So, if I had invested when I planned to a couple of years ago (or actually bought decent hardware to mine on) I would have made a decent return. But now I'm curious if we're in a bubble that will decrease in popularity or if it's still something that will continue to be on the rise.
Seems to me that all of the recent news has brought attention to bitcoin which has helped with it's popularity. Is it something that will continue to rise or will it fall once people aren't talking about it as much?
The market price of BTC has grown fairly consistently on the logarithmic scale for a couple of years now. There have been ups and downs, but the majority of the price growth obviously comes from an increase in demand that isn't being met by supply. Supply will not increase, but demand might.
What would further increase demand?
Well the status quo, i.e. BTC breaking new market highs, having crashes and recovering, that's news and so increases the public awareness of BTC, and so more people buy.
More companies accepting BTC will increase it's usefulness (therefor provide some intrinsic value), more startups working to make transacting in BTC easier will also help increase demand.
What would decrease demand in a meaningful way?
Unfavourable legislative changes. These are mitigated in that they have to happen on a country by country basis, but generally countries follow the leader on matters of new policy or policy related to new technology.
At the moment most BTC demand is for speculative hoarding by investors. Most realise that it's a gamble where the downside is losing 100% of capital, but the upside is potentially 1000% or more.
<opinion>There are undoubtedly future market rallys and crashes ahead, but I think in the long run BTC has a long way to go. It's very difficult to "price" BTC because it generates no return in it's own right, and has no intrinsic commodity value. It's a gamble but the potential return seems worth the risk of potentially losing 100% of your capital.</opinion>
It is important that you regard BTC as speculative - i.e. not an investment.
In the end the long term survival of BTC will depend on it's adoption. So if you want to make money, horde some BTC and work on a project that makes uses it to solve a real business problem for a meaningful market.
Seems to me that all of the recent news has brought attention to bitcoin which has helped with it's popularity. Is it something that will continue to rise or will it fall once people aren't talking about it as much?
Can anyone weigh in with their opinions?