Where will Bitcoin be on 9/4/2018?

I hate to take from a hot WoV topic but since it isn't directly gambling related and WoV has been down, I'll bring it up here.

I'm 52 and it seems at any given time in my life there has been a bubble going or recently popped on something. I claim that at the moment it's Bitcoin. As I write this, on 9/4/2017, Bitcoin is at $4,169.74. Just five months ago, on 4/4/2017, it was a $1074. That is a grown rate of 31.2% per month, which equates to almost 2500% per year.

I've been predicting a pop since BitCoin was around $2,000 and it has only gone up since then. I lost money on a couple WizCoins pegged to the value of the BitCoin. However, I never said when it would pop -- just that it would -- and would fairly soon.

As evidence that the pop may have already begun, Bitcoin was at $4969 just two days ago. Already down 16.1%. However, I think we'll see prices under $1,000 within a year.

I'm going to offer a free lunch with yours truly or $50 to whoever can get closes to the Bitcoin value on 9/4/2018. I will be allowed to submit my own guess, which shall be $1,000. Please PM me your predictions by 9/11/17 to be included. The question for the poll is what range is your prediction in?

I won't pretend to be an expert on Bitcoin but to me the scarcity of it (finite supply which will never be increased) plus increased usage/popularity would suggest to me it will continue to go up. Sure there will be fluctuations (probably wild ones) but I think it will continue its upward trend. I don't really want to get in at $4k but if it were to crash back to say $1k I would probably look to buy some.

China just criminalized some early bitcoin-like startups but legitimized the official Chinese bitcoin.

For real fun, you could buy $50 of bitcoin today, put it on a wallet, and give that as the prize! (If you do not know the best place, PM me we both get a bonus of $10.) :-)


The most Bitcoins that can be is about 21MM. Some number will keep getting lost, cutting it further. It is deflationary, meaning it will not act the same as a stock, tulip bulb, or even gold. 7MMM people in the world, should just 1% decide they want 1 Bitcoin, that is 3 times supply.

Stock, Tulips, and even gold cannot be effectively sub-divided. Gold can go down to grams, so you can cut an ounce 31 times. After that it is not practical. Stock of course can be split, but the splits just increase nominal supply, and stock can be reissued to an unlimited amount. Bitcoin has limits.

Bitcoin is kind of becoming the "gold standard" of the cryptos. It has been around 9 years so that shows staying power. Big drawback at the moment is clearing time, too long for cash-register-type transactions. It might get held to back other cryptos.

I do not trust the new coins, but the idea is sound IMHO.

Quote: Wizard

I'm 52 and it seems at any given time in my life there has been a bubble going or recently popped on something. I claim that at the moment it's Bitcoin. As I write this, on 9/4/2017, Bitcoin is at $4,169.74. Just five months ago, on 4/4/2017, it was a $1074. That is a grown rate of 31.2% per month,...

If you flip a coin a 1000 times you know that it's expected value is 500 heads and 500 tails. If it actually happens you are surprised.

It seems just as impossible that out of billions of people investing money at any given time that one major investment would not be a bubble.

The market cap on crypto currencies is $148.8 billion of which 47.7% is bitcoin. it is not clear if you think bitcoin is in a bubble or crypto currencies are in a bubble. You might want to consider taking bets on the market cap of crypto currencies instead of the price of BTC. There is a possibility that other crypto currencies (like Ethereum) will displace bitcoin's dominance.

In ten years time the entry of central banks into the crypto currency market should have a huge effect. But by next September the only country with even a remote chance of coming out with a crypto currency is Sweden. Sweden's new set of banknotes is worth a mere $5.6 billion so a new Swedish crypto currency it is not apt to change the market cap by much.

Sweden (2010) has exports of $162.2 billion and imports of $158.6 billion, so the government would not permit speculation in a Swedish crypto currency to run rampant so that it destroys their exports. Likewise, they probably won't want a Spanish drug dealer to pay off an African drug supplier in Swedish crypto currency.

China has indicated that they may come out with a crypto currency to replace the current banknotes which are worth in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars.

Quote: Pacomartin

If you flip a coin a 1000 times you know that it's expected value is 500 heads and 500 tails. If it actually happens you are surprised.

Because actual coins are not symmetrical, therefore in many there is a definite preference for one side :)

Quote:

It seems just as impossible that out of billions of people investing money at any given time that one major investment would not be a bubble.

True. But there are bubbles where there is an inherent, objective value that si being overvalued, like the dot.com bubble; and then there are those with subjective values that vanish like a puff of smoke, like the tulips or the beanie babies.

Late in the dot.com bubble someone I know set up a free lottery website. You could play once a day a set number of tickets, no money required, and you might win small cash prizes. He had some ads, then pop-up ads (remember those?). The site cost him money. His business plan was "I hope someone decides to acquire it." And it wasn't even his idea, he copied it from another website called freelotto.com

Today that might work as data mining. Back then, it was just part of a bubble.

So are bit-coin and the crypto-currencies a real, useful tool of objective value, or are they so many tulips?

Quote: Pacomartin

In ten years time the entry of central banks into the crypto currency market should have a huge effect. But by next September the only country with even a remote chance of coming out with a crypto currency is Sweden. Sweden's new set of banknotes is worth a mere $5.6 billion so it is not apt to change the market cap by much.

Sweden (2010) has exports of $162.2 billion and imports of $158.6 billion, so the government would not permit speculation in a Swedish crypto currency to run rampant so that it destroys their exports. Likewise, they probably won't want a Spanish drug dealer to pay off an African drug supplier in Swedish crypto currency.

It should be interesting to see if and what the centrals do on this. If they follow the Bitcoin model they lose their most valuable power, to print new currency at will. If they let it be an inflationary currency then all they have is what the current banking system is, just called something different.

Quote: Nareed

So are bit-coin and the crypto-currencies a real, useful tool of objective value, or are they so many tulips?

I think they have some value but most of the current value is tulip-driven.

When some country like Sweden backs a crypto-currency, I think it will put all the ones like Bitcoin, based on nothing, practically out of business. I should think Sweden would welcome a high demand for their currency. It would be good for their economy if they only place you could actually spend them is in Sweden.

Quote: Wizard

When some country like Sweden backs a crypto-currency, I think it will put all the ones like Bitcoin, based on nothing, practically out of business. I should think Sweden would welcome a high demand for their currency. It would be good for their economy if they only place you could actually spend them is in Sweden.

I look at countries, though, and have to ask: what will they be based on that Bitcoin is not?

The USD is based on nothing, just that other people will accept it as a monetary unit. What is neat about Bitcoin is we could be seeing the birth of a unit of exchange. How long it can remain totally parallel remains to be seen. For example, if I get enough and it goes up enough, when I go to put on a deck and hot tub I will ask, "can I pay you in Bitcoin?" If they say, "yes" then I get the gain tax free. Can that last?

Quote: AZDuffman

... they lose their most valuable power, to print new currency at will.

Quote: Riksbank 16 November 2016

Cash is also the form of central bank money that can be held by the general public

The money that is use the most in society is commercial bank money. The banks’ so called deposits repayable on demand, that is, deposits with a high level of liquidity that can be used for payments, amounts to around SEK 2,200 billion, which is around half of Sweden’s GDP, compared with cash which comprises just over SEK 60 billion.

I quoted a more recent number which cash banknotes comprise SEK 44.26 billion ~ $5.6 billion.

But cash in Sweden is only 1% of GDP, so the power "to print new currency at will" is almost insignificant compared to the power to set interest rates. The Repo rate in Sweden has been negative since 18 February 2015 and the Deposit rate has been negative since 7 September 2014. (The repo rate is the rate of interest at which banks can borrow or deposit funds at the Riksbank for a period of seven days. The deposit rate is the rate of interest banks receive when they deposit funds in their accounts at the Riksbank overnight and is normally 0.75 percentage points lower than the repo rate. The Riksbank is Sweden's central bank.)

Quote: Riksbank 16 November 2016

However, let me say that cash lacks importance with regard to the Riksbank's possibility to conduct monetary policy; the short-term rate is set through the conditions for the banks’ deposits with the Riksbank and we affect the longer interest rates through our market operations.

Cash in other countries is a considerably higher percentage of GDP than the 1% in Sweden.

GDP% 2015	Currency
19.44%	Japan
15.51%	Hong Kong SAR
12.25%	India
11.76%	Switzerland
10.63%	Euro area
10.56%	Russia
9.55%	Singapore
8.20%	Saudi Arabia
7.90%	United States
6.84%	Mexico
5.56%	Korea
5.37%	Turkey
4.65%	Australia
4.08%	Canada
3.82%	Brazil
3.72%	United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has not been as serious as Sweden about eliminating cash, but they are talking seriously of eliminating the £50 banknote and just keeping the £5, £10, and £20 where £20~$26. The value of £50 is under 23% of all banknotes in the UK.

In this way Sweden is different than Britain as most cash is circulating in banknotes worth 500 SEK = £48 . So they feel no need to reduce to the next size banknote which is 200 SEK = £19.27 .

Quote: Riksbank 16 November 2016

A decline in the use of cash also has a direct impact on the Riksbank. For one thing it reduces our significance for the payment system when cash is used less often, and for another thing it reduces our income from issuing cash.

This last quote is the bottom line. A central bank gets their income from issuing cash. No cash = no income. As cash continues to vanish in Sweden, the central bank will lose their income. This final reason is probably the main reason for them to issue a crypto currency.