Post
Topic
Board Speculation
Re: November 2013 Bubble Analysis
by
SlipperySlope
on 27/11/2013, 05:18:18 UTC
I agree with most of your post, but I think we are well into the early adopter phase, if not through it already -- actually this timing is what worries me the most.

I misspoke, the 'chasm' is between the early adopters and early majority, and given that, perhaps you are right-- I don't think so, I tend to think we are just crossing into the early adopter stage, only. That's how the infrastructure is getting rolled out for the 1 or 2 out of 100 to be able to use it. Even at early adopter stage, the usability must be pretty decent, and it's just now coming-of-age at the most basic levels. Even those are lacking-- the best example is the exchanges, and some merchant services-- still no remittances, micropayments, escrow, et al. While at early innovator stages, it was really only a very tiny subset that was able to fit the requirements for usage.

If you subscribe to the ideas of 'Crossing the Chasm', then what might the chasm represent? Would it be the question of how does a regular Joe use bitcoin? I think that's a reasonable place holder, and one for which Bitoin still has a long way to go. Remember, early adopters are some 13% of the market. There is no way we have made large inroads to that group. We are probably still well under 1% adoption, though the media is covering this realm.

The chasm with regard to the population of early adopter bitcoin speculators and early majority bitcoin speculators, as I understand your terms, was the period in 2011 when the  trustworthiness and utility of bitcoin exchanges was very much in doubt. During the early adoption period exchanges were non existent or not somewhere that I felt really safe storing coins. According, I put June 2011 at the trough of the chasm for adopting bitcoin speculators.

The chasm with regard to the underlying economy may be upon us. As informed speculators we can envision the replacement of legacy financial infrastructure with bitcoin. I see very impressive transaction volume reported by coinometrics.