ManBearPig (OP)
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June 12, 2014, 12:00:01 PM |
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This is a revival of lebing's original thread which was a great starting point for the biggest developments for noobs and old-timers alike. I shall endeavour to keep it up-to-date. Starting today with the most relevant bits to fill the gap. Sit tight while I get it up-to-date. I'm going to keep this thread updated with the most important fundamental reasons (not technical) which will in the long term, move the price. Hopefully over the long term this reduces the number of "OMG?! why is the price going X??" I will be limiting the updates I make to this thread to only those items which have the power to significantly affect adoption/ move the market (snip)
Expedia to accept Bitcoin payments for hotel bookings, initially US customers only, for hotels not flights (yet) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27810008TLDR another very high-profile name to accept Bitcoin.Bitcoin charts on bloomberg for employees, coming soon to everyone http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/09/bitcoin-ticker-available-on-bloomberg-terminal/TLDR Bitcoin now officially mainstreamBitpay partners with 3dcart http://btcbible.com/bitpay-partners-with-3dcart/TLDR Bitcoin now available as a payment option to 16,000 new merchantsBitcoin finally coming to Africa http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1hn0ue/kipochi_launches_first_bitcoin_wallet_in_africa/TLDR A SMS/ web hybrid system is being developed now which will reach the place where bitcoin has the most potential for organic growth.Bitcoin ETF (once approved by the SEC) coming soon http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043473/winklevoss-twins-will-secure-bitcoins-like-gold-in-vaults.htmlTLDR You might soon be able to purchase bitcoin derivatives from your stock brokerWebmoney (Russian Paypal with 11 million users) is now an exchange and wallet servicing p2p and merchants http://www.thegenesisblock.com/bitcoin-access-expanded-to-over-11-million-users-of-webmoney/TLDR Big pressure was just put on Paypal to integrate sooner rather than later.Okcupid is now accepting bitcoin (7 million users) http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/04/okcupid-says-it-will-accept-bitcoin-as-currency-falls-to-recent-low/Hedge fund looking to inject 1 billion € into bitcoin for large investors https://exante.eu/press/news/266/TLDR Big €€€ starting to move into BitcoinWestern Union looking to integrate bitcoin into services http://mobile.blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/04/01/western-union-eyes-digital-currency-services/TLDR Bitcoin is on the verge of worldwide physical exchange infrastructureExpensify Brings Bitcoin to Main Street http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-29/expensify-brings-bitcoin-to-main-streetTLDR App with 200,000 business users is leveraging bitcoins strengths New zealand, Cyprus & other Mediterranean countries considering/ have decided to confiscate "one time" X% of depositor funds http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/world/europe/russian-ties-put-cyprus-banking-crisis-on-east-west-fault-line.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0TLDR The money you thought was safe from theft in your bank account is not safe (especially if you live in an at risk country in the euro zone).FINCEN releases guidance for virtual currencies (bitcoin) http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/pdf/FIN-2013-G001.pdfTLDR Small exchanges based in the USA will likely have a tough time due to this, but by making the grey legal area black & white, it will make larger players willing to step forward. In other words, bitcoin is now legal.Blockchain forked, but problem solved http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1a51xx/now_that_its_over_the_blockchain_fork_explained/TLDR Double spend issue has been fixed in the short term and long term with the new roll out planAmazon fulfillment integrates with Bitpay http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitpay-integrates-bitcoin-with-fulfillment-by-amazoncom-2013-03-06TLDR There is now a convenient way for anyone (registered business @ Amazon) to sell anything with bitcoins through AmazonBitspend.net https://bitspend.net/TLDR You can now buy ANYTHING on the net with bitcoins (under $100 during beta and under $1000 after beta ends)Coinlab Bringing Bitcoin to Wall Street with MtGox Deal - http://bitcoinmagazine.com/coinlab-bringing-bitcoin-to-wall-street-with-mtgox-dealTLDR - Details are sketchy at this point, but it seems that there may be a deal coming up which will bring bitcoin into the forex market. I'm including this here because of the absolutely insane effect this would have on the price if this were in fact happening. Mega - https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/302844443223023616TLDR - The service formerly known as Megaupload (which was the top non-torrent based file sharing service on the net) is now accepting BitcoinsReddit - http://blog.reddit.com/2013/02/new-gold-payment-options-bitcoin-and.htmlTLDR - One of the largest sites on the internet is now accepting bitcoin for their premium service!Bitpay - http://blog.bitpay.com/search?updated-max=2012-12-06T10:13:00-05:00&max-results=7TLDR - Merchants are signing up in droves with Bitpay's (and other payment processors) payment systemWordpress - http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/TLDR - The largest blog network on the internet is now accepting bitcoins. This paves the way for wider, mainstream bitcoin adoptionCoinbase - http://blog.coinbase.com/post/42587245753/coinbase-is-now-selling-over-1m-usd-of-bitcoin-perTLDR - It just got alot easier for users in the largest bitcoin market in the world (USA) to acquire bitcoins and it is showing up in the numbers.SatoshiDice/gambling potential: http://calvinayre.com/2013/02/01/business/why-bitcoin-can-no-longer-be-ignored/TLDR - While its not possible to gamble with dollars in the US, it is possible with bitcoins. The big players are starting to take notice of this fact and over the next few months its likely that we will see one emerge onto the sceneBlockchain: https://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-n-users?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=TLDR - The best online wallet is experiencing exponential growth of new users (as of 2013, this exponential growth is continuing as of June 2014.
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phelix
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June 13, 2014, 07:35:40 AM |
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Nice work. It would be cool to get notifications for updates. This could be achieved by creating yet another thread that is always locked and only unlocked by you for an "updated" post.
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segeln
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June 13, 2014, 09:22:28 AM |
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Nice work. It would be cool to get notifications for updates. This could be achieved by creating yet another thread that is always locked and only unlocked by you for an "updated" post.
hope OP does it Nice work!
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arklan
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July 08, 2014, 05:37:41 AM |
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glad to see this got picked up. following with interest.
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i don't post much, but this space for rent.
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kehtolo
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July 08, 2014, 07:35:19 AM |
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Great thread. Posting here so it is saved.
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The next 24 hours are critical!
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molecular
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July 08, 2014, 07:37:49 AM Last edit: July 08, 2014, 07:01:11 PM by molecular |
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Cool. I loved lebings original. Watching.
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PGP key molecular F9B70769 fingerprint 9CDD C0D3 20F8 279F 6BE0 3F39 FC49 2362 F9B7 0769
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600watt
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July 08, 2014, 09:35:46 AM |
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ccmf sooner or later ![Wink](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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segeln
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July 08, 2014, 10:00:38 AM |
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first:congrats to OP for the list. it is actually not an Analysis-thread but a compilation of fundamentals happening in the bitcoin-ecosystem. Bur very good though. Go ahead, OP
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JorgeStolfi
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July 08, 2014, 11:15:29 AM |
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However it should be noted that most of the entries "XXX now accepts bitcoin" actually mean "XXX now accepts dollars even from bitcoin adopters who decided to sell some of their bitcoin".
For people who do not own bitcoin yet, going that route would mean downloading software, learning to use it, buying bitcoin with credit card or bank transfer, then sending the bitcoin to the store. In all, probably more expensive than paying with credit card directly, and a lot more cumbersome.
Bitpay has an entry-level plan, limited to 100$/month, that delivers dollars to the merchant, has zero cost for him, and charges a small fee from the customer. Thus it is easy to convince a store to "accept bitcoin". With such a plan, one could also get them to accept Dogecoin, Linden Dollars, Zimbabwean dollars...
So those "XXX now accepts bitcoin" events are not likely to increase adoption. They are likely to promote movement of coins from hoards to the market, thus helping to depress the price.
It is amazing how little hard data exists on the bitcoin economy. Companies like Bitpay and exchanges are privately funded so they do not have to publish real trade data. The blockchain statistics do not mean anything; since address creation and transactions are free, most of the volume is clearly "fake" (transfers between addresses belonging to the same owner). Almost all the trade at the exchanges is speculative, not people buying bitcoin to use in e-commerce; and we do not even know how much gets deposited and withdrawn each day. We do not know how many bitcoins are owned by the Chinese, how much is used in gambling, how much the large miners get for their bitcoin...
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Academic interest in bitcoin only. Not owner, not trader, very skeptical of its longterm success.
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twiifm
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July 08, 2014, 06:55:29 PM |
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Its not Fundamental Analysis unless you can price these things
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aminorex
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Sine secretum non libertas
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July 08, 2014, 10:35:12 PM |
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analysis begins with facts
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Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Give a man a Poisson distribution and he eats at random times independent of one another, at a constant known rate.
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molecular
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July 10, 2014, 06:40:05 AM |
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This piece by nakamoto institute could count as fundamental analysis: http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/the piece details how bitcoin will become mainstream: - "slow bleed" (good money drives out bad, waves of adoption)
- "speculative attack" (on fiat currencies)
- "hyperbitcoinization" (feedback loop between fiat inflation and bitcoin deflation)
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PGP key molecular F9B70769 fingerprint 9CDD C0D3 20F8 279F 6BE0 3F39 FC49 2362 F9B7 0769
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lebing
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Enabling the maximal migration
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July 10, 2014, 02:03:40 PM |
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Its not Fundamental Analysis unless you can price these things
In the context of price analysis, this is simply not true. Fundamentals are subjective rather than objective developments.
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Bro, do you even blockchain? -E Voorhees
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twiifm
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July 10, 2014, 03:25:21 PM |
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Its not Fundamental Analysis unless you can price these things
In the context of price analysis, this is simply not true. Fundamentals are subjective rather than objective developments. Even if its subjective you have to price it. Otherwise you dont know if the asset is underpriced or overpriced
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JorgeStolfi
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July 10, 2014, 09:21:59 PM |
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Looking at the charts in blockchain.info: * The number of transactions per day has increased only 50% in 12 months, and has remained practically constant (with some fluctuations) since November. https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactionshttps://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular* The number of new unique addresses per day has increased 200% in the last 12 months, but it too has remained pretty much constant over the last 4-5 months: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addressesNote that there are 150'000 new addresses created per day, but only 60'000 transactions per day. * The total trasaction output volume in BTC per day has decreased slightly over the last 12 months, and has remained fairly constant at 600'000 BTC/day constant since January: https://blockchain.info/charts/output-volume* The same holds for the "estimated real" transaction ouput volume in BTC per day (excluding the outputs guessed to be "return change"), which is now around 80'000 BTC/day https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume* The "estimated real" transaction ouput volume in USD per day (computed from the previous value and the USD/BTC market price of the day) varies more than the BTC volume, and tends to follow the USD/BTC price; in particular, it fell more than 50% from January to May, then recovered and is now at 50'000'000 USD/day. If most of the "estimated real" output volume was due to coins being transferred from person A to person B in echange for goods, services, or national currencies, one would expect the volume in USD/day to vary gradually with time (hopefully increasing) and the BTC/day to vary inversely with the price. What we see is more like the opposite: the BTC/day is steady and the USD/day varies with the price. This observation suggests that most of the 80'000 BTC/day "estimated real" output volume is "fake", namely BTC being moved between addresses owned by the same person. That may include traffic through tumblers, hot/cold wallet transfers, stress-testing of bitcoin software, etc.. Note that a single user could generate 600'000 BTC/day of total output volume by moving ~4200 BTC every 10 minutes between addresses of his own. My conclusion is that those blockchain statistics are basically useless for estimating bitcoin adoption. Much more useful would be the volume processed by BitPay and other bitcoin-to-dollar processors. Unfortunately, that number is conspicuous for its absence in the CoinDesk report.
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Academic interest in bitcoin only. Not owner, not trader, very skeptical of its longterm success.
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CoinHeavy
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July 10, 2014, 10:01:05 PM |
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Interesting points Jorge, especially: My conclusion is that those blockchain statistics are basically useless for estimating bitcoin adoption. Much more useful would be the volume processed by BitPay and other bitcoin-to-dollar processors. Unfortunately, that number is conspicuous for its absence in the CoinDesk report. Do you know of any good sources (presumably speculative) for such data? Thanks OP for the thread -- staying tuned.
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JorgeStolfi
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July 10, 2014, 11:08:41 PM |
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Thanks! It would be nice to know how that 1 M$/day figure is evolving. Even nicer would be to have a breakdown by type of merchant. Are people using BitPay for purposes other than paying for purchases of goods and general services? E.g., to convert bitcoins into dollars (instead of doing so at a regular exchange)? By the way, last time I looked, BitPay had an entry-level plan that delivers dollars to the merchant at zero cost for him, and charges a small percentage from the customer. Thus, there is no reason for a merchant not to "accept bitcoin" through them.
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Academic interest in bitcoin only. Not owner, not trader, very skeptical of its longterm success.
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