What are the major reasons to be bullish on bitcoin right now? Not sarcasm, totally serious. I've owned a small amount of bitcoin for a while and have followed the market from a far. This observation is highly anecdotal, but I just haven't seen many signs of serious traction over the last six or nine months (i.e. post a ton of the initial retailers partnering to accept bitcoin, Coinbase raising their monster round, e…
There are lots of reasons to be interested in and somewhat optimistic about cryptocurrency in general. But I think there are enough arguable flaws in Bitcoin's specific implementation that its first mover advantage ultimately won't count for much.
I agree that Bitcoin has some flaws. I posted about it on Reddit after the last slide in price. Link here for anyone interested:
I once was an intern in a venture capital funded startup where the CEO decided to hold most of the companies cash in Bitcoin. I think it was in early 2014 or so, when the price fell like mad and he was in deep shit. Im not sure if anybody up to that date knew about the Bitcoin investment. He was a nervous wreck. Close to suicide. For about a week, he brought a stuffed animal into the office every day. And carried it…
> Last I heard is that he is invested in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies again.
I'd have hoped that he'd at least have learned something from the first experience. High volatility can end either way.
What are the major reasons to be bullish on bitcoin right now? Not sarcasm, totally serious. I've owned a small amount of bitcoin for a while and have followed the market from a far. This observation is highly anecdotal, but I just haven't seen many signs of serious traction over the last six or nine months (i.e. post a ton of the initial retailers partnering to accept bitcoin, Coinbase raising their monster round, e…
Reasons to be bullish on the concept? Bitcoin is a secure public registry backed by a decentralized 300k THash/s computing network (and fast growing). That alone is insanely valuable, and not just as a vector of monetary transactions. It's one building block of our decentralized future.
Reasons to be bullish on the BTC/USD exchange price? That would be pure speculation. BTC seems to be now at low levels enough that it wouldn't be insane to buy some for short-term speculation, but it of course it would still be very risky.
What are the major reasons to be bullish on bitcoin right now? Not sarcasm, totally serious. I've owned a small amount of bitcoin for a while and have followed the market from a far. This observation is highly anecdotal, but I just haven't seen many signs of serious traction over the last six or nine months (i.e. post a ton of the initial retailers partnering to accept bitcoin, Coinbase raising their monster round, e…
Maybe as the last big wave of people flocking to BTC figured out there's not a lot to do with it and lose interest? Because we've got to have moved past the point where it's all currency enthusiasts, and if you're not enthusiastic about alt. currency in general, is there any reason yet to prefer it?
bitcoin will be on your mind the next time you want to send/receive money oversees, i guarantee you that.
I'd be crazy to bet on such a volatile asset even for 30 minutes (BTC value changes often far exceed transfer fees), so every simple transfer turns into a bet, which I'm willing to pay to avoid. Not to mention that Bitcoin isn't liquid in many currencies.
Ok here is my 2 cents. The reason I feel Bitcoin has lost so much over the last couple of months is because in some ways its a victim of its own success. The more merchants that come online and support BitCoin payments the faster its going to drop in value. The reason is simple, supply & demand and bitcoin payment/exchange gateways. When merchants say they are accepting Bitcoin as payment they aren't really, they are simply using Bitcoin as a conduit to process the payment from you the customer with Bitcoin. When a merchant uses a Bitcoin payment gateway, upon receiving Bitcoin payment, the gateway immediately turns it into a fiat currency by hitting the buy side of an exchange. They are putting more bitcoins back into circulation, in other words increasing the SUPPLY of Bitcoin. Its Economics 101 increase the Supply of any commodity, and the price goes down.
On the other side of the equation, the investors who are buying and holding Bitcoin, with the expectation of it going higher, are seeing it plunge, so what they are doing is buying more goods and services instead of holding, a way to get 'out' of their position if you will, and that further drives the price down, its a vicious cycle.
When will the price of Bitcoin start going back up? Who knows, for me I feel the indicator will be similar to observe the relative strengths of the fiat currencies, in times of peace or economic uncertainty ( not now ) they tend to show weakness, and traditionally speculators will find safe haven in gold, I think some may try to weather the storm in Bitcoin as well. Unfortunately that is not the case at the moment, both US and Canadian economies seem to be doing well, partially because of the 'war' the US is currently waging. So for me I think I'm going to sit on the sidelines and wait.
It shows that you don't need to sell a particularly large block of btc to substantially move the price in either direction. If one big buyer jumped into the market it could easily move the price $50+. This shows that bitcoin is still immature and in its infancy. The more the liquidity of bitcoin grows, the less this kind of volatility will plague the market.
Ok here is my 2 cents. The reason I feel Bitcoin has lost so much over the last couple of months is because in some ways its a victim of its own success. The more merchants that come online and support BitCoin payments the faster its going to drop in value. The reason is simple, supply & demand and bitcoin payment/exchange gateways. When merchants say they are accepting Bitcoin as payment they aren't really, they are…
> The more merchants that come online and support BitCoin payments the faster its going to drop in value
I don't know enough to say it definitively, but this may be pure fantasy. Merchants "accepting Bitcoin" seems, to me at least, like a publicity stunt to attract the young, techno-hipster crowd, which is valuable for marketing. I wonder if "accepting Bitcoin" translates to actual high-volume transactions. I think this drop is just business as usual for Bitcoin, which tends to rise and fall according to the publicity it gets. Also, its trading volume is still sparse enough for random noise (or deliberate manipulation) to change the price significantly.
The easier it gets to buy Bitcoin, and accept Bitcoin, the worse it will be. Even if you wanted to spend Bitcoin, you had to think ahead. Now Circle lets you buy within minutes (in most cases) of setting up your account. On the other side of things, Bitpay and Coinbase let merchants convert back to USD (or other currency) right away. So it's possible to do "just in time Bitcoin": Bitcoin is merely the payment protocol.
When Bitcoin becomes a pure cash equivalent, no one will care about the price. I believe that once the price becomes irrelevant, it'll trend downward. I think it'll take something serious to move the price upward, like a serious event creating major doubt in USD.
Most of the bulls are quick to conflate the advantages of the protocol, as if that magically makes it more valuable as a traded commodity. Bitcoin is simultaneously a currency and a protocol. I believe when it was hard to obtain, the use of a store of value held the most potential, and early risk takers had an opportunity for reward. It's entirely possible, as the protocol becomes more or more utilized, those days of risk and reward are well behind us.
Maybe as the last big wave of people flocking to BTC figured out there's not a lot to do with it and lose interest? Because we've got to have moved past the point where it's all currency enthusiasts, and if you're not enthusiastic about alt. currency in general, is there any reason yet to prefer it?
bitcoin will be on your mind the next time you want to send/receive money oversees, i guarantee you that.
This is true for 0.02 % of the world's population, at best. (This is more than the estimated number of people owning Bitcoins, like it or not.)