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A comment on Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular?.

Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by fwdslash on Monday August 28, 2017 @03:25PM (#15119306)
It's the network affect. More people using it, the price rises, more people buy, the price rises more, and on and on.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by nylonstrung on Monday August 28, 2017 @04:00PM (#15119581)
That doesn't really explain it. BTC's popularity skyrocketed in the last 4 months at an extremely rapid rate that doesn't correspond to any long term trend line.

The price was actually comparatively low as of Q1 2017

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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by forkLding on Monday August 28, 2017 @03:38PM (#15119407)
It could be but whats the network effect about? Like I can see a network effect coming out of Facebook for connecting friends, what would bitcoin do thats so powerful, that more people use that the price would rise? Transfer money internationally in a fast and cheap manner?
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by nylonstrung on Monday August 28, 2017 @04:03PM (#15119606)
More people accept it and recognize it as a valid form of exchange and means of storing value. The belief networks that BTC is valuable have increased, increasing demand and thus price.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by Rjevski on Monday August 28, 2017 @04:04PM (#15119613)
The price increase brings in more people that invest in it (buy it) so the price rises even more - rinse and repeat.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by ramphastidae on Monday August 28, 2017 @04:02PM (#15119602)
The more people that are willing to accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods and services, the more valuable Bitcoin is.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by davidgerard on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @02:14AM (#15122457)
That's been less and less, though.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by fwdslash on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @02:31AM (#15122505)
Mainly because of fees. I'd say crypto (as a whole) has had a huge increase in acceptance overall, and with Bitcoin being the easiest to purchase and usually the favored currency to trade alts with, it's natural that it's only grown in popularity.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by davidgerard on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @05:54AM (#15123203)
"acceptance" is a weasel word. It's an asset bubble, where the "acceptance" is for the purpose of speculation in the hope of getting rich for free.

Note the actual comment I'm responding to:

> The more people that are willing to accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods and services, the more valuable Bitcoin is.

Approximately nobody accepts Bitcoin in exchange for goods and services except to buy drugs. Which does count as a use case, but it's a trivial one compared to the speculation; and even drug buyers and sellers are endlessly frustrated by the transaction clogs.

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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by nikolay on Monday August 28, 2017 @04:07PM (#15119642)
More people using it? Any proof of that?
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by nylonstrung on Monday August 28, 2017 @04:32PM (#15119826)
https://blockchain.info/charts/my-wallet-n-users

Wallet activity continues to grow

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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by nikolay on Monday August 28, 2017 @04:50PM (#15119943)
The number of wallets does not equate the number of users.
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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by fwdslash on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @02:34AM (#15122526)
There pretty much is no way for you or I (a.k.a: people without mass surveillance) to get # of users accurately. The best metrics we can go off of are # of transactions[1] and # of unique addresses[2].

[1]:https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all

[2]:https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=a...

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Re:Ask HN: Why is Bitcoin suddenly so popular? by literallycancer on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @06:23PM (#15128149)
The correct word here is "effect".
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