When will Bitcoin implode
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Anything that goes up by a certain amount in a period can go down again by that amount.
I suspect that once the suggestion of regulation starts knocking on the door and the dirty money starts using it less, it will take a substantial hit. The data miners will probably stop ramping the price at some point too. Effectively engineering a crash for their own financial gain.
The price is going up because it has become fashionable. Fashions end.
If you look at most past bubbles that went on to burst, they became fashionable at the tail end. "You know it's time to sell when shoeshine boys give you stock tips" has been a pretty good philosophy over the decades.
The thing is, you can never time when it will happen.I am an Independent Financial Adviser (IFA). The comments I make are just my opinion and are for discussion purposes only. They are not financial advice and you should not treat them as such. If you feel an area discussed may be relevant to you, then please seek advice from an Independent Financial Adviser local to you.0 -
And the term "distributed ledger" is also one of the most abused terms as well, and I doubt few people understand the difference between a distributed ledger and an accounting system (I encounter many people who conflate the two, and overstate the potential impact of Bitcoin blockchain as a result)). I agree that as a commerce platform it is fundamentally flawed, there is a lot of commentary about its limitations (for example it can only support a maximum of 7 transactions per second).There really isn't much to understand. The blockchain is a massively distributed ledger (along with all the inefficiencies that entails). Anyone who doesn't think it is a big deal is accused of not "getting it". As a payment platform, it is fundamentally flawed. As a trade, it is a dream.
There's at least two aspects to "Bitcoin" from what I can see (and I'm not an expert, only an interested observer), the cryptocurrency and the underlying Bitcoin blockchain platform (which Yorkie3 alludes to). So the question "when will Bitcoin implode" isn't really the right one. There is a question about what will happen to the value of Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency, and also the viability of the underlying blockchain platform. Bitcoin was the first, and was the disruptor. Blockchain platforms will have a major impact on the way commerce is transacted (and data shared) in the future. However, it may not be the Bitcoin technology stack that gets wide adoption. It's possible that Bitcoin could flourish as a cryptocurrency even if the platform is not widely adopted, or if Ethereum or other platforms (IBM is involved in one) supplant Bitcoin's, then the viability of the cryptocurrency could falter as well.
There's no doubt that the underlying technology and the concept of cryptocurrencies will change the face of commerce significantly in the future. Whether Bitcoin survives long term as both a cryptocurrency and a blockchain platform remains to be seen but I would certainly congratulate anyone that took a punt on this early. Anyone else should tread with care IMO.....0 -
In 2011 i planned to buy drugs from a darknet market. You needed to pay in bitcoin. I deposited £30 to buy bitcoins but bottled going through with it. The £30 is sat in an account somewhere. I vaguely remember at the time thinking £10 a bitcoin seemed expensive (i bought 3). My bitcoins (that i cant find or access) are apparently worth £36k. :rotfl:
And that children is why you dont do drugs!
Add: i deposited the funds before properly checking out the darknet market (one of the big ones named after a trade route) it was when i started browsing properly through what i could buy that i bottled it. I was maybe naively just expecting drugs, it was when i saw tanks, rpg's, ricin and hitmen for hire that i logged out never to return. :A
I felt like Harry Potter ending up in diagon alley.0 -
BananaRepublic wrote: »You are surely aware that even senior figures in the financial world do not understand what Bitcoin is.
Who's fault is that? The concept is not at all complex. The nuts and bolts, under the bonnet, call it what you like, that's complex but understanding a crypto currency doesn't require a digital cryptology degree, what the protocol is doing and what utility it offers is a fairly simple concept to grasp.This is part of the danger of bubbles. Naysayers (myself included) are "shown wrong" by continuing increases in price right up until the point where it all completely implodes, after which it is clearly too late to listen to such warnings.
The problem is that the naysayers aren't warning about bubbles, yourself included, they're spouting rubbish about what the crypto currency phenomenon, BTC especially, is and is not and how it's all going to come to nothing because it is nothing. etc. etc.
I'm all for warnings about bubbles but the phenomenon is clearly here to stay and has great utility and huge application potential, there are still aspects of how it operates that need to be addressed and limitations that need to be overcome, lots of hurdles.
If people would just take the time to learn a little bit about what it really is and does though, rather than swallowing and regurgitating silly tabloid headlines, Ponzi this, terrorist that, tulip t'other, the usual emotive claptrap used to sell a story, it might help to get a proper view of what the crypto phenomenon is really about.'We don't need to be smarter than the rest; we need to be more disciplined than the rest.' - WB0 -
Who's fault is that? The concept is not at all complex. The nuts and bolts, under the bonnet, call it what you like, that's complex but understanding a crypto currency doesn't require a digital cryptology degree, what the protocol is doing and what utility it offers is a fairly simple concept to grasp.
I'm not referring to the literal implementation of Bitcoin, which is no more than a technical issue, but rather the concept of what it represents and what it will become. People will buy dollars because they know that the US economy has a degree of stability, ensuring that the currency also has stability, unlike for example the Zimbabwean currency.The problem is that the naysayers aren't warning about bubbles, yourself included, they're spouting rubbish about what the crypto currency phenomenon, BTC especially, is and is not and how it's all going to come to nothing because it is nothing. etc. etc.
You are, as ever, charming. The internet, a great way to meet new people, and abuse them.
I'm all for warnings about bubbles but the phenomenon is clearly here to stay and has great utility and huge application potential, there are still aspects of how it operates that need to be addressed and limitations that need to be overcome, lots of hurdles.
If people would just take the time to learn a little bit about what it really is and does though, rather than swallowing and regurgitating silly tabloid headlines, Ponzi this, terrorist that, tulip t'other, the usual emotive claptrap used to sell a story, it might help to get a proper view of what the crypto phenomenon is really about.
Perhaps you need to do some more reading in which case you would discover that it's not just the tabloids that are 'spouting rubbish' as you put it. My own views are nothing to do with tabloid headlines, I don't read those papers, nor their online web sites. Some well respected figures are concerned.0 -
The problem is that the naysayers aren't warning about bubbles, yourself included, they're spouting rubbish about what the crypto currency phenomenon, BTC especially, is and is not and how it's all going to come to nothing because it is nothing. etc. etc.
Do feel free to correct anything I say that you think is rubbish. If I agree with any corrections, I'll adjust my view accordingly. However, just telling me I'm spouting rubbish won't do - I actually need to be shown what I am saying that is incorrect.If people would just take the time to learn a little bit about what it really is and does though, rather than swallowing and regurgitating silly tabloid headlines, Ponzi this, terrorist that, tulip t'other, the usual emotive claptrap used to sell a story, it might help to get a proper view of what the crypto phenomenon is really about.
The problem is that the buying frenzy is more like the tulip mania or the dotcom bubble than anything else. Ultimately a single bitcoin doesn't do anything or change from month to month, therefore the price increase is purely driven by speculation that each asset is going to be worth more in future than it is now. Eventually that has to break down unless there is a fundamental change in the asset in question, which cannot happen due to the distributed ledger technology driving bitcoin.
We effectively have a new bit of technology that everyone is currently really eager to own, and whilst it is usefully tradeable and artificially rare, that's not a good enough reason in itself for each of the individual coins to be worth as much as they are. It's a very interesting test of a new type of technology, but the technology isn't unique and it has been shown to have numerous flaws that would require complete replacement before bitcoin could be viable as a currency. It's certainly possible that other blockchain technologies could change some areas of finance, but that doesn't imply that it must be bitcoin or that bitcoin is correctly valued well above $20,000 per coin, as many speculators currently seem to be predicting. If blockchain is genuinely an amazing new technology, I would be much more keen to buy into the shares of a company doing something involving blockchain. That would be an investment in the technology; buying bitcoin is just buying the end result of the first implementation of that technology (a bit like buying Gameboys rather than Nintendo shares back in the 80s/90s).
Right now it's an unstable commodity with no economic backing where the price is exceptionally volatile purely due to sentiment. And that's why I will continue to recommend that people (my clients, as well as anyone else who asks) stay well clear unless they are prepared to potentially lose whatever they speculate due to a enormous collapse.I am a Chartered Financial Planner
Anything I say on the forum is for discussion purposes only and should not be construed as personal financial advice. It is vitally important to do your own research before acting on information gathered from any users on this forum.0 -
OldMusicGuy wrote: »..However, it may not be the Bitcoin technology stack that gets wide adoption. It's possible that Bitcoin could flourish as a cryptocurrency even if the platform is not widely adopted, or if Ethereum or other platforms (IBM is involved in one) supplant Bitcoin's, then the viability of the cryptocurrency could falter as well...
Interoperability is the future path imo. none of these various crypto universes will in and of themselves 'go away'.. their brighter future is dependent on what features and utility they offer, both now and future iterations, and how much adoption that captures.
It could be that the BTC blockchain becomes a spine or trunk for all manner of specialist and niche sidechain branches. Etherium and BTC interoperation through BTC relay for example helping to unburden the BTC transaction chain while being linked to it.'We don't need to be smarter than the rest; we need to be more disciplined than the rest.' - WB0 -
The problem is that the buying frenzy is more like the tulip mania or the dotcom bubble than anything else. Ultimately a single bitcoin doesn't do anything or change from month to month, therefore the price increase is purely driven by speculation that each asset is going to be worth more in future than it is now.
I think that sums up my thoughts too. When I see friends buying bitcoins who have no other investments and no cash savings it makes me think that they aren't investing from a position of knowledge but purely jumping on a bandwagon. Bitcoins or similar may be a viable currency in the future but we have no knowledge which one will make that jump. MySpace & Friends Reunited show that the first mover isn't always the winner.Remember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.0 -
Right now it's an unstable commodity with no economic backing where the price is exceptionally volatile purely due to sentiment. And that's why I will continue to recommend that people (my clients, as well as anyone else who asks) stay well clear unless they are prepared to potentially lose whatever they speculate due to a enormous collapse.
It's a decentralised cryptographically secure transaction framework, bitcoins are simply the unit of exchange, the currency within. The utility and potential of the whole endeavour is in the trustless, distributed nature of the network itself and wider adoption, not the fiat value of the 'coins'.
The two are obviously linked and one will get ahead of the other at various times but that's what free market price discovery is all about.'We don't need to be smarter than the rest; we need to be more disciplined than the rest.' - WB0 -
...buying bitcoin is just buying the end result of the first implementation of that technology (a bit like buying Gameboys rather than Nintendo shares back in the 80s/90s).
i like that analogy:).
the question of implosion may not be quite right. significant drops in the price of bitcoin have been seen, and i'd have thought are pretty much certain during the coming weeks and months too. whether it will implode, ie. permanently collapse, is another question.. the impression i have, from people wiser than myself, is that that is unlikely.
whether buying/investing/speculating now is wise, is another matter. no doubt 'a boat has been missed'. but i won't be surprised if people buying now double/triple their money.0
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