8 ms·

Why Bitcoin is Volatile aka I Told You So

30 points by marcfawzi 13y ago

ashray 13y ago
The article makes decent points but these things are known to most people who understand anything about money, whether that money is Bitcoin or USD. I have to say though that the opening line of the article is absolutely terrible: Bitcoin is based on the idea that money gets its intrinsic value from its scarcity.. That is a terrible thing to say. Bitcoin is not based on that. Bitcoin is currently overvalued due to speculation. It's current value far surpasses it's utility (because we don't need $15 Billion transactions in BTC right now..). This is due to speculation, and yes, that is helped along due to it's scarcity. But even with greater speculation, if the value starts going up, it becomes much harder to swing the market. Studying history is important. Bitcoin went from $30 to $2, then from $266 to $70. $1200 to $600 isn't even close. (there is of course the chance that it will go lower, much lower, but we'll see if/when it does..) Volatility decreases with adoption. Adoption may decrease with volatility but so far, the crazy volatility has favored adoption and awareness. Volatility will truly become a problem if mainstream adoption takes place and it continues. However, it's harder to swing a bigger market, mainstream adoption is what will protect bitcoin from volatility (speculative, or otherwse). It's much easier for a person or a group of people to swing a $1MM market, vs. a $15 Billion, vs. a $1 Trillion market. So far, every huge volatility event has helped bitcoin become less volatile and gain value/adoption/mindshare. I can see how someone who just found out about bitcoin is going to focus on it's volatility. This has been true of every single media agency on the planet in the last few weeks. However, anyone who has been in this long enough or has studied it will recognize that volatility is actually decreasing as the market expands (an expected result). Somehow the other HN post about people not liking creativity/alternate solutions seems to come to mind [1]. (not an attack on the author but on the general sentiment, "BITCOIN WILL FAIL EVEN THOUGH I HAVEN'T STUDIED IT AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT!!!! IT'S PONZI, OR ILLEGAL, OR DRUGS, OR SOMETHING!") TLDR; Bitcoin is way less volatile than it used to be. Bigger numbers ($1000 vs $10) don't mean more volatility. [1] - http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/creativity_is_rejected_teachers_and_bosses_don_t_value_out_of_the_box_thinking.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...
- drawkbox 13y ago
  Bitcoin is maturing from a small stock to a growth stock then a value stock. But in comparison with other currencies, simply retaining its value is better than some fiat currency holdings and it is a wonderful hedge against it as long as it can hold its value. It could even go down but at a slower rate than nation currencies and still be useful as a hedge. Some people are treating it as a stock currently expecting huge upsides, adoption will bring that but eventually it will calm down and if it just retains value over time it will beat out most fiat currencies. There is obvious value to fiat currencies and inflation for fueling investment (I need to grow my shrinking dollars) but it is always nice to hedge in case.
JamesArgo 13y ago
It's far too early for I-told-you-sos.
- fragsworth 13y ago
  Every bitcoin badmouther is using the price crash to tell everyone how right they were. Not really unexpected. Speculative price swings are largely irrelevant, and bitcoin has value as a service regardless of the current price.
afterburner 13y ago
Bitcoin is more like gold than the dollar, except even less useful.
wsxcde 13y ago
Here's something I've never seen addressed by bitcoin apologists. Tell me why I should "adopt" BTC if I'm not: (a) speculating (b) interesting in buying drugs or circumventing regulations around international money transfers. I see no utility in paying for software or coffee in BTC. Getting hold of bitcoin is not a straightforward process, and even once you acquire them, your coins are fluctuating in value all the time. What am I gaining in return for all this trouble? It simply doesn't make any sense to me.
- 21echoes 13y ago
  currently, sending money over the internet without getting charged fees is non-trivial. with the number of players in the payment space, i don't expect that to be the case for very much longer, and i don't think it will be bitcoin that solves this problem.
  - marcell 13y ago
    Curious--how/who will solve this problem?
    - alwillis 13y ago
      This is exactly what Ripple is attempting to solve, acting as a open, global payment network where transactions are nearly free and you can use any currency (including bitcoin) you want. More at https://ripple.com/about-ripple/ https://ripple.com/about-ripple/.
      - goldenkey 13y ago
        Ripple is a petty scam. Please don't advertise that horse dung to HN, we are smarter than that. Ripple generated 10 billion coins, they call them XRP. Of course this amount and even XRP aren't mentioned on that page you linked, an obvious bait. Ripple started giving away millions to generate buzz and use, they've yet to even give away 10% though, and the idea is to create enough value that they can eventually dump all their "genesis" currency and reap the rewards. They recently started giving away a few thousand a day with their ComputingForGood campaign, a pittance to create buzz for their scamware. Mastercoin's done the same thing with no real benefits over Bitcoin itself. Seriously getting tired of these fiat fiascos. I guess creating derivative cryptocurrencies is the new version of the classic pyramid scheme. Some people call Bitcoin a pyramid scheme because of the speculative bubble, fair enough. But these currencies, Ripple and Mastercoin, are true pyramid schemes. Founders plan to get mega-rich based on the illicit adoption of their scamware.
drawkbox 13y ago
Bitcoin is a hedge on currencies, where you can turn it into other currencies there is value in it. Currencies always move in different directions and there will always be demand there. The generation is also created by the bitcoin network so there will always be activity for some time. When you can't trade it for the USD then it is over. In fact maybe it will evolve nation currencies. I love what it is shaking up. But just like currencies of countries there will be currencies now not bound to countries, that live well beyond the country maybe. It actually prevents gaming a country's currency too much (no artificially low currencies). It is like gold in that you can't take a coin of gold down to the store but it has more chance to be a mainstream currency because it is digital. All money is digital, it can fit in much nicer than gold as well as having gold like properties. Bitcoin is actually better placed for hedging currencies and everyday usage than gold.
warfangle 13y ago
Bitcoin only gets its value from scarcity if you look at it from the context of a traditional currency. It's volatile because there is a lot of speculation going on; there is a lot of speculation going on because nobody has figured out how to value it against a traditional currency yet (in other words: speculation transactions outweigh productive transactions e.g. the proverbial alpaca sock). While there is scarcity - and said scarcity is driving speculation - the intrinsic value of btc derives from the cryptographic trust in the validation of the Bitcoin blockchain, and the promise that a btc will always be accepted as a bounty on the validation of a btc transaction. It's fundamentally different than the promise inherent in traditional currency: that a unit of currency must be accepted for the repayment of debt. Instead, a unit of currency must be accepted as a bounty on the cryptographic assurance that a transaction is not fraudulent. What defines trust in a system, and when does that come in to play in the valuation a system? With a satoshi sent to an address that cannot spend its balance along with the cryptographic signature of a document, you can execute a proof of existence. Distributed, mathematically validated notary. It can also be used as a decentralized, trust-based escrow system. The value inherent in a single btc is more abstract than a brick of gold, and has more to do with Bitcoin itself.
adamnemecek 13y ago
Well, you sure showed me. I'll think twice before contradicting you ever again.
vectorpush 13y ago
Damn, can we get a break in this infinite loop of blog posts where the author confidently sets us straight about the inevitable fate of bitcoin? Bitcoin market activity is a Rorschach test for your own personal biases, be you an economist or a cryptographer, you're just going to rationalize the current state of the market with your own future expectations. The rumor of a butteryfly fart can send shockwaves through the bitcoin markets, everybody knows this, we're not getting any new information by exclaiming how volatile the market is every time the price shifts as if it's somehow surprising.
kanzure 13y ago
Marc, are you aware that Satoshi referenced you by name? I always found that unexpected and hilarious. http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/email-p2presearch-2009-02-13-023120.txt http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/email-p2presearc...
- marcfawzi 13y ago
  Thanks for letting me know Bryan. How have you been? Still hatin' on me after all these years? :) I always found you fascinating. So is the mailing list p2presearch@listcultures.org?
dnautics 13y ago
I correctly called the peak at 1200 (although I did not think it would peak there twice), and I'm calling the bottom at 300. This article has a very poor opening: Bitcoin is based on the idea that money gets its intrinsic value from its scarcity, which is a misconception since money gets its intrinsic value from the volume of transactions involving goods and services that use it No, bitcoin is based on the idea that money gets its intrinsic value from its trust model. That's why it has advanced crypto-mathematics to establish verifability, and so forth. Now. Bitcoin promoters think that the scarcity can drive the value up to the point where it becomes widely adopted. Criticism of this model to spur adoption may be totally fair.
- simonswords82 13y ago
  Can you shed any light on why you think it'll bottom out at 300?
  - dnautics 13y ago
    it just looks like it by eye. I'll probably buy in at 450 (or lower; whatever it happens to be when I bother looking) anyways, because it's incredibly difficult to get bitcoin timing correct or not taking into account a growth factor. A full disclosure of my bitcoin history: I bought in at 150 and cashed out at 300 because I got cold feet and I needed the money - I'd have held on if I didn't need the money. I forgot that I had an autodraw, which kept buying at the 300-ish mark, which I sold off at 900, again because I got cold feet about my 1200 mark and I needed the money. This hasn't been entirely speculative work, I have used bitcoin in 'actual bitcoin' transaction. But not silk road. The nonprofit that I am launching on tuesday will be accepting bitcoin donations starting on friday.
- hmsimha 13y ago
  Are you predicting it will bottom at 300 before launching into another growth phase, or that it will remain closer to 300 thereafter? I think the latter is naive. I think bitcoin is the first currency whose perpetual deflation is ensured by the contract that defines it.
bonbon 13y ago
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win..-Mahatma Gandhi (China fights bitcoin..)
erikpukinskis 13y ago
If you and your whole family live in the U.S. and you have a couple credit cards, a debit card, and a bank account, Bitcoin is going to seem pretty useless. For you, the US dollar does just fine. But the rest of the world isn't like the U.S. I visited Latvia recently, and my bank refused to let me withdraw money. Florida is full of Cuban Americans who want to send money to Cuba. Many people are imprisoned. The world is full of borders that make moving money difficult. Bitcoin's market cap is moving towards where it needs to be to float all of those transactions. Even if no one uses it to store value, and no one uses it to buy groceries, it is still immensely valuable just as a means to move value from one location to another. Even if no one holds Bitcoin for more than two weeks, it will still have a market cap far north of a billion dollars.
- psn 13y ago
  I'm cautious about your Latvia story - its sounds to me like the bike was worried about fraud. Thats pretty common - about half the times I go to the US, I have to ring up the bank and get the card unblocked. That being said, there are countries attempting to control the flow of money. Argentina wants to enforce its price for the dollar. Cyprus wants to prevent everyone taking their money and running. and so on. However, most of these countries see attempts to circumvent their controls as illegal. I feel its unwise to get my hopes up about bitcoin for this sort of transaction for that reason.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

30 points by marcfawzi 13y ago

The article makes decent points but these things are known to most people who understand anything about money, whether that money is Bitcoin or USD. I have to say though that the opening line of the article is absolutely terrible: Bitcoin is based on the idea that money gets its intrinsic value from its scarcity.. That is a terrible thing to say. Bitcoin is not based on that. Bitcoin is currently overvalued due to speculation. It's current value far surpasses it's utility (because we don't need $15 Billion transactions in BTC right now..). This is due to speculation, and yes, that is helped along due to it's scarcity. But even with greater speculation, if the value starts going up, it becomes much harder to swing the market. Studying history is important. Bitcoin went from $30 to $2, then from $266 to $70. $1200 to $600 isn't even close. (there is of course the chance that it will go lower, much lower, but we'll see if/when it does..) Volatility decreases with adoption. Adoption may decrease with volatility but so far, the crazy volatility has favored adoption and awareness. Volatility will truly become a problem if mainstream adoption takes place and it continues. However, it's harder to swing a bigger market, mainstream adoption is what will protect bitcoin from volatility (speculative, or otherwse). It's much easier for a person or a group of people to swing a $1MM market, vs. a $15 Billion, vs. a $1 Trillion market. So far, every huge volatility event has helped bitcoin become less volatile and gain value/adoption/mindshare. I can see how someone who just found out about bitcoin is going to focus on it's volatility. This has been true of every single media agency on the planet in the last few weeks. However, anyone who has been in this long enough or has studied it will recognize that volatility is actually decreasing as the market expands (an expected result). Somehow the other HN post about people not liking creativity/alternate solutions seems to come to mind [1]. (not an attack on the author but on the general sentiment, "BITCOIN WILL FAIL EVEN THOUGH I HAVEN'T STUDIED IT AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT!!!! IT'S PONZI, OR ILLEGAL, OR DRUGS, OR SOMETHING!") TLDR; Bitcoin is way less volatile than it used to be. Bigger numbers ($1000 vs $10) don't mean more volatility. [1] - http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/creativity_is_rejected_teachers_and_bosses_don_t_value_out_of_the_box_thinking.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

drawkbox 13y ago
Bitcoin is maturing from a small stock to a growth stock then a value stock. But in comparison with other currencies, simply retaining its value is better than some fiat currency holdings and it is a wonderful hedge against it as long as it can hold its value. It could even go down but at a slower rate than nation currencies and still be useful as a hedge. Some people are treating it as a stock currently expecting huge upsides, adoption will bring that but eventually it will calm down and if it just retains value over time it will beat out most fiat currencies. There is obvious value to fiat currencies and inflation for fueling investment (I need to grow my shrinking dollars) but it is always nice to hedge in case.

JamesArgo 13y ago

It's far too early for I-told-you-sos.

fragsworth 13y ago
Every bitcoin badmouther is using the price crash to tell everyone how right they were. Not really unexpected. Speculative price swings are largely irrelevant, and bitcoin has value as a service regardless of the current price.

afterburner 13y ago

Bitcoin is more like gold than the dollar, except even less useful.

wsxcde 13y ago

Here's something I've never seen addressed by bitcoin apologists. Tell me why I should "adopt" BTC if I'm not: (a) speculating (b) interesting in buying drugs or circumventing regulations around international money transfers. I see no utility in paying for software or coffee in BTC. Getting hold of bitcoin is not a straightforward process, and even once you acquire them, your coins are fluctuating in value all the time. What am I gaining in return for all this trouble? It simply doesn't make any sense to me.

21echoes 13y ago
currently, sending money over the internet without getting charged fees is non-trivial. with the number of players in the payment space, i don't expect that to be the case for very much longer, and i don't think it will be bitcoin that solves this problem.
- marcell 13y ago
  Curious--how/who will solve this problem?
  - alwillis 13y ago
    This is exactly what Ripple is attempting to solve, acting as a open, global payment network where transactions are nearly free and you can use any currency (including bitcoin) you want. More at https://ripple.com/about-ripple/ https://ripple.com/about-ripple/.
    - goldenkey 13y ago
      Ripple is a petty scam. Please don't advertise that horse dung to HN, we are smarter than that. Ripple generated 10 billion coins, they call them XRP. Of course this amount and even XRP aren't mentioned on that page you linked, an obvious bait. Ripple started giving away millions to generate buzz and use, they've yet to even give away 10% though, and the idea is to create enough value that they can eventually dump all their "genesis" currency and reap the rewards. They recently started giving away a few thousand a day with their ComputingForGood campaign, a pittance to create buzz for their scamware. Mastercoin's done the same thing with no real benefits over Bitcoin itself. Seriously getting tired of these fiat fiascos. I guess creating derivative cryptocurrencies is the new version of the classic pyramid scheme. Some people call Bitcoin a pyramid scheme because of the speculative bubble, fair enough. But these currencies, Ripple and Mastercoin, are true pyramid schemes. Founders plan to get mega-rich based on the illicit adoption of their scamware.

drawkbox 13y ago

Bitcoin is a hedge on currencies, where you can turn it into other currencies there is value in it. Currencies always move in different directions and there will always be demand there. The generation is also created by the bitcoin network so there will always be activity for some time. When you can't trade it for the USD then it is over. In fact maybe it will evolve nation currencies. I love what it is shaking up. But just like currencies of countries there will be currencies now not bound to countries, that live well beyond the country maybe. It actually prevents gaming a country's currency too much (no artificially low currencies). It is like gold in that you can't take a coin of gold down to the store but it has more chance to be a mainstream currency because it is digital. All money is digital, it can fit in much nicer than gold as well as having gold like properties. Bitcoin is actually better placed for hedging currencies and everyday usage than gold.

warfangle 13y ago

Bitcoin only gets its value from scarcity if you look at it from the context of a traditional currency. It's volatile because there is a lot of speculation going on; there is a lot of speculation going on because nobody has figured out how to value it against a traditional currency yet (in other words: speculation transactions outweigh productive transactions e.g. the proverbial alpaca sock). While there is scarcity - and said scarcity is driving speculation - the intrinsic value of btc derives from the cryptographic trust in the validation of the Bitcoin blockchain, and the promise that a btc will always be accepted as a bounty on the validation of a btc transaction. It's fundamentally different than the promise inherent in traditional currency: that a unit of currency must be accepted for the repayment of debt. Instead, a unit of currency must be accepted as a bounty on the cryptographic assurance that a transaction is not fraudulent. What defines trust in a system, and when does that come in to play in the valuation a system? With a satoshi sent to an address that cannot spend its balance along with the cryptographic signature of a document, you can execute a proof of existence. Distributed, mathematically validated notary. It can also be used as a decentralized, trust-based escrow system. The value inherent in a single btc is more abstract than a brick of gold, and has more to do with Bitcoin itself.

adamnemecek 13y ago

Well, you sure showed me. I'll think twice before contradicting you ever again.

vectorpush 13y ago

Damn, can we get a break in this infinite loop of blog posts where the author confidently sets us straight about the inevitable fate of bitcoin? Bitcoin market activity is a Rorschach test for your own personal biases, be you an economist or a cryptographer, you're just going to rationalize the current state of the market with your own future expectations. The rumor of a butteryfly fart can send shockwaves through the bitcoin markets, everybody knows this, we're not getting any new information by exclaiming how volatile the market is every time the price shifts as if it's somehow surprising.

kanzure 13y ago

Marc, are you aware that Satoshi referenced you by name? I always found that unexpected and hilarious. http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/email-p2presearch-2009-02-13-023120.txt http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/bitcoin-satoshi/email-p2presearc...

marcfawzi 13y ago
Thanks for letting me know Bryan. How have you been? Still hatin' on me after all these years? :) I always found you fascinating. So is the mailing list p2presearch@listcultures.org?

dnautics 13y ago

I correctly called the peak at 1200 (although I did not think it would peak there twice), and I'm calling the bottom at 300. This article has a very poor opening: Bitcoin is based on the idea that money gets its intrinsic value from its scarcity, which is a misconception since money gets its intrinsic value from the volume of transactions involving goods and services that use it No, bitcoin is based on the idea that money gets its intrinsic value from its trust model. That's why it has advanced crypto-mathematics to establish verifability, and so forth. Now. Bitcoin promoters think that the scarcity can drive the value up to the point where it becomes widely adopted. Criticism of this model to spur adoption may be totally fair.

simonswords82 13y ago
Can you shed any light on why you think it'll bottom out at 300?
- dnautics 13y ago
  it just looks like it by eye. I'll probably buy in at 450 (or lower; whatever it happens to be when I bother looking) anyways, because it's incredibly difficult to get bitcoin timing correct or not taking into account a growth factor. A full disclosure of my bitcoin history: I bought in at 150 and cashed out at 300 because I got cold feet and I needed the money - I'd have held on if I didn't need the money. I forgot that I had an autodraw, which kept buying at the 300-ish mark, which I sold off at 900, again because I got cold feet about my 1200 mark and I needed the money. This hasn't been entirely speculative work, I have used bitcoin in 'actual bitcoin' transaction. But not silk road. The nonprofit that I am launching on tuesday will be accepting bitcoin donations starting on friday.
hmsimha 13y ago
Are you predicting it will bottom at 300 before launching into another growth phase, or that it will remain closer to 300 thereafter? I think the latter is naive. I think bitcoin is the first currency whose perpetual deflation is ensured by the contract that defines it.

bonbon 13y ago

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win..-Mahatma Gandhi (China fights bitcoin..)

erikpukinskis 13y ago

If you and your whole family live in the U.S. and you have a couple credit cards, a debit card, and a bank account, Bitcoin is going to seem pretty useless. For you, the US dollar does just fine. But the rest of the world isn't like the U.S. I visited Latvia recently, and my bank refused to let me withdraw money. Florida is full of Cuban Americans who want to send money to Cuba. Many people are imprisoned. The world is full of borders that make moving money difficult. Bitcoin's market cap is moving towards where it needs to be to float all of those transactions. Even if no one uses it to store value, and no one uses it to buy groceries, it is still immensely valuable just as a means to move value from one location to another. Even if no one holds Bitcoin for more than two weeks, it will still have a market cap far north of a billion dollars.

psn 13y ago
I'm cautious about your Latvia story - its sounds to me like the bike was worried about fraud. Thats pretty common - about half the times I go to the US, I have to ring up the bank and get the card unblocked. That being said, there are countries attempting to control the flow of money. Argentina wants to enforce its price for the dollar. Cyprus wants to prevent everyone taking their money and running. and so on. However, most of these countries see attempts to circumvent their controls as illegal. I feel its unwise to get my hopes up about bitcoin for this sort of transaction for that reason.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]