Quote from: odolvlobo on May 21, 2013, 08:29:05 PM

Quote from: Gamah on May 21, 2013, 07:13:42 AM

Quote from: odolvlobo on May 21, 2013, 05:13:32 AM

Quote from: bcpokey on May 20, 2013, 07:08:13 PM

Contrary to your contrary there is no correlation between price and difficulty, there is a correlation between difficulty and price ( in this case order matters ).

You are confused. The word you are looking for is "causation". You want to say that correlation does not imply causation. In other words, the fact that A and B are correlated does not imply that A causes B or that B causes A.

Price and difficulty are highly correlated. Just look at the graphs. It is pretty obvious. Keep in mind that totally unrelated things can be correlated (that's called a coincidence).

Anyway, it is easy to make the case that price influences difficulty: If the price goes up, more people mine and the difficulty goes up. If the price goes down, less people mine, and difficulty goes down.

It is not so easy to make the case that difficulty influences price, though you could make this case: difficulty and price are both influenced by interest in bitcoin.

Can you list any other coincidences that have been going on for 4+ years with predictable results?

I'm not trying to say that network hashrate specifically dictates BTC trade price (last month's bubble is an obvious example) but to say they aren't related is just bogus.

I think you stopped reading when I mentioned that unrelated correlation is the definition of the word "coincidence".

I also think it is possible that hash rate and price influence each other (in other words, the causal relationship goes both ways), but I haven't seen a good case made for hash rate influencing price.

I believe they are correlated, perhaps even to the point of codependent.... a bit of the chicken/egg conundrum... price is affected by difficulty, and difficulty is affected by price. Discerning difficulty from hash rate is just ignorant, difficulty is defined by hash rate, I just took the extra step out of the equation in the OP.

As for them being a coincidence, no I do not think so.. Coincidences are things that happen to occur simultaneously whilst having no codependency or correlation.

Quote

A coincidence (often stated as a mere coincidence) is a collection of two or more events or conditions, closely related by time, space, form, or other associations which appear unlikely to bear a relationship as either cause to effect or effects of a shared cause, within the observer's or observers' understanding of what cause can produce what effects.

EDIT:

I realize that systematically, that price and hash rate have no relation... a price is not explicitly set by how much power is on the network.. that's obviously implied