Quote:
Originally Posted by fynthase
For those of you selling:
I'm curious what changed between the time you bought and now. Yes, it is true that bitcoin needs to gain more widespread acceptability before it can gain value (e.g. get listing on a major exchange). It's also true that by the time this happens, the price will have spiked. So, why don't you guys think it will gain more acceptability?
Identifying the end of a speculative bubble.
There is little use for it, and little expected use in the near term future IMO.
Press is dropping off and peaked, most people who would buy already knows about it.
Don't need to be the one caught with the bag.
There really are three potential uses I see:
1) Buying things that need anonymity - Silk Road
2) Buying things that banks will prevent - Gambling
3) Sending money where there are huge fees
1- basically the fundamental value. However, most people will buy and sell, and only the time the currency is held is what gives it value.
2- too big of an investment to be worth anyone's trouble, little chance of that market taking off mainstream
3- possible, but not sure it will be that much cheaper or worth that much of a benefit, very hard to actually set this up
If you believe it would be good for someone to build #2 or #3, then you could for less effort just buy the coins. It's basically a game of chicken where no one wants to act since it's easier to speculate for the same benefit. So nothing happens.
The market is fundamentally unstable due to poor distribution and huge numbers of irrational speculators. That's enough to keep casual users out other than foolish speculators.
I've recovered my initial investment, kept enough to gamble with (both by actually gambling and just in case I'm wrong in my gut about where the market is headed).
Google trends are down tremendously, and it takes a ton of capital to clear new coins. Miners are getting crushed now, so that takes away a lot of capital coming in to get interest (people might start mining, then get hooked and start buying).
The reason it doesn't get accepted is it's a pain to get compared to what people already have, and there's not really a big benefit in it. Why would anyone use it over cash?
Combine that with security issues where people will either lose their wallets, get trojans that steal them, shady sites that get hacked, etc... It's a huge cost to use it vs. the small fees you might pay using traditional methods.