Bitcoin and petrocurrency
1, the short-term factors that determine the price: supply and demand and market sentiment
the relationship between supply and demand means that if the amount of money spent on buying bitcoin is more than that spent on selling bitcoin, the price of bitcoin will rise. If more people buy bitcoin, it will rise
market sentiment refers to the views of the market and the media on the price trend of bitcoin at that time. When many people strongly see bitcoin, the market sentiment is confident, and the price of bitcoin will rise rapidly. If the media makes pessimistic reports on the price of bitcoin, it will affect people's confidence and lead people to sell bitcoin, and the price of bitcoin will fall
2, the medium-term factors that determine the price: policy, news and mining cost
on the policy side, it is the policy attitude of governments towards bitcoin. For example, the recent crackdown and regulation of bitcoin by the South Korean government has led to a sharp drop in the price of bitcoin in the near future. If more and more countries support and encourage the development of bitcoin, the price of bitcoin will be higher and higher. On the contrary, if many countries begin to suppress bitcoin, the price of bitcoin will continue to fall
on the news side, there are some important things in the bitcoin instry. For example, around December, the two major stock exchanges in the United States launched bitcoin futures, which are good for bitcoin and directly push the price of bitcoin up to about $20000
mining cost is the cost of bitcoin miners using machines to dig out bitcoin. At present, the cost of digging out a bitcoin is about 12000 US dollars, so it is difficult for the price of bitcoin to fall below 12000 US dollars. Mining cost is the bottom line of bitcoin price. With the continuous increase of mining costs, the reason is that more competitors enter the mining field, especially many large institutions, companies and countries
3 determines the long-term price factors: the US dollar trend, the global bubble, the official digital currency, and the block chain technology.
the trend of the US dollar. According to the personal analysis data, the US dollar will weaken in the next few years, which means that the global monetary system with us dollar as the world currency in the past will be rebuilt. The rise and future of bitcoin is to assume the identity and mission of the world currency
global bubble. Since the United States abolished the gold standard Bretton Woods system in 70s, many countries in the United States have been printing banknote printing machines. The bubble of currency has caused the global economic bubble and asset bubble. The global economic crisis triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 is the crisis triggered by the currency bubble. At present, the global economic bubble and asset bubble have reached the critical point of collapse. The birth of bitcoin was e to the reason of the currency bubble, which made people no longer believe in the currency of national credit, and began to believe and recognize bitcoin.
official digital currency, countries around the world have begun to prepare to issue official digital currency, that is, digital currency issued by countries. Venezuela has issued a national level digital currency - Petroleum currency. Israel is preparing to issue it, Russia is also preparing to issue it, and the Japanese government is issuing it. 2018 will become the first year of the global official digital currency. The accelerated launch of official digital currency and its increasing popularity show that the value of bitcoin as internet currency is unlimited.
Today, with the rapid development of information technology, real money is far from meeting people's demand for capital flow. virtual currency is the information flow or data flow that replaces the real currency in high technology. Virtual currency is different from check and telegraphic transfer. Virtual currency can not be transferred. At present, it can only be circulated in the network world. Virtual currency is released by each network machine, and there is no unified issuance and management standard. According to incomplete statistics, there are no less than 10 kinds of network virtual coins in circulation, such as Q coin, u coin and so on. Take Q coin as an example, with more than 300 million users. It is understood that the domestic Internet has a virtual currency market scale of several billion every year, and the growth rate is relatively large. Virtual currency is a newly emerging form of electronic currency in recent years. In essence, this kind of virtual currency is a form of goods. It is the result of a series of digital program algorithms through a series of mathematical algorithms. Virtual currency is also a kind of currency in essence, which can be used for trading
one Christmas, an editor of the financial times decided to buy bitcoin, a special Christmas gift for his parents. The reason is very simple. For the first time before Christmas, the value of bitcoin exceeded US $10000, which rose more than ten times in a year. Moreover, young people in Europe and the United States are talking about bitcoin. A survey found that 30% of the 20-30-year-old people in the United States have bought bitcoin. They don't know what bitcoin is, and they will definitely fall behind. The idea of taking bitcoin as a gift, on the one hand, can let oneself also try water in the coin circle, on the other hand, can also let the elderly parents play something new
as a result, the editor, who bought a $100 bitcoin, kept an eye on the market of the exchange every day ring the days when bitcoin jumped up and down, for fear that bitcoin would plunge into the water with his gift. On Christmas day, he spent half a day wrapping the electronic money of bitcoin for his father, and it took a lot of trouble to transfer the bought bitcoin as a gift to his father. After the transfer, he received the bill - the transfer cost was $30, which could be confirmed an hour later. Dad was very happy. He called in the new year to say that the bitcoin in his account had risen to 85 yuan
bitcoin is now the most popular cryptocurrency. To understand what bitcoin is, we need to explain it in several steps. First, it is cryptocurrency. Transactions are secure and will not be tampered with, because it relies on a technology called blockchain; Second, the blockchain technology is a kind of distributed general ledger that can safely record transactions, that is, a technology that stores transaction data on all networked computers, because each transaction needs at least half of the networked computers to confirm, so it ensures the security and transparency of transactions; Third, because of the use of distributed blockchain technology, bitcoin is different from the legal tender known as RMB or US dollar. It is no longer issued by the Central Bank of a country, there is no credit endorsement behind the country, there is no central authority to determine the currency value, and there is no central trading system to verify transactions
in 2016, the economist's cover article "trust machine", which introced "blockchain", was regarded by bitcoin insiders as a landmark event for bitcoin to enter the mainstream crowd According to the article of the economist, blockchain, as an emerging decentralized technology, has broad application prospects not only in the field of digital currency, but also in many fields such as supply chain, medical treatment, real estate transaction, etc
however, bitcoin has risen from less than $1000 in early 2017 to a maximum of $20000. Although this round of rise has made it a household investment, it is further and further away from the digital currency as a substitute for legal tender
if measured by the three main functions of currency, bitcoin can not shoulder any of them. The three main intelligences are value reserve, circulation means and pricing unit. Let's see why one by one
let's look at the stored value method first. The price of bitcoin has been soaring all the way. Recently, there is a roller coaster market. The price often fluctuates 20% to 30% in one day. If bitcoin is used as a value reserve, the volatility will obviously make people nervous: if you bought a car with bitcoin in January last year, the same amount of bitcoin will be enough for you to buy the most expensive sports car in January this year
As a means of circulation, bitcoin is also very weak and not environmentally friendly. In the first example, the editor of the financial times had to pay $30 to transfer bitcoin, and it took more than an hour to get it. There is no way to compare this with the free real-time payment of wechat wallet, and even less with the system that can handle hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. The reason for this is that bitcoin has set the rule that it can only process seven transactions per second, while at least 50% of the connected computers are required to confirm, so each transaction costs 275 kwh. Bitcoin's total annual electricity consumption is enough for Morocco, a small country in North Africa. In other words, with the existing technology of bitcoin, there is no way to meet the needs of global digital transactions Finally, as a unit of valuation, bitcoin will have problems if it is widely circulated. For example, if your housing loan is priced in bitcoin, the house price has not increased much in the past year, and your debt may have increased more than ten times if it is converted into RMB. Without a stable currency value, bitcoin could not support slightly more complicated financial transactions
then why can bitcoin Soar so much? In fact, the reason can be described in one word: fomo, which is the abbreviation for fear of missing out. Every one of us is afraid of missing this opportunity to make a fortune. If the story of people around us who are speculating in bitcoin and suddenly become a billionaire spreads, more and more people will buy bitcoin because of the money making effect. There are so many examples of such rapid bubbles in history. If many investors buy an illiquid asset, the price may double. p>
but fomo belongs to fomo, and the blockchain behind bitcoin has great potential, which is why the economist calls it a "credit machine"
some people regard blockchain as the future Internet. But the problem is that the application of blockchain in various fields mentioned above can be completed with centralized database. Blockchain has not brought advanced technology, and even has bottlenecks in the speed and frequency of transactions at this stage. So why do you do that? The answer lies in the concept of decentralization. Centralization means that all data are placed in a core database. When the database becomes larger and larger, it will face more and more security risks. Similarly, for each indivial, if data concentration in a center also gives the center great power, how to ensure that this power is not abused? Blockchain technology is the representative of "decentralized" technology. Decentralization, as the name suggests, means that there is no longer a core, no longer a center that commands and has authority, but a new organizational mode of decentralization, in which every participant is equal
therefore, the driving force behind the promotion of blockchain applications is actually to achieve a certain balance between the core and the public, that is, between the center and the decentralization. Another problem that centralization may lead to is that platform dominance will curb competition, just as our digital economy has been dominated by faang and bat. The United States is Facebook, Amazon, apple, Netflix and Google, let alone bat in China. The decentralized model dominated by blockchain can encourage the creation of new competitive markets
another point is also very important. Many experts hope to automate more processes by virtue of the transparent and tamper resistant characteristics of the data on the blockchain, as well as the characteristics of its smart contract, such as completing a transaction when a certain agreed condition is reached, and auditing the process at the same time. This feature of blockchain is particularly effective in some markets with corrupt government and lack of rules, which is why there are real estate transaction applications based on blockchain in some Latin American countries
look back at bitcoin and the explosive but problematic ICO market. Both experts and people in the instry are talking about the word "token", which is the meaning of adding a token to the chain. Bitcoin mania tells us how amazing fomo's wealth effect is. However, some experts believe that the blockchain with token can better motivate the participants to find the potential security risks on the public chain and make the blockchain based applications more efficient
Finally, although bitcoin has become a "dark horse asset" sought after by funds, the rise of crypto digital currency should still cause people to think about what money is and how money is created? If money is based on some kind of credit that more and more people think is valuable, then the next generation of cryptocurrency may open up many other possibilities. Don't you see that Venezuela, which has been plagued by inflation, has issued "oil currency"? It is hoped that this kind of petroleum currency, which claims that every petroleum currency is directly linked to every barrel of crude oil, will not collapse as fast as the gold dollar. After all, Venezuela has plenty of oil, and the blockchain itself has credit that is not so easy to tamper with