*That* chart has made it all the way to the FT!

[piramida]

We’re going to stick our neck out at this stage and call this the end of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a beast with many ends it seems Bitcoin is dead - long live Bitcoin!

[PolarPoint]

The article is still there, need to register to read. Search the title "Cult Markets: When the bubble bursts" in google and click on the google link to ft to view for free.

This bubble theory is not wrong, but it doesn't apply to everything. Above all, you can always chain bubble after bubble making a cycle. Bitcoin is a functional payment system, could be more robust, but has enormous potential. There are risks involved from day one and we are all aware of that. The price fluctuations of bitcoin do not make the bitcoin network less useful.

Bitcoin has attracted a lot of angel investors around the globe. They are not stupid, they would not have invested in bitcoin if they do not believe bitcoin has great prospects. They are in it for the money, we are in it for the belief. Different principles but the same goal. Nevertheless, it is far too early to say bitcoin is dead.

[xavier]

If it is the end of bitcoin, that's sad for Isabella since she's invested so much time in covering it. The only place she could have got that chart is on these forums, so she must be reading the material here. She's invested in it as well, even though she has put herself on the opposite side to most of us!

Bitcoin remains highly risky. It's a call option on a new financial system, and carries the same level of risk as a call option.

Half of the problem has been a wave of douchebags who think it's the 'next big thing' to speculate on, encouraged by a wave of brokers, "bitcoin binary options", bitcoin pit trading, etc.. The ironic thing is that most of these offerings only emerged after the price topped out at the end of last year.

Would you buy and sell a call option on apple in the way people buy+sell bitcoin? Would you create trading apps, charts, ATMs and all other sorts of things for a call option, that could one day be worth zero?

I think that's the way to look at bitcoin.

Having said that, the world is right up shit creek financially and otherwise in almost all respects, so the argument that we are living in exceptional circumstances is pretty valid IMO.

In retrospect a massive crash this year was obvious and probably it's not the last time it will happen.

TL;DR

I'm taking this FT article as a load of tosh, since usually their calls are wrong

[600watt]

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2014/09/19/1976132/cult-markets-when-the-bubble-bursts/

... and they is calling for fear and capitulation!

I think they could be right, I don't think so but its hard to know what you really feel when you've been desensitised by the previous two bubble/recoveries. I have also said this before, but it really does feel like the low single digits after the ~$30 high.

I thought the latest sell off could have been that capitulation event, but i wonder if it really had enough impetus?... perhaps one more to come? I don't know.

For sure this is not advice to sell (for me nothing has changed in the value proposition of HODLing)

This post is just me thinking out loud and seeing what anyone else might be thinking. It's even nice to get feedback from the odd frothing troll, as good an indicator as any of what's probably not happening

I think we still bouncing around the bottom, building a base. I still think its telling that we are only ~66% off the all time high. For me this confirms the idea that BTC is building innate value as a medium of exchange in addition to its value derived from being speculative vehicle for traders looking to flip a quick profit.

If it was really the south sea oil tulip bubble, then the collapse would have been longer harder, and with very much less retained value at the end. More like a 95%+ crash back to sub $100 prices, certainly below the previous ATH. Yet, that did not happen.

Risto called the bottom as $340 in feb, we went up,we came back down. It feels like normal price action for bottom discovery when you strip away all the post-hoc reasoning and just take a longer term view of how something like this would probably behave in its inevitable rise. We still haven't really deviated from the long term exponential S curve that one would expect. We still appear to be in the early growth stages, and all the right things are still happening. When the public eye comes around the next time, it will discover that far from going away. BTC just carried on going from strength to strength whilst people's backs were turned. I think thats going to make people sit up and look.

They were pretty interested last time around and all we had was a shabby exchange, and very little regulatory oversight. This time around... and its coming... I wonder what people will make of it? Eventually all this smoke is going to give away the fire.

Its a tough wait, but I think its going to be worthwhile.

頑張る!

nice post, thx

[mmortal03]

If it is the end of bitcoin, that's sad for Isabella since she's invested so much time in covering it.

What's worse is that her perspective seems to blatantly ignore the recent good news with Paypal/Braintree lending Bitcoin long term legitimacy, not to mention that the technology itself is sound. NFLX has had similar drops from its past peaks. When NFLX dropped 76%+ from January 2004 to March 2005, and 80%+ from July 2011 to Sept 2012 was that considered by these pundits to be "the end" of Netflix? Nope.

[runam0k]

If it is the end of bitcoin, that's sad for Isabella since she's invested so much time in covering it.

What's worse is that her perspective seems to blatantly ignore the recent good news with Paypal/Braintree lending Bitcoin long term legitimacy, not to mention that the technology itself is sound. NFLX has had similar drops from its past peaks. When NFLX dropped 76%+ from January 2004 to March 2005, and 80%+ from July 2011 to Sept 2012 was that considered by these pundits to be "the end" of Netflix? Nope.

Unfortunately, I started looking at Kaminska's twitter posts (a feed appears on the FT AV website, so kind of unavoidable).  It's even worse than her 50+ FT AV articles.  She's totally anti-Bitcoin, through and through (which is fine, she's not the first and people are entitled to their opinions).  She pulled out the old merchant-adoption-is-bad-for-Bitcoin-price argument in response to the PayPal news.  She's infuriating not so much because of her views on Bitcoin, though she clearly struggles with objectivity, but more because of her incredibly pompous, self-righteous attitude.  Anyone who points out an error or gap in her understanding is quickly dismissed as a troll or "Bitcoin cultist" who doesn't understand economics.  Of course her entire life's work and career has made her this way, but still...

[brg444]

In conclusion, if every guy and girl at the gym, the pub, or the backyard BBQ can signup in minutes and purchase bitcoin instantly with his credit card, many will.  Once the infrastructure is in place, all that's required is ample media attention and a change in sentiment.

The average newbie person probably finds it very hard to buy bitcoin right now. The average person would refuse to give passport, bank account, and bill scans to some exchange website. The fear of identity theft would be likely to put them off.

www.circle.com

[twiifm]

I'm reading a great book called "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, which is all about our cognitive biases.  An important theme is WYSIATI (what you see is all there is), and there's copious volumes of research that prove how susceptible our brains are to this bias.  It's why last summer anyone who predicated $1200 a few months out was not taken seriously, and it's why people scoff at the idea that fiat money could lose its importance.  

The FT author sees a classic picture of the first portion of a bubble chart and, due to WYSIATI, her brain pattern-matches that to the classic "bubble chart" we've all seen a million times: her intuitive response is BUBBLE and this precludes her from even considering the many rational arguments against this being "the end" (the arguments simply don't exist to her because she is blinded by only what she does see).  

Rather than focussing on sentiment and on price, I think it's more useful to consider the infrastructure being built.  The most important of which are the fiat<-->bitcoin gateways.  There's now hundreds of bitcoin ATMS across the world with more rolling out each month, the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF could soon be approved, and Circle should eventually allow people to instantly signup and purchase bitcoin with a credit card.  During the last growth spurt there was exactly 1 bitcoin ATM.  

This infrastructure won't precipitate another wave of bitcoin adoption, but it would certainly facilitate one should sentiment make a 180 deg turn.  And with the fiat gateways opened much wider than at any time in bitcoin's history, the next cycle could be epic.  

I always feel somewhat "dirty" talking about this because bitcoin has much nobler goals, but Bitcoin's killer app right now is that it appeals to people's lust for wealth.  Of course, the corollary to this is that it is also at the whim of people's fear of losing money (what we're seeing now).  But remember, the people most able to vote against bitcoin are those who are already participating (<0.1% of the world's population), yet the amount of people who could be seduced by the thought of easy money is a much larger percentage (some might argue 100%).

In conclusion, if every guy and girl at the gym, the pub, or the backyard BBQ can signup in minutes and purchase bitcoin instantly with his credit card, many will.  Once the infrastructure is in place, all that's required is ample media attention and a change in sentiment.

**Of course this doesn't mean we don't have a bumpy road ahead of us (or for that matter that we'll necessarily see another growth spurt).  We might still have to shatter the dreams of a few more recent speculators, and quell the ambition of a few more early whales.  

Its ironic that wysiati. Can also be applied to the bitcoiners view as well.

Here you are trying to justify an obvious bear trend

[brg444]

I'm reading a great book called "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, which is all about our cognitive biases.  An important theme is WYSIATI (what you see is all there is), and there's copious volumes of research that prove how susceptible our brains are to this bias.  It's why last summer anyone who predicated $1200 a few months out was not taken seriously, and it's why people scoff at the idea that fiat money could lose its importance.  

The FT author sees a classic picture of the first portion of a bubble chart and, due to WYSIATI, her brain pattern-matches that to the classic "bubble chart" we've all seen a million times: her intuitive response is BUBBLE and this precludes her from even considering the many rational arguments against this being "the end" (the arguments simply don't exist to her because she is blinded by only what she does see).  

Rather than focussing on sentiment and on price, I think it's more useful to consider the infrastructure being built.  The most important of which are the fiat<-->bitcoin gateways.  There's now hundreds of bitcoin ATMS across the world with more rolling out each month, the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF could soon be approved, and Circle should eventually allow people to instantly signup and purchase bitcoin with a credit card.  During the last growth spurt there was exactly 1 bitcoin ATM.  

This infrastructure won't precipitate another wave of bitcoin adoption, but it would certainly facilitate one should sentiment make a 180 deg turn.  And with the fiat gateways opened much wider than at any time in bitcoin's history, the next cycle could be epic.  

I always feel somewhat "dirty" talking about this because bitcoin has much nobler goals, but Bitcoin's killer app right now is that it appeals to people's lust for wealth.  Of course, the corollary to this is that it is also at the whim of people's fear of losing money (what we're seeing now).  But remember, the people most able to vote against bitcoin are those who are already participating (<0.1% of the world's population), yet the amount of people who could be seduced by the thought of easy money is a much larger percentage (some might argue 100%).

In conclusion, if every guy and girl at the gym, the pub, or the backyard BBQ can signup in minutes and purchase bitcoin instantly with his credit card, many will.  Once the infrastructure is in place, all that's required is ample media attention and a change in sentiment.

**Of course this doesn't mean we don't have a bumpy road ahead of us (or for that matter that we'll necessarily see another growth spurt).  We might still have to shatter the dreams of a few more recent speculators, and quell the ambition of a few more early whales.  

Its ironic that wysiati. Can also be applied to the bitcoiners view as well.

Here you are trying to justify an obvious bear trend

only a disingenuous troll would get that out of this post.

you do seem to fit the profile...

[ElectricMucus]

Bitcoin is starting to become a common synonym for Bitcoin Nutters and it's their own fault.
This is what the general public thinks of you:

[BrewCrewFan]

Bitcoin is starting to become a common synonym for Bitcoin Nutters and it's their own fault.
This is what the general public thinks of you:

Many things in life that was not thought of as "normal" gets this kind of flack. The thing is, many of us were not on mother earth, let alone our parents when it happened. This is something that could be the next best thing sense sliced bread.