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Why Is Bitcoin Moving? T3 Live Readers Sound Off!

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Yesterday, we held a Bitcoin survey to get our readers' thoughts on the raging cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin mania truly is running wild.

As of the time of this writing, the app for digital currency market place Coinbase is at #2 in the Apple App Store:

(screenshot taken at 7:20 a.m. ET Friday)

Yes, Coinbase is pulling more downloads than Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.

So what's moving Bitcoin?

Let's take a look at our survey results question by question.

Before we get started, please understand this: This survey is very informal, and should not be considered scientific.

Take the answers with a grain of salt, and certainly don't use them to make buy/sell decisions in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Question #1: Have you ever traded Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency?

35.7% of survey respondents said they have traded Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.

Just 26.2% responded “no, but i want to get started.”

So it seems that many traders are still fairly skeptical.

Question #2: Is it too late to get into Bitcoin?

42.1% said ‘I don't know.'

Meanwhile, just 26.3% of respondents said yes, that it is too late to get into Bitcoin.

Question #3: What asset do you think will perform best in the next 5 years?

Just 22% of respondents believe “Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies” will perform best in the next 5 years.

Interstingtly that's exactly the same number that believe ‘Gold or other precious metals' will perform best.

51.2% respondents believe equities will perform best.

Question #4 What do you think of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies overall?

This was an open-ended question that allowed readers to type in their own responses.

These are some of the comments we received. All are completely unedited:

  • Backed only by virtual numbers 0 and 1 in the computersystems it's even more worthless than all the out of thin air printed money from the centralbanks of the world
  • I am very skeptical of the whole crypto currency marketplace. It’s unclear to me if it is just a fad or a legitimate trading opportunity. Who is regulating this? It’s clear people are buying. Do we know if anybody is selling and cashing in on it? I have heard it is difficult to get your order executed quickly when buying. My gut feeling is that this will end in tears for many.”
  • The Value of the underlying “Distributed Digital Ledgers” or “Blockchains” actually exceeds the value of Cryptocurrencies as mediums of exchange.
  • Not useful yet, only a speculation vehicle at this point for people who dont trust traditional investments
  • Good money laundering instrument, most of them are fraudulent, the danger of having the exchanges or your wallet hacked are enormous
  • Clearly highly speculative. Very similar to internet Bubble of 2000… but ultimately the 2000 spawned off big winners and many losers. This will probably be the same. Also many losers like Mindspring were temporarily BIG winners for a short term. I still think people should get in for at least the short term. But monitor closely and also should only put in a small amount toward speculative assets.
  • revolutionary, I prefer etherium and litecoin, because fortune 500 companies are building infrastructure around them.

We also received a number of single-word answers like ‘scam' and ‘bubble.'

One commenter said “Bitcoin to 120K,” and that may have been sarcastic.

To my surprise, there were no blatant “I love Bitcoin”type responses.

Question #5: What do you think is driving the price of Bitcoin?

Our final question was also open-ended, and we're presenting some of the comments we received, completely unedited:

  • FOMO (2)
  • Limited Supply and a lot of demand
  • Speculation
  • Social media (tulip-mania)
  • Tulip power.
  • Drug dealers, hackers mafia, terror groups
  • Speculation and anticipation of trading on CME
  • lack of brain combined with a lack of history knowledge
  • idea of replacing fiat currencies
  • Law of attraction. Think about all of the media hype and energy being put into this thing. Whether you are for it or against it… you are still thinking about it…. That is the #1 reason the price is going up and will continue to go up a lot in the very short term.
  • Lots of Chinese buying 1/10 shares thinking when the last coin is mined, supply and demand will be their friend!
Interestingly, a number of survey respondents used variants of the word Tulip in reference to Dutch Tulip mania in 1636 – 1637.
When creating this survey, I assumed we'd attract more Bitcoin bulls, but we got the opposite.

Leave a Comment:

3 comments
Jeffrey Gorman says December 10, 2017

A currency is simply the product of its perceived value. Why is a dollar worth anything? Why is gold? Salt used to be a currency but since we have refrigerators it is of very little value. Corn husks can be a currency as much as a cryptocurrency or the Euro. If people are willing to trade something for it and have the expectation to trade it for something else, it is a legitimate currency.

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Aku says December 11, 2017

How do you get started on bitcoin if you are interested?

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Stephen Gerace says December 11, 2017

It looks like a tulip bulb to me. A high bubble and the buyers at the top are going to get singed.

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