Yes I understand the speculators betting it up - but I have yet to see any ex-planation of why it has any intrinsic value at all !
Gold has some scarcity value, “money” is issued by banks, but recent experience demonstrates that Governments will go to extraotdinary lengths to take money out of OUR pockets to “Cover up” the banks fraudulent activities.
I can’t see “The Fed” bailing out bitcoin 
in the same way.
What exactly has Bitcoin got to offer ?
1.It is a means of payment without going through a bank
2. Unlike fiat currency, there is a limited supply
3. It is a form of stored wealth
No one can know what the future of Bitcoin or Cryptocurrencies will be. As a speculator this market is just getting started, My small investment has returned 10 times just this year, and with my original investment pulled out I can sit back and enjoy the ride risk-free.
All of those things used to apply, the same as they do to REAL Gold (NOT “paper gold” )
However who “Spends” Bitcoin nowadays ? Anyone who really has some will either just be hoarding it and watching the price rise or will have sold it months ago for the cash. The points you mention are now all superceded by the fact it has become a bubble and has no real value any more.
You yourself keep saying you have had your money back out now, so you are “Risk free” - so it seems you do recognise the underlying impossibility of the price maintaining it’s rise.
It’s a shame because I like the principle of Bitcoin, but I suppose it is better for the “Powers that be” that it should evaporate in a meteoric rise and bust, destroying confidence in all similar items, than to make it illegal and push it underground.
And here is the advantage Bitcoin has over Gold, there is no “paper Bitcoin” gold’s decline is do to ETF’s (paper gold) with demand down for the real stuff price has come down as well. If the Bitcoin ETF had been approved last April I doubt we would be seeing $8,000 Bitcoin today. All new technology will have it’s rise and fall, and no doubt something better will replace Bitcoin just as the iPhone replaced the BlackBerry. As speculators, we must judge any investment, manage our risk, and talk profits. Will Bitcoin blow up at some point, history says yes. But until that time sky is the limit on how high this can go, and I am not going to be a mere spectator and wish I had bought at under $10,000 when price tops $100,000
So are you saying that you Own a small piece of a bitcoin then ? - How would you collect it ?
Bitcoin is no different than money on your bank statement, it is all digital. You can convert it to real dollars anytime you want
[quote=“Dennis3450, post:46, topic:117389”]
Bitcoin is no different than money on your bank statement, it is all digital. You can convert it to real dollars anytime you want
[/QUOTE]
No - when you are trading bitcoin, are you actually saying that you own a small piece of a bitcoin, which you can go and collect from somewhere ?
I use CoinBase exchange, they hold my bitcoin in an account in my name, it is no different than a brokerage holding stock in your name.
Every time Jamie Demon ( I mean Dimon ) trash talks Bitcoin we see an early day selloff followed by a rally to new highs
I think the price will continue to go up as long as there is FRESH Money that people are willing to exchange for - Well - exactly what ?
This is always the problem with bubbles and pyramid sales - They’re fien as long as you can find a “Bigger sucker” to buy your shares off you - but eventually someone says " The Emperor is naked ! "
before new year mid dec
All things staying the same, meaning no big news, I think we’ll have to wait for 2018. Now if the Koreans band together, who knows.where BTC could go. They pushed Bitcoin Cash trading volumes like 5x the other week, above Bitcoin trading volumes, and then disappeared. Happens every couple months. And always on a Saturday morning (in Korea).
You’re question raises the very issue around what might be the Achilles heel of bitcoin. You asked[quote=“Falstaff, post:1, topic:117389”]
is there any real liquidity in it ?
[/quote]
This is the crux of the matter. If you want a real answer to this then I suggest trading real bitcoin with a real bitcoin wallet. What I mean by this is not a wallet with a company or exchange like coinbase, but rather a personal wallet such as electrum or one on your mobile phone. Then buy bitcoin through any exchange and transfer this to your wallet. It is the digital equivalent of taking your cash out the ATM. See how long this takes. Experimentally one could buy €10 or $10 of real BTC.
During busy periods especially when bitcoin is falling, you might be unfortunate enough to experience what is termed “congestion”. This is when an unusually large number of transactions are all taking place at the same time. I trade real world money and bitcoin for a side project through the Localbitcoin website. When the last mild congestion happened a week ago, I had to wait just under 24 hours for one transaction to process, in the real world, I had to wait 24 hours to send bitcoin from one wallet to another to clear funds. While this was happening the bitcoin was falling. Some others had to wait nearly 2 days!
Now, Imagine you are managing a large bitcoin exchange, exchanging tens of millions of Euros every day and clearing them immediately for your customers. Now, imagine a situation where the bitcoin is falling and everyone starts selling all at the same time causing a “congestion” issue. Imagine you now have 48 hours of bitcoin that you are waiting to sell, but a large amount of your customers have already sold their bitcoin in your exchange and have issued a withdrawal. Your exchange coould be losing out on millions each day due to this congestion in clearing. Imagine a situation where news gets leaked that the exchanges are having a multi million Euro / Dollar / Yuan liquidity crises caused by congestion , now everyone starts panic selling their bitcoin and trying to simultaneously withdraw real cash. I can extrapolate that the situation can spiral out of control as the network traffic continues to climb while prices fall as people panic because the programming of bitcoin is hardwired in such a way as to slow down as the traffic increases. In fact this has been sighted as one of the original plans and designs… to keep a lid on run away prices.
I’m not saying bitcoin prices will fall now, however I am raising a possible issue as to what could cause the end of the meteoric rise of bitcoin. It has to do with the fundamental structure of bitcoin and this is the reason for all the fork attempts of the programmers. Be careful out there people, I believe when the bitcoin falls we will witness a large amount of companies collapsing due to the congestion problem. So the answer to the question of liquidity in bitcoin, the answer is yes, when things are ideal and, No, not at all when things are bad.
After 5 months of consolidation, Etherium has exploded to new all-time highs, Litecoin is above $86 and near all-time highs and Bitcoin as I post $8775 again new all-time highs and that $10,000 mark by year end is looking pretty good
This is a weekly chart for Ether
Nice jump on Ethereum, Bitcoin may reach the 10,000 dollar mark before the end of the year.
…or before the end of the month.
Agree on bitcoin may cross 10k dollar soon, I think within few days it will reach the high.
