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Posted on 04/03/2014 7:20:12 PM PDT by Errant
It’s no surprise that Wences Casares, the CEO of Xapo, a bitcoin startup, is a big bull on the digital currency. His company, which specializes in insured Bitcoin vaults, just raised $20 million in a funding round led by Benchmark.
But Mr. Casares belives that other bitcoin bulls, especially those in the U.S., do not fully appreciate the value of the currency, which has proved especially sticky in emerging markets prone to wild currency fluctuations, such as Mr. Casares’ home country Argentina.
In a video interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Casares says he’s not worried about bitcoin’s own volatility hampering its adoption – though he expects significant volatility over the next few years. He predicts that in a decade, one bitcoin will be worth somewhere between half a million dollars to one million dollars.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
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Damn, now I know how old Ed White felt.
Lol, how’s that?
Ed White was an old farmer in the small town that I grew up in. He showed up one morning and told everyone that he lost $10,000 overnight. When they asked how he did that he said the price of hogs went up 10 cents a pound and he had “nary a one”.
As matter of fact, many of these questions are explicitly answered in the negative. For example, as the volume of trading increases the value of each Bitcoin is doomed to grow. This is unacceptable in a currency; I'm not going to pay you 1 BTC today for something that will cost 0.5 BTC tomorrow.
There is also that lingering problem of early mining; those people, from t=0 to t=+2 years, minted a bunch of Bitcoins that are still in their wallets. As the value of Bitcoin increases *and* the market grows, those early miners will become multi-trillionaires. Unfortunately, all the eager proponents of Bitcoin are just carrying water for those shadowy figures - who, if their plan is successful, will own the world. I'd rather avoid that.
IC, thanks - hadn’t heard that one before. :-)
Bitcoin IMO will end up being nothing.
I believe them to be correct, of course. But if I am wrong you are always welcome to counter them, point by point. For example, you can say that in the latest poll by Gallup 97.3% of US residents (100,000 polled) reported that they know about Bitcoin. In reality, of course, not more than 1% have such knowledge, per my own, informal observations. To compare, about 100% are aware of existence of the US Dollar.
Your link leads to a website of a Bitcoin exchange, which is hardly an unbiased observer. It would be the last place to go to if you want an independent opinion.
Personally, some of my observations are based on my technical knowledge about the Bitcoin protocol. Other are based on known, immutable facts about the Bitcoin ecosystem. For example, the total number of Bitcoins in existence is 21 million. This is what this company derives their expected future value from - simply divide the global money supply in some future year by the projected Bitcoin supply.
It would seem your opinion of bitcoin reflects my opinion of the dollar - a far worse catastrophe.
V
The IRS does not issue guidance on nothing. The world is transforming right under your feet , resistance is futile.
The site I gave you contains facts, there might be a wee bit of bias but it would be minimal.
Truthfully, there are too many variables to make the prediction the author has that Bitcoin could hit 1 million. If the dollar goes the way of the Zimbabwean dollar, it'll be worth a lot more than that! ;)
I'll counter a couple of your points just for fun:
Convenience of use.
I've personally made several purchases from Overstock. They were the easiest/simplest online purchases I've ever made.
Insurance of accounts
Read the OP, the author is in the business of insuring crypto currency vaults,
Guarantee of convertibility
The many numerous exchanges means you can convert Btc into any currencies or other cryptocurrencies.
Government oversight to prevent shenanigans
The Bitcoin community is self-regulation, but that doesn't mean government doesn't play a part, as we're seeing with the courts involved with the Mt. Gox fiasco.
Stable value
Check Btc's chart against the dollar's chart since its introduction.
Paper trail and reversibility of transactions
Paper trail is contained within the public distributed ledger. Businesses will reverse your transactions if you are not satisfied (see Overstock's return policy).
Acknowledged security of the entire mechanism
The system is very secure compared to CCs and other means of conducting transactions.
Public awareness
Growing exponentially!
Popularity
Growing exponentially!
Purpose
?
Hey, I believe that's all of them...
5.56mm
“Government oversight to prevent shenanigans”.
This is my favorite,how many times must one refute this nonsense. The scary part is this guy believes this stuff.
Two words in answer to the above : JOHN CORZINE
Government oversight to prevent shenanigans? Laughable!
I think in Newspeak “prevent” means what “enable” used to...
You got that right FRiend!
If you really believe in bitcoins and that they will go up to $1 million apiece, or even $10,000 apiece, why would you spend them for $600 worth of product today. A true believer would hoard them.
Hold onto those Bitcoins ... :-) ...
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