Bitcoin Forum

If you're not a day trader, you might be overwhelmed with all the upward and downward price moves over the past couple of days. I've compiled a bunch of different data points tracking the growth of Bitcoin, hoping to help those who are concerned about the price fluctuation, whether Bitcoin is in a bubble, or whether the price has 'risen too quick'.

Currently all data points suggest Bitcoin is still growing, and that generally suggests prices moving higher.

So how to anticipate whether a price correction is coming or warranted? Following the data points below over time should warn you ahead of others if interest is waning. Until you see these charts start to slope down, I would not panic and would simply hold.

Disclaimer: I'm no financial adviser and hold no position in Bitcoin. Other unexpected factors could lead to a crash or correction so please act with caution and do your own research.
  

Google Searches: (Source: google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin)
https://i.imgur.com/7CeOTcM.png

Bitcoin client download on Sourceforge: (Source: sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/stats/timeline)
https://i.imgur.com/FvBImx6.png

Wikipedia Bitcoin article traffic: (Source: stats.grok.se/en/latest90/Bitcoin)
https://i.imgur.com/SF4yCr8.png

Traffic to Bitcoin.org: (Source: alexa.com/siteinfo/bitcoin.org)
https://i.imgur.com/gFqia7U.png

Domains linking to Bitcoin.org: (Source: ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/subdomains/bitcoin.org)
https://i.imgur.com/Mk6Wp9g.png

Number of Transactions: (Source: blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular)
https://i.imgur.com/RmOXNc7.png

Reddit.com/r/Bitcoin growth: (Source: stattit.com/r/Bitcoin/)
https://i.imgur.com/4QWJbqM.png

Mentions of Bitcoin on Twitter: (Source: analytics.topsy.com/?q=bitcoin)
https://i.imgur.com/1eFNYxE.png

If there's any additional ones, please mention and I'll add to the list.

This should be in the Speculation/Snake Oil subforum

Data points from 8 different sources are "snake oil" now? Factors affecting Bitcoin value is related to 1) its usefulness and 2) how much demand there is - the data points aims to analyze the second factor in an objective and measurable fashion.

move to speculation.

Interesting, thanks for the query urls.
If there was a way to weigth these factors, that would make some good index.

I for one thank the OP for the work he put into this thread.

It is interesting to have in a quantitative manner what is going on with user interest.

Win post. Speculation and /r/Bitcoin will love this.

If you have an alternative link to replace the Google trends link, they require an account to see their data.

Good info though, and thanks for revealing this.

Did anyone look back at the 6/11 crash? I think these curves lag the crash considerably.

Very nice compilation, thanks for putting this together. I would love to see some kind of "normalized index" that crunches all this data into one single number.

This isn't speculation.  It's perfectly reasonable to look for "metrics" to predict bitcoin's moves.

Someone elsewhere mentioned the backlog of Mt Gox customers that are waiting to get verified, which I would love to know.  But I don't know how anyone could know that short of working there.

If I'm not mistaken the 6/11 crash occurred due to a hack, not falling interest, so this analysis is not suitable for those types of unexpected events. (although here's the graph if you wish to take a look at it regardless https://i.imgur.com/cz1ETwj.png?1 (https://i.imgur.com/cz1ETwj.png?1))

I believe at this stage a lot of the price surge can be attributed to people expecting (and already factoring in) further demand increases as the Cyprus situation spreads to other countries. I'm saying this because Bitcoin has not warranted a rise to $90+ based on its 'usefulness' aka new businesses accepting it. If this run up had come on the heels of multiple major businesses accepting Bitcoin and not the Cyprus situation, then a different analysis would be required.

[qoute]Disclaimer: I'm no financial adviser and hold no position in Bitcoin. Other unexpected factors could lead to a crash or correction so please act with caution and do your own research.[/qoute]

This bit.

People should look into the political aspect of things globally, and obviously keeping on track of new business ventures and whats coming the corner. That will give you a clearer idea of what to expect.

I would argue that at this point in Bitcoin's life-cycle, new demand is directly correlated with interest. Perhaps 0.01% (made up number) of anyone who hears about Bitcoin decides to try it out, so an increase in the amount of people who hear about it does in fact convert to demand pretty reliably - this is the premise by which online advertisement works as well (conversion rates etc).

Snake oil has connotations of trying to trick someone or being fraudulent, it is rather upsetting to be labeled as such when I spent time and effort trying to provide some value to the community. If I was trying to trick people I would have not advised people to hold, because I'm personally looking to buy.

Periodically a number will be shared on the #mtgox irc channel.

7,700 was the number given within the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin price is a google trends predictor.

You are right:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/bitcoin-price-plummets-on-compromised-exchange/


Which is why the bad folks can still control the price of bitcoin, since if they have big hacking abilities, those same evil abilities can be a biiiig temptation. Only they will know when the right time is to sell, thanks to centralized bitcoin markets.

It would be interesting to take this data and further divide it into geographic regions. I would me mostly interested in search trends, links etc from Europe in the past two weeks so see how much capital is going to be dumped into BTC by EU residents in the next two weeks.

No. Wrong. The price had dropped to $17 before the Mt.Gox incident.

Interesting graphs. Thanks for posting!

This, and the following 6  months of decline  can hardly be called a crash. Crashes don't take 6 months, Bear markets/corrections do. That was just a major wave-2, kind of like the major wave-4 decline that is inevitably to come.

Also, the use of client downloads as an indicator of adoption doesn't tell much when every new release is DL'd by the whole community. On top of that I have it on 4 different computers. On top of that, when a major flaw happens, requiring a patch/rewrite, then requiring us to DL the latest client or our blockchains will no longer be recognized by the network, that is a lot of downloads by the same people. I've personally DL'd 6 different client versions, on four different computers...So that's 24 DL's from one person. I'm sure others have done the same too.

And finally,Just like difficulty following price, so do new users. Where there is easy money to be made, there will be people there to sop it up. Don't think for a second that ALL these new users are here because they want to see Bitcoin succeed. They couldn't give a fuck less. They just want a get rich quick scheme that works, and they will leave just like many of the old users from the first "over-expansion" (;) ) did

Link:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/bitcoin-price-plummets-on-compromised-exchange/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_walk

Well, I can't tell you how they know, but I just sent in my verification request a week ago, and when I first did I was behind 4500 people in line. It says right on your account page once you request verification.

You just backed up his claim. 
If that's what you intended, good job.  Tough to say since the only nonquoted text in your post is "link".

This is great info, OP; thanks!

Great post, OP.

Crash to $17

Very nice snake oil,
Than you it even works as an antidepressant

Nice list.

Please note some of these links are on http://blockchained.com too.

I will add the others asap.

I would refer to http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/ (http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/) too.

No, here is it w/more details:



The fall in bitcoin value happened after:







Hacked first, then the price fell later - very quickly.


Check out June 20 through  June 25th values of bitcoin at Mt Gox market here:


http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#czsg2011-05-01zeg2011-07-31ztgTzm1g10zm2g25zv


Its empty.

I watched it happen in 2011.  You are wrong.  You're looking at the date the article was published, not the date the hack occured.

Order:
1. Priced topped around 32
2. Price fell to around 17
3. MtGox hacked
4. Price fell to 0.01ish based on forged account balances
5. Trading halted
6. Vulnerabilities fixed
7. Every trade that happened after step 2 was reversed
8. Trading resumed

Believe what you want.  You're allowed to be wrong.

this

Without the hack things would have gone differently...

Thanks: a useful list with some sources I wasn't aware of.

I'd add:
- Google News number of results, though it doesn't give you data over time.
- Traffic results for bitcoin.it, the wiki, not just bitcoin.org.
- I refer to some other charts on BlockChain.info as well.

I'd also add stats from this forum, both Alexa and stats the software produces, like users online.

It is good I am not wrong.


http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#czsg2011-05-01zeg2011-07-31ztgTzm1g10zm2g25zv


(Nothing between June 20 and June 25, 2011.)

That is correct.  Those dates are between when the hack happened and when trading resumed.  The price was already at $17 when the hack happened.  That's why it reopened at that price.  Look before the 20th.  There was more than a week of trading between the peak and when trading halted.  During this time price consolidated down to $17

Only correction there will be is correction upwards. At the moment Bitcoin might be the most undervalued asset in the history of finance.

Why does arsetechnica say the price dropped, "...to just pennies in a matter of minutes."?
If you cant answer, please say you cant answer.
 

How can you anticipate a coming crash correction? Take some coins off the table NOW, before the crash starts.

Trying to sell during the downfall is moot. We know gox trading engine can't handle the activity, and trying to put orders during peak trading results in severe losses.

I can confirm that this is the way it happened, I was following it when it happened.

Very true. Apparently many of the new speculators, who are driving the price up now, are not aware of this.

It is not a specialty of Mt. Gox. The big stock exchanges deliberately halt trading in tumultuous times. The only difference is that Mt. Gox effectively halts or severely slows down trading because they have designed their system such that it halts frequently even under moderate load. They do this although it exposes them to the suspicion of front-running during these frequent delay phases. A simple base price for each transaction, like every other online broking system has, would easily prevent this, but they have not done that.

But no matter why they do it, speculators should be aware that there is no quick trading here when things get just a little tougher.

word is the lag comes from them having to go through all the orders and check whether there is enough dough behind them. Tux wrote somewhere they will change it so that every order has to be backed, which should make the systems way faster. Hope they do this change soon.

But they don't have to go through all the orders. They only have to check whether an order is funded exactly once, when it is about to be executed. If it is not funded at that moment, it is deleted.

Their actual problem is that they have no base rate, like every other online broker has. Therefore they have to process millions of tiny nuisance orders all the time. Bitcoin is not a micro-payment system anyway.

Thank you OP.  It was helpful seeing this all collected in one place. 

What's this base rate or base price you're talking about?

The google trend currently shows 0 when looking at the 90-day. I know it's a holiday weekend, but 0?

Market depth graph shows that no crash can be expected in nearest days. Seems it will touch $100 very soon.
http://s10.postimg.org/dzhip8jif/accumulated_orderbook.png

It works for me and it just surpassed its all-time peak last week. The previous peak was June 12-18, 2011.

I remember it looked like the reverse of that before much of the recent runup.

You don't see it at 0 when you go here?

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin&date=today%203-m&cmpt=q

I followed the link in the OP, then set the filter on the left to "past 90 days"

I see it dropping to zero for the last data point when I use your link. Instead I look at a graph that goes from June 2010 to March 2013 (custom date).

It's back to normal for me now. 20 Minutes ago it was a straight line down to 0 for March 31st, but only on the 90day view. Odd

A fixed amount for each transaction. Example: E*Trade asks for $9.99, less under certain circumstances, for each stock and options trade, 75¢ per options contract, and $1 per online bond trade, no matter which value.

Mt.Gox could solve its nuisance micro-order problem with much lower fees than those of E*Trade. And they would rid themselves of the front-running (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running) suspicion as well.

Sounds like a solid business plan for a competitor...

+1
Excactly. The price seems to drive the interest more than the other way around although although both views are true to some degree. People like to make money.

Technically, its a feedback loop so its circular, not single direction.

Mt.Gox has captured a natural monopoly. Or, to explain it with a saying, translated from lower German, "The devil shits by the biggest heap."

Competition is possible, but the competitor would face a very steep up-hill struggle for a long while. Mt.Gox could lower their fees to much lower rates and still make money.

That said, I would greatly appreciate more competition.

No, because another order could have freed money/coins to back another order.

That I don't get either. Would be so simple.

You are quite right that the fees are exorbitant now. I expect a serious competitor to gox to emerge within the next year probably in the US now that it is essentially legal. It will take big money to dethrone them, which is fine because big money is being tossed at this at the moment anyway.

For some reason I thought the charts in OP would automaticly update, but I see they don't. Would it be possible to make them update in this thread? :)

Updated:   http://imgur.com/v333MLl

won't warn you ahead of anyone who doesn't also look at these charts, unfortunately. also all of these indicators are 'lagging' indicators.

--arepo

+1 Or did anybody see an "on time" indicator other than crazy price increase?