Hacker News Reader

Patience. Volatility of Bitcoin is not a big problem, because it will decrease over time: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/09...

Why would it decrease? Bitcoin was way less volatile in the past.

The article I linked to explains it. Basically: there will be more market depth, less friction in trading bitcoins, etc.

Also, a linear regression (important) shows that Bitcoin's volatility HAS decreased over the last 5 years.

There are many manipulative articles. The higher the price of Bitcoin is, the more people will be willing to sell and less willing to buy.

No. If what you said was true, then high-priced stocks (shares of Apple, or Berkshire Hathaway) would be very volatile.

In fact, it is the reverse: low-priced stocks (penny stocks) are the most volatile.

Well, Apple has billions of cash, tons of patents, significant market share, a great brand, and many other assets. Not the case with Bitcoin.

This is irrelevant to your original false claim (that a unit or share of something is inherently volatile, if it is highly priced.)

I wasn't making a general statement, I was talking about Bitcoin - people buy many things just because they are expensive, well, the rich people at least. BTC is dropping again after it couldn't break above $1,000. Any comment on stock spits then?

Data shows your statements are wrong. Volatility is decreasing - look at the next to last graph in this article: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/6543/bitcoin-volatility-analysis/

(Stock splits are irrelevant. Yes a split by itself does not affect volatility. I was just making a comment that, generally speaking, penny stocks are more volatile that highly-priced stocks.)

A stock split is not irrelevant as it "lowers" the unit price - it has a strong psychological effect. Not sure if you've noticed, but some sites started to use mBTC instead of BTC when it broke $1,000! Volatility is decreasing as people aren't as hyped up as they were and don't rush to buy at any price anymore. What you see is people waiting and meanwhile doing decent day trading profits from the small movements up and down. BTC couldn't break 1,000 USD and 6,000 CNY, so, naturally, it's falling again.

This recent volatility is mainly due to uncertainty about government responses to bitcoin: The price when up when the Congressional hearings were positive, and went down when the Chinese government announced restrictions on bitcoin use.

Eventually, most governments will clarify their position on bitcoin and volatility will decrease.

Well, it needs to be accepted in all G20 countries. I really don't understand why people interpret what happened in China as "not so bad" - it set a bad precedent and both France and the Netherlands had very negative statements, so, who knows what exactly is gonna happen.

> it should move up and down by no more than 1-2%

1-2% in what period of time?

EUR/USD pair can move 10% in less than two months. Which it did Feb 3rd -> March 28 this year. It moved -20% in 3 months (24 Jul -> 25 Nov, 2008).

So to restate, over 3 months of financial crisis so severe that much of the financial industry either went bankrupt or was nationalized, EUR/USD fluctuated by 20% in 3 months.

In comparison, BTC/USD fluctuated by 40% in 3 days, because of a single policy decision by a government halfway around the world.

BTC is not stable.

I'm talking about daily movements - with Bitcoin we see huge up and down movements, which are good for speculation, not for business.

It will settle down, give it time, it's too new, it's still growing very fast.

It might settle down. It also might not settle down. BTC might lose popularity in favor of an altcoin. We don't know yet. We're in completely uncharted territory, nobody knows for sure what is going to happen.

Yes, it's possible, but not likely. There's a ton of infrastructure behind bitcoin. Tons of news coverage. Tons of debate. Nobody is aware of the second biggest coin - litecoin.

Too young to remember DotCom? There was tons of infrastructure back then as well.

So? IT is doing extremely well. The internet is bigger than ever. Valuations are still crazy.

IT will always be well - I'm talking about people who put their savings into vaporware stocks. I'm not sure why everybody is giving Tulip Mania as an example when DotCom is away more similar to Bitcoin. I even thought about a version of Bitcoin, which is based on stock. You create a vaporware corporation and use its stocks as a currency, well, commodity. :)

>With such volatility, you need to put a huge buffer in your pricing and only idiots and criminals will spend their BTC instead of paying with fiat in such case.

Then I have to say, I don't really think you see the real value in bitcoin.

I was under the impression bitpay-type services would deal with the transactions. How would the volatility be an issue in that case?

If you're selling goods you buy with fiat, you can only hold Bitcoin for longer if you're hoping the price will go up or depending on the margin. Even if your vendor accepts Bitcoin, you still need to pay taxes, wages, rents, etc. with fiat, so, you cannot keep much of it in Bitcoin anyway.

So you would choose not to store your value in bitcoin because of it lacks usefulness to you. Thank you for expanding on your original statement, but I think I missed the response to the question. I however would choose to store value in bitcoin because of my own prejudice against the dollar, should I expect to see bitcoin to do better because of this?

You don't choose Bitcoin to store value, but to greatly increase value. If you don't believe in USD, convert to EUR or CNY. Let's be honest here, guys. We choose Bitcoin as it's more profitable and hope its value to go somewhere in the $10K-100K, which is possible, but it's not 100% sure, not even 10% at this point. I was an active observer and I saw how BTC went out of steam when it exceeded $1K. It tried to break $1.2K several times and it failed. Trade volume dropped significantly above $1K - and this was before the negative news, plus, many get burned by stolen Bitcoins or losing money from speculation. This is hurting the longevity of Bitcoin. Pretty much its future isn't in the hands of governments, but in the hands of speculators, which right now drive the majority of transactions and look for short-term profit and don't care much about the vitality of cryptocurrencies.

That's not at all why I choose to use bitcoin. I'm not a spectator, I'm investing in something that has slim chances of success, but I'm idealistic enough to want it to work anyways. That's why I store some of my value there. So you were incorrect, while you seem to just be a spectator of bitcoin, realize not everyone else is. I feel just as secure investing in bitcoin as I do leaving value sitting around in the form of dollar bills at this point. So as delusional as I may seem to you, I think you've missed a lot of the reasons (some) people are clammoring for bitcoin. Also, the volatility means next to nothing to me in this respect. I bought in at what I thought was reasonable, refused to panic sell, and so far everything is golden, I've been up, I've been down, but not really lost any value at all... yet.

No, I do buy and sell and I profit from Bitcoin, but just like during DotCom many thought they get the stock market (while it was only going up) and invested all their money into it and then they lost everything, don't put more than 10% of your assets as otherwise you're gonna get hurt! I know many who lost millions and their homes during DotCom, so, greed gets you killed! Also, the future of Bitcoin cannot be only in the hands of people who bought it cheap! If you think somebody will buy it at $1,000 and won't mind when it drops down to $0? The higher the price and the more uncertainty there is, the less incentive to buy will there be and we saw this happening when price exceeded $1,000 - volume dropped significantly, nobody wanted to buy. We're getting close to $1,000 again and you see volumes are dropping already.

If I lose all of my assets in bitcoin it's an acceptable loss. If the US economy tanks and I lose my dollars, I'll be pissed, because I saw it coming.

Second point is this fits my narrative. I will be quitting my job and moving out into a van sometime this year. I feel my only ability to effectively protest against the people of this country is to stop contributing. Bitcoin will serve me much better in this regard.

If US economy tanks, all world economies will tanks, too. Then people will stick to precious metals - something that can be used off the grid, something lo-tech. I am on your side that we have to revolt against ever tightening grip of the US government and Wall Street, but when it comes to finances, too much optimism is not practical, i.e. don't put all eggs in one basket. I'm not saying buy gold as gold is manipulated as well, but there are other currencies as well - CNY (very popular in Forex recently, steadily growing against USD), EUR (hmmm), CHF (growing against USD steadily), etc. It's bad that gasoline takes too much storage space otherwise it's definitely better than gold. Maybe basic drugs are a better choice, too. I think The Walking Dead is a good guide for what's a universal value storage with or without an apocalypse! :)

>If US economy tanks, all world economies will tanks, too.

I think in a few different ways it's possible this wouldn't be the case. Specifically in the event of an all out attack on the US, where the dollar might become useless while bitcoin could fair well. Regardless, I couldn't agree more about gas, drugs and other better doomsday investments, but I think bitcoin serves me in the short-term for more scenarios. I do however have a doomsday trade prepared, moonshine makin'! :D