1. The power to determine price is in the hands of those who hoard coins.
In the Bitcoin market, those who truly possess pricing power are not the speculators who trade back and forth, but the steadfast holders who do not move for a long time (HODLers). These people do not enter and exit the market based on price trends but build a price bottom line based on their own beliefs.
No matter how turbulent the market is or how heated the public opinion is, as long as a portion of people do not sell their Bitcoin, the price will not fall below the range they recognize. When more and more people choose to join the coin hoarding ranks, locking coins in cold wallets and not participating in circulation, that non-trading 'silent action' becomes the strongest market signal.
From this perspective, the long-term trajectory of Bitcoin prices is essentially shaped by coin hoarders collectively.
2. Short-term supply and demand is superficial; saving behavior is the foundation of value.
The daily supply of new Bitcoin is fixedly released through mining, while miners often face the real demand to sell. If there are no new buyers to catch it, the price will naturally be under pressure. But this is the logic of short-term capital games.
In the long run, what determines price is not just flow, but the 'liquidity gap'. This gap arises precisely because some people hold onto their coins and do not circulate them.
Just like gold is long-term stored in people's safes and central bank vaults, Bitcoin's price is gradually breaking free from the constraints of 'transaction volume' and shifting towards a function of 'coin retention volume'. This is a 'value equals time' model: the longer coins are held and the slower they circulate, the more support their price has.
3. The credit for preserving value comes from holders willing to retain coins.
The value of currency lies in its ability to carry a certain value of 'delay' between transactions — this is the essence of saving. The true mission of Bitcoin is also here: it doesn't need to circulate constantly or be paid frequently; it just needs to be trusted by people and held for a long time to become a highly valuable financial tool.
Conversely, even if Bitcoin is widely accepted in various scenarios, if merchants immediately convert it to fiat currency, it will create short-term selling pressure. From this, we see that application is not the anchor of coin value; retention is.
4. Retention time determines the height of the price.
The value of the currency market is determined by its 'liquidity retention time'. If Bitcoin has equal buying and selling every day, what is its market value? The key is not the daily trading amount, but how many coins are long-term inactive.
Coin hoarders make coins circulate more slowly, but this does not harm Bitcoin's payability; rather, it indicates that it has a stronger 'value-carrying capacity'. When the velocity of money circulation decreases and total demand remains unchanged, prices can only rise to bridge the gap between supply and demand.
5. The future of coin prices depends on how much value each person is willing to 'hold'.
We cannot simply compare Bitcoin's potential to the market value of gold, a country’s M2, or even the market value of tech stocks, because Bitcoin is a disruptor of the existing financial order. But we can think differently:
If in the future there are 100 million users firmly believing in Bitcoin's value-preserving function, and each is willing to hold coins worth $100,000, then this means Bitcoin has at least $100 trillion in market value support.
The larger the scale and the longer the duration of hoarding behavior, the tighter the market supply, and the stronger the driving force for the coin price to rise — this is not a fantasy of speculation but an iron law in the 'trust-retention-value' cycle.
In conclusion: Those who choose not to move are the true price setters.
The value of Bitcoin does not lie in how much it is traded daily or where it is applied, but in how many people choose to continue holding it, immovable as a mountain. This silent power is the foundation for Bitcoin to break through the zero-sum game nature.
Price fluctuations are merely superficial; retention time is the unit of value measurement. The true masters of Bitcoin's value are those who are willing to bet with time and support it with trust.
Postscript: This article integrates the coin hoarding theory of 999 and Hu Yilin's (the value of Bitcoin depends on holding).