Volatility IS a bug, not a feature :)

[legiteum]

I just know that there's a massive part of the economy in my country that is surviving by evading taxes, and I know that this part will not ever like the idea of receiving their payment digitally nor by "NFC Banknotes", whatever that is. Physical cash is often just preferable by every metric, except having to carry change perhaps. Cash is also accepted everywhere, not like cryptocurrencies which are also cash but need an off-ramp for practical use.

CBDCs simply have no unique use case in almost all countries--save being a political boogieman (which is unique to the USA). If no politician can articulate the difference between a CBDC and PayPal etc., it's a non-starter and it will never happen. Everything people are afraid a CBDC can do is already being done today with payment apps like PayPal, credit cards, crypto off-ramps, and even physical cash coming from ATMs is tracked.

[Hamza2424]

Your idea is totally different from the one it is inspired of, but I agree with this point of view because the volatility can make it boring and people might lose interest but it can't maintain the higher volatility to rise more and more and it can't help with the downside volatility as well. It all depends on the community mean us, we are buying and selling. We are the ones setting the bars high or bars low in the bullish and bearish trend, respectively. I also think it is not a bug but a feature because due to this feature, it is benefiting till now and everyone is investing.

otherwise bro, why would someone be interested to buy bitcoin they will say the volatility is lower. Let's go in meme coins instead I know the volatility is not as high as it is in meme coins but you know what I am trying to say haha.

Do you have any way to solve it? I don't think so, it cannot be solved even if we consider it is a bug.

[Abelly]

I just know that there's a massive part of the economy in my country that is surviving by evading taxes, and I know that this part will not ever like the idea of receiving their payment digitally nor by "NFC Banknotes", whatever that is. Physical cash is often just preferable by every metric, except having to carry change perhaps. Cash is also accepted everywhere, not like cryptocurrencies which are also cash but need an off-ramp for practical use.

CBDCs simply have no unique use case in almost all countries--save being a political boogieman (which is unique to the USA). If no politician can articulate the difference between a CBDC and PayPal etc., it's a non-starter and it will never happen. Everything people are afraid a CBDC can do is already being done today with payment apps like PayPal, credit cards, crypto off-ramps, and even physical cash coming from ATMs is tracked.

PayPal or card companies are private intermediaries, they are dependent on the banking system and are not the direct liability of the central bank, but a CBDC would be a direct liability of the central bank. Digital cash that could theoretically reach citizens without banks. It carries a different policy goal in terms of financial inclusion, faster interbank settlement and reducing costs in cross-border payments. The fear is not entirely unfounded. Programmable money, spending restrictions in certain sectors or negative interest are all theoretically possible within the CBDC architecture. Although similar controls still exist in the banking system today, CBDC can implement them directly at the central bank level. This is where the debate lies.

Your idea is totally different from the one it is inspired of, but I agree with this point of view because the volatility can make it boring and people might lose interest but it can't maintain the higher volatility to rise more and more and it can't help with the downside volatility as well. It all depends on the community mean us, we are buying and selling. We are the ones setting the bars high or bars low in the bullish and bearish trend, respectively. I also think it is not a bug but a feature because due to this feature, it is benefiting till now and everyone is investing.

otherwise bro, why would someone be interested to buy bitcoin they will say the volatility is lower. Let's go in meme coins instead I know the volatility is not as high as it is in meme coins but you know what I am trying to say haha.

Do you have any way to solve it? I don't think so, it cannot be solved even if we consider it is a bug.

It is also important to remember that extreme volatility is not sustainable if an asset wants to gain global acceptance in the long term. Increasing participation from large institutions, pension funds or state level institutions increases liquidity and generally volatility gradually decreases. Looking at history, it can be understood that the percentage movement of Bitcoin in each new cycle has decreased relatively compared to the previous cycle In fact, no one has it because it is an open market. But some things can be helpful in reducing volatility:

1. Increase in spot ETFs and institutional participation
2. Widespread use of on-chain payment layer-2 solutions
3. Increase in the number of long term holders
4. Improved regulatory clarity

It is not possible to completely eliminate volatility and it is not necessary. Rather as the market gets bigger and deeper, volatility will naturally be controlled so rather than calling it a bug or a feature I would say it is a natural feature that gradually changes with a mature market.

[Schroepfer]

Your idea is totally different from the one it is inspired of, but I agree with this point of view because the volatility can make it boring and people might lose interest but it can't maintain the higher volatility to rise more and more and it can't help with the downside volatility as well. It all depends on the community mean us, we are buying and selling. We are the ones setting the bars high or bars low in the bullish and bearish trend, respectively. I also think it is not a bug but a feature because due to this feature, it is benefiting till now and everyone is investing.

otherwise bro, why would someone be interested to buy bitcoin they will say the volatility is lower. Let's go in meme coins instead I know the volatility is not as high as it is in meme coins but you know what I am trying to say haha.

Do you have any way to solve it? I don't think so, it cannot be solved even if we consider it is a bug.

Volatility doesn’t need to be “solved”, it naturally compresses as an asset matures. That’s what happens when liquidity deepens and market cap grows. You can’t have trillion-dollar scale and meme-coin volatility at the same time.

People won’t stop buying Bitcoin just because volatility drops, they’ll buy it for different reasons (store of value, macro hedge, liquidity). High volatility attracts speculators, lower volatility attracts serious capital.

[Glowy]

This thread is a response to Volatility is not a bug and also the continuation a short remark I made recently in the Wall Observer but forgot about it.

I firmly believe that volatility in Bitcoin should lower, otherwise Bitcoin will die [1] eventually. It can do this gradually, but the trend should be clear. And until now, the values indeed are decreasing.

Think about a bit which assets are most volatile: Pennystocks and altcoins. To my knowledge no other assets compete with Bitcoin's volatility. And are they sustainable? No. Only a handful of altcoins founded in 2022 or earlier have reached a new ATH since then.

The "attention argument" that ANSEL 2.0 brought up in the other thread, can be debunked simply with the boreout argument.

Let's say Bitcoin continues as volatile as it is. The problem is that upside and downside volatility have evolved in a different manner.

- Downside volatility is only reducing very gradually. From a -90% in the very initial stages, during the last long dips we lost about -80% (-75% to -85% roughly) compared to the last ATH. The differences between the different bear markets were negligible.
- Upside volatility instead is reducing much faster. From more than 100000% in 2011 between the previous low and the ATH of the bubble, the value decreased to 15000% in the 2017 bull, to 2000% in 2021, and finally only 500% in 2025 (if the ATH is in, as it seems).

And it is likely that this continues that way because liquidity increases, there are more early adopters or smart bear market buyers willing to sell when they achieve a few hundreds % of profit.

But that will lead to a situation where Bitcoin will struggle to reach new ATHs. Because it's not that attractive anymore for "gamblers" who want to get rich quick, and it continues to be risky, because the masses still tend to sell at the same time, creating huge crashes. That can lead to a slow boreout, people will get bored of Bitcoin.

Does this mean that Bitcoin's volatility has to be zero? No.

The mathematically controlled Bitcoin supply prevents that Bitcoin will have an extremely low volatility. So fiat-like values are probably impossible.

But it should not be much higher than gold's volatility in "normal times" (not taking into account the 1980s or the 2025/26 bubble).

That can be achieved by behavioral changes in the community: using DCA instead of hoard-and-sell, adopting it as a currency, not believing anymore in "get rich quick" but in "a stable asset which is likely to grow slowly to moderately".


[1] "die" here doesn't mean it will fall to zero. But it is likely that it will be valued much lower than now. Or at least not grow anymore.

The analysis on the volatility of BTC is an eye-opener, am thinking not too many people thought about this. And if the trend continues as you have pointed the mean truth is, the asset will loose its attractiveness some what.
But, then these could all be the wall street whales' strategy in the game.

[cryptosize]

I just know that there's a massive part of the economy in my country that is surviving by evading taxes, and I know that this part will not ever like the idea of receiving their payment digitally nor by "NFC Banknotes", whatever that is. Physical cash is often just preferable by every metric, except having to carry change perhaps. Cash is also accepted everywhere, not like cryptocurrencies which are also cash but need an off-ramp for practical use.

CBDCs simply have no unique use case in almost all countries--save being a political boogieman (which is unique to the USA). If no politician can articulate the difference between a CBDC and PayPal etc., it's a non-starter and it will never happen. Everything people are afraid a CBDC can do is already being done today with payment apps like PayPal, credit cards, crypto off-ramps, and even physical cash coming from ATMs is tracked.

We don't have social credit score (China has it), neither carbon credits (liberals will love this one).

These properties will be unique to CBDC currencies.

[nemesis_incarnate]

I just know that there's a massive part of the economy in my country that is surviving by evading taxes, and I know that this part will not ever like the idea of receiving their payment digitally nor by "NFC Banknotes", whatever that is. Physical cash is often just preferable by every metric, except having to carry change perhaps. Cash is also accepted everywhere, not like cryptocurrencies which are also cash but need an off-ramp for practical use.

CBDCs simply have no unique use case in almost all countries--save being a political boogieman (which is unique to the USA). If no politician can articulate the difference between a CBDC and PayPal etc., it's a non-starter and it will never happen. Everything people are afraid a CBDC can do is already being done today with payment apps like PayPal, credit cards, crypto off-ramps, and even physical cash coming from ATMs is tracked.

We don't have social credit score (China has it), neither carbon credits (liberals will love this one).

*snip*

..Yet

[legiteum]

We don't have social credit score (China has it), neither carbon credits (liberals will love this one).

These properties will be unique to CBDC currencies.

Congress or Trump could mandate you do that with credit cards or PayPal or whatever, and they would do so in a few weeks by just passing a law or signing an executive order. No coding required, no massive buildout of infrastructure, no marketing rollout, no nothing.

But by all means send money to every politician who promises to pass a law against something that the US is not doing and has no plans to do. They love passing laws like that since they have absolutely zero impact besides fundraising .

[Satofan44]

Is Europe not getting ready for a Digital Euro that includes a digital 'physical Cash' too?  How this is going to work, I have no idea.  I suppose either NFC Bank notes or similar technology.  Digital Euro will have ownership limits too, unless the current version of Cash disappears I do not see how any body would be stupid enough to use the new, limited one.  It would not have any kind of appeal.

I just know that there's a massive part of the economy in my country that is surviving by evading taxes, and I know that this part will not ever like the idea of receiving their payment digitally nor by "NFC Banknotes", whatever that is. Physical cash is often just preferable by every metric, except having to carry change perhaps. Cash is also accepted everywhere, not like cryptocurrencies which are also cash but need an off-ramp for practical use.

You are applying a narrow view on a problem that is complex. There are extreme differences in between countries in the European union, whereby some societies are strictly preferring cash and whereby others are almost on what you could call a "credit card standard". Just because some places exist where they prefer cash that does not mean anything for this. The actual state of the EU is currently such that the countries that a strict about cash are in the minority and have been losing this battle for a long time. This means that with enough pressure and persuasion they will eventually fall and a digital rollout will continue. What are you going to do about it? Leave the EU?   Please, cash has been losing the battle for a long time. When was the $10k limit set and when was it raised to accommodate inflation? The limit is being purposefully left as is, as to let inflation eat its value. It is not even 10% of what it was when it was set. Many other large cash purchases are banned everywhere. It is happening, and the tax evasion minority can't block it on their own. They will force them to comply.

The analysis on the volatility of BTC is an eye-opener, am thinking not too many people thought about this. And if the trend continues as you have pointed the mean truth is, the asset will loose its attractiveness some what.

Losing attractiveness is an understatement, the impact of this would be devastating. As I have done the numbers, it is clear that something about the volatility has to change. Even if it does not mean the death of Bitcoin, that still means that it would change eventually even if it is after it severely weakens Bitcoin (let's say, d5000's $1000 scenario). Either way it is happening, the question is how it is going to change and when. That will dictate as to whether it is a positive step or a negative step.

But, then these could all be the wall street whales' strategy in the game.

That does not make sense. One could only consider a real wall street entry in this cycle, so their effects are not possible in the previous cycles. The data and path towards this issue was already there, it was just being confirmed this cycle. Unless you mean to say that some analysts over there figured this particular theory out on their own and are doing everything they can to weaken Bitcoin with it?  Conspiracy theory with countless assumptions.

[d5000]

otherwise bro, why would someone be interested to buy bitcoin they will say the volatility is lower. Let's go in meme coins instead I know the volatility is not as high as it is in meme coins but you know what I am trying to say haha.

Yeah, why do people invest in such boring things like government bonds, which barely will provide a minimal ROI considering inflation?

A lower-volatility Bitcoin has to capture a significant share of the market for long term savings, and if it's successful, then I think it has "won". If it fails, it will probably lose importance. It won't die, but it would be more difficult to recover.

Thus downside volatility reduction is so important. Because an asset that regularly crashes >70% will always raise fears. But arriving to <50% as maximum spread between the highest spike and the following lowest dip should be the goal for the next years. We're not quite there, but perhaps already close.


I don't know how people brought up CBDCs in this discussion, but here's my attempt to relate it to the volatility question.

CBDCs are simply another type of fiat. And banks won't allow it to become so dominant that the central bank could use it to control people. That would essentially mean that bank transfers would be banned.

Now, are low-volatility CBDCs a competitor to Bitcoin, taking into account the "merchant driven" approach?

We could assume "yes", because CBDCs would also provide a low-cost payment network for merchants, and it could be that this erodes a bit the advantage that Bitcoin has over PayPal and credit cards (less fees).

However, looking at the bigger picture, a type of money with less inflation than fiat (and CBDCs are a type of fiat) would mean less hedging risks for merchants. Bitcoin still has high hedging risks due to its volatility. But a low-volatility Bitcoin with barely noticeable bear markets and a still steady bullish tendency (the most likely "success scenario" in 10-15 years after volatility reduction has been progressed further fueled by mass adoption) would be very competitive as merchants could simply HODL their coins instead having to think too much about investments to "win" against inflation.

[Darker45]

Do you have any way to solve it? I don't think so, it cannot be solved even if we consider it is a bug.

Because it isn't. It isn't an error or a mistake in the grand design of Bitcoin. In which case, no upgrade could just remove it. However, on the other hand, I also don't think it's a feature. It's not something that's deliberately included in the design. Satoshi didn't write codes that would ensure it's there.

In other words, it's neither. To my mind, it's a necessary yet unintended result of the design of Bitcoin--plus, of course, other external factors like regulations and whatnot. It's seemingly unwanted because it hinders Bitcoin's early realization as money, but it's an acceptable trade-off because Bitcoin is decentralized, completely free market, global, and so on.

The good thing is that it's something that's closely associated with its infancy. The more mature it becomes, the more mainstream it goes, the clearer the regulations are, and so on, the less volatile it grows.

[BlackBoss_]

Yeah, why do people invest in such boring things like government bonds, which barely will provide a minimal ROI considering inflation?

A lower-volatility Bitcoin has to capture a significant share of the market for long term savings, and if it's successful, then I think it has "won". If it fails, it will probably lose importance. It won't die, but it would be more difficult to recover.

Even when Bitcoin ROIs become smaller with time, market cycles, and Bitcoin halvings in the future, it will still be a better investment asset than government bonds.

Case Bitcoin is a helpful website with comparisons in tables and charts among Bitcoin and other assets like Bonds, Gold, stock index.
Like the ROI chart https://casebitcoin.com/charts#roi_chart

There are terrible times with bonds and inverted yields.
https://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/

[legiteum]

Now, are low-volatility CBDCs a competitor to Bitcoin, taking into account the "merchant driven" approach?

We could assume "yes", because CBDCs would also provide a low-cost payment network for merchants, and it could be that this erodes a bit the advantage that Bitcoin has over PayPal and credit cards (less fees).

Um, what? Bitcoin transactions cost at least 10x what credit card transactions cost. They also take 100x-1000x longer. Worldwide credit card transactions can hit 100k/second in peak times, whereas Bitcoin gets up to 1M transactions per day if it's lucky, and does this using about $30B in hardware.

Bitcoin does not compete with credit cards / payment apps in any significant way, and never (ever ever) will.

And besides credit cards and payment apps, there are, um, even more advanced competitors to that are 10x-100x faster/cheaper (read: free) than even those.

Bitcoin was never meant to be a mainstream payment solution.

[fikrett]

Yeah, why do people invest in such boring things like government bonds, which barely will provide a minimal ROI considering inflation?

A lower-volatility Bitcoin has to capture a significant share of the market for long term savings, and if it's successful, then I think it has "won". If it fails, it will probably lose importance. It won't die, but it would be more difficult to recover.

Even when Bitcoin ROIs become smaller with time, market cycles, and Bitcoin halvings in the future, it will still be a better investment asset than government bonds.

Case Bitcoin is a helpful website with comparisons in tables and charts among Bitcoin and other assets like Bonds, Gold, stock index.
Like the ROI chart https://casebitcoin.com/charts#roi_chart

There are terrible times with bonds and inverted yields.
https://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/

The old ways are truly..non-inspiring.

people moving to BTC and crypto in general shows that when you have innovation and a bit of custody to yourself - you make much more than relying on such entities.

[BlackBoss_]

The old ways are truly..non-inspiring.

people moving to BTC and crypto in general shows that when you have innovation and a bit of custody to yourself - you make much more than relying on such entities.

Non inspiring?

Innovations might bring benefit from security, privacy to finance and Bitcoin has these things for people to use, and to build up wealth with Bitcoin if they do it rightly.

Altcoins can claim to have innovations but people mostly lose money with altcoins, and you see government bonds don't always bring positive yield so don't blindly believe in bonds in long term. It's not safe heaven for storing your money, get some kind of yield while there is a very better choice, Bitcoin is available, and you can access it anytime you want.

[Alonso_]

How will you onboard new investors If volatility isn't present?

Imagine Bitcoin would be priced at its average price for the last 4 years (200 WMA). It would be an asset with low volatility, but almost constantly growing in value.

Here's a little visualisation (the 200 WMA is the blue line and currently sits just below $60,000):

(Source is the Bitstamp at Bitcoinwisdom).

Wouldn't you invest in that? There are many low volatility assets who are highly demanded, like government bonds.

Halving and block reward reduction plays a bigger role here too, volatility is what make it make sense.

Yes and no. The controlled supply makes volatility more likely because it's not easy to counter a supply imbalance (see below). But halvings don't really have incidence anymore. Miners only make up for ~0.1% of the volume which is sold every day. In the early days halvings did have an incidence, particularly the first halving which erased CPU mining and forced people to buy Bitcoin instead of generating it. But these times are long gone.

I believe we will get down to around 100 percent as in doubling every as it should naturally be considering the way its Supply works.

The last "cycle" was already less than a doubling. And no, the supply doesn't halve at halvings. It's the additional supply mined by miners, which makes up currently (at a 3.125 BTC reward) less than 1% per year. That's a big difference.

In my view, these incredible upside movement was the Market naturally pricing Bitcoin.  The reduction in volatility was pretty much meant to happen.

I agree with these statements. However, if Bitcoin stays as speculative as it is now, there are scenarios where the volatility could stay high, but mostly to the downside. As I said in the OP, I can imagine a scenario like current's ETH price evolution, which seems to not anymore reach new ATHs (last ETH ATH was in 2021) but instead fluctuate 80-90% between high and low. That can of course work for a while due to traders keeping the market afloat. But it would eventually lead probably to an even further price reduction when the hope of a long term price increase begins to fade away and more and more investors leave the boat.

A Bitcoin with positive price evolution or at least stability, and low volatility would be much more attractive both as an investment and as a currency.

You have x demand and y supply, y grows by a known number, meaning that you can always anticipate the ratio of those too, fiat also has a demand, look at the USD for example in the last year, or take a look at the bolivar for the extreme example.[...]
I have no idea and I see no reason why the controlled supply would prevent an extremely low volatility, we had a silver and a gold standard for two millennia with a quasi-controlled supply, as it was pretty hard to mine out of the blue half the supply of silver (till the Spanish conquest of America) and volatility was not a factor whatsoever.

Perhaps you're correct here. I think still gold and silver have more supply flexibility, as with rising prices new mining techniques are developed and supply can grow faster. This can't happen with Bitcoin, so if there is any systemic demand surplus (or reduction) then the price will eventually react, and often harshly due to market overreactions (FOMO/panic/liquidations to both sides).

But I'm at least convinced that Bitcoin's volatility can lower to the volatility values of a currency with a 15-30% fluctuation over the year, like the Brazilian Real or the Indian Rupee.

I understand that you’re clamoring for the volatility of Bitcoin to reduce but it’s just quite unfortunate that it would be impossible for such a thing to happen right now with Bitcoin, I believe that is how Bitcoin have been made for a very long time, so it would be more likely that Bitcoin would keep going up and down and increasing and giving us a new all time high, Bitcoin can never be a stable coins, because most of this stable coins aren’t as efficient as Bitcoin most people are still investing in Bitcoin and feeling comfortable with the Volatility nature of Bitcoin, and when Bitcoin gives us a bear season I’m also completely sure that we would have a new ATH, so I think now is also a time for us to buy more and keep buying more Bitcoin.

I really don’t see how Bitcoin volatility would can lower, because over the past years that is how bitcoin have been made more volatile, I think the volatility of Bitcoin is one of the main reasons why Bitcoin is where it is today as one of the leading cryptocurrencies assets that anyone one can have, because it’s essentially active, I have looked at some stable coins and none of the stable coins can be compared to Bitcoin, so being stable and lowering of volatility would not change anything.

[Satofan44]

Now, are low-volatility CBDCs a competitor to Bitcoin, taking into account the "merchant driven" approach?

We could assume "yes", because CBDCs would also provide a low-cost payment network for merchants, and it could be that this erodes a bit the advantage that Bitcoin has over PayPal and credit cards (less fees).

It is not really a competitor though, inasmuch you could call anything that could be adopted by merchants competitors to Bitcoin. Stablecoins, CBDCs and all centralized shitcoins are not competitors to Bitcoin -- they are entirely different even if they can fulfill similar functionality and use cases but in a centralized way.

However, looking at the bigger picture, a type of money with less inflation than fiat (and CBDCs are a type of fiat) would mean less hedging risks for merchants. Bitcoin still has high hedging risks due to its volatility. But a low-volatility Bitcoin with barely noticeable bear markets and a still steady bullish tendency (the most likely "success scenario" in 10-15 years after volatility reduction has been progressed further fueled by mass adoption) would be very competitive as merchants could simply HODL their coins instead having to think too much about investments to "win" against inflation.

They could already do this were merchants more educated, smarter, and more long-term oriented.  

The good thing is that it's something that's closely associated with its infancy. The more mature it becomes, the more mainstream it goes, the clearer the regulations are, and so on, the less volatile it grows.

You completely missed the point of this thread.

I understand that you’re clamoring for the volatility of Bitcoin to reduce but it’s just quite unfortunate that it would be impossible for such a thing to happen right now with Bitcoin, I believe that is how Bitcoin have been made for a very long time, so it would be more likely that Bitcoin would keep going up and down and increasing and giving us a new all time high, Bitcoin can never be a stable coins, because most of this stable coins aren’t as efficient as Bitcoin most people are still investing in Bitcoin and feeling comfortable with the Volatility nature of Bitcoin, and when Bitcoin gives us a bear season I’m also completely sure that we would have a new ATH, so I think now is also a time for us to buy more and keep buying more Bitcoin.

How Bitcoin was designed has nothing to do with market volatility, they are as irrelevant from each other as they could be.

I really don’t see how Bitcoin volatility would can lower, because over the past years that is how bitcoin have been made more volatile, I think the volatility of Bitcoin is one of the main reasons why Bitcoin is where it is today as one of the leading cryptocurrencies assets that anyone one can have, because it’s essentially active, I have looked at some stable coins and none of the stable coins can be compared to Bitcoin, so being stable and lowering of volatility would not change anything.

Nonsense. If the volatility does not reduce, Bitcoin is going to die. Read other posts before you write your replies here. The numbers have been presented, they are not refutable. I don't think that most posters read even the first few pages anymore as soon as we hit a certain page number @d5000.

The 2011 Cycle: -93%
The 2013 Cycle: upside 40x ($29 to $1,163), downside -86.9%.
The 2017 Cycle: upside 16.9x ($1,163 to $19,666), downside -83.6%.
The 2021 Cycle: upside 3.50x ($19,666 to $69,000), downside -76%.
The 2025 Cycle (current, downside in progress): upside 1.8x ($69,000 to $124,700), downside 50% with a price of $62,350.

The 2025 Cycle (current, downside projected): upside 1.8x ($69,000 to $124,700), downside 75% with a price of $31175.

Some fast AI work.

38.15% reduction in return on average per cycle (upside).
15.74% reduction in downside risk on average per cycle.

So what happens next? Here are the projected upside and downside numbers for the next cycle:

2029 cycle: upside 1.1133x (1.8 - 38.15%), maximum price 138,686, downside -42.13% (0.5-15.74%), lowest price $72,171.

2029 cycle (using 75% projected downside in the current cycle from some proponents): upside 1.1133x (1.8 - 38.15%), maximum price 138,686, downside 63.19% (0.75-15.74%), lowest price $51050.

Do you not see an issue already and that something has to change? If we subtracted another 38% from the 1.1 return for the 2033 cycle Bitcoin would start printing negative returns. When reading this, don't waste time adjusting useless things such as whether the ATH was $69,000 or $69,540 -- you are just wasting time, it does not change anything about the trend. Only do that if you are willing to revise the whole.

[d5000]

I understand that you’re clamoring for the volatility of Bitcoin to reduce but it’s just quite unfortunate that it would be impossible for such a thing to happen right now with Bitcoin,

Volatility is decreasing, since 2011 actually. I think it's indeed not possible or very difficult that it's 100% stable (compared to purchasing power), but it could become less volatile than gold or silver, and then it would be an excellent means to save and also to use as a currency.

Here are the 30-day volatility peaks of the last years:

- 2021: 5.84% (June 14)
- 2022: 4.53% (March 16)
- 2023: 3.53% (March 16 - there seems to be something special with this date haha)
- 2024: 3.18% (August 12)
- 2025: 2.77% (March 20)
- 2026 so far: 2.58% (February 28)

It is almost scary that each year there was actually a reduction. There were some years however before which escaped that pattern (2016 had already volatility like in 2021, but 2018-20 were much more volatile) but the trend is very stable. See here.

The problem is the discrepancy between upside and downside volatility. Panics are still strong (they get weaker, but very slowly), while FOMO bulls get weaker much faster.

It is not really a competitor though, inasmuch you could call anything that could be adopted by merchants competitors to Bitcoin. Stablecoins, CBDCs and all centralized shitcoins are not competitors to Bitcoin -- they are entirely different even if they can fulfill similar functionality and use cases but in a centralized way.

The "merchant driven" adoption approach assumes that (mainly online) merchants will try to get people to pay with Bitcoin because of the advantages over credit card and PayPal-style payments. In these cases, CBDCs and stablecoins can be seen as competitors because they share the advantages of low fees and fast finality. Of course they're not a competitor regarding the (deflationary) monetary model, but that's a more complex advantage. So I actually think there is some competition "in the real market", but if merchants get more educated about it (as you wrote) they should adopt it eventually.

They could already do this were merchants more educated, smarter, and more long-term oriented. 

I think the slow adoption by merchants, apart from the current high volatility, education and long term orientation, is caused by some other factors, among them:

- low experience values in the merchant community with direct Bitcoin payments (most use payment processors, which don't really benefit them compared to credit cards as they charge high fees)
- skepticism about the market potential, as Bitcoin is framed mostly as "store of value"
- some investment is necessary to accept BTC (if you don't want to use a payment processor)
- to really get people on board you'd probably need to launch some BTC-only promotions
- if they are already more educated: fear about scalability issues, e.g. slow Lightning adoption
- related: the Ordinals craze which limited the use as a currency was relatively recent
- and of course: there are still mass media articles claiming that Bitcoin could be a complete failure

Most of these issues are about to be solved or will be slowly improving, so in general I'm optimistic that if volatility continues lowering, merchant adoption will also grow, perhaps reaching a tipping point soon where BTC payment becomes really popular.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I think it's indeed not possible or very difficult that it's 100% stable (compared to purchasing power)

"Money" was never stable to begin with. Hard money is increases in supply at a lower rate than the goods and services it can buy. It is, therefore, inevitable that the same quantity of money will buy you more goods in the future.

And I would argue that it is already a great means to save. It's just not as liquid as gold. It might seem like a risky investment if you don't understand it from the money perspective, but it's just a gold 2.0 with less liquidity that justifies all the volatility.

[Ambatman]

Um, what? Bitcoin transactions cost at least 10x what credit card transactions cost. They also take 100x-1000x longer. Worldwide credit card transactions can hit 100k/second in peak times

I know you know that this is untrue
Credit card instant is just authorization and would take days before the funds are moved
Hence why reversal is possible within the period.
Transferring Bitcoin from Binance to Binance looks instanter too (even if it isn't that simple)
And on cost?
It would cost way lesser to transfer Bitcoin worth a Billion dollar than a Billion dollar itself
Across border.

Bitcoin does not compete with credit cards / payment apps in any significant way, and never (ever ever) will.

Decentralized
Trustless
Nigh irreversible
King across border. Etc.

whereas Bitcoin gets up to 1M transactions per day if it's lucky, and does this using about $30B in hardware.

Security isn't cheap
And from I have noticed in your post
Surface Speed is absolute in your opinion.

I have looked at some stable coins and none of the stable coins can be compared to Bitcoin, so being stable and lowering of volatility would not change anything.

Ironic how it would change everything
Been stable is relative
Gold is relatively stable doesn't mean it doesn't appreciate.

- skepticism about the market potential, as Bitcoin is framed mostly as "store of value"

I understand that store of value narrative is narrow sided but it shouldn't have affected market potential
Since it indirectly shows lower volatility which most merchant would prefer.
The truth is majority believe what they see and barely understand how Bitcoin works.