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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

For how long does a "bubble" need to be in "the bubble" for it to not be considered a "bubble" anymore? I'm guessing there is a time limit involved here somewhere?

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As long as there is no world use justifying it's exorbitant value pumped up by speculation.

The BTC holders trying to rebrand to a value storage instead of a currency is proof of this.

> As long as there is no world use

Who judges this? Is "bubble" a personal/subjective thing then? Bitcoin is a bubble for you, because there is no use case, but not a bubble for others that can use it for any reason?

you can make money speculating that something will go down as well as up. It's not the reason for it's price to go up.

BTW, you call it's price exhorbitant - I say it's rediculously cheap at any price where you can still get someone to accept fiat tokens for it

What you're saying is that the claim "it's a bubble" is not falsifiable (people move price and time targets) and therefore a belief and not scientifically grounded, just like a religion.

So any discussion with BTC bubble people is futile unless they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

> What you're saying is that the claim "it's a bubble" is not falsifiable (people move price and time targets) and therefore a belief and not scientifically grounded, just like a religion.

No, I'm merely trying to understand what people's understanding of a "bubble" is. I couldn't care less if others consider Bitcoin a bubble or not, but after hearing "Bitcoin is a bubble" since ~2015 sometime, I feel like I misunderstand what a "bubble" is. The "tulip mania" seems to have been around 2-3 years long, the dotcom bubble around 10 years, so I guess it isn't impossible for a bubble to last 20 or even 30 years.

Economic downturn that motivates holders to liquidate. The house of cards would collapse very quickly if one whale cashed out. Everyone holding is facing a bad version of the prisoner's dilemma.

> The house of cards would collapse very quickly if one whale cashed out

So a thing is a "bubble" for as long as it is possible for it to collapse if whales cash out too quickly? In your mind, every financial system today is a bubble if I understand you correct then?

It already happened several times for BTC. Look for ATH drawdown chart.

Bitcoin has lost 75% of its value 4+ times, but for some strange reason everytime it "comes back stronger".

My thesis is that, in all these years, the BTC price has been composed of 2 parts: Speculators and "believers". Speculators will buy and sell very fast as soon as the market moved or due to external phenomena. "Believers" will keep holding through everything.

Thing is, with each cycle there is more money on Believers than Speculators. This time, ETFs and institutions have placed a lot more money, so it seems there are more and more Believers. That's why you see retail Speculators saying that this cycle is "boring".

It's interesting to see how the price will keep stabilizing, as the ratio of Believers vs Speculators money gets larger (Speculators become a smaller and smaller % of the price).

I think this was the last cycle (halving cycle) with that much volatility.

Even if you are not into bitcoin, it's interesting to study its phenomena.

Backing the security with public programs just feels like the last step in a scam. As soon as BTC is backed by ETFs and government programs then suddenly the public are the people who make up the difference when whales cash out and crash the true value. It's a very efficient transfer of wealth. Backing a security like this adds no value to the public but puts large risk on it. There is no justification other than "we can steal from you so we will".

Your thesis is 10+ year old: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/

Always good to find back well known results by first principles!

Maybe a generation or a lifetime. Gold is also a bubble but people are either into it or not so there's little discussion.

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