# Last edited on 2014-08-26 18:10:04 by stolfilocal
# NOT POSTED YET

[quote author=cbeast link=topic=178336.msg8280550#msg8280550 date=1407686047]
As far as stocks are concerned, they are legacy just like the banks and will be disrupted as well.[/quote]
Erm, the purpose of stocks is [b]not[/b] merely to provide a way for people to save money without inflation loss.   Guess what it is.  Hint: stocks are usually issued by new companies that actually want to do something.

[quote]Your entire exposition is based on changing the argument. No business plan is needed. Nobody needs to "guess" the price of Bitcoin unless that is their business model as they can always pass along the cost to their customers just like every other business. All this talk about banks fees is silly. Any large company can float interdepartmental  payments with zero confirmation blockchain transactions because they have some trust and improve corporate transparency with triple-entry accounting.
[/quote]

Sorry, I was using "business plan" in a "technical but metaphorical" sense.

A startup that goes hunting for investors must carry a document that describes in detail what the business will do, how big the market is expected to be, what are the costs and risks, what competition and regulations they expect,  how it intends to charge customers, what the profit margin will be, and so on.  All with explicit numbers, based on real data as much as possible.  That document is called "business plan".  Investors know that the future may be completely different, but the existence of a consistent plan tells them that the startup is not a total pie in the sky, and that its proponents are not totally incompetnent at management.

(Neo&Bee's business plan, for example,  was quite notable for its absence -- although investors only noticed that detail after Danny ran away with whatever was left of their money.   Only then they wondered, for example, how the Neo bank could guarantee the euro equivalent of bitcoin deposits in case the BTC price dropped, without immediately going bankrupt.)

I don't know if someone already wrote such a "business plan" for bitcoin.  If a bitcoin fund wants to be taken seriously by serious investors, it would need such a plan, methinks.  (Note that completely different plans are needed for people who intend to buy titles issued by the fund (i.e., prospective clients), and people who intend to invest in the company that manages the fund.   The plan I would like to see is the first one, that is supposed to convince the fund clients that bitcoin has a bright future.)  

As I said, the economic model described in bitcoin's "business plan" need not be the most likely scenario, not even explain how we will get from here to there.  It needs only be economically consistent -- so that we can believe that there exist at least one possible future where bitcoin would work.

And apparently you did not understand my point at all. (1) In that "plan", the price of bitcoin is not that important, what is important is how the price will change relative to stocks & bonds -- because that determines whether people will hoard bitcoins or not.  (2) Competing payment networks that do not use the bitcoin blockchain must be considered in the plan, because the fees and appreciation of bitcoin will depend on how much of the money flow will use those alternative channels, and whether that use is expected to grow or shrink with time.  (The alternative channels include altcoins -- the plan would have to show why they would be economically inviable in that scenario, or how much payment volume they would take from bitcoin.)