Bitcoin Forum

For those who had Bitcoins right before the Chinese Government's announcement this week and didn't sell them right after the announcement, why didn't you? I'm just curious.

Now I can think of 4 possibilities:

1- You thought the price will go back up and so got hold of your Bitcoins --> Very bad decision
2- You couldn't sell them due to the lack of buyers --> Plausible but unlikely
3- You are emotionally attached to your Bitcoins so you don't want to lose them no matter what --> You need a psychologist
4- When you found out about it, it was already too late --> I forgive you

(More reasons are welcome)

Now here's the explanation for the comments I included right after each possibility.

For reason # 1:

This would be a bad decision if you believe the money you could have made by selling high and buying back at a lower price is greater than the transaction costs associated with these two transactions. Let's say for example that transaction costs for trading Bitcoins is at 1% the value of your total transaction; in this case if you sold at 1,200$ which is nearly the value of each Bitcoin at the time of the news and bought back towards 700$, the value at which a Bitcoin became more stable, you would have made = [(500$ - transaction costs) x (the number of Bitcoins traded)], out of thin air.

The only counter-argument to this analysis would be to convince me that it wasn't normal (according to market dynamics) for a Bitcoin to fall for more than 2- 3% after the news (the break-even point at which you would have been indifferent to sell or hold your Bitcoins).

For reason # 2:

This is a plausible reason, and one which I wouldn't argue to much, except for the fact that I believe we have liquid markets for Bitcoins nowadays, and it's always possible to find a sucker who's willing to pay a higher price than market perception for a Bitcoin. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

For reason # 3 & 4:

No comment

bitcoin hasn't developed it true potential yet. And to benefit from a correction you need to be able to have the technical skills and the wisdom to predict prices.

At this stage this is the better strategy:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345065.0

How about

"Cause I didn't wanna"

Why didn't you sell your gold, silver, or your car?

think again.
the risk involved having fiat on an exchange is possibly the main reason followed by people having their coins locked (cold storage or investments)

It's a pain for me to convert BTC to fiat and I don't want to get fiat stuck in an exchange I can't withdraw from.

Call me lazy, but it's easier to just buy things with BTC.

Because my car didnt crash in a ditch  ;)

Because I don't have any.

But for someone who has, it's either because there were no buyers, or the price drop (or difference) was perceived to be lower than transaction costs.

cause i don't need too, duh  ::)

I didn't sell because BTC is much harder to acquire than fiat.

I didn't sell because everyone on speculation said to sell, and I tend to not believe anything that comes out of that section of bitcoin talk.  :D

So some of you mentioned that its hard to buy Bitcoins from trading platforms? Is this really the case?

Doesn't seem logical as prices are set by the demand & supply dynamics. So if price is now 600 and you offer to pay 605$ you'd probably be able to get it at such a price. This would off-course also depend on volumes traded, but it seems there isn't a lack of it. Correct me if I'm wrong here or if there's anything I'm missing.

50% correction, you should have been here for the 80-90% ones, this price move isn't any big deal. The parabolic rises are great, exhilarating the drops are character building and make the next move all the sweeter.

Bitcoin is high risk highly volatile putting more fiat in than your willing to lose is a mistake, a comfortable amount invested long term is the best method.

After all it's your mentality and the many others like you that's causing the price drop  ;D

You, along with a couple other users don't seem to understand my arguments. Please make an effort to grasp the idea behind the post and then hit me with your wisdom, Gosh...

My Bitcoins love me and will never leave me :(

But seriously paper money is so hyperinflated I'm not letting go unless it's necessary to pay for things I can't otherwise just trade coins for.

Take your pick:

• Counter-party risk.
• Capital Gains Tax.
• I had no access to a suitably secure computer at the time.
  

I didn't sell because I couldn't care less about the exchange rate or whether it will go up or down.

Guys you do know that markets react and correct in a matter of hours right? (sometimes minutes)

So stop telling me that you didn't convert to fiat because fiat is inflated and what not. Fiat will not inflate in couple of minutes for God's sake. You could've executed the strategy I mentioned in a matter of hours (or few days at most), and ended up with the same number of Bitcoins you started with and cash money on the side........

Since most of you are too lazy to do something about it, I'm thinking of maybe opening a Bitcoin wealth management fund and make myself a couple of bucks...

Actually there are a number of people having BTC who aren't traders and who don't have accounts at exchanges. Trading BTC for fiat and vice versa is pretty difficult then, and the spread (for example with localbitcoins) is much higher than 2-3%. Add to that equation the effort necessary to do all this, and soon it looks a lot less attractive.

Onkel Paul

I think it's because the last month convinced people that nothing can stop bitcoin from hitting the moon  ::)
I mean the main debate before the china crash was if bitcoin will reach 100k or 1m$ . It's not easy to sell after that  :P

Because I didn't wanna get GOXXXED!

Great so please concentrate with me:

Suppose you start off with 10 Bitcoins, market price is 1,200$
> China announcement is live
> You sell your 10 Bitcoins at 1,200$ each and you pay 120$ transaction fee (1% of total), and end up with: (1200 x 10) - 120 = 11,880$
> 2 Days later price of Bitcoin seems to stabilize at 700$
> With the 11,880$ you made selling your initial Bitcoin, you buy back Bitcoins at 700$ each. So now you'll have 11,880/700 = 16.97 Bitcoins
Remove 1% transaction fees and you'll get 16.8 Bitcoins

WOW! Magic! Guess what, you're 68% wealthier than 2 days ago....

So now couple of years down the line, you'll have 16.8 million dollars worth of Bitcoins instead of only 10 million dollars....

Capich?

Self control.

Reacting to any market move in an emotional manner is not very smart.
It's impossible to predict the movements, and it takes time to grasp the true meaning of any development.
On top of that, holding fiat or BTC in exchanges is very risky.

Sometimes the best action is just no action.

So, if calling holders names makes you feel good about yourself, be my guest.
I kept my coins and will probably keep them for a long future, until I feel Bitcoin's awareness level is saturated, and it has exhausted its growth potential.

Better yet.  You sell at 700, pay the $70 transaction fee = $7000
2 days later the price is $1200.  You end up with 5.833 (ignoring transaction fees because I'm lazy)
2 days later the price is $300 you sell for $1750 minus transaction fees of $17.50 = 1732.50
2 days later the price is $1000 you buy 1.732 coins

Over and over and over.

2 days later your spouse leaves you because you're addicted to gambling, AKA bitcoin.

Then you have half as many dollars because your spouse took half your shit.

Obviously if you can time the market then that works, but it has been demonstrated all over the world that market timing is a suckers bet, and no one can do it reliably, repeatedly.

Who wouldn't have anticipated Bitcoin would go down in value after the Chinese government's announcement? give me a break.

I agree it's hard to catch the lowest value it would reach, that's why I said 700$ and it's when Bitcoin's price stabilized...but anyways if you sold at 1,200$ buying back at any price below 1,000$ would've made you money (or Bitcoins for this matter).


Or maybe visit a doctor to cure your nonsense

this is very similar to what i posted 2 days ago https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=358584.0;topicseen

So you agree with me? does my logic make sense to someone at least? :p

First of all, your tone is annoying. But that aside, you don't seem to have very much experience trading in markets. You actually are using  hindsight to spell out how much money you could have made if... Then you have the audacity to act like everyone should have the ability to do that. That's not how short term trading usually works. And people who are successful at short term trading don't buy at the top and sell at the bottom over and over until they have "millions of dollars". In fact people who try to trade the way you described lose their ass every time.

If your juvinille advice actually worked no one would be poor. No wait...  See the simplest logic proves you are a fool.

But jump on in fool.  Put your money where your mouth is.  You'll likely be putting a timy bit of it in my pocket in the end.

Thanks.

By the way.  If bitcoin makes anyone rich in the end the vast majority of them will get there by buying and holding.  But that is another topic.

You are talking about a strategy that has been used by hedge funds and that haven't worked.

I agree this strategy wouldn't work in a mature market like the stocks market because transaction fees are higher than the profit you could be making by doing it. But it has been proven that with sophisticated models this strategy could work if transaction fees don't exist (just trying to make the point that I have more experience in markets than you think). But all opportunities in a mature and efficient market cancel out with time... (I can even give you a small lesson about how arbitrage was much easier when the stock market was less mature and is now extremely hard if existent at all)

But then the Bitcoin market is not mature yet, far from it. Which means that volatility is so high, it's very easy for the value of a Bitcoin to go up and down by 50% as a reaction to news, which makes the profits you make offset the transaction fees. This is not true for mature markets as I said, and this is why this strategy cannot be done there...

But I wasn't actually debating on whether to use this strategy as a long term thing, I was debating about something else, but it seems you didn't get my point...

Capich?

What if this v common scenario plays out:

Sell at $1200 as per your plan
Buy back at $700 as per your plan
Price drops further to $300-$400
Now you're waiting another 1 year for price to recover so you can make a profit.

The above scenario happens so many times in Bitcoin to so many people it's not even funny, it's one of the main reasons ppl just buy low and hold.

I'm surprised you couldn't think of 3 of the most obvious reasons:

1) Some people genuinely believe in it becomming a true currency, so why not hold onto the currency of the future.
2) Some hold very little, or generated it from mining or just free/task websites so would rather wait for any potential greater return.
3) I think a lot of people saw this sudden very steep rise of the past couple weeks as nothing more than a bubble which was going to burst, irrespective of the longterm trend. And if you see it as a long term trend, you're not losing anything, sure you can make some short term extra gains by trying to predict a bubble bursting, selling just before the burst then buying back in at the low, but if you just hold and see long term potentially, you're not losing any value that you already had either.

Count me in for 2) and 3). I saw this as a sharp bubble, but still see Bitcoin as a long term uptrend, in other words, I'm not at all worried, even when it dropped to almost $500 I wasn't worried. Also my bitcoins were generated from task websites, I haven't spent a single penny of FIAT, I want to see what happens in the long term. I wont feel like I lost much if Bitcoin dies, and honestly don't see Bitcoin dying anytime soon.

If the scenario you mentioned happens (which is quiet likely right? I agree) you'd then lose LESS money (or Bitcoins) than you would if you did nothing and kept your Bitcoins after the news came out. So either way you're better off.

You want me to do the math for you? (I'm assuming you're smart enough to figure it out)

Why should I trade my precious bitcoins for some funny paper money  ???

I don't get it - you think $700 is a ditch? LOL

I think there is a fairly obvious and quite simple reason that you are missing. Not everyone follows Bitcoin news and the exchange rate as closely as you do. Some people check in only occasionally or sporadically and ended up missing out.
Even more importantly, some individuals simply decided when they purchased their bitcoins to buy and hold, a very common investment strategy. Not everyone wants to be a daytrader.

No I'm not missing anything, in fact those two reasons, are included in the 4 reasons I mentioned...

I just think an opportunity is being missed here.....

As per my post linked above, logically it does make sense. I can say that I managed to actually execute the plan that is being described here and come out with more BTC after the crash BUT !!!!!! I can tell you this it was a very hair raising experience anticipating the right moments to buy and sell and agree that this method may work sometimes but repeated over and over could get you into trouble.

Timing is EVERYTHING and VERY easily missed and these transactions of Buy/Sell take time to execute and in the mean time the market is marching on..


That my 2 cents worth  ;)

I agree! Thank you for your positive contribution to this thread

The reasons why you can't sell on the spot is because volumes are not big enough yet for this market, and this was one question I had that I needed an answer for, so thanks for making it clearer to me...Cheers

Simply can't bother. Waiting for more serious amounts.

#1, because I love making bad decisions and I made me rich  ;D

Good for you I hope you'll always be

But you didn't give me a rational answer

...because I don't need dollars...

also another reason: you did not have a plan to cover taxes. i haven't even owned my coins for a year yet too.

because you cant predict how far it crashes, and even if it crashes in the first place, because bitcoin is very volatile and unpredictable. It may as well have been a minor dip and went even higher.
It's always easy to draw conclusions after the fact. Seems to be common amongst traders.

I tried my luck with short selling the day before yesterday and got my fingers burned. I am never going to do it again.

BTC is a wild currency. No one can predict when the prices will go up or down.

You probably wouldn't have been able to sell through a common channel.

Furthermore, high fees would have been required (both bitcoin tx and fiat fees).

Furthermore, cashing out of fiat would be very costly and would undoubtedly be delayed.

I did however sell some on localbitcoins at $800 a piece when the price was $1200.

You sold your coins for 67% of the actual rate? That's horrible. We had one vendor in Bitmit, who would mail banknotes in exchange for BTC, for a paltry 4% commission. Even after taking in to account the postal charges, the seller would get 94% of the going rate.

Also, there were a few buyers in Localbitcoins who paid using Western Union. They paid 90% of the going rate.

Because I already cashed in so much fiat profit by selling aprox. 10% of my BTC a couple of weeks ago that I don't need to sell any more Bitcoins in the next 3 years... Unless we'll hit $3,000 - then ill sell another 10%.

No need to risk your coins by day trading. If you have a decent volume slippage kills you, and fees are insanely high too.

I will buy from you for $1000 a piece when the price is $1200... !!!!

because I was buying and there was no reason for a crash since the china news wasn't bad.. just misunderstood.

I have huge balls, too.

I didn't sell because this is penny ante bullshit.

I didn't buy bitcoins to fuck around.

If you think you will always see profit trading, your wrong. This time you was lucky, so cheer it

See, if you sold (large portion) on the presumption that bitcoin necessarily would go down due to CNB remarks, you were gambling - because bitcoin didn't, for at least 24hrs. In the same timespan, Zimbabwe could have announced that bitcoin becomes it's national currency and suddenly the only way to obtain investable quantities of elephant poop is with bitcoins and the price would rise instead. Or the market could have almost totally ignored the news (as it did, initial 20% dip and immediate recovery was all that happened) and then some investors caused the crash by taking too much profit. So you never know, and if you don't actually have a way to predict the immediate movements of bitcoins with above-50% certainty, it's a gamble. So it's much safer to just buy the dips, unless the longterm trend would've turned down, but in that case we'd be at zero by now, since the only way it could happen if bitcoin is not usable anymore.

Because it's a bitch moving your money out and back into cold storage.

+1

Good luck to the time travelers.

I didn't sell because:

a) Crypto is better & easier to move/store than gold/silver.
b) World is headed for hyperinflation.

Cheers

well said +1

I completely agree! I don't care about the price. I buy stuff cuz I believe in it. Just because someone that had blocks of 5k coins and was selling them back to back and running ddos attacks on all exchanges. Pretty evident that was just to create fear in the community and when you buy for quality and not for the price. Quality always lasts!

I didn't sell because:

a) I will never sell (until we reach 100k/btc at least)

Best regards.

For the same reason I

- bought Bitcoin at $2 in 10/2011 even though Proudhon and friends said Bitcoin is dead
- kept them in March 2012 when it fell back from 7.80 to 4.50
- kept them in April even though everyone said Bitcoin is dead
- kept them after DPR was arrested even though ppl on this forum said that this is the end of Bitcoin

Because Bitcoin is here to stay.

Who cares for a temporary 40% loss? Sometime next year Luxembourg or Slowenia or Japan or Argentina or some other state will go bust and citizen/subjects are in for a bail-in. At that point, we'll consider $1200 ridiculously cheap.

If you open the newspaper what you can read is: Sell gold. Buy stock. That is about the same quality advice as you give.

I spend Bitcoin, I earn Bitcoin. Bitcoin is for spending and earning, not for conversion into dirty fiat.

EDIT: Bitcoin is also a store of value. Better than gold, because all you need to store that value is your brain. Whats wrong with storing wealth with Bitcoin as a frame of reference?

EDIT: I believe a Euro - the currency ppl use where I live - is a very abstract concept: it is not a IOU, it is a Who the fuck owes you nothing?. I do not consider any price in Euro for anything fair. Myself, I accept it only based on the greater fool theory. Giving that, your concept of "taking profit" is meaningless to me. I did buy a farm for Bitcoin, though, if you need to know.

i didnt sell because i am buying.  ;D

Here are some of the main practical reasons I didn't sell:

(1) I don't trust the exchanges, or any 3rd party, with my bitcoins.
(2) There are possible (negative) tax consequences to moving in and out of bitcoin on exchanges
(3) There are additional, and as yet unresolved, tax consequences to withdrawing significant sums of bitcoin, especially to US bank accounts.
(4) There are yet potentially more (negative) tax consequences to using non-local exchanges as a US citizen.
(5) If, in the US, I'm merely subject to capital gains, my tax rate is significantly reduced by holding my bitcoins for more than a year.

I've engaged an attorney and a CPA to work the details out for me, because it's actually quite complicated.  US citizens goofing around on foreign exchanges with sums of money the IRS would care about are playing a dangerous game, IMO.

Finally, I'd simply prefer to keep my bitcoin wealth in bitcoin and spend bitcoin for the things I want/need.  I've been in the market for a new vehicle or two, and now that there are a couple of dealerships in the US that sell cars for bitcoin, it's preferable to take care of that transaction without liquidating on my end.  The tax consequences are simpler to work out (at least right now), and greatly reduced on my end by simply spending bitcoin.

This is bad - feeling sorry for you. Why not leaving while you can?

I am very interested in all of this. Anyway you could make a thread when the attorney and CPA get back to you? I wasn't even aware of (4). Is that an additional percentage?

Bitcoin or the US?

because some of us arent allowed to leave or cant afford it.

If you cant afford to leave a sinking ship you can afford to get dragged down with it.

I don't really know how it all works, which is why I've hired somebody to figure it out.  What I do know, so far, is capital gains is the ideal scenario, but there are still a lot of open questions.  If you're in the US, and you're trading on foreign exchanges and withdrawing USD (especially atypical/large sums), and you're not personally equipped to work out the tax consequences of what you're doing, then you're playing a dangerous game that could come back to bite you later.  

I'm not saying don't use foreign exchanges.  I'm simply saying that if you think you can simply buy bitcoins on exchanges, and magically come to possess the results of appreciation and use it without any accounting, you are ignorant in a way that could cause you some pretty serious problems in the future.

As much as I'd love to move to some place friendlier to financial innovation that has more sensible tax laws, it's just not as simple as 1,2,3 pick up and move.  I've got a family here and extended family throughout the US and locally.  Also, my entire social life is here, and my job is here.  So, as much as I dislike the way things are going here, I just isn't clear that the social cost is overcome by the dislike I have for how things are going here and whatever financial advantages I might gain somewhere else.

I know bit offtopic but I mined coins instead of buying any, would waiting 1 year still qualify, or I had to buy the coins instead ?

This is very good advice. If Bitcoin hits mainstream I can almost guarantee all those traders in the US that are verified on foreign exchanges, that are not paying their taxes, will be getting the dreaded knock on the door. Please make a thread after you(they) figure it all out!

Not sure.  Hopefully I know more in the next few weeks.  In addition to having somebody understand tax obligations, and ways to legally reduce them, another reason I've hired an attorney is to have somebody familiar with the relevant legal processes who can represent me in case my bank were to threaten or close my bank account as a result of bitcoin related transactions.  At a certain point, you should hire your own attorney/cpa/both, because you're only going to go so far getting information from the internet.

Since the OP is feeling free to toss questions around, here's one for him.

You feel that your advice is such that you could be a bitcoin wealth adviser and yet, self-admitted, you owned no BTC when it topped over $1200. Why exactly is that? Didn't see it coming? You could've made lots of cash following your own advice there.

I have an idea, make yourself rich following your own advice (or go broke, which is more likely) then come back and try again.

Personally, I'll hold my bitcoins, spending a bit at each top I find attractive, meanwhile replacing what I spend by mining.

Thralen

I own no Bitcoins and in the part of the world where I live it's very hard to acquire them. The only way I could've acquired some is when it was economically feasible to mine it with ordinary laptops, but back then I wasn't aware of Bitcoin. Now with the current difficulty I don't think it can be done profitably (not with the equipment I have at least).

Having said that, I try to give my own POV regarding Bitcoin matters since I'm interested in the topic itself, and try to gather some counter-arguments to mine.

M reason was this,

I wasn't awake when the news came out. It came out around 3:40AM my time. I woke up around 6 am and saw I had missed the big dip, and the market was already recovering. It recovered for for quite awhile after and made it back to the $1100, and litecoin back to the $40 range after everyone figured out China hadn't actually banned bitcoin like what was immediately thought when the news first hit the media.

I figured if it was reovering and going upwards after the big misleading news stories, there was a good chance it could hold steady/rise more.

And then it proceeded to tank while I was stuck at work.

Thisssssss  ;D

Your argument is suggesting via hindsight people should have tried to catch a falling knife.

It really is it's own counter argument. :-)

I dont sell because having Bitcoins or USD at exchange seems risky to me. I will wait for safer options

You can't afford leaving the US after having sold 30k coins at $145?

Damn.

First I thought OP is experienced trader in BTC, now when knowing he doesn't even own coins this is a BS and noone new should listen to this, altough it sounds very simple and profitable.

I don't know if that was already mentioned in this thread - but there is yet another possibility - I did not sell, because I had sold a day earlier :)

if I sell and make a "profit", i owe fucking taxes (in USSA, cant escape IRS).  i'm long term bullish and dont know how to time the market.  so not only would i be gambling on predicting short term moves of the most volatile asset in the world, but even if im right i owe taxes and now the upside isnt as great.  if i could predict the market like masterluc id have sold.

It's risky and sometime it's painfully slow but don't forget that the economy of bitcoin is built around those exchanges. Everyone talking about the bitcoin price after all not about how great bitcoin is as a payments network.

Reading my initial post carefully you would've figured out I'm not an experienced trader in BTC. I wasn't tryina give you a lesson; I had a question mark at the end of my sentence suggesting I was asking a question....

Anyways I may not be an experienced BTC trader but I have good knowledge regarding financial markets since I did my studies there, but I'm more into theory than practice, and that's why I asked my question to get more insights into the matter.

ITT someone with no bitcoin tells everyone they should have sold at $1200 *after* the fact.

Obvious troll is obvious.

No kidding.

So you have no right to give your opinion regarding airplanes unless you own an airplane? this is what your logic is telling me.

Experts regarding subject matters don't need to own the thing they are experts on...just giving you some facts about life

On top of that...I never told you what to do. I'm asking a question. See my sentence has a question mark at the end. Gosh...

Well now it looks like you've got a good understanding about trading and how to increase your BTC holding, I suggest you try trading full time. Go forth and make your fortune.
Just make sure you come back and let us know how you get on.

You are an idiot?

Most of us have been where the OP is wondering how no one is seeing what we are seeing.

Then we try.... sure we catch a few get trades but after a few months we realize that we would be near the same place if we had done nothing besides buying and holding

In an absolute or a relative sense?

I would say I am an idiot in the eyes of an absolute one.

If you didn't get it, don't worry you're not expected to.

Ignoring the troll part of the post and answering the title "Why didn't you sell?".

I didn't sell because I believe Bitcoin is going to be much much more than what it is today.   To be more specific, I believe the value is significantly greater than $1k for what the future holds.   

That said, I don't believe the dollar is going away any time soon and even if it does Bitcoin is not yet ready to take on the transaction load.   We have much work to do with the protocol before we can equate to a Visa or even a Paypal.

OK, I admit I am being a bit harsh on OP.

Here is the thing the question as its phrased is black and white. OP suggests you can predict where the top is (or near enough), that you can know that after that top there will be a significant enough selloff such that it was worth selling, that you can predict where the short term bottom is (or near enough) to be able to rebuy. He fails to see that if this doesn't go 100% to plan then you could very well end up in a worse position, and fails to see just how unlikely it is that it will go 100% to plan.

All that stuff seems pretty obvious to me, which is why I get a bit cranky when people suggesting not selling is a bad decision, because there was some outside chance that I could have profited from a lucky trade.

"I'm an absolute idiot!" Refreshing honesty on the forums!  :D

I guarantee you won't end up with more everytime. If you truly think you can be my guest, nobody cares to hear you brag without anything to show for it. I'm sure that the majority of people here have more coins then you. There are whales that can move the market anyway they want, what will you do then? Cry?

Of course you'll get more coins with "your method"( ::)), but you also risk having less coins. Plus you have to pay capital gains.

I already made a good amount daytrading alt-coins and i'm just going to sit back for a little. Life is fun sometimes too. I'm sure i'll trade more in the future, for now I’m just buying.

How about you stick to your strategy and not be a dick while doing it, capiche?

I forgive you.

Thing is, we all agree the market dynamics of a Bitcoin is very different than that of stocks in a mature market. Right?

Here's something that is obviously happening to Bitcoin value: It is so volatile that its value is changing by a magnitude of 40 - 50% to either negative or positive news. Right?

My argument was that volatility is something that can be taken advantage of, which is in the scenario I have proposed.

I gave other reasons as to why this scenario would not work, but it seems you guys dismissed all of them and only focused on the initial one.  

Most of you told me that you either couldn't find a seller or that you were afraid you couldn't buy it back. Well guess what that satisfies the second scenario I've laid down which suggest that market illiquidity could be a factor.

Some other said because you can't predict. Well there's nothing to predict here. I clearly said "after the news came out", is there any prediction to be made here? value of a Bitcoin was certainly going down. That's like a company announcing that it didn't meet its targets for a specific quarter. In how many directions could its stock value go right after the news? ONLY ONE --> Down

Am I missing anything here?

It seems all you want to do is just defend the position of Bitcoin without being rational about it or having an open minded discussion. You believe in Bitcoin, fine that's great! Good for you! I hope you'll get rich because of it. But this topic has nothing to do with what you believe in the long term or about Bitcoin. Right?

i didn't sell, cuz there wasn't any guarantee that the price was falling

it easy to speak when thing already happened

Sorry, your topic asked why we didn't sell.  I communicated as such?   If you don't sell because you believe it will be much more than it is today why does that not count? 

it sure does look easy afterwards. but when you are heavy into bitcoin you may believe your financial wealth is stored here. probably not only for you but for your family and even some generations down. the only place to keep that is cold storage.

every other day you come across some news that could signal "the end of bitcoin" and every other day price volatiles up and down more than 20 %. if you don´t learn to NOT TOUCH YOUR COLD STORAGE every time you feel tempted, it will be gone soon.

for many this happened. others resisted the temptation, and those are the ones who still have their coins. op, you are actually asking us why we do what is the only thing that worked for us.

would you really gamble with the wealth of your future by putting it on an exchange that you cannot know for sure it is still there tomorrow? those exchanges are companies. they can vanish, be hacked, steal your coins, they can be seized, whatever....

furthermore, it is completely nervewrecking to try to find tops and bottoms. we have all been there, done that. succeeded, thought we figured it all out but one fucked up moment there is this wrong decision and here go some coins down the drain and that hurts much more than losing dollars.

my personal strategy is keeping 5% of my coins on an exchange. just to have something to "play" with when temptation gets overwhelming. in this crash i started to panic (sudden fear that it would be like 2011 with years for recovery) and went to 20 %  - but the most i have touched was 10 %.  

i have a friend who actually played an important role in my personal discovery of bitcoin. is argues like you: it´s is so easy to increase your bitcoin holdings with all this volatility - just buy low, sell high, rinse, repeat... easy. i always tell him i don´t see it being easy. he thinks i am stupid i guess. i asked him how many coins he has. the answer was: none.

Because even if you do believe that it'll be worth more than what it is today you could've still sold at 1,200 and bought back at 700. That's my whole argument.

You're not closing your position in Bitcoin, you're just enhancing your position by taking advantage of volatility.

IC.   In that case I did not sell because I am a horrible guesser and I figure it will go back up and over anyway.   I did buy more though.   And if it would just drop again I might buy even more :).   FWIW, your post came across a bit differently which may be why some people are riled up.

There is correction now. Put ALL YOUR money into Bitcoin and then give advices. It is quite different to play with YOUR OWN money.

I did not sell at 1200 because its a pita to get money in and out of the market. The damn week long wait for coinbase to fund my account.

I'm in it for the long term .

Maybe we have different definitions of "sold", but it is closing your position, albeit temporarily. Way too often this ends up badly, like for example closing your position on this last runup when 300 was considered "too high", would have been a money-losing mistake since you'd be buying back in higher. This things happen, and you need to remember - there never was a bad time to buy bitcoins (so far), but there were very many bad times to sell at prices which are not coming back anymore.

Well not all people are willing to day trade. Also it's easy to say sell at 1200 after the priced crashed.

But, to be fair, you would still end up with more BTC. If price drops to 300 and didn't sell at 1200, you would still have the same amount, and still waiting to make a profit, but when that comes you have more profit.

I have made a 0.5BTC profit with this downturn when I could have made much more, but I am obviously not as smart as others.

Now, excuse me, I am late to my psychologist appointment. This Bitcoin thing...

This seems brilliant, and obvious, in hindsight.  And if you did time it just like this for yourself this time, kudos.  But will you be able to do it again, and again?

I sold.  For sure.  Sold at $1107. Bought back in at $690.  Missed the bottom in both directions, but was happy to get SIXTY PERCENT MORE coins than what I had on Friday!  WooT!

congrats. my dick is bigger.

You just do not turn your back on an asset that has given you a 7,000% gain in less than 12 months. Calling tops consistently is sheer luck or black magic (what's it, masterluc?)

The only way to rule out emotion is to have a rational plan that fits both your circumstances and your needs.

You sold ALL your BTCs? That's a dangerous gamble. One that historically didn't succeed. - the one that has historically been a winner is pushing BUY at any given moment.

You got lucky. Probably you won't in the future. Try to accumulate as much coins as possible and then gradually sell for profit when you hit your targets.

Good luck.

Many people panicked after the shut down of Silk Road and sold their coins.  The rebound was really fast though and then many had to buy in at a higher price and ended up with less coins. The China situation could have had the same response. Nothing is a sure thing with BTC.

For some of us with BTC in cold storage, it is a bit time consuming to get coins on exchanges.  Then the risk of trading them is a bit daunting.  It is not a guarantee that the price will drop much.  For those of us that do not want to end up with more fiat then BTC it is just not worth the risk.  We are thinking long term here.  To end up with $10,000 or more in fiat now would be stupid if the BTC we sold is worth $100,000 in a few months.  It is way less risky to just buy and hold.

why should i sell at  $1200 ?  tis chicken feed 

Didn't sell because I saw what I interpreted as market manipulation which resulted in a combination of mass panic and speculators expecting "teh cheep coinz".  Sure, you can try to guess at precisely how dumb people can be ($800?  $700?  $600?), and if you guess right, congratulations.  But you're only guessing at mass psychology and the whims of the whales.  Generally, a foolish thing to do.  We'll rebound and things will go back to usual shortly.

Also, I tend to be morally opposed to contributing to panics to fatten my wallet.  I know most of you are in it for the quick buck, but some of us would rather sink or swim with Bitcoin.

I bought at 150 and will hold until I'm at a loss. Currently it's a constant win because every month it goes up.

Sort of a gamble... I'm still mining, so there's always new coins coming in. So if the prices rise, I win at mining, if the price drops, I win at buying back more coins than I had before. Fully hedged I am.

But of you know for certain it's a panic, you don't need to call the bottom. You just need to buy back coins at a lower price than what you originally bought them for.

Dude congratulations for being one of the smartest users on the forum.

This is exactly what I've been trying to explain to them all along and there you come and prove me right!

Thank you dude, thank you!

And for those who think this is gambling...well for sure you don't know what you're talking about.

Actually I would argue that holding your Bitcoins after the announcement would've been more gambling!

Thing is you're not getting the point.

The ones speculating are the ones who didn't sell while it was going down. Why? because you were speculating that the price will go up again. <-- this is speculating by itself.

Selling after the announcement was a safer strategy. 

If everyone sold, you would not be feeling like a winner ;) If i had sold everyone would have lost, so thank me this time ;)

And you have to understand that Bitchick came to this realization after daytrading .5 BTC for several months and ending up with...  .48 BTC.

Once you try it OP, you'll see just how "easy" it is.  I did buy and hold 2 more BTC this weekend since the price was significantly under $1000 and it's probably my last opportunity to do so.

LOL What announcement? Why would a sane person join this idiotic sell off caused by misinterpretation, and gox lag?

i did sell. started selling at 1000 and ended when it crashed.  :-\

congrats on "winning" by redefining words to mean what you want them to. stand up job. I'm sure everyone who reads this thread will be teh smrtr for it.

quick poll. hands up those people who lost BTC recently by holding?


...@....

looks like those who sold and tried to "time" the bottom lost coins or gained fractions, all that time and stress for nothing lol

you seem to be smart. so please tell me:

is this a bull trap right now, should i sell now to buy back later and cheaper ?

or is the btc going back to da moon for sure and i am missing the train if i don´t buy back now ?

facts are known now: chinese news wasn´t actually that bad at all, more of a market panic. or did a lot of buyers lost faith now and this is just a dead cat bounce back ?

op, let´s say you got 100 k on stake, what do you tell me to do. of course i will sue you if it doesn´t come out the way you advise me. (just to get you to a really serious advise.)

if you have balls, please tell me.

Hindsight is always 20/20, some people just take it to extreme.

That's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? I sold a decent portion of my btc holding at ~950-1000, re-bought at ~700-750. Sure, I didn't sleep as good as usual during the weekend, and was somewhat distracted most of the time, but I made an approximately 30% coin profit. Was it worth it? Sure.

30% from decent portion = 3% of all your coins ?

About 10% total. Maybe we have different definitions of "worth it"?

And what % is increase in coins since begin of year ?

You mean in USD terms?

If that's what you have in mind: my trading gains are obviously much smaller than the pure appreciation gains, but if you have some internal btc goal in mind and invested already all or most of the fiat you want to, any further progress towards that goal has to come from active trading.

I was asking if you increased your bitcoin stash by trading.

5- I did not know how this announcement will effect the price. I tell you, what I did:

1. Suddenly I saw a red boner on the btc-e chart. I wanted to know what happend, but there was no good news. Then finally something clearer, but I didn't know. Did China ban Bitcoin? Will they ban it? Who can use it? Was it just a recommodation by the central bank?
2. So I sold my Bitcoin for dollars and then had to watch the price rise again. Very good. Panic over. Bought back btc and had less btc.
3. So the day afterwards you can look at the chart. The price went down and up. I made the same wrong decision again and was left with less btc again.
4. After losing 300€ I stopped trading.
5. I did not sell at 600€, not at 500€, not at 400€, not at 500€, not at 600€ and now it is back at 650€.  

I only recently finished my 'buy in'  period. Since then, my trades were btc profitable, despite taking place in the bull market. Ironically, my trades earlier this year, during the April aftermath, were btc neutral, but I was completely new to trading then and still had to learn even the most basic methods (not that I'm very experienced now. But I feel confident trading the larger swings at least)

SO you're telling me if you hold your Bitcoins you never lose. Maybe true, but I never said this wasn't true.

This would've also been true if you bought the S&P 500 stocks in 1950 and held it till today (you would've actually made many times your money back). Does that mean this is the best strategy you could've made? Does that mean you made the most returns in the world?

I'm just saying you can gain EVEN MORE by just using your common sense to take advantage of volatility (opportunities).

I'm sorry you are so dumb you can't even give good arguments. I'm not answering your crap anymore.

JayB, please let us know: should we sell now? Yes or not? If yes - where should we place our bids?

Answer that and prove you can consistently beat the market or you are just a troll.

You too, don't get my point. I never said I am an investment guru that never loses money.

Spotting an opportunity doesn't mean I can give you a failure proof advice for the rest of your life. This could've been a one time opportunity, but it was clear to me then that it was an opportunity to be taken advantage of.

All the factors were pointing out that money could be made when it happened, and I'm glad some users too advantage of it.

If you don't understand something does that make it dumb?

You got tantalisingly close to grasping it but couldn't quite make the mental leap. The corollary to the question I asked is 'hands up those people who lost BTC trading?'. Of course you probably don't understand why that is important so I will explain.

The reason I didn't ask that question, is because everyone will tell you about the trade they won, not many people will tell you about the losses. That goes for this board, for wall st traders, for poker players, the guy in the bookies betting on the nags, the old lady on the slots in vegas and every other risk/reward scenario in the world. Its an innate feature of human psychology regarding loss aversion. Gamble for enjoyment by all means, but never kid yourself you will win (in the long term) unless you are the house.

See you keep making all these posts about how smart you are, and then also making all these posts that demonstrate you are as thick as two short planks, and need everything explaining to you in terms a 12 year old will understand.

You aren't interested in understanding any viewpoint other than your own. You keep reframing your argument in ways to prove how right *you* are and how everyone else is wrong. Your posts reek of insecurity and a need to prove how smart *you* are. You aren't even interested in arguing the matter at hand, just your personal standing.

I don't care if I am wrong about which way BTC is headed, I just execute trades based on rationality, sane risk/reward, and preservation of capital. I don't care how smart or great people think I am, it doesn't really matter in the end. If I say some dumb ass shit, I expect to get pulled on it, and I'll think about what I said and come back stronger.

Here is an example. I used to think I could trade, then I found out I couldn't then I found out that nobody could. TA is apophenia, a chart can be found to retrospectively justify any trade. Statistics quite handily demonstrate why there are trading legends. The people that 'can' trade are lucky. Sometimes a heads comes up 100 times in a row. At any second you could lose it all.

Whereas you by your own admission, have no skin in the game, but need to come on a forum and tell people what they should be doing, even though you don't even understand the basic concept of risk/reward. Have a deluded idea that you can somehow predict that $1200 was the sell point even though it could have been anywhere from $80. Don't seem to grasp, despite having had it explained to you countless times over, that if the trade goes wrong you can incur significant losses.

Markets are primed to screw traders. The bitcoin market is primed to utterly destroy you. If you knew the first thing about the concept of anti-fragility, or hedging against black swan events then you would shrink into a corner embarrassed at how naive your view of things is. I apologised before because I thought maybe I was being too harsh. Your flippant response to that demonstrates material immaturity and an abhorrent personality flaw that is really going to screw you up in life at some point. I realise now I wasn't being too harsh but too kind. You are a child that needs grow the f' up.

Sure you might catch a few good 'trades' on the way. When it all comes crashing down and you are crying in the ashes of your own ruin maybe then you will feel the humility necessary to count yourself as 'human'.

Please do stick to your word and don't even bother trying to respond. You'll just embarrass yourself even further.

Meh. You know (cause I told you already :D), your posts get a lot of respect from me, sgbett. This one is no different, 95% insightful, but a sweeping line like "TA is apophenia" is just, no offense, dumb. Might as well claim particle physics is like predicting lottery numbers -- just because the process is stochastic doesn't mean there are no patterns.

I can't stop laughing.

I've read Nassim Taleb's books as well. Not only that but I've been following him on Facebook for the past 4 years or so. You're not saying anything new to me.

Not only that but I have a degree in finance from a very reputable school. Not only that, but I have actually come up with my own model of pricing non-dividents paying European options that my professor couldn't find a flaw in. You want me to continue?

I'm not trying to brag about anything, I just want to make a point once and for all that I know the "Finance" and trading topic very very well. It seems it's you who doesn't want to have an open minded view about what I'm trying to say.

What you fail to see is that all the things you've been reading on Black Swans and "randomness" sure exist, but u fail to see how unrelated my original post is to those events. IF ANYTHING, holding your investment for an extended period of time would have a much higher probability for you to experience those events and lose a big share of your investment.

Mature markets behave in a certain way, and new ones in quiet a different way. I don't think you fully grasped the content of the last couple of books you've read. And for your info Nassim Taleb was a big speculator himself, he was betting that the market will crash for the most part of his life (the fat tails of a normal distribution) and made it in 2008.

If you want to talk more about that I'll be happy to do it in person, check your inbox for my Skype ID. But I think things have gone way to far here....
 

There is always a chance your "common sense" will turn as a disadvantage one of these days, don't you think?
Why don't you create a thread and show us your long/short and we see, it's so easy to predict what just happened 10 minutes ago.

My common sense says that we are about to crash for a few weeks now, not because of this I sold any of my coins

I should've opened a topic saying "You guys are awesome, for all those holding up to your Bitcoins, keep up the good work", and I would've got praised like a God. You just want me to feed your ego so that "I make sense"?

I've seen the dumbest of topics in this forum applauding Bitcoin holders get the most praise in the world. If you guys can't grasp a topic in an open minded way I rest my case.

How about this?

Buy 1 bitcoin right now.  When you have 10, then let us know how you did it.

Because those of us who have been around a long time realize that all our crazy activity ended up doing worse than just buying and holding.  So now we just buy and hold.  It's really easy to come on here and say stuff while never having tried it yourself.  Talk is cheap.

Do not risk it all to gain little. Risk little to gain lots. He made his money with options designed to pay off big when unpredictable stuff happened, which it inevitably did, not by trying to time the market. Are you sure your read his books.

Do you understand that whilst you are trying to capture small gains by trading in and out there is a chance that the market will suddenly and very unpredictably move massively against you.

When you read stuff you are supposed to understand it for what it says, not just make it fit your pre-conceived view.

sorry for my sweeping and somewhat misleading statement - you are right the truth is more complicated I agree - but I had to keep it simple for this very special case.

what I should have said is 99% of traders are 100% lucky. 1% of traders are only 49% lucky - they are 'the house' so to speak.

I knw that very well

But what Nassim labeled as "Randomness" wasn't actually absolute randomness. Randomness doesn't exist in this world. There are scientists who would argue it does exist on a sub-atomic level, but in our physical world it doesn't.

What Nassim labeled as randomness is merely the inability of human brain capacity to predict certain complex events.

For me the move that happened after the Chinese government's announcement wasn't a complex event that couldn't be predicted, but merely an action-reaction phenomena. You can argue that this could be the case 99% of the time and then there's 1% chance a black swan would occur and the market would move in a way that is different to what I predicted. Fair enough, but I'm willing to take this chance myself. And I believe if you take this chance in a new and volatile market like that of Bitcoin, even if you are proven wrong in rare circumstances you'd still make a decent return (may not be true for mature markets as I said).

Are we on the same page now?

You are getting these types of responses because it appears you are trolling us.

Your "sell at 1200, buy at 700" is very easy in hindsight, but how do you know exactly how the market would react to the China news? The price could have easily gone down to only 1000, then back to 1200. How do you know where to place your bids? If you miss your bids, when do you buy back in? What if the market were to jump back very quickly above your original selling point, before you realized your original bids were not going to be hit?

To answer your topic question, I did not sell because I do not actively trade, I am not interested in short term movements. I know I cannot be accurate (enough) with short term speculation, I'd rather not risk my coins in this way.

Traders like oda.krell have years of market experience and are much better equipped to time these price swings than the average bear. I'd listen to his advice way before Captain Hindsight here.

Put your money where your mouth is, JayB. Will the price break $1000 in the next 48 hours or is this a dead cat bounce? Let's see this mind in action.

Arguing with you two clowns (cscape & bassclef) is like debating with my cat.

Unless you have something intelligent to say please spare us your nonsense.

I've been debating on an intellectual level with some of the users here, and you two come and spoil the party.

Oh please, I asked some very basic questions. We can agree the China news was negative, but how do you know exactly what the price will do?

Edit: Didn't see you changed your post and removed my name.

I'm sorry I included your nickname at first by mistake, I corrected it afterwards.

You can't predict with 100% certainty. But with a high enough level of certainty (above 90% or so I'd say) you make a gain in the long term. The reason why this works in a new and volatile market (and not necessarily in a mature market) is because the moves are so big (40 - 50%) that the gains you make by having a high enough certainty would offset the losses you make by missing it few times and incurring transaction costs.  

Edit: The reason why I know the Bitcoin market will move so drastically is simply because for the past 4 years it did so. It is true for nearly all new markets. I don't see why it would've been different this time (although it could've acted differently this time, but odds were saying otherwise). I was merely playing on odds. Off-course it's risky I never said it wasn't. But my argument is the odds were in my strategy's favor so why not take the chance. Life is about taking risks, and it's all about benefiting when the odds are in your favor. That's all I'm saying. 

This is interesting as it sheds light on some of the nuances the OP doesn't really see.

Well..  There were several different types of wagers described in your post. A few of them were completely negative expected value bets. For example the old lady at the slot machine. That bet is expected to lose over the long term. You also mentioned poker, horse racing, and of course timing the market. These three all have a -EV for most and a +EV for a few. You can win money at poker.

In fact it is how I built my bitcoin stake slowly over the last 2 years. I am NOT A extraordinary poker player by any means except I am able to combine bankroll management with some skill at low stakes to win over the long term.

Similarly market traders can do this successfully if they are knowledgeable disciplined and lucky. I imagine trading Bitcoin is like skiing Mount Everest. There are many opportunities hiding in this arena for those who are skilled. But more than half the game is knowing when not to play. This is true for poker as well as trading Bitcoin. And just like poker the vast majority of traders would be unsuccessful and in a market like this one get their asses handed to them. So congratulations to all of us dumb buy and hold idiots to use Jays words. Congratulations to us for knowing to stay out of the game.

One thing you learn to do after a million poker hands or so, is spot a fish.

OP is a fish.  I'd welcome him at my table any time.

nah, I guess OP is a bitch  ;)

I could argue "that this could be the case 99% of the time and then there's 1% chance a black swan would occur and the market would move in a way that is different to what I predicted" but I didn't.

If that was the case, then your e.v. would be better, so of course your follow on statement makes sense.

The thing is the reality is that its more like 50% of the time you will be right and 50% you will be wrong. (nod to oda: some amongst us might be able to shift the odds to a few percent in their favour and get a positive ev in the long run and more power to them, but I bet even the best amongst them didn't *know* to sell at 1200 and buy at $700, I expect their gains were much more tame and much more wary of risking the whole stash. Just as the best poker players in the world know all about bankroll management.)

So on the whole the average joe is facing a losing proposition trading (is this really why you are suggesting people should trade?looking for a few more rubes?), unless you are *brilliant* or lucky. Thats the ~99% of cases. What remains is the chance of the black swan. As Taleb suggests, you position yourself to take advantage.

1. If BTC goes to 'da moon' you want to be holding as many as you can.
2. If BTC goes to 0 (or near enough) and never recovers you don't want to have missed out on the good times.

To hedge against #2 you take a little off the table at well planned intervals, but you try not to compromise #1. That's your big 'option' play so to speak. The insurance against BTC becoming new money whilst you had your eye off the ball.

Apply some math so to tweak your ordered for your own preference of locking in gains now vs potential bigger gains later. Stick to the plan. Zero downside and unlimited upside. Its the holy grail.

Possibly having 20% more BTC to then risk in the next trade where I might lose it all. Thats a bad proposition in anyones book.

I dont believe for a second this would happen (thats why its a black swan!) but...

Imagine another run up over christmas the price goes 'over $9000' ;) then levels out at $9250, volume drops off, the sell side on gox is absolutely huge, buy side is weak... a red candle forms below the 10 day ema, then below the 30 day... bids are drying up, the sell side is f*kn huge and growing at an astonishing rate as so many 'normal' people are sitting looking at gains beyond there wildest dreams. tens of thousands of dollars for 2 or 3 btw that they picked up at $600 back in november....

You are convinced this is the next swing trade, you quickly dump your stash and get a good, no *great* price: $8900 only 5% off the ATH, you have thousands of dollars in play and bids every $200 all the way down to th 68% fib retracement so you can 'get back in cheaper'. By your best estimates you should have around 40% more BTC once this correction is over.

Then as the sell side is finally deep enough that Warren Buffet is able to put in that 210k BTC order he's been looking to fill without pushing the price over $20k. The asks are obliterated up to $18,500 WB is delighted that he averaged in at only $14k only $3bn to get 1% of the money supply, he was just hedging against BTC becoming new money. You are now all in dollars facing a potential 50% haircut on your BTC. The panic sends the markets racing higher... when do you buy. WB famously 'never sells' those BTC aren't going to be back on the market for a long, long time. What do you do.. the price is already over $20k and you haven't even had time to log into gox to place your orders to get back in, and really are you gonna rush to jump back in for a 50% loss? You are going to hesitate... $25k .... You are going to capitulate and buy in, then immediately take a 20% haircut as the price then stabilises at $20k.

Phew. what a ride!

I was asleep whilst all that happened and when I wake up the next morning I have a little chuckle about the fact the BTC has gone and done it again and shake my head in disbelief whilst putting through a SEPA transfer because a few of my sell targets were breached. Tell the wife who laughs again. We continue to joke about when I'll be able to get that porsche for 1BTC that she said I could have :) all the while not really believing it will ever happen, but at the same time starting to wonder....

Then, continue to hold... For The Longest Time™

+5 Insightful

I am an awful poker player. I know exactly what I should do, but I go ahead and do whatever I feel like doing. I am great at bankroll though and so I have loads of fun because I lose exactly what I knew I was going to ;)

Like the old lady at the slots, I am paying to be entertained, and there is no harm in that, unless you don't know that is what you are doing.

The only time this stops being complete bullshit is when you are able to publish your trades in some thread, about the time when they happen, not three days after. Without that, your hindsight is not at all interesting or entertaining. But the reality is a bitch, and once you start publishing your actual trades, you won't open threads like this one :) In fact I don't think you would've even seen BTC at 1200 as you'd been completely wiped out of the game five times by now.

There's a difference between making money 50% of the time and losing the other 50%, and being right 50% of the time and wrong 50% of the time. You are confusing things my friend.

If you pick a stock randomly today and predict it will go up in the next hour without gathering much information about it, you'll have 50% chance being right and 50% chance being wrong. Now if you not only make that prediction but also put money into it, you'll have less than 50% chance of making money and more than 50% chance of losing money. Why? simply because you have to incur other costs in the process (i.e. transaction costs) and so you can only make money once the stock goes to a price beyond = (price when you invested + transaction costs + other costs).

The 50-50% odds you are giving would probably apply to the movement of a random stock in the market today, all else constant.

Now if on the other hand you pick a stock that is affected by a recent news (just like Bitcoins after the Chinese government's news) there will be more than a 50% chance the stock in question will go down in value if the news is negative and more than a 50% it will go up in value if the news is positive. I would confidently say the stock will go down at least 90% of the time if the news is negative and  up at least 90% of the time if the news is positive. Now off-course this will not go on infinitely, there's a time window when this will occur (but that's another topic).

So you tell me, if that's the case and it's that simple, then why don't most people make money trading right after news come out? there are a couple of reasons:
1- They find out about the news or act upon it once its too late (once the value adjustment has been made), and this happens much more quickly in mature market like the NASDAQ or the NYSE.
2- They perform the trade at the right time but the transaction costs offset the possible gain they can be making in the process. Why?
   - Because in mature markets stocks are less volatile and so move in a lower magnitude than new markets. That is to say that while Bitcoin might lose 40% of its value to a negative news, for a mature company the loss in value might be 1 or 2%, and so the transaction costs are high compared to the gain they could be making, which on average would cancel out the gains that are made in the process.

The reason to the above explanation has to do with an economic phenomena that says the following: In a system where there are enough players, and where information is equally available to everyone at the same time, opportunities cancel out. It doesn't mean that opportunities don't exist at all, it just means that opportunities don't exist on the long term. Meaning that if you are among the fastest 1% of people who short the stocks of a company after bad news, then you can make money in the process, but you can't beat the market all the time. Sometimes you'll beat the market and sometimes the market will beat you, and so on average it's a zero sum game.

This is why they say mature markets are efficient. Efficient in the sense that as long as money can be made, new players will join until the market reaches equilibrium (gains = losses).

What's different about trading Bitcoin? The only and most significant difference is that the economic conditions discussed earlier STILL don't apply. Meaning that not enough players are playing the game, or not enough players have access to information. By not enough players I mean, an amount of players that is not sufficient for opportunities not to exist. Those opportunities may disappear if more players join and the market becomes more liquid and less volatile. But for the time being, it's not the case. And this exactly, is why I said actively trading (in a rational way) might work in your favor for now ( because equilibrium is not reached yet).

Ugh, you are totally off topic with the trading fees argument. That has little to do with the point I'm making.

I'm going to draw a comparison here with the diet industry.

In the 1980's the USDA published guidelines about what comprises a healthy diet.

30 years later and in the face of overwhelming evidence against what they recommend at the time university educated nutritionists still recommend a 'balanced' diet based on those principals. Such that the foundation is bread and cereal.

Obesity, type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome are running rampant. The nutritionists have tried everything to justify why their food pyramid can't be wrong. They just can't see the glaring truth that people should eat plant matter first and foremost (vegetables). Everything else sparingly.

You remind me of those nutritionists, university educated, smart enough yes, but so sure of what you have been taught being 'true' that you refuse to think for yourself.

Time and time again in this thread people have spelled out the folly in trying to trade based on such naive heuristics as 'the china news was bad, so I would have sold'. I gave you an unlikely, but yet quite possible scenario in which you could lose badly and you ignore it. Instead telling me all about how you can find out the news before anyone else, know exactly how that news is going to affect the market, and then trade accordingly.

The news does not move markets, people move markets, and people are hard to predict. If people are hard to predict, then you are better off using something else. Even elliot waves is better than trying to trade the news!

I ask you this - how do you know the china news was bad, did you know that as soon as you read about it (because to me it looked good) or are you only able to tell us that after the fact because there was a sell off. Did you read about it before the market moved, or was the market already moving? If it was how far had it moved, do you still have time to make the trade, how did you know it wasn't going to reverse sharply?

Have you not noticed that every day the financial news is full of post-hoc rationalisation about why the market did this or that today. Its all written *after* stuff happened. At best you get semi-predictive news, written by somebody from an organisation that has a vested interest in trying to influence market sentiment one way or another. Much like you are doing now.

Was the silk road news bad, it certainly looked it, turns out the market rallied after that little bombshell. How is the fed taper going to affect the PM market? What's the news coming out of switzerland going to do to the price? Why are we already closing back in on $1000 is it a dead cat bounce or the next leg up? Was it the keiser report that explained the run up in LTC, or the interest in china, if it was china what caused them to pick it up? Do the chines watch the keiser report? how do you explain the subsequent NMC rise, a count that was so badly broken it looked to be going to zero.

Most of all I would like to know what on earth sparked the 2000% ANC rally on nov 22nd? I was just hours away from having some serious coin in that, bitcoin was flat, I put in a buy just under market price expecting it to fill, I came back the next day and 90% of my order hadn't filled (at least I got that tenth!), instead it had tripled overnight. What should I have done at that point? (I actually just bought what I could and had to be satisfied with the smaller position, because I believe ANC brings something new to the alt coin scene - here I go pumping it up eh!) Anyway god knows what triggered the rise - perhaps it was my buy order? Bitcoin was flat (for bitcoin) that day. Maybe a dog barked in Sweden?

Why the rise in FTC on the 30th, and why the subsequent retreat? Do you know? I don't but I was able to acquire more BTC through rebalancing and still retain a significant amount of FTC.

I watched all of these happening, I watch a lot of alt coins all the time, its starting to prove more profitable than my day job. I'm mostly in BTC but I also have a little bit of various other coin that I think might be contenders. I read the news and watch the charts but I don't pretend to believe that I have enough information to be able to 'trade' the way you describe it. I gently rebalance my portfolio, I look to mitigate risk, I massage the numbers to keep the ship on course. I do not chase the pennies. I let the coin do the work, and when it has appreciated according to the plan, I sample its fruit. I do *not* chop down the tree thinking a bigger one will grow!

This (to me) is reality, its about preservation of capital, acting rationally, keeping cool through the lunacy of the whole thing. I wasn't old enough to be part of the dot com boom and bust, but this is comparable, maybe even bigger.

I survived through the practical application of knowledge gained from being in various markets for some years. Equities, leverage trades, options. I had successes, which seemed to be perfectly understandable because the markets did exactly what they signs said they would do. I patted myself on the back. The losses, were excruciating, because the markets, they did exactly the opposite of what they said they were going to do - but only just enough to stop you out, before going on to do exactly what you "knew" they were going to do :) I was convinced that TA worked... and it does, until it doesn't. It was round that time when I read talebs work. This is what changed my stance on TA. I can see how it works, and I can see that if you have enough resources and are quick enough you can gain an edge, but the stress and time for the gains (with limited capital, you can only make limited gains) it just doesn't add up. So I had to unlearn everything I knew. Now I am like those annoying ex smokers, that cough and splutter in public at the merest whiff of a cigarette. No really, I *am* one of those annoying ex-smokers ;)

Then, more specifically with BTC I learned through the stress of trying to work the $1-$32 bubble, and the anguish of what to do in the months that followed, how the charts didn't behave like they 'should' how nothing seemed to make sense.

This experience taught me so much about bitcoin, and more importantly about myself, what my greed and fear looked like, how they affected me. Why I did the things I did. Only then was I able to confidently instigate a plan, and to have the patience to execute it without fear that it is wrong. Everyone else in the world might think its wrong for them, but my plan is exactly right for me. This is when we come back to the notion that some random on the internet can come along and try and tell me "I should have done X": utter horse manure.

University teaches you a lot, I won't deny it but the most important thing is not to know stuff, but to know when you don't know stuff. I have to keep learning, I know I don't know shit about what is going on, and that is powerful, because that knowledge allows you to develop a plan that doesn't really on knowing what is essentially unknowable. So far, its all going swell, I am delighted to be me right now. Something I am not so sure I could have confidently said 5 years ago.

Seriously go ahead and try to trade! Or, save yourself some money by just posting what you *would* do if you had 100 BTC, as people in this thread have invited you to. See how it goes. I think sometimes the only way one really find out how hot the plate is, is by touching it yourself.

I'll start:

With my 100BTC my first move will be to move it all to an offline wallet, and wait.

IF anyone else wants to play along feel free :)

Very well said.

Unfortunately it will likely be deemed 'dumb'. :-)

I think it takes something more than common sense to successfully daytrade. Just look all those ridiculous wannabe daytraders that  are posting random graphs and consider that technical analysis.

cuz i dont hold btc except of one ;)

You just earned my respect (not that you need it but well...)

But it is an answer of this caliber that others have failed to say, and instead gave me all sort of nonsense.

I agree it might not be obvious at times how a stock will move following news. For me at least it was obvious the Chinese government's announcement would have a negative impact on Bitcoin, and this is usually true for all announcements based on facts and not just talk. Sure there might have been other "noise" going on in the market but noises usually cancel each other out. There's always the news that makes it to the headline (i.e. company missing estimates, or government banning something), that is more significant than the others, the one based on facts.

Reason why I don't own Bitcoins is because I don't have enough money to buy a quantity that makes me excited about this whole thing. Let alone not being able to buy because of the country I live in (few are the people who own Bitcoins here and its difficult to buy it from an online platform).

I sold 80% of my coins between 1100-1200. Picked up some coins on this crash but almost all out now. Really hoping that I didn't miscall this bull trap....

Nice of you to say, I'm honestly truly just looking out for other people, maybe I'm wrong. Who knows. I think mostly everybody on here is the little guy, I like to see the little guy do well.


I started with $100, its all I could afford at the time and all I felt I could risk.

The biggest risk I think today is having no BTC if it goes mainstream. YMMV.

Seconded. JayB's line of thinking is the reason why most people are stuck in financial dependence. It's part of the despair to not even do the little things which lead the path to prosperity.

addendum: There are two ways to accumulate bitcoin. The trading and the mining...

I see some people trying hard to find some bullish news to compensate for the china crisis. I 'm talking about the news from the swiss parliament.
That makes me suspicious.

Um it is .36 now after a few more bad attempts to increase my small holding trading.  :(  I did not even try to gain some of my losses back during this past week.  I have learned my lesson the hard way and as hard as it is say, BitChicksHusband was right yet again.  Sigh.  That is more painful then the lost .14 coin! ;)

good things come to those who hold

It did, and you were wrong.  Even if it goes to 0 tomorrow, for many, holding was the right decision because now they can probably cash out higher than they would have been able to from a panic sell.  Arrogant prick.

I sold a bit at around 1100 to buy Christmas gifts but left the rest of my coins in a cold wallet intact.

Why? I've traded long enough to know that it takes a considerable amount of effort and skill to time the markets consistently. A little bit of luck along the way helps too. I see Bitcoin as a long term thing, and I have other things going on in life that prevent me from focusing on short term Bitcoin trading. I am still holding on to coins that have gained well over 10,000% since I first mined/bought them in 2011. I don't feel the need to attempt to capture the odd 60% extra gain every time there is a crash.

Its also the attitude that prevents most people from investing in general. And it perpetuates the cycle of personal financial instability.

Coming back here to quote this paragraph. If you don't mind, I'm going to refer to it in future discussions about whether trading is profitable or not (this topic always come up, with great regularity, often disguised as "Does TA work or not.").

You found a great way to summarize and give an answer to the discussion, as it contains both the observation of trading critics (that most people lose money actively trading btc), while acknowledging that there is in fact a way to make a long-term profit trading for a rather small subset of traders.

So the real question remaining, that everyone has to ask him or herself, is: am I 'the house', or am I a gambler if I'm honest with myself

in any bitcoin deal i would have to say  your the gambler rather than " the house"

"the house  " is more likley to be the btc exchanges as in they have all the power once they have your money or your btc
or both

So according to you, there are no traders who consistently make a profit (in total, I mean). Only guys who get lucky once in a while.

I would disagree.

of course ,some day traders make a profit on the volatility swings

but trusting a foreign exchange with all your money or btc isnnt wise in my opionion

even gox  closed last week for  a hour in a very volatile period and cryptsy goes on and offline regularly
with transcations sometimes not even showing up and trades not being executed even though there is a buyer
and a seller at the same price

btc-e have been accused in multiple threads of  selective scamming larger accounts  and another exchange as well has just been accused of similar

also the exchanges themselves lack liquidity and if theyve been taking risks with your coin youl likely never know about it
until the fcuk up and  its bankrupty time

also the hassle of having accounts  frozen and taking months to recover funds  if at all is a major worry or governments
and banks suspending accounts and trading licences

if you think you have a stronger advantage than the house ,by all means ,go for it

At this time I have a question for our trusty OP.

Why didn't you buy?

Because for bitcoin's popularity to grow, somebody has to sell.  Thank you for selling OP, we appreciate your coins  ;)   

Yeah, it was quite obvious once no news has been published in 24hrs that bitcoin would shoot back up so op, why didn't you buy?

1- You thought the price will go back uplower and so got hold of your Bitcoins cash --> Very bad decision
2- You couldn't sellbuy them due to the lack of buyersmoney --> Plausible but unlikely
3- You are emotionally attached to your Bitcoinsfiat so you don't want to lose them no matter what --> You need a psychologist
4- When you found out about it, it was already too lateyou were busy publishing stupid topics on Speculation subforum --> I forgive you

:)

I answered this question before. But I'll answer it once again giving more details this time.

1- I can't buy an amount that makes me excited enough to follow its news and be actively trading it. Sure I can spend around 1,000$ buying Bitcoins today, but with today's rates this will only buy me 1 Bitcoin. Is it worth the hassle? in my opinion I'm better of spending my time doing freelance work or finding a good job as the returns I can be making then would be, with a high degree of certainty (at least from my POV) higher than actively trading 1 Bitcoin (or 2 or 3 as a matter of fact).

2- It's hard for me to buy or acquire Bitcoins in the country I live in. As a matter of fact I come from the same country Nassim Taleb comes from and that is Lebanon. If you know Lebanon you'd know how corrupt it is and you'd know the hassle you'd go through if you wanted to buy Bitcoins here.
   a) Fewer then 0.01% of the population here heard of Bitcoin and much less than that own Bitcoins.
   b) If I decided to make a bank transfer and buy it from the open market it would probably be a bigger hassle.
   c) Mining Bitcoins nowadays is out of the question. I'd be better off buying it directly, which is a problem all by itself.

Now you can argue that my first concern is not valid since a Bitcoin can reach a value of 100K or 1 million $ and that this would make it economically attractive for me to even own 1 Bitcoin today (knowing its future value and the gain I can be making over time). I'm sorry to say that I think this is all wishful thinking.

Sure from an economic POV if the total number of Bitcoins to be ever made are limited to 21 million units, then it's easy to imagine that couple of years down the line when its enough spread over the world the market cap of Bitcoins would easily reach 10 - 11 trillion dollars, making each Bitcoin worth 500K dollars (equilibrium when demand = supply). But I don't see this happening for a couple of reasons:

1- If competition enters the market (and it surely started to), and if cryptocurrency always existed couple of years from now (big IF), then the number of total cryptocurrencies in circulation will be much more than 21 million units. So even if total value of those become a couple trillion dollars (to satisfy total market demand), it will be spread over a much wider number of units and so the value of an average unit will be much lower than 500K $. You can tell me here that only few cryptocurrencies will survive as time goes by, but even if that's the case I don't see why those can't be 40 or 50 cryptocurrencies surviving with total units in the market surpassing 1 trillion units. Current market dynamics suggest that it's becoming easier to accept and trade all types of cryptocurrencies, and the survival chance of a big number of them in such conditions i see can be quiet high.

2- If Bitcoin survived, looking at the different parties getting negatively affected by the rise of cryptocurrencies it's easy to see in how many direction it might experience resistance. Be it governments, or be it banks, or be it any type of business that is threatened by it. The pressure that might be exerted on it might make it less attractive to own cryptocurrencies and as a result make it go down in value.

3- Another way current cryptocurrencies may fail is due to all sort of issues innate to them that may not have come to the surface so far. This could be technical problems, economical problems, social problems and god knows what else. As far as I know it's a big experiment and the survival or in this case the death of it will only be proven with the passage of time. I just believe risks are still too high for it to still make a super-high return and survive.

One argument I once had with a user here was about the risk/return of getting into Bitcoins now vs. a couple of months ago and my point was that it would've made much more sense to get into it when the price was relatively low (i.e. 10$ or so) than to get into it today. Today might be less risky, but the risk/return ratio would've still made much more sense back then (I can give you my full analysis regarding that if any of you is interested). I only knwe about Bitcoin once its value surpassed 700$ a unit...

I personally believe it's a bit late for me to get into the game for the sake of making a profit out of it. Sure I might someday acquire some for its ease of use and all the other factors that makes it attractive due to its properties. But to make a super-normal profits out of it, I think this could've only be done couple of months ago when the price of each unit was below a certain value (that's my personal opinion, and the reason why I'm a bit reluctant to get into it now). I might certainly be wrong, only time will tell.

Now if your question was "why didn't you try to benefit from those swings that happened right after the Chinese government's announcement", I'll tell you that it's because I didn't have Bitcoins back then and I couldn't have bought it and made the trade all in a timely manner to take advantage of it.

I'll be happy to hear counter-arguments "that make sense" instead of just talking nonsense. Please back up your counter-arguments with strong analysis.

Me again!

How convinced are you btc will fail? How can you be sure?

If there is a nonzero chance if something happening then it is possible for you to figure out ev (which you can adjust to fit your bias)

I'm not sure what set of circumstances gives you an outcome where the best (most rational) action us not to buy any btc? How do you come to the conclusion that there is zero risk holding no btc?

I didn't sell because I've long given up on short term trading.

So you think there's a good chance that a bitcoin will be worth somewhere between $1000 (current value) and $500,000 in the future (that being the best case where it's the dominant cryptocurrency), and you can't justify investing $10 because of the "risk"?


Interesting thought process. For me personally, assuming I thought bitcoin had a 99% chance of total failure (i.e. crash to 0), this would still be a worthwhile investment. $10 is not a significant sum of money for me, and if the potential upside (by my own estimation) was 50,000% gains, it seems like a no-brainer. If they sold lottery tickets with those odds, I'd quit my job.

I never said I'm certain Btc will fail (although it might).

But the conclusion of my argument would be something along these lines: There's less risk of not owning any Bitcoin, then to do, when the price of each Btc is close to 1,000$. Given all the reasons I have mentioned. Actually this statement might not be true for me at all time. But it's true for me today.

Also might not have been the case when the price was 10 or 20$ a piece.

Problem is that if the price now goes back down to 10 or 20$ a Bitcoin, it might not be as attractive an investment as when it first happened (on its way up, couple of months ago). Again there's a full analysis as to why this might be the case (in my own POV, not based on any economic theory but based on my own analysis).



No I never said it might be anywhere between 1 and 500K...but rather 0 and 500K.

And if you look at it from a probability distribution POV, I'd say much higher probability for it to be between 0 and 1K than for it to be between 1K and 500K.

That's my point. In my head, the probability distribution of it's future value would give a present value lower than it's current value + transaction costs + opportunity costs...I got a bit technical, if you need more explanation lemi know

theres more risk in holding $1000 than buying a bitcoin with it imo

JayB

You could trade BTC as a local dealer in your spare time. You would need to figure out how to make a bank transfer to an exchange. Once you are set up to do this however, you can make a commission by selling to people. Sounds like your country could do with some local traders.

You could keep the profits in BTC, then you don't have to invest anything. You can build up a small amount of coins and hold onto them long term.

With regards to 'not seeing the point' at this stage:

I told many friends to buy BTC at $10 but they couldn't see the point.
I told them again at $100, but like you, they just couldn't see it going any higher.

If they had bought $100 worth of BTC at $10, it would now be worth nearly $10 000
If they had bought $100 worth of BTC at $100, it would now be worth nearly $1 000.

Regarding your first point:

I don't see demand in this country and I don't think there will be demand for btc anytime soon.

Lebanon is a country who's population is a bit conservative when it comes to technology and innovation. We still have slow internet speeds, e-commerce is nearly non-existent here, few are the people who have credit cards to pay with, we don't even have proper home addresses...you get the idea

There's definitely no demand for btc here. For demand to build up the whole ecosystem must be ready for such a thing. If I go today to some store and offer to pay in Bitcoins he'll laugh at me; he might even threaten to punch me in the face thinking I'm making fun of him. It's hard for this to take off here.

Now probably very very few people here have Bitcoin (I personally haven't seen any...but well if you never saw a black swan doesn't mean it's non-existent :p) but early adopters are there in every corner of the world, but they are a tiny percentage of total population. The difficult part is to cross the chasm and make innovations be accepted by the masses, which I don't see happening here because of an ecosystem paralysis.

regarding your second point:

I agree. As I said I might be wrong...who knows.

Crappy excuse of "no money", I see. If you are such an awesome trader (in your head, anyway) you should be able to turn that 1BTC into 10BTC quickly and then it'll be appealing! Oh well anyway I'm out of this thread; continue to make excuses to be poor.

Bitcoin always gives you a second chance :)

Being upset that 1k will buy you only 1 bitcoin reveals at least two large misunderstandings on your part.

First of all is the psychological aspect of buying an expensive unit of investment.  You think its so expensive to buy one unit that its too late to get in.  I remember think something similar about Berkshire Hathaway in the 90s when it was about 8000$ a share if I remember right.

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:BRK.A&sa=X&ei=CSOoUoPMJoPj2AWf8YGAAg&ved=0CC0Q2AEwAA

Secondly you misunderstand a fundamental advantage of Bitcoin.  Buffet may never have wanted to split BRK.A, but bitcoin has splits built in.  *IF* we sustain levels between $500 and $1000 then we will continue to the the Mbit (millibit) become the favoured denomination of btc.its already happening.  "One bitcoin" is a somewhat artificial construct.  As is 1000 mBTCs.

One last thing. I am capable of spelling out in a semi intelligent way the reasoning behind my thought processes with BTC.  But you have to understand it has not seemed worth it to me.  

I will explain why.

You started this thread with an overbearing tone.  You sounded judgemental and arrogant.  You came off as a know it all. Called some dumb, stupid, or insane.  And constantly waved around a 'degree in finance from a respected school'.  Your tone has changed somewhat.. But you still obviously have judged most here in a negative light.

To be honest this is one of several ignorant positions on display from you in this thread.

You would be better off assuming there are some here who know more than you.  I can guarantee you you have spoken to successful professional traders and folks who are highly educated.

As has been mentioned you essentially suggest we should time the market, and you were sure btc would go down at a specific time.  You may have been right about that.  But your insistence on this display of hindsight is an old pattern most of us here recognize.  Its a noob investor mistake.

Another one...  Feeling like its too late to get in btc for the price.  "Not interesting to have only 1 coin to trade". Noob error.

I just don't buy that'd its too hard to buy btc in Lebanon.  If you can use the net you can find a way.

You have a donation address and ad in your SIG.  You obviously want btc.

Youre upset some of us have not taken the time to make good arguments.  Why should we?  You came in here guns blazing.  And seem ignorant to some simple concepts. (Hindsight is 20\20 and timing the market is folly for all but the best)

Its like trying to explain to a blind man that I am not a fool to believe in color.

Regarding your first point:

I know that very well, I'm not making any logical/psychological fallacy. The reason why I didn't say "1000$ worth of Bitcoins" instead was because 1000$ worth of Bitcoins would've been attractive to me when the price was still below 10$. It is now when the price is at 1000$ that it ceased becoming attractive to me. And it's not because of the psychological effect.

It's simply a Market cap analysis thing. My answer would've been the same if total Bitcoins to be produced are planned to be 2.1 billion units and each unit is at 10$ today. I would've said exactly the same thing...that it's unattractive for me to buy 100 btc today at 10$ each....It's that I don't see an attractive upside from this point onward (again...that's me and I can be wrong). In other words I believe it reached a point where, due to its current market cap, it will be gaining momentum (if any at all) at a much slower rate.

The reason why buying let's say 100K $ worth of btc would've been a different story is because the gains I could be making, even at a slow momentum, would've still been attractive to me today given my opportunity cost. A 10% gain on 1000$ is 100$ --> not attractive, but a 10% gain on 100K is 10K --> very attractive to me (over a certain time period). And both would require the same magnitude of effort from my side.


Regarding your second point:

I sometimes like to tackle things with an aggressive/arrogant attitude because it steers the discussion in an interesting way (to me at least) on many different levels (being it studying social dynamics behavior, or the fact that you'd be making more effort to prove me wrong etc...). sgbett at one point mentioned it's hard to predict human behaviors, but my experience tell me otherwise. I agree it's hard to know all the factors affecting human behavior, but at any point in time there are only 1 or 2 factors responsible for 95% of the outcome of human decision (my own version of the Pareto principle). When you're confronted with someone who is threatening your ego/position/belief it blinds you from all other factors affecting your decision making at the point of the confrontation and it makes you willing to put more effort in dealing with the issue.

Regarding experienced traders:
 
Being an experienced trader in certain areas doesn't make you experienced in all areas. Btc market is a new market and the laws affecting its value are very different than the laws affecting, lets say the value of a USD or the stock of Microsoft.

4, had my exams this and last week.  So havent had time for BTC ;( ........... could have made a lot of bitcoins, but my exams are more important than some bitcoins

Do you tell your friends to buy now  ?  :)

So did you guys sell this time?  ::)

I think you should wait a little more before start yelling "i told you so".

Why wait?

I don't get it....

Because I simply don't care enough. I bought into BTC when they were $13 each because they were a cool concept, not because I wanted to make money. I still stick to my guns now.

It's not money you'd be making...it's Bitcoins  ::)

And coincidentally it just happens that Bitcoins are treated like money....  ::)

I sold half my stake after BTC broke through resistance @ 835 or so.  Now I have the problem of finding the right point to reenter.

You're going to get shit (and you should) for starting back again after a big drop.  If you had come in to ask if we planned to sell sometime before noon EST then it would be different.

Just to show my money is where my mouth is... here is ONE of my swept cold wallets shipped to Gox this AM at 11am my time.  I sold at $830.

http://blockchain.info/tx/755d5849b5ff50174372378e71e96b941f7f2fb94147e4dfb7bc4c43df912065

That one was worth 13kUSD.

Now... you gonna start trading and predicting the market?  Or are you going to just keep asking after big moves?

PS... feel free to send donations to my Gox wallet. :)  1NsYQkL4ph4L7GbysvUp6Zd9e8a9m22jVT

Dude I don't constantly follow Bitcoin news. Actually I just knew about what happened 10 minutes ago, and saw that the price moved in a way that is very similar to the last move and which I would've predicted.

I won't buy any Bitcoins anytime soon. But you're welcome to donate from the gains you'd be making by actively trading  :P

My gains are all in USD now.  All my other coins will stay in deep deep cold lockup until they are either worthless or my life savings.

Now I have to stay glued to charts drawing triangles and waiting for moves so I can know when to start buying back my coins.  If my targets work I will be up 25 coins or so by the end.

I do not like trading much but the technical stuff is too strong ATM.

Well good luck with that.

I believe it'll be worth it as long as Bitcoin is this volatile. Maybe some day active trading will cease becoming attractive but I suggest you take advantage of it while it last.

I believe "Facts" (as opposed to just analysis) as a result of announcements is the way to make money out of it. Facts are facts...and as long as it's clear whether the facts are negative or positive news, it'll be easy to predict the direction of Bitcoins value as a reaction to those news. And since its too volatile ATM, it should be fairly easy to make decent profits, even if your timing was not 100% accurate (Margin of error is wide in such cases)...

Wait for the rumor to confirm at least... And so far it isn't confirmed.

@JayB, did you trade this dip?
Did you get out in time or get trapped?

"Did you troll this dip?" Might be a better question ;)

Because the dip is over? For all i know we are still swinging...

Why would you sit on your Bitcoin ? It is boring.

I re-invest 100% of my Bitcoins.

Look I'm giving you sincere advice backed by solid arguments.

If you don't want to take advantage of it that's your problem. At least let others do

Did you buy any bitcoins yet?  Still waiting.

1, & 3, mostly 3.

and on top of that, i was buying some of the coins poeple sold.  8)

You just have demonstrated again that you are a clueless troll.

If it is so easy to trade based on "facts" why aren't you filthy rich?

Both the stock market and Bitcoin are full of "facts". But anybody with half a brain knows that markets are irrational.

You, sir, are a pitiful troll looking for attention. Probably butthurt because you didn't buy BTC at single digits.

Sorry for that, move on.

Are you day trading or looking for a more medium term profit?

Trying to call the bottom is a waste of time, what you need to consider is whether the price will go above your buy in at any point in the short/medium term. That is the only question you need. Calling the bottom is a fluke and will just distract you.

I am doing a mix of both, I like to pick up on day trade profits, so far today has been rather good. People simply can't make their minds up. Meanwhile I am also confident that long term BTC will be trading above $1000 within the next 8-12 months, so $500 is still a good price to be buying at.

When will your peanut-sized brain understand that the Bitcoin market does not currently behave in as a complicated way as the stock market?

The stock market is a complex system that has much more variables at play than that of Bitcoin, which is governed by fewer variables making it easier (much easier in fact) to predict.

So while the value of an S&P 500 company might be subject to 100 different variables (having strong correlation with), Bitcoin might only have 4 or 5 of those variables (just to illustrate my point).

That was point number 1.

And point number 2 says the following: Facts are different than analysis, in that facts are events that already happened. FACTS are not just speculations, FACTS have a more predictable effect on the movement of things that belongs to its direct (then indirect) ecosystem. Cause-effect, ever heard of it, you dimwit?

So for example if a company has 80% of its expenses as oil (FACT) and if oil price went up by 100% in a single day (another FACT) then you'd expect the stock of that company to go down (cause-effect). How hard would it be to predict that? (I'm not sure how hard it would be for your mediocre brain but for anything below an IQ or 30 it's pretty straight forward)

I agree Cause-effect might be harder to predict in complex systems but easier in emerging, non-mature, less-complex systems like that of Bitcoin.

Now if I ask a person with an IQ above 30 what he thinks will happen to the value of a Bitcoin (given it's current state) if FACTS say that it's been given negative news in a country like China (where it had one of the biggest market share concentration)...then clearly the person above the IQ of 30 will predict that Bitcoin will go down in value.

But it seems you still have a long way to go before you reach that level of intelligence.

Now do me a favor and read all my previous comments before you come here and start trolling like a stupid maniac because I've already answered concerned similar to the ones you raised and I hate to always repeat myself.

I didn't sell because I'm hodling.

+1

When will your peanut-sized balls actually put your money where your mouth is?

Yeah ..we have balls of steel, ask HODL hero  8)

Be a hodler or be a looser.

Bitcoin hodler forever.

I keep trading Bitcoins to others, Im not much smart so I just hodling

I didnt sell because my balls got balls..... heck even my balls hairs got their own balls. Its a tree of balls down there , you hear me?

i sold once, i made $7.00. thats why i hodl

I personally don't hold them ATM, just buy and use.

i didnt sell because i didnt know about the chinesse annoucment
i didnt sell because i was too stupid to register here and follow bitcoin news (i bought in april and and registered here just a week or two ago i think :-) )
i didnt sell because i was too stupid to realize that if i sell when its high and buy when its low i get the same ammount of BTC + a net profit of fiat :-)
i didnt realize that because i was lazy to think about it (bitcoin in general) after my april purchase
i didnt realize it because i belive i might a be little stupid in this issue in general :-)

In my defence i have to say i didnt had any previous market or trading experience AT ALL before buying bitcoin :-)

I vaguely remember seeing this thread earlier in December, but I quickly dismissed and ignored and missed out on some interesting discussion. I'm glad it got a little play today and that I was able to catch up.

I'm simply posting in here to make it easier for me to come back here and re-read this stuff every time I make a few winning trades and my ego needs a little reality check.


^this^ part especially speaks to me. I'm still trying to understand the *why* of the actions I take, but I am starting to understand why I feel so anxious when the price is going up and why I feel calm when it's crashing. This recent revelation about myself has allowed me to now solidify a position that I feel comfortable with moving forward (as long as we don't break through $4000 range before May - In which case, I'm sure the anxiety attacks will resume, though I hope I will be better equipped to rationally analyze the reasons for my feelings and be able to adjust my position accordingly)


--as to the OP question, I actually did sell. and I went through a swirling range of emotions that caused me to buy back in at 850, sell again at 950-999 range, and then I was lucky enough to get those coins back through a tranche from 800 all the way down to 450. That wasn't smart, educated, or well-advised. It was an emotionally driven series of moves made through panic and fear that caused me real-life physical and emotional distress.

This time I was lucky. I will not be doing that again.

I trade most effectively from a state of equanimity. I no longer try to sell all and buy everything back later at a lower price. The emotional swings start to kick in and stupid decisions are made. Been there, done that ... many times over. Doesn't matter what market - equities, futures, currencies or Bitcoin. What I've learnt is that if I can't remain cool, unemotional, detached, then I need to just stay out of the trade.

Be a holder or be a tarder.

If someone who tards is a tarder, then is someone who tards repeatedly a retarder?

I hope you were able to change your position as quickly as the "facts" change:
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=120&i=Daily&c=1&s=2013-12-19&e=2014-01-05&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=&m1=200&a2=&m2=50&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=0&cv=0&ps=0&l=0&p=0&

Any "facts" in a market are only temporary beliefs.  Yes, the government statement happened.  That is a fact.  But when you apply that to a market it becomes a belief because there are other possible interpretations of the available facts.  It is you who added the word "negative".

P.S. Your communication style makes you seem like a cocky asshole.  Mine does too at times.  I recommend spending less time on insults and more time on substance.

You should have followed your own advice and asked a person with IQ above 30; but you probably asked yourself instead did you? :)

Too Many Bitcoiners become armchair day traders only to lose their shirts, trousers and under crackers...............NO if you come across Bitcoin just considers it like picking up some early shares in Google or whatever analogy works for you.

Its becoming obvious that Bitcoin is heading someplace special so why waste your golden ticket gambling it away on an exchange ?