Smoking the $-Curve

We could assume that Bitcoin will rise relative to the US dollar by 6% per month, or 100% every year, until it shoots free from the S-Curve. Thus, its value should double every year until the mid 20s, and beyond.

I believe that Bitcoin is in the Era of Ferment stage of its life cycle, and has yet to enter the Early Adopters phase, and cross the chasm. Nonetheless, it seems to be growing in value 100% per year. I am not the first to draw this conclusion. Visionary trader Venzen Khaosan made this very same discovery way back in 2014, while describing a chart: "This up-sloping support line can be interpreted as Bitcoin’s minimum growth trajectory. It is currently at $120 which means it has doubled since a year ago, and this doubling continues at an annual pace according to the support floor’s present inclination..."

Pimping the $-Curve (Japan, 2006)

To complicate things, Bitcoin's value may surge as high as 1300% above the support floor, at any time. The upper range of possible prices from 2014 to 2020 (projected) can be shown here: US$1300 (2014), $2600 (2015), $5200 (2016), $10,400 (2017), $20,000 (2018), $42,250 (2019), $84,500 (2020). The lower possible range of prices over the same period is: $100 (2014), $200 (2015), $400 (2016), $800 (2017), $1600 (2018), $3200 (2019), $6400 (2020). 

While price explosions might be exhilarating, they don't occur so often. Most of the time, price just bounces along some distance above the floor. In my analysis, bear markets last three times longer than bull markets. Absolute lows are hit once every 18 months or so. The complete cycle, from peak to following peak, appears to be getting longer -- the most recent one stretched for four years... (To read my full analysis of how Bitcoin will mature in the years ahead, click here.)

Cracking the Code

For many years, JavaScript evaded me. I wanted it for my website, I could see its potential for my life, but I just couldn't wrap my head around how it worked. It was a fruit I couldn't reach, a nut that wouldn't crack. I made a promising debut in the biz, you might say: I grew up with a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, and learned BASIC at an early age. I even programmed a video game in Year 10 Computer Studies, a racing car simulation with sprite and treacherous track. That was in the age of the Commodore 64. When the Internet arrived, half a decade later, I fancied that it could provide the platform for a new kind of literature, an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure style of fiction. I started to write a novel which I hoped would be like the magic book from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age: a device that was more storyteller than mere story, bespoke but bewilderingly cuttingedge, an intuitive, intelligent machine. HTML was cool and easy to pick up, but it wasn't interactive enough for my goal. I soon realized that only JavaScript could deliver the desired dynamism. Unfortunately, computer languages had evolved since my TA forays, and this new lingo looked a hell lot more complicated than BASIC. What is it with these functions, attributes and elements? I remember asking myself, frustrated; what does object-oriented mean? Looking back, I can see that I had succumbed to the same misconception that scuppered my efforts to learn German in Year 11: I did not appreciate that every language has its own grammar. As language leaners know, grammar is the hardest part. Master the grammar, and the rest will follow.  


This breakthrough was 20 years in the making, but something miraculous has happened in the past few months... I suddenly get JavaScript! Of course, these days I no longer write fiction... I suppose you could say that fiction writes me. Life is a code (Baudrillard), a narrative (Lacan), and JavaScript is the interface which enables me to read this code, one line at a time...

We all have algorithms running in our minds at any time, unfathomable routines, an endless chain of signification (to put it in Lacanese). Functions waiting to be triggered, like samskaras lurking in the murk. The first step is to codify what it already there, conscious and unconscious, constructive and destructive. Then you can set about reprogramming yourself. Currently JavaScript can predict how far I can drive from home, estimate my tax due  (var taxdue = taxableIncome * .19;), and even tell me when it is time to move out. Piece by piece, my personal assistant is taking shape. The Grand Algorithm is here!

The 7 Hindrances, and the 20% Accomplishment Rule

I might dream of conquering the world, but Reality reminds me that we rarely achieve more than just a fraction of our goals. How much of a fraction is a troubling question -- from my experience it could be a quarter, it might be just a fifth. In the summer of 2006 I was enthralled by a Utopian hope: despite my deepening debt I sincerely believed that medical trials could save me, and manifest for me the jetsetter life I was craving for. Not only would I be able to kick back in Kagoshima (鹿児島) with the cool kids, living it large, but I could use the payments from each trial to party around the planet. Of course, it never worked out that way, and Telephone English (TE) became my actual saviour. Here was evidence of the 25% Accomplishment Rule in action... I didn't qualify as a lab rat, but I was delivered from poverty just in the nick of time, and pumped full of cash. Some of my goal was realized, to be sure, but not all of it, and that was the thing. There were a few Hindrances standing in the way: love was one of them; health, another...

When I started teaching at TE I had big plans to take two months off every year and fly off to Thailand, Iceland, Australia and destinations even further afield, such as Jamaica. In the end I got stuck at my first port of call in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and most of my funds were squandered there, entranced as I was by tropical romance. I did score a short stopover in Bangkok and two trips to Australia, but much as I would have liked it, I never reached Iceland. Jamaica was completely out of the question. So, my original plan was only partly achieved (25% achieved, perhaps, or only 20%, I haven't figured out the exact percentage!) I had a lot of fun nonetheless and Nga became a cause in herself, a Baudrillardian seduction... she derailed my plans, blew my budget, and in the end I accomplished only a quarter of my aim, or even less than that (how much? how much?) In 2011 I quit TE and abandoned Japan and returned back to Australia, where I the One World Orbit was conceived. Imagining that Google Adsense could free me from employment entirely, I researched the cost of living in Indochina, which various guidebooks suggested was the cheapest region on Earth. I intended to spend three years jaunting around Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, northern Thailand, and southern China, mucking about on the Mighty Mekong (the Great River, the River of Nine Dragons, ແມ່ນ້ຳຂອງ, 湄公河, etc, etc.) I called it the Indochinese Triennium. It would have been perfect, but my Adsense collapsed, and then I lost Indochina. All I have left is China, which is one-half of Indochina, semantically speaking, but pragmatically much less than that. It is just one-fifth of my original plan, or even a sixth. Furthermore, when I go to China I will have to work to survive, at some school like Wall Street. It sucks but it is better than nothing, and at least I will be back on the road. I can always visit Cambodia in my holidays, and plenty of other nearby nations! That is, if the Seven Hindrances give their assent.