding the current situation, this is a good sign. If you choose bitcoin over conservative and relatively safe asset, bitcoin is already store of value for you. When vast majority of people recognize bitcoin as store of value, meaning chose third option, bitcoin will no longer volatile. Other options make bitcoin like it looks now, most people are still in doubt. Decide for yourself what you want bitcoin to be for you and it will be so, don't wait for others because it might be too late to buy bitcoin when everyone already decide that bitcoin is good for storing value.

[piebeyb]

do not equate the value of bitcoin with the value of gold especially with a stable currency, gold and currencies may have an unlimited supply, in contrast to bitcoin also because of its limited value. usually the price of bitcoin fluctuates just like stocks