<btc talk users bad, black market bad, btc full of scams negative spin>
Black market is used by a financially skewed media to paint bitcoin badly which is unfortunate. But black market usage of btc gives the currency value and utility just as much as buying a laptop from dell. Not only that bitcoin was used when btc was 1000 dollars or 275 dollars.
As we have discussed on other threads bitcoin is still nascent and volatile. It is my view (and it could be wrong) that btc userbase is growing and could easily drive the btc marketcap up a couple of orders of magnitude without being more than a digital trading asset.
People discount
BTC the coming ETF's as being unlikely to be approved or being already priced in (LOL), but there is money to be made and regulated derivatives markets are now coming out so I think it is simply a matter of timing now.
It could be drawn out until the next halving, but once the multi trillion dollar pool of capital currently excluded for regular investors from a tax free regulated entry into btc opens up it will be fireworks.
The last runup took probably a few hundred million dollars to drive up the price into four digits. It doesn't take a genius to see the profit motive for large holders prior to ETF's being approved. People like to hold a portion of their portfolio in something high risk, btc will be an option. A rise of two or three orders of magnitude from here is not unreasonable IMO.
Great point. Wall Street is not going to leave money on the table. They are going to take positions off-exchange, being careful not to prematurely cause a bubble. When the high-throughput fiat on-ramp is ready, and they have taken their positions, they will spark the mother-of-all-bubbles.
