Bitcoin: The Bull Market of 2017
What happens when a lot of people want to buy something but not as many people want to sell it?
This:
Like most bitcoin / cryptocurrency fans, I've been amazed at what we're seeing lately. I just finished reading this fantastic write up by @tracemayer which I highly recommend you read to make some sense of it all:
The Great Bitcoin Bull Market of 2017
Some key quotes that jumped out at me:
This price discovery could be the most wild thing anyone has ever experienced in financial markets.
Things could get crazy. Maybe we haven't seen anything yet.
I'm a huge fan of DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake as opposed to POW / Proof of Work) blockchains (BitShares, Steemit, EOS), so I was surprised and a bit discouraged to see this:
The higher the transaction fees then the greater implied value the Bitcoin network provides because users are willing to pay more for it.
I am highly skeptical of blockchains which have very low transaction fees. By Internet bubble analogy, Pets.com may have millions of page views but I am more interested in EBITDA.
When I think of transaction fees, I think of required incentives for miners to continue securing the network while also making it too expensive for network spammers. With DPOS, none of that is needed. Witnesses like myself are paid directly to secure the network, and we are scheduled through cooperation instead of competition via stake-weighted vote.
To me, just because a network is expensive to use doesn't automatically mean it will continue to be valuable. It may mean it's just the only practical option for the task at the time. As an example mentioned recently by cryptocoinsnews, cryptocurrencies are now more valuable than Visa. Anything can be disrupted.
If someone wants to move around millions of dollars in STEEM or SmartCash or any number of other altcoins, they simply can't do it without slippage. Also, other than the BitShares DEX which prices things in BTS (and even then, the liquidity is not great), few exchanges price cryptocurrency assets in anything other than USD, BTC, or occasionally ETH. To me, that means BTC is the only game in town for many things people want to do in this space.
I don't think it will always be that way. As the marketcap of cryptocurrencies grow, more large transfers will be possible on chains which have low (or no) fees. As more decentralized exchange platforms launch, people will be free to create whatever currency pairs they want.
This could change quite a few things for bitcoin. Or the network effect dominance it currently enjoys may continue to outpace competitors.
Either way, it's a super exciting time to be involved in cryptocurrency. I hope you're getting involved as well. If you haven't yet, please watch my free videos at http://understandingblockchainfreedom.com which redirects to the @ubf account. You can learn all about what a blockchain is, what gives it value, and how you can use it safely and securely. As a witness, I want to help the every day people of this community understand these complicated things.
To help you keep track of your cryptocurrency holdings, I created this free spreadsheet for you 8 months ago: The Cryptocurrency Bank Spreadsheet
I do think cryptocurrency is the future of finance.
I want more people to get onboard so they can own and control their own stores of value.
If you want to help create more liquidity on the BitShares DEX (decentralized exchange), you can use my referral link to create an account right now:
https://wallet.bitshares.org/?r=luke-stokes
I hope you're enjoying this rise in value as much as I am. :)
Created with ChainBB to help support that project.
Proof of work is pretty easy to understand as a reason to root trust in.
"Witnesses like myself are paid directly to secure the network, and we are scheduled through cooperation instead of competition via stake-weighted vote."
Why trust that? How could the history be changed? How immutable is it? Why?
Thanks for replying, Trace! Much appreciated.
Just because something is easy to understand doesn't mean it's efficient, sustainable, or the best possible mechanism for accomplishing the task of creating trust.
Dan Larimer's post on DPOS is the best answer, but I'll summarize with my opinion to say, essentially, the same reason we trust in POW. Those with the most to lose if the network doesn't function properly and those with the most to gain if it does have aligned motivational incentives. In my opinion, the Steemit witnesses represent a far more decentralized structure than the handful of bitcoin mining outfits that control the outcome of the Bitcoin network, but we don't need to get into that as I'm a fan of many different approaches, and don't subscribe to tribalistic maximalism towards any specific cryptocurrency project.
Using STEEM as an example, the top 20 witnesses by stake-weighted vote determine what version of software is running which validates the blockchain. If they all agreed to run an adjusted version of the software which would replay history and exclude or somehow modify the blockchain, and the stake holders agreed with their decision and didn't vote in new witnesses who plan to act differently, then yes, the history could theoretically change. In my opinion, it would be a change to improve the network, one the network itself has the ability to vote for, unlike miners who are not directly accountable to network users and stake holders.
Some see that built-in option for change and hardforks as a systemic risk. I see it as the complete opposite. All throughout nature, the most dynamic organisms seem to survive, adapt to change, and thrive. If we know this has to happen for this ecosystem to evolve indefinitely, then I'm personally most interested in a system which takes this into account and plans for it through a dynamic process like stake-weighted witness voting. As a species, many will argue, humans have dominated this planet due to our cooperation and communication. Competition, though very helpful in many ways, can also lead to tremendous waste of energy. DPOS uses cooperation for fast transactions and zero fees.
With all that said, it's also open source software. If someone did want to change history (and even got all the stake holders to agree and vote in witnesses who will go along with the fork), the code could be forked and a new chain could be started by those who don't agree, just like we see with Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond, etc. In my view, this system is more dynamic and can retain consensus more effectively because every user has a say.
High transaction fees only hinder some on-chain activities. If we can have a secure blockchain and fast block times (only 3 seconds), I fail to see how that doesn't make the blockchain more valuable for a wider range of use cases.
I hope this didn't come off too much as a "my coin against your coin" argument. I really am interested in knowing more about why you personally think high fees are a good thing if other secure options exist. I also greatly appreciate your time, so thank you again for the great piece you wrote and your reply.
The market seems to be leaning in favor of the higher costs of POW, which lead to higher transaction costs. At least as relate to BTC, as a story of value. For a store of value, no one wants to take any risks with DPOS.
For a blockchain that is supposed to economically competitive with non-blockchain alternatives, lowest cost per transaction is probably a highly valuable attribute.
Hence the decision for ETH to move off POW and move to POS.
In the end we may only have one blockchain as POW, BTC. All the rest are probably going to be better using some variant of POS.
the market is leaning in favour of the token that is changeable for any currency in the world, directly. as soon as a better system comes into play, that is also changeable for any token, and any fiat, btc will falter. they people aren't leaning in favor of high cost POW, they are leaning in favor if liquidity. if you could go to bittrex, or whatever flavor exchange, and turn steem into usd, or litecoin, or ethereum... many more people would use it.
I did not even know that Trace Mayer was on Steemit.
Yes, I guess BTC would be growing exponentially until mass adaption. Always, some black swans out there. Bitfinexed? I must say I am a little disappointed of the lack of appreciation of Steem lately. But perhaps many new Bitcoiners will find Steemit a fascinating place to learn and thrive.
@tracemayer line of thinking seems backward to me. High fees means that the people that really need the benefits of decentralized money are unable to use it (you know...the population of Africa, Latin America & Asia).
In my country for example the daily minimum wage is around 4 USD. With the current fees someone would need to work more than 2 days just to pay the fee of one transaction...and it can take hours or days to get it confirmed.
Bitcoin is only for the rich. Sure off chain solutions can be implemented but then what is the point of the blockchain.
Steem needs fiat bridges to bypass the tyranny of Bitcoin (yes I used the T word).
Tyranny of Bitcoin is a bit much for me, but I do completely agree with your point. I was excited about Bitcoin because I was excited about helping the unbanked in the world. If it's only useful as a store of value for those who are already rich, then it has less interest for me.
I know I am being a bit dramatic. I see each blockchain as potential alternative economy to the mainstream and right now Bitcoin is the gateway, the one that bridges the fiat world to the other blockchains. Just like the dollar is the bridge for international commerce.
The moment when we start building those bridges and start focusing more on Steem and SBD as currencies and less on it's social media use case the Steem blockchain will grow and start to reach it's full potential.
I don't trust Trace Mayer at all. I've seen him spreading FUD and misinformation before and have written him off as a Bitcoin Core shill. The material here sounds like more of the same. High fees is NOT a good thing. Beware.
"writing off" very intelligent people is not a wise thing to do. There are many passionate, intelligent people in the bitcoin space with very strong opinions. To ignore their opinions increases ignorance. You don't have to trust the source of information to evaluate the information. To discredit the information because of the source is a genetic fallacy. Also, by ignoring people you disagree with you, you lose out on opportunities to publicize your own opinions and have constructive dialogue for others to learn from.
It is not about disagreement, it is about integrity and trust. There is an abundance of quality crypto analysts and commentators around the place, why listen to someone who even confesses on his own steemit and twitter profiles that he is "The Babe Ruth of Bitcoin shills."
Have a look up the meaning of the word shill on dictionary.com to get :-
a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc.
a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty.
Does this sound like someone of integrity to you? I appreciate your open mind @lukestokes but I think you can do better than to listen to this guy.
I hear what you're saying, and you're certainly wise to be careful about the inputs you allow into your brain to form your opinions, but I've seen a number of interviews with Trace Mayer that I think they are very good and helpful for the entire cryptocurrency space. You could take his profile text as a tribalistic "bitcoin against altcoin" jab or you can look at it more like "bitcoin against the fiat financial system enslaving much of the world today." More likely, it's just a self-deprecating joke to wear the label goldbugs probably throw at him.
There are many analysts out there with all kinds of different backgrounds, trust levels, and integrity. To me, it's not a popularity contest. It's about data analysis. If the things they are saying are factually inaccurate, I'm not very interested in what else they have to say. If not, I'm interested. Even then, I do think we can learn from everyone, as long as we have a solid framework for knowing what is factual and what isn't.
I personally feel that the lower the fees, the faster the transactions and the more efficient, then the MORE valuable it is.
I personally do not like bitcoin because it is very unsustainable in nature. The amount of resources, energy, time, materials, etc that go into mining a coin is gross. I love $teem and bitshares so much more and feel that they have much more to offer the future.
Bitcoin is a legend and will go down in history as so. We should all be grateful for it as crypto and $teem now exist because of it. However there are far more efficient and sustainable ways to make safe, secure, reliable currencies that just work better.
Really great to meet you BTW. I think of you pretty often. Hope to see you again soon!
SteemOn!
I agree. The more I hear about the energy use of POW, the more it seems wasteful. If other alternatives exist that still create secure, globally distributed, immutable ledgers, why shouldn't we use them?
I enjoyed meeting you as well, though at first I didn't enjoy it much. Hahah. Describing our interactions with my wife @corinnestokes and my business partner were in parts interesting and entertaining to say the least. :) Maybe we'll get to visit the garden someday with our family the next time we road trip through Texas.
Yes exactly, create better solutions and then start using them. Then life just keeps getting better and better. Fear inhibits a lot of progress but inevitably progress happens.
Yes man our range of interactions was very interesting indeed. Amazing how life unfolds and how different people affect each other.
hope you got something valuable out of it. I did.
Yes defiantly stop by one day, would love to meet your family and share with you mine. I am working on some new sustainable projects one in costa rica and now also considering portugal as well.
SteemOn!
I agree with you that network value should not be measured by transaction cost. Instead, the best valuation metric that I've seen so far is Willy Woo's NVT Ratio (Network Value to Transactions Ratio), where Bitcoin's NVT is calculated by Network Value (Market Cap) divided by the USD volume transmitted through the blockchain. http://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-nvt-ratio/
Chris Burniske's more generalized cryptoasset valuations model from https://medium.com/@cburniske/cryptoasset-valuations-ac83479ffca7 also holds a similar view (makes sense given Willy credited Chris with the NVT name):
The GDP of a cryptonetwork is represented by the on-chain transaction volume of its cryptoasset.
Surprisingly, current NVT shows that we are within range of normal valuation. Have you guys found better valuation models than this?
Great comment, thank you. I vaguely remember hearing about this approach, and it does seem quite interesting to me. I've always been a fan of this article by @falkvinge from 2013: The Target Value For Bitcoin Is Not Some $50 Or $100. It Is $100,000 To $1,000,000.
Yeah that jumped out at me too. It really feels like trying to pass a negative off as a positive.
In the long run surely competition will put increased pressure on fees. So a DPOS which has a much lower cost base than PoW will have a growing competitive advantage.
The current rally is absolutely breathtaking to watch, but I think there are reasons to be very cautious right now.
The new CME futures may put the brakes on the rally. The futures markets never really helped the precious metals, and I don't think bitcoin will benefit either.
We've had bitcoin futures for the last several years on platforms like Bitmex and OKCoin, but those futures markets did not see institutional participation from the likes of JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
The CME futures that are supposed to launch in December are a whole different ball game!!
My 2 Satoshi.
Yeah, that's a good point, but precious metals are mostly just on paper, right? I've heard claims that some gold is owned and claimed in a fractional reserve way by many different entities. Even though it's physical, what actually gets traded are just (often) unconfirmed IOU's. Yes, the same thing could happen for cryptocurrencies, but I'm hoping the people in this space will continue to push for all exchanges to use a proof of reserves approach to demonstrate they actually have the cryptocurrency they are trading.
We should have learned our lessons from MtGox to use things like BitShares more. Unfortunately, some people never learn until they personally get burned.
lol, you seriously have to laugh because it is pure madness and something like this only comes once in a blue moon. I have a feeling this is just the start though and 2018 is going to be massive adoption and cool features that lay over top of bitcoin and continue to drive up demand higher and higher its going to be interesting for sure.
Bitcoin has said it is a store of value and they don't want a lot running on the chain I can totally get that and understand that if it ant broke dont fix it. instead sub systems will run over top of bitcoin to provide better transactions faster but will all come down to bitcoins store of value. Every other coin is traded with BTC so it already shows it is a store of value its what the market has given and grown use to.
The part that bums me out a bit is that it is broken as a digital cash or the nearly free payment platform I first got excited about in 2013. Maybe layers on top can make it work cheaply and quickly again. I think, if not, other technologies will continue to eat into Bitcoin's marketshare.
There will be few cryptos with specific utilities. People buy sports car for the madness it delivers and Prius for the mileage. It's impossible that there will be only a single dominant crypto ever.
Other coins will be used for day to day transactions where BTC would still remain as the Alpha. Another magnificent crypto project is IOTA. No one is making noise about it but it is rapidly growing only on its merits. We will soon buy coffee using several cryptos including the Alpha once we have Lightning Network ON for instant and micropayments.
For now, just HODL...
Agreed. Every architecture is about tradeoffs. The idea that one blockchain can optimise for all use cases seems rather unlikely to me.
Also bullish on IOTA and EOS
Yeah, I did grab few when EOS was at 0.3x recently. I wonder until EOS is fully released where could Ethereum be? It may be at its best with many upgrades and price rocketed above 1k.
IOTA is almost 1.5USD and partnering with all big corporations; Microsoft, Fujitsu, BMW, BOSCH etc. They are really making machine to machine transactions possible in fractions of dollars which is not possible with any other crypto due to the fee structure.
Amazing projects; sometime I feel there is no time left to research on these project after my 9 to 5 job. I may exit soon, HODL n wait for the time...
I'm a HODL'er :)
I'm glad to have picked up some IOTA in August. Definitely an interesting project.
I agree that bitcoin is not very attractive for day to day micro transactions due to the fee. I don’t think anyone is buying ANY crypto currency for the purpose of making micro payments, because the reality is that it’s quite hard to spend it. Even when you do find a retailer who takes crypto, the probability is that it will be bitcoin.
Whatever the original dream that Satoshi may have have had for bitcoin to be a new daily transaction currency, things have moved on.
People don’t say “Which crypto shall I buy so I can buy my daily coffee?”. People are asking different questions like: “What digital asset shall I buy for my long term savings?”, or “Which is the safest crypto?”, or “Does bitcoin have a catalyst to make the price rise?”
The last question has many more answers than any other crypto.
Yeah, interesting point. I keep thinking back to what Ned said during the fireside chat as well in terms of needing to make the currency completely ubiquitous and stable before you can actively pursue using it as digital cash and working towards merchant adoption.
I also wonder, though, how much merchant adoption is hindered by the fees themselves. There was some momentum early on (I got involved early 2013) to sign up merchants and get them using it. Now that momentum has to start from scratch with other projects.
Everytime I think bitcoin is dying or falling, it comes back with twice the earlier force.
It's a big comments but it's really good comments @bitcoinflood 👍👍
Hi @lukestokes,
Indeed the biggest bull market I have seen... Trading it is like slipping to profits... hehehe...
https://steemit.com/trading/@aarcee/bitcoin-trade-btc-usd-29-nov-2017
I think the early (and brand ambassador) value of bitcoin for cryptocurrency is far far big advantage which is unlikely to be broken.
For me,
If
Cryptocurrency is Internet-of-Money
Then
Bitcoin is http-protocol
There are are others which are needed like https, ftp etc... and anybody can come up with a ‘pttp' protocol which does things differently than http, but its not required and will not be adopted
Yes, I really do like that analogy as well. I don't think we need one root chain to rule them all. The key thing we want is a cryptographically secure, globally distributed, immutable ledgers. They can all have different properties for different purposes.
Yes, of course... but still the main purpose will be Bitcoin (transparent, secure : currency), no ?
BTW,
10,000 BROKEN today !!!! Yayyyyy :)))))
https://steemit.com/trading/@aarcee/579cwd-bitcoin-trade-btc-usd-29-nov-2017
{Time to book profits for the the traders}
There are quite a few things helping bitcoin at the moment. I have blogged about these in the last few days on Steemit. The main thing which seems to be happening is the move from “early adopters” to “early majority”.
At present we have around one in 800 adults with some investment in bitcoin. With rapidly growing media coverage there’s a growing interest to at least be part of this revolution.
Price does not seem to be an important factor. Investors look at the price $1000 below where we are now and say “That would be a good price to load-up”. I call that the “Price Memory Feature”. It’s a fundamental which does not apply to any other asset class.
Last week I saw bitcoin mentioned in a UK TV soap opera serial. This week the whole of “The Big Bang Theory” episode is a story about how the geeks find an old laptop on which they used to mine bitcoin. Now they are looking for the wallet.....
Great stuff, as always. The "price memory feature" is an interesting way to look at it. It's like a mixture of FOMO, loss aversion, and irrational exuberance. And yet... the logical, rational arguments for bitcoin to be valued much, much higher than it is today still stand out as something people should take a stand on.
I just sent an IMDB link to my in-laws about the Big Bang Theory episode. They love that show.