Volatility, ain't seen nothing yet, 10K to 1M in 1 year???

[indiemax]

Is it wrong that I hoard BTC? I collect and receive tips for 25 cents and hoard it as if it will be worth $500+ in 5 years. Everytime I see someone say 10 bits, I am thinking $10 dollars in the future

Hoarding is the way to go my friend.

how will hoarding add value?

if everyone sat on their coins the pump and dumpers will dictate the price

spending adds value

Wrong, the hoarders are the hero.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/im-hoarding-bitcoins-and-no-you-cant-have-any/

Haha! don't believe everything you read on the internet

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[cryptogeeknext]

Is it wrong that I hoard BTC? I collect and receive tips for 25 cents and hoard it as if it will be worth $500+ in 5 years. Everytime I see someone say 10 bits, I am thinking $10 dollars in the future

Hoarding is the way to go my friend.

how will hoarding add value?

if everyone sat on their coins the pump and dumpers will dictate the price

spending adds value

We've been playing the spending game for too long now, let the planet heal.

Elders are talking about new golden age, that will last for thousand of years.
If Bitcoin isn't new gold, I don't know what is.

[dinofelis]

But that is absolutely not merchant adoption. The argument is not whether it will be used as a means-of-exchange. That is a given. The argument is that this use case (currency) can only be fulfilled by its success as a store of value.

A means of exchange is exactly that: a store of value, but with the aim of using it as a means of exchange.  The store of value comes from the fact that there is a time lapse between the obtaining of your means of exchange (for instance, as a salary) and the moment of spending it (say, 2 weeks later).  
During these 2 weeks, the value of your delayed exchange is stored in the currency.   It is what gives the currency a market cap.  It comes about because it makes the velocity finite (inverse of the holding time).

What I wanted to say is that it needs less trust to store your wage in a currency for 2 or 3 weeks, rather than to store your retirement in a store of value for 20 years.  Moreover, the currency has on top of that the advantage of being able to be exchanged directly for stuff, while your store of value, if it is not a currency, first needs to be converted into a currency and then into goods and services.

Stores of value which have no other fundamental than "trust that it is a good store of value", need, well, a lot of trust.  Gold has that trust, because of its 5000 year history.  Famous paintings have that trust too, if they are old and famous enough.  New paintings don't.  They can be speculative assets.

The stocks in the stock market have discounted cash flows for them.  

[Flashman]

Shares in a company represent a real live company.  IRL.

Theoretically, but the valuation represents the markets best guess at future earnings of that company.

Some billion dollar software tech companies have only "really" consisted of an old warehouse, rented, divided into offices, a handful of computers, and a few employees. $50,000 including the potted plant in reception.

Sure.  The point I'm trying to make is a BTC represents nothing external to itself.
The value it represents is purely speculative--not even a potted plant in reception.

So while a software tech company might be 99% intangible, valued in fiat promises on paper that is 99% intangible, the last 0.01% tangibility that bitcoin doesn't have over that really bugs you? Interesting.

[brg444]

Absurd.

No one will accept a currency that has not first and foremost established itself as a store of value.

This is the very reason why you see merchants currently dumping BTC to fiat. They do not trust it to hold value. This sort of merchant adoption is certainly not what will drive the price of Bitcoin.

On the contrary.  A store of value needs much more trust than a currency, because the holding times are much shorter for a currency, and the possibilities to exchange it are much larger with a currency.

It is much less risky to be paid in an asset as a currency and spend that currency on several goods and services, than to store your retirement in that asset if trust in the asset is limited, because the currency, you keep it for a few weeks.  The retirement, you keep it for 30 years.  

I wouldn't mind be paid in bitcoin if I could spend my bitcoin when going to the supermarket, and buying petrol and so on.  I wouldn't care about the long-term evolution of bitcoin.  Hey, during one month, it won't change too much, right ?  However, I have no idea about in 20 years.

I don't mind getting paid in fiat either.  Actually, today, I need fiat to be able to buy my groceries !  So if I would be paid in bitcoin, I'd convert them to fiat to do my shopping.  Because with that fiat, I can buy stuff all over the place.  With bitcoin, not (yet).

Using a currency is much less risky than using a store of value in the long run.

It seems you don't understand what makes money.

The store of value feature and the currency aspect are not separate. For an object to become money it needs to offer both.

The one and only reason why something becomes money (and subsequently is used as currency) is that people trust it to hold value over time and be exchangeable for other goods and services.

So any currency is only useful as its ability to store value over a determinate amount of time as only then will people trust it to use as a means of exchange

[brg444]

But that is absolutely not merchant adoption. The argument is not whether it will be used as a means-of-exchange. That is a given. The argument is that this use case (currency) can only be fulfilled by its success as a store of value.

A means of exchange is exactly that: a store of value, but with the aim of using it as a means of exchange.  The store of value comes from the fact that there is a time lapse between the obtaining of your means of exchange (for instance, as a salary) and the moment of spending it (say, 2 weeks later).  
During these 2 weeks, the value of your delayed exchange is stored in the currency.   It is what gives the currency a market cap.  It comes about because it makes the velocity finite (inverse of the holding time).

What I wanted to say is that it needs less trust to store your wage in a currency for 2 or 3 weeks, rather than to store your retirement in a store of value for 20 years.  Moreover, the currency has on top of that the advantage of being able to be exchanged directly for stuff, while your store of value, if it is not a currency, first needs to be converted into a currency and then into goods and services.

Stores of value which have no other fundamental than "trust that it is a good store of value", need, well, a lot of trust.  Gold has that trust, because of its 5000 year history.  Famous paintings have that trust too, if they are old and famous enough.  New paintings don't.  They can be speculative assets.

The stocks in the stock market have discounted cash flows for them.  

Means-of-exchange and store of value are functions of money.

Means-of-exchange != Store of value.

Store of value function is not dependent on long term holding or time preference.

A store of value is the function of an asset that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a later time, and be predictably useful when retrieved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store_of_value

Bitcoin as money is both store of value, currency and unit of account.

Only when people will trust it to hold value can it get a foothold as a means-of-exchange.

To be widely acceptable, a medium of exchange should have a relatively stable purchasing power (real value)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_of_exchange

You are putting the cart before the horse

[NotLambchop]

Shares in a company represent a real live company.  IRL.

Theoretically, but the valuation represents the markets best guess at future earnings of that company.

Some billion dollar software tech companies have only "really" consisted of an old warehouse, rented, divided into offices, a handful of computers, and a few employees. $50,000 including the potted plant in reception.

Sure.  The point I'm trying to make is a BTC represents nothing external to itself.
The value it represents is purely speculative--not even a potted plant in reception.

So while a software tech company might be 99% intangible, valued in fiat promises on paper that is 99% intangible, the last 0.01% tangibility that bitcoin doesn't have over that really bugs you? Interesting.

You (intentionally?) missed the joke.  I'll explain it in dryer terms:

Stocks represent assets--both tangible [potted plants and such] and intangible [intellectual property, skills, etc., etc.].  Presumably your software co. has plenty of the latter.  If it truly has nothing more to offer than a potted plant in the lobby, I'd have to advise against investing--sounds like a typical Bitcoin scam co. to IPO in the "Securities" section

Bitcoin [the unit] does not represent anything beyond itself.  Or, rather, that it fits into this fork of the blockchain.  In other words, if the technology behind Bitcoin has value, owning BTC does not mean you own a share of that technology--simply an instance of the technology.

But, again, Bitcoin is less similar to the stock market than apples are to outboard motors.

[cryptogeeknext]

Shares in a company represent a real live company.  IRL.

Theoretically, but the valuation represents the markets best guess at future earnings of that company.

Some billion dollar software tech companies have only "really" consisted of an old warehouse, rented, divided into offices, a handful of computers, and a few employees. $50,000 including the potted plant in reception.

Sure.  The point I'm trying to make is a BTC represents nothing external to itself.
The value it represents is purely speculative--not even a potted plant in reception.

I disagree.

Bitcoin is literally a proof-of-work in conjunction with a point on an adoption curve.

The proof-of-work part is what makes it tangible IRL, the point in the adoption curve is what makes it relevant to society. Yes, the same thing in a vacuum wouldn't be of much value, but value is a social construct and Bitcoin has that.

[brg444]

Shares in a company represent a real live company.  IRL.

Theoretically, but the valuation represents the markets best guess at future earnings of that company.

Some billion dollar software tech companies have only "really" consisted of an old warehouse, rented, divided into offices, a handful of computers, and a few employees. $50,000 including the potted plant in reception.

Sure.  The point I'm trying to make is a BTC represents nothing external to itself.
The value it represents is purely speculative--not even a potted plant in reception.

I disagree.

Bitcoin is literally a proof-of-work in conjunction with a point on an adoption curve.

The proof-of-work part is what makes it tangible IRL, the point in the adoption curve is what makes it relevant to society. Yes, the same thing in a vacuum wouldn't be of much value, but value is a social construct and Bitcoin has that.

+1

Beautiful way to put it.

[DieJohnny]

If real mass adoption ever takes hold, which i think is still extremely speculative right now, we will see surges in one day in the thousands of dollars. The term Gap-up will seem completely inadequate.

There simply are not enough coins to deal with the number of people that will potentially be seeking them out.

We will go to sleep one day with the price at $3,500 and when you wake up it will be $15,000. Nothing will be able to stop the gaps up when the world's fiat begins to crumble.

In this future time, Bitcoin will be useful for payments for most of what you buy, Miners and all holders will not switch to Fiat for anything and everyone will be buying Bitcoin for their financial salvation.

1 Bitcoin will be like one share of Berkshire Hathaway, if you own one, you are basically a filthy rich bastard.

[coinableS]

1 Bitcoin will be like one share of Berkshire Hathaway, if you own one, you are basically a filthy rich bastard.

Had to google it:

Stock price: BRK.A (NYSE) $221,725.00 +672.17 (+0.30%)
Nov 25, 4:00 PM EST

0.3% was a $600+ change, now that would be fun to trade.

[brg444]

If real mass adoption ever takes hold, which i think is still extremely speculative right now, we will see surges in one day in the thousands of dollars. The term Gap-up will seem completely inadequate.

There simply are not enough coins to deal with the number of people that will potentially be seeking them out.

We will go to sleep one day with the price at $3,500 and when you wake up it will be $15,000. Nothing will be able to stop the gaps up when the world's fiat begins to crumble.

In this future time, Bitcoin will be useful for payments for most of what you buy, Miners and all holders will not switch to Fiat for anything and everyone will be buying Bitcoin for their financial salvation.

1 Bitcoin will be like one share of Berkshire Hathaway, if you own one, you are basically a filthy rich bastard.

This is also why your never "cash out"

[NotLambchop]

...
I disagree.

Bitcoin is literally a proof-of-work in conjunction with a point on an adoption curve.

The proof-of-work part is what makes it tangible IRL, the point in the adoption curve is what makes it relevant to society. Yes, the same thing in a vacuum wouldn't be of much value, but value is a social construct and Bitcoin has that.

I set out to delineate the difference between Bitcoin and the stock market, not the value of Bitcoin.  But I'll follow your tangent.

"Proof of work" is not proof of useful work.  It's proof that an amazing amounts of electricity was wasted on what amounts to little more than digital thumb twiddling.  Useful to ASIC manufacturers?  Sure.  Useful to mining contract resellers?  Yeah.  But useful to society as a whole?  Not really.

How useful is a currency that consumes 10% of its market cap, each year, to secure?  Well, if Satoshi is right, and price of mining does approach the price of mined coins, then Bitcoin is costing just that:  ~10% of all the coins in existence were mined this year

[DieJohnny]

1 Bitcoin will be like one share of Berkshire Hathaway, if you own one, you are basically a filthy rich bastard.

Had to google it:

Stock price: BRK.A (NYSE) $221,725.00 +672.17 (+0.30%)
Nov 25, 4:00 PM EST

0.3% was a $600+ change, now that would be fun to trade.

I had the chance to buy a share at 15k, i thought it was insanely expensive.....  so I bought a car instead, stupid stupid stupid

[goldsun]

If more people starts to use bitcoins, the demand is higher and the price rise.

But if it hits for example $5k, lots of people might sell their coins to fiat. Wouldn't this lead to a price fall, or will the price just be the same? Depending on the demand and how many people want to buy at that time.

There is some speculations in other threads etc saying that it could go up to low 5 digit, not sure what they base this on, maybe exponential growth.

And we still have to take in consideration that bitcoin is not easy to handle for people who don't know more then the average about computers and internet. And some of the bitcoiners see it as an investment and not a currency.

Correct me if I am wrong!

[DieJohnny]

If more people starts to use bitcoins, the demand is higher and the price rise.

But if it hits for example $5k, lots of people might sell their coins to fiat. Wouldn't this lead to a price fall, or will the price just be the same? Depending on the demand and how many people want to buy at that time.

There is some speculations in other threads etc saying that it could go up to low 5 digit, not sure what they base this on, maybe exponential growth.

And we still have to take in consideration that bitcoin is not easy to handle for people who don't know more then the average about computers and internet. And some of the bitcoiners see it as an investment and not a currency.

Correct me if I am wrong!

We are currently in the speculation phase, each bump up has an army of holders ready to cash out to make their millions. Soon Bitcoin will bump up and there will be no safe haven for your value. You won't want to cash out of Bitcoin for any reason because fiat currencies will be such a bad option. Holders will simply hold and hold.

It may not be the next bump but I think it will be within 5 years. I think we will see 1 more purely speculative bump with a crash, but then you get a fiat replacement bump that will blow our minds... gapping up in ways that will make you sick to your stomach, only stopping at the very top of what Bitcoin can ever be worth.

Be grateful you have any coins right now, because in the future you will never buy even 1 with your life's savings of fiat.

[brg444]

...
I disagree.

Bitcoin is literally a proof-of-work in conjunction with a point on an adoption curve.

The proof-of-work part is what makes it tangible IRL, the point in the adoption curve is what makes it relevant to society. Yes, the same thing in a vacuum wouldn't be of much value, but value is a social construct and Bitcoin has that.

I set out to delineate the difference between Bitcoin and the stock market, not the value of Bitcoin.  But I'll follow your tangent.

"Proof of work" is not proof of useful work.  It's proof that an amazing amounts of electricity was wasted on what amounts to little more than digital thumb twiddling.  Useful to ASIC manufacturers?  Sure.  Useful to mining contract resellers?  Yeah.  But useful to society as a whole?  Not really.

How useful is a currency that consumes 10% of its market cap, each year, to secure?  Well, if Satoshi is right, and price of mining does approach the price of mined coins, then Bitcoin is costing just that:  ~10% of all the coins in existence were mined this year

It is arguably the only way to create an immutable, decentralized ledger. Not useful work? Very much useful since without the work the chain is not secure.

How useful is a currency that is easily attacked and vulnerable to corruption?

[NotLambchop]

...
I disagree.

Bitcoin is literally a proof-of-work in conjunction with a point on an adoption curve.

The proof-of-work part is what makes it tangible IRL, the point in the adoption curve is what makes it relevant to society. Yes, the same thing in a vacuum wouldn't be of much value, but value is a social construct and Bitcoin has that.

I set out to delineate the difference between Bitcoin and the stock market, not the value of Bitcoin.  But I'll follow your tangent.

"Proof of work" is not proof of useful work.  It's proof that an amazing amounts of electricity was wasted on what amounts to little more than digital thumb twiddling.  Useful to ASIC manufacturers?  Sure.  Useful to mining contract resellers?  Yeah.  But useful to society as a whole?  Not really.

How useful is a currency that consumes 10% of its market cap, each year, to secure?  Well, if Satoshi is right, and price of mining does approach the price of mined coins, then Bitcoin is costing just that:  ~10% of all the coins in existence were mined this year

It is arguably the only way to create an immutable, decentralized ledger. Not useful work? Very much useful since without the work the chain is not secure.

How useful is a currency that is easily attacked and vulnerable to corruption?

You are starting with a few dubious assumptions:

1. An immutable, decentralized ledger is the right way to do money.
2. Ten percent, yearly, of the entire worth of Bitcoin (or any currency) is a reasonable amount to spend on security.
3. The current supermine distribution is decentralized and immune to corruption.

[dinofelis]

Means-of-exchange and store of value are functions of money.

Means-of-exchange != Store of value.

A means of exchange is always a store of value, between the moment of earning, and the moment of spending.  The wiki article talks about intrinsic value, which is often the genesis of a means of exchange (originally postulated by Menger).  It is often a medium with high intrinsic (usage) value, and also high tradability.
In as much as that means of exchange has a total "stored value as value store" which is far below its market cap as a useful good, its value is essentially given by its intrinsic value, and not its monetary value.

However, for assets which have low, or zero, intrinsic value, such as gold and bitcoin, all of their value is derived from its monetary function, that is, from the demand for it as a store of value. 

Now, you will argue that that goes against my argument, and that such a medium must become first a store of value before becoming a medium of exchange.  My point is that a medium of exchange *automatically* implies a function of store of value (because of the finite holding times between earning and spending), and that this is a much more *solid* way of conferring the function of storage of value, than the pure store of value function without it being a medium of exchange.

Bitcoin has no function as store of value without medium of exchange on short holding times.  There's no point in converting your salary from fiat to bitcoin in the beginning of the month, and to convert those coins back to fiat each time you want to purchase (in fiat, as bitcoin is then, under this hypothesis, not a medium of exchange, and only fiat is). 
Holding fiat for the rest of the month is just as good.  The hassle isn't worth it.

So the only pure store of value function of bitcoin is in the long term.  My point is that that needs a lot of trust if there is no "to the moon" speculation drive anymore, which won't exist anymore if we "are at the moon". 

On the other hand, merchant adoption can confer the store of value function to bitcoin in the short term, because you hold it between getting it and spending it.  That doesn't need much trust.  If I can BUY stuff in bitcoin, I wouldn't mind my salary to be paid in bitcoin.  And automatically, bitcoin becomes a store of value, for a few weeks, the time I spend it.  I don't have to worry about its long-term exchange rate variation. 

In the beginning, I would want my salary to be paid in bitcoin, but calculated in fiat, as for me, bitcoin could just as well go to $10, - as it could go to $1000.-   Most merchants would also do so.

Only after years of practice, and after bitcoin would take up value because of its exchange storage of value, people may start trusting bitcoin on the longer term (without "to the moon" speculation drive).

[goldsun]

If more people starts to use bitcoins, the demand is higher and the price rise.

But if it hits for example $5k, lots of people might sell their coins to fiat. Wouldn't this lead to a price fall, or will the price just be the same? Depending on the demand and how many people want to buy at that time.

There is some speculations in other threads etc saying that it could go up to low 5 digit, not sure what they base this on, maybe exponential growth.

And we still have to take in consideration that bitcoin is not easy to handle for people who don't know more then the average about computers and internet. And some of the bitcoiners see it as an investment and not a currency.

Correct me if I am wrong!

We are currently in the speculation phase, each bump up has an army of holders ready to cash out to make their millions. Soon Bitcoin will bump up and there will be no safe haven for your value. You won't want to cash out of Bitcoin for any reason because fiat currencies will be such a bad option. Holders will simply hold and hold.

It may not be the next bump but I think it will be within 5 years. I think we will see 1 more purely speculative bump with a crash, but then you get a fiat replacement bump that will blow our minds... gapping up in ways that will make you sick to your stomach, only stopping at the very top of what Bitcoin can ever be worth.

Be grateful you have any coins right now, because in the future you will never buy even 1 with your life's savings of fiat.

I also think the demand will be higher for bitcoins in the future as more rich people might put some of their savings in btc. But I am not sure about if we will go away from fiat totally. Maybe this will just become a good first or second alternativt payment system or what ever one wants to call it.

What is your statment based on when you say that even 1 btc will be so epxensive that one can't buy it with all their lifesavings in fiat? It's interesting but some has 4 digits in lifesavings and some up to 6 digits, just to use some logic numbers.

Do you think that the next halving will effect the price in a huge way? Since by then more people have adopted bitcoins than before. And if we know that bitcoins would go up a lot in value it would not be so useful to spend it yet.

And the question still kind of remains, if the price goes up to a new all time high, will it stay there if some people want to cash out to fiat? Or will the price drop.