The ultimate question is "how much further will it go". And it's a question no one can really answer.
The bulls will say (like John McAffee) will say it'll keep rising for a few reasons:
The supply is limited. No more new Bitcoins after 21mill or whatever it is
At the moment it's still relatively niche. Though the market cap of Crytpo is well over $300bn it doesn't include that much 'institutional' money. Meaning there's hundreds of billions $ more in potential if they decide to join the party.
It's still pretty complicated to do which dissuades a lot of people. As it gets easier more people will jump on board making the scarcity more valuable
We still need more 'things' to do with Bitcoin and alt coins to validate the market. So I’ve seen taxi's in London, ATM issuing Bitcoin and so on but until it becomes more transnational it's unlikely to be adopted much more than it is now.
The bears would say:
It's a Ponzi scheme. This isn't helped by the BitConnect of this world
It's associated with the notion of the silk road and drug dealers or whatever use Bitcoin to remain anonymous
Until the above points from the Bulls are addressed, the bubble will burst at some point
For me, I’m hedging my bets both ways. Got in to BTC and ETH in June and haven’t done much with it so far. Have 15% of that money to play around with on various Alts to keep me entertained but it’s not a vast sum so if it all goes south, I won’t be too bothered.
Good analysis. Given that things are moving so fast our timeframes need to be shorter when looking forward. It is somewhat like a plane taking off - it has a limited runway length and the available length gets shorter, faster as it picks up speed. Pilot options also decrease as they get closer to the end of the runway.
Looking forward a month or so, we have impetus from:
There are negatives as well and people entering at this stage need to be willing and able to respond quickly if things turn pear shaped.
At this point of time - although there is a lot of news about Bitcoin, etc this is the non-newsy period of the year for the media so they search for anything. Also, unlike some of the stock market bubbles of the past, I do not hear a lot of chit chat in coffee shops, etc which indicate people are actually buying - more that they are trying to understand Bitcoin, etc. When it flips over and nearly every person you bump into says they have some Bitcoin (even if it is BTC 0.1 or less) then it is time to worry. National Governments are also the other problem.
Good analysis too!
really great comment, and shows a lot of knowledge, it really is true, i think not everyone knows about bitcoin yet, but it has been all over the media!! :) hahah FOMO buyers at christmas! do you think it will drop a bit? i want to get more, but not at this price and this hype! i guess we will see what happens after few forks!
Good stuff csp.......... worth an up-vote.
yeah im the same, if it goes south im not too bothered, i invested tiny amount! i really like your pros and cons, thanks for sharing! :) i invested into ETH as well but only just recently, probably late :)