Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys,

As I promised some time ago I am back to do more in-depth technical analysis of the BTC/USD rate. I'd hoped to do this again much sooner, but unforeseen circumstances (e.g., nasty car accident, numerous doctors appointments) forced me to put it on hold. But it's time for my next analysis, which probably couldn't come at a more interesting time!  :D

To begin, I'd let's go over a few things before we dig into the charts. Many of remember that not so long ago you could buy a bitcoin for $12 and some change. And how about today (3/24/13)? Try a whopping $71.50! ... say what?! :o

As with all things, we have to ask ourselves what fundamental changes have occurred in the market to drive prices to these unparalleled all-time highs. This "super-rally" took place in two distinct legs. The first leg-up of this massive super-rally took us from the $10-$12 level to the high 40s and low 50s. As I was at the time, I'm still skeptical that there was any strong fundamental factors behind that massive climb. What changed? Did we gain some new users? Yes, we did. But we did not quadruple (or even double) our user-base, so it cannot be explained by an influx of new users. So what was it? Dominos pizza? Several people told me that... but Dominos did NOT start accepting bitcoin (it's merely a third party service that orders a pizza for you if you pay them BTC). While that's definitely cool, and a small victory for Bitcoin, it's not the fundamental factor we're looking for. The most plausible explanation is that European financial woes and fear about the integrity of the banking system caused a lot more interest in bitcoin (which is true). However, it certainly wasn't enough to support a $50+ rate for our budding crypto-currency. The "math" simply doesn't work out... So it leaves us with one thing: speculation.

It seems that excitement and the general happy-go-lucky attitude of the bitcoin community is the missing "fundamental" factor we're looking for, and our big swing in price is the result of a massive influx of speculative money. These things are self-feeding... the price moves up a nice bit, you hear some good stuff in the news, you might even have gotten one of those Dominos pizzas (lol), and then you and your buddies putting your whole $350 in savings into bitcoin to join the speculative wave. That moves the price up a bit more, and people chase it -- adding more and more money into it. To an experienced day trader or a Wall Street shark, the average Bitcoin user is what we call "financially unsophisticated"... most of the market is made up of Silk Road-using teenagers, amateur speculators and amateur traders, computer geek college students and the likes... people who've never traded a share of stock, don't know what a "calender spread" or an "Iron Condor" is and have no clue how the futures market works (or in most cases what it even is). When such people see the price of something going up, they leap to the assumption that it will keep going up... perhaps forever? That's what happened in the DotCom bubble, as amateur day traders and novice speculators poured tons of money into budding tech stocks (only to be utterly destroyed). About a week ago, I asked a bitcoin trader what fundamental factors he thought was driving the market higher. His response: "Well... Bitcoin has been mentioned in the news a whole bunch lately!" And it seems he's not alone in his failure to distinguish a news headline from fundamentals...  :-\

We have seen patterns such as this before... we saw it in the aforementioned "DotBomb"... we saw it before the real estate / MBS meltdown of 2008... and of course, we cannot forget the tulip mania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania) of 17th century Holland. Anyone even moderately experienced with financial markets understands the concept of bubbles. And when I look at this I cannot help but notice the striking similarities between past bubbles and the precariously high price of Bitcoin. But it did not stop at $50. The crisis in Cyprus, news headlines and a myriad of rather trivial factors triggered yet another influx of speculative money driving the price yet another 50% higher. Not even the recent fork in the blockchain (which highlighted how delicate this thing can be) was enough to dissuade the crowd from dumping their savings into the mix. And when the pigs beg to be slaughtered, savvy traders are smart enough to capitalize upon the ignorance of the masses -- thus their money is added to the equation and drive prices even higher... Bubbles operate largely upon the "snowball effect" as greed rolls it up the hillside. In my last analysis I was hoping for a correction that would settle things down and give us time to catch our breath. But I still felt uncertain. I left myself room for the market blasting off like a rocket, and I'm glad I did. But this time I'm thrice as skeptical and have officially begun preparing for a big move to the downside. So let's have a look at those charts...

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3351/btcusd32413.jpg

I've numbered my scribblings on the chart to provide some commentary...

1) Double-top Pattern (drawn in blue)

These things are always scary... Sometimes they fake us out, but a double-top is generally a very strong bearish indicator. A double-top tends to occur at the end of a large rally. The market becomes over-bought, and finally tips over as people begin selling. But just as the selling gets heated people decide to jump back in, hoping that the rally will continue. When it doesn't, and fails to break through the former resistance level, everyone begins jumping ship and it plummets. In my day trading experience I've found these things to be good indicators. The double-top pattern was what gave me the signal to sell all my gold and silver futures, mining stocks and physical bullion just under $50/oz for silver. And it has served me well on countless stocks and a myriad of smaller intra-day and swing trades.

2) Current resistance

The red line indicates the current resistance level. Lo and behold, we raced back towards that level and failed to punch through. For this rally to continue we will need to see a very strong break-out above the resistance level with heavy volume. And we're not seeing it. In fact, it looks like the rate is falling as I type.

3) Old support level

The green line is the old support level after the first leg-up of the rally. When major sell-offs occur you can usually expect some support to bunch up around the former support level, and I expect that if we see the market topple and plunge back toward the 50s. This line indicates nothing in and of itself, but I'm pointing it out so you will pay attention to it if/when the sell-off gets hot and heavy.

4) MACD

MACD (moving average convergence/divergence) is one of my favorite indicators. Right now, good ol' MACD is telling us that momentum is stalling. We failed (so far) to set a new high both in price and MACD. And I've highlighted the MACD resistance level with the red line. We've been over-extended and over-bought for quite some time, and in my own experience I've found that MACD wins the tug-of-war 9 times out of 10 (hence the reason I'm willing to risk my money on it). The shrinking of the green histogram also indicates stalling momentum, and our short-term MA is beginning to slope downward -- thus making the signal more bearish. I am currently watching for a cross in the MAs, and for both to fall below the signal line (zero).

5) Stochastics

Our stochastics are also pointing towards the over-bought condition. It's all been BUY BUY BUY for weeks on end, and this tells the tale of the weakening money-flow. If you take a look at how the stochastics correspond to previous rallies and sell-offs, you can see just how useful this indicator can be. And right now it's screaming "DONT BUY! DONT BUY! DONT BUY!".

------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION ::
------------------------------------------------------

Last time I was uncertain about what was to come... but this time I'm going to go out on a limb and make you a clear-cut suggestion: sell. I'm selling. We've all made a lot of money, and no one has ever been hurt taking a profit. Profit is money you didn't have before, and now you have it. So take it off the table and enjoy it. You can stay in the shark pool if you want, but do so at your own peril. It looks like the correction is indeed very close -- no one has infinite money to keep pushing the price to infinity, so a correction is going to happen. If you're patient and smart, you might be able to buy back your bitcoins in the $30s or $40s in another 7-14 days.... or at least in the 50s. So I think the smartest move you can make is to de-risk and go have some fun with your not-so-hard-earned money. :-)

However, there's another scenario which might take place. It might be that there's still enough money on the sidelines to drive this higher. If that is indeed the case, we're probably going to see the alternative crash scenario play out. The final "oomph!" before the blowout. Much like silver's huge over-night jump before the 2011 correction, we might see bitcoin tack on another +$25 and reach for the $100 mark (a key psychological level). If it plays out this way, the following crash will be much worse and longer-lasting than if it just goes ahead and corrects here. The reason is because a LOT more people will get burned a LOT worse and lose a LOT more money. So it will scare off a lot of newbies and people will be scared to re-enter the market for some time. So I hope it doesn't pan out this way.

In any case, I raise my cup to a bitcoin correction. I'm optimistic about the long-term future of bitcoin, but we're way over-extended (and way over-due) for a considerable correction. We need one to settle things down and give our great crypto-currency a chance to truly grow. So have fun, and good luck no matter what the outcome!

Regards,

--ATC--

NOTE ::

If you enjoyed my analysis, learned from it and/or want to see more please support my efforts by sending a small tip to:

16CdrUgQX84ntTLS2asPhWZo1UWhFwS1KY

I give my sincerest thanks to those who have sent me (quite generous) tips for some of my past articles and analysis!  :)

You call the top. I call continuation of the existing trend. I do not even need any charts and other mumbo jumbo.


Let's buy some popcorn now. We make a new all time high and I win.

Firstly, the power of your tests is lacking... we saw a "double-top" down in the 40s, we saw stochastics screaming overbought, etc, etc, etc.  

On the subject of resistance: We failed to punch through on a Sunday!  Oh no!  The rate is falling on light volume in the 1hr chart, which is hardly a strong sell signal.  Well, tomorrow the cavalry arrives, and we'll see whether we "fail to punch through" with a few million dollars more in rocket fuel :)

Does your point about Bitcoin adoption have any solid numbers behind it?  I can tell you that gox is flooded with new users, coinbase is flooded with new users, and blockchain.info is flooded with new users.  What do you have to show for your assertion that the user base has not even doubled?

And fundamentally, one question needs to be asked.  Can we really compare Bitcoin to bullshit companies that fueled the .com bubble, or useless tulips?  What I see is not a tulip, but a revolutionary technology.

So your prediction is that we'll revert to the exponential growth trendline (50s, maybe a brief stint below as overcorrection) and your advice is to "SELL"?! That same trendline that has us at $100 in just a few more weeks? You'd risk giving up your position just for a few tens of percents?

Yes, we'll be gladly taking your money. You and anyone who takes your advice. But thanks for helping to decentralize bitcoin wealth  ;D

Wait. You are using an hourly chart to predict a major long term top? The analysis might work for a short term trade, but probably nothing more. Double tops that signal major downtrends don't usually occur just a few days apart, because when they do occur a few days apart, it means the dip was bought quickly. Major tops usually take a while to form, unless you have a blow-off top - i.e. a high-volume daily candle and a long upper tail. Go for if you want, but I'd keep a tight stop on it.  

Great reading...learned alot...thanks. But I dont buy it...bitcoin has something about it that I don't think your thesis can model..its that intangible something that you can't quantify. I think all your point's are valid and well thought out...I just think that bitcoin is about to go viral thru the general public so it pretty much blow old CW out the door.

On second thought..I will buy it...tip sent for good literature.

zif

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/htbthomas/10827193/365586/365586_original.gif

PS: Good analysis, learned from it, but it's a technical one, I think you make a mistake in saying news is not fundamental because as more people becomes aware of bitcoin, demand will rise and so will price.

You say in your fundamental analysis that "the math doesn't add up". But you don't provide any math. Let me provide some for you:

Bitcoin speculation as a % of overall bitcoin usage has been decreasing since the end of last year. I see this as a very positive sign:

http://www.jfwhome.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/btratio-1024x607.png


Furthermore you base your initial reasoning on looking for "fundamental changes". This is a big bang. A new market. Not a static one. Fundamentals don't have to improve in order for the market to follow -- they have to remain the same.

Anyway...
FACT: inbound money flow to Gox is huge. FACT: The user base is growing exponentially. FACT: Analysis of online sources shows that this trend is strengthening. This renders your following observations utterly irrelevant:

- "Our stochastics are also pointing towards the over-bought condition. It's all been BUY BUY BUY for weeks on end, and this tells the tale of the weakening money-flow." --- not applicable to a nascent market

- "no one has infinite money to keep pushing the price to infinity, so a correction is going to happen" --- completely irrelevant

Given this, the rest is just "blah blah blah".

If you want to turn a profit, do it. If you want to buy in lower, write this post 3 days ago. But this thread is pointless now.

TL;DR: I think your fundamental analysis is off, and your conclusions are wrong. Furthermore if this post is timed for manipulative impact, you're about 3 days too late.

I would like to add some of my own insight. I talked to ATC here recently and we seem to have a good fix on the market. ATC is a day tarder and he is a lot better with detailed emarketing standpoints were I am more of a psychological/sociological spin on his statistics. I normally leave the explanations to him, and help him more behind the scenes but I will step out of the shadows and give my input.


In 2011 we saw a somewhat similar situation except on a much smaller scale. There were less Bitcoin participants and a lot less capital invested in Bitcoins. Not to mention Bitcoins were going steady at $10 or less. The price surged up due to a article seen here--> http://techland.time.com/2011/04/16/online-cash-bitcoin-could-challenge-governments/ (http://techland.time.com/2011/04/16/online-cash-bitcoin-could-challenge-governments/) Which brought in a lot of new people causing an influx in sale volume which in turn drives the price up. We have seen that here recently as well, however as far as I can tell it is more due to people noticing a stable environment to "get rich quick" invest 10k and get 20k back in 2 days. Well eventually people run out of money to keep throwing into the mix.

And something like this Happens
http://i50.tinypic.com/slp7gn.png

Nearly 160 THOUSAND Dollars worth of sale volume and the price surged to ~30 USD per bitcoin. But look what happens when it falls! Not even enough sale volume to put it on the map.Bitcoins plummeted this is an auto correct in the very nature of trading. It is human nature to want more money. Money is the key to everything. The normal train of thought also show us when to hold our money to save it. But there are other contributing factors, Take for example somewhat at a Casino. The average person loses terribly and walk away. Then there is another small percentage that wins big by cashing out at the right time. As seen in the previous chart between the 12^th and the 17^th maid a profit even if it was a slim one. Like ATC said here:

So I suggest learning from past mistakes and making that little bit of profit otherwise you will be feeling like the people on the 21^st through the 24^th with no one to sell to (Hardly any sale volume at all, Newbies moved out along with a lot of the big money)
As seen here:
http://i48.tinypic.com/347zczk.png

I believe my last reply perfectly fit this part of your posts guys

I don't think your analysis is correct because bitcoins are a complete novelty and CANNOT be compared with traditional stock markets. This doesn't look like a speculative bubble, it looks as if the bitcoin is slowly reaching it's "correct" price. With only 21m bitcoins that can be mined (not a lot), and the widespread adoption of it, prices are set to be higher than 1,000$.

In fact, the more news coverage it gets, the higher the prices will be. Bitcoins aren't known by a lot of people, in comparison to silver. If silver gets news coverage, people won't "learn" about it. When people learn about bitcoins, they either get skeptical or heavily enthusiastic about it.

What makes bitcoin so valuable is decentralization. I think what's happening in Cyprus and the EU is very good for the evolution of our economic systems, because now people are finding out how much BS fiat paper is. What you have though with bitcoins is very tempting: decentralization, no "withdrawal limits", no wallets that can be seized, no taxes unless you convert to fiat currency, anonymity in an Orwellian world...

You are selling? I'll gladly take your bitcoins in exchange of my worthless canadian dollars :)

However, I enjoyed reading your analysis. I am a noob at trading (though I made a great move when buying LTCs at 0,0055 btc and selling at 0.015), but to me it seems evident that the rocket is NOT about to stop anytime soon. Sure, corrections will happen but having invested at 8$ a bitcoin I see no point in selling right now. I'm in for the long term, and I believe a lot of people are too.

Not really.

I just see a lot of words by 24 year-olds extrapolating irrelevant past events to the current market. The way he wrote about MACD tries to make him sound like a market veteran. It's not only misleading (you've seen this "nine times out of ten"? What an illustrious career you must have had!); This is pseudo-technical mumbo-jumbo.

I hope that people reading this advice will do their own due diligence and realise what you two are trying to do here. The shakedown already happened this weekend. You're late to the party. As usual, another week comes and brings new liquidity and buying pressure with it.

Anybody who wants to bet against ATC's predictions can bet against him here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=157325.0 Since most of you seem dead set on your points.
Also I am willing to make some personal wagers of my own. PM me if your interested in making a wager

I don't gamble; I make calculated investment decisions. No way I'm sending my money to either of your addresses to bet against you.

To newcomers: These guys are betting against the market. Hence this thread. Hold firm.

If it goes over a hundred i'll go a lot higher.

$72 barrier might be broken tmr or we might get a reversal.

Exponential growth is not normal to those people.

Right now i'm unsure we are in the right state for a bubble.  People aren't euphoric we need to wait for it to go past $100.  And because so many people are interested in buying again still so it'll probably go back up like in that graph.

And I've been around a lot longer than the both of you.  I was there in the crash, watched it go down to $2 live on goxlive, and knew one of the people who sold below $2 in November '11 ($1.994 was hit momentarily).  The temptation to sell was strong.  I held all the way through and now I'm very glad for it.  This is not June '11, not by a long shot.  We have fundamentals this time.

LOL@DECEMBER 2012 FORUM ACCOUNTS

 ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

+1

That's not what I see...

What I see is people getting upset by any opinion other than their own, and using "age elitism" to try to condescend.  ::)

If you don't agree with my analysis or my opinion, so what? Whatever. Vote with your money. No need to get hostile. And you won't be taking my money, because my money is safely on the sidelines now. It's all of your money that's up for grabs, and perhaps I might be taking it from you in another week or two.  ;)

I've been in this position before... one of my favorites was when I made a very bearish call on the S&P 500 years ago, and I was ridiculed and insulted up, down, right and left for it. And lots of forum assholes were insulting me because I was just 20 or 21 years old at the time, so I was just a "stupid kid". They said I was going to lose all my money and I should just stop trading and go kill myself. You know what happened? 4 days later, the S&P 500 plunged 55pts at the opening. My small options position I'd put $4000 into swelled to a net value of over $17,500 instantly. Then the same bullies who'd ridiculed me made a public apology thread and paid homage, which was quite amusing. The moral of this story is not that I'm the world's greatest trader (of course I'm not), but you should never call someone an idiot or mock them because of an opposing view on the market... because it might be YOU who loses all their money the next day.  ;)

I've been wrong before, and I'm prepared to be wrong again. I know how to manage my risk. And it this point my risk is 0%... you're the ones with risk, and I wish you all well.  :)

Regards,

--ATC--

Chill my friend.  He's just posting his analysis.

Takes courage to speak what you see when everyone else is against you.

And for what it's worth, in the top of every bubble everyone is going to be against the bears.

For what it's worth from me (you can check my other posts for calling the market):

Yes, we are definitely in an overbought situation.  Current events are fueling that frenzy.  But the fundamentals are still very strong.

The question is when is the tension strong enough from the overbought price to pull it back (like a rubber band).  Calling that exact price is pretty tough to do.

When it does get pulled back it's another great buying opportunity.  The fundamentals are just too strong to do otherwise.  And are only getting stronger.

Yes, and what most people who disagree with you are trying to say is just that: you cannot compare S&P 500 with bitcoins. They are entirely different beasts.

Markets often tend to get overbought and stay overbought for long time until they stop. The "overbought" term is so overused by TA charlatans that it has became completely and utterly pointless.

And that's a totally incorrect assumption. Human psychology hasn't changed since the tulip mania of the 17th century. ;-)

P.S. -- If you have Netflix you should all watch the documentary called "Mind Over Money"...

@ Sage :

Thank you for a very eloquent and reasonable post, and for expressing your differing view with great civility.  :)


That is absolutely correct. Just when everyone thinks they're safe:

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7179/kapooya.jpg

 ;D ;D ;D

Every market is going to have a price / value ratio.  The value of Bitcoins is increasing.  The question is is the price increasing faster then the value?

Because you have 2 moving variables, the price, and the value.  And one is very hard to define, overbought can best be signaled by current momentum compared to past momentum.

If the momentum slows (as we are seeing), long enough the "tension" between the value and the price loosens, making room for another run on the breakout of that slowed momentum.

The question right now, is do we have enough of a slowing in momentum long enough to ease that tension?  I'm watching this current consolidation closely.

No market, Bitcoin or otherwise, can see increasing momentum forever.

Out of the goodness of his heart?

Or in order to precipitate a sell-off and shake down some weak hands?

He's shorted BTC; he's on the sidelines. The way this analysis was worded was intentionally to have the biggest beneficial impact to himself.

I think he's mis-called this one; Friday was the day to do that.

Hmmm.... What do I say here?

You're suggesting quite a powerful hand he holds for one thread he starts to move the market.

Wow, who is this kid with that kind of power?  Or is it Jedi Mind tricks ;)

Point taken -- if the market is that jittery, then that would mean we were near a top anyway.

But when there are a bunch of new hands, probably directly inbound from Reddit trying to chase the train, I wouldn't underestimate the power of this speculation forum.

No one suggested betting against Bitcoin. I love Bitcoin. I suggested people take their profits, enjoy them and relax.  :)


So the price of bitcoin never goes down? Have you ever even seen a chart before? Nothing moves in straight lines when humans are buying and selling it, my friend.


I agree. I'm bullish on BTC/USD long-term. Evidently you didn't understand a word of my post or the implications of the analysis.  ;)


Yummy...


I don't think you understand what technical analysis is... TA can be used on ANYTHING people buy and sell. The way a stock analyst analyzes stocks is by the fundamentals (EPS, Price-to-Earnings Ratio, etc). I'm glad this "bear" was able to educate you. You're welcome!  ;)

This^
Bitcoin is no different than any other financial market on Earth.  When dealing with money, and the gain and loss thereof, there are the EXACT same psychological effects as other markets. This same psychology is the basis to Elliot Wave Theory, and the number one reason why you get panic in either direction.

It is absolutely out of the goodness of my heart (and hopefully some tips from those who enjoy learning about TA). And just as others have, you can disagree with my conclusion and learn from the analysis. Technical analysis has made me hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks, futures, FOREX (currency) and options. I only hope to help people and offer advice and insight, and I hope someone out there will be inspired by my chart-work and analysis and make themselves a lot of money too.  :)

Regards,

--ATC--

EDIT:

Unfortunately, Sage has exposed me... Yes, I confess it... I am a jedi, and this has all been reverse-reverse-reverse reverse psychology to trick everyone into first selling, then buying, then selling again, and then buying and then selling. Damn, caught me!  ;D

I must admit I got higly confused on this part trying to keep track of what your goal was in the end lol :P
I figured it out tho

LOL!

1. See a double top at 20ish
2. Sell your bitcoin
3. Buy back at 40ish
4.  ???
5. Profit

Erm, no... You either did not actually read or failed to understand. Last time I was watching/hoping for a correction, and I bought BTC. Finger was on the trigger, but never pulled it because it set a new high and kept going. So I held my coins. Just like Keynes said "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent".

I started selling yesterday and finished today. But selling at $20 and buying again at $40 doesn't mean you lost any money. It just means you missed an opportunity. And the fear of missing an opportunity has driven men beyond counting to ruin.  ;)

For a long-term bitcoin believer, selling at 20 and buying back at 40 is losing 50% of bitcoin

Good luck with your double top call. This pattern has happened many times in the past 2 months.

A pattern like this has happened many times in the last few months allowing me to buy back in at 64 57 and even 36.8.

Hey noob,

Being on the forum for 3 months doesn't get you out of the "newcomers" sandbox.

Go play with the kiddie toys and let the adults who have been around here for much much longer than you discuss the important things.

FYI: I've been around the forums since June 2011.  ;D ;D ;D

Unfortunately, the text that followed totally failed to deliver that...  ::)

BTW: Please learn to use the quote feature....


Another $200 amateur trader exhibiting a total lack of market-sense and calling me "kid"... how amusing...  :D

Stop acting like a condescending douche bag and trying to insult me, and show respect to other people when you speak to them (and they might take you seriously). Did you not learn that as a child? If not, there's your basic life lesson for the day. If you want to have a civilized discussion about this I will be most happy to continue. But I'm tempted to use my Ignore button if not... Sorry if I give offense, but just being blunt... Ad hominem gets old fast...


Are you unable to understand that different traders have different objectives, risk profiles, time horizons, etc? If your coins are intended as a long-term investment over the next 5-10 years then of course YOU should not sell, because you're not a trader (you're an investor). Traders, on the other hand, care about what's going to happen here and now and in the near future.


This really made me LOL...  ;D


Again. If you sold today, you've completely eliminated your risk to zero. If you don't buy a stock today and it goes up $10 tomorrow, did you lose any money? No. You're the one asking people to take risks and continue buying regardless of price -- I am not.


No, those are the two ways sell-offs tend to precipitate after a parabolic move.


If I offered to give you $100 today or $105 two months from now, which one would you choose?


I'm unable to discern anything from this other than opinionated ramblings of a perma-bull...


Sigh...


Done. Enjoy.  ;)

Yup... I think many of these are the fools who dumped all their coin during the "Night of the Long Forks" who we made thousands of $ off of by selling them back their own coin when the error was rectified.  8)

Relax guys. The point is not about silly TA. Bitcoin now is all about exponential growth which will continue until the pool of potential participants is exhausted.

ATC, Analyse this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ .

SO Vladimir, at what point are we at in the video right now in terms of bitcoin? lol

not bad http://youtu.be/fYXD-_AMstQ

lol, I'd say considering that we have like 7 billion people on this rock.... nahh bad idea..

It is the second guy running over the lawn to join up, while being dragged down by mtgox and his 5500 verification backlog.

Perhaps you could learn something from that video... Do you think those people are still all dancing together in that group since they started in 2010? Or did they finally get tired, quit and go home (perhaps to dance again another day)?  :)

And I'm not sure using a video of a guy doing something stupid and other people following him into doing the same stupid thing was a good way to make your argument!  ;D heheh

Did anyone else notice the graph in the OP went back about a week and a half ago?
I found this graph somewhere else in the Speculations thread (not taking credit for it)
http://s10.postimg.org/lxcutc4v9/graph.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/lxcutc4v9/)
Is it just me, or do you see several "Double Top" Patterns in this longer-term analysis of the market? I'm not trying to be a smart ass or stir up any controversy or anything, but I would like to know what OP has to say about this.

@ Johnniewalker ::

Boy does that look familiar... parabola? Check... Double-top? Check... Sell-off?  ;)

What if in a panic I had sold in June of '09? Does your model and your encouragement to sell consider those who are in this for the "long haul"? Again, just trying to learn here.
**between Jan and June of '09

I borrowed some coin because I had no way to buy any more and wanted to do something with them. I was just in a car accident, so all the formerly open venues of purchasing bitcoin whenever I want are currently closed. And btw, I succeeded in what I wanted to do (multiplied the 6.00 BTC I borrowed several times, bought some new mining equipment and sold the rest).  :)

@ johnniewalker:

If you're in it for the long-haul, as in several years, then just ignore all of this short-term volatility. You're playing a totally different ball-game.

I was going to say, in defense of OP you mentioned being in a car accident at the beginning of this post, I didn't see anything contradictory in that post. From time to time I check the speculation thread, just for kicks. The truth of the matter is, as Bitcoin is deflationary, the only thing I (someone in for long haul) has to worry about is some government action against Bitcoin, public interest dissipating (seems unlikely at this point), or god forbid some other, unforseen big event.

Yeah sure...

I never agreed on your analysis but still was giving you credibility. Now the further this thread goes, the smaller your credibility gets. 3-5 btc should be very easy to obtain for any trader. Seriously...If you make "hundreds of thousands of dollars, and can't buy your own bitcoins...

Yeah sure what? I got pretty seriously injured. I couldn't even get out of bed. I'm just now able to walk short distances, and my car is totaled. I just wanted a few coins for my bot which I just finished coding, and it really WASN'T worth all the pain and trouble of going to town to buy a MoneyPak or deposit money in another trader's account (I generally trade on OTC).

So no, it's most certainly NOT very easy to obtain bitcoin when you're confined to your bedroom...  :-\

I'm not trying to get in the middle here but it sounds like he was layed up in the hospital or something-he got in a car accident. Kind of hard to bitinstant then head to 7/11 to use Moneygram.

I think the problem is you talk too big a game. I looked at some of your other posts... "small conglomerate startup"? Indeed.

I apologise for the ad-hominem, and pointing out your age -- but I felt I had to. Persona and ambition is all well and good... and you are numerate and literate, which is good. Unfortunately your post lacked substance.

Good luck for the future.

Good advice. But, buying again at $40 was a good trade only in retrospect. And was that not fear of missing an opportunity?

TA is uncertain and we will see false breakouts. Selling to "buy again" on a false breakout and not only did you miss an opportunity, you also lose money. That's why selling to buy dips, in an uptrend, is a losing strategy. You are very lucky to beat the market and if you keep playing, your gains will almost certainly (eventually) be less than the market.

I should know. I have only about 1/3 of the coins I had at $2.00, and I don't ever expect to recover them trading. This market is too bullish even for me. I could kick myself for trying to sell tops and buy dips ever since $2, even more than for not selling at $30 in '11 (doubled my coins rest of the way down). If one is going to trade, there will be good trades and bad ones. You don't get to look back and say "if only I had made only the good ones and none of the bad." You take the good with the bad.

So, I'm not saying that you should never take gains. But I am saying that if (like me) you can't help yourself from trading , an "all out/all in" strategy is extremely risky (due to false breakouts). If you want to pick tops, my advice (for whatever its worth) is to be patient and scale out in small portions through target ranges. Adjust your holding percentage to your degree of certainty.

There is much volatility ahead, and the less panic trading, the better (both individually and collectively).

Correct, thank you. I didn't stay in the hospital (refused to). But it was no easier. I could've gotten a rental car or a "loaner" from the Mercedes-Benz dealership but I've been on too much pain meds to drive myself anywhere. And have more surgeries and appointments yet to come... sucks... :P

Well, that's great. I hope that works out for you. You'll notice that I'm not angry about your decision to keep your coins or your bullish opinions... Yet you had to personally attack me and spend all that time to get to "I wouldn't risk selling my bitcoins". Should've just said that in the first place and this thread would be much shorter...

P.S. -- Are you a college student?

You are talking about fundamentals but you intantionally didn't mention some very important one. For example, besides the drugs/money landering, we have strong gambling industry evolving and other merchants are accepting bitcoins. Also among the new users we have big whales with strong hands, those are not little guys with couple of thpusand of dollars like most other users, even hedge funds are being created as we speak. Also if you look at the google trends indicator or number of wikipedia views for bitcoin, it is skyrocketing.
I believe this rally will end up badly when the money inflow stops but we are far from it now. It is questionable if we go above 100 ( that's a very strong psychological barrier), but I don't really expect any big crash at this time. The momentum is too strong.

Disclaimer: I've sold almost all of my coins last week  ;D I have less than 500 BTC now, part of it in SDICE shares. I wasn't confortable holding so much at these high prices, so I took the profit. But I still think the rally is far from over . And early adopters don't have enough BTC to crash the market anymore.

Absolutely not.


I'm not a college student. That was many years ago. The intended audience was short-term traders, which is glaringly obvious from the very beginning. There is no duality of opinions. I believe a sell-off is coming, and coming soon. That is the conclusion. And I wanted to warn readers that if the price breaks the double-top formation and makes one last crazy move to the upside that they should be very cautious, because that is generally what happens at the end of a parabolic rally. So there was absolutely no contradiction; it was a net bearish post, and I stand by that opinion for better or for worse. No one is right 100% of the time and if I'm wrong it's a drop in the bucket because my money is safe.  :)


I was never angry at any point... the only thing I've taken issue with is your use of personal attacks. I'm still not angry, and won't hold any grudges. There are much better things to get angry about, like people who don't know how to drive!  :P

Though I do not agree with your analysis, your TA was infinitely better than Lucif's who seemingly just slaps a bear chart and adds some jargon that laymen such as I cannot understand.

Never forget the fall of 2011   :'(

even your red trendline was constructed wrongly. it was already broken when you drew it.
http://www.bitcoinbullbear.com/uploads/8/5/8/7/8587609/112653.png?552

I did draw it crooked, but I just scribbled on the chart in a hurry to highlight the things I was talking about. Wasn't going for "perfection". Trend lines are purely conceptual and do not actually exist in the real world, so there's no right or wrong way to draw one. You simply draw them to help yourself understand a chart or demonstrate something to others.

There are lots of different opinions on how to trade, how to do TA, how to do FA, how to scale positions, how to manage risk, how to allocate assets, etc... Two money-managers with opposing views can often be successful in the same market (seen it many times). Someone like deathcode might be successful this year by merely holding his coins and adding to his position, whilst I might simultaneously be successful buying the dips and selling the rips.

EDIT ::

As a general rule of thumb, however, you only want to add to your positions during substantial dips, to keep your average unit cost low...

I heard (emphasis on heard) that Bitcoin Gambling and Silk Road made up something like 80% of bitcoin transactions.
And you are right...*knock on wood* there is probably just more to come.
And as there continues to be no legislation regarding Bitcoins (might be wrong) its only a matter of time until organized crime gets into it to buy, sell, and launder. My only question is how have they not already?

Money laundering was there since the beginning. There are transactions people do off exchanges. The higher the price (bitcoin market cap) and user base the more money can be laundered effectively.

All I'll say is, this isn't a stock we're talking about, nor is it a traditional market.   Bitcoin is its own beast and typical trading rules, market analysis and TA (which I often have issues with at the best of times) simply do not apply. 

You're not the first person to say this, and not the first person to be completely wrong about it. TA is about market psychology, and it works on anything that humans buy and sell; even tulips.  ;)

It bewilders me how people can think bitcoin has some property of "magical exemption"...  :D

Well, I completely disagree :)   That is what it is, carry on.

We can agree to disagree. But here's some food for thought: What moves the price of bitcoin? Does bitcoin move bitcoin, or do the humans (and the bots -- who use TA) buying and selling it move it?  :)

Sure, market sentiment between stocks and BTC speculation is analagous. However I think you have misread the fundamentals. This market is still at the nascent stage... it's just been bootstrapped. We're still at 1mBTC = $0.7, and users are flooding in. The ratio of speculation to overall transaction volume appears to be high but decreasing.

Most exciting are the new BTC-related business opportunities. Look at how a "Magic the Gathering" site has become the biggest and most trusted exchange. The ecosystem is just beginning to grow. The protocol has many new features that no-one is leveraging yet. As BTC rises and newcomers flood in, they will have a vested interest in adding to this ecosystem.

It's a positive feedback loop in the very early stages. The tulip analogy is utterly spurious (aside from the fact that tulips brought us modern stock exchanges, and Bitcoin will be equally revolutionary).

1mBTC = $0.07

^ Quite right. Give it a few days then.

Hurts my head, change it!

I do not understand why ATC777 is getting roasted for this. Sure, the TA isn't perfect (weekend volume, new entrants could blow through resistance, etc.)....but he has made a great attempt at offering a differing view based on short-term TA. Market psychology is market psychology, regardless of the underlying (and especially given that speculation is moving this market), which is his overall message. The main difference in BTC is the difficulty determining where we are in the cycle. These new entrants are a massive ?.

As I said in a different post yesterday, I do not see a rocket today (but could certainly and happily be wrong). BTC is so ground-breaking that, and sorry for the double-negative, we can't not get overextended. Because this is so revolutionary, extreme over-exuberance is a foregone conclusion. It's difficult determining where this pricing dislocation will take place.....$75, $100, $200.....I'm certainly having difficulty with this, but my interests are not short-term so it really doesn't matter. One thing that's different, the nature of BTC creates a news cycle lag.....and BTC logistics for the average person make it hard to determine the nature of this next wave in terms of both adoption and speculation.

I also agree with many of you in that this next wave could be imminent and very large. The next two weeks are crucial. But I'm also wondering how non-tech savvy people could become true believers so rapidly, given that it's a leap for 99% of the population to put faith in crypto-currency within a week of discovering it. It's very different than placing a broker trade trade or purchasing an asset with a long history. Yes, there is probably a sizable segment of moderately tech savvy people who know about BTC but are only just now taking the plunge. More professional money could certainly move in, leading to more speculation. And the utility for gamblers is what initially made the rise in BTC so obvious for me.

Neither side of the argument can price these things in correctly, IMO. I do not have the conviction to call a short-term top, even though my gut tells me we will not move substantially higher over the next couple of days (which is irrelevant) as many have suggested. This could easily go either way in the short-term. I may not be factoring in this next wave, which may be the beginning of something much much larger. Regardless, I am bullish for the term prospects of BTC.

Why would you try and draw a TA conclusion from a chart when the market was closed.


I think anyone that has 'been around' a while would recall the mtgox hack...

You clowns think you have seen an exponential rise that *must* be followed by a correction, so you are short. You are trying to do the inverse of catching a falling knife. You are doing it with a commodity that is prone to sudden exponential rises. I think that is just crazy but each to his own.

I think there may be a correction it could happen seconds after I post this or in three months time after a run up to several hundred dollars. Maybe even fuelled by bearish short sellers being squeezed out time after time.

I am long, with tiny sell orders all the way up to skim a little spending money off the top. I am in it for the long haul though. I held through the bubble to 32 and the crash back to 2. I will hold through worse. I see 10-100k per coin in the distant future barring catastrophe.

I've been working on securing my financial future for a while, and now, it feels like I've already won.

Go ahead and short though! You might get lucky!

tl;dr

sgbett: you punk, are you feeling lucky, go ahead and short then.

lol

http://youtu.be/nIR759wIjdg

 :D Not directed at anyone ;)

hahah. irl rofl.

Looks like this thread could be closed now.

So much for that "double top"  ::)

The thing that gets me about TA of Bitcoin prices is, a typical day trader is lucky to slightly outperform the market. Most don't. Yet when faced with a long-term exponential bull run (that could even perhaps end up as the greatest one in all of history), you have to trade so excellently that you outperform even that exponential rise. Such an amazingly gifted day trader would have to be some kind of superhero and know the market like the back of his hand. This is impossible with Bitcoin. Way too many short-term X-factors.

Also note the "I'm not losing money because I'm cashed out" nonsense. A lost opportunity, a lost (or substantially diminished) position in a meteoric bull market is an incredibly huge loss compared to what was originally held (an undiminished position in that same asset). Sure you could double your position by a lucky trade, and sure, TA can conceivably help, but see the previous paragraph for why it's *still* not worth it.

"Buy and hold: Because you may be uncommonly intelligent and skilled at TA, but your comparative advantage will never be as big as Bitcoin's rise is exponential."

You can't do a whole lot with a tulip and a most of those dotcom shares were from hyped up companies without any substance.

Unlike those examples, Bitcoin does have substance.  It's like somebody just discovered a strange new precious metal that can be teleported and made invisible, and now everybody wants to get their hands on it.

If this is a bubble, it will be temporary like the last one.

Didn't you know? BTC is unobtanium.

OP, How is the double top idea working out for you?  ::)

Not only can you teleport it around the globe, and make it invisible for crossing border checkpoints, but it is also incredibly easy to check it to validate it is real. There is no way to fill this with tungsten and get away with it.

Difficult , so difficult to say how its going to pan out.

I'll say one thing though. With the dot com boom and bust, a lot of companies were selling themselves based on future predictions and fundamentals that did not exist. The infrastructure , for one , to support exponential usage (fast internet connections , mass customer usage of the net) did not exist - making their predictions flawed. Many of the business models were valid, its just their financial predictions based on the internet adoption at the time did not make sense.

IMO, with bitcoin its a bit different, just because the technology is already in existance (up to a point) and has gained a significant amount of usage. There are a number of indicators that show the technology is being used alot. (That's excluding Satoshi Dice and the large increase in price per coin, which has skewed the numbers a bit).

https://blockchain.info/charts (https://blockchain.info/charts)

However there are a number of risk factors that are embedded in this that may or may not be accounted for with the current price. Certainly it is not at all certain whether bitcoin will ever gain mass adoption or usage. I think more attention should be given to the technical side. Scalability in particular is going to be an issue very soon.

I'm not really too big on technical analysis per se - I think that the charts do show some interesting information but it's just one part of the picture.

What? I pointed out the pattern, and explained what they typically indicate -- no technical indicator is 101.01% accurate (e.g., seeing the exact path of the future).

You know what's funny? You are the guy who called me stupid for buying LTC at $0.04-$0.09, so let me ask you a question: how's it feel to be 1,300% wrong about that?  ::)



 ;D ;D ;D

Yeah.... right...  ::)

But that would require one to put their money where their mouth is...

Yes it would. Now the ball is in ATC777's court.

I've already called him out on an escrowed bet. We'll see who is laughing all the way to the bank after this.

ATC777, bring it! lol  ;D ;D ;D

So Cyprus has a bailout deal now? Kicking the can down the road? I'm just tuning into CNBC... anyone know more about it?

So you gonna back up your bullshit with BTC? I made you an escrowed bet.

Chicken?  ;D ;D ;D

I cant tell how serious you are with all the smiley faces.

I'm serious. I never back down from a challenge like this.

ATC777 thinks I was bullshitting, well let's see if he is willing to put his money where his mouth is. My escrow bet to him (through Maged) is still on the table for 250BTC.

If he doesn't accept, he is a pussy who just talks.

 ;D ;D ;D

LOL you're so drove... your pride is hurt over the Litecoin thing, and now you're like a child trying to save face in front of his peers...

"My daddy IS a super millionaire! Promises! WANNA BET?! WANNA BET!? You're chicken!!!"

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!  ;D ;D ;D ;D

This is why the ignore button under your name is highlighted in orange, begging to be pressed... Go somewhere, dude...

BTW, as IF I'm going to trust any sort of bet with you and a guy named "Maged" who I don't even know, even if I cared about your wounded pride... lol

I also can't understand exactly what the bet is...It seems your betting him that you made money in the past. At least as far as I can tell


LOL is that all you got?

I can prove it too lol. Wanna do a escrowed bet of a substantial amount of BTC that I bought several 100 k of LTC and sold 3/4 of it in the last run up for BTC?

I have all the BTC-e logs to prove it.

Wanna go? Chicken? Let's use Maged to escrow the bet in BTC and the bet should be 250BTC.

 :D :D :D
[/quote]

Please correct me I hope I'm wrong LOL

Oh? ^  :D


LOL at least I can back up what I say with money and truth. Yes let it be known that ATC777 is a pussy who can't back up his claims.

FTFY  ;D

Smoothie man, no disrespect intended but, You remind me of someone who runs one of the conspiracy theory websites lol

Also mind answering what exactly you want to bet about?

Oh, Well Like I said it's a stupid bet to bet against something that has already happened, Unless your going to win.
If your interested in buying that silver back so you can do it again I have maples going for some of the best prices around and a few bars going for spot :P (Not to get off topic or anything :P )

LOL ok... enough, enough, enough... I think it's sad that we let speculation threads devolve into this sort of thing, and here's to hoping we can continue discussing the market without any more of this nonsense...

I'm wondering if we have any users from the EU in here who could shed some light on the current situation in Cyprus and what the implications of this so-called "deal" are for the global banking system and Bitcoin itself?

The Cyprus crisis seems to be one of the more important factors in the "bitcoin mania", and this "deal" could perhaps have some sway.

atc cannot understand

This is not a stock
A bond
A share
A option

Its a currecny, its not a investment vehicle per se

Rather btc is a reorganisation of society.

A side effect is you wealth may be accrued who ascribe to this new paradgm sooner

It does not obey any analysis you know of or have used. Iron condors, copper crustations or any other psuedo babble you wallow in, come back to me with a physics level proof then i will listen
Even if analysis could be said to work, because anyone that could call event 0.5% consitantly would own the world in 5 years - 10 years.

Furthey the gulf for btc to grow into is all of human historys years of scams wealth dilution by QE etc for the benefit of the banksters....that is trillions upon trillions that are going to be gobbled up by btc or some other crypto.

There is only 2 ways this can go to infinty and beyond or zero.

No one has made an international currecny before, nor one that can be artifficaly manipulated, or the powerfull can just take.

This is a shift in soverignty from the state to the indivdual

I'm sorry, my friend, but it's you who does not understand... and don't feel bad, because you're not alone in having no clue what technical analysis is, how/why it's used and how it works. So I will, again, try to be helpful and explain this in a very simple, easy-to-get fashion not only for your benefit but for the benefit of the community...

Technical analysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis) does not concern itself with the underlying asset, but instead focuses on the behavior of the human beings buying and selling that asset (and nowadays the bots as well -- which are coded to use TA of all things). It can be anything; a stock, commodities, currency, tulips, real estate, interest rates, money (e.g., gold or silver) and even non-financial sets of data. In fact, I know a doctor who analyzes candlestick charts of his patient's blood-sugar levels and is able to accurately forecast how each patient will respond to different types of food and medication (one of the coolest forms of TA I've ever seen). Interestingly enough, he is also a successful investor. Bitcoin has all of the necessary elements required to use traditional (financial) technical analysis: 1) price 2) it is bought and sold 3) past market data and information.

Technical analysis is sort of a study of "mass psychology"; the psychology of "the crowd". Human beings can behave in very predictable patterns, and often repeat the same behaviors over and over. We are still the same creatures we were 50 years ago, 100 years ago and beyond. And it is unlikely we will change anytime soon. And it is also unlikely that our key "money emotions" (e.g., greed and fear) will be changing anytime soon. Our innate greed pushes us to buy something we believe will bring us pleasure or increase our wealth, and our fear of losing money drives us to sell things before the value decreases causing a material or financial loss.

Where does Bitcoin derive its value? From scarcity? No... there are plenty of things that are unique and scarce which aren't worth anything. I can pick a booger out of my nose that is unlike any other booger ever picked, but I doubt people will be lining up to buy it for thousands of dollars (or even a penny). So if it's not scarcity, what is it? Bitcoin, like all other things, derives its value from our belief in its value. In fact, the concepts of "money" and "value" are abstract concepts our species has invented for the benefit (or as some would argue, to the detriment) of our own society. If you throw a handful of $100 bills into the air in a nightclub people will push, shove and fight to get them... toss a handful of $100 bills into a cage full of cats and they will not be aroused (in fact they might end up urinating on the cash lol). While I share a similar philosophy to jubalix about the evils of central banks, fractional reserve banking and the merits of bitcoin, this absolutely does not exempt bitcoin from the basic social and economic forces that push and pull all things financial; those very things technical analysts care about.

You can look at any bitcoin price chart priced in any currency on any time-frame and you will see a plethora of well-known technical patterns which behaved exactly the same way they have in the past with other financial assets. A BTC/USD chart, for example, is full of patterns like double/triple tops, double/triple bottoms, tombstones, cup & handles, head & shoulders (and inverted h&s), you name it. We can also see the exact same indicators we use on stocks, futures and other assets behaving the same way with Bitcoin as they do with other assets. In fact, the bots trading on MtGox and BTC-E (some of which are making loads of money) are using TA to trigger trades and manage risk.

Technical analysis can work with anything, my friends. Sometimes (in fact, quite often) the analyst is wrong. He/she misses something important, draws the wrong conclusion from the data or makes a bad call... sometimes a major market-moving event occurs that totally changes everything and overrides the factors that were previously in play... But TA is not purely about "right vs wrong". It's about looking for hints, ideas and opportunity... it's about making forecasts and educated guesses rather than making "predictions"... black and white logic does not work here. The great thing about using technical analysis with a good risk management strategy is that you can be wrong more often that you're right and still be highly profitable. TA is a tool, not a religion. And you're a hell of a lot better off with a good toolset than you are blindly stumbling about in the dark and making trading decisions based on philosophical rhetoric or political ideology.

That will be all, for now...  :)

Regards,

--ATC--

No you forget that TA doesn't necessarily work with bitcoin. Yes the general market movements (up and down, overprice and underpriced obviously apply)....but your double top double this double that means nothing in a freely traded market.

Most of the charts that you have likely used your TA on are markets that are MANIPULATED or REGULATED.

So no TA doesn't necessarily apply like it does to stocks, bonds, gold, or silver. All of those markets are not FREE MARKETS. There is someone who dictates the price in the general scheme of things by means of a law or a bailout or a bullshit trade, or insider trading etc.

Like I said...keep predicting...you'll end up as PROUDHON VERSION 0.5.  ;D ;D ;D

The trouble with technical analysis is that it can only partially work, as a hint to try to understand market sentiment.

If it consistently worked reliably, the markets wouldn't move at all, as everybody would know the tops and the bottoms. It's the same as the uncertainty principle, schrodinger's cat, et al... if it worked, it would have the result of not working.

As such, TA can only give some traders a slight edge -- not much more. And this is in a highly liquid stock market. So, dial down the TA love will you?

The key here is two-fold: (a) you have to get your fundamental analysis right BEFORE you try TA; and (b) you have to recognise what state the market is in.

For (a), I chimed in my thoughts earlier in the thread. I think you really missed the boat on doing a proper analysis of the fundamentals. This makes the TA worthless.

For (b), BTC is a currency, and as such will have a well-defined non-zero floor unless it fails. This floor could be well above where we are now. Yes, the market will be subject to waves of investor confidence, just like any other market. But you have to identify whether this market is still in the bootstrapping phase, or if it is in a steady state. I think you missed the boat here too. You used increasing money flow as indicators to bet against the price. Doesn't make sense for a currency. Do normal people "over-extend" themselves in fiat? Doesn't make a lot of sense. Even if you speculate in, say, Yen -- you're not going to end up with a worthless pile at the end, like you would do with stocks.

Yes, adoption is broadening but I don't construe that as "getting scary" -- the newcomers look to me like Redditors and other reasonably tech-savvy people. There is still a huge sector of the population who we have yet to bring on board. The broader base and the speculation itself really helps drive adoption of BTC as a currency; I see it as a positive feedback loop.

Nice.

As a sage trader taught me, the fundamentals tell you what to trade.  The technicals tell you when to trade. But a truly sage trader doesn't stop at the technicals or fundimentals. They are able to read the psychology of the market that shows itself in the charts.

Hold onto them britches, boys... It's gonna be a wild ride!  :D

Good. Now you're doing Bitcointalk Speculation Forum Analysis.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Bitcoin_exchange.png

^ I believe we've gotten too carried away folks... I just hope we haven't shot ourselves in the foot and killed Bitcoin...  :-\

This one prays for a bright future...

Oh well. Bears are growling, bulls are mooing. As long as we are not oinking we are all going to be fine.

That did not mean any non-financial set of data. But some. I probably should've added the word "some", but figured people were smart enough to realize I wasn't talking about, erm... the weather!  :P

Give it a try though... who knows!  ;D

Don't bother. TA is a religion to these people, and all the evidence in the world won't convince them. I guess all the people who failed to predict catastrophes using TA were just using the wrong kind, or using it in the wrong way, or were just not smart enough...  :D

Ev'ry so offen one a them technercull anulists come round these parts, but 'for long get run outta town by a bull stampede.

Remember the Arepo.

As a matter of interest, what would need to happen before you accept that this particular call was wrong? In the OP, the price mentioned was $71.50 and there is no point selling and buying back for a couple of measly percent.

So how about if the price stays above $60 until the end of next week, say the 5th April? Would you admit that the call was wrong at that point?

That's why it's a religion. If it were a science, it would be falsifiable...

Just to back this guy up, an ex girlfriend of mine that I met at MIT makes hundreds of thousands each year running an algorithmic trading system on her brokerage account that she developed. It's entirely based on TA concepts. Most of the best quant firms (Citadel anyone?) build systems based on TA. New research from academia has confirmed that a simple momentum indicator can be used to outperform the indices consistently. The twitter studies are revolutionary in showing how the public's mood precedes changes in market trends.

So to all the naysayers: stay stubborn and hostile, claim that only fundamentals matter and that crowd psychology does not, but the behavioral finance revolution is happening with or without your understanding.

I've traded forex with Bollinger Bands and Momentum indicators in automated trading software developed in MQL4 for Metatrader 4.

Every setup (algorithm) has its risks. Nothing is bullet proof in the long run. Trust me I've done billions of simulations on different pairs of currencies with different settings.

The result: The more profit you take, the more risk you have of a margin call.

Back on topic: No one is saying TA is worthless, just that in Bitcoin it perhaps is completely irrelevant because it is a free market. Most stocks, and currency pairs traded today are MANIPULATED or REGULATED by some person, institution, bank, gov't, etc. Even gold and silver markets are rigged. My point is that TA works better in the markets where there is "stability" or "manipulation".

I agree with some of what you're saying (fundamentals are key, use TA to enter trade after you nail down the fundamentals, etc). But also remember that there is an entire multi-billion$ industry of systematic trading programs that are strictly technical and do not use fundamentals at all. Actually, it's a trillion+ dollar industry. But yes, that couldn't apply to the nascent BTC at this stage.

a) Fundamental analysis with BTC is murky. Unlike a stock or currency, where one has quarterly reports to assess product adoption (which are fairly predictable) or Fed meetings to assess monetary policy, one can only make shots in the dark at exactly how BTC will be adopted by the average person and how these new users (or potential of new users) affects BTC price. There will always be a disconnect....it's difficult to determine how Google hits, new MT Gox accounts, new BTC users, Cyprus, etc, affects the price of BTC (because of its nature) other than to make an educated guess that BTC will likely go up, probably not go down over the next couple of weeks. But one also has to factor what will happen if BTC is over-extended because speculation has pushed us too high, too fast, especially vis-à-vis actual adoption....

BTC at 40 - 75 was very obvious. BTC at 75-100, less obvious yet quite possible approaching the end of this month. So, in the sense that BTC has difficult fundamentals, the only constant is TA. ATC777 was simply offering a potential scenario......it didn't happen this time for fundamental reasons but at some point it will probably play out exactly as he described.

b) BTC is becoming a currency and USD/BTC is a currency pair. Normal people over-extend themselves if they trade currencies via FOREX, which is Mt Gox w/optional leverage). Yes, currency pairs get over-extended all the time: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/forex-flash-eurusd-somewhat-overextended-now-tds-cm229644 .

I agree, this is probably not 'getting scary' but one never knows when it is getting scary until after the fact so one plays out different scenarios. The statements below are frightening.

"Its a currecny, its not a investment vehicle per se"

"Rather btc is a reorganisation of society."

"A side effect is you wealth may be accrued who ascribe to this new paradgm sooner"

Arrogance can be frightening as well. Everyone is acting like the success of BTC is a foregone conclusion and it's not.....there is more risk and potential reward in BTC than just about anything else. I've never met a successful trader or money manager who is arrogant, and I know managers that dwarf the market cap of BTC (not saying much in fund world) several times over. I am no expert, but I know enough not to be so arrogant. The most dangerous time for BTC is now -- when Joe Consumer is just now hearing about Bitcoin. The tech savvy partipants were the easy sell. If Joe Consumer isn't sold, BTC will have major issues.......

+1

TA do not fit with BTC.. BTC are so different of other stock, .. 80% of TA I saw posted here have been proven wrong !
BTC to the moon, fasten your seatbelt !

-21,000,001  :D

Underflow?

You really should give it a rest... I'd hate to think that your reading comprehension skills are that poor... ::)

At no point did I ever point at any particular price and call it an exact top (that's virtually impossible to get right). Instead, I highlighted some potential areas of interest in the charts, explained what technical indicators can imply and offered potential scenarios for a price correction. And I disclosed the fact that I have sold and am currently on the sidelines watching this thing... You can disregard technicals if you like, but don't come crying to me when you buy into a massive head & shoulders and get taken to the woodshed (which might happen sooner than you think).

It's easy for everyone to think they're expert traders in roaring bull market, like so many did in the DotCom boom, but it will be interesting to see how many of you are left standing the first time we hit a bump in the road.  ;)

Regards,

--ATC--

No, the whole point is you don't need to risk short-term trading in a bull market, and shouldn't risk short-term trading in a meteoric bull market or else you risk - yes, risk - losing all or part of your position. For it to be worth it, the exceptionalness of your trading skill has to be larger than the exponent of Bitcoin's exponential growth. That's a tall order.

We are going to (apparently already did) take your position away from you and you'll likely have to pay dearly to get part of it back.

You may be smart enough to be a successful trader, but it seems you're not discerning enough to know when that intelligence is irrelevant. Dumb people who just know to buy and hold will continue to shrink your position in this massive bull run until you gain that wisdom.

So much LOL here I probably shouldn't even touch it... but I'm not sure what is your point your point... Did you make a point a point?  ::)

I thought I'd succeeded in making peace with you several pages back, but I'm beginning to think you're simply determined to be an arrogant douchebag who has nothing better to do than insult other people in vain attempts to make yourself look good (which unfortunately has failed  :-\). I'm a pretty easy-going guy, and I don't like to hold grudges... but I must admit I've rarely encountered anyone with such an abrasive personality.


If I were you I would stop being such a ______________ ... <-- I'll leave that to your imagination.  :)


Give me your wallet address... the day you go broke I will be kind enough to help you out. Ramen noodles don't come cheap!


This is a speculation forum, and people are going to have different opinions on how to speculate. This is normal. I see people with opinions different from mine all over the internet, but I've never managed to get my panties tied in knots like you have. And I respect the readers here enough so as not to assume they are complete idiots... If anyone here is naive enough to take out a second mortgage and follow the recommendations of a guy on the internet with their entire life's savings then they had no business in the speculation business...


Oh, it's been "proven" now, has it? Dude, c'mon... I'm not sure if I should give you the "Troll of the Year" award or pray for you... ::)


LOLOLOL... Last time I checked I still had exactly the same amount of money as when I sold my coins. Taking a profit has never hurt anyone. You have this ass-backwards. You would be right if bitcoin was our national currency or if the majority of the world's population accepted bitcoin, but at this point in time bitcoin is still a very small, niche currency. You can't go into Walmart and buy groceries with bitcoins. Where I am from, the US dollar is still the base currency. Either you are incredibly confused or you have the most distorted perception of financial risk I've ever heard tell of...

Give the guy (ATC) a break. This is, after all, the Speculation thread, not the This is Exactly What is Going to Happen thread. He obviously put a lot of time and thought into his analysis, and I enjoyed reviewing it. Would you rather he just didn't post it? Should we burn all the threads that prove not to be 100% accurate?

I don't see why we don't just discuss Bitcoin without getting personal... you say "I'm done giving him crap" but then you make another smart-ass comment or two (e.g., "I'll let him and his hundreds of thousands of dollars leave in peace!"). You know as well as I do that I did not say I'm holding multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that TA has brought me several hundred thousand in trading profits (meaning over the course of years). You've spent a lot of your time trying your best to attack me on everything you perceive as a chink in my armor, and working hard to distort what I've said to suit your trolling endeavor... time you could've used reading a good book, learning a new skill or perhaps discussing Bitcoin in a civilized fashion. Your behavior is the problem, not me or my thread... And it's your behavior (not your opinions on the price of Bitcoin) that I take issue with.


I appreciate the looking out, but I'm sure he will try to attack again. But we can hope not, and we can also hope that we can just discuss bitcoin and trading...  :-\

And you are right, this wasn't a this is exactly what's going to happen at the exact price of $XX.xx thread. I'm still unsure what's being called "inaccurate" though because nothing has yet happened that is out of line with my expectation. The point of my thread is that I feel we are very near the end of a parabolic surge in price and a correction is coming soon. And reaching at or near $100 was not off the table. A lot of people want the price to go to 100 and believe it will go to 100, and it just might. And it's my thinking that if we do stretch up to 100 it will most likely be a very long, rapid move -- the situation will then deteriorate into panic selling. Not unless we punch through $100 and stabilize there will I be surprised...

yes  :D

A little teddy bear walked out to the street and here is this shit going on

http://www.globalpost.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/gp3_fullpage/san_fermin_14.jpg

Who the hell could have expected that!

Welcome to Bitcointalk.  :D

Looks like fun.   :D

Remember the famous MtGox account with 500,000BTC in it? That's a large pile of play money in a relatively small market.

If you read this post, please never share the info with anyone, it is too valuable.
Promise or don't read anymore.   :D


Is it a a meteoric bull market?
Yes obviously.

You shouldn't risk short-term trading?
Fact: Every time the market corrects 5% to 35% your buy and hold dogma (temporarily) loses the entire 5% to 35%.
Solution: Edit: ____ as a ____, totally separate from your precious buy and hold stash, and...
Make frequent trades through _____ and _____ the market. Important! you need to know ___ _____ .
<joke>
Tip me and I'll fill in the blanks
</joke?>


More facts: Since March 3rd BTC is up almost exactly $50
Buy and hold = +$50

We have had brief down turns of at least
$16
$10
$4+
$12
$5.5+
and from ~74.90 to low $52 was a huge
$22.50+
and several others of at least $3.

Adding up only the ones above the last line, we get down/back up moves of $70+


Current Stats:
Buy and hold = +$50
down/back up moves of $70+ (Note: This number is really much higher, the estimate is conservative)

Does everyone/anyone know how to make low risk money off of those facts?
I'm *not* suggesting hitting the exact top bottom every time (small moves equal small fast profits, big moves equal bigger fast profits), but am saying the opportunities are amazing.

Please do not tell anyone else, let's just keep this between you and me.

BTCBTCBTC
ps. I had to spend most of my fun money on helping a family member with medical emergencies/bills, please send a generous tip here:
BTC
15DYJpWJe9H1YofsNQbP9JEWWNn7XPZgbS  |  LTC:  LTgZUWRqFf9DVADQTbPVEW3BxQUku5uF99

simple maths proves you wrong if TA could return you even 0.5% then each day you could make this, which gives over 10 years
P(t) = P(1.005)^3650 = 80,561,104.4.

No one has invested $1 and returned 80 Million with TA over a 10 year period.

Plenty of people and institutions have been trading using TA for 10 - 30 years

over 30 years it is 5.22849E+23, that's more money that there is in the universe

so keep sucking it up while the hard maths shows you up.

@ jubalix: No offense to you, personally, but that is the silliest thing I've heard anyone say about TA yet!  ;D

Bit_Happy makes a very good point, except I wouldn't even call "buy and hold" a real "strategy"... I heard a couple people mention holding their coins through the 2011 spike and crash, and still holding those same coins. That's not really something to be proud of, imho, and wasn't a wise financial decision. Imagine how much better those people would've done if they'd sold their coins for $30 (shit, even in the $20 or even $15) and then bought bitcoin again when it was near its lows. That would be a lot of money, especially if they had a good bit of coin to begin with.

Many people had thousands of coins they mined on their CPUs. And only a few of those people are actually "rich" from their bitcoin endeavors. Just imagine starting in the early days of bitcoin and mining 1,000 BTC on your CPU. Then you made the wise decision to sell near the 2011 peak (let's say $22.50) and walked away with $22,500 USD. Then you used that $22.5k to re-create your position for $5/BTC. You'd have been able to purchase 4,500 BTC, which today would have a net value of over $360,000. Not bad eh?

But what did most people do? They kept on buying BTC as the price climbed towards the peak, then panicked and sold everything into the crash and now many of those same people are probably chasing this parabola all the way to the top -- repeating the same self-destructive behavior once again... Great strategy... ::)

"Buy and hold" is one of the worst ways anyone could possibly try to manage their money... It might've been a good idea for your grandparents' generation investing in stocks to plan for retirement, but not in the internet age where information instantly spreads around the world and money can be moved electronically.

Might I ask what you guys are going to do if (or perhaps when) Bitcoin experiences its next crash?  :)

Good question:
Right now when it goes (for example) from 74.9 / 52.3 / 73 pause..pause ..  everyone expects to break the previous high, just like so many times before.
Using the newer numbers, what if we do 85.33 / ~63 / 84.5 pause. , then it goes back down to ~62 will you sell there, or will a bounce to ~79 restore confidence? Now, if it goes below $59 (for example) after the initial recovery and no new high, are you getting nervous?

Back up to $67 Rally!
Oh no $49...$34.. $21.... $19 (for example)... Stop selling you should be buying now not panicking.

Question for anyone: Even if you never panic sell, how do you decide when to take profits?

No shit, Sherlock. No one is debating that it's possible to make more money by short-term trading. The question is whether anyone can consistently outperform the market to a degree that exceeds the exponential factor of BTC price growth. You have made absolutely no argument.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Hindsight is 20/20.


Sorry to be Captain Obvious, but it's not "buy and hold" if you panic sell midway through ::)

And when do people take profits? When they need money or want to up their standard of living. Simple really.

I can't believe there are still bears who are holding Bitcoin at this price.

If there are they must be actually be short-term bulls.

Since there is no way to easily short-sell Bitcoins.

"Taking a profit" is a loose term, and you're using that looseness to hide your errors from yourself. A more precise phrasing is "moving your assets from Bitcoin to fiat."

With the more accurate terminology there is no vagueness to hide in; if Bitcoin outperforms fiat, you will be forced to look back and say, "I hurt myself by giving up a more valuable asset for a less valuable one. I do not have the same amount of buying power as when I sold my coins, even though I have the same amount of fiat money."

And how many times were you explained why the Dotcom bubble and the bitcoin aren't comparable. Is it that you, too, have poor reading skills, or is it because you just won't accept the fact that your comparison is...well, inappropriate?

And no, this wouldn't be the first bump in the road....

bitfinex.com is actually quite simple to use (I am not sure how secure the site is, but it works for short selling and long buying with margin)

Well call me crazy, but I'm going to "hold", and who knows I may even go crazy and you know "buy". You see how that works?

It's a complex strategy, I know, I can see why you aren't getting it.

Its right up there with the other widely derided strategies such as dollar cost averaging. Another proven to be effective, but ignored by everyone because it doesn't show how much smarter they are than everyone else, strategy. Although of course you don't call it a strategy. Oh no, strategies have to be super clever...

Taking profits? I don't take profits. I hedge against catastrophic failure by converting small amounts of bitcoin to fiat at a set multiple. Formulaic, guaranteed income. A bit like dividends - theres another unfashionable ignored and hugely profitable aspect of investing. Oh I used the I(nvesting) word instead of the T(rading) word. Guess that reveals my dim wittedness.

Emotion will defeat you. Stick to the plan. Kiss.

One small point: You still never acknowledged the fact that one of your cornerstone points in your initial TA about there being no buyers after a sell off was a glaring and incompetent error, based on your ignorance of what actually happened.

hint: gox was shut after a hack.

anyone that simply held through it all, remained unaffected.

+1

Not expecting a correction of some magnitude is to completely ignore the fact the Bitcoin has constantly gone from under valued to overvalued - as before once it becomes overvalued Bitcoin will take a haircut. Only those that got in late and sell low will be affected. Dreams of a $700 Bitcoin will put on the shelf for a few months until the next euphoric bull run.

This guy. +1

But how can be know it is overvalued if the world still has no clue what a bitcoin is worth?  Price discovery is always a volatile process and only hindsight will determine what is over/under valued.

Exactly right, volatility is to be expected. Be <a href ='http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com'>antifragile</a> with your strategy.

Someone showed me this image earlier, which was not made for the sake of Bitcoin but to descibe bubbles in general:

http://trendfollowing.com/images/casey.gif

When I saw it I LOL'd... you would think it was made to exactly describe today's "Bitcoin mania", but JP Rodrigue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Rodrigue) designed it in 2008 (before Bitcoin was even born) to describe the life-cycle of typical financial bubbles.  :D

What was probably the most amusing is how he labeled the peak "New Paradigm"; ironically, people here are talking about the "new paradigm" and "reorganization of society" and other [excessively] premature characterizations of bitcoin.

Good luck, everyone!

 ;D ;D ;D

You can keep lolling, but the people on this forum were probably talking about the reorganisation of society when bitcoin was still <$1. 

^ This. Go to the speculation forum and click on page 72. Look at the bear posts. Is anything new here?

I just re-read the OP's post and rather than just say he's wrong outright let's use his own recommendations and timeline to ascertain conclusively whether he is right or wrong

To be fair to the OP, here's his conclusion


In summary, for him to be right (with an original post date at March 25th), bitcoin price needs to be below $60 no later than April 8th. If price enters $30-40 in the same timeframe, he gets top marks

He throws in a lot of mights, maybes, its possible, and even a caveat after the text I quoted above but theres no way to argue against the fact that he made a recommendation based on his TA and the quoted text is it

So let's see if he's right or wrong April 8th. In the meantime we can continue the debate.

BTW I'm long bitcoin but consider myself a neutral observer. He could be right. We'll know soon enough

I agree the chart applies, but you are nowhere near paradigm shift.

Do a spot survey of everyone you know IRL and come back with a percentage of people that know about bitcoin.

I could probably think of a few hundred people I know, and as far as I know *none* of them know about bitcoin, unless I told them. Any one of them, if they found out about BTC would almost definitely speak to me about it because they know I am the nerdy one.

Media Attention is just kicking in, I suspect insititutional investors might be taking it seriously. If anything the bubble to 32 was the first sell off.

Until you grasp the relative numbers involved 21million coins vs XX trillions of dollars (not billions) you are always going to come up short when you guess the end game exchange rate.

Looks like ATC777 was right on the mark. I wonder if he will get any apologies from the people who said he was nuts

Not at all.  It's a) a weekend and b) a long weekend.  Come Tuesday the price will no doubt rise again.

87 already ... the fucker is going up faster than scuba diver's fart :D a...tanku

Frame my comment and hang it somewhere!

If you look closely at the chart you will find that we are actually at the take off phase.
Why?
Because that is the section where the Institutional Investors come in,
and we have had exactly that recently with the first Bitcoin Hedge Fund and the relaunch of Tradehill.

Heheh, the bull trap is now set it seems...  :D

No guys, never called any particular number an exact top. Certainly not 75. 75 is where I decided it was time to start getting out and selling. In fact, I kept thinking in the back of my mind it just might reach 100... but idk about that now.

I said "I'm selling" and recommended others take their profits and enjoy them. But you never sell every bitcoin or every share of stock you own in one huge order -- you also don't buy in one huge order. You scale your way in and out, because no one can time these things perfectly. But I am finished selling now (perhaps was a bit premature), and looks like we got out just in time.  :)

Be careful here... always expect a "dead cat bounce" when these things start to fall apart, or a "bull trap" as some like to call them... Will be very interesting to see what happens next!  ;D

Good luck!

--ATC--

Nah, they'll keep trying to get it twisted... I just hope they won't hard-headedly hold onto their coins if it goes into a catostrophic tail-spin back to the floor. How low will it go though? No idea... but we will find out.  :)

LOL where is the dead cat bounce?

Usually a dead cat bounce encompasses at least 50% correction from top to bottom of the move.

I think you're just early to the price correction. There are too many positive things going on right now for bit coin to hold the price down.

smoothie, this one... identified by the famous technical analyst Dr. McTrollstein:

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/8766/bitcoinpricetroll.jpg

 ;D

1. I love how you are zoomed in on the 5 MIN chart lol.

2. I still dont see the dead cat bounce in the BIG PICTURE: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg120ztgSzm1g10zm2g25

fail troll is fail troll

Honestly there has got to be some better trolls around here. ACT777's trolling is pathetic. lol ;D

It's not really a long weekend.  I'm assuming you're referring to the US.  Good Friday is not a federal holiday and therefore banks are open.

@ACT777,

Didn't you sell at <$76?

LOL no i'm not mad. I'm still in more profit than you.

I don't see a dead cat bounce here, because price retraced too much of the downward move. But that doesn't mean that this couldn't be the start of weakness that takes us significantly lower.

Yea I think Steve Jobs said something similar to 'new paradigm' in 1985, and probably bill gates and hundreds of other idiots too. That was the top of the software market and the nasdaq crashed to near zero shortly after never to rise again..

Note that the price shot up after the OP, and only fell so fast because it had just gone up so fast, and even at its nadir never reached as low as OP's selling price. It did all this after OP sold. Imagine if the situation were reversed. I expected a surge and bought, the price tanked, then it surged upward momentarily - but still less than it had fallen - and came back down again, me in the red the entire time. Do I get to say I called the surge?

This is what we call "grasping at straws." It's interesting that the recent wave of trolls and new bears all seem to have the same personality characteristic where they will grasp at anything and try to use it as evidence, even if it makes no sense at all upon closer inspection. Oh, and the other commonality is they all do it with a certain degree of attitude and the expectation of tiny memory span from other users.

In other words they are trying to TROLL the price down but in doing so and selling they actually end up shooting themselves in the foot.  :D

I don't think OP qualifies as a troll, just a misguided bear.

lol yeah I guess putting up a 5 minute chart can calling it a DEAD CAT BOUNCE with a troll face is not "trolling".

It's not trolling, it's carrying the defiant and evasive habits of a child into adulthood in an attempt to save face. Trolling is trying to get a rise out of people. They sometimes look similar, but the intentions are different. I'm cool with people not being fully mature, as long as they are actually trying to add value in the first place, and I think OP sincerely was.

lulz  ;D

Let's all just shutup and watch the price?  :)

Says the guy who created this thread? lol....okay shut up lol :D

Wow... nice...  But don't get too philosophical. It was smoothie I made that chart for... smoothie...  ::)

So yes, I was sort of "trolling" (hence the troll face) because he's been an asshole since he set foot in this thread. And your own reply I quoted above was an exponentially more cunning and masterful troll post, if I ever saw one. Well done -- I have been out-trolled!  :o

On a serious note, I think we might break below the $75-$70 range as soon as tonight, and selling will begin to intensify. I'll be looking for some bounciness down below at old S/R levels. Keep an eye on it, because it's about to get interesting.  :)

Regards,

--ATC--

No i've been an asshole for much longer than this thread. Dont give yourself that much credit. I stick to the facts, if you don't like it please cry more and sell bit coins at lower prices. I will gladly take your profits/money.  ;D ;D ;D

Your asshole friend,

Smoothie

Agreed, I think the bulls are about to get waxed.  Starting tonight.

Why would I stop if I know that i am in their heads. Markets are a psychological game. As far as I can tell the bulls have gotten underneath the skin of all the bears.

Well there has to be a slowdown at some point, otherwise we'll be at $100,000 by Fall 2013, so it doesn't take many balls to call for a correction, even a further correction from this point as we're still above the insanely exponential fast growth path that started in January.

I've reached the point where I more hope the price goes up to quiet these arrogant bears than for the actual profits :-[

lose 1000% percent...like -900%?....hmm so around -$900/btc?  :D

I dunno, a slowdown could take the form of a big temporary drop, just because of Bitcoin volatility, but I'm thinking the $10 million in bids will prevent that.

LOL so now we're all flip-flopping?  ::)

At least deathcode is gonna stick to his guns haha  :D

I guess there'll be some more dumps below 100 USD, but continuing fiat influx will increase the bid side to the point when it will explode and price will shoot higher. We may not hit 100 next week yet, but with this much of fiat pouring in, it is inevitable. Don't bet on the crash yet  8)

Huh?? Grasping at straws again. I've always expected a short-term correction to happen at some point - it is bound to - but that is NOT a reason to SELL. Think on that for a bit. Just because additional profit is possible is not all by itself a reason to chase it.

No, now is not the time for 99.99% of institutional investors. Do you know anything about institutional investors and their typical risk appetites?? BTC is exactly the type of investment in which they would never invest. The systematic risk is ridiculous (Mt. Gox, DDoS induced panics, or worse, etc). The liquidity is too low to even register on their radars and they typically do not chase performance. And, quite frankly, money managers in the space would never be fully sold on the concept. No, institutional investors are the most risk averse investors out there, normally seeking only the most stable and consistent returns.

Tradehill and the tiny Malta based hedge fund are using the term 'institutional investors' to add legitimacy to their model. Small hedge funds always target HNWIs and 'institutional investors' in their marketing materials because it sounds good even though many rarely get an institutional client. Selling a fund to institutions is no easy task even when dealing with assets and asset classes that have long histories. They typically only invest with managers who have extensive track records (many, many years) or in assets that have been around for awhile.

The Malta fund is simply a vehicle (and a tiny one, at that) that it is not actively managed and is non-discretionary. They do not have a US based feeder and cannot accept HNWIs from the US. Tradehill has a $10K minimum, which hardly sounds like it's truly directed at institutional clients who typically don't even look at investments that can't handle at least $5 - $10MM (in a single subscription). And the way BTC is so closely held, relatively low volume makes big waves. I like that Tradehill is trying to address this with dark pools, but I am not convinced they have the ability to sell it to 99.99% of institutional investors.

Or, more likely, may never consider it. I don't even know how one could package a direct investment in BTC. We could probably go all the way to 'New Paradigm!!!' with little to no institutional investment because by the time this reaches (if) this reaches the liquidity level required to allow institutional investors to invest directly, we would have probably gone way past this chart.

Institutional investments in BTC start-ups are very different than direct investments in BTC. I'm not sure we've had either at this point. But I could see investments in VC funds that invest in BTC start-ups coming way before direct investments.

Sure, one of the fund of funds submanagers could use a small portion of their high-risk allocation to invest directly in BTC. Anything is possible. I'm sure there are hedge funds out there that would at least consider going direct. Most institutions would not touch these types of managers even if wrapped in a fund of funds (highly unlikely they would be). FYI I am not equating 'hedge funds' w/institutional investors.

Incorrect to say this ($1B market cap statement) because institutional investors invest in start-ups with no market cap; they do it through very skilled fund managers with long track records (they give the manager $10MM and he disburses to various projects, some small).

Information security, transparency, liquidity, regulatory uncertainty (less uncertain these days).....liquidity is big. Yes, they will invest in highly illiquid assets (timber, for instance...huge with institutions) but to invest in something where the market price moves so erratically at such low volume would make this a non-starter. Transparency is huge. How does one perform due diligence on BTC other than to buy into the media hype that moves the price up with little change in the underlying circumstances (correct me if I'm wrong)??? Truly....

I came to this forum to learn about BTC followers; I'm bullish on the novel concept. But I find it telling that institutions have not invested in BTC start-ups.....they usually get in early. There are some very savvy people not investing in BTC. Only a few angels thus far (again, correct me if I'm wrong). That speaks volumes to me. I was bullish back in December because I saw more news coming that would push the price up -- but I was never really under the delusion that masses of common everyday people would start using BTC anytime soon. And unless they do, we are in Bubble City. I can say that and still be bullish Bitcoin.....

Your statements make a lot of sense. however, the adoption of bitcoin does not rely solely on what bitcoin can do for itself. It will need support from merchants and the community as well.
merchant adoption such as wordpress, reddit, and others soon to come onboard is huge. Eventually I think bitcoin needs one BIG player to make it "official" I'm not even talking about Walmart or Target or any of those... maybe a site like Groupon, or Living Social, or even Yelp adding a new DB field to show if the business accepts BTC or not...
something small like that can start training people and getting them used to the idea of BTC being a legal tool of payment... developers will definitely love the idea to create apps to exchange money between devices using BTC. (Maybe bump dumping Paypal?) who knows, the possibilities are endless... you just need a few key merchants to take the plunge.. Eventually it'll happen.

Yes, if the possibility wasn't there I would not even be here ;).

SELL SELL SELL!!!

We broke the "psychological" barrier of $100!!!
World will end, bitcoin will fall, and the OP goes nuts!
save us all OP
Give us one more TA for the fans!
Proudhon and ATC are my true heroes from this day on! :)

I'm lovin' it!

Lol go ahead and buy those $106 coins... today is your day! ::)

hahaha, so basically, your TA loks like a politian's speech. You cover all the angles just so you're not "wrong" ever! hahahha
Sorry I broke my promise of not giving you shit, but you deserve every bit of it, especially with your follow up comments...
How are those profits working for you? did you make enough to fix your car? :)

This is what you call playing the fence so you are never wrong...


"well maybe this...maybe that...but definitely going to sell my bitcoins to buy back lower...blah blah blah"

OWNED!  :D

That does not "cover every angle"...

http://superficialgallery.com/wp-content/uploads/facepalm.jpeg

Covering every angle would be saying something like "It's either going to go lower or higher". And I still say it's going lower. A lot of bubbles and rallies end with an "exhaustion gap" or one big, final move before breaking down. As I described before, this is how the great 2011 silver rally ended.

Your promises mean nothing to me (you never kept any promises to begin with). So I really don't care. Just go buy those coins, buddy. It's a great day for fools.  ;)

+1 totally...lol Political TA

You must be a premature ejaculator too... ::)

Being bearish is not playing the fence. I told you that if it makes one big stupid jump to 100 or beyond you'd better be damned careful, and here you are pretending the battle is won. It's not.

Battle is won, you sold at $75 ish...

How is your Politician's Technical Analysis working out for you?  ;D ;D ;D

Awww you had to resort to "dick" jokes ....sad just sad lol

By a few you mean less than 3 right? :)

ATC has been pretty respectable from what I've seen, and he doesn't seem to be playing the fence. Why must the bulls act like bratty children?

I started selling at 75... when I buy or sell coins I do so in "pyramid" fashion, much like when I trade stocks in a cash account (because there's no leverage here either). My last sale was at $96.XX-something. I knew I wasn't going hit the "perfect top" (trying to do so is a great way to fuck up), but I got a good average price for my coins. Now I have time and comfort to sit here and watch the... slaughter?  :D


Great! It has been very lively, and attracted lots of your kind. :)

If I had to say so... I would say that you're actually the one who plays the fence with your troll mask. Just like when you were wrong about the Litecoins, you pull out the troll mask and say "NOOOO I WAS JUST TROLLIN GUYS!!!" and use it to cover up your mistakes. I suspect you'll do the same when bitcoin gets taken to the woodshed.


lulz

lol all I see is bears getting slaughtered.

Please bring more of your Political TA to the table. It is entertaining. Oh and it isnt just me calling you out on your wishy washy TA.

lol

Actually, this bear is enjoying a beautiful morning, doing a bit of coding and hasn't got a care in the world.  :)


Yeah, you and deathcode need not send me a wedding invitation... I'm just happy you've found each other and have so much in common.  ::)

FACTS:

"Last time I was uncertain about what was to come... but this time I'm going to go out on a limb and make you a clear-cut suggestion: sell. I'm selling. We've all made a lot of money, and no one has ever been hurt taking a profit. Profit is money you didn't have before, and now you have it. So take it off the table and enjoy it. You can stay in the shark pool if you want, but do so at your own peril. It looks like the correction is indeed very close -- no one has infinite money to keep pushing the price to infinity, so a correction is going to happen. If you're patient and smart, you might be able to buy back your bitcoins in the $30s or $40s in another 7-14 days.... or at least in the 50s. So I think the smartest move you can make is to de-risk and go have some fun with your not-so-hard-earned money. :-)"

WRONG Advice!!! ---- FACT!

Let's cover the OP's butt:

"However, there's another scenario which might take place. It might be that there's still enough money on the sidelines to drive this higher. If that is indeed the case, we're probably going to see the alternative crash scenario play out. The final "oomph!" before the blowout. Much like silver's huge over-night jump before the 2011 correction, we might see bitcoin tack on another +$25 and reach for the $100 mark (a key psychological level). If it plays out this way, the following crash will be much worse and longer-lasting than if it just goes ahead and corrects here. The reason is because a LOT more people will get burned a LOT worse and lose a LOT more money. So it will scare off a lot of newbies and people will be scared to re-enter the market for some time. So I hope it doesn't pan out this way."

So, since the OP's first suggestion FAILED MISERABLY and he seemed to feel very strongly about his first suggestion since he sold at $75, let's try the second scenario just in case he gets slaughtered.
But wait  minute... Here comes the second "scenario"... at this point, I don't really care about his kind explanations anymore. I just want to see his "knowledge" of years and years of experience (mind you he's 24) completely obliterated by real life and teach him a humility lesson. Dude, there's nothing wrong in admitting you were wrong, and I hope this serves as a lesson. Everyone thinks they know everything and they are the shit when they are 16 (in my case it didn't last until 24 but everyone's different)
But I'm sure this will teach you a lesson and you will be wiser in the future when people tell you you're wrong.
I'm not going to brag anymore, I made bad investment decisions however I got in the game later in life so I wasn't suggesting things to people because I was never qualified, and you shouldn't either because you obviously aren't to understand this technology.
Best of luck in the future!

Nice try to deflect buddy lol. Your insults do nothing haha.

Who do you think you're talking to?...lol i'm the troll of trolls.

Please try harder. Thanks

Lol looks like someone is angry now  :D

I don't even have time to read that crap... I told you this super-rally is nearing its end... I said it may just break down quickly in a more orderly decline, or we might have a blow-off top (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blowofftop.asp?ModPagespeed=noscript). I spoke about it in terms of a couple weeks. It's only April 1. We're now in the midst of the blow-off top I warned you was a possibility.

^ No straddling the fence. Net bearish was, net bearish remains... Enjoy.  :)

And yes, you are 24 and you act like one :)

You definitely act your age lol

Keep telling yourself that I am angry that my bitcoins are worth $100+ and haven't sold.

Yes I'm so angry i am making profits > than yours.  :D

"No straddling the fence. Net bearish was, net bearish remains... Enjoy."

"I agree. I'm bullish on BTC/USD long-term"  - March 24, 2013, 11:21:56 PM

You don't even know what you're saying anymore dude, I think you're better off unplugging from the Internet for a while, it's eating up your brain LMAO.
I hope it doesn't affect your "coding" abilities and not sure what do you mean by coding, but that's a whole different topic...
You're lucky employers can't see all this arguments, otherwise you'd be looking for a while! :)

Lol I don't know what I'm saying? And you're the one who doesn't understand the difference between long-term and short-term? Haaa... ::)

Here's an example:
http://qvmgroup.com/invest/2013/01/20/goldman-sachs-short-term-bullish-long-term-bearish-call-on-gold/

^ But I guess Goldmann-Sachs is stupid too?  ::)

It's very common for someone to have a different opinion about the long-term potential of an asset from what they expect in the immediate short-term time-horizon...

By "coding" I mean developing software. I write C, C++, C# and some assembly language.

If the rally just continues on from here without looking back then I will have been "wrong". There's not a "magic number of wrongness", but rather it would be time and stability that could prove me wrong. But thinking about this in terms of "right" and "wrong" is a bad way to think of it. No one can always be right, and everyone should prepare to be wrong... you can be "wrong" for the "right" reasons (e.g., reducing your risk/exposure to prepare for retirement and missing a big rally in stocks) and vice-versa (e.g., getting lucky on a big gamble).

But I'm still holding my position, still a bear/skeptic. Exhaustion move is in play and eagerly anticipating some interesting action in the days to come. :-)

To the downside or the upside? You didn't specify so I didn't know how to answer...

I think you specifically said:

If people would have sold then then they would have lost massive ammounts of value.

Combined with the fact that all your tools were pointing in the wrong direction i'd say that your advice was of a pretty amazingly magical number of wrongness.

Either the price will go up or it will go down, do you have a price where you start buying back in?
Either the price will go up or it will go down, do you have a price where you start buying back in?
Either the price will go up or it will go down, do you have a price where you start buying back in?

Should we tried a different language? Maybe french??? Spanish?
I don't know, because in english that's a very clear question and before that, it was a clearly stated as well:

"At what prices are you going to start buying in again? As it goes up, where do you admit you were wrong and buy back in, or as it goes back down where do you start getting back in?"

Are you sure you went to school?

Man, I can only imagine your coding.... LOL

Evasion, recalcitrance, self-deception. Expensive habits ;D

Tune into CNBC quick.... they're about to discuss Bitcoin.

What are you even trying to say, dude? Was this supposed to hurt my feelings?

The question is unclear... it does not specify if he means to the upside or downside. Is he asking me where I will start buying Bitcoins if the price falls (lower prices) or if he's asking me where I will start buying coins at a higher price if I felt I was wrong and tried to get back in. Obviously, this one question would require two different answers...

You would be surprised by my coding... much better than your reading comprehension and writing.  ;)

If price crashes due to bad news (hack, glitch, regulation, etc.), would it count as an accurate forecast or just be a wash?

This I can answer...

First answer: It depends. I don't have a concrete number in mind. It's going to depend on whether or not the market shows enough stability to justify assuming more risk and what prices we're trading at that point in time. It would be an opportunistic trade decision...

Second answer: I'll start buying in an upright pyramid fashion between $60 and $55, and continually buy more as it drops to keep averaging my cost lower and lower.

Seems like I understood his question and you didn't
And yes, it has two answers. there are two questions. I'm sure I won't be surprised.

If the price explodes to $200 because of an unforeseen factor would that count as being wrong? You would say so, wouldn't you? deathcode would even try to take credit for it lol. :)

Unforeseen events are part of the market. I still don't understand why we're arguing about "right" and "wrong"... this is trading. Everyone is wrong.


@ deathcode:

No, you thought you understood, like you think you understand a lot of other things but actually don't (e.g., the entire thread, TA, risk management, finance, etc).  :D

Does it really matter to you when is he going to buy/sell?
considering his record of failed TA's and conclusions, I wouldn't take any advice from this guy. Just a warning! :)

I know, whereas you possess all the qualities of a great money manager and financial advisor... rash, arrogant, emotional, leaping to conclusions, uncompromising, difficult to get along with, condescending, general know-it-all attitude... we should all hire you to manage our money!  ;D

I'm sorry, but you can see my amazing TA Here ---> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159369.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159369.0)

It doesn't have any amazing graphs or pictures like yours, yet, it's at least 30% more profitable than yours since it was posted when price was $78
On top of that, it only has two lines so no extra reading required.
I don't need to take credit for anything other than what's written.
You should take credit for your horrible piece of advice :)

Investors don't care if you're the biggest son of a bitch in the world as long as you make money for them, they will love you. I can't say the same about someone who missed the opportunity of 30% return in less than 2 weeks!

And you're not Mr. Nice guy here.

Fair enough!

And I know what you mean by the previous statement. Maybe because he's "coding" so he needs the exact input to have output.

Pray tell, what exactly do you have against me doing some programming?  ::)

What was your major in college if I may ask?

You have to admit that the people who bought at $30 (the real real real long players) will be pretty happy with the recent price and their trust in bitcoin was deserved.

Nah, he's made several nasty remarks about it before this...


Sure they are... but if they don't ever sell and it drops right back to earth they didn't actually make a profit. I started buying coins at $12. :-)

I went all in at $28...everyone was saying "Soon as it hits $32 its gonna crash... sell now"... this pattern will be repeated from here to $100,000.

I was thinking the same of you by the way...I must not be alone 0_0

ROFL! +1  ;D

What's wrong with the title? The bears are running. Running scared. Funny that we have more than doubled since OP.

+1

When it comes to Bitcoin there are two kinds of pigs:  Bearpigs and bullpigs.  Both kinds get slaughterd.

Depending upon if we are in a bear market or bull market.

Say I somehow convert 10% of my investment back into fiats, which has appreciated like 2000% if I got in at August bottom, my fiats grow by more than 100% and I still keep 90% of my bitcoin holdings and remain bullish, do I get slaughtered? Hell, no.

Of course but after  each bear market comes a bull market and after each bull market comes a bear market so both kind of pigs get slaughterd.

Duh so depending upon what time frame we are using we are still in a bull market...have been since inception. IN THE BIGGER PICTURE.

I love it when these line drawers start drawing lines in all directions and then they just pick one.

Tough luck tho.

http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/shared/characters/non-human/manbearpig.jpg

MANBEARPIG!?

Oops... :)

OP left himself some wiggle room just in case he was wrong, which quite clearly he is.

♪Dun, dun, dun


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/08/22/dead_bear_killed_and_poached.jpg


Another one bites the dust♪


Another TA came and went, paying dearly for their cognitive biases. What happened to Arepo?

lol so fail

I'm still waiting for ATC777 to log back in... I liked the kid... I'm worried and I hope he's ok!

All that effort creating a TA for nothing.... hehehehe

Been almost a week since he logged in. ???

Uh-oh. Now I feel bad for him. Unless he goes rogue.

He's indeed going rogue...

1. Create forum profile

2. Post BS on the forum

3. Create a thread or threads saying why the top is in concerning price.

4. Be proven wrong on your predictions.

5. Back pedal like a TA politician.

6. Go silent when the price keeps rising against you.

7. Fail

 ;D ;D ;D

I won't let him. I have a window open with 400+ of his friends, acquaintances, colleagues, his dad, mom, cousins, ect in case he tries to unfriend me. -Satoshi forbid me from getting more ideas. He seems like a nice guy so hopefully it won't come to that. My only concern is this massive rally making it difficult for him to pay it back. I've checked his profile, more than likely he'll be able to pay it back. He just made a terrible call.

Yup, Ian Bakewell was actually a nice guy as well...

Ian Bakewell was lucky he didn't scam me. :) ATC seems to be making an effort to pay according to John's texts, he's just got a shit luck it seems, so I'll give him a break.

Anyone who thinks speculation means incoming crash is a fool. Every single growth industry in history (Amazon.com anyone?) Amazon stock was first sold for barely a dollar, and then spiked far exceeding what was justified by their profits. Why? People saw a goldmine before the gold was being extracted.

The problem is, even if you start working your ass off the moment you receive your loan, and decide to pay back as soon as possible, maybe even pay your first instalment with whatever you get just a few days after you take the loan, bitcoin still would not forgive you for daring to go short against it. The kind of "round the clock" bitcoin price increase will probably breakdown most people mentally within a few minutes after they take a BTC loan, and if not, within  a few days....

Don't lend in BTCs, it's not going to end up well for both the borrowers and the lenders. :)