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Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin price increasing?
- byoung2 13y agoSupply and demand. Bitcoin used to be a niche, only followed by a few hackers and enthusiasts (low demand). At the same time, by design, mining was easier (high supply). Now Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream, and even the skeptics are starting to buy in, both literally and figuratively (increasing demand), at the same time that mining is becoming harder (decreasing supply). As Bitcoin gets wider acceptance, and as mining gets more difficult, the price will continue to rise, until it reaches a plateau.
- howon92 13y agoIs it possible to predict the increasing rate of difficulty?
- sidko 13y agoYou can gain a rough estimate based on the delivery schedules of ASICs in the market. You can calculate the pre-orders placed for xGH/s and multiply that by how many were pre-ordered. This should give a rough estimate of how much hash-power will be added in the future. Current market situation - it's definitely going up.
- sireat 13y agoSupply is not decreasing fromthe miners, in fact I would argue that practically all mined coins (25 each 10 minutes) are being sold these days instead of being horded. If you run an expensive mining rig, you want to sell as quickly as possible. In older days, there could be some miners who would mine for their own use. Now, casual miners are a tiny fraction of mining production. So, there has to be roughly 20K USD of new money coming into BTC economy every 10 minutes to keep the current price. Is this sustainable? I do not know, but you definitely need new blood to keep it up.