2014: The Worst Year for BTC?

[KuromaYoichi]

it's still 4 month left
that's quite a long time
anything can happen in that period

[panju1]

I would say bitcoin awareness and adoption has increased quite a bit in 2014. 

[hosting-guru]

In the end of last year everyone was expecting 2014 to be huge for Bitcoin. Which it has been in my opinion. A lot of positive things have been going on. Numerous large companies have started accepting Bitcoin payments. A lot promising new Bitcoin startups have been launched. I think many people are focusing too much of the BTC/USD or BTC/CNY price. In my opinion this is not the indicator whether Bitcoin has been doing well. What is for sure is that the market cap is growing and sooner or later the value will get higher too.

[qwk]

In fact, you're taking two arbitrary points in time and comparing the exchange rate of BTC vs the USD.
Just because theses points in time happen to be January 1st and December 31st doesn't add any fundamentally important information.

Well then, what points in time would you suggest we use instead of years and months?

None. Period.
If you look at Bitcoin as it is right now, in its current state of growing awareness, a growing economy with capital pouring into it, its long lasting history of reliability, with thousands upon thousands of smart people wrapping their heads around it and finding new, exiting ways to put this piece of technology to good use, and you still see 2014 as a "bad year for Bitcoin", there's probably nothing in this world that will ever satisfy your need for instant gratification.

If, on the other hand, you're able to read the signs, I doubt that anyone in their right mind would see 2014 as anything but the year when Bitcoin really took of.

[LiberyOrDeath]

In fact, you're taking two arbitrary points in time and comparing the exchange rate of BTC vs the USD.
Just because theses points in time happen to be January 1st and December 31st doesn't add any fundamentally important information.

Well then, what points in time would you suggest we use instead of years and months?

None. Period.
If you look at Bitcoin as it is right now, in its current state of growing awareness, a growing economy with capital pouring into it, its long lasting history of reliability, with thousands upon thousands of smart people wrapping their heads around it and finding new, exiting ways to put this piece of technology to good use, and you still see 2014 as a "bad year for Bitcoin", there's probably nothing in this world that will ever satisfy your need for instant gratification.

If, on the other hand, you're able to read the signs, I doubt that anyone in their right mind would see 2014 as anything but the year when Bitcoin really took of.

I corrected myself previously. The proper title should have been "2014: The Worst Year for Bitcoin Price". I agree that 2014 was an important year for BTC in numerous aspects, but not price wise.

I am still wondering are we experiencing a delay and the price will correct to its proper levels - like $1000 + soon, or is it going to prick around $400-$600 for another year ?

[LiberyOrDeath]

In the end of last year everyone was expecting 2014 to be huge for Bitcoin. Which it has been in my opinion. A lot of positive things have been going on. Numerous large companies have started accepting Bitcoin payments. A lot promising new Bitcoin startups have been launched. I think many people are focusing too much of the BTC/USD or BTC/CNY price. In my opinion this is not the indicator whether Bitcoin has been doing well. What is for sure is that the market cap is growing and sooner or later the value will get higher too.

How is market cap growing , if you don't mind elaborating ? BTC market cap was cca 13 billion dollars in January, today it is around 6 billion USD. And you are claiming that the market cap is growing ?!

[polunna]

Guys that 1200 price was a bubble dont you get it.. media hype + mt gox + silk road shutdown + senate anouncment .BITCOIN itself is NOT a bubble ..but and here is a BIG BUT thats not to say there will not be any price bubbles. And i am afraid that last November was one.. but at each bubble we get a hole new wave of adoption so we may have a another bubble 1600 which settles at a new low of 800 then again and again.. or we may from now on get a agonisingly slow price rise. Who knows.. but its not bad news trust me. FOR some reason people think from 1200 we should just keep rising no wayyyy we need much more adoption and with all these peice of shit altcoins camoflouging the real deal makes it even slower for adoption.

[mrmousebtc]

2014 could be the best year for bitcoin, with the great news of the last months we can aim to the highest ATH in few months.

[bambino]

The price is completely irrelevant at this level. I think you are on the wrong page. This year (as mpkomara said) so much has been done in "...user adoption, wallet safety, education, public awareness, network security and Bitcoin companies have received more investment from venture capital than any other year. I call that a good year."

[fryarminer]

We've had a lot of adoption from companies that accept bitcoin and then probably dump it for fiat. That is both good and bad - good that they accept it, bad that they have nothing to use it for so they dump it.

For us it is good because we need bitcoin to be more widely accepted.

The stage will eventually come when BTC will be not only accepted but considered a currency - something that these companies will use to buy their merchandise with and keep the BTC in circulation. So it's kind of like a volleyball game, as long as the ball is in play the value of BTC will go up and up.

We're just not there yet. So actually it's a great year for BTC. It's getting popular, and it's also cheap enough to buy in abundance!

[routecrypto]

The adoption is still low and the potential growth is huge for bitcoin but the process is really slow and maybe we couldn't see a new bubble in 2014.

[Brooker]

If this is the worst year for btc then we haven't done too bad. I think people need to not really look at the price compared to last year because it's a good chance the high of 1000 usd or whatever it was was faked/ artificially inflated by the mt gox shenanigans. Give it time and have some patience and I'm sure we'll see a rise soon enough.

[Verse]

I'd argue that Bitcoin has been overvalued for a long time, and 2014 has majorly been a catchup game where BTC infrastructure and BTC valuation have begun to equalize in more realistic terms than we've seen previously. I'd further argue that we've seen this slow decline over the course of 2014 because of speculators overvaluing BTC's future instead of what it exists as today. You're correct to point out that we've seen a lot of progress in the market, however a more useful discussion might be of events that could cause a price surge like the one we saw around the end of 2013 (which more or less looks like a massive pump and dump in hindsight).

What events are likely in the future that will increase BTC's trading value?

We don't need another pump and dump fiasco.

[panju1]

If this is the worst year for btc then we haven't done too bad. I think people need to not really look at the price compared to last year because it's a good chance the high of 1000 usd or whatever it was was faked/ artificially inflated by the mt gox shenanigans. Give it time and have some patience and I'm sure we'll see a rise soon enough.

Yes. 2014 is the year money has started flowing into bitcoin enterprises.
We can expect some to flow into bitcoin as well in the future.

[Bitbirdhunt]

I think it was a somewhat good year so far. A lot of things are in motion and a lot of adoption/developments happened.

It was bad only for short-term speculators, but I couldn't care about those.

[fryarminer]

If it wasn't for the $1000 "bubble" from the end of last year, we wouldn't be having the exciting year of bitcoin adoption that we are seeing this year.

[SF-Man]

Will this coming 2015 a lot better year for btc?

[qwk]

If it wasn't for the $1000 "bubble" from the end of last year, we wouldn't be having the exciting year of bitcoin adoption that we are seeing this year.

I personally doubt that it would have made too much of a difference if we had only had the $100 "bubble" in early 2013.
The signal to entrepreneurs and venture capital would have been the same: "so, this Bitcoin thing is really taking of, better hop on the bandwagon."
If anything, the $1000 "bubble" was just the icing on the cake

[fryarminer]

Will this coming 2015 a lot better year for btc?

Think further into the future! By the time most people forget their brain wallets, bitcoin will be a-booming!

[littlewizard]

There is still Sept., Octo., Nov. and Dec. left, so we still have four months left till 2015.
Time will tell and drawing a conclusion now is still too early