This has been my first foray into investments over which I have active control. I don't know about you guys, but it is both terrifying and exciting to think that with the right trades, your pile of bitcoins can either explode or vanish. Or you can just stash them away in a cold storage wallet which can never be taken from you. That's pretty cool when you think about it. It is also disturbing to see the volatility resulting from widespread panic and criminal attacks on the bitcoin infrastructure. I'm also disturbed by the lack of pricing information available when Gox is down. Seriously .. the market is absolutely paralyzed without it. Thankfully, there isn't nearly the kind of panic we saw before. It seems like people are adjusting to life with DDOS. Anyway, the current volatility makes its use as a bona-fide currency impractical since manufacturers generally don't buy capital, labor, materials, etc. in bitcoins. What's clear is that this is definitely a work-in-progress and the bitcoin you see 5 years from now will look very different than the bitcoin you see today. Probably much like the internet itself as it morphed from pure html to what we have now.
After all the speculation, hand waving, and so on you see over in the big boy forums, I think what is evident is nobody really has a solid pulse on what will happen in the next hour, day, month or year. You read what the speculators have to say, and it reminds me of a broken clock being right twice a day. Every bull has his day and every bear has his day.
Predicting where BTC/$ will be tomorrow is like predicting the weather. In fact, I'd say its considerably harder to predict than the weather. Tomorrow NK could launch nukes @ Japan. What happens to BTC? There could be a DDOS against all the exchanges that never lets up and basically cannot be mitigated. What happens to BTC? A security flaw, another hacked exchange, gov't regulation, another panic caused by some unforeseen factor, and so on are all distinct possibilities. Hell, the people running each exchange could be threatened by hired guns. If this really takes off, a lot of very powerful dynasties will be extremely agitated. I think this will either be an unbelievable success story or a dismal failure .. lots of money will change hands in the next few months & years on these exchanges. Grab your popcorn
After all the speculation, hand waving, and so on you see over in the big boy forums, I think what is evident is nobody really has a solid pulse on what will happen in the next hour, day, month or year. You read what the speculators have to say, and it reminds me of a broken clock being right twice a day. Every bull has his day and every bear has his day.
Predicting where BTC/$ will be tomorrow is like predicting the weather. In fact, I'd say its considerably harder to predict than the weather. Tomorrow NK could launch nukes @ Japan. What happens to BTC? There could be a DDOS against all the exchanges that never lets up and basically cannot be mitigated. What happens to BTC? A security flaw, another hacked exchange, gov't regulation, another panic caused by some unforeseen factor, and so on are all distinct possibilities. Hell, the people running each exchange could be threatened by hired guns. If this really takes off, a lot of very powerful dynasties will be extremely agitated. I think this will either be an unbelievable success story or a dismal failure .. lots of money will change hands in the next few months & years on these exchanges. Grab your popcorn