All this good news and yet the price doesn't budge

[Black Tie]

What's going on?

[bitcoinsrus]

Well things are moving slow. If you watch bitcoinwisdom etc, you see a slow trend (either in a bear or bull market). My advice is to not pay it too much mind. Remember, we did break 500 and it seems safe to say, we might not see sub 500 anytime soon.

This is also without (much) news or (very) large buys.

[BittBurger]

What's going on?

Demand must be greater than the supply, or the price doesn't rise.
Merchants adding Bitcoin at this stage do *not* result in increased consumer demand, adoption nor commerce.

This lays the foundation for future consumer adoption and commerce.
We are currently in the "Merchant Adoption" phase, which is a necessary first step.

Price will rise when consumers begin getting on board.  
Then, maybe good news articles will result in price increases.

This is why day trading bitcoin is stupid.  Bitcoin is "long" by definition.  You should be too.
Buy, hold, put it on a paper wallet, and keep adding to that balance.
And wait.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Only in Bitcoinland does the exchange rate increasing >28% in 30 days = "doesn't budge".

[Black Tie]

What's going on?

Demand must be greater than the supply, or the price doesn't rise.
Merchants adding Bitcoin at this stage do *not* result in increased consumer demand, adoption nor commerce.

This lays the foundation for future consumer adoption and commerce.
We are currently in the "Merchant Adoption" phase, which is a necessary first step.

Price will rise when consumers begin getting on board.  
Then, maybe good news articles will result in price increases.

This is why day trading bitcoin is stupid.  Bitcoin is "long" by definition.  You should be too.
Buy, hold, put it on a paper wallet, and keep adding to that balance.
And wait.

What's going to cause consumers to want to use BTC?

[exocytosis]

The market is reacting badly to rumors of Bitstamp's impending collapse.

Merchant adoption and that sort of thing is priced in already.

[dhenson]

It's a fallacy to believe that the bitcoin price is determined by fundamentals.

[exocytosis]

BTC price is mostly determined by manipulative bots, whales, hackers, scammers and thieves. And by the Chinese government/banks "banning" BTC every fortnight.

[BittBurger]

What's going to cause consumers to want to use BTC?

The million dollar question.  Most of the incentive is for merchants.  90% of it.
Some incentives which may motivate consumers in the future:

1)  Slightly discounted prices offered by merchants that save money on merchant fees.
2)  Bitcoin being offered as a salary option from employers.
3)  Bitcoin being included in retirement and pension funds as an option.
4)  The biggest in my opinion:  Press and Economists finally acknowledging that Bitcoin will increase in value over time.  General awareness of this.  Financial advisers mentioning it to clients. Its deflationary aspect I believe will be its biggest incentive for consumer acquisitions.  But getting to this stage, where its a "well known fact" and mentioned repeatedly on television and news articles, is going to be awhile.  

In the end, people will buy bitcoin, and then subsequently spend bitcoin because the longer they hold it, the more it is worth.  Many will see the small gains, and think:  "I can spend some of that now, because the rest that im holding, will continue to increase in value".  This encourages commerce.  If you know your $10,000 worth of Bitcoin holdings today will be worth $13,000 in a year, you'll freely spend $2,000 of that on a vacation.  And all you have to do is wait another year to get another free vacation. Bitcoin is a savings account with interest, among a million other things.  There will also be 3rd party services that will create incentives as part of their product offerings, I believe.  The volatile fluctuations will decrease, and a very slow, creeping-upward in price will be the new norm.

-B-

[Black Tie]

What's going to cause consumers to want to use BTC?

The million dollar question.  Most of the incentive is for merchants.  90% of it.
Some incentives which may motivate consumers in the future:

1)  Slightly discounted prices offered by merchants that save money on merchant fees.
2)  Bitcoin being offered as a salary option from employers.
3)  Bitcoin being included in retirement and pension funds as an option.
4)  The biggest in my opinion:  Press and Economists finally acknowledging that Bitcoin will increase in value over time.  General awareness of this.  Financial advisers mentioning it to clients. Its deflationary aspect I believe will be its biggest incentive for consumer acquisitions.  But getting to this stage, where its a "well known fact" and mentioned repeatedly on television and news articles, is going to be awhile.  

In the end, people will buy bitcoin, and then subsequently spend bitcoin because the longer they hold it, the more it is worth.  Many will see the small gains, and think:  "I can spend some of that now, because the rest that im holding, will continue to increase in value".  This encourages commerce.  Bitcoin is a savings account with interest, among a million other things.  There will also be 3rd party services that will create incentives as part of their product offerings, I believe.  The volatile fluctuations will decrease, and a very slow, creeping-upward in price will be the new norm.

-B-

I think merchants will need to display the savings passed on to the customer if they use Bitcoin right there on the price tag. That's the only way I see wide adoption happening.

Price: $14.95, or $14.90 w/ BTC

Imagine how quickly everyone would get a BTC account.

[Black Tie]

Maybe BTC-$ can become the shorthand for "dollars in bitcoins".

[protokol]

Yes, I truly expected it to go up this week, so I rushed to open a leveraged long position on Monday at $575 (BTCE [facepalm]). Unfortunately, the position will be automatically closed tomorrow evening, so it better fucking go up a bit in the next 24hrs or I'll lose quite a lot of money haha!

I'm such a shit trader... In hindsight the volume is so low, that I should never have rushed into it, minimal support for the rally of last week. I suck.

At least I'm hodling real BTC, none of that CFD shite 

[Melbustus]

What's going to cause consumers to want to use BTC?

The million dollar question.  Most of the incentive is for merchants.  90% of it.
Some incentives which may motivate consumers in the future:

1)  Slightly discounted prices offered by merchants that save money on merchant fees.
2)  Bitcoin being offered as a salary option from employers.
3)  Bitcoin being included in retirement and pension funds as an option.
4)  The biggest in my opinion:  Press and Economists finally acknowledging that Bitcoin will increase in value over time.  General awareness of this.  Financial advisers mentioning it to clients. Its deflationary aspect I believe will be its biggest incentive for consumer acquisitions.  But getting to this stage, where its a "well known fact" and mentioned repeatedly on television and news articles, is going to be awhile.  

In the end, people will buy bitcoin, and then subsequently spend bitcoin because the longer they hold it, the more it is worth.  Many will see the small gains, and think:  "I can spend some of that now, because the rest that im holding, will continue to increase in value".  This encourages commerce.  If you know your $10,000 worth of Bitcoin holdings today will be worth $13,000 in a year, you'll freely spend $2,000 of that on a vacation.  And all you have to do is wait another year to get another free vacation. Bitcoin is a savings account with interest, among a million other things.  There will also be 3rd party services that will create incentives as part of their product offerings, I believe.  The volatile fluctuations will decrease, and a very slow, creeping-upward in price will be the new norm.

-B-

1) Yup - and this will happen. Gyft already does it for the full 3%.
2) Closing this loop is key. Bitpay knows it: https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-payroll-api
3+4) Really the same thing. Bitcoin as an asset class. This is probably the biggest price driver; replacing the slot in people's portfolios currently filled by gold.

As to price growth due to deflation, note that bitcoin's price ramp is going to front-run what you'd calculate from the typical macro-economic velocity,supply,trans-vol equation. In your example, if you know your $10,000 in BTC is going to be worth $13,000 in a year....it'd be worth darn close to $13,000 today, not $10k!

[Elwar]

The market is reacting badly to rumors of Bitstamp's impending collapse.

Merchant adoption and that sort of thing is priced in already.

BitStamp has been verified to be just fine. They actually proactively subject themselves to third party audits.


As for the good news not pushing bitcoin price up? We have had great news of ATMs going up all over the world and more and more businesses accepting bitcoin since January...but the MtGox and China news always overshadowed it. Now that everyone isn't worked up about those things the price will make up for it.

Stability right now is good. Stability fuels the rocket.

[smoothie]

What's going on?

Build a base in price....and then exponential curve up ahead. Give it a little over 2 months and you will see some fireworks. 

[smoothie]

Only in Bitcoinland does the exchange rate increasing >28% in 30 days = "doesn't budge".

This ^.

I guess they are waiting for the 1000% increases.

[kireinaha]

It's all because the psychics are advising against bitcoin, clearly. 

[RandomPedestrianN9]

1)  Slightly discounted prices offered by merchants that save money on merchant fees.
2)  Bitcoin being offered as a salary option from employers.
3)  Bitcoin being included in retirement and pension funds as an option.
4)  The biggest in my opinion:  Press and Economists finally acknowledging that Bitcoin will increase in value over time.  General awareness of this.  Financial advisers mentioning it to clients. Its deflationary aspect I believe will be its biggest incentive for consumer acquisitions.  But getting to this stage, where its a "well known fact" and mentioned repeatedly on television and news articles, is going to be awhile. 

The problem is, people prefer slightly higher fees and bigger safety - refund or returning transaction over slightly smaller fees and big risk of being scammed and left without help. All the other points are only your wishes and not reasons to use it.

[exocytosis]

BitStamp has been verified to be just fine. They actually proactively subject themselves to third party audits.

Notice that Mike Hearn, who did the last "audit", clearly stated that it was not an audit. He said the only thing he could confirm, was that Bitstamp still held around 189k BTC of their customers' funds. That's it.

And why should we trust him anyway? Oh, yeah, because he's from the Bitcoin Foundation, like Saint Mark Karpeles. Everyone in the Bitcoin Foundation are trustworthy, of course. They're incapable of doing evil.

And btw, they didn't show him (or anyone else) their fiat reserves. (If they have any left.) I wonder why ...  

Stability right now is good. Stability fuels the rocket.

I'm predicting a somewhat horizontal price movement, with only a slight downtrend, for the next couple of weeks. Then the downtrend will probably start accelerating.

[pinksheep]

The market is reacting badly to rumors of Bitstamp's impending collapse.

Merchant adoption and that sort of thing is priced in already.

I desperately hope that Bitstamp will not collapse,  but if it did, is it similar sized to Mt Gox, or bigger or smaller? I fear it would be the end for Bitcoin.