A limited supply and people hoarding is not a big if we take out psychology. There will be a line up of buyers trying to buy with no sellers and the sellers will only sell at really high prices. once the buyers bid high enough the hoarding stops. The attack on the exchange is a good thing, hopefully not one lost money. It shows that bit coins are solid and the fault is in the dealers. And no one can touch the coins them selves. Price falls when there is a problem. if the forex market froze for a week there would be a reaction. Bit coin held on pretty well price wise. This will happen a few times, every issue that pops up will result in some leaving. But now there seems to be a bit of a core of people holding and buying at low prices. This is good and shows that it is healthy when valued correctly. If I would of bought at 200 im sure my opinion would be different. As for it not being planned out properly cause of a lack of history and education in other fields. That is unrelated to anything here that has happened. The problem was the exchanges. To gain business they will have to adapt or others will leave them. I cant help but feel like I could do a better job even with little tech knowledge. Now for the mining bit Im thinking it may be a good way to learn about tech (too bad I dont want to learn about tech) But I may do it anyways. at worst I figure I will have a few killer pc parts that will not be usable for some reason. Mining is interesting, Techincally if it was run by smart people it should be profitable or break even ( teh more mining the less each miner gets) once it is a loss to mine, ( electricity) operations would be smart to turn off untill optimal times. (unless they are speculators) Speculators and people that dont have to pay for electricity for some reason (living with parents who are unaware, or stupid people, or people that have electricty pre factored in to their rent ect) These people will continue mining and the group may get big enough to make mining non profitable. But these people do not typically invest in mininers that are dedicated, they probably use their desk top meaning that they are paying a premium. Mining is costly because of the cost of energy, this energy is dispelled in the form of heat. We now can have a heat source that pays for it selves in a perfect world. Puting aside bitcoins short "fallings", It seems that there may be potential for bitcoin to take off and even change the world once again. If we have a source of heat that pays it self, I can heat my house in the cold winter for free If I have enough miners. If we have a source of heat that pays it self, I can heat my house in the cold winter for free If I have enough miners. If we have a source of heat that pays it self, I can heat my house in the cold winter for free If I have enough miners. All the while I am creating demand on new bitcoins but more importantly i have become a user of bitcoins. there is probably just one peice of hardware that is responsible for most the processing and heat. Lets close our lines and imagine non essential parts gone. Lets imagine parts that do not need to be scaled up to be profitable become as small as possible. Lets imagine parts that do the work/ and heat sinks or what ever. lined up one after another on a 2 x 6 piece of long wood. .. lets make it a metal case with a cover for the interior deco. Lets rip out our base board heaters and bit in a miner. That being said , there will be too many systems that do not include an actual element and a system to swicth from bitcoins to conventional heating. you will now have too many people using it when it is cheaper to use elements. this will mean that the cost of mining would become higher then the cost of electricity . I keep hearing people complaining about heat while making money. mean while I think there is going to be snow up here. It woudl be nice if the familly put on the tv at night and we ate popcorn curled up next to our bit coin heater that is paying for the movie and popcorn... sounds romantic almost.
Also if bitcoins stays alive and mining is profiatble. I think we will see developments in hardware. these new developments will find other uses. These new uses will create some thing new. When people buy there lap top one day they will ask with is the hash rate on this thing ? It will all be because of bitcoins. If it stays alive and profitable.
Bitcoin may be a bubble or not. Bitcoin may survive or not. We simply don't know. However, what's really important here is that now the concept of 'private' and 'crypto' currencies has been introduced to a lot of people who never heard about it before. The thing is out of the box - and no one can ever put it back in. It's like tech stocks in the 90s - most of them didn't survive. But some did, and became giants and their inventions shaped our world. This whole crypto currency thing is quite comparable - even it's a bubble now.
A trader posted this chart and answers the questions of the general public. He thinks mid-20s is the sweet buying point: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c698g/ive_been_a_trader_for_over_15_years_and_i_never/
right was has happened is just normal. eople expect this to happen. If it were to happen in gold it would not suprise every one as long as it was over a periode of years. This was fast ! Personally I prefer loosing money fast rather then slowly. I also like making fast . People see instability. They would rather put their money in an rrsp or the USA's eqivillant with there bank and loose half the money in the market in a few years. This is all puting the othe issues aside (government shut down, exchanges being hacked ect. ) It has not failed !
Predict away, I hope you are short gold. OR is bitcoin not a leading indicator as it is not respected ? In my book the small lead the big,. gold down 50$ today friday. More importantly it broke multi year support. Bit coin is good. i gain more respect as it falls lol