This bitcoin graph has become so accurate again at the moment, it's scary
tradingview.com
tradingview.com
There are 7 billion people.
So there is 0.003 bitcoin per person.
So if bitcoin will one day become "THE" currency, isn't it more than logical that 1BTC will become worth more than a million dollars or something like that (not that dollars would still exist at that time, but, 1BTC would be worth as much as an average group of 333 people owns)?
Or am I misunderstanding something about currency?
This HN thread is by far the most interesting one I've read about speculating Bitcoin's future value.
[0] http://www.numbersleuth.org/worlds-gold/ [1] http://erikaugust.com/blog/thought-on-bitcoin
There are not 7 billion people that this will impact. How many of those have no access to a computer of any sort, including a mobile phone? How many are under the age of ten? That cuts out a huge chunk from that figure.
Then subtract all those too old to care about Bitcoin or internet anything.
Then remove from that those that have little faith in anything they can't touch and hold, physical currency, precious metals, or simply commodity items. Considering how reluctant some groups are to even use credit cards for online purchases, regardless of the enormous level of consumer protection provided by that service, this is an insurmountable hurdle for some.
There's at most a billion people in this market and for it to get that pervasive it will take an enormous upswing in popularity. At this point Bitcoin isn't even as popular as Cuban Pesos.
Irrelevant to your point, but less than you might think. Currency transfer using texting is popular and highly functional in several poor African countries. I agree with your assessment that these people won't be affected by Bitcoin, but using mobile phones to send money is actually VERY common in some poor countries.
There are people that will never have the chance to own a mobile phone. They have other priorities, like fresh water, AIDS or malaria medication, or a reliable source of food.
I am from a country with ~50% inflation and +30% of poverty (under the government scale, it is arguable to be way higher) and I can tell you that in that context you are overestimating people's priorities.
I have seen people with a minimum wage salary and without anything to eat but having smartphones and/or having cosmetic surgeries.
I'm still skeptical a currency created by crytoanarchists and supported by people with money to burn on ASIC hardware will have a meaningful impact on those with virtually nothing. If I'm wrong, so much the better.
Bitcoin replacing the US dollar is unrealistic.
But if it's this valuable at the Cuban-peso level, how valuable will it be when it's as popular as, say, Canadian dollars or South African rand?
Canada is the 11th largest economy in the world, slightly behind Russia and India. South Africa is less than a quarter of that, but still way bigger than Bitcoin.
Cuba has a GDP of $68B. Is there that much Bitcoin being exchanged for goods yet?
I'd be impressed if Bitcoin transactions have eclipsed the economy of EVE Online.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Looks like upside to me.
I don't pretend to know the future of Bitcoin. If nothing else it's demonstrated the possibility of transmitting real value across borders without banks or governments.
That capability is worth a lot more than the GDP of Cuba.
I don't know if Bitcoin or something else will solve this problem, but now that everyone knows what's possible, it's as inevitable as any other obvious invention.
And whatever solves this problem will be worth a hell of a lot.
That's the big question isn't it? Will bitcoin take over, or will another digital cryptocurrency conjured out of the ether take over? (bitcoin 2.0)
> So there is 0.003 bitcoin per person.
There's some bitcoin amounts that are likely lost forever, perhaps miners that lost their private keys or whatever, or forgot about their bitcoin wallet from the early days, which will skew the calculations and make the effective total less than 21 million. Also, as others have noted, you are likely to see inequality with bitcoin wealth, just like regular assets and currencies.
Edit: not sure why this is downvoted. You can't divide one Satoshi, unless the protocol is updated.
And your post isn't being voted for because it is irreverent.
Lets say that the value of a BC goes up to 1 Million USD somehow (which is REALLY unlikely), a Satoshi is still worth a penny. We understand that it can't divide infinity and yes you are right by saying it, but for this discussion, we are able to divide a bit-coin as much as needed, and besides- if it ever gets to the point (somehow) that we need to, a future protocol could fix it.
but the protocol can be changed to have more significant digits, so things can be divided more.
As I wrote: "... unless the protocol is updated.". There are still reserved bits available. But then everyone would have to update their software. And if we're talking about a global, usable currency, that means updating millions of hardware devices to support it.
Regarding Satoshi being always worth something - yes, in theory that should be the case. Unless some huge changes take place. Major exchanges disappearing, issues with the protocol, introduction of blacklists, lots of other things we cannot predict at the moment. It doesn't even have to be a penny - if it was headed too quickly towards that line, I would expect everyone to panic because they could never recover the theoretical amount in local currency.
I was impressed with his prediction of the first top and drop. But if this will play out like the chart says it will. Well... impressive.
What do you think?
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses does not look bearish to me
See, e.g., the double top: http://www.forexhit.com/learn-forex/price-patterns.html
I think he is being rather short sighted here. Especially with news coming out that the Swiss parliament is investigating its potential to act as a legal currency.