Bitcoin Price - A Life Lesson in Perspective & the Manipulation of DATA for statistical bias !

in #cryptocurrency7 years ago (edited)

Bitcoin Price

we all know that had you bought $1 worth of Bitcoin in 1792 it would be now worth an astronomical $86,432,670,324.76 but you didn't and so today you and I are not one of the world's unhealthily, filthy rich good for nothings. However we can all learn something new (or remind ourselves) by comparing the meteoric rise of alt-coins & so bitcoin represents them all here including our beloved steem. (I'm not sure why the term meteoric is used, because meteorites do the exact opposite; fall, burn up and end up as energy in the form of a pretty streak in the air).. but anyhooo, this article is a metaphor; a lesson in perspective and one which we should all be able to draw some comfort from.

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generic crowd attractor image wink / nudge) source

In Life

It's difficult to know if our decisions are good ones until we look back down the arrow of time in retrospect. If you quite like where you are right now, give or take a few kinks to be ironed out, then every decision you made in your life so far was the RIGHT ONE, even the ones which might have seemed terminal junctions at the time you made them.

24hour Price

On the 24 hour price graph it looks like bitcoin has taken a massive tumble and you'd think this is a massive and really negative slide. (if you look closely it's only -0.62%)

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7day Price

Over the 7 day period the volatility looks enormous. If you were looking at this and trying to decide what the underlying pattern was, it might look very confusing. Huge peaks and troughs but generally down.
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1 month Price

Over a 1 month period it now seems really clear from the graph that bitcoin has seen better days and is on a terminal decline. The graph is quite clear. However, let's look at the next slide..

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3 month Price

Now it starts to look quite different. Over the 3 month period, (up to today) the graph is quite clearly UP. Although there's a peak in there towards the end it's much higher at the end (today) than it was at the start (3 months ago). So in a counter-intuitive way, if we were presenting this data and we wanted to create a narrative with a positive or a negative viewpoint, we can easily see how STATISTICS can be manipulated to suit the narrative just by narrowing or widening the data window and it's the same with our lives and everything else we see around us, that which we measure especially in areas of our own lives which we compare with other coins, I mean people ;)

bitcoinprice3mth.jpg

6 Month Price

The 6 month price graph is beginning to give us confidence that bitcoin / edit and replace with our own life data) is actually very strong and has come an incredibly long way. It's come up a long climb with a few little dips but the dips now just look like lumps in the hill, which the coin has ridden roughshod over. It looks like a completely different or opposite story now and one in which bitcoin is the winner. You hardly notice the little dip at the end and you can easily imagine the future trajectory based on the much longer window of data. It's positive and encouraging.

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The 1 year Price

The 1 year price seems to mirror almost exactly the 6 month price but with a smoother curve and a reassuring climb. It's as if the 6 month data has just been doubled over the period. If we look at the numbers (price) it's a huge jump and overall if we were to rate bitcoin over the period, we'd say it's success has been phenomenal, perhaps meteoric ! again, this doesn't tell us the whole picture.

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The All time Price

In this case the all time price only goes back to when the index started collecting price data (which is roughly the start of 2014). Of course, we know that in 2009 coins were worth almost nothing, began to rise and then crashed, but importantly when we look at this graph, it's quite clear we could be looking at a global warming over the 20th Century / human population expansion / increase in global productivity. In other words, it's becoming exponential and leaning upwards at a greater degree than 45 degrees. This is usually a sign of unsustainable growth but if we come back and look at the graph in 1 year, 3 or 5 years time, how do you think it will look. The guess is it will still be rising with some trough along the average trajectory. So it's never too late to invest in Bitcoin.

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The moral of this story ..

Is, when you look at your life, your past performance, your achievements, it's easy to judge or rate yourself, your partner, your job, your life in terms of the last few weeks / months and what you might see alarms you. You have to take a step back and see what the truth is. You have come on leaps and bounds in your life. You really have. If we were looking at yours or my life in the longer term and measuring general achievements we would look like the long term bitcoin graph. We just don't see how much we have achieved or how far we have come, because we are humans with nomadic ancestry. We measure by the seasons and often can't see further than the next harvest, crop or drought.

Metaphors, Schmetaphors

Philosophically speaking bitcoin is no different to any other human invention and it's relationship to the graph is the same, so when judging yourself or others, try and look at the long graph. A photo album can help with this. Look at how you've changed over the years. It's quite amazing, and think about how your own graph will inevitably keep growing over the longer term. You have not reached your peak. You are probably nowhere near it because life is cumulative and accumulative. 3 years ago, you didn't even really know what crypto was (ok you might have done, smart dev types) but 5 years ago, you almost had no chance, you were too busy wondering about that killer mobile app that was going to make you rich. Oh how times change my friend.. Here's a quick reminder of how far we've come in such a little time and who knows what the equivalently ridiculous image will be in another 50-60 years.

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maybe the great grandchildren will be laughing at this

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screenshots courtesy of the lovely WORLDCOININDEX your one stop coin price index

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This is actually some remarkable work! Followed

thanks @fantasticmonkey appreciated and glad you liked it !

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This post has received a 0.78 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.

Bitcoin caught me mid 2011 and never let me go anymore.

2011 you must be a rich @wekkel ! thanks for the reply. do you get what I mean about the comparative judgements we make about ourselves and others ?

This post recieved an upvote from minnowpond. If you would like to recieve upvotes from minnowpond on all your posts, simply FOLLOW @minnowpond

This was a very interesting post. It's always good to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

thanks @crypto-trail I thought the metaphor would be one which our fellow steemians might appreciate.. especially in such turbulent times.

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