Bitcoin Forum

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No, I'd call it volatility in an inefficient, thinly-traded market.

+1.

You're probably right. Still, fucking annonying I managed to buy at the very peak of 31-something... Not selling in either case though, if the ship sinks I'm going with it  ;)

For me a crash would be less then $5.  I am not sure anymore what it costs to generate a bitcoin on the average card like a 5870.  A sure crash would be below electricity cost on the average card.

That's the spiriti! 8)

No but seriously the worst you can do is to sell now and then watch it grow again. In this volatility I won't be surprised in the slightest if spot is either $50 or $5 in 2 weeks :D

Sunk cost fallacy?  Because that is what i did.  I sold much too late even when I believed it was going to go further down in price.  I didn't want to waste the few I bought at a high price.

You might as well surf the wave down.

Although, anyone that sells at these low prices is a chicken.  Come on people, you know they are worth more than that.

I'd start to worry if it drops below $10, personally. One big dip is not a problem, but getting past a second big dip in a short time span is the big challenge since the last one is still fresh in people's minds. This is where we'll see how much in common it has with a bubble.

For me, an actual crash is sustained daily drops that take out a cumulative few weeks of rise. We've had a correction from the 30 level, now bouncing somewhere at half that. If we had completely broken down beyond 15 on the first fall from 30, I'd have to call that a crash. But it didn't work out that way.

We need more historical context, but since the market hasn't really been trading that long with the same kind of appreciation, that is difficult to determine right now.

Crash of the exchange/rate will only be when your client says "0 connections", and so does everyone else's.

It's a market correction. If it goes below 5$, it will also be a miners correction.

Wouldn't be that surpriced either, seem pretty random at the moment... And the stability plateau we had for a couple of days were it almost didn't move at all makes it seem even more random. But longterm like 1 +year it should definitely go up    

this whole weekend is a nice time to pick up some coins if your looking to add. good luck to all in the community.

Could you please explain dollar cost averaging, for those of us who know next to nothing about investing? Is there a computer program that can help an investor who wants to develop a mechanical protocol for buying?

I think he's talking about buying a small fraction of your investment every X weeks. Let's say you want to invest 100k$: you'll then buy 10k$ worth of bitcoins every 2 weeks. That would smooth things up.

Basically, if you put in $100 every week or every paycheck, then when bitcoins are cheap you get a lot.  When they're expensive, you get less.  So the cost averages out.  Compare that to setting a buying exactly 20 BTC every week, and paying $200 one week, and $600 the next.  It's basically the same way your 401K works if you have one.  It's a good way to invest without having to put much thought into it, assuming you think BitCoins are going up in the long term.

Money is valued by people's trust in it. Is it surprising that the market is dropping with all the bad press about the bitcoin theft?

For the market to stabilize people need to regain trust in the currency. Pure speculative investment will just cause lots of volatility. Not necessarily a bad thing for bitcoin because money will be coming in and out of the economy. However until there are easier safer ways to store bitcoin new people bitcoin are not going to want to invest in it.

Once a more secure way to store bitcoin is written into the client that will start to restore more trust in bitcoin. The market will likely recover more at that time.

Also once more business offer goods or services for bitcoin it will also contribute to more trust in it. (I am personally involved in a new startup that will hopefully launch in the next couple weeks that will help in this regard).

Lastly once the press forgets about the bitcoin theft and start writing more positive things about bitcoin (and we give them more positive things to write about) the markets will be a friendlier place for people to invest in increasing the exchange rate again.

Personally I do think bitcoin will weather this storm. Now that the reason for the theft has been detected and the community is more aware of it there will be more focus on security protocols and making bitcoin safer for the average user.

I've personally lost quite a bit on this market downturn buying BTC at 28 but i'm certainly not selling. Before that i'd rather take every bitcoin I have and buy whatever goods and services I can with it. At least there my lost value contributes to the economy rather than driving prices lower.

I cannot wait, its making me nervous just holding the coins. we NEED a super simple and secure way to handle bitcoins.

Actually, the price drifting lower can actually help get rid of the emotional traders. You know, the ones that make trading decisions based on emotion instead of a calm, logical plan? The swings get amplified by such reactions, and since they are dampening down, we may have shaken all the 'weak hands' out of the market.

The ones among us who believe in the long-term future of bitcoin will step in and keep on buying. At a discount, of course :)

I happen to have already set up a web site (with JSON API) that tracks a four-hour simple moving average with standard deviations for your emotionless trading pleasure (http://www.bitcoinreference.com/)

I'm working on getting some math in place (thanks for your suggestions chodpaba, I'm working on it) that fits the market movement a bit better than a normally distributed curve but for now it's certainly buying and selling out of fear and angst :)

As well as a fair indicator of how tall those waves are likely to be in the next hour or two  ;D