When you think its over and all is lost. We have bottomed.
I remember watching CNBC when the S&P was at 666 and it felt like the world was ending and nothing could turn it around. That was actually the best point to invest in a lifetime.
Bitcoin will have its day and it will be glorious.
Ignorance is bliss. The S&P depends on US economy - large scale businesses.
Bitcoin is 100% speculation.There is the difference. Not only - the more it gets integrated as a payment method, the more merchants would benefit from lower values. When prices boomed it was because Chinese speculants drove it way over the line of resistence and market was severely overbought.
Bitcoin is based on Bitcoin economy. There are companies that deal with bitcoin on a regular basis.
Though, most short term trends are due to news and speculation, it need not be so in the long-term.
100% is NOT speculation.
S&P companies have MA (Material Assets) worth Billions including buildings, machines, vehicles, planes, power-plants etc. They have huge personnel of people creating wealth.
It's an indice created by the largest companies in the US. They are backed up by banks, USD as a currency and a huge community with 300+ million people, who makes sure of the currency's liquidity, which secures bank liquidity, which secures the market as a whole.
Bitcoin is invented by an unknown soft dev and businesses accept bitcoin as long as it can be traded for USD and other regular currencies. If exchanges stop their business through fiat currencies, there is no way to calculate a price for it anymore.
All empires say such things. The hubris of too big to fail and trickle down economics is also laughable in through the optics of history. Central banks have enjoyed the power to destroy any nation that opposed them through financing violence. HSBC supporting terrorists is just BAU. Just as the printing press ended the dark ages, bitcoin will end the tyranny of central banks.
You are right about exchanges though. They need to be regulated and then replaced with decentralized markets. Then things will be priced in Bitcoins.
And yet, although "laughable" it has very solid ground. Bitcoin doesnt. It only has value, until it is traded for USD. If there were no currencies bitcoin wouldn't have any value. Worst thing - currencies have existed since the dark ages, and bitcoin depends on computers and the internet. Without it this currency would cease to exist.
Bitcoin is useful to me nearly every day. Right now, it's a better way to pay for stuff; quicker, more secure, more flexible, etc. I expect legacy payments to catch up to those transactional benefits in time, though, which brings me to...
Bitcoin is also useful to me as a way to store value with no counterparty risk. I keep bitcoin stored in ways that will always be accessible only to me and those with whom I share it. I can access funds when I need to, and never have to worry about banking issues or capital controls.
Those are both very useful properties, and, in the long-run, utility drives demand...whether you're talking about food, gold, dollars, houses, or bitcoin.