So much this. Once you get through your first bubble to the next one, it's hard to be too upset about any drop when it's still hundreds of % higher than what you bought at before.
I dont see a rise of hundreds of % at these levels. That was possible on single and double digits. But at three digits I cant really imagine that BT will ever trade for five digits.
Really? Human psychology of dealing with large numbers aside, bitcoin could easily rise several
thousand % from here. Will it rise anytime soon? I would say unlikely. I expect several months of meandering back upwards and once we retake 800 then its off to the races. But who knows, it is bitcoin right?
There are optimistically say 2 million bitcoin 'users' globally. From Rpietila there are perhaps 14,000 people with more than 100 coins, another 85,000 with between 10 and 100 coins, and all the rest holding below 10 coins individually.
Let's think about that for a moment - globally there may be less than 100,000 people holding more than 10 coins which comprise the overwhelming majority of all coins in existence. And really it is probably closer to 20,000 holding more than thirty coins.
There are approximately 7.2 billion people on the planet. In 2011 there were 6 billion mobile phone active sims globally. There is a film floating about called 'The rise and rise of bitcoin'. There should be a film called 'The rise and rise of the smartphone'. What is happening right now is the creation of - in my view - internet 2.0. There are over a billion smartphones globally and in the next five years this technology will have spread like wildfire connecting everyone irreversibly.
The internet has destroyed, altered or disrupted everything it has touched thus far. Postal services -> email. Conventional telephone -> VOIP. Conventional printed media -> blogging and 24 hour news sites. Hard films and digital media -> commercial streaming media (netflix) and torrents. Finance is next. Voting may follow that.
Half the world is unbanked and will soon be clutching a powerful unix workstation which is permanently connected to the net.
If bitcoin can simply continue to exist, at current user adoption rates it
must rise massively in value.
Even if total bitcoin users rises from 1-2 million to just ten million the price will rise many fold. If by some wonderful stroke of luck bitcoin can survive and actually become a true transacting currency of the internet then todays prices will appear incredible.
I know this is a speculation forum but patience is a virtue!