When will Bitcoin reach a similar Facebook "S-curve" (Responded to all comments)

[bitcoinsrus]

Starting in 2004 - 2006, Facebook was still in baby steps (monthly active users).

2006 - 2007 tens to hundreds of millions of users began utilizing facebook.

It was not until around 2007 to beyond, that Facebook really started to grow on an exponential (monthly bases) of several hundreds of millions (to 1.2 billion in 2013).
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Now looking at bitcoin. 2009 were the developers and programmers who laid the ground work.

2010 was a continuation. 2011-2012 gpu and asics miners saw the potential in bitcoin and got involved.

2013 to now came the relatively new kids on the block (media and curiosity).
Right now, it seems that we have a few million actual investors. I am sure the community is much bigger since every time I refresh this site, there is another fucking post I have to read )

Compared to 2006 - 2007, facebook had probably tens of millions active users. Do you think we are in or close to this phase.

If we do have an s curve, would it look something like 2007 - 2013 for facebook (in the hundreds of millions or even billions of users (per month).

If I am wrong on the numbers, these were rough guesstimates (and this was the first chart I found so assume its correct etc.)

[Alley]

3-5 more years.

[TERA]

You're comparing apples to oranges by posting a linear chart and comparing it to bitcoin's logarithmic chart. bitcoin is already in a 'curve' because it historically has grown exponentially.

[frobley]

didn't it already $100 -> $1000 ?

[tsoPANos]

didn't it already $100 -> $1000 ?

Well he is talking about active bitcoin users, and not just the btc price.   

[bananaControl]

Bitcoin will only enter mainstream once it has been dumbed down so much that ordinary people can't throw away their private keys or install a wallet on their computers/smartphones without having the keys in something like a secure cold storage.

Even now we see people who have known about bitcoin for a long time loosing their money because of their own stupidity when it comes to security.

The point in time when bitcoin is ready for the masses is years out into the future.

[Swordsoffreedom]

3-5 more years.

Similar sentiment it will be three to five years longer.

That said we can argue that we are already at the beginning of the early adoption curve and that Bitcoin has already had a few S shaped curves in its history.
 
The logarithmic adoption of Bitcoin wallets shows an S shaped curved when looked at in blockchain etc.

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=2year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=1&address=

See July 12 To March 13 and July 13 to Jan 14

Same with Market Capitalization
https://blockchain.info/charts/market-cap?timespan=2year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

And Unique Transactions
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular?timespan=2year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

[Torque]

This is a good discussion.  

If you look at the growth pattern of other online social networks (e.g., MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) you'll see that it took all of them several years to get to the 1M user mark, and then after that the most explosive growth occurs in the next 2-4 years following that 1M user milestone.  The first 1M users could be considered the "early adopters".  This could also happen with Bitcoin as well.

Unfortunately with Bitcoin, there are two things that hinder being able to track this growth accurately:

1.  Knowing the exact number of users to date - you can look at things like number of wallets on sites like Blockchain and Coinbase, but that just gives you the number of accounts.  Number of wallets <> number of users.  But you can do some level of extrapolation/guessing, like number of users = number of wallets / 5.  Also, there are personal wallets on desktops and smartphones, wallets associated with all the exchanges, and other obscure/unknown sites that provide wallet services.  Many wallets have been completely abandoned or have 0 bitcoin in them.  So even trying to find all of the active wallets in existence would prove to be a futile effort.

2.  Cost of entry - if you look at all the other online social networks that had explosive, viral growth, they all have one thing in common: provided you have access to a web browser on a desktop/laptop or smartphone, then signing up an account is free.  Thus cost of entry and risk is near zero.  People usually signed up on these social networks when first hearing about them and interested, because there was nothing to risk.  With Bitcoin though, it's a little different because we're talking about money being in the equation.  So even when people first learn about Bitcoin and are interested, they may be hesitant to get involved because of the perceived "cost of entry" and associated risk (real or imagined), etc.

[4mherewego]

Don't compare a new network to a new service on a previous network. A better comparison would be bitcoin vs internet and bitcoin is doing just fine

[IIOII]

Don't compare a new network to a new service on a previous network. A better comparison would be bitcoin vs internet and bitcoin is doing just fine

I agree. Bitcoin is new technology, Facebook wasn't. Much more infrastructure has to be build to enable Bitcoin for mass adoption. Facebook will turn out to be a fad looking back ten years from now, but it offered a simple mass-adoption compatible interface from day one.

Bitcoin encompasses more and much more relevant use cases than Facebook. It's both more complex and more useful, so it needs more time to reach S-curve-growth.

[MatTheCat]

didn't it already $100 -> $1000 ?

Well he is talking about active bitcoin users, and not just the btc price.   

But as many people have pointed out, Facebook didn't have any competitors. Bitcoin has to compete with Fiat. I can spend BTC in places that might consist of 1% of my manual expenditures (SR and computer components), for the remaining 99% of my purchases, I can use Fiat and only Fiat and even if I could use Bitcoin, it would be much easier for me just to use Fiat.

[Torque]

didn't it already $100 -> $1000 ?

Well he is talking about active bitcoin users, and not just the btc price.  

But as many people have pointed out, Facebook didn't have any competitors. Bitcoin has to compete with Fiat. I can spend BTC in places that might consist of 1% of my manual expenditures (SR and computer components), for the remaining 99% of my purchases, I can use Fiat and only Fiat and even if I could use Bitcoin, it would be much easier for me just to use Fiat.

You're right, at first Facebook didn't really have any competitors (MySpace wasn't really that active any more).  But then some competitors tried to come along.  Diaspora and Google+ come to mind.  But by that time, what Facebook had was early mover advantage.  It's very hard to displace an early market mover once it has firmly established a large percentage of market share.  People just didn't want to switch social networks, because all their friends were already on FB.

But you have a point about Fiat being a competitor to Bitcoin.  Right now I'd say fiat is it's only real competitor.  Bitcoin still remains a "really inconvenient way to purchase a limited amount of things."  In the future for Bitcoin to have a serious impact, acquiring Bitcoin and spending it anywhere and for nearly anything needs to be as easy stupid simple as acquiring and using fiat.  Perhaps banks will eventually get onboard, who knows.

I saw that Coinbase finally added a "buyback after purchase checkout" option.  This is a good sign of things to come.
http://blog.coinbase.com/post/89402160917/buyback-bitcoin-after-checkout

[bitcoinsrus]

Hello all and thanks for commenting. I like reading the discussion and different opinions expressed by my peers.

to Alley
3-5 more years is a great guess. If we look at the chart, 2004 - 2007 (3 yrs) it began picking up for fb
2007 - 2013 had their exponential growth

btc is 5 - 6 yrs old (I think began late 2008 to early 2009 (feb)
FB began their s curve 5 yrs later in 2009. Btc might take longer since its not FB and it has a different use etc.
your prediction is a good speculation 3-5 yrs

to Tera
You are correct in my poor analogy (obviously a social media site is not virtual currency network. The curves probably won't match (especially since exponential growth has indeed occurred annually.

to frobley
I know what you probably mean (people below you said I meant monthly active users - which I did). But exponential price like 100 to 1000 has been attained. But what I was also thinking was that others think that the real adoption or price increase is yet to come.

ro tsoPANos
thanks for understanding and interpreting the post (I know I write all over the place and it may be hard for many to get what I am asking for).

to bananaControl
I wanted to respond to you first because I was thinking the same (but I wanted to respond to everyone as well since they were so kind as to contribute to my post)

Yes, the majority does not get it. I tried explaining it to many and they just don't give it a chance. I guess they are to caught up in other things etc. There are apps and things especially in the future that could get a piece of the mobile market (I see people on mobiles all day)

Masses are years away - I think so to.

to Swordsoffreedom
Your points add to the 3-5 year thing. There has been many upswings. Basically from 0.002 (1/5 a penny) to 1200. That is like a 600,000x increase.
Your point that a few s curves has happened is true. Many also say that we might see maybe a 100x increase, but a 10000x or even 1000x increase may not happen (anythings possible but lets see)

to Torque
Thanks for saying its a good discussion (I thought that my post might have been confusing when I wrote it, and it probably is a little)

Yes I agree, they started slow, then kaboom - even bitcoinsrus dropped his die hard myspace account )

I agree with your lack of knowing the users (could look at the wallets etc)
and cost to entry. Also, great other posts on other threads.

to 4mherewego
I agree, Tera also mentioned this as well. A social media is not a virtual currency. It may have facebook credits (and I wished I had googled it back in 2010 and then when the definition said virtual currency....I wished I googled that to )

anyways yea, comparing it to the internet is smarter.

to IIOII
Yes, it already needs more time than FB. from 2004 - 2009, FB already started its S curve. The same 5 yrs does not seem like that big of a thing (in terms of active monthly users)

to MatTheCat
Yea I wouldn't really call Myspace a competitor (although it did have a few hundred million and came b4 fb). Fiat is btc competitor (especially since its a hassle  to exchange the two with all the fees etc).
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Again thanks for all the support and comments (I read them all).
My post was talking about the monthly active users and comparing to facebook. My apologizes to anyone that misunderstood my post.