This is Bitcoin's future in an image

[genjix]

[grondilu]

Not bad.  I suspect this comes from a general theory about how new ideas get adopted.  Am I right?

[Clarithium]

The true question is, is that plateau of productivity high enough for bitcoin to be a success?

[kiba]

The true question is, is that plateau of productivity high enough for bitcoin to be a success?

No, I believe the graph repeat itself until we reach critical mass.

[benjamindees]

You can invert that graph to get the price curve of any new technology:

Technology Trigger == Same
Peak of Inflated Expectations == Hobbyist Usage
Trough of Disillusionment == Early Adoption
Slope of Enlightenment == General Acceptance
Plateau of Productivity == Mass-Production and Commoditization

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Numerous innovations and advances such as instant transfers / debit cards etc etc all fall under the slope of enlightenment or each time something big happens does this cycle repeat?

[Hal]

Got any Google Trends graphs that match this shape?

[kiba]

Got any Google Trends graphs that match this shape?

http://www.google.com/trends?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

[ElectricMucus]

Got any Google Trends graphs that match this shape?

http://www.google.com/trends?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

That's good news since if we already are at the Through of Disillusionment. Most technologies fail during this period. I don't see that for bitcoin right now....

However I think that this graph do not represent bitcoin as a whole but rather GPU mining in its current form.


What might be interesting is to try to model a polynomial after the curve we have here, as well as the hashing power of the network and use the correlation between the two polynomials to give some indicator.

Could even train a feed forward neural net with these.

Do I make any sense?

[ribuck]

That's good news since if we already are at the Through of Disillusionment...

What you are seeing is only the first Trough of Disillusionment.

[davout]

Got any Google Trends graphs that match this shape?

http://www.google.com/trends?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&date=ytd&sort=0

Nice

What you are seeing is only the first Trough of Disillusionment.

I think it's right. I predict that after the first one that revolved around security/trust issues, the second Trough of Disillusionment will be mostly about governments trying to shut exchanges down one after another or some major player getting shut down due to legal concerns.

Bitcoin is such an exciting adventure, doesn't happen very often to have the opportunity of being part of something really original and new !

[Lolcust]

Um, IIRC bitcoin-central just got legally incorporated and cleared for some European banking thingie, so the governments acting in a coordinated manner (talk about cat herding  ) to shut down bitcoins is a bit of cryptoanarchist paranoia
 

[davout]

Um, IIRC bitcoin-central just got legally incorporated and cleared for some European banking thingie, so the governments acting in a coordinated manner (talk about cat herding  ) to shut down bitcoins is a bit of cryptoanarchist paranoia

Oh, I was thinking that even before I cleared all this

Governments might also not care at all, but somehow, I feel that if bitcoin really grows to be something important government will somehow have to do something to protect their control on financial flows.

That's what I find really interesting with bitcoin, nobody knows what the next big event or development is going to be

[Lolcust]

Well, if it grows bigger than painpal or moneybookers, someone might do something. And that would require a lot of peeps to outright abandon paypal, which I frankly don't see happening. Painpal is nowhere near aggravating enough.

[davout]

Well, if it grows bigger than painpal or moneybookers, someone might do something. And that would require a lot of peeps to outright abandon paypal, which I frankly don't see happening. Painpal is nowhere near aggravating enough.

You assume bitcoin and paypal (or other payment processors) are mutually exclusive, I think there are uses for all and niches to fill for bitcoin for example. The first one that comes to my mind is the illegal drugs market

[Lolcust]

Well, yes, they aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a limit on how many payment systems a user can reasonably support

As for drugs, where I live, people were paying for drugs a-oky via prepaid cards and Webmoney with no small amount of success, though BTC does make some things easier, while making other things harder (every transaction is completely public, so "jurisdictional veils" do not apply)

[Ten98]

Well, yes, they aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a limit on how many payment systems a user can reasonably support

As for drugs, where I live, people were paying for drugs a-oky via prepaid cards and Webmoney with no small amount of success, though BTC does make some things easier, while making other things harder (every transaction is completely public, so "jurisdictional veils" do not apply)

You don't need any jurisdictional veil. Sure, every transaction is public, but senders and recipients cannot be identified.

5BTC transferring from one account to another could be for anything, from anyone to anyone.

[Lolcust]

Well, yes, they aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a limit on how many payment systems a user can reasonably support

As for drugs, where I live, people were paying for drugs a-oky via prepaid cards and Webmoney with no small amount of success, though BTC does make some things easier, while making other things harder (every transaction is completely public, so "jurisdictional veils" do not apply)

You don't need any jurisdictional veil. Sure, every transaction is public, but senders and recipients cannot be identified.

5BTC transferring from one account to another could be for anything, from anyone to anyone.

Well, we all know that the devil is in the details. You gotta   hide the history of those coins (by wisely choosing an exchange or using a "laundry" and make sure the IPs that can be gleamed by someone watching the rendevouz channels can't be traced to you and your transactions, etc.

Meanwhile, "Pecunix will not bother to honor the screams of Belorussian KGB" is a one step trick that never failed me

[boonies4u]

Well, yes, they aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a limit on how many payment systems a user can reasonably support

As for drugs, where I live, people were paying for drugs a-oky via prepaid cards and Webmoney with no small amount of success, though BTC does make some things easier, while making other things harder (every transaction is completely public, so "jurisdictional veils" do not apply)

You don't need any jurisdictional veil. Sure, every transaction is public, but senders and recipients cannot be identified.

5BTC transferring from one account to another could be for anything, from anyone to anyone.

Well, we all know that the devil is in the details. You gotta   hide the history of those coins (by wisely choosing an exchange or using a "laundry" and make sure the IPs that can be gleamed by someone watching the rendevouz channels can't be traced to you and your transactions, etc.

Meanwhile, "Pecunix will not bother to honor the screams of Belorussian KGB" is a one step trick that never failed me

Freshly mined BTC are also an option.  As long as any "dirty" activity/wallet isn't related to one's "clean" identity/wallet and as long as said "dirty" activity/wallet isn't connected to the party's identifiers (IP Address, non-anon email, etc.), it could be pulled off quite easily. The only really dangerous stuff is moving BTC between a clean and dirty wallet, which can be solved with Laundry sites, or perhaps some loaning scheme.

[Lolcust]

Well, yes, they aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a limit on how many payment systems a user can reasonably support

As for drugs, where I live, people were paying for drugs a-oky via prepaid cards and Webmoney with no small amount of success, though BTC does make some things easier, while making other things harder (every transaction is completely public, so "jurisdictional veils" do not apply)

You don't need any jurisdictional veil. Sure, every transaction is public, but senders and recipients cannot be identified.

5BTC transferring from one account to another could be for anything, from anyone to anyone.

Well, we all know that the devil is in the details. You gotta   hide the history of those coins (by wisely choosing an exchange or using a "laundry" and make sure the IPs that can be gleamed by someone watching the rendevouz channels can't be traced to you and your transactions, etc.

Meanwhile, "Pecunix will not bother to honor the screams of Belorussian KGB" is a one step trick that never failed me

Freshly mined BTC are also an option.  As long as any "dirty" activity/wallet isn't related to one's "clean" identity/wallet and as long as said "dirty" activity/wallet isn't connected to the party's identifiers (IP Address, non-anon email, etc.), it could be pulled off quite easily. The only really dangerous stuff is moving BTC between a clean and dirty wallet, which can be solved with Laundry sites, or perhaps some loaning scheme.

Hmmmmmmm.... loaning... laundry.... hmmmm.... Okay, you have given me an idea. If it doesn't explode miserably in my face, expect being credited