In the eye of the storm..

[inca]

The price is hovering around 50% of the all time high on bitstamp.

Surely I cannot be the only person who has noticed the surge in company adoption of bitcoin in the last few months. Huge online players are accepting bitcoin this year.

I would be amazed if all significant e-retailers who have not publicly announced they are to accept bitcoin have not privately integrated it into their systems. The benefits are obvious - basically a no brainer, especially for the titanic e-retailers like amazon who have razor thin margins.

A few points strike me about these recent moves by silicon valley occuring in the shadow of the last bubble.

1) these companies are big enough to have political connections and clout (i see a real battle (of the lobbyists) in the US between the banking sector and silicon valley in the coming years as the financial sector is increasingly disrupted)

2) my brother said to me last weekend, why would i buy bitcoin, i cant use it. Wrong. Utility has arrived.

3) i think the usual bearish argument of (multibillion dollar) company adoption = price negative due to immediate conversion back to fiat may well be correct in the very short term. But a much stronger medium term effect is joe public seeing 'bitcoin accepted here'  appearing whenever they buy anything online in the next two years. A pizza, a pc, some towels whatever. The point is that bitcoin is no longer a joke currency but is being legitimised right now. All the people writing bs comments under every article appearing online on MSM sites are going to go awfully quiet as this process rapidly continues worldwide.

4) The price must rise if the currency is to be used globally, especially by titans like amazon. And it must rise a lot.

It is simple to me, limited number of coins versus a growing number of purchasers trying to get in.

The bears on here say where is the money coming from to drive the next bubble. I say: the very same place it has on every previous bubble - joe public. Remember only 100,000 people have more than ten coins out of a population of 7,000,000,000. Don't underestimate the thirst of the great unwashed to try to grow wealth and buy into bubbles (see gold late 1970's, south sea bubble etc..). Every single person on here felt their head spin when they first learnt about the properties of bitcoin - there are many further successively larger waves of people who will follow in our footsteps.

Barring disaster it seems logical that bitcoin ('bit gold' eh Nick Szabo) is likely to become a modern day gold rush across the world in the next 1-3 years. I think the china bubble was simply a taste of what is likely coming down the line.

Timing the next blast off I will leave to luckier people. All I know is that I am positioned for the next move up and I am prepared to wait until it does.

Potential triggers for me are likely to revolve around US investment houses frontrunning the US investing public into bitcoin. The upcoming bitcoin auction by US gov is likely first step, SEC approving an ETF will probably be second (price will front run this no doubt). Wall street already know the strengths and weaknesses of bitcoin and could easily take the price 10x higher whenever they like.

I hope you are ready  

[Undone]

I agree with #3 above.

With #4, I think it's best to not frame bitcoin's price rising relative to last year's ATH, which was potentially generated out of the beginnings of the ultimate Goxxing - I think it just needs to slowly rise in a less volatile fashion.

Hopefully more volume brings this, but maybe it won't.

[Alley]

We need discounts from merchants to use our btc.

[bt lover]

I have noticed the same! There seems to be a more rapid uptake of bitcoin by bigger companies. For me it started with overstock.com and now others seem to be taking notice and picking it up too Im getting ready for the rush and upsurge in price!

[Buo]

#2 Your brother is right, this isn't the time to use btc to buy things, if you hold some months you can buy twice or more.

[Miz4r]

The BTC brand is getting more visibility because of this I agree, but what's the real incentive for someone to actually start buying them? Maybe some will learn about the advantages of decentralisation and how BTC can be a better form of money than anything we've ever had before and buy some just for that reason alone. But will that be enough to truly launch it into the mainstream? I don't think that's enough yet, but I'm optimistic someone somewhere will be making that killer app one day that will make BTC accessible, easy to use and also desirable by the public.

[inca]

The BTC brand is getting more visibility because of this I agree, but what's the real incentive for someone to actually start buying them? Maybe some will learn about the advantages of decentralisation and how BTC can be a better form of money than anything we've ever had before and buy some just for that reason alone. But will that be enough to truly launch it into the mainstream? I don't think that's enough yet, but I'm optimistic someone somewhere will be making that killer app one day that will make BTC accessible, easy to use and also desirable by the public.

I think we all underestimate the general public. Don't forget until the last forty three years all of collective human history revolved around commodity money. It is only the baby boomer generation who believe in fiat. Bitcoin is simply reverting to an improved mean.

As the public become aware of bitcoin they will become aware of its huge advantages over conventional fiat currency.

For business the gain is cheaper payments eliminating the legacy banking system. For the consumer the benefit is a frictionless deflationary currency. That is the killer application, it's the reason we all hold bitcoin. It is what will bring in the next wave of users.

[vabtc]

Great post OP.

I can tell you the killer apps and quick access to bitcoins are rolling out and coming soon. If it weren't for all the muddy regulations, we'd be a lot further along.

[ThatDGuy]

I agree with #3 above.

With #4, I think it's best to not frame bitcoin's price rising relative to last year's ATH, which was potentially generated out of the beginnings of the ultimate Goxxing - I think it just needs to slowly rise in a less volatile fashion.

Hopefully more volume brings this, but maybe it won't.

I think we are far from finished with periods of volatile rising and growth, then subsequent falling usually back above the previous bubble's ATH.

[BTCfan1]

nice post.

the rate of merchant adoption is undeniable at this point.

[inca]

Great post OP.

I can tell you the killer apps and quick access to bitcoins are rolling out and coming soon. If it weren't for all the muddy regulations, we'd be a lot further along.

Thanks. I just wanted to post something based on the fundamentals rather than technicals on here for a change. Here is hoping you are right.

[zimmah]

I agree with #3 above.

With #4, I think it's best to not frame bitcoin's price rising relative to last year's ATH, which was potentially generated out of the beginnings of the ultimate Goxxing - I think it just needs to slowly rise in a less volatile fashion.

Hopefully more volume brings this, but maybe it won't.

I have heard many people say volatile rises are bad, but this simply is not true.

Every new technology in the past has seen exponential growth, and every new technology in the future will see exponential growth. That's just the way thugs work.

First, only the developers know about it, they use it and test it and share it with a handful of people to test it some more before releasing it to the public. Than friends and family start to join in. Than friends and family of friends and family start to join in. At most a couple of 100 people use it now. Than some specialized forums and blogs etc talk about it. Nothing mainstream yet. Slowly it starts to grow, but not very rapidly yet. At some point it gets the attention of mainstream media and thousands of people read about it and start getting interested, but most of them forget about it at first.

Than after a while of steady growth, before you know it it reaches critical mass and suddenly it seems to grow very rapidly. Think about Facebook and Twitter for example. At some point these websites gained like a million new users per day. Bitcoin is at the stage were pretty much everyone in the world has at least heard about it sometime. But most people do not know much about it yet. The next bubble will most likely get the attention of those people who know about bitcoin but have not really paid attention to the technology. Once bitcoin becomes 'really expensive' (relatively of course) $5000 or so. People will become interested and will want to join in on the profit. They will likely buy in during the following peak.

After about a year or two we can expect a period of time where we will, like Facebook, see a million of new users a day. Think about what will happen to the price if a million people will buy some bitcoin, even if it's a small amount, each day. On top of the investors we already have.

Keep in mind too that when we reached that point, there will not be many bitcoins to go around anymore, as only complete retards will sell all their bitcoins. So most people will only be able to buy a fraction of a bitcoin, and they are likely to buy at least $100 or even $1000 worth of bitcoin. Which would amount to $1,000,000 a day of fresh fiat. Bitcoin will most likely be in 6 figures by then.