When most people say "some past comments", they don't mean obsessively tracking what I've said for the past year or two. But okay, you're looking to catch me in hypocrisy, and ignoring the nuance and the context of my comments. I think it is more valuable to quote external sources, but let's dig into my past comments for a bit.
I'm not obsessively tracking anything. There are only a few people who I've had repeated debates about bitcoin with on these forums (you, GuitarStv, ChpBstrd, seattlecyclone, etc) and so I typically remember what they've said or the positions they've held. You're literally the one that requested that I quote you, so I did.
So quote where I made this claim that Bitcoin is not mainstream.
"Quote where I said..."
...[proceeds to quote person]
"Hey, how dare you!"
I even quoted factual information - a Pew poll - showing that 1 in 6 adults have owned Bitcoin at some point.
Even your Pew poll you provided goes a long way toward discrediting your claim that bitcoin was mainstream as both I and Latestarter illustrated. 1 in 6 ownership is not mainstream by any measure. It was only after that you moved the goalposts to clarify you meant awareness. And your posting of this poll further illustrates that the discussion was about mainstream ownership, demand, and price. It was never about awareness.
"Overall, 17% of U.S. adults say they have ever invested in, traded or used a cryptocurrency. This share is statistically unchanged since 2021."
"Some 88% of Salvadorans did not use it in 2023, according to a survey by the University of Central America's public opinion institute. Just 1% of remittances were sent in bitcoin."
https://www.reuters.com/technology/short-cash-el-salvador-doubles-down-bitcoin-dream-2024-02-02/
You've stripped away the context of this quote:
The investment side of El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment has clearly been a great success – so far.
I refuted that claim, that the experiment was a success. It had nothing to do with Bitcoin being mainstream or not.
You're really bastardizing the meaning of words. If something that was looking to seek adoption (the bitcoin initiative in El Salvador) and it fails to achieve any sort of adoption, then yes, it has failed to become "mainstream". The point is that your post was acknowledging this fact which you fail to acknowledge now. See next part:
The +50% jump in Bitcoin's price translates to a $600 billion USD increase in its market cap. I'm sure the next administration will have friendly policies, but $600 billion is too optimistic in my view. It assumes mainstream buying of something most people ignore.
Notice the quote says "mainstream buying", not mainstream awareness. You didn't like my 1 in 6 ownership quote from Pew Research, so I found a more precise analysis from a lower quality source.
That's entirely the point. You're changing what you meant by "mainstream" to awareness and not buying. Only buying makes the price appreciate, not awareness. Your entire
original post was about the price of bitcoin and whether it would still be worth buying in regards to its future price potential. This is the context under which you used the word "mainstream" which implies it is in regards to buying demand and not just awareness. This entire discussion was about mainstream buying, not awareness. You only switched to referencing awareness in
this post when you referred to people "hearing" about bitcoin.
If something only has a small percentage of ownership, or a small percentage of use (remittances, etc), then that would imply there is still a lot of potential buying demand out there that could be gained. Implying that it is mainstream and therefore there isn't much potential demand left as you did would mean that bitcoin has achieved mass market penetration. It hasn't by any measure.
"About 90% of Americans have heard of Bitcoin.'
88% of Japanese and 93% of people in the UK have heard of Bitcoin.
Another report puts the number at 66% of Europeans having heard of Bitcoin, with 78% in Poland and 79% in Austria."
https://bitbo.io/how-many-users/
90% of Americans have heard of Bitcoin, while only 1 in 6 have ever owned crypto currency (mostly Bitcoin, the largest and most well known crypto currency). Bitcoin awareness is mainstream - buying Bitcoin is not.
Again, the original discussion was about buying bitcoin and what its future price would do. You're the one that suddenly moved the goalposts of mainstream meaning "awareness" and not buying. You're moving the goalposts because you got pinned in a corner with the argument you made.
Ten Bitcoin ETFs were approved on Jan 10 2024, yet the price was flat for a couple weeks. Then the price spiked from late Jan to early March 2024, which proved me wrong about $1 billion in Bitcoin ETF purchases. Your graph shows the market was wrong as well, as far less than $40 billion in buying happened in the first couple months, including the spike in price.
The price spike ended on March 9 2024, with a Bitcoin price of $68,469 BTC/USD. Bitcoin's price on Nov 5, right before the U.S. presidential election, was $68,318 BTC/USD. Over almost 8 months, Bitcoin's price fell -0.2%. The price was flat after the initial excitement of Bitcoin ETFs, and stayed flat until the U.S. election.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/BTC-USD/history/
In 2024, Bitcoin ETF approval and the U.S. presidential election moved the price higher. But between those events, from March 9 to Nov 5, Bitcoin's price was essentially flat (-0.2%). That is a key point, which you or others can see from the link I provided. Or search "BTC USD price", and Google will display the data.
I think Oct 2023 is similar to Oct 2021. The $40B in market cap gains (+13% on Oct 20) anticipate $40B of new spot Bitcoin ETF investment.
You also seem to have a misunderstanding on how the market works. A $40b increase in market cap does not mean a $40b increase in purchasing demand for bitcoin. That isn't how any market works. Market cap is a meaningless number. Liquidity in the markets is where price is determined. There could only be $2b in market liquidity with $4b in increased demand that ends up driving up the price another $10k which would add another $200b to the market cap. These are made up numbers obviously, but that helps illustrate the misconception you made about market cap gains and how it relates to demand. Liquidity (or lack there of in comparison to other markets) is one of the reasons why bitcoin can be so volatile.
Demand increases for ETFs, yes, but not for Bitcoin. If there was new demand for Bitcoin, why didn't the price increase from March 9 to Nov 5 2024?
ETF purchases to fund the underlying asset typically happen OTC where as the ticker price of bitcoin is typically determined via public exchanges. So there is less of an immediate impact on the market from ETF purchases (though it is eventually felt). Furthermore, this was after the halving, which means miner revenue was cut in half and therefore a lot of miners greatly increased their sales of bitcoin in an attempt to stay profitable for as long as possible. This activity was short-term as the mining landscape adjusts to the new block rewards and difficulty adjusts accordingly.
You also have profit takers due to the influx of new buyers. When there is an influx of new buyers that have never had exposure to bitcoin before, long time holders and whales that had long had previous exposure prior to the anticipation of ETF approval sell and take profit off the backs of new ETF demand. This applied a lot of counter trade to the new ETF demand, but again, that was short-term.
So this added to some of the selling pressure in the markets. A lot goes into determining the price of bitcoin since it is a global asset that is in virtually every geographic market on the planet. So, yes, while there was increased net-inflows for ETFs, that doesn't always mean there will be an increase in price. That said, continued on-going demand for an asset amongst the largest and wealthiest as shown via the US ETFs(US market) is a good sign for future price appreciation.
I notice you don't quote the price of Bitcoin at all. I said "driven up the price of Bitcoin" and "pushed the price up", followed by quoting prices. Yet somehow in quoting that post, you're ignoring Bitcoin's lack of price changes (Mar 9 to Nov 5 2024)?
Because my post wasn't about what the price has done, but what it could do. The primary misrepresentation you made in your original post was to insinuate that because the ETFs were now approved, they don't play any additional role in bitcoin's future price appreciation. What I did was illustrate that the ETFs being approved isn't a one-and-done news event, but a now continued ongoing factor in bitcoin's future price determination. I then followed that up with data showing a steady increase in demand for those ETFs (the largest ETF launch in history). Again, your original premise was there you don't see any future price appreciation for bitcoin, which would have to ignore that steady ongoing demand/inflows.
I haven't had to resize images in awhile, but I think there's a "width=300" you can use to shrink it.
Thanks. That's good to know. I just edited that post just so it isn't so annoyingly large.
Awareness is mainstream - buying is not.
Mainstream awareness, not mainstream ownership / buying.
Again, this was the goalpost you moved, not me.
