The lower the price the worse for Bitcoin?

[HarmonLi]

Unfortunately a lot of people had the opinion that they "couldn't afford to buy in" at higher prices, even though that argument is meaningless.  You have ALWAYS been able to buy $x worth of BTC; it's just the amount of BTC that the $x buys that varies.

However, with lower prices its harder for people to make the argument.  And for everyone who is so concerned about the concentration of coins with the top holders - now is your time to help level the field if you are really concerned.  There is a reason the top holders keep increasing their stash - they believe in the future.  So while lower prices mean it's easier for them to accumulate more, it also means it's easier for EVERYONE to accumulate more.

Exactly. Furthermore, the lower the price, the larger the share of the total supply that can be bought for a fixed dollar amount. If these whales have a determined, fixed amount of cash that they are going to invest, then they will be able to buy up more of the total supply at a given time.

Yeah. Especially if the price has been higher before - a higher price has already been established so to say. That's exactly the reason why we're now at least somewhat slowing down on our way down. This is the process of "finding the bottom"

[mlferro]

In current state price and Bitcoin as technology are well connected to a certain extent. And that's how it should be.

A decent price gives new and current miners more confidence in buying (more) equipment to start/continue mining when they think they are able to get something back.

Bitcoin as technology is solid, and that won't change because the price keeps going down.

For investors price is very important, but that's their problem.

decent price gives more confidence in buying miners? i think if the price would be 2x there would me much more confidence than there is now

for sure, for almentar encouragement to the miners, the price has to this high

[Edward50]

My take on it is that the bitcoin community is right now not that much larger than when bitcoin was $13 dollars.

I also think that fresh money going into buying bitcoins is probably even less right now then when bitcoin was $13 dollars. I just don't see a lot of people going to spend fresh money on $300 dollar bitcoins.

This is why the price continues to fall. The only reason it doesn't fall back to the old levels is because perceived value has changed, people actually think the price should even be higher than $300 so they are not willing to sell them.

But this can only go on for so long, eventually peoples perceived value will change and get lower and lower and the price should continue to fall slowly back to around $20-$50 which is what bitcoin should have grown to in the years since it was $13.

Just my take on it, and I am not sure if perceived value is the right word to use here.

To sum it up, the value is only being held high because people think bitcoin is worth more than it is and not willing to sell yet at a lower price but they eventually will sell it at a lower price with time as the current price is unsustainably high.

Make sense to anybody?

[Q7]

Is this true? The cheaper these things are the worse the distribution will be. It will be easier for one or a few entities to own a majority of the coins at 10 bucks or a hundred. So doesn't this mean that as the price falls we are sort of becoming..like..less good

But when price is low, it is also easier for anyone to own a majority of the coin. Where's the exception anyway? If price was like at the high side, a newbie naturally would hesitate to get a lot of the coins. So maybe a 100 bucks investment will come up with something like 0.35 of a coin. Psychological to that person that sounds like very little return for the fiat money that they put in.

[tatu]

The price is all relative to supply and demand. The lower it gets the more people decide to buy in and then that has a knock on effect and up creeps the price. The market dictates the price so we need to concentrate on spreading adoption to merchants if we want to see big gains but this will happen over time and not overnight.

[poncho32]

Is this true? The cheaper these things are the worse the distribution will be. It will be easier for one or a few entities to own a majority of the coins at 10 bucks or a hundred. So doesn't this mean that as the price falls we are sort of becoming..like..less good

But when price is low, it is also easier for anyone to own a majority of the coin. Where's the exception anyway? If price was like at the high side, a newbie naturally would hesitate to get a lot of the coins. So maybe a 100 bucks investment will come up with something like 0.35 of a coin. Psychological to that person that sounds like very little return for the fiat money that they put in.

Additionally, total newbies don't understand you can buy a small fraction of a bitcoin. They often think you have to buy a whole one. At $1000 they don't even investigate further, but the lower the price gets the more total newbies might start investigating bitcoin, then discover you can buy $5 worth.

[dinofelis]

My take on it is that the bitcoin community is right now not that much larger than when bitcoin was $13 dollars.

I also think that fresh money going into buying bitcoins is probably even less right now then when bitcoin was $13 dollars. I just don't see a lot of people going to spend fresh money on $300 dollar bitcoins.

This is why the price continues to fall. The only reason it doesn't fall back to the old levels is because perceived value has changed, people actually think the price should even be higher than $300 so they are not willing to sell them.

This is obviously impossible.  At an inflation rate of 3600 coins per day today, at roughly $300, of course more money is flowing net into bitcoin than at an inflation rate of 7200 coins per day at $13.

That's basic arithmetic I'd think.

[dinofelis]

The price is all relative to supply and demand. The lower it gets the more people decide to buy in

That's not really the behavior of a speculative asset.  It would be if it were a consumption or a capital asset.  However, the price *evolution* of gives often an (erroneous) idea of the future behavior.  A long decline is not especially inspiring for a high future value.  A purely speculative asset usually has self-fulfilling price evolution: if it goes down, it has tendency to go even more down because holders panic sell ; if it rises, people buy in more and more (typical bubble behavior) and price spikes even more - until the amount of "bigger fools" runs out, and one falls into the first category.

Bitcoin in the long run is not supposed to be a purely speculative asset, but rather a currency, used to buy stuff with.  In that case, the sheer demand for coins to be able to buy stuff is a fundamental and determines (at least part of) the price.

[Torque]

it could go the opposite way
10 dollar coins could get a new load of people involved that couldnt afford to buy in before
when a coin costed around 600usd 

Someone needs to put this stupid theory to bed, that a higher exchange rate turns people away.  If this is the case then a single bitcoin will never ever reach $10k/btc, just like gold will never reach $1200/ounce.... oh wait.

[Morecoin Freeman]

it could go the opposite way
10 dollar coins could get a new load of people involved that couldnt afford to buy in before
when a coin costed around 600usd  

Someone needs to put this stupid theory to bed, that a higher exchange rate turns people away.  If this is the case then a single bitcoin will never ever reach $10k/btc, just like gold will never reach $1200/ounce.... oh wait.

Above person is right. Higher price value will actually attract more money/investors.
That is also why most traders fail. They buy when price is way up and sell when price is down.

I'm not even going to argue about this. More people will buy into bitcoin at $1.000,- per coin than at $1,- per coin.

[Bernard Lerring]

Is the price everything though? I'd have thought that this thread is ignoring the fact that people pay attention to the news and none of us are sure what the economic climate is going to look like every year from 2015-2016-2017-etc-etc.

If we start getting really bad news reports about global economics (or even just western economics), combined with gradually more people knowing about Bitcoin then it might get them thinking "Why am I putting savings into a bank account that may go under? Lemme have another look at this Bitcoin thing..."

So I don't think it's just about price.

I have a small amount of BTC bought from $600 downwards and I'll hold until the miners switch their gear off. That may seem like a waste of money but look at what we're dealing with here: it's a new economy model.

I just hope that those in power haven't got enough power or guile to screw up Bitcoin, for the sake of the average Joe trying to save his hard-earned the best way he can.

[Pecunia non olet]

Is this true? The cheaper these things are the worse the distribution will be. It will be easier for one or a few entities to own a majority of the coins at 10 bucks or a hundred. So doesn't this mean that as the price falls we are sort of becoming..like..less good

yes, correct. But bag-selling permabulltards going to tell you the opposite.

tl,dr rest of the thread.

[dinofelis]

Is this true? The cheaper these things are the worse the distribution will be. It will be easier for one or a few entities to own a majority of the coins at 10 bucks or a hundred. So doesn't this mean that as the price falls we are sort of becoming..like..less good

yes, correct. But bag-selling permabulltards going to tell you the opposite.

tl,dr rest of the thread.

No, it isn't.  Because "big money" will not be interested in buying a failed coin that has fallen to, say, $10,-.
And if ever they do, that will pump up the price a lot.
On the other hand, even with not much money one can buy large fractions of bitcoin when it is $10,-

So when price falls very low again, it will not so much be a matter of financial power, but of belief/desire/hope/....

If several times, most players will think bitcoin is definitely dead, a total re-distribution of coins will happen, and that will NOT be dictated by big capital, but by totally random elements such as belief/desire/hope....

Hey, if bitcoin falls to $0.01, with only $100 000 you can buy up half of all coins !  Now that's in the reach of many many people, and not just big players.  If bitcoin falls to $0.01, NO big player will touch it.  All big players will have unloaded their stashes since long.  Most if not all "this is gentlemen" first adopters will have stepped out.

If price goes yoyo between sub $ and over $1000,- a few times, redistribution will be totally random.

If bitcoin fails ultimately, its distribution doesn't matter :-)

So what we can say is that after a serious drop down:
1) the coins will be redistributed much more randomly whenever it rises again or
2) it doesn't matter if it doesn't rise again.

[piramida]

So what we can say is that after a serious drop down:
1) the coins will be redistributed much more randomly whenever it rises again or
2) it doesn't matter if it doesn't rise again.

People who seek "random" or "fair" distribution, in my mind, are small kids or grown-ups with kids minds, who don't have a slightest clue about this world yet. Even if you give each person on earth 0.01 bitcoin and take all other forms of money away, in like 2 days 90% of the coins will be in the hands of a few wealthy elite and the rest will be poor beggar trolls. That is just the way humans are, most can not be rich for long, and in the competitive environment - which is any environment with more than 1 human in it - the fittest wins. So there is absolutely no problem with the current distribution - all the people who got coins they didn't deserve have lost them long time ago. Some are losing them now. It rebalances automatically according to a Gaussian distribution, and there is absolutely nothing silly commies can do about it, even pure communist states have wealthy elites right from the start.

So yeah, tldr: low price cycles give a few smart people who didn't hear about bitcoin before the chance to join the top. But there will never be anything "fair" about wealth. It takes courage, strength of character and mental stability to stay rich; don't watch too much hollywood BS about dream come true by miracle No miracles, only maybe temporary happiness then poor again in a year, after fortune has been blown away on unrealized poor man's wishes.

[dinofelis]

So what we can say is that after a serious drop down:
1) the coins will be redistributed much more randomly whenever it rises again or
2) it doesn't matter if it doesn't rise again.

People who seek "random" or "fair" distribution, in my mind, are small kids or grown-ups with kids minds, who don't have a slightest clue about this world yet. Even if you give each person on earth 0.01 bitcoin and take all other forms of money away, in like 2 days 90% of the coins will be in the hands of a few wealthy elite and the rest will be poor beggar trolls.

I'm not talking about wealth accumulation, I'm talking about seigniorage.  Seigniorage is "unfair", as it is value obtained against nothing.  I'm not talking about "all equal wealth".  I'm talking about random (not even equal) seigniorage distribution, which is probably much more fair than a few initial minters sitting on all of the stash and obtaining most of the seigniorage.

So yeah, tldr: low price cycles give a few smart people who didn't hear about bitcoin before the chance to join the top. But there will never be anything "fair" about wealth.

I wasn't talking about any "fair distribution of wealth".  But just about "fair distribution of seigniorage".

Indeed, the best way would have been to give "everybody initially the same amount of coins", but that is of course not possible.  Shaking is the next best thing. That was my point.

[Amph]

Bitcoin has a hard road ahead. We will see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin continued this downtrend...

it will stop at one point, can't decline indefinitely, there are simply no buy pressure right now, that's it

[panju1]

Is this true? The cheaper these things are the worse the distribution will be. It will be easier for one or a few entities to own a majority of the coins at 10 bucks or a hundred. So doesn't this mean that as the price falls we are sort of becoming..like..less good

As bitcoin gets cheaper, more people might get attracted to it.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that the distribution is getting more skewed.

[Amph]

Bitcoin has a hard road ahead. We will see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin continued this downtrend...

it will stop at one point, can't decline indefinitely, there are simply no buy pressure right now, that's it

stop? not so fast
one more year for 3.6k coins sale per day
how many more years for 1.8 and 900?
it will not stop even bitcoin drops to sub $1, $0.001 is better than $0/nill

we are already at 3.6 k a day, in one year will be 1.8, 900 i don't know, search for block halving

sub 1 is not possible man, an enormous buy pressure will rise long before that, otherwise it just die

there isn't any 0 or 1 or others stupid value like that, i think that under sub 100 or 50 it may just die and not recover anymore

[Odalv]

Bitcoin has a hard road ahead. We will see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin continued this downtrend...

it will stop at one point, can't decline indefinitely, there are simply no buy pressure right now, that's it

stop? not so fast
one more year for 3.6k coins sale per day
how many more years for 1.8 and 900?
it will not stop even bitcoin drops to sub $1, $0.001 is better than $0/nill

we are already at 3.6 k a day, in one year will be 1.8, 900 i don't know, search for block halving

sub 1 is not possible man, an enormous buy pressure will rise long before that, otherwise it just die

there isn't any 0 or 1 or others stupid value like that, i think that under sub 100 or 50 it may just die and not recover anymore

few bull scammers will keep buying this ponzi coin sub $0.001 and claim it's alive or whatever

Maybe bitcoin will never go sub $250. Bitcoin is alive now and will be alive next year ... next decade ... and so on.
"$0.001" is joke

[piramida]

Bitcoin has a hard road ahead. We will see what happens. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin continued this downtrend...

it will stop at one point, can't decline indefinitely, there are simply no buy pressure right now, that's it

stop? not so fast
one more year for 3.6k coins sale per day
how many more years for 1.8 and 900?
it will not stop even bitcoin drops to sub $1, $0.001 is better than $0/nill

we are already at 3.6 k a day, in one year will be 1.8, 900 i don't know, search for block halving

sub 1 is not possible man, an enormous buy pressure will rise long before that, otherwise it just die

there isn't any 0 or 1 or others stupid value like that, i think that under sub 100 or 50 it may just die and not recover anymore

few bull scammers will keep buying this ponzi coin sub $0.001 and claim it's alive or whatever

don't worry, I promise to buy all of them at $0.001 just for historic preservation, so you will never see sub-0.001 prices in your life.