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I disagree, Bitcoin will not go below $150 at any time in 2015-2017. The upside is a lot more murky and harder to put an estimate on. Can you also supply a con

by drcode 11y ago

I disagree, Bitcoin will not go below $150 at any time in 2015-2017. The upside is a lot more murky and harder to put an estimate on. Can you also supply a concrete estimate? Without a concrete estimate, your skepticism is too vague to be meaningful.

davidgerard 11y ago
The 2015 low point to date is $177; this makes $150 seem really pretty feasible. The slope over the past year has been a downward decay, with the individual drops being sudden and unexpected, with Bitcoin advocates insisting every time that this must be the bottom; they've been consistently wrong over the past year. (Admittedly, I'm mostly looking at /r/bitcoin, which is unusually euphoric even for Bitcoin advocates.) The drop from $500 to $400 to $300 was sudden and unexpected, the drop to $177 was sudden and unexpected. The price recovered (the $177 coincided with the Bitstamp theft, selling those off may have depressed the price), but I don't see how $150 is in any way implausible. The cost of mining 1 BTC is circling 1 BTC (hence the volatility of hashpower of late, with fewer and fewer mining operations able to get cheap enough electricity). It'll be interesting when the mining reward halves in 2016. Just because it will cost more than 1 BTC to mine 1 BTC doesn't hold the price up - look at any altcoin. I don't have a figure for the bottom over 2015-2017, but given the above I find $100 entirely plausible. Everything that applies to altcoins (some of which are worthless or all-but-untraded, which is functionally worthless) also applies to bitcoins, so I don't see why near-zero is inherently implausible. (cheers for getting me to quantify my thoughts :-)
- drcode 11y ago
  Nice of you to quantify, but everything you write is still not falsifiable, and hence not really a prediction in a meaningful sense, unlike my prediction about a floor :-)
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    I will concede that you have advanced a falsifiable prediction and I haven't :-) Here's a falsifiable prediction: Bitcoin will not rise above $400 by the end of 2017, nor above $300 for more than 48 hours. (I generally look at http://www.coindesk.com/price/ http://www.coindesk.com/price/ , but won't fuss about +/- a few dollars on any reasonably respected price chart.) If only HN had a "remind me" :-)
    - drcode 11y ago
      That's a very bold prediction!
      - davidgerard 11y ago
        Oh, and it will definitely go below $150 for more than 48 hours by the end of 2017. There you go :-)
- waterlesscloud 11y ago
  The low point for 2015 was in January. That was the end of a year long downward slope. In the five months since that time, the price has bounced around in the 200-300 range, mostly 220 to about 250 or so. It's no longer accurate to say the Bitcoin price has been sloping downward for the past year. That viewpoint is now five months out of date. Five months, after all, is nearly half the period of the claimed year. The previous downtrend has clearly ended, we're in a sideways range phase now. There may be another subsequent downtrend, but it will be a different one from the previous trend.
  - davidgerard 11y ago
    I have actually been surprised how steady the price has been in the past few months. I'm wondering what's holding it up.
    - waterlesscloud 11y ago
      Demand. :-) I sometimes watch the various exchanges pretty closely, and there's a point somewhere around $220 where a lot of buying kicks in. For whatever reason, people are comfortable accumulating there. Then it becomes self-reinforcing. People won't sell below because they know they can wait it out and sell above it in a few days. It would be possible to trigger another downtrend, but it would take either some seriously bad news (some US regulation maybe) or a very large amount of bitcoins dumped on the market at once. At this exact moment, I think the market is in a stalemate zone. It's been extraordinarily stable the last few weeks. People don't want to sell here, but they're still afraid to buy at this price (~$235).

by drcode 11y ago

davidgerard 11y ago

The 2015 low point to date is $177; this makes $150 seem really pretty feasible. The slope over the past year has been a downward decay, with the individual drops being sudden and unexpected, with Bitcoin advocates insisting every time that this must be the bottom; they've been consistently wrong over the past year. (Admittedly, I'm mostly looking at /r/bitcoin, which is unusually euphoric even for Bitcoin advocates.) The drop from $500 to $400 to $300 was sudden and unexpected, the drop to $177 was sudden and unexpected. The price recovered (the $177 coincided with the Bitstamp theft, selling those off may have depressed the price), but I don't see how $150 is in any way implausible. The cost of mining 1 BTC is circling 1 BTC (hence the volatility of hashpower of late, with fewer and fewer mining operations able to get cheap enough electricity). It'll be interesting when the mining reward halves in 2016. Just because it will cost more than 1 BTC to mine 1 BTC doesn't hold the price up - look at any altcoin. I don't have a figure for the bottom over 2015-2017, but given the above I find $100 entirely plausible. Everything that applies to altcoins (some of which are worthless or all-but-untraded, which is functionally worthless) also applies to bitcoins, so I don't see why near-zero is inherently implausible. (cheers for getting me to quantify my thoughts :-)

drcode 11y ago
Nice of you to quantify, but everything you write is still not falsifiable, and hence not really a prediction in a meaningful sense, unlike my prediction about a floor :-)
- davidgerard 11y ago
  I will concede that you have advanced a falsifiable prediction and I haven't :-) Here's a falsifiable prediction: Bitcoin will not rise above $400 by the end of 2017, nor above $300 for more than 48 hours. (I generally look at http://www.coindesk.com/price/ http://www.coindesk.com/price/ , but won't fuss about +/- a few dollars on any reasonably respected price chart.) If only HN had a "remind me" :-)
  - drcode 11y ago
    That's a very bold prediction!
    - davidgerard 11y ago
      Oh, and it will definitely go below $150 for more than 48 hours by the end of 2017. There you go :-)
waterlesscloud 11y ago
The low point for 2015 was in January. That was the end of a year long downward slope. In the five months since that time, the price has bounced around in the 200-300 range, mostly 220 to about 250 or so. It's no longer accurate to say the Bitcoin price has been sloping downward for the past year. That viewpoint is now five months out of date. Five months, after all, is nearly half the period of the claimed year. The previous downtrend has clearly ended, we're in a sideways range phase now. There may be another subsequent downtrend, but it will be a different one from the previous trend.
- davidgerard 11y ago
  I have actually been surprised how steady the price has been in the past few months. I'm wondering what's holding it up.
  - waterlesscloud 11y ago
    Demand. :-) I sometimes watch the various exchanges pretty closely, and there's a point somewhere around $220 where a lot of buying kicks in. For whatever reason, people are comfortable accumulating there. Then it becomes self-reinforcing. People won't sell below because they know they can wait it out and sell above it in a few days. It would be possible to trigger another downtrend, but it would take either some seriously bad news (some US regulation maybe) or a very large amount of bitcoins dumped on the market at once. At this exact moment, I think the market is in a stalemate zone. It's been extraordinarily stable the last few weeks. People don't want to sell here, but they're still afraid to buy at this price (~$235).