Hacker News Reader

Comment by beervirus | Hacker News Reader

Correction relative to what fundamental value? And what’s the difference between a speculative high and the normal price?

View on HN

Well, fundamental value is well over >$8T which is a rough estimate of the gold's monetization (because BTC is superior to gold in every respect as a store-of-value). BTC still has to climb 10x till there and all the dips on the way are corrections.

> BTC is superior to gold in every respect as a store-of-value)

Maybe in some respects, but every respect? Is it really beneficial for a store of value to have wild fluctuations in its value on a timescale of days/weeks?

That's just early stages of adoption. Until BTC saturates the market, there will be huge rallies, huge drops and otherwise volatility. Right now everyone knows about USD and gold and holds as much USD or gold as they want. But there are still millions of people who don't know about Bitcoin or don't know they want to hold Bitcoin. Once Bitcoin reaches its saturation point (which could be at gold's level or 10x higher - who knows), of course it will be no more volatile than any other established commodity.

In other words, volatility is not an inherent feature of Bitcoin or any commodity whatsoever, but just a state of the markets. The better argument would be to point out some inherent issue with Bitcoin that keeps it niche, the markets thin and value subject to wild swings forever.

Hindsight? I am pretty sure that is what people are using for the definition.

If the new high didn't hold, it was speculative, if it did hold and it went up further, it was its normal pricing.

What timescale defines the difference between fundamental value and speculation? A week? A decade? A century?

No one knows... I was being facetious in my earlier comment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com