Bitcoin slowly losing its popularity?

[bitkilo]

I don't think bitcoin is losing popularity at all. In the last 18 months alone lots of big companies have started excepting bitcoin, VC's are putting in lots of money and the Winklevoss twins haven't even launched there EFT yet, many big things are still to come and along with them will come more people.

[x8008]

it might not be losing its popularity but it has become harder and harder to deal with bitcoin and the government

[TheChosenOne]

Probably just less speculation and more real use?

[Nerazzura]

It is a technical problem of much greater intensity than we have known in the past. The market may be aware that there is a problem specific to the forms of currency, "said Sebastian Galy, a currency strategist at Societe Generale based in New York, USA.

The existence of Bitcoin has attracted attention in a country's central bank, Bank Indonesia is no exception. Director of the Department of Communications Bank Indonesia said Peter Jacobs, Bitcoin and other virtual currency is not the currency or legal tender in Indonesia.

"The public are encouraged to beware of Bitcoin and other virtual currency.

[wordman267645]

I don't think so..Dell is just starting to accept bitcoin, that is a good sign, and if more and more companies will follow dell then there's still a chance to rising up for bitcoin and will be in the mainstream.

[giveBTCpls]

There was never legit Popularity. Popularity = Justin Bieber tier of awareness. When people know what Bitcoin is to the level people know who Obama is, then, then maybe we are talking about real popularity. Until then, we still at baby stages. Enjoy and dont forget to buy your cheap ass BTC before it hits 6 figures.

[tinof]

Popularity has little correlation with market usage.

Microsoft and Bill Gates are very unpopular yet Windows still dominate the market after more than a decade.

[bornil267645]

yes it is.

[CreamyPie]

No, bitcoin is rising in popularity and value...and spreading like wildfire.

[zolace]

No, bitcoin is rising in popularity and value...and spreading like wildfire.

Actually early of 2013 is when noticed bitcoin and had learned about it, at that time, it struck me as a gold fever, and there were many others who got strucked by it also, I can say 2013 was when bitcoin had shine brightest and now that is calming down, companies are interested in it

[qwerty555]

Rather than guessing or using "gut feeling" we may wish to look at data

2 pieces of data give a fairly good indication of what is really happening with bitcoin

a) Number of transaction on a daily/ monthly basis as if there is truly more activity then the growth in number of transactions should show up. ( excluding glitches of panic selling ..Mt gox..and whale buying) and if plotted on a graph it will show a positive or negative growth curve

that data is found here ((click "show data" in blue at bottom)  and a quick look suggests a 20-25% year on year growth (monthly 1.8% average)  Anyone is welcome to make the graph although there is probably already one out there somewhere.


http://www.quandl.com/BCHAIN/NTRAN-Bitcoin-Number-of-Transactions

b) The $ volume again tells us if there is more activity or less and when read with the above gives a very good indication of the direction longer term.
The current $50 Million daily average compared to August 2013 approx $20Million daily average is 150% increase ( or 12% / month average)

http://www.quandl.com/BCHAIN/ETRVU-Bitcoin-Estimated-Transaction-Volume-USD

When looking at the curve there are bubbles and crashes but the trend which is upward is quite obvious.

In conclusion both transaction volume and dollar volume are on an upward trend and based on other metrics like VC capital volumes/ merchant adoption increase/wallet increase/new start ups/media coverage etc  that is likely to continue ..albeit still in a roller-coaster fashion.

and if you want to dig deeper ..here is a link to (one of many) posts with lots of technical data in Economics section

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=441336.msg8398112#msg8398112

[itsAj]

No, bitcoin is rising in popularity and value...and spreading like wildfire.

Actually early of 2013 is when noticed bitcoin and had learned about it, at that time, it struck me as a gold fever, and there were many others who got strucked by it also, I can say 2013 was when bitcoin had shine brightest and now that is calming down, companies are interested in it

I agree that bitcoin had expanded greatly in early 2013 (likely around the april bubble). I think many more people started to understand it's benefits and features at that point. I think it continued to grow as the price continued to go up until November. I think that gox failing and SR2 getting "hacked" likely caused some people to become weary of bitcoin, however I think the long term trend is that people are increasingly using bitcoin in greater numbers.

[botany]

Bitcoin now features regularly in mainstream media articles.
More and more people are now 'discovering' bitcoin.

[bitllionaire]

I don't think it is losing its popularity,just it is highly related to price because of the interest of the people in quick earnings in bubbles

[botany]

I don't think it is losing its popularity,just it is highly related to price because of the interest of the people in quick earnings in bubbles

That would be if popularity is measured in number of google searches. 
But I think if you measure the number of people holding bitcoins, it should be increasing slowly.

[BADecker]

Bitcoin is not losing its popularity. Sure, some people are dropping it, and others are embracing it for the first time. The thing that is happening is, the economy is spiking a bit in some ways. To average people, some of the economy looks good. Many of them have enough money to fill their tummy, and sit around and watch DVDs (not enough to save any) so they buy a little extra. The shelves in stores are reasonably well stocked. Money seems okayish, so why be overly interested in Bitcoin?

Well, the economy is NOT good. This might be the proverbial calm before the storm, the real storm, where things all crash, where people will kick themselves later for not preparing with Bitcoin now.

Wars are escalating. And while wars are good for the economy, even though they are not good for the people who fight them, it is the wars that the bankers are making and using to stimulate the economy, and take the eyes of the people off the fact of the money slavery the bankers have them in. THE THING THAT IS DIFFERENT THIS TIME IS, THE PEOPLE HAVE COMMUNICATION AND TRANSPORTATION. It is not only the elite. The people are finding out what is going on.

Will this make the people smarter? No! They won't get smart until the disaster hits home. And then it is much later than it should be for them.

The people need to wake up and see that it is the bankers and the fiat money that are wrecking the economy and their lives. Those who are awake, will be preparing with Bitcoin and in other ways. Bitcoin popularity is not really dying. It simply is not expanding as rapidly as it did, percentage-wise. It's growing, and it will grow faster in the future as the money system finally crumbles completely.

Don't get tricked into thinking Bitcoin is dying. Keep your eyes open and realize that it is the economy that is leveling off a little. Grow Bitcoin while you have the chance.

[digitalindustry]

Trying to use the past to predict the future of a volatile commodity like bitcoin is an exercise in futility.

You sure about that? The pattern seems easily recognizable to me.



FYI I dumped my life savings in the middle between the two red boxes. No regrets.

This chart would be relevant if the economics model started at a unit cap number and slowly declined.

however it starts at 1 and slowly increases, true the "halving" can increase potential monopoly, but it still relies on "new capital"

[Hasher99]

Bitcoin is ever growing, since its release till date. Newer and newer people are getting familiar with BTC and businesses are talking of BTC now...is that sufficient?

[wasserman99]

No, bitcoin is rising in popularity and value...and spreading like wildfire.

Actually early of 2013 is when noticed bitcoin and had learned about it, at that time, it struck me as a gold fever, and there were many others who got strucked by it also, I can say 2013 was when bitcoin had shine brightest and now that is calming down, companies are interested in it

I don't think we are still in a gold rush type environment but we are certainly in a situation in which many companies are very much interested in it. I think most companies are trying to set themselves up so they bitcoin does not need to increase in value for them to profit, but rather they need to have a lot of bitcoin denominated sales for them to profit.

[qwerty555]

example of what will b coming to bitcoin

http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/pages/2012-12-06-01.aspx

airline passenger number projected at 3.6billion in 2016

guesstimate...half are international = 1,8 billion

guesstimate..average journeys per person per year = 5 so number of individuals traveling  350 million


5 % of those 350 million ..17.5 milion realize (eventually) that it is cheaper and easier to spend money abroad using Xapo ( or similar which will surely come) and therefore need some bitoin and lets say that the average bitcoin loaded per card is 1 = 17.5 million coins needed just for this single market and there are hundreds of markets/uses


and that is the potential of biitcoin

another

https://www.clsa.com/about-clsa/media-centre/2014-media-releases/outbound-chinese-tourists-to-double-by-2020-propelling-global-growth-in-travel-related-sectors.php

Chinese have currency control of $50k / year..they prefer not to use that up on expenses traveling abroad if they can avoid it.
currently 100million a year  ... 5 % would like a Xapo ( eventually as they are using ANX at the moment)  if 5% get a xapo type card ( and they will load that with a lot more than 1 bitcoin due to their penchant for gambling big time in Macao) how many bitcoin are needed for that market?

and the list goes on..and on..and on...

there is a lot more to come for bitcoin but it takes time to organize and market! Imagine Xapo is less than 1 month old.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=736643.msg8325044#msg8325044