Bitcoin all time high and the hoarding theory. (Poll included)

[rudius]

the price has to start appreciating really soon, otherwise the massive number of holders will start losing patience, just to mention that in the worst case scenario 95% of all Bitcoins are just hoarded and you can confirm this by just looking to the daily volume across all exchanges and the daily transaction volume excluding the popular addresses,  most of the new users joined because of the quick get rich scheme, posts on this forum and reddit that attack any different opinion or any voice of reason and just talk about how rich you will be if you hold 10 BTC and how this will be after few months is just worrying... well I  can imagine if this wont happen this soon how this people will react...


the merchant adoption overpass the userbase adoption, each day we hear about new stores/companies adding Bitcoin which can be a good sign but only if the userbase is growing at the same or a bigger rate, my wife is doing her diploma about how Bitcoin as payment method would change economy here in Slovenia, in Q&A to a merchant who accepts Bitcoin for more than a year he said that the only time clients pay with Bitcoin is around an ATH otherwise no one ask about paying with bitcoin, most of the bitcoiners use the coin as an investment or as a saving method believing that it would appreciate in value over time..... just a look to the thin orderbook of all exchanged combined would reflect the hoarding theory.

Bitcoin would be a good saving mechanism only if the adoption rate will be equal or more than the actual inflation rate (creation rate of coins) which is more than 10.5% a year. so choosing Bitcoin as saving method is as risky or maybe riskier than having fiat in your saving account.

This is restrictive.

Hoarders just hold. They won t sell so easily. Shake out are made to take money for those who follow the get rich quick.

And you forgot that we are the just at the begining of the S curve of adoption. When i ask around me, less than 10% has already heard about bitcoin. Even less understand bitcoin. We are going mainstream. That s the only point to remember when you want to sell. I will sell mine only if adoption is reversing.

edit: i voted "we all know that already."

[Erdogan]

the price has to start appreciating really soon, otherwise the massive number of holders will start losing patience, just to mention that in the worst case scenario 95% of all Bitcoins are just hoarded and you can confirm this by just looking to the daily volume across all exchanges and the daily transaction volume excluding the popular addresses,  most of the new users joined because of the quick get rich scheme, posts on this forum and reddit that attack any different opinion or any voice of reason and just talk about how rich you will be if you hold 10 BTC and how this will be after few months is just worrying... well I  can imagine if this wont happen this soon how this people will react...


the merchant adoption overpass the userbase adoption, each day we hear about new stores/companies adding Bitcoin which can be a good sign but only if the userbase is growing at the same or a bigger rate, my wife is doing her diploma about how Bitcoin as payment method would change economy here in Slovenia, in Q&A to a merchant who accepts Bitcoin for more than a year he said that the only time clients pay with Bitcoin is around an ATH otherwise no one ask about paying with bitcoin, most of the bitcoiners use the coin as an investment or as a saving method believing that it would appreciate in value over time..... just a look to the thin orderbook of all exchanged combined would reflect the hoarding theory.

Bitcoin would be a good saving mechanism only if the adoption rate will be equal or more than the actual inflation rate (creation rate of coins) which is more than 10.5% a year. so choosing Bitcoin as saving method is as risky or maybe riskier than having fiat in your saving account.

This is restrictive.

Hoarders just hold. They won t sell so easily. Shake out are made to take money for those who follow the get rich quick.

And you forgot that we are the just at the begining of the S curve of adoption. When i ask around me, less than 10% has already heard about bitcoin. Even less understand bitcoin. We are going mainstream. That s the only point to remember when you want to sell. I will sell mine only if adoption is reversing.

edit: i voted "we all know that already."

Get rich quick, but not that quick.

[aminorex]

The op has some valid points(that have been rehashed a million times already, but valid none the less)

Such as?

I looked, couldn't find any.

[mmitech]

The op has some valid points(that have been rehashed a million times already, but valid none the less)

Such as?

I looked, couldn't find any.

what is your arguments against my points ? show me the invalidity please... maybe ask your "smart" monkey.

[mvag]

Money has multiple functions, one of them is hoarding (aka saving). Even if Bitcoin had zero merchants and served this hoarding function alone it would be valuable.

Because it is:
   - Decentralised
   - Non-inflationary
   - Easily stored and transferred
   - Anonymous (sort of)
   - you continue...

[Adelex]

My patience is infinite. Bitcoin is huge, play the long game.

[mmitech]

Money has multiple functions, one of them is hoarding (aka saving). Even if Bitcoin had zero merchants and served this hoarding function alone it would be valuable.

Because it is:
   1- Decentralised
   2- Non-inflationary
   3- Easily stored and transferred
   4- Anonymous (sort of)
   5- you continue...

1- the decentralization is being destroyed a day after day by big mining pools and exchanges and wallet services and all kind of other centralized services.

2- in fact, Bitcoin is a high inflationary currency at this moment (for the next 100 year Bitcoin will be still inflationary), 25 BTC are mined in average of 10 minutes, well in fact it has been 7 minutes for some time now to be accurate, but lets pretend that is 10 min instead so: 150BTCan hour or 3600BTC a day or 1314000BTC a year, yes more than a million Bitcoin... this makes the inflation rate more than 10% a year.

3- not really easily stored, you need to be so careful when dealing or storing bitcoins, many thefts and hacks were going around the last 5 years, many exchanges and services failed because of this, sending looks simple but for a person who is not so tech savvy it looks so complicated a combination of capital/small letters and nembers as an address and change addresses and backups and.... add to that in order for the network to work(transactions being confirmed) miners are needed so there so much energy needed to spend (secure/confirm the validity) a bitcoin.

4- not anonymous, I would say it could offers some kind of privacy if you know how to use it, it sure offers insurance against identity theft but right now if you send me a transaction I could see the history of your transactions and maybe even how much funds you do carry around .... when the coinjoin will be implemented and it starts working as it should or maybe when a good mixer is used this would be a real private, but now it is not anonymous neither private to be honest.

5- what you do you want me to add here ?

[Mervyn_Pumpkinhead]

There isn't much point in giving any kind of criticism towards bitcoin, when you are speaking to the bitcoin community. Nowadays, the loudest part of the community are mostly desperate grocery clerks and taxi drivers. Bitcoin gives them hope, that maybe, just maybe, they will make something of themselves, and maybe they will finally be someone who is rich and respected (they respect everyone who has money, so they think that everyone would respect them also).
This desperation, is the thing, that makes the majority of the community attack everyone, who question the bitcoin's success. Just look at the replies, most of the people aren't even trying to compose solid arguments against the OP. Most are throwing personal attacks, or they are repeating like parrots that these arguments have already proven false. When asked to repeat the proof, then you will get an answer in a form of "whatever.., I don't have time for you."

Anyway, when considering the quality of an currency, then you have to take two technical attributes into account. One is the ability to transfer value, and the other one is the ability to keep a stable and predictable unit value. This helps the economy because you can only take on long-term projects, when the currency that you rely on is stable. Long-term projects need proper planning and you can do that in a stable financial environment.
Bitcoin has shown that it can be effective in transferring value, but it still lacks the mechanism to build a stable and predictable unit price. The community myth is that larger adaptation brings stability. What happens is that bigger market cap. only lures in bigger predators who have better knowledge on how to work an unregulated market.

People who think that bitcoin will be used in the far future, are the same to me, as people who thought that Macintosh 128k will be used in the far future. It's just a beginning of a wave of open sourced currencies, that will be improved over the years, and that will be far-far more complex, then the current top of the line models are.

That is why I also support altcoins. Cryptocurrency is not about buying a unit of some brand of product and becoming rich by deflation. This is the same thinking as borrowing money and getting rich with interest. Both schemes on how to get rich without actually contributing anything and your riches will come at the expense of others.
The new world with the cryptocurrencies won't work like that. Information technology will be used to drive finance in a way that more people will get what they deserve. In the future, if you do something useful to others, then you will be rewarded more, and if you only leech upon others, then you will be rewarded less.
The Bitcoin fanboys are mostly fans of that old world, and they are not interested in the technology.. their interest is more into switching places with the current leeches. They dream that technology won't evolve in a organic manner and that bitcoin will be the end of line. This is the only way they see on how to get rich, so they could buy the respect of others like them.

[bitcoinsrus]

[mmitech]

There isn't much point in giving any kind of criticism towards bitcoin, when you are speaking to the bitcoin community. Nowadays, the loudest part of the community are mostly desperate grocery clerks and taxi drivers. Bitcoin gives them hope, that maybe, just maybe, they will make something of themselves, and maybe they will finally be someone who is rich and respected (they respect everyone who has money, so they think that everyone would respect them also).
This desperation, is the thing, that makes the majority of the community attack everyone, who question the bitcoin's success. Just look at the replies, most of the people aren't even trying to compose solid arguments against the OP. Most are throwing personal attacks, or they are repeating like parrots that these arguments have already proven false. When asked to repeat the proof, then you will get an answer in a form of "whatever.., I don't have time for you."

Anyway, when considering the quality of an currency, then you have to take two technical attributes into account. One is the ability to transfer value, and the other one is the ability to keep a stable and predictable unit value. This helps the economy because you can only take on long-term projects, when the currency that you rely on is stable. Long-term projects need proper planning and you can do that in a stable financial environment.
Bitcoin has shown that it can be effective in transferring value, but it's still lacks the mechanism to build a stable and predictable unit price. The community myth is that larger adaptation brings stability. What happens is that bigger market cap. only lures in bigger predators who have better knowledge on how to work an unregulated market.

People who think that bitcoin will be used in the far future, are the same to me, as people who thought that Macintosh 128k will be used in the far future. It's just a beginning of a wave of open sourced currencies, that will be improved over the years, and that will be far-far more complex, then the current top of the line models are.

That is why I also support altcoins. Cryptocurrency is not about buying a unit of some brand of product and becoming rich by deflation. This is the same thinking as borrowing money and getting rich with interest. Both schemes on how to get rich without actually contributing anything and your riches will come at the expense of others.
The new world with the cryptocurrencies won't work like that. Information technology will be used to drive finance in a way that more people will get what they deserve. In the future, if you do something useful to others, then you will be rewarded more, and if you only leech upon others, then you will be rewarded less.
The Bitcoin fanboys are mostly fans of that old world, and they are not interested in the technology.. their interest is more into switching places with the current leeches. They dream that technology won't evolve in a organic manner and that bitcoin will be the end of line. This is the only way they see on how to get rich, so they could buy the respect of others like them.

great input 

[Tzupy]

For his heresy, Mervyn will be called a perma-bear from now on! 

The biggest problem I see on the short term is China. While outside China bitcoin has two economies
to support it (one bullish: Silk Road 2 and clones, and one slightly bearish, the normal merchants accepting bitcoin),
in China there is no real use for bitcoin, except maybe bribery (punishment for drug dealers in China is very harsh).
So the Chinese speculators, mostly bagholders IMO, react strongly to FUD / real bad news. Since the Chinese
exchanges have difficulties attracting new fiat, IMO they will act as a resistance above a price level, that could be ~800$.
And if the PBoC decides to worsen their stance on bitcoin, we could see some serious panic selling. During the last 2 months
there wasn't much new FUD from China, but this can change anytime, and only insiders will know in advance.
 

[mvag]

1- the decentralization is being destroyed a day after day by big mining pools and exchanges and wallet services and all kind of other centralized services.

2- in fact, Bitcoin is a high inflationary currency at this moment (for the next 100 year Bitcoin will be still inflationary), 25 BTC are mined in average of 10 minutes, well in fact it has been 7 minutes for some time now to be accurate, but lets pretend that is 10 min instead so: 150BTCan hour or 3600BTC a day or 1314000BTC a year, yes more than a million Bitcoin... this makes the inflation rate more than 10% a year.

3- not really easily stored, you need to be so careful when dealing or storing bitcoins, many thefts and hacks were going around the last 5 years, many exchanges and services failed because of this, sending looks simple but for a person who is not so tech savvy it looks so complicated a combination of capital/small letters and nembers as an address and change addresses and backups and.... add to that in order for the network to work(transactions being confirmed) miners are needed so there so much energy needed to spend (secure/confirm the validity) a bitcoin.

4- not anonymous, I would say it could offers some kind of privacy if you know how to use it, it sure offers insurance against identity theft but right now if you send me a transaction I could see the history of your transactions and maybe even how much funds you do carry around .... when the coinjoin will be implemented and it starts working as it should or maybe when a good mixer is used this would be a real private, but now it is not anonymous neither private to be honest.

5- what you do you want me to add here ?

My main point was that "hoarding-only" currency has a right to exist.

As to the reasons to exist, your countering of these reasons is valid. However, what are the current alternatives for hoarders? Fiat and commodities, right? Both, imo, considerably worse than Bitcoin.

To clarify the strengths of Bitcoin in this context:
   - Decentralised as in "not controlled by a goverment"
   - Non-inflationary as in "supply increasing to a known finite number"
   - Easily stored and transferred in relation to commodities such as gold or land
   - Anonymous as in "hopefully in the near future"
   - you continue... err... maybe here I wanted you to add that Bitcoin is fun

Now, I fully agree with Mervin that better cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin will emerge or perhaps emerged already.

[howardb]

Outstanding Post OP! Keep up the good work! I couldn´t have it done any better! Very subtle but also to the point!
Only retards think that the price couldn´t go to 0 at any given minute! Bitcoin is ultra high risk, and whoever is entering it now will most likely get little to no reward!

If thats not blatant trolling I don't know what is. Nobody could be THAT brain dead.

[Febo]

Bitcoin would be a good saving mechanism only if the adoption rate will be equal or more than the actual inflation rate (creation rate of coins) which is more than 10.5% a year. so choosing Bitcoin as saving method is as risky or maybe riskier than having fiat in your saving account.

Bitcoin is very young and volatile, although promising and interesting it's of course still a very risky investment. Yes, riskier than having fiat in your saving account. But with this higher risk also comes a high reward possibility though, as those who invested early have found out. And it's still early today. Good luck getting any kind of reward from the risk of having fiat in your saving account.

The current inflation rate of Bitcoin is irrelevant knowing that the maximum amount of coins there will ever be is 21 million. It's also logical that merchant adoption rate outstrips user adoption rate for the moment, but don't underestimate the cleverness of merchants to persuade the people to buy with bitcoins if this is clearly in their own interest. I think eventually adoption rate is going to very quickly catch back up to merchant adoption rate as merchants find clever ways to convince the people Bitcoin is simply the best way to pay.

Bitcoin is the merchant heaven, no charge back, lower fees, no need to risk securing personal documents or information (like doing with credit cards) and most importantly you can accept Bitcoin even if every bank ban you over a political issue or for varying beliefs (wikileaks) but it is still a nightmare for the end user, no protection from fraud (butterfly labs) the wallets are still not there for mass adoption (normal users, non tech savvy) and the only way your money will hold value (even with the 21 million cap) is the continuous mass adoption and the hoarding because the economy simply works as a pyramid scheme.   

If it is merchant heaven, they should give discount if you pay in bitcoins.

For sure BitCoins will not be used for just anything fast. But for some things have huge advantages. And is way from fully used all of it.

For sure people will not go change euros into BTC, to go buy some stuff. Yes if will be cheaper. But if they will get pay in BTC, then yes they will.

[Erdogan]

There isn't much point in giving any kind of criticism towards bitcoin, when you are speaking to the bitcoin community. Nowadays, the loudest part of the community are mostly desperate grocery clerks and taxi drivers. Bitcoin gives them hope, that maybe, just maybe, they will make something of themselves, and maybe they will finally be someone who is rich and respected (they respect everyone who has money, so they think that everyone would respect them also).
This desperation, is the thing, that makes the majority of the community attack everyone, who question the bitcoin's success. Just look at the replies, most of the people aren't even trying to compose solid arguments against the OP. Most are throwing personal attacks, or they are repeating like parrots that these arguments have already proven false. When asked to repeat the proof, then you will get an answer in a form of "whatever.., I don't have time for you."

Anyway, when considering the quality of an currency, then you have to take two technical attributes into account. One is the ability to transfer value, and the other one is the ability to keep a stable and predictable unit value. This helps the economy because you can only take on long-term projects, when the currency that you rely on is stable. Long-term projects need proper planning and you can do that in a stable financial environment.
Bitcoin has shown that it can be effective in transferring value, but it still lacks the mechanism to build a stable and predictable unit price. The community myth is that larger adaptation brings stability. What happens is that bigger market cap. only lures in bigger predators who have better knowledge on how to work an unregulated market.

People who think that bitcoin will be used in the far future, are the same to me, as people who thought that Macintosh 128k will be used in the far future. It's just a beginning of a wave of open sourced currencies, that will be improved over the years, and that will be far-far more complex, then the current top of the line models are.

That is why I also support altcoins. Cryptocurrency is not about buying a unit of some brand of product and becoming rich by deflation. This is the same thinking as borrowing money and getting rich with interest. Both schemes on how to get rich without actually contributing anything and your riches will come at the expense of others.
The new world with the cryptocurrencies won't work like that. Information technology will be used to drive finance in a way that more people will get what they deserve. In the future, if you do something useful to others, then you will be rewarded more, and if you only leech upon others, then you will be rewarded less.
The Bitcoin fanboys are mostly fans of that old world, and they are not interested in the technology.. their interest is more into switching places with the current leeches. They dream that technology won't evolve in a organic manner and that bitcoin will be the end of line. This is the only way they see on how to get rich, so they could buy the respect of others like them.

If we hold long enough, at least we will have our reward in heaven.

[johnyj]

Just like central banks hoard gold to increase its value, everyone knows that hoarding will increase the value of bitcoin, and if you hoard it for some years and spend it at a slow but steady pace, the spending won't affect the appreciation trend

[JayJuanGee]

OP is attention whoring here.

I had already responded in considerable details to his lack of grappling with his own financial situation and the silliness of his choice to sell half of his stash at this time.  Instead of going through some kind of meaningful reassessment of his past actions and to reconsider what he had already done, he seems to be trying to seek justification for his previous stupid-ass decision to sell half of his stash in order to live off of those proceeds for two years.

There is NO real poll answer that would adequately capture my sense of OP's behavior here, except the closest would probably be that he is spreading FUD.  However, a more appropriate response is that OP is either blind or dumb, and is failing to engage in an adequate self-assessment regarding his investment plan and strategies.

It does NOT seem to be worth the effort to engage too much in this thread or on this topic in this thread b/c OP has an inadequate understanding of his own situation to be of any real meaning or usefulness for the bitcoin investment considerations of others.

[Asrael999]

Money has multiple functions, one of them is hoarding (aka saving). Even if Bitcoin had zero merchants and served this hoarding function alone it would be valuable.

Because it is:
   - Decentralised
   - Non-inflationary
   - Easily stored and transferred
   - Anonymous (sort of)
   - you continue...

I would argue that in a conventional economy there is a difference between hoarding and saving.
Saving = Investment, ie savings are productively invested in the future of the economy
Hoarding = burying in the back garden (or location of choice) - this is a non-productive use of resources - and there are very few ways currently of productively investing BTC (I am not sure lending them on margin counts - and Havelock Investments and the like are not yet trusted by large sections of the community - with many valid reasons)

[Erdogan]

Money has multiple functions, one of them is hoarding (aka saving). Even if Bitcoin had zero merchants and served this hoarding function alone it would be valuable.

Because it is:
   - Decentralised
   - Non-inflationary
   - Easily stored and transferred
   - Anonymous (sort of)
   - you continue...

I would argue that in a conventional economy there is a difference between hoarding and saving.
Saving = Investment, ie savings are productively invested in the future of the economy
Hoarding = burying in the back garden (or location of choice) - this is a non-productive use of resources - and there are very few ways currently of productively investing BTC (I am not sure lending them on margin counts - and Havelock Investments and the like are not yet trusted by large sections of the community - with many valid reasons)

You are free to mess up the nomenclature of course, but:

Saving money is having the money in your possession for later use.

Investing is buying capital goods for your money with the intent to profit from it.

Lending is letting others use your savings to invest or consume while you don't need them, for a fee. This includes depositing your money in a bank.

Hoarding is a derogative word for saving. It can be used for saving money or for saving other things for the future, like food, fuel.

The purpose of having money at all is to consume, now or later.

[mmitech]

OP is attention whoring here.

I had already responded in considerable details to his lack of grappling with his own financial situation and the silliness of his choice to sell half of his stash at this time.  Instead of going through some kind of meaningful reassessment of his past actions and to reconsider what he had already done, he seems to be trying to seek justification for his previous stupid-ass decision to sell half of his stash in order to live off of those proceeds for two years.

There is NO real poll answer that would adequately capture my sense of OP's behavior here, except the closest would probably be that he is spreading FUD.  However, a more appropriate response is that OP is either blind or dumb, and is failing to engage in an adequate self-assessment regarding his investment plan and strategies.

It does NOT seem to be worth the effort to engage too much in this thread or on this topic in this thread b/c OP has an inadequate understanding of his own situation to be of any real meaning or usefulness for the bitcoin investment considerations of others.

you didn't argue a single statement of those I posted through the whole thread, but you came to tell me how dumb idiot I am... no one pointed here to me selling half of my Bitcoins except you....nice, it shows how pity and empty you are, and this shows who is the real idiot... answer to my posts with a reasonable and logical post and quit personal attacks...