What if Bitcoin just levels off?

[Nagle]

Since the beginning of October, the price of Bitcoin has been about where it is now, $350 ±  50. There were brief excursions outside that range, but they didn't last. Difficulty has also leveled off. The last difficulty was a slight downward change.

What if that's what 2015 looks like? The Silk Road and China bubbles have run its course. Without some big outside event, there's no particular reason for the price to move much.

The speculators would be bored, but as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin might be more useful.

[Bobsurplus]

Since the beginning of October, the price of Bitcoin has been about where it is now, $350 ±  50. There were brief excursions outside that range, but they didn't last. Difficulty has also leveled off. The last difficulty was a slight downward change.

What if that's what 2015 looks like? The Silk Road and China bubbles have run its course. Without some big outside event, there's no particular reason for the price to move much.

The speculators would be bored, but as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin might be more useful.

I have three letters for you.

ETF

Have a good day!

[NarC]

Agreed.

A stable bitcoin will be great for mainstream. Although there are alot of users that have large amounts of bitcoin, manipulation could be one factor for price fluctuation?

[Bobsurplus]

Agreed.

A stable bitcoin will be great for mainstream. Although there are alot of users that have large amounts of bitcoin, manipulation could be one factor for price fluctuation?

Not once the ETF hits. Once that happens all the early adopters, and major bitcoin holders wont be able to manipulate the market anymore... On the flip side.. the market still will be manipulated, just by the banks and the hedge funds...

[pawel7777]

Not once the ETF hits. Once that happens all the early adopters, and major bitcoin holders wont be able to manipulate the market anymore... On the flip side.. the market still will be manipulated, just by the banks and the hedge funds...

How's that? What will prevent major holders from manipulating the market?

[bitcoin_purist]

Price is not going to level off.
Price is going much lower from here.
I've heard it could go as low as 220 from someone who made a lot of bitcoins with trading.
Of course it will go up afterwards, so stay calm and hodl if you're not sure what to do.

[Bobsurplus]

Not once the ETF hits. Once that happens all the early adopters, and major bitcoin holders wont be able to manipulate the market anymore... On the flip side.. the market still will be manipulated, just by the banks and the hedge funds...

How's that? What will prevent major holders from manipulating the market?

Ummmm... How about the TRILLIONS of dollars that's managed by the banks and the hedge funds.

 

Whats a 5B market cap to people who play with trillions???

 

[wadili89]

Levelling off is good as it means Bitcoins can be used what they were intended to do - act as a currency. The high volatility means it is not useful as currency yet, stability will be good in that regard.

[pawel7777]

Not once the ETF hits. Once that happens all the early adopters, and major bitcoin holders wont be able to manipulate the market anymore... On the flip side.. the market still will be manipulated, just by the banks and the hedge funds...

How's that? What will prevent major holders from manipulating the market?

Ummmm... How about the TRILLIONS of dollars that's managed by the banks and the hedge funds.

 

Whats a 5B market cap to people who play with trillions???

 

Doesn't matter. Sure, it won't be possible anymore to manipulate with few thousands $, but we're talking about majority BITCOIN holders. Those will still be able to play with the market price, maybe not for long, but still.

[Bobsurplus]

Not once the ETF hits. Once that happens all the early adopters, and major bitcoin holders wont be able to manipulate the market anymore... On the flip side.. the market still will be manipulated, just by the banks and the hedge funds...

How's that? What will prevent major holders from manipulating the market?

Ummmm... How about the TRILLIONS of dollars that's managed by the banks and the hedge funds.

 

Whats a 5B market cap to people who play with trillions???

 

Doesn't matter. Sure, it won't be possible anymore to manipulate with few thousands $, but we're talking about majority BITCOIN holders. Those will still be able to play with the market price, maybe not for long, but still.

You dont get it..

[pawel7777]

Not once the ETF hits. Once that happens all the early adopters, and major bitcoin holders wont be able to manipulate the market anymore... On the flip side.. the market still will be manipulated, just by the banks and the hedge funds...

How's that? What will prevent major holders from manipulating the market?

Ummmm... How about the TRILLIONS of dollars that's managed by the banks and the hedge funds.

 

Whats a 5B market cap to people who play with trillions???

 

Doesn't matter. Sure, it won't be possible anymore to manipulate with few thousands $, but we're talking about majority BITCOIN holders. Those will still be able to play with the market price, maybe not for long, but still.

You dont get it..

Obviously, that's why I asked.

What's going to prevent Satoshi from crashing the price if he decides to dump his 1 million BTC? ELI5?

[mlferro]

I agree and hope not

[electerium]

Bob is right.

Once the ETF launches, it will create demand in it of itself. Too many money and large account managers will be tempted to hold some ETF in their accounts just out of principle. Even if many many many of these people only allocate 0.01% of their funds into the Bitcoin ETF, that translates to billions in it of itself; and the ETF is usually bound to have an expected, known and constant backing of actual bitcoin which must increase relative to shares held/sold.

[exoton]

I agree that if/when the COIN EFT (or any other bitcoin EFT) finally launches, the price will likely launch upward significantly as many more people will have the opportunity to invest and invest in a way that does not require them to use advanced security measures to keep their investment from getting stolen.

In response to the question in the OP - it would likely result in higher overall consumer adoption as consumers will be less at risk to have their purchasing power chance between the time they buy their bitcoin and the time they get to spend it

[maurya78]

I wouldn't mind this scenario. At the end of the day, we presumably want bitcoin to succeed more than we want to profit from appreciation.
That said, can't see it pan out that way. History of volatility too deep, will kick in again at some point.

[BittBurger]

Stability?

Im not sure we realize what stability means when it comes to a currency.

The fluctuations Bitcoin has right now are still astronomical for "stability in a currency".

We are not in a "stable" place with Bitcoin.  Never have been, yet.

When Bitcoin no longer budges aside from a quarter-of-a-penny in US Dollar worth on a daily basis, then you have the stability needed for a "stable currency".

And when do you think that is going to become the reality?

-B-

[jc01480]

I agree that it will go much lower if not equivalent to where alt coins are present day.  After that we'll experience sporadic spikes nothing like the 2012-2013 one.  Much smaller in scale.  Do what the U.S. does to increase value: start another war...  I kid.

[QuestionAuthority]

Bitcoin will never level off. It's just going to keep increasing in value as more users enter the market. That doesn't mean tomorrow. It might take 20 years but eventually it will happen. There will be down trends during that time but overall it has to increase in value because of the built in scarcity.

[Ektra]

I wouldn't rule out bouncing around in a range.. That range would probably be measured in the hundreds of dollars wide, though.

[Melbustus]

Bitcoin now looks like a mature technology. The software has settled down, there's been a modest level of merchant adoption, the transaction rate hasn't increased all that much over the last six months, and the legal status has become clear. The mining side is running into power consumption cost as a limit. Bitcoin isn't a new thing any more.

With Bitcoin out of its startup phase, what happens now?  It's starting to look like a niche product, positioned somewhat like gift cards. There are a number of pseudo-currencies like that - airline frequent flyer miles, all those "reward point" schemes, and the big array of prepaid cards available at retail outlets. They're just little convenience things; they have no significant impact on the financial system. It looks like that's where Bitcoin is settling.

John, you've been consistently wrong analyzing bitcoin's ecosystem and long-term prospects for years. Aggressively wrong, in fact:

We might see $3.  After each big drop, there's been some recovery. But each top was lower than the last, and each recovery lasted no more than three days.

no one's listening to you.

Actually, I've received several private messages recently thanking me for keeping them from making a big financial mistake.

Now let's have a look at "cypherdoc"'s track record:

• September 3, 2011: "while the falloff has been dramatic, it appears to be stabilizing around this 8-10 range.  i keep accumulating on the way down.  just give it time.  they can't stop it."
• August 4, 2011: "Re: $10,000 Bet that Bitcoins will outperform Gold, Silver by 100X !!! --- i happen to agree and i've staked my money on it!!!!"
• July 9, 2011: "i will also bet any or all of you btc bears/trolls in this thread 100 BTC each to be held in escrow that the USD price of 1 BTC will exceed $20 in one year."

If he's telling the truth, he's lost a lot of money in Bitcoin. Anybody fool enough to listen to him did, too.

Those people you kept from "making a big financial mistake"....you actually prevented from making a 5000%-10000% return!



A few more quotes:

I've been saying "long slow slide" for months.  That happened. Now we're seeing the endgame, which looks like the endgame for most penny stocks. The volume is low, around $50,000 per day.  Some of that is 'bots running the same money back and forth; the actual volume out of the market is smaller. The price moves around whenever anybody makes a sizable transaction. I'm not expecting a big drop, just random noise with a long-term downtrend.

Bitcoin is now useless as a currency, because liquidating the day's receipts for one reasonably sized store would crash the market.

The end is coming not with a bang, but with a whimper.

...It's zombie mode, the fate of many startups. They're not going anywhere, they can't pay back their investors, but they generate just enough activity to keep alive.

And I just briefly looked at your post history cuz I remember your trolling from 2011. You have many months worth of posts predicting the "endgame" of bitcoin as a result of the 2011 ramp and fall. There are probably a good deal more blantantly wrong predictions/statements from you that one could dig up.

A couple interesting quotes, though:

...
I'd like to see a digital currency that works well enough to compete with Paypal. I've seen Digicash, Beenz, and Flooz tank.  Bitcoin isn't going to do much better.

...
Bitcoin's innovation is not that it prevents double-spending.  That was invented by David Chaum in the 1990s and formed the basis of DigiCash. Nor is "mining" new; that's from Hashcash in the 1990s. Bitcoin combines the two concepts. The end result is a lot like Digicash, but distributed. 

Despite the fact that you seem to realize that bitcoin is the first decentralized digital cash (and hence, the first *actual* realization of the efforts of all those early digital-money guys from the 80s and 90s; ie, their "holy grail" of money), you dump it into the same bucket as Digicash, Beenz, and Flooz. THAT is possibly the core source of your intellectual errors. Bitcoin is indeed not the first digital cash system. It's just the first decentralized one, and therefore, the first ideal money for modern times. That makes it a different beast entirely.