Bitcoin's price seems to be the final indicator of it's success or failure!

[cuddaloreappu]

Under whatever metric we evaluate bitcoin ,

By consumer adoption, by merchant adoption, by use value, venture capital invested etc, etc,

it seems finally that the price is the single largest indicator of its success or failure! period

because even when other metrics are low and price is in an upswing everybody praise bitcoin but when every other metric is good and price is down then everybody calls bitcoin a failure like they call now..

Bitcoin to reach mainstream the truth is the price has to go to moon like nov13...the only people will flock to bitcoin..

No matter bitcoin gets accepted by Microsoft today and Facebook tomorrow! still mainstream people wont give a shit about bitcoins!

But a craze that price will increase like the dotcom bubble will flock people in and make it successful!

[inBitweTrust]

Price is indeed important at minimum from PR perspective. Now that Bitcoin has entered into the collective subconscious of the public , what will happen when it surpasses 1100 again in 2016? Mass Adoption?

[FederalReserveofWIP]

Under whatever metric we evaluate bitcoin ,

By consumer adoption, by merchant adoption, by use value, venture capital invested etc, etc,

it seems finally that the price is the single largest indicator of its success or failure! period

because even when other metrics are low and price is in an upswing everybody praise bitcoin but when every other metric is good and price is down then everybody calls bitcoin a failure like they call now..

Bitcoin to reach mainstream the truth is the price has to go to moon like nov13...the only people will flock to bitcoin..

No matter bitcoin gets accepted by Microsoft today and Facebook tomorrow! still mainstream people wont give a shit about bitcoins!

But a craze that price will increase like the dotcom bubble will flock people in and make it successful!

At the Federal Reserve of WIP (name change pending) we are performing evaluation of the basis for online currency systems.  In line with requests, we are working on rolling out parts of the system that are much higher-throughput than up through today.  (And for the moment WIP transfers have been left pending.)  We would like to get it right.

We have some indicator metrics that can be used to evaluate Bitcoin as well as our currency and any other.

Firstly, for background, the price metric is interesting, but not the single largest indicator of the success of any currency.  If the price of something in very short supply temporarily hits astronomical heights due to shortage (only), this price would not indicate any level of "success".  For example, if some perishable goods begin being sold at very high prices during a hurricane, this would not indicate that it has become "successful".  So this example shows that price alone is not an indication of success.

Another example would be securities bubbles in which a security temporarily trades at very large multiples of certain fundamental figures.  You mention Venture Capitalists.  An example of a stock that has gone down very significantly since IPO is Zynga - http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ZNGA

Its price and volume of trading were high, following which it lost the majority of its trading value.

Our evaluation of Bitcoin focuses primarily on its competitive outlook as a global Internet currency over the next 10 years.  In this sense, certain fundamental aspects of the currency become more important than any metrics that can be tracked without analysis.

I am happy to answer follow-up questions if you have any.

Chairman, Federal Reserve of WIP

[pawel7777]

...
because even when other metrics are low and price is in an upswing everybody praise bitcoin but when every other metric is good and price is down then everybody calls bitcoin a failure like they call now..
...

Is it the same 'everybody' who think bitcoin is a stock and that bitcoin CEO got arrested?

What is the threshold of success for BTC in USD terms? $500? $1000?

[turvarya]

No it is not.
I think, the most important indicator is transactions per day. That says a lot more about the currency than the price.

[silverfuture]

Price is indeed very relevant to it's initial value and success, but that is based entirely on it's properties like any other thing we value. It's properties are assessed as having value by humans and it's properties help us to determine it's current and potential future usefulness. It's price is based on our collective opinions of it's usefulness as a unit of account, as a network based on overwhelming consensus, and as a store of value as well as our collective speculation about it's future usefulness. Decentralized money is just one of the first truly amazing protocols of the internet with much more to come because of it. Decentralized information based on the highly libertarian roots of the internet itself has led to this point.   Money is incredibly useful to account for the distribution of scarce resources in a world of humans with unlimited desires and greed. Bitcoin can only be acquired or issued in a few different ways and one of them is not being borrowed into existence with interest to the benefit of a centralized issuer. You must:

1. mine (it with all of the electricity costs, technical prowess, and risk that that entails). This is good and P.O.W. is absolutely a necessary algorithm. Mining is what validates and secures transactions on the network. Rather than being wasted this energy used gives value to bitcoins. Energy is literally converted into cryptographically unique and verifiable "coins" or entries on the distributed ledger.  
2. Produce and trade goods or services for it. This is a fundamental use case and why retail adoption like Dell, Overstock, and MSN are so important even if they immediately dump for fiat atm.
3. Steal it (only very smart and talented yet morally corrupt need apply) One point here is that this is really nothing new. All valuable resources are attractive to thieves.
4. Scam others for it. Again, nothing new to human nature and nothing inherent to the bitcoin protocol.  
5. There are no other options. It can't be counterfeited, borrowed, or legislated into existence.  

Bitcoin (in the sense of both the capital and small b) Has the economic underpinnings and incentives, network effect, and first mover advantage to crush everything else in a hyperbitcoinization event that will likely be incredible to watch unfold. I know it has been an amazing thing for me so far in the last five years.

The waves of bitcoin adoption are highly influenced by the euphoric heights and despairing valleys of it's price volatility as it weaves its way to towards maximum adoption before it settles down to lower volatilty that is more reflective of population growth and other factors. It will raise hopes, reward production and innovation and crush false dreams and malinvestments in it's wake as it claws it's way to the top. Anything to replace it will need to be vastly better and I haven't seen that yet. The one thing I see coming that could destroy bitcoin is a condition for the planet of non scarcity of all goods and services. It's possible this will be the case as the free market is a often postulated to be a conspiracy to reduce the price of all goods to zero.

Take precautions and act accordingly gentlemen. I'm just some guy from the internet.

[cuddaloreappu]

Under whatever metric we evaluate bitcoin ,

By consumer adoption, by merchant adoption, by use value, venture capital invested etc, etc,

it seems finally that the price is the single largest indicator of its success or failure! period

because even when other metrics are low and price is in an upswing everybody praise bitcoin but when every other metric is good and price is down then everybody calls bitcoin a failure like they call now..

Bitcoin to reach mainstream the truth is the price has to go to moon like nov13...the only people will flock to bitcoin..

No matter bitcoin gets accepted by Microsoft today and Facebook tomorrow! still mainstream people wont give a shit about bitcoins!

But a craze that price will increase like the dotcom bubble will flock people in and make it successful!

At the Federal Reserve of WIP (name change pending) we are performing evaluation of the basis for online currency systems.  In line with requests, we are working on rolling out parts of the system that are much higher-throughput than up through today.  (And for the moment WIP transfers have been left pending.)  We would like to get it right.

We have some indicator metrics that can be used to evaluate Bitcoin as well as our currency and any other.

Firstly, for background, the price metric is interesting, but not the single largest indicator of the success of any currency.  If the price of something in very short supply temporarily hits astronomical heights due to shortage (only), this price would not indicate any level of "success".  For example, if some perishable goods begin being sold at very high prices during a hurricane, this would not indicate that it has become "successful".  So this example shows that price alone is not an indication of success.

Another example would be securities bubbles in which a security temporarily trades at very large multiples of certain fundamental figures.  You mention Venture Capitalists.  An example of a stock that has gone down very significantly since IPO is Zynga - http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ZNGA

Its price and volume of trading were high, following which it lost the majority of its trading value.

Our evaluation of Bitcoin focuses primarily on its competitive outlook as a global Internet currency over the next 10 years.  In this sense, certain fundamental aspects of the currency become more important than any metrics that can be tracked without analysis.

I am happy to answer follow-up questions if you have any.

Chairman, Federal Reserve of WIP

that was very scholarly reply..nice

[FederalReserveofWIP]

Under whatever metric we evaluate bitcoin ,

By consumer adoption, by merchant adoption, by use value, venture capital invested etc, etc,

it seems finally that the price is the single largest indicator of its success or failure! period

because even when other metrics are low and price is in an upswing everybody praise bitcoin but when every other metric is good and price is down then everybody calls bitcoin a failure like they call now..

Bitcoin to reach mainstream the truth is the price has to go to moon like nov13...the only people will flock to bitcoin..

No matter bitcoin gets accepted by Microsoft today and Facebook tomorrow! still mainstream people wont give a shit about bitcoins!

But a craze that price will increase like the dotcom bubble will flock people in and make it successful!

At the Federal Reserve of WIP (name change pending) we are performing evaluation of the basis for online currency systems.  In line with requests, we are working on rolling out parts of the system that are much higher-throughput than up through today.  (And for the moment WIP transfers have been left pending.)  We would like to get it right.

We have some indicator metrics that can be used to evaluate Bitcoin as well as our currency and any other.

Firstly, for background, the price metric is interesting, but not the single largest indicator of the success of any currency.  If the price of something in very short supply temporarily hits astronomical heights due to shortage (only), this price would not indicate any level of "success".  For example, if some perishable goods begin being sold at very high prices during a hurricane, this would not indicate that it has become "successful".  So this example shows that price alone is not an indication of success.

Another example would be securities bubbles in which a security temporarily trades at very large multiples of certain fundamental figures.  You mention Venture Capitalists.  An example of a stock that has gone down very significantly since IPO is Zynga - http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ZNGA

Its price and volume of trading were high, following which it lost the majority of its trading value.

Our evaluation of Bitcoin focuses primarily on its competitive outlook as a global Internet currency over the next 10 years.  In this sense, certain fundamental aspects of the currency become more important than any metrics that can be tracked without analysis.

I am happy to answer follow-up questions if you have any.

Chairman, Federal Reserve of WIP

that was very scholarly reply..nice

Thank you.  We are always happy to answer any questions you might have.

Chairman, Federal Reserve of WIP

[Q7]

I think a good indicator is the adoption, how many companies are using it as a payment method, transaction per day, number of active bitcoin holders. If we want to rate it based on value, importance of a currency that would be what I'll refer to rather than the price. Price is more for people towards investment. Yeah price is high, it's success for their investment. Low is failure and such.

[turvarya]

@FederalReserveofWIP
Could you reply on my thread?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=927769.0

I'd really like some professional opinion on that.

[runpaint]

If the price of Bitcoin had never gone over $1.00, it would be considered a huge success. 

A new virtual currency, made up by some guy and only a few years old, that's already worth as much as the U.S. Dollar?  That's huge!

But then we'd probably need more supply.

[BitmoreCoin]

I think a good indicator is the adoption, how many companies are using it as a payment method, transaction per day, number of active bitcoin holders. If we want to rate it based on value, importance of a currency that would be what I'll refer to rather than the price. Price is more for people towards investment. Yeah price is high, it's success for their investment. Low is failure and such.

Adoption is more important than the price itself. When more than 1 million or a bit fewer than that people get part of their pay with Bitcoin, the price will be much higher.

[odolvlobo]

Market cap is a much better metric than price because the price is proportional to the the number of bitcoins.

[countryfree]

In a perfect market, price is a good indicator, but BTC's market is twisted. The market will become clearer to read with the number of users increasing. Today, a few people can bring it down or up.

[pawel7777]

Market cap is a much better metric than price because the price is proportional to the the number of bitcoins.

Well, yes. If you have a high inflationary coin, looking only at the price per coin without checking market cap could give you the false picture.

But for someone who bought such coins as an investment, market cap is irrelevant, he would be only interested in price per coin, and he would likely define the success or failure of the coin only by its price.

[pawel7777]

In a perfect market, price is a good indicator, but BTC's market is twisted. The market will become clearer to read with the number of users increasing. Today, a few people can bring it down or up.

True, the problem is you cannot really compare bitcoin to anything, as it's a new, unprecedented invention/project. So many would just put it in the same categories as stocks or commodities and focus entirely on the price.

But it's not necessarily appropriate. It's a bit like saying that internet is not doing very well because people are not willing to pay high bills for data usage as they did in the past.

[BitCoinNutJob]

No it is not.
I think, the most important indicator is transactions per day. That says a lot more about the currency than the price.

I am a litttle concerned can we trust that stat however, i think the transactions per day would be higher now anyway so yeah...

[cellard]

Price is indeed important at minimum from PR perspective. Now that Bitcoin has entered into the collective subconscious of the public , what will happen when it surpasses 1100 again in 2016? Mass Adoption?

Price is all PR. You should watch the latest video with Andreas in a podcast, its very clear the price is not that important, plus we are still up looking at the big picture.

[turvarya]

No it is not.
I think, the most important indicator is transactions per day. That says a lot more about the currency than the price.

I am a litttle concerned can we trust that stat however, i think the transactions per day would be higher now anyway so yeah...

No, we can not really trust that stat, but we could tweak it, e.g. by measuring the transactions per day of the 100 biggest merchants.

[pawel7777]

No it is not.
I think, the most important indicator is transactions per day. That says a lot more about the currency than the price.

I am a litttle concerned can we trust that stat however, i think the transactions per day would be higher now anyway so yeah...

No, we can not really trust that stat, but we could tweak it, e.g. by measuring the transactions per day of the 100 biggest merchants.

Or just number of purchases from BitPay and Coinbase. Number of transactions + amount.

But still, that's just one of many indicators. Buying things is not the only use of bitcoin. And I reckon number of purchases will decline along with the price fall.