Re: I am pretty confident we are the new wealthy elite, gentlemen.
My personal hypothesis: By 3rd/4th quarter of this year we will see ETF's, options, leveraging, etc come into the market. Once this occurs major Wall Street firms will start trading. This will create volume at levels never seen before and drive the price far, far higher.
They'll trade paper bitcoins that they can't back with real ones, and keep the exchange rate artificially low just like they do with gold.Q4 is the earliest possibility of a ETF right? And when do projects finish in time? That's right never, so I'm assuming 2015.
I was assuming Q3 for the ETF, but you're probably right. Let's say Q1 2015.
As bitcoin becomes more widely available and more volume occurs (assuming it's not false volume that has been theorized from the Willie report), more "traditional" investors will start to move in. Fortress, for example, is a forerunner and taking a big risks. However, most big hedge funds and Wall Street firms are not going to want to work with exchanges that are not fully audited and have legitimate backing. When more stable, and dare I say it, REGULATED markets come online, the big money will come in. Second Market, for example.
Then we'll see pump and dump and market manipulation being done by the real professionals.
6 months to 9 months? Though if we enter into another Bull market, I'm guessing they'll move faster to try and make a fast profit.