Bitcoin Forum

Well, its poll time....pick up to 3 options and convince everyone why you are right below....  ;D

Selling, Looking for an Entry Point, Eating Popcorn.

looking for an entry point... same thing happened with that chick i boned last night.

she didn't go down on you?  :D

no, but i rode her like a bull!  :D

i shorted at 13.5 and 16.5

I'm hoping to get to sell more higher, to avg out my shorts...

Why is it that you don't buy back in and ride up before you short again?

i can't predict the future...
also I over bought at 11, so I'm just taking profit and hoping for BTC profits too!

When I get money, I will buy, hold and hate on this poll.

so, u no short :)

Is this a joke about fat chicks?

It's nice with a little breathing room to gauge the market sentiment. Are we gonna see a weekend dip?

just like the girl, bitcoin doesn't go down on you... dumb joke...

I think we'll see more then a weekend dip, if I'm right (LOL), we should expect to see mini up and down trends between 17 - 20... not sure who's going to win...My bet, the bears win this battle but lose the war.... exactly like at 7.20

Another thing to consider, as the press has waved the Bitcoin flag persistently the last week in multiple countries, is an official response to Bitcoin. If some govenor, large bank or agency expresses concern about the threat Bitcoin poses to this and that.

Opposing wievs is what get a story going in the media, which will give even wider press coverage, but how will the market react? As Bitcoin didn't manage to crash it self this time, some politician will be strongly compelled to word some concern!

Looks like there is still a lot of cautious optimism, acordding to the polls so far....


Me? I'm eating popcorn (waiting for the crash) and waiting for an entry point to profit on the bounce.

you will have to get yourself quite a large bag of popcorn, can be waiting for half a year or longer.

I believe that more of us are short, than we care to admit.

Hold some bitcoins in your wallet, maybe the price will rise..

Price is going to rise. People who are acquiring it to use as currency give little fucks about what the price is now since they are going to spend it. If they need $100 worth, what do they care if a coin is $20, $50, or $100?

I'm done shorting Bitcoin for a while.

Until they are a little slow with that next purchase and they see the amount their coins are worth jump up to double what they once were.  Then they start asking themselves, is there something bigger going on here?

Self fulfilling prophecies are my favorite!

Yeah, I highly doubt that.  I bet we'll see another multi-dollar drop within the next couple weeks, if not sooner.  I also think we will see another drop to single digit range by the end of the year.

I was here for the last bubble and crash (when the price reached $30 and dropped down to around $2), the sentiment around here is exactly the same as it was then, just with (mostly) new people.


I keep hearing people talk about shorting bitcoin, but how are you doing it without bitcoinica or similar leveraged trading platform? Or are you just shorting through private btc loans? Or is the term "shorting" just being misused on this forum?

Bitfinex (https://www.bitfinex.com/)  :P

Huh, I didn't know another one had popped up....thanks, I'll have to check it out.

The big difference between now and summer 2011 is a question of scale.  Mining power is up, users are way up, merchants are way up, exchanges are more diverse, press is better received (more sensible comments).  I see no reason for it to crash this time.  Now there are many more people with an interest in buying the dips before they turn into valleys.  If it goes up too fast, sure, but I don't see that happening yet.

Afaic,All signs point to a holding pattern.Buying at such a high price seems too daring and selling right now could bring regret if the price does go higher.

"High price" is a relative term. USDs are total crap so as they(and other fiats) continually devalue due to endless printing, BTC prices that seemed high previously will become bargains. The same is true for PM prices.

The "shorting" term is frequently misused on this forum, used instead of  plain old "selling".

yeah, its annoying.

 I thought we went over this, shorting doesn't need to be leveraged to be considered shorting.

Yes I pointed this out before.  Apparently you still believe you are right.  I once again invite you to look at your own wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorting and see the "share borrowing"  and "share return" part in the schematic.   (no hard feelings Adam, but you are wrong on this one).

Shorting is (by definition) selling a stock or commodity that you don't own, with a promise to buy it back at a later date with interest (hopefully at a lower price). How is this done without leverage?



source:
http://www.investopedia.com/university/shortselling/shortselling1.asp#axzz2JUcuT28I (http://www.investopedia.com/university/shortselling/shortselling1.asp#axzz2JUcuT28I)

yes, this is a huge difference.  the psychological pressure to "cover" can be unbearable to the average investor and can help propel markets higher as well as provide support in down drafts.

i do understand the conversation that took place earlier about "selling" essentially being equivalent to "shorting" but most professionals don't view it that way.

It's not even close.  If you are caught on the wrong side of a naked short you are looking at huge losses. 
On the other hand, if you missed the train on an upmove after you just sold your bitcoins you don't have any losses, you just don't have the profit you otherwise would have had.

Serious question, not trying to be a smartass:

If borrowing the shares is required to call it shorting, why does the term naked short mean?  I thought a naked short was shorting without actually owning the asset to begin with, and therefore "regular" shorting would be shorting when you do start out owning the asset.  Am I mistaken?

naked shorting is when you don't even have to borrow the share from a long to put on the short.

WTF, how is that supposed to work?

Right. Like JPM does with paper silver. The paper silver contracts are counterfeit because there's no silver to back them.


It works by counterfeiting something. It's done with stocks by selling more shares than exist.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

https://twitter.com/jgarzik/status/296709252351926273

example:

i'm an account holder at Fidelity.  suppose, in aggregate, they have 100 customers who hold 100,000 shares of Apple.

i am a short seller.  for simplicity let's say i have enough money in my account to allow me to borrow and sell those 100,000 shares to buyers looking to go long.  if Fidelity is an ethical firm, they won't allow me to do that with any more than the 100,000 shares held at the firm, even if i want to short 150,000 shares.  if they aren't ethical, they might allow me to naked short the extra 50,000 shares.

in other words, sell what they don't have.

Even better: http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/01/once-upon-time-in-china-package-shipped.html

So if you made too much profit, they would have to pay up themselves to cover the difference?

not sure what you mean.  you actually have to have your own USD's initially in your account to be allowed to short shares.  if you have a margin acct like me (allows leverage), you must hold around $1 of your own money for every $3 in share value that you short.

if the short trade starts going against you (shares go UP in value instead of DOWN like you were betting) then you have to wire in more USD's to keep the ratio in line.

But what if you are right?... If they (broker) let you(short seller) sell 50k more shares than they(broker) had, they(broker) have to pull profits out of their ass(Bernanke) to pay you.

He has a margin account, it's just an extension of credit. 

RE: shorts vs naked shorts


Ok, a regular short requires you to sell shares you dont own, with a promise to buy back later.

With a naked short, you are doing the same thing, only without securing a loan first.  Basically it's an IOU for a short sale.  

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nakedshorting.asp#axzz2JUcuT28I





Edit:
this article explains it better than I did

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904184504577518792352585660.html#articleTabs_article%3D1

its even worse than that.  even if Fidelity limited short sales to the # of shares they have within the firm, a prolonged bout of deflation would cause all sorts of problems.  b/c basically what they're doing is allowing speculators to come in and sell your assets w/o your permission.  what happens when you yourself wants to sell your shares after they've already been sold by a short seller like me?  oops.

when you understand this you begin to understand why Wall St is for the most part a long only institution.  they can't have too many ppl selling or shorting which is exactly why they put a ban on short selling in 2008.  it would force a situation of too many claims on too few assets.  it's also why they're changing the rules on me right this moment for a number of shorts i have on like Anne Taylor (ANN).  Fidelity has unilaterally decided, as of a month ago, to charge me 1% on the gross value of my short position.  they've never done this before and i've been with them thru the 2008 crisis.  i think they're trying to get me to close them out as too many ppl are selling and trying to get their hands on shares to short.  pricks.

now imagine them allowing naked shorts where they allow short selling above and beyond what shares they actually have in the firm.  Fidelity claims they don't do this but they have an incentive to allow this behavior b/c of tx fees.  the more turnover and velocity of the shares within the firm, the more they make.  i know they won't allow retail clients like me to do this but i know a number of hedge fund managers that for some reason are allowed to naked short.

Each layer of this onion is smellier than the last.

oh yes, i actually smelled lots of napalm in 2007-9 and i actually liked it.

That's the part that worries me about you... and maybe about myself.

think about it this way.  we need to clean out all the bad actors aka paper pushers.  the nation needs to get back to work; all of us.  not just the real value creators.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-30/guest-post-americas-four-socioeconomic-classes

Americans have to make stuff again and stop perpetuating this ridiculous notion that somehow those that work for a living are lower class.

Oh, America will make stuff again, but those who work for a living will find jobs harder and harder to come by: http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/

I agree we need to clean out the bad actors (good article/podcast btw), but I just fear the collateral damage caused by pulling them out while they still have their hooks embedded in every aspect of the economy.

its not up to us.  Mr. Market will rear his ugly head at some point.  and then, just make sure you get out of the way...

Hmm, I bought in at $20 in 2011 when the price was shooting up (stupid transfer took forever, it started at $12).  I'm glad I held :P

HOLD 50%
Sell at X%
Buy back at x-1%

So all three? :)

Made 2% so far.  It's hard to get the jump on the US market at the right times.  Trading becomes active at 11pm or so my time.

Buy and Hold

Seems the only thing to do from my point of view !

2013 will be a super year for BTC..

This is all an intro  !!

Exactly right.

But being a miner I'm selling them as fast as they come in right now. But I'm actually keep a large amount of fiat (large for me anyway) on some exchanges to re-buy after the asic induced crash.

I was thinking this.......but then I thought considering when ASICs go popular the difficulty will rise accordingly and considering the rewards are technically halved......BTC would rise again.

ASICs wont come in all at once. There will be no crash. Even if they did came out at once, the two-time increase in mining (to ~7000 coins per day) until the difficulty adjusted would be completely dominated by the current demand for coins (daily buy volume at gox - 100k btc which is like 15 times higher than everything miners could sell).

So sorry, no ASIC-induced crash. Crash still possible, but for different reasons.

Besides, the miners will just buy more ASICs, which only take bitcoins anyway (at least the only one seen in the wild).

When statists are voicing concern, you know you're on the right track.

Bumping for price drop... ;)

The price has dropped near my new entry point. Setting a low buy offer and hoping to buy in and sell back out tomorrow before the rest of the crash hits.