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Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

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Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#111
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have a growing economy but a fixed money supply, money will appreciate. When this happens, people will prefer to keep money rather than spend it, and you get deflation-induced recessions/depressions. See the latter part of the 19th century in the US for repeated examples of this.

What's wrong with that though? So people will end up not spending money unless it's very valuable to their lives. So less money gets spent on Angry Birds, iPad Minis, and games. Makes entrepreneurs have to up their game if they want people to spend money on them.

Literally the entire purpose of currency is to facilitate trade. Having a fixed money supply penalizes and discourages trade, and encourages currency hoarding.

People on the bottom rung end up spending all of their money, and will find it even harder to ever dig their way out. The top 1%, who cannot spend money fast enough to exhaust it, will hold onto their money which will become exponentially more valuable over time.

Capital investment will plummet, because statistically, you're better off simply holding your money. It's like holding an index fund in the stock market (your money increases with value correlated to the market), except there is practically zero risk. Any investment you make by definition will perform on average no better than the economy as a whole; so why bother investing your money with risk, as opposed to holding onto your money with no risk? They both have the same expected value.

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#112
post #42
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect the same, but I'm not in any way an economist so I'll wait and see. I also think that after the correction the price will rise again anyway.

I wonder if people are worried about the US austerity measures? --am an economist, and am curious as you to see what will happen

I've looked it up on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean. These austerity measures would mean that the US increases taxes when people start using Bitcoin, to counter the laundering or something?

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as someone who has been mining since mid 2011 on a 450 dollar PC...this would make me very happy. I have already done very well on that investment.

And again: electricity was free?

yes...thank you air force!

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#114
post #12

If it ever becomes successful, we will marvel that individuals could ever afford a bitcoin. 21 million is a tiny number for a currency when compared to $40 trillion in global currency ($6000 per person). ~$1.25 billion spend on Cyber Monday ~$8 billion are traded for oil every day ~$150 billion NYSE daily If bitcoin became the trusted currency for any of these activities what would it be worth? If bitcoin became the…

Of course, there is absolutely nothing that says this will ever happen.

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#115
post #112
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if people are worried about the US austerity measures? --am an economist, and am curious as you to see what will happen

I've looked it up on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean. These austerity measures would mean that the US increases taxes when people start using Bitcoin, to counter the laundering or something?

No, I was referring to the so-called "sequester" that took place around that comment's day.

Re: Bitcoin rises from $14 to $40 in two months

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think you are right, past corrections have been cause dby someone dumping between 100k and 200k btc, i dont think there are many early players left with that amount of BTC that they would dump any time soon.Even if they did this would not move the market as much as it would have in the past, perhaps dropping the price by $10-$15 on a day like today, which would not take long to correct upwards again. It is not like…

the big sellers on the silk roads will have that kind of volume to dump if they've been hoarding it.

perhaps but most, if not all, will be selling it almost immediately as they need to re-stock, these people use BTC to facilitate their dealing it is not an investment for them. Plus moving the market takes approx 100,000 BTC, that is about $5m, no vendor is going to be selling drugs if they have that much in BTC.
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