Most people who aren’t in cryptocurrency or even people who are, are saying that we are currently in a bubble, most likely fueled by fomo. This might be the case, its hard to tell because in crypto theres nothing like net asset values or cashflow to value what something should be worth. Also it should be noted that to be in a bubble we don’t have to repeat the past of going up a hundred times the value, but a smaller bubble could occur. So what are the downsides of a large positive price movement or a bubble with no corrections?
The safest way to have growth is slow and steady and there is actually a reason for this. There is something called opportunity cost in economics which in this case is the point at which someone will sell their coins. When the person sells their coins in a slow and steady model, they are slowly replaced by someone who buys it up and that person has a new opportunity cost from which they would sell. If the price rises too quickly then you will have too many people selling and not enough people who have stronger hands and higher opportunity costs, buying it up.
Simple corrections are able to fix most of this or you risk long periods on instability like what happened after the bitcoin bubble in 2013. We hit 1000 and for the next year and a half entered a bear market which brought the price down to 200. This was good for people who kept accumulating coins and wanted more, but many people who were in the project lost hope, or even claimed the project was dead. This was far from the truth, but that period was very negative in terms of development, leadership and the future of bitcoin.
Perhaps the biggest downside when you have no corrections and then ultimately a bubble pops, is that you lose thousands of potential users, frustrated that their coins just lost half their value and exit the space forever. You definitely have a problem if people are just investing on FOMO, but ultimately we still want them for the long term. If they lose 50% and exit they might never come back, as opposed to if they maybe lose 20% and hold on for the near future. But no matter what we will lose a certain majority of these people.
What I can recommend is not to buy into a bubble if you think something is overpriced. This is why dollar cost averaging is so important. People who are buying now and bought at, lets say 200 for bitcoin, have a much lower average per coin, so even if the price does tank, they can hold on in the long term. Also crypto is so new and despite fortunes being made overnight, it is still a gamble. In a bubble or not never overleverage yourself and buying more than you can afford to lose.
If we are in a bubble and we enter a long bear market period the most important thing to do if you believe in the long term of a coin or a project is to not panic and just ride it out. I know people that once the price crossed $300 during bitcoins bear market, just stepped away for a few months and didn’t check anything. Its okay to step away for a while, but just know that if you are thinking long term you want to average your cost per coin down. Hopefully we aren’t in a bubble, but if we are, buckle down and endure it for the long term.
Its a great question right? I could argue that there is no real way to know if its a bubble or not until it pops. We could definitely be in a bubble... or not. The best thing someone could have done was buy bitcoin ( or steem!) and never thought about it again until now. Great question. i think about this daily
Bitcoin is in a bubble, there is no doubt about it. It jumped off several different trend lines very convincingly. Typically, you can count on an asset to return to the trend line or even dive beneath if the jump was high enough.
But bubbles don't exist in isolation. There has to be an underlying demand for forces to come together and push an asset off the trend line. Bitcoin has a lot of demand which is increasing. The bubble has good reasons behind it, many of which are geopolitical.
I became massively bullish on Bitcoin when the government of India pulled a currency swap scam on their own citizens, in the name of protecting the people agains money launderers, counterfeiters, terrorists, and other boogey men--BOO! (idiots). The real boogey men were the corrupt government officials who found ways to cheat citizens out of cash.
Governments do these kind of scams all the time. Don't think that yours won't either. In fact the Federal Money Printing Scam perpetrated by the US Federal Reserve in cooperation with Congress, the US President, and the Courts, is worse than the Indian government has perpetrated because it is far more insidious, more difficult to explain to the average uneducated yokel, and subtle in its execution.
All of the se State-scale scams undermine the legitimacy and eventual trust in traditional financial systems.
These are the driving forces behind demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and were even motivation for their creation.
Yes we have a bubble, but it is just a blip on a much larger and trend that will eclipse this current bubble eventually.
I welcome and even encourage the suckers to walk away in fear. More for me.
Thank you for your anaylsis:)
I find myself asking this exact same question in terms of Tech stocks such as Snapchat and to some extent Tesla...the difficult thing to me is how do you value something that is so new and has such great potential. For most companies there is a comparison you can make to companies that have been around for years and years and they have tangible assets and cashflows that we can measure...but how do you measure something that is so new and has no real competitors to compare to?
Not sure :) If you figured it out please let me know ASAP
A good rule of thumb is that when everyone wants in it is more than likely a time to get out. As far as bitcoin and the cryptos go, I would imagine that monitoring the % of posts here at Steemit that are devoted to the cryptos could at least give some clues. I would certainly not be buying right now as a very high % of trending posts are dedicated to cryptos. Wait until people are saying things like "what happened?" or "I bought bitcoin at $2400 and now I'm down 30%, what should I do now?" ...things like that. :-) There are actually ways to measure sentiment of investors in the tech stocks. Let's look at TSLA since you mentioned it. It is now trading well off the highs and this now means that anyone who paid say $320+ is in a position where they are "hoping" to at least get even on their trade. This means that if TSLA stock trades lower than the $290 low that was set in early May those 'hopefuls" will likely abandon ship. That would lead to price targets in the 260-250 area as outlined on this chart.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advchart/frames/frames.asp?show=&insttype=Stock&symb=tsla&x=56&y=16&time=8&startdate=1%2F4%2F1999&enddate=2%2F18%2F2017&freq=1&compidx=aaaaa%3A0&comptemptext=&comp=none&ma=0&maval=9&uf=0&lf=1024&lf2=2&lf3=8&type=2&style=320&size=4&timeFrameToggle=false&compareToToggle=false&indicatorsToggle=false&chartStyleToggle=false&state=9
The bottom line on how most stocks are priced is sentiment. Price is a function of what anyone is willing to pay at any given time based on their own perceptions. Same with bitcoin, same with how much you are willing to pay for a cup of coffee at Starbux. if price is too high based on your own perception of value you will simply find an alternative or avoid altogether. Buy only at times of fear...sell at times of euphoria. Luckily for traders, investor sentiment can be tracked very easily in the stock market. Maybe not so easily in teh cryptos. But based on this tracking fund for bitcoin that trades on the U.S. equity exchanges...this is EXTREME euphoria. People wanted in at ANY price today. :-)
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advchart/frames/frames.asp?show=&insttype=&symb=gbtc&x=44&y=13&time=8&startdate=1%2F4%2F1999&enddate=2%2F18%2F2017&freq=1&compidx=aaaaa%3A0&comptemptext=&comp=none&ma=0&maval=9&uf=0&lf=1024&lf2=2&lf3=8&type=2&style=320&size=4&timeFrameToggle=false&compareToToggle=false&indicatorsToggle=false&chartStyleToggle=false&state=9
I'll be posting about various trade opps in the equity markets at my Steemit blog. Hope you will stop by as I will always provide evidence as to whether things are a buy or sell based on what the "sentiment" indicators are saying.
The main problem is low information buyers. Not that there's not a plethora of information out there, but if a buyer doesn't understand the underlying value of a coin, they'll panic and sell. Of course I want to get a good return on my investment, but I have faith that I eventually WILL, no matter what temporary downturns come around.
This idea of staying on the sidelines is one that we frequently don't allow ourselves to do. FOMO is deadly for most of us. Thanks for sharing!
One day all of this will collapse, but I hope it's years after my boys become old men.
the only bubble is FIAT. get into crypto.
I starting to think that the powers that be (bankers etc) are artificially inflating bubbles. Especially in Alt coins like Ripple etc. That offer nothing new and aren't used for anything. There is a war on cryptos right now and it only makes sense to scare people away from using them is to inflate the market, trick lots of newbs into investing and then popping it to scare everyone away. Once this is complete they will start their own blockchain tech by their own terms that is centralised and under their control.
resteem and upvote for you....
Here's a question from a newbie. I am a stock market guy, and can read charts better than the average bear. Are there gap-ups like in the SM? It's just a continual movement, no EOD or anything. Is there a way that it can be charted? Thanks for any info... Followed because I need the knowledge. And because of your profile pic... LOL!!