Volatility IS a bug, not a feature :)

[d5000]

For example, while Bitcoin is able to fulfill the function of (P2P digital) cash seeing it as only that is extremely limited and wrong. So many things can be done with it, and in many different ways, contrary to what is possible with normal cash.

I have tried to create a thread about the unique value proposition of Bitcoin in the Spanish forum. This goes into this direction, I think, but was much less elaborated than a finance/(micro)economics expert could do and it's still mostly centered in the "usage as money" concept, although with some points which emphasize the store of value concept too ("strong hands" importance). It's still a simple forum post, but maybe I could elaborate the idea further.

I agree that @virginorange's post should get more attention, maybe I'll reach out to him for a translation or a "derived" post.

I don't consider a stablecoin that is tied to another currency, which is just another form of peg, stable.

I think this is a bit too theoretic. The dollar is still a good measure for purchasing power. And you could also imagine a Dai-like stablecoin based on a currency or commodity basket (like Libra was meant to be, but more decentralized).
 

Were Bitcoin to go back to something like $1000 as in your fairy tale, and not recover to new territories we can consider it dead for all practical purposes.

I agree with that. I however consider that scenario relatively unlikely too, but it's possible (<5% probability).

The most likely scenario for a "boreout bear market" imo is a scenario like in most major altcoins today, let's say LTC. The price is not bad considering the moving averages, but it is far away from ATHs. Ethereum and Solana are moving into the same direction: They will rarely or never reach a new ATH, but still for some years there will be some hope. And it may never crash catastrophically (-99%).

That would be a scenario where Bitcoin fluctuates between, let's say, $20k and $80-100k, with some occasional spikes close to the ATH. After some years in that corridor it could crash into a lower corridor, e.g. 10k to 30k or so. That would be the "Ethereum scenario" (highs still close to ATH) transitioning into the "LTC scenario" (highs considerably lower than the ATH). A lot of money could be still made with trading, so it would take decades to really "die", but the hopes of adoption as global money or reserve asset would be quite dead for years to come. Not to speak that in such a scenario, those arguing that Bitcoin was "flawed from the start" (e.g. because of the sinking block reward) will claim to have correctly predicted Bitcoin's fate.

The importance of an "usage as money" (be it for payments or long term saving) is also why I'm more close to your position in the spam/usability debate (I've read your discussion with gmaxwell and I'll later respond to that). And actually not that far away from the Knots folks' "basic" position that "there should be done something, if it's possible (and necessary)", only that I consider Luke and friends' ideas to combat "spam" catastrophic for Bitcoin and their aggressive, conspiranoic attitude extremely disgusting.


Here's some basic model of the "boreout scenario" using average prices. I first went for yearly averages but their granularity is too low (hope you understand what I mean). For example, 2018 and 2019's average prices were similar or barely lower than 2017's price due to the low start of the 2017 bubble. So I took the averages per semester (~SMA-182 daily) and got following approximate values.

(The 2011 values aren't used because the start of the year was extremely low and pulled down the figures for S1 2011 which was the first major bubble.)

- 2011/12 bear low: $5.45 (S1/2012)
- 2013/14 bull high: $612 (S1/2014): ~10,000% increase
- 2015 bear low: $242 (S1/2015): ~60% decrease
- 2017/18 bull high: $8800 (S1/2018): 3500% increase
- 2018/19 bear low: $5200 (S2/2018): ~40% decrease
- 2021 bull high: $51000 (S2/2021): ~ 900% increase
- 2022/23 bear low: $19000 (S2/2022): ~63% (!) decrease
- 2025 bull high: $109000 (S2/2025): ~400% increase



We can thus approximately say that:
- The bull market increases decreased by approximately two thirds in each 4 year cycle (fits surprisingly well).
- The bear market drawdowns had no clear tendency. The least dramatic drawdown was even the 2018 bear, contrary to popular belief! (Reason: In 2019 the price recovered faster than in 2022/23.) And the 2022 bear was even more dramatic than the 2014/15 bear!

We could thus say that in the next bull Bitcoin could be already struggling to find a new "semester ATH" if this tendency continues: Another ~50% drawdown would bring us to ~$55,000 average bear low, and a 130% increase (400% reduced by 2/3) would bring us only to ~$126,000, barely above the 2025 bull high.

Conclusion: The "volatile" scenario with Bitcoin as a speculative instrument, if it continues like now, is bearish.

But 2026 could turn the page: if we manage to defend the 50-60k level, and thus achieve for the first time a significant downside volatility reduction.

If not, then not all is lost, but it will become increasingly more difficult with every cycle to reach new ATHs and to preserve the long term uptrend. But of course an adoption "as a currency" or "as long term saving asset" can change everything!

(PS: I made some edits to the post, the SMA for example was wrong at first .)
(PS2: I originally linked the wrong @virginorange thread which is related to TAM but goes into another direction. This is the correct one.)

[red4slash]

because when volatility is lost then the attractiveness of bitcoin may decrease

I'm personally not really a fan of huge volatility
I love relatively stable growth
If you want high volatility there shitcoins out there that can help with that.

We can choose and when we are in bitcoin we have to be ready for the volatility and we can't refuse it because in this case volatility must remain.

Altcoins are not included in the comparison because even though what you said is true but it is not a comparison and if the conditions are forced like someone has to choose then of course volatility is more friendly it should be in gold not if the comparison is to other aspects of investment not bitcoin. But here because the focus is only on bitcoin then we will only discuss this and regardless of the high or low volatility then for the short term bitcoin volatility remains high but for the long term even though volatility remains but we will always consider it to be a positive thing because of the growth of bitcoin itself.

[Ambatman]

We can choose and when we are in bitcoin we have to be ready for the volatility and we can't refuse it because in this case volatility must remain.

If volatility remains
How would Bitcoin play a part in being Money
How can Bitcoin be accepted widely as a medium of exchange or a store of value.
As the market gets deeper volatility gets lower Because it would take a bigger amount to make a change to the market.

If Bitcoin volatility remains this high in the next twenty years
It means adoption has failed And trust has fallen.

[Easteregg69]

Yeah what is your rsi worth if they lower the floor?

[legiteum]

But 2026 could turn the page: if we manage to defend the 50-60k level, and thus achieve for the first time a significant downside volatility reduction.

That depends on who you mean by "we". If "we" means, "the market and along with the help of President Trump and his party", that could change, and even reverse in the next US election for instance.

Personally, I wouldn't put a floor under Bitcoin's price at all until it is free from political intervention, and/or that intervention is entrenched in the majority for a long period of time. Right now, at least some (and in my opinion, a lot) of Bitcoin's price is based on hyper-polarized US politics, meaning cultural sentiment and regulatory support could not only withdraw, but it could even reverse. In other words, right now Bitcoin often thought of as "a Trump thing", which could reverse if the popular sentiment of Trump reversed among the investors who currently see Trump's association as a positive.

To put it still another way, by the crypto industry becoming the single-largest donor to the US 2024 elections, they bolted Bitcoin on to something... extremely volatile.

Of course this is to say nothing of the fact that Bitcoin is a... computer technology, and prices of computer technologies have never ever remained non-volatile since technologies change very rapidly. To whit, Bitcoin has thousands of technological competitors.

If Bitcoin volatility remains this high in the next twenty years
It means adoption has failed And trust has fallen.

We've waited 15 years already and it's still a volatile investment. And 15 years might as well be a thousand years in the world of technology.

I think you really need to question yourself after waiting 15 years for something and then saying, "I guess in 20 more years we'll know for sure" unless you are in the field of geology or something .

[Ambatman]

We've waited 15 years already and it's still a volatile investment. And 15 years might as well be a thousand years in the world of technology.

I don't know if you don't understand that volatility has been falling since inception
And like I said before volatility in early stage is normal
Bitcoin is still relatively young.

I think you really need to question yourself after waiting 15 years for something and then saying, "I guess in 20 more years we'll know for sure" unless you are in the field of geology or something .

15 years is like a thousand years?
Even if so it doesn't apply to a technology that tries to challenge the status Quo
An innovation don't even know they need .

[legiteum]

We've waited 15 years already and it's still a volatile investment. And 15 years might as well be a thousand years in the world of technology.

I don't know if you don't understand that volatility has been falling since inception
And like I said before volatility in early stage is normal
Bitcoin is still relatively young.

Young? For a rock maybe . For a technology?

In 2010:

* We were using the iPhone 4 (camera = .3 megapixels) and today we use the iPhone 17 (18MP)
* ExxonMobile was the biggest company by market cap ($300B); today it's NVDA at $4.75T, = 16x larger
* Tesla sold about 400 cars
* Netflix still mailed people DVDs
* TikTok did not exist

I think you really need to question yourself after waiting 15 years for something and then saying, "I guess in 20 more years we'll know for sure" unless you are in the field of geology or something .

15 years is like a thousand years?
Even if so it doesn't apply to a technology that tries to challenge the status Quo
An innovation don't even know they need .

Quite the contrary, technologies that challenge the status quo, by definition, age the fastest.

Meanwhile, there are absolutely no fundamental reasons why the price of Bitcoin should stabilize. It's like saying NVDA or AAPL will stabilize someday. Why would they? And those are actual companies that have real-world limits to their price range. Bitcoin could got to $10 or $10 million based on how people feel, at a click of a button, with zero switching costs.

My advice would be to get use to Bitcoin being as volatile as it's ever been... forever. You can debate whether that's a good thing or a bad thing (my vote: it doesn't make any difference), but saying volatility going to go away is just wishful thinking.

[davis196]

How do you plan to control Bitcoin's volatility? Do you want to increase the mining reward(and the total BTC supply)? How do you plan to gather enough support(to achieve consensus) about such change in the protocol? Perhaps the BTC miners would support such mining reward increase, but some BTC developers would be against the proposed change. What would lower BTC volatility add to Bitcoin? Most speculative investors would run away, since there would be lower chances of having extremely high price peaks. Most retailers would still refuse to accept BTC as a payment method, because having lower volatility doesn't mean having no volatility at all.

[betswift]

How do you plan to control Bitcoin's volatility? Do you want to increase the mining reward(and the total BTC supply)? How do you plan to gather enough support(to achieve consensus) about such change in the protocol? Perhaps the BTC miners would support such mining reward increase, but some BTC developers would be against the proposed change. What would lower BTC volatility add to Bitcoin? Most speculative investors would run away, since there would be lower chances of having extremely high price peaks. Most retailers would still refuse to accept BTC as a payment method, because having lower volatility doesn't mean having no volatility at all.

Volatility will be shrinked by itself if the price of BTC continues to rise.. more and more money would be needed to push it in any direction.

[cryptosize]

USD volatility is far more worrisome.

It's funny how some people think USD is the fiat equivalent of the metric system and they don't even realize what's gonna happen in a few years.

[nemesis_incarnate]

USD volatility is far more worrisome.

It's funny how some people think USD is the fiat equivalent of the metric system and they don't even realize what's gonna happen in a few years.

Printer so going to do the brrrr, that's what

[cryptosize]

USD volatility is far more worrisome.

It's funny how some people think USD is the fiat equivalent of the metric system and they don't even realize what's gonna happen in a few years.

Printer so going to do the brrrr, that's what

Really?

[legiteum]

USD volatility is far more worrisome.

It's funny how some people think USD is the fiat equivalent of the metric system and they don't even realize what's gonna happen in a few years.

Don't you get bored of saying that year after year after year? I literally first read what you just wrote on the Internet on a CompuServe SIG in the mid-1980s.

Meanwhile, while we've seen some USD-denominated inflation over the years, and it's annoying, it's hardly life-changing. A good new car economy cost $10,000 in the mid 1980s, and now it's about $25,000 40 years later. That's an increase of about $400 per year. Big deal. With this kind of increase you can very easily plan for it, run your business on it, and run the whole economy.

And last I checked, the USA hasn't done too bad in the last 40 years either: we've vastly improved standards of living, medial science, access to entertainment, and so on.

But still, you wait. Someday the USA will collapse into chaos, and then your Bitcoin (which will still somehow work without a stable and accessible Internet, and still be valuable without access to worldwide capital markets) will come to your rescue.

If that's your investment thesis, y'all might be waiting a long, long time .

[BlackHatCoiner]

And last I checked, the USA hasn't done too bad in the last 40 years either: we've vastly improved standards of living, medial science, access to entertainment, and so on.

The standards of living haven't "vastly improved". Homes were relatively cheaper to wages forty years ago. Healthcare costs and college tuition costs outpace inflation. Yes, there is technological growth and hence, more productivity, but due to money printing this extra productivity goes to asset holders. There weren't so many dual-income households back then, now it is a necessity.

But, yes, there is infinite social media slop, porn and drug accessibility to distract people from their poverty. Much growth! Such wow! 

[cryptosize]

USD volatility is far more worrisome.

It's funny how some people think USD is the fiat equivalent of the metric system and they don't even realize what's gonna happen in a few years.

Don't you get bored of saying that year after year after year? I literally first read what you just wrote on the Internet on a CompuServe SIG in the mid-1980s.

Meanwhile, while we've seen some USD-denominated inflation over the years, and it's annoying, it's hardly life-changing. A good new car economy cost $10,000 in the mid 1980s, and now it's about $25,000 40 years later. That's an increase of about $400 per year. Big deal. With this kind of increase you can very easily plan for it, run your business on it, and run the whole economy.

And last I checked, the USA hasn't done too bad in the last 40 years either: we've vastly improved standards of living, medial science, access to entertainment, and so on.

But still, you wait. Someday the USA will collapse into chaos, and then your Bitcoin (which will still somehow work without a stable and accessible Internet, and still be valuable without access to worldwide capital markets) will come to your rescue.

If that's your investment thesis, y'all might be waiting a long, long time .

You should educate yourself (in regards to History/Economics):



Nothing lasts forever. Not even the Roman Empire... sorry to burst your "'Murica, fuck yeah!" bubble.

[Faisal2202]

You are right, this can be a problem and if your instinct is right, then it might be a problem but what if the pattern breaks, like the downside volatility, which is increasing in compared to the upside one, starts to decrease like right now, the market has dumped only 50%, what if it won't dump more? What if the higher side volatility (pump) increases the next time?

At the end of the day, I am not seeing thisas  the main reason for bitcoin to go to zero. But it is a genuine observation you had and to deal with it, we can't do anything but it is how things are flowing now. For now I will say it is a feature because it can't be a bug.

[d5000]

Personally, I wouldn't put a floor under Bitcoin's price at all until it is free from political intervention, and/or that intervention is entrenched in the majority for a long period of time. Right now, at least some (and in my opinion, a lot) of Bitcoin's price is based on hyper-polarized US politics, meaning cultural sentiment and regulatory support could not only withdraw, but it could even reverse.

I believe the US politics "intervention" was limited to the spike in late 2024, until at most the February 2025 dip caused by disappointment about the strategic reserve and the begin of Trump's tariff policy. Later than that, there were next to no news related to US crypto policy that had any incidence in Bitcoin's price. The ups and downs were often in line with stock markets ups and downs, which of course also react to politics, but not related to Bitcoin/crypto policy.

US relevancy for Bitcoin will also be constantly decreasing.

We've waited 15 years already and it's still a volatile investment. And 15 years might as well be a thousand years in the world of technology.

The volatility tendency is consistently falling. The late 2025/2026 spikes were already less volatile than the spikes in 2024 and early 2025.

Source: Bitbo

However, as I wrote above the challenge is to limit downside volatility. And that depends on investor behaviour. In Bitcoin communities (from Bitcointalk to Twitter/X and Youtube influencer fandoms), this investor behavior is shaped too, so it's not a futile exercise to work against the herd mentality. I don't believe that only the whales are moving Bitcoin's price. Their influence has increased with ETFs but they should still not be really decisive.

[legiteum]

I believe the US politics "intervention" was limited to the spike in late 2024, until at most the February 2025 dip caused by disappointment about the strategic reserve and the begin of Trump's tariff policy. Later than that, there were next to no news related to US crypto policy that had any incidence in Bitcoin's price. The ups and downs were often in line with stock markets ups and downs, which of course also react to politics, but not related to Bitcoin/crypto policy.

People here have made a good case that the "Trump trade" for Bitcoin has diminished greatly, and I now agree with that. However, I also think that the market still has a lot of it priced in, and in particular a Trump reversal on Bitcoin (which he has done all of his life, with all of his businesses and wives and bimbos and cabinet members and basically anybody and anything around him ), could set off a panic in the market that could see it plumb depths not seen in a decade.

So Bitcoin's price is still partially in the hands of Trump personal whim, IMHO.

US relevancy for Bitcoin will also be constantly decreasing.

Why would that be?

We've waited 15 years already and it's still a volatile investment. And 15 years might as well be a thousand years in the world of technology.

The volatility tendency is consistently falling. The late 2025/2026 spikes were already less volatile than the spikes in 2024 and early 2025.

However, as I wrote above the challenge is to limit downside volatility. And that depends on investor behaviour. In Bitcoin communities (from Bitcointalk to Twitter/X and Youtube influencer fandoms), this investor behavior is shaped too, so it's not a futile exercise to work against the herd mentality. I don't believe that only the whales are moving Bitcoin's price. Their influence has increased with ETFs but they should still not be really decisive.

Well, as in stocks, you can always make any case you want depending on your zoom level on the chart . But I agree that in the past couple of years the volatility has decreased.

I have a thread on my Whale Theory, but that doesn't assert that Whales can reverse core aggregate consumer investor demand (although they can justify spending $billions marketing Bitcoin). Perhaps the way to think about it is that Whales have as much control over the price of Bitcoin as OPEC used to have over oil--and they can make short term moves that makes them a lot of money at the expense of consumer investors without their market power.

[PrivacyG]

That depends on who you mean by "we". If "we" means, "the market and along with the help of President Trump and his party", that could change, and even reverse in the next US election for instance.

Personally, I wouldn't put a floor under Bitcoin's price at all until it is free from political intervention, and/or that intervention is entrenched in the majority for a long period of time. Right now, at least some (and in my opinion, a lot) of Bitcoin's price is based on hyper-polarized US politics, meaning cultural sentiment and regulatory support could not only withdraw, but it could even reverse. In other words, right now Bitcoin often thought of as "a Trump thing", which could reverse if the popular sentiment of Trump reversed among the investors who currently see Trump's association as a positive.

While I agree that Bitcoin is clearly influenced by United States politics, this is mostly felt by you United States citizens.  I at least in Europe do not feel this threat as much.  Yes I do feel a Price drop or spike when Trump makes an important announcement.  But I believe Bitcoin will NEVER be free from Political intervention considering it has become such a giant Asset with an impossible to ignore Market Cap size.

Politics will continue to intervene all around the World.  In Europe they are planning to crack down at least partially on what ever Freedom we had that Bitcoin gave us, in The United States there is Trump who is supposedly helping Bitcoin et cetera.  Bitcoin has made some people a ton of Money and it has clearly become a subject easy to use in convincing people of particular measures, regulations et cetera.  But the problem is not the political intervention in my opinion considering it is pretty much inevitable.  There are multiple reasons volatility WILL continue to swing in a wild way.  If Trump had his term ending tomorrow there are always going to be other 'dangers'.  Michael Saylor decides to sell.  Europe decides to crack down on private Bitcoin Wallets like they promised.  Some country bans Bitcoin, some big Bitcoin business drops, some idiot 'influencer' like Musk plays the volatility on social media et cetera.  The future Pricing of Bitcoin depends on the personal whim of who ever has the most influence at the time and not only by Trump.

And at the same time.  As long as they will find ways to influence Bitcoin, they most probably will.  This means volatility will stick to the highest ceiling at the time as long as there are ways to use it to your advantage.  There will probably be a day when people will be 'bored out' by Bitcoin like d5000 said.  But that is the day its volatility will not be easy to influence any more and as long as there are Billionaires being able to start stupid trends such as we had with Doge Coin and Musk, that will be hard to avoid.  The main trouble is in my opinion caused by idiots who fall for these traps.  And there are MANY of them.

[headingnorth]

The high volatility makes  bitcoin ideal for DAY TRADING  and SWING TRADING.
High volatility is the kind of thing that short-term traders love to trade and always seek out for short-term profits: The more volatility the better.

It is quite odd to me why people can think something with such huge volatility makes it ideal as a long-term store of value.
It is exactly the opposite.