Would be silly of me to make a claim to know. I'm trading with free BTC so $500 is still mega profit for me. It could go to zero and I would end up ahead. Hindsight is a wonderful thing - I called parity with gold a while back, and it did it twice, and I didn't sell at that price. I talked someone out of buying at $300 on the way up because it felt overpriced, and look where it went from there - quadrupled. They weren't happy with heeding my opinion. I think it's too early in the history to call a price cheap or not. I'm confident of seeing XAU parity again, and a protracted period where it remains stable either around or above the price of gold. So in the meantime I'm fiddling with some arbitrage and ratio trading between LTC and BTC to increase my overall BTC holdings. Bugger the other alts, they still don't have the merchant acceptance in place to be anything other than *pure* speculation IMO. Might take some decent profits off the table if we see parity again. Whether that's in a week or 2 years I don't know.
If 21million coins will be mined & only 12k atm I think we have a long way to go. How many ppl are into crypto? I've been playing the alts - ltc & NMC in particular, selling then rebuying at 75% price. Soon as everyone works out weekend crash then that game is up but I gain 25% more once or twice a week.
There is long term aspect to this. It ain't fading away tomorrow. Christmas is coming and the weekends currently serve as a time of volatility. Maybe this will improve over time (or get worse?).
I keep hearing this as a positive, half still to be mined. How is it good if the qty in circulation will double? Wouldn't it be better for the price if they were all out there?
Miners need an incentive to mine, in short. Mining ensures fair decentralized distribution to the people who do the work and take the risk. Think, who would they give all the coins to if they just wanted them all out there?
how is it a fair decentralised distribution? its who ever has the biggest & most powerful computer. I still dont get how the doubling of the supply is a positive
The people with the biggest & most powerful computers have put their money where their mouth is, and help process the transactions. If you don't get a job, how can you expect to be paid. Most coins were distributed when it was very profitable to do so at home with minimal outlay, so anyone halfway entrepreneurial or attentive was free to take part in that. I'm not really arguing that the doubling is positive, just that it's necessary for the system to work. I think it will be more than double when you consider a lot of coins have been lost. How would you expect bitcoin to function if more coins weren't released? Who would get the coins in the first place? How would you distribute them fairly? Which entity would receive the profits?
The supply was always intended to be that size, people have been aware of it since inception. It is estimated up to 40% of the current supply could already be lost due to HDD formats, lost codes, general stupidity, etc.