End of Bitcoins on 18th December 2017

This is exactly what I have been thinking. SB'd. I don't know if it will become totally worthless but the efficiency provided by institutional investors will wreck the current value. What it ultimately goes down to remains to be seen. I wouldn't be surprised if it was below 1000 when it's all over.

I agree on certain parts in your argument. First, I don't think Bitcoin will become "worthless" when Bitcoin Futures are opened in CME and CBOE. NASDAQ is planning to have Bitcoin price ticker in 2018.

It is true that 99% of Bitcoin transactions are by individuals not institutions. If institutions lay a hand on Bitcoin exchange sites like GDAX, which the New York Stock Exchange invested in, it'll create a whole new trading game for Bitcoin volatility.

When Silk Road was using Bitcoin for payment in the dark web, it was a "fuck you" to the government so they can't track payments for illegal drugs being bought and sold. I think the recent hypes were created because people got rich off of Bitcoin, not because most of us see it as a anti-capitalist tool.

There are many famous and intelligent people both supporting and rejecting Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Unless the U.S. government sets up strict digital asset compliance rules, this highly unregulated market is going to thrive.

We always tend to overestimate what happens in one year while underestimating what happens in 5-10 years. I feel as though Bitcoin going to "crash" by Dec 18, 2017 is quite an overstatement.

I agree that this supposed crash is going to be similar to when Amazon crashed in 2001, a minor blimp in an overwhelming trend upward. At the moment though, I personally think Bitcoin is a ticking time bomb, and when it goes off, a lot of investors are going to lose faith in the crypto space, at least in the short-term.

My advice is to invest in cryptos that have a real-world use case, and are actually objectively providing value. I'm not convinced there will be a crash, but I know that my money is, relatively speaking, a lot more safe in these types of cryptos, since they existed as successful companies before implementing crypto currencies to add value and innovate.

Walton, for example, is revolutionizing the supply chain logistics space, has partnerships with numerous businesses, who are going to implement their chain in order to track items, implement a cheaper and better alternative to mainstream logistic solutions, automate their retail stores, and store and track data. Similar companies in the RFID space are worth roughly $5 billion dollars, so the market cap has tons of room to grow, especially with so many subsidiary companies that have pledged to use their technology, and with the explicit support of the Chinese government.

MOD, as another example, is partnering with pharmaceutical companies to do away with expensive refrigerated trucks and employees who report data, and expensive logistic services, and using their working hardware tested by the University of Zurich, which will save the pharmaceutical industry 60% in shipping and logistics per year. MOD is using block chain technology to anonymously, more accurately, and more cheaply report data.

If you guys are so confident, why not put your money where your mouth is and short it once the futures exchanges go live?

What about the theory that futures will actually lower the volatility of Bitcoin because it will create a way for investors to short or hedge the asset, rather than sell bitcoin they can sell futures.

Great. As long as it puts an end to people posting new threads every day to WSO saying Bitcoin hit a new high and asking what people think.

Efficiency of institutional investors? Classic.

Great thread btw.

Bitcoin is flourishing because of the first to market fallacy. Novice crypto investors think that BTC is the one because it gets all the talk. I agree with a lot that was said on this thread, but I see Dec. 18th the end of what I would call the CC rally.

1) BTC will fall. 2) We will see a rise in alt coins that have value - i.e. Eth, XRP, Lumens, Iota, etc. 3) Digital currency will come out of the woodworks in countries with low physical cash flow 4) I will never get the returns I once got from CC's

What I don't know is, 5) Will early adopters of CC move away from CC with a huge influx of mainstream attention (I.e. central bank backed digital currency, Cross Border payment digital coins, digital currency, ICO platforms, etc.) or is this just the beginning?

Honestly, we can postulate endlessly with these theories but nobody really knows wtf is really going to happen. Bitcoins future is more or less a coin flip...

The 4% of users control 96% of the BTC is mainly driven by the fact that the largest exchanges' hot and cold wallets hold huge quantities of BTC since it is the #1 trading pair and best way to move USD/EUR/GBP/etc. into altcoins. If you exclude the top 100 wallets the distribution is more equitable.

Typical Zerohedge sensationalism.

I haven't been around long enough to personally experience many bubbles, but I know from reading about past ones that every stock has it's ceiling price after which it's drastically overvalued and people want liquidity. To that effect, stocks carry potential energy just like a rock, if you throw a rock up in the air (depending on the velocity, it can go very high), but at some point in the future the price gets so high that it squeezes demand and has to come back to down to earth.

I'm not sure if the 18th will do bitcoin in, but surely at some point this (rock)etship has to come back down to earth.

I am just thinking out loud here.

The way I see it, and this could be completely wrong as I'm still getting grips with this stuff, is that the issue is Bitcoin has not intrinsic value. It is not linked to anything. It is just solely linked to supply and demand.

Fair enough the Fiat currencies are not pegged to the Gold standard but does the argument that they have no intrinsic value and that Bitcoin could replace Fiat Currencies hold up?

Firstly is it right to say that Fiat currencies have no intrinsic value? Doing a quick search on Investopedia you have 6 things which influence a currency: Inflation, interest rates, current-account deficit, public debt, terms of trade and political stability+ economic performance.

Depending on your decision to buy or sell a fiat currency, depends on these things. Hence your decision on whether to buy or sell is rational.

A while back I read a book by Yuval Noah Harari called "A brief history of mankind" and it says that in 1500 the global production of goods and services was about $250 billion. Today it is at around $60 trillion. The book gives the reason that before the modern era, money could only represent and convert things that actually existed in the present. This made it near impossible to finance new enterprises.

There are 1170 crypto currencies on the market. Would it not be easier to start trading with goods again? Maybe I am being very, very reductive but how is Bitcoin any different to how people bought and sold goods centuries ago where people used to trade with goods such as apples and potatoes in exchange for a cloth or meat etc... How is Bitcoin different to this? In my mind the goods have tangible value whereas bitcoins don't?

Further consider this scenario. You have a bank and a Business. The bank will readily lend a loan to the business because it can leverage up credit and it can estimate the amount it will get back with great accuracy.. The estimate is that for every $1 in a bank, banks can loan $10. But with Bitcoins how would lending work? Imagine a world where fiat currencies have been replaced with Bitcoins. The price would be too volatile as it would go up or down depending if more people had sold or bought things. The price would be in relation to how valuable people saw it in relation to goods. Why would anyone risk having something on your balance sheet which could be worthless the next morning? The bank could lend out $100 million but only be left with $20 the net morning if everyone had traded their bitcoins for goods.
Due to the irrational nature of trading bitcoins, the whole purpose of lending would cease to exist meaning no more enterprises. Modern day growth and capitalism only exist because you can lend and be reasonably sure of how much you would get back.

There will only be a fixed amount of Bitcoins in the market, wouldn't that create a race to see who can control the most creating a more unfair society?

Sergioaguero:

4% of users own 96% of Bitcoins.

That is a false statement in the context you are writing it. It's based on exchanges, not individuals.

I don't see an actual argument here.

Why again is bitcoin a scam and why will its value collapse? People seem to think that throwing around the word "bubble" somehow constitutes an argument.

The other thing to point is the companies behind crytpo.

What is the business model and how do they make profit from it? They are just creating cryptoC and wait for their currencies going up?

The big issue with BTC long term as a currency is transaction times with BTC are incredibly slow compared to other currencies. Litecoin for example is lighting fast compared to BTC. At the same time we have no idea what will happen with any of this cryptocurrency. We just have to wait for futures.

Although intended to be a currency, Bitcoin is a store of value. From a technical implementation standpoint, it is not designed to a be a currency. There are other technical implementations (XRP) that closely resemble what an actual currency would look like (Not endorsing XRP as I think it's shit, but it has technical characteristics that more closely resemble what a "crypto currency" would look like (e.g. extremely low fees, inflationary)). In the future, you'll sell your BTC for a widely accepted "crypto currency" for micro-payments and everyday transactions.

2nd what picklemonkey said about 4% control control 96% -- Bitcoin Exchanges

The futures markets that are coming out (CBOE on the 10th, CME on the 18th, NASDAQ next year) only means increased exposure for institutional and traditional investors. Approval of these future products lends credence to the SEC's future decision on a BTC ETF. This leads to improved price discovery and increased capital inflows. All of this, further cementing Bitcoin legitimacy.

Calling this the end of Bitcoin? You haven't been here long enough. I'd love to see a nice 40% correction since everyone and their dog jumped in after their 18 year old son told them to invest over Thanksgiving, but that's wishful thinking.

Looks like we have the next George Soros.

What you fundamentally misunderstand about cryptocurrency and blockchain tech is that you cannot have blockchain without cryptocurrency. The reason why the technology works is precisely that there are incentives with the cyrptocurrency. Without incentives, miners that affirm transactions and add blocks to the blockchain would have no reason to keep the blockchain going.

TLDR, you can't have the good aspects of blockchain tech without a cryptocurrency pair with it

I'd always say that nobody can truly predict the future of the Bitcoin and the current cryptos. But if there's one thing for sure, the blockchain technology is valuable.

Does that mean that Bitcoin has intrinsic value (i.e. due to the blockchain technology)? Well, not quite. Let's go back to basics: gold is considered to have intrinsic value because it itself has other uses such as jewelry, electronics, and even dental filings. If you are to be technical about it, gold is valuable for it's conductivity (conducting heat and electricity), malleability (can be easily molded), and ductility (turned into wires).

I have no doubt that blockchain is here to stay because you can use it for a myriad of applications such as real estate or logistics. But worst case scenario, can you use your Bitcoins per se for anything else? The same way you can melt your gold bars and coins for other uses?

Think about it from a technical perspective. I'm not a programmer, but it seems that it's less difficult to create a new blockchain altogether for non-currency usage than converting the Bitcoin blockchain (like building a new boat vs patching up an old, hole-riddled one).

And not to mention the sheer "replicability" of the Bitcoin and the whimsicality of network effects that currently supports the Bitcoin! What do I mean?

For replicability, look at the forks, Bitcoin forking to create Bitcoin cash, and there's a second one looming. For all you know Bitcoin cash could outperform Bitcoin in the long run (if at all) because of better technical capacity. But then again, there could be BCH 2.0 and BCH 3.0 and so on. So where does it end? It's like the federal reserve introducing a new dollar the moment the current one is no longer sustainable. Like Greenback 2.0 and Greenback 3.0. Well, central banks do issue new notes but they demonetize the old ones maintaining only one form of legal tender.

As for the network effects, they might last a while, but they'll move on to a new one eventually. Remember Myspace? I was in high school when my friends were crazed over it, only to be replaced by Facebook. You might say Bitcoin has the first mover advantage, but what if there's a second mover advantage (lol)? The tech space has been known for ruthlessly out-innovating competitors (Think Nokia early 2000's vs now) so there's no guarantee Bitcoin will be the "gold standard" of crypto if at all.

And let's not forget: regulation. Just because the blockchain is decentralized doesn't mean that governments can't have some considerable influence over it. If you think about it, the internet is decentralized, but look at China and their censorship policy: the majority of social media sites that we enjoy are blocked there.

And there's another threat looming in the internet: Net neutrality. With net neutrality, all forms of data over the net are considered equal whether they're from Facebook or some shady-ass website. But without it, telecoms and data providers can charge you separately for data plans (which has already happened in other countries). So while governments might not entirely "kill" cryptos, they can definitely enforce restrictions. And who's to say central banks won't create their own (which seems oxymoronic) but Russia considered it!

Another possible fate of the cryptos is that it will simply be an efficient means of transferring money (not exchanging goods or storing value) like what we do in online banking. So the odds are stacked against Bitcoin being the new "global" currency.

So overall, I'd say we humans tend to predict in extremes, all doom and gloom vs frenzied pipe dreams.

On one camp there are those who glorify crypto as the ultimate savior from the banking system that "failed" us and on the other you have those who sneer and vilify it as some nerd's anti-capitalist fantasy toy.

But in reality, I think it's in the middle of somewhere. Will Bitcoin crash in Dec. 18? Perhaps not, a significant dip at most, nobody knows for sure. But eventually blockchain will become part of everyday life and we will look at it with no more familiarity than we do with the internet, television, and automobiles.

You're all talking out of your ass. If you think this is the end of bitcoin, grow a pair and short it for more than a year. I'll even pay you your borrow costs as a donation... talk is cheap.

Also, one other thing, regarding the trading of BTC futures and BTC ETF strengthening the legitimacy of Bitcoin, remember that listed internet stocks in the early 2000's were deemed legitimate since they were allowed to do IPOs. Legitimacy is one thing, subject to dips, crashes, and panic selling is another.

tnx for the tip - i'll buy some when it crashes

About 7 years ago I had the chance to get in on some Bitcoins but I decided to pass. The problem was they were asking for about 10K investment and I thought that was a lot of money for such an unproven currency. My analysis was sound but sometimes I wish I had bought about 100 bucks worth of bitcoin - would be worth about $400m now! Other than that, I am still very skeptical of this currency. Gold keeps falling of a cliff but this intangible asset with no other anchor for it's value keeps soaring? Hell even MBS has something, however shit it was, backing them. I think the reason why the price is going so high now has to do with the supply as OP said and that once the market concentration evens out the price corrections on the way there will be huge. For that reason I think it's beyond risky to get into it now and hold for too long as it's too expensive and could crash anytime.

You think so?

1) I walk around my street and say I have this many dollars in bitcoin. Is there another street that exists somewhere where they say I have this many bitcoin in dollar? That is not meant to be a dig, I'm just not very well-versed in this topic... Am I missing a bigger picture that's in place already?