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This means that people are investing small amounts and going for the cheaper coins using coinbase. which means that cryptocurrencies may be having their facebo
by zerostar07 9y ago
This means that people are investing small amounts and going for the cheaper coins using coinbase. which means that cryptocurrencies may be having their facebook moment at this time , and their network effect is about to get a LOT bigger over the next months. While people may only invest small amounts (and coinbase can and should make sure they do), cryptocurrencies will come out of this extremely strengthened if a significant number of people end up owning even a small amount of any coin. Unlike tulips which wither, these people are not likely to sell their bitcoins even if there is a correction. A world scale network of people owning coins can be a giant leap for the world economy, as coins are much more resistant to censorship than the internet itself proved to be, and unless a new kind of gold is discovered , they may prove to be a much better, easier to transfer store of value. This bubble may never burst. All of this is speculation (of course) - I wish coinbase (which seems to carry the bulk of the wave of newcomers) would release statistics about their number of users.
- scribu 9y ago> Unlike tulips which wither, these people are not likely to sell their bitcoins even if there is a correction. [citation needed] Even long term investors in traditional securities often get panicky during bear markets. They sell their holdings, even if the underlying value hasn't really changed.
- zerostar07 9y agoon the one hand bitcoins dont physically wither, on the other hand, it's about the personalities of people who own it. I don't know who pumps the bitcoin bubble, but much of the bitcoin is owned by people who can't quickly cash it out for USD or EUR because it's either illegal, not taxed or going to face big taxes. many of them are also ideologically driven. Sorry i dont have citations, i m (fittingly) speculating over these
- scribu 9y ago> much of the bitcoin is owned by people who can't quickly cash it out for USD or EUR because it's either illegal, not taxed or going to face big taxes. That's certainly an interesting aspect, but I thought you were talking about all the new, smalltime buyers of cryptocoins, which I assume don't fall into this category.
- zerostar07 9y agoyes sorry about that. i assume however that people investing a small amount will not panic, because they really don't care. It's like buying an expensive fad fashion item, that is then left to collect dust rather than being sold. fear of missing out is driving adoption atm
- scribu 9y agoHuh... that seems like a separate category from the domestic speculators I was thinking about. But then, how does an influx of a large number of fad buyers strengthen cryptocurrencies in the long term, if these buyers just completely forget that they own cryptocoins after the hype dies down?
- zerostar07 9y agowhen facebook was growing they went all-in for growth, because they knew if they got the network effect enough, they would have won, and they did. Coins have to grab the opportunity to reach everyone before governments start clamping down on their growth (which i m sure will happen not long from now). getting people to own cryptocoins (and having a wallet) is really a trojan horse. just like smartphones turned nontechy people to app buyers, the ownership of a wallet creates a platform for many things which i don't know yet or i would be rich.
- acjohnson55 9y agoThat seems absurdly optimistic. It's like Facebook--if all anyone did was sign up for an account and not bother to populate it with friends or info. A vanishingly small number of people are using these coins for anything they couldn't otherwise do.