Quote from: tutkarz on August 01, 2013, 08:11:28 PM

Quote from: fr33d0miz3r on August 01, 2013, 07:45:44 PM

I'll just leave this here:

i never understood why people believe that bitcoin price is a bubble in the first place and not normal price fluctuations in a free and unregulated market. Especially after 2011 so called "bubble" when no one know what will happen next and now we know that bitcoin wont simply die next day.
I and I think many others just bought bitcoins, keep them in safe place, and remain optimistic because we believe its good concept and worth investing. Where is bubble in that?

As I said before I think that this not a bubble. It is a new thing, perhaps driven by the speed worldwide subcultures can communicate due to internet technologies. With most prior bubbles (that I know about), total valuations during the bubble reached many times the size of the conceivable future market. Yet the bitcoin market cap topped out orders of magnitude below that (not going to repeat all the great infographics ppl have posted here). In a system with exponentially increasing real value, for the first time knowledge can flash through subgroups FASTER then the exponential value rise. At the same time, knowledge cannot easily pass across gender/age/vocation/language/cultural boundaries because to do so requires a re-working of the presentation, a different emphasis, or different layered applications. We saw BTC flash through certain sectors of college students, libertarians, IT professionals, finance, etc. We still see it predominantly used by young people...

The phenomenon of rapid, super-exponential spread through these subcultures is what has caused the BTC micro-bubbles of 2011 and 2013 -- periods when expectation simply temporarily exceeded the reality. Essentially the bitcoin market cap DID vastly exceed the conceivable future market OF THOSE SUBCULTURES only. But bitcoin is universally applicable... new memes are already coming: "bitcoin and PMs are complementary" for example.