Re: [2013-12-25] Video - A Bitcoin Discussion with Andreas Antonopoulos
I think the most obvious constraint to its growth will be regulation. Bitcoin is not invulnerable, it could be crippled by regulation.
Regulation is not global.. Unless you ban bitcoin it will keep flourishing in the regions where its not regulated.Flourishing in third world or tiny countries won't mean much if Bitcoin in regulated into obscurity in the first world countries.
I also think that it will be challenged by competition in the finance industry. Bitcoin may be good for a lot of things but it isn't necessarily the best choice for everything. It has limitations that other payment systems don't have, and others will take advantage of BItcoin's weaknesses.
Agreed, however keep in mind that the finance industry is happy to take up to 10% from you, bitcoin does things at a fraction of that. The is a whole lot of things that they can do, however now they are forced to innovate rather than to sleep and collect what they have been doing for the past 50 years. (people will become much more aware of cost)I think that many companies could be killed by Bitcoin, but many will survive and compete directly, limiting Bitcoin's market share.
2/3 of bitcoins are hoarded (a recent estimate). When the value finally starts leveling out, those hoarded bitcoins are going to be spent, doubling or tripling the bitcoins in circulation.
These don't all get dumped out at the same time, everyone has their own price, and almost all early adopters understand that dumping a whole lot of coins on the market at once, is gonna sink the price... Someone wanting to purposely hurt bitcoin, could momentarily do so... End of the line, if bitcoins have already been proven valuable it doesn't matter... it will take a little dip and come back up.I'm not talking about dumping. Even a slow controlled release of bitcoins that doubles or triples the amount in circulation will constrain its rise in value.
Also, consider that fractional reserve banking will increase the bitcoin money supply by possibly a factor of 10.
Uhh... history has proven that if you give money to a bank that does fractional reserve banking, is that if the bank crashes, you lose your money. I really wouldn't trust my bitcoins to a bank that does fractional reserve banking... And thanks to bitcoin I actually have a choice in that matter.Most people don't understand it as well as you do. Fractional reserve banking with Bitcoin is a certainty.
Finally, a major constraint of a bitcoin's value is Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin is much more efficient than other payment systems. Bitcoin's efficiency will increase the velocity of money by many times, perhaps by a factor of 10.
No idea what you are talking about... The fact that bitcoins get transported faster is a good thing right? 
Owh and in case you missed it, the price goes up, and transaction volume goes up, while theory would say otherwise.Because Bitcoin is more efficient, less is needed to support a given transaction volume. For example, if a $X is needed to support a certain transaction volume, then only $X/10 worth of bitcoins is needed to support that same transaction volume, so demand for bitcoins won't rise as fast as expected.