Bitcoin Forum

Maybe I'm wrong but aren't we climbing slowly? Even if it's too soon to say please discuss this.

https://i.imgur.com/sf1Zf.png
It's intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that this is a classic long, slow ascend. Having analyzed markets and predicted rallies for more than five decades, I know a pattern when I see it. I've said this for months, but you refused to listen. What's wrong with you idiots, why won't you be my friend? Your imminent death is well deserved.

James Fraggle

The price is climbing, for now. It's very hard to say what will happen, I still see short term rally potential to at least $3. But then again we might see big sells and that would probably kill it and cause instability again because so many are on the fence right now.

The support at $2.x has been surprisingly strong so far, I was already thinking it might crash to $1.x right after. But it certainly looks like it won't. It still could in a few weeks but right now we are seeing massive support at $2.x and small rallies with the potential for a bigger rally.

Again I'm looking for a low that will hold for at least a month before we can even think about an optimistic mid term, but the short term is looking surprisingly good right now.

This is what I see for the short term so far.  If the trend breaks to the upside, I'd guess that we would probably see a fairly quick rise to the mid 3s.  So far there seems to be a bit of resistance at the trend line, though, and I think it's more likely to start to go back to the low 2s and maybe less than $2 within a couple days.  Time will tell.

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/1418/10dayhourlychart.png

My Elliott waves were poorly received in the TA thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1493.msg582526#msg582526), but to me, we're clearly in the middle of the final c wave since June and I expect a massive year long rally (III) before the end of the year. In shorter terms (which have been harder to predict), I expect we'll climb a bit and finally crash to the base ($1's) in a month's time. Bitcoin continues to follow this textbook pattern since I updated this chart last week. We're now in the 4th wave before the 5th and final plunge.

http://genaud.net/bitcoin/2011/20111019-0200-yearDailyS.png

ah! thats a good one.

If I'm right, I'll accept bitcoin for my fibonacci analysis. :)

What does the series has to do with the Elliott Wave anyway? The only thing in there is the golden ratio and despite the fact successive numbers approximate it seems to have nothing to do with it.

Of course Golden Ratio Analysis doesn't sound as sophisticated  ;D

/\/\/\/\/\   /
            \/

?

HAHAHAHAHA, friggin hilarious man!  You ever done stand-up comedy???

I'm down with Fraggle rock ... XD

This man is a genious!

I'm not sure why there should be a relationship to the golden ratio, nor whether there is a relationship. No matter how I slice the numbers for wave 'iii' and 'v', I don't get within 5% of the golden ratio.

http://genaud.net/bitcoin/2011/20111019-0200-yearDailyS-nofib.png

are the bitcoin charts down?

for me when i go see the charts , the page loads but no chart :(

You guys really love charts, don't 'ya?

Lemme tell you something about these charts. Though you might not like it. It's really a very disturbing fact about them.

The prices they show are all from the past.

That's how Elliott Wave and other other analyses work: take 20/20 hindsight, apply a graph to it and make it fit, then make seemingly accurate predictions about the future.  The one thing I never saw was anyone drawing Elliott Waves BEFORE bitcoin's crash.  Surely someone could have predicted the multiple waves down from $30 to $2?  Elliott Waves are never drawn for shares or commodities where the wave can't be made to fit, only where it can. 

The nice thing about Elliott Waves is that every serious trader knows about them and at least partially basis their decisions on them.  That by definition distorts the wave.

Absence of the presentation of data analysis says nothing about whether the technique was used successfully. I did not predict the top in June; I too got caught in the euphoria. But when it started to fall, it was clear wave I was over. When bitcoin was on the little 'b' up there, I was pretty sure bitcoin would fall at least to that little '4' and '3' gives me confidence about the little '5'. If there's another impulse down from there, bitcoin is fucked. But the despair in this forum and dwindling numbers are inspiring. The exact prices don't matter, but the shape and sentiment does.

It's not much better than tea leaves, but more like reading the clouds to predict tomorrow's weather.

the price is not only climbing... but its climbing fast!

bull trap?

Short your bitcoin!
Go Long!
wtv i don't care I'm holding for 30years and retiring a millionaire BITCH! FUCK YA

 Wait for it folks... 1:30am EST...

Going to be an interesting weekend.. :)

@netrin: are we going to point 4 now?

Thought so.  $2 seemed still way too low.  Next month will be lower than $2 I suspect.

I don't know what it will rally to now.

My eyeballs say yes, if $3 wasn't already '4'. The previous corrections, August and September, were week long rallies, so there may be more chu-chu in this weekend train.

http://compellingparade.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/little-engine-that-could.jpg

I expect '5' will be when even I am no longer optimistic, when you've withdrawn from markets into the banks, realized that bitcoin was a ponzi scheme after all, and the Speculation subforum is a depressed ghost town. That you're even considering this Elliott nonsense with a hopeful eye tells me we've still got more pain to come, before a weak pathetic bloodied crawl up III(i). I don't think the market fears another drop to '5', it's looking forward to it.

Looks like the market gives second chances. Someone dump 20,000 coins and get some good money.

@netrin: but what if we were at C-5-II?

Did you just call me a non-serious trader? Oh well. 8)

I deliberately ignore chartist theories whenever I have a long-term goal in mind or another model to work on (read: on all my speculations so far). Chartist theories are an endless loop by definition, since if they were true, every trader should assume the other traders to act based on the theory, which means they will act the same way as he. This leads to the time-scale of all changes converging to the thinking/reaction time. Time "collapses", the market would reach the final state any analysis predicts immediately. This is a nonsensical outcome I haven't seen in real life.

That's the theoretical indicator that something is wrong with them. There is another, an explanation why people would still cling to it.

Chartism can make predictions that are true more than 50% of the time, without giving a positive expectation value on speculations. Enough people think in binary decisions ("will it go up or down") instead of using the correct statistical method: µ = sum over probability times earnings balance of each scenario.

If someone just counts "how often was he right", I can summarize the last half year of Bitcoin as an almost perfect "analyst" by saying "just follow the monthly trend". It was wrong only once, around the 32-peak. I doubt it is a useful method though. ;)

Today? Then my interpretation of the chart would be very wrong and I won't recommend listening to me further. :)


It's also dangerous to listen to the conclusions of others without understanding from what data and methods he derived those conclusions. For example, on the three day chart, I had been watching an inverted parabola (a nice gentle peaks) and am tempted to call $3 the local top (I don't believe it is, but why not?). I drew up my chart last week before we hit $2, so to assume the chart definitively predicts a high is foolish.

its a great one.  Some additional comments:

a)  the only absolute rule for the corrective wave II is that it "can never extend beyond the starting point of wave one" (which was $0.00-$0.10).

b)  "prices usually do not retrace more than 61.8% of the wave one gains" - fat finger measurement places the 62% retracement of wave one ($0.10-$30) at about $0.75-$1.00.

c) "Wave C is typically at least as large as wave A and often extends to 1.618 times wave A or beyond."  - fat finger places 1.6 times wave A (from $30 to $6), starting from B ($12) to down around $0.75.


Drawing trendlines, and placing particular importance that the bottom of the long-term channel holds (it broke at $3.30) was "technical analysis".  Now by focusing on EWT, we're just practicing straight numerology (mixed with a little mass psychology) ;D


Related:  Elliott Wave Educational Video Series (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49462.0)

The backhanded compliments here have been gentler slaps than elsewhere. I'll take it. Thanks. I'm quite fond of this astrological chart myself. :)


$0.75 would paint the streets a brighter shade of blood than I could stomach. BitcoinBull, as I said earlier, bitcoin will be "deflowered by a chainsaw" if 5/c turns into an negative impulse (five waves "d" and "e"). Wave II (June-Dec) just looks picture perfect to me. What else would confirm a reversal?



Considering this is a log chart, $0 is infinitely down. I've thrown both of the above rules out with respect to Waves I,II, relying solely on rule (c) and my fat fingers. I've applied rules on a,b,c, but I don't trust bitcoin nor my fat fingers on tiny 1-5 scales. Here's to palm reading!

I think it's going to hang around $3 for a week or two, then go up to $4 briefly in November, then gradually crash really really low like slightly below $1.

I think the longer it takes to get to $4, the less likely it will get there at all before crashing.

Noticing that we are in the process of a slow climb again. The support at $2.x has been surprisingly strong. This will raise the general confidence people have in Bitcoin.

The 2.04 low hasn't held for long enough yet, not even close, but at least it's looking better. If $3 breaks in the near future, I think there is a high probability that we'll see a rally that'll extend to $4.x at least.

Don't fall for it.

It's the continuation of the pump & dump pattern, if you buy now you would get lucky to even cover the exchange fees on low volume. But if you're unlucky you end up holding the bag.

I'm not about to fall for anything, but I don't really know what you're talking about. We've had very high volume and volatility lately, today it's been a bit quiet but having a slow climb during a quiet day is a good sign.

I'm not advocating an all-in move at this time nor am I advocating buying and holding but I feel there is a possibility for a rally right now, what people choose to do about it is their concern.

Any type of all-in at this stage is very risky but I do think a partial buy is not a bad move right now.

Today I saw one of the quietest, flattest periods I've ever seen - Check out the almost straight line at 2.74 level.

I guess someone has finally decided to apply a volatility tax in the form of distributed bids on all movement. The downside I think is that if things move big, they might really start to move because of all of the built up pressure.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=640&m=mtgoxUSD&k=&r=120&i=&c=1&v=0&cv=1&ps=0&l=0&p=0&t=S&b=&a1=SMA&m1=30&a2=&m2=25&x=0
No, the price is not slowly climbing.

At this point, the only remaining question is how the end game plays out.

As I've been saying for a while, if you're not out, get out. Especially get any cash and Bitcoins out of the "exchanges" if you're not trading them in the next 24 hours.

+1 for the price part

-1 for the get out cash part. I don't think Mtgox will runaway with our money. Bitcoins can be stored in one's wallet and move them when needed. But cash takes a 2 days at least.

notice the long term MACD on a rising trendline with a recent crossover UP.  this is strengthening.


https://i.imgur.com/HtyIf.png

I'm amazed how many babysteps the price makes. Are we going to $4?

Can you please explain?

Sure.
The red lines represent resistance lines, you can see they indicate steady growth. The July peak broke through the resistance line due to massive influx of interest, and bubble formation. Since then we've seen a correction movement to deflate the prices back into the stable range, which has now hit the bottom resistance line.

The blue line is Elliot wave analysis, which is a stock market analysis and prediction method. Basically it says that the stock prices move in predictable waves up and down, on all time scales. You can see that on the long time scale, we have just completed one wave, and are now at the bottom. The growth we see today is the start of the second long term wave, which will go much higher. Also on the shorter scale we see waves, represented by the sawtooth behaviour. This, too, fulfills a perfect Elliot wave, and has bottomed out a few days ago.

From this we can tell that the bitcoin prices will go up a lot. At least to $20 again, but if the rising price spawns another influx, we can expect a similar breakout as in July, with rates up to $50.

I hope that explains it for you.

Oh man, I can't do this with a straight face.

For more inane yabbering and retrospective predictions, please see http://blog.bitcoinwatch.com/

So no new lower lows?

Almost afraid to ask but how exactly do you determine the lower trendline?
Seems kind of arbitrary to me...

i don't think so.  i'm pretty good at picking tops and bottoms as my gold thread shows:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35956.0

all the ingredients are here for a major reversal rally to new highs.  i can smell it.  the # forum visitors is up.  the mtgoxlive logins are up. the bid walls are up.  the whole bid mountain is up.  the intensity of the whole debate is up.  sentiment has bottomed with the Bears and shorts declaring victory and calling Bitcoin dead.  i've been playing the general stock market for years and this is the stuff of major reversals. 

many of the old guard are showing up here again b/c deep down they smell a bottom too.

all the macroeconomic indicators would support this view as well and i have sprayed those signals and signs all over these threads.  i would take them seriously.

Crap, it seems I made a mistake in my analysis. Here is my new analysis:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/513/yeah2y.png

As you can see, the resistance lines are much stronger since the bubble burst. In fact, they are converging, which indicates an increasing certainty in the prediction. As such, I can say with 100% certainty that the bitcoin rates will hit negative $5 before the end of December, due to the bitcoin economy collapsing, and people actually paying you to get rid of the horrible investment that bitcoin will turn out to be. Of course, no one will want to buy, so the price will go even lower than that.

This is also supported by the MACD lines, and the more complex MACADAMIA N.U.T.S. investment guidelines.

Use a log scale and you will see that your fluctuation does not change with price. Just because you fit a linear model doesn't meaning you are modeling a linear phenomenon. If I take an average of the entire history of the price of bitcoin it doesn't mean that the price will stay on that average. Hey I fit my model to the data, so it's gotta be right. Wrong.

Nope its just you declaring victory over the fundamentals.

The slope of enlightenment will come, but is it here yet?
I doubt it, i refuse to believe the final faith of bitcoin would have to be that pathetic.

Good show BTCurious. I'm sadden tho smiling at your positive reception. Keep up the good work.

The thing is almost always the price rallied a bit, someone dumped a few thousand coins killing the rally. This cannot be predicted by any technical analysis .

Of course you're right. I used the linear scale so as not to confuse people. When I do the analysis in a log scale, the indicators still stand though.
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/3672/yeah3.png

Of course, because we're using a log scale, we have to use log resistance lines. We can see the resistance going vertically down at the end of December, indicating a crossover at the Point at Infinity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_at_infinity), which is the only way a negative ratio can be represented on a log scale.

I hope this stifles your concerns.

If it "almost always" happens, then this is a very reliable signal! This is known as a setpoint, and is included in the TRIX index which you can find on the bitcoin chart (http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#vzlztgSzm1g10zm2g25zi1gTRIX) technical indicator list. The TRIX will make people think there will be a rally, buying lots of bitcoins, and giving a lot of money to The Manipulator. A good stock analyst can however use TRIX of his own, and because of these TRIX, people will give him money. I can expand more on that later, I'm in a bit of a hurry, since my TRIX are running out.

Thank you, kind sir. May your tradings be furtitious.

(PS:
    for·tu·i·tous [fawr-too-i-tuhs, -tyoo-]
    1. happening or produced by chance; accidental: a fortuitous encounter.
)

This thread is freakin hilarious.

Perhaps you could switch to the frequency domain and make use of complex numbers?

It's a good idea, however, I can assure you, the numbers and math involved is already quite complex, and frequently messed up, so I think I have already incorporated your suggestions.
Thanks for the ideas though!

I'm laughing my ass off hear.  Excellent charts. Technical analysis with colorful lines never lies!

The market's been ticking like clockwork since early October. People dump on a rally because they think prices are jumping up like horny chihuahuas.

http://genaud.net/bitcoin/2011/20111026-2340-3monthCwaveSHourly.png

Sooo... you think it's going lower?

I'm still long this week, but my money's on $0.6-1.1. Certainly less than $2.

How long are you?  What do you think it will top at before it drops again?

If I were rock solid confident, I wouldn't be posting my charts. The blue (Hourly) scale is garbage data. I invite you to find an Elliott thread with lower noise:substance ratio.

http://genaud.net/bitcoin/2011/20111028-1612-1month5CwaveSHourly.png

Hey Chodpaba, BTCurious is just taking a piss on this thread. You answered another of his questions elsewhere. Clearly we can't both be right. :)

I thought that should be obvious by now :)
All in good spirit, of course :)

You fooled too many, unless the whole thread was just playing along.

Chodpaba, well I think it's very interesting that, via very different methods, we're still looking at the exact same confirmation/targets. All rallies correct. I suppose the difference is what happens after $4. I expect November will see $2's again.

But… but… MACADAMIA N.U.T.S. investment guidelines?

With non-linear transformations the frequency is called "quefrency" and spectrum is called "cepstrum".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepstrum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_filtering
http://reference.wolfram.com/legacy/applications/signals/CepstralAnalysis.html

It should really jazz-up netrin, as he likes log-scaling a lot.

Edited: added a reference to Mathematica because they have cooler graphs, although in black-and-white only.

…
You're not even trolling :o

I couldn't make sense of the Wiki article and Mathematica's graphs use a linear y-axis. Me thunk it clearly nonsense until I read this regarding practical applications:

"The cepstrum can be seen as information about rate of change in the different spectrum bands. It was originally invented for characterizing the seismic echoes resulting from bitcoin trading and bomb explosions."

Wobber, using Elliott since 19 October, you should now be able to answer this yourself. IFF $2.05 ended the June correction II.c.5, then we are in the first wave of major (monthly/yearly) wave III. Let's call it III.i.4. Then 4 can not drop less than $3.3 and I would expect 5 to blow way up above the previous major correction 7-13 October, well into the $5's. Many hope that's true. I'm afraid the optimism is unfounded.

http://genaud.net/bitcoin/2011/20111030-1934-1month5CwaveSHourlyDown.png (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49462.msg600309#msg600309)

netrin: thank you very much for your advanced analysis. i enjoy it a lot.

nevertheless after lookin hours at the charts and various indicators i can't help myself and am now positioned BULLISH with a stop loss at 3.05
bollinger band tells me there will be a breakout soon (within hours i wrote this) to the upper or the downer.

i hope i am right, but i need to go to sleep now, so tomorrow i will know more.
anyone who is on the edge and not sure what to do right now: i invite you to follow me. the more you buy, the better ;)

if you are right however, netrin, then i am also prepared for what will be happening..
nevertheless: my senses tell me to be BULL right now. join in, mates.

I'm game (and bored) although I don't have the slightest idea what a 'bollinger band' is, and relatively little interest in finding out.  Plunked on the guitar strings at Tradehill a bit to minimal effect.  If nothing else, maybe it well keep one of the poor sellers trying to use that exchange from getting too demoralized.

@tvbcof:

bollinger band is a standard price analyzing tool. whenever the envelopes get close to each other, "change" in the price is suggested:

http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/4600/bband.png

take a look at $2.8 and $3.6 where the bollinger bands gets close to each other..

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

+1

What seems to be happening lately is - not much. Volume (in currency) is way down, and the price isn't changing much.  That may be the shape of the endgame. It's zombie mode, the fate of many startups. They're not going anywhere, they can't pay back their investors, but they generate just enough activity to keep alive.

Glad my work has some purpose, even if you just use it for contrarian confirmation. :) I've posted my rambling nonalysis yesterday https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49462.msg603999#msg603999 . I will be the first to admit, I have no idea what is happening in this correction. But I am confident that it is indeed a correction of the general downward trend. There may very well be a big burst up to $3.5-ish, but I only welcome that price with shorts. Only a major up trend, such as to $5 would make bullish again.

Nagle PLEASE short the currency!!! I really want to see you rewarded for your prescience!!!

If the price is constant, shorting makes no sense ::)
and neither does going long.

all markets take time to breathe.  the poster above who mentioned Bollinger Bands is correct.  the narrowing indicates this resting state.  a breakout move is imminent.  obviously as a bull, i think it will be up as i think the primary downtrend has been broken based on not only technical factors but fundamentals as well.

we also see the second of 2 flag formations which also should break up if the primary downtrend has been broken.  within these larger formations exist smaller flag formations which have broken up.

to me the $2 floor makes sense even for a fledgling currency b/c:

1.  almost 3 yrs old with no problems.
2.  $1 to me would mean equality with the USD which i think is bunk and doesn't factor its premium.
3.  the limited supply.
4.  the fluidity of transfer.
5.  the overall turn in the general markets oriented towards the next reflationary phase will drive ALL assets up especially Bitcoin.
     a.  downturn of the USD
     b.  sovereign bond selloff
     c.  US Treasury selloff
     d.  gold/silver stuck
     e.  stock mkt reflating
6.  overall bid side has inflated

Ho-Lee-Shit!  Look at the 20,000 ask wall at 3.20 on bitcoinity.org!

Remember the fact that more and more merchant solutions and wallets are coming out, and in the next few months, the Bitcoin network will have more capability in terms of multisig transactions, escrow, etc.  The fundamentals are getting better as the currency is on its way to becoming more usable by normal people.  We're still early adopters at this stage of the game.

very true.  but there are so many skeptics around here that will miss the opportunity to become early adopters b/c no price will be low enough for them to jump in.  they are the victims of linear thinking that just draw a line straight down from July and extrapolate it into the ground.  this is how bull markets shake off the doubters.  

its just greed in the opposite sense.  the bears want to pick up coins at $.01/BTC as if they somehow deserve to be early adopters and ride the wave back up gladly cheering the price rise and pumping their brilliance at picking a bottom.  all the hoarding arguments would just vanish.

but markets are rude and unaccommodating in that sense.

On the contrary, I consider the markets to have been much more accommodating than I expected.  $3.00 (much less @2.00) was beyond what I dared to hope for in July (though I had some bid in that range just in case.)  As a consequence of the compliant markets, I hold way more BTC than I ever expected to.

I consider myself to be as bullish as anyone, but I see no problem real problem with a rather extended period of stagnation, demoralization, loss of interest, etc.  I'll just exploit the situation as it occurs and I've got plenty of time.  Of course I run the very real risk of ending up the 'bag holder', but I'm under no illusion that Bitcoin is without risk.

I doubt it will ever come to that, but current prices are just to rich for me.

From common indicators I would consider prices around one magnitude below what they are now fair.
At these one would still need a fair amount of cash to buy bitcoins in the thousands. That is just the figure where the today issued bitcoins would be brought into circulation to a ratio of 50%, the most healthy figure for growth.

I consider myself bullish at these figures and once we reach that point (about 0.37USD) I'll buy and hold. I think we will go below that though since bubbles normally occur in 2 directions.

There is so many people already involved in Bitcoin that it will not "reach" 0.37 USD/BTC anymore. It will either slowly succeed, or slowly lower, or finally terminate (like not traded in public anymore).

this is correct.  you can already see it in that the top 10 Bitcoin "hoarders" have only hoarded more on this price dip.  the price is just too cheap to ignore.

That figure includes the current population of bitcoin users, if they were getting lower short term that would have been lower.
But don't mind, that figure is just were I consider prices to be fair....

@cyperdoc, if they stay at it, it is as simple for me: I'll stay away from bitcoin as far as possible.
Or to put it more directly: If we don't reach that price I won't be joining the economy, even if I miss something.

thats fine.  you're entitled to your opinion just like anyone of us here.

but sometimes you have to listen to what the market is telling you.  the steadily rising MACD, the break of the upper bound downward trendline, and the slow upward climb indicate to me at least that the bottom is in.

trying to impose you own sense of value on the market could cost you a lost opportunity.

Retract.  I think it is just a mess-up in Tradehill's feed or Bitcoinity's charts or something.  Back to business as normal.  That is to say, boring these last few days.

Correct, and I should welcome it for several reasons.  But in reality I'd rather have some excitement even if it means losing money...adrenaline junky I suppose.

Not for me.
I'm looking for a way out of the system, out of this paradigm and out of bondage from vested interests, on a more fundamental way you can understand.

Bitcoin would fail this if prices continues to be at this level and it would not be part of this way which I will reach someday even without it.

Of course the price is climbing. There hasn't been a crash, but a spike caused by a Bitcoin boom (because it was in the media).

At the beginning of the year the price for Bitcoins was way below 1$. Then, with Silkroad and stuff it had that big boom, because people talked about it. This caused interest and lead to a spike. Before that everyone said that we would probably reach Bitcoin/Dollar parity this or next year. The year is ending and the Bitcoin multiplied. So in reality is that it is climbing quickly, not slowly.

If I could buy a 3-month option (from someone who would reliably pay up if they lost), I would have bought one months ago. That's a straight bet that, 3 months later, the price will be lower. I wouldn't short Bitcoin, though. You're too vulnerable to a short-term swing.

I'd like to see a digital currency that works well enough to compete with Paypal. I've seen Digicash, Beenz, and Flooz tank.  Bitcoin isn't going to do much better.

How can Bitcoin "tank"? There is no head office, no employees, no overhead. It could see low usage, but it will always be there. There is no way to turn off the lights on Bitcoin. A better pessimistic prediction would be to say that it will be permenantly relegated to nerds and criminals.

I might accept a friendly bet today. What are the terms?

Semi-unretract.  Looks like the amazing ask-wall on Tradehill may actually be for real, although I cannot see signs of it on the UI.  I think it may be for real, and currently set at $3.18 since there have been some fairly monster (for Tradehill) buys smacking into it and dying there.

If it is for real, the size, sign, and price are all very interesting, in addition to the fact that it happened on Tradehill.

  http://bitcoinity.org/markets?currency=USD&exchange=tradehill

I'd like one of them CSI or terrorism TV series to have a puzzle involving Bitcoin. Solved in Visual Basic as always...

And yeah, sideways is good ways.

When the exchanges shut down, Bitcoin is effectively dead. You can sell coins on eBay or Craigslist, but with no liquidity, nobody will accept them for routine transactions.

Define "dead." Bitcoin is breaking all the rules. There are still a lot of rules to break, like needing centralized exchanges. In fact, Bitcoin will show superliquidity when 24/7/365 decentralized exchanges allow 21st C. cryptocurrency to replace 18th C. financial traditions.

I don't expect the exchanges to shut down without being forced to by the various arms of the corp/gov systems which mold the behavior of the peeps...or attempt to at least.  I am suspecting that it would be quite a challenge to shut down the system totally since it would require good coordination between a large proportion of the world's governments.

At that point I could imagine a pretty strong interest in having some BTC under one's control, particularly since a shut-down attempt is unlikely absent other kinds of monetary crisis.  It would be recognized immediately as an act of desperation.  In that scenario the value of BTC could shoot up much like the value of illegal drugs.  A big difference is that the kinds of people who are interested in pot often don't have a great deal of money.  Those who would be interested in BTC are likely to have a great deal of money.

I would council the powers that be that the best strategy to deal with Bitcoin and control it's potential would be to try to limit  the number of exchanges to a small number and obtain control of them.  Simultaneously obtain as much of the currency base as possible as quietly as possible, and tag and monitor the participants of the community to the highest degree possible.  It's all a matter dealing with emerging threats to address issues of national security.

Observe in light of recent disruptions:  The aforementioned ask-wall was getting chewed on quickly for a while when it moved into the active area, but it was subsequently moved up out of that zone.  Both the buyers and sellers on Tradehill seem pretty stubborn and patient (and relatively few) so it seems to have stayed in tact at it's $3.15-ish for a long while.

The most interesting thing is that it did not budge with all the activity today.  Hypotheses:

 - The guy was sleeping soundly.

 - The guy has lost his interest in liquidating with significant haste for some reason.

 - The guy has lost his ability to move the wall around.  If he is the allinvain thief and Mt. Gox applied enough shame to Tradehill to cut him off or cooperate with any law enforcement who may have taken an interest, I could imagine that.

welcome to another episode of "is the price slowly climbing?" till the next big (and probably final) chrash beneath the 2$ or/and into the 1$!

looks like the price is slowly climbing

It's only a matter of time until we're back at $30! $100 by Christmas!

Ready, GO!

Looking back at posts in July on BitcoinTalk, people were being completely serious when mentioning a rocketing price for bitcoins.

"I would be surprised if we do not hit $100 in September."

"I would be happy if it hit $40 by the end of the year."

Right now it seems many people would be delighted if we see in 2012 above $2.

I'm confident we won't see prices higher than $4 for any significant amount of time during 2012.  Bitcoins credibility has been irreparably harmed and with FPGAs and the like coming onto the scene prices are far more likely to continue downward.  If bitcoin were to last for a decade or two, then we might see the kinds of prices we saw during the bubble, but it probably isn't going to last that long.

It will be a long, long time before the price goes up significantly.  There are a lot of miners holding waiting for a rise in the price to sell, which will kill any rally that happens.  Not to mention people who have been buying all the way down. 

FPGAs? Not any time soon bro...  Difficulty will handle tech advances.

That may be.
Given that we reach the end of the block chain, however, FPGA miners are the only economically reasonable way to compute transactions, really.
Just because the USD is the worlds leading currency, I'd wager that the BTC/USD will reach 1 and oscillate thereabouts from hereon out.

There is only one difference between those posts. First two were made by optimists when price was going up, last two by pessimists, when price was going down. There's no reason to think later two have higher information value, because *nobody* knows what will happen in next month. Bitcoin world is moving extremely fast. When the price was on 30$ almost nobody expected that in few weeks price will be under 10$. So I have my mind open and I won't be surprised when something happen and we will see price at 10$ in few months again.

Personally I think that Bitcoin is worth much more than 20mil USD, which is current market cap and current low price only effect of panic sells of people with weak hands. Don't calculate bitcoin price just as cost of electricity for mining. You must also see an infrastructure which is already here - profesionalizing exchanges, software tools and services and experienced developers improving everything every day - making bitcoin as a secure way for transfering wealth around the world, instantly. It has much higher value than many other "startup companies" with bilions of dollars in stocks.

With current market price it sounds a little funny, but I still think that there's pretty big probability to have market cap in bilions of dollars. Currently there are still many weak hands watching dropping price (*omg it's dying i need to cash out NOOOOW*) and bear traders which are surfing on this panic waves. But then people awake and will see that Bitcoin is still here, untouched with their panicking and everything on technical side is working as proposed. Then we will see next rise of bitcoin value.

On the other hand I think that the "weakest hands" in the bitcoin system are the developers. And this happens because miners are strangling the developers.

Bitcoin as an invention is one thing. Bitcoin as currently implemented is one of the most dysfunctional open source projects that ever existed. The not-invented-here mentality combined with the misanthropic attitude towards integration with the existing financial and accounting software is on the par with some of the worst-run government-subcontracted software projects. The result is glacial pace of progress in the actual software implementation.

So you may rant about the "weak hands" of the investors. But any smart investor will explain why "you don't ask the tailor if the suit fits". The platitudes about "smart people working here" aren't cutting it anymore.

Over the last couple of months I wrote several post with detailed problem explanations, so you'll have to review my posting history for the arguments.

Good luck in the search for greater fools!

If you mean that development is slow, well IMO it should be.  Bitcoin has far-reaching, world-changing revolutionary implications and if not implemented exactly properly, might create more problems than it solves.  Let's not rush things -- let's make sure we get it right the first time.  The world kinda can't afford not to at this point.

+1
Also, I love your pool man  ;D

You probably don't get what I wanted to say. Bitcoin isn't ponzi scheme where you have to search new guys investing in the network. Bitcoin have value itself, just for it's own features. It's for example the easiest way how to transfer wealth around the world in realtime. My point is that "if bitcoin is a traditional company with stocks at 20mil USD, it's incredibly undervalued".

lol, I didn't predict $10 within a few weeks, but I did call out the batshit retards predicting $100. Got banned too for pointing out the obvious early adopter manipulation.
Aw shucks and guess what, now at $2.x early adopters are still manipulating the price.


Except bitcoin isn't a company, and all the holders are spouting off whatever bs they think will get people to buy in.

I agree 100%. The thought that a private party could own every Bitcoin in existence for less than most stars are paid to film a movie is shocking. All it will take is one large company deciding it wants to utilize Bitcoin and the price will go stratospheric. On the other side of the coin, all it will take is one flaw by the development team and Bitcoin could end up worthless.

I agree with the 2 last sentences in the quote above. But I also feel that you didn't get why experienced investors feel as very repelling: you are one of the tailors that keeps claiming that the suit fits.

But at the opposite side of your work you perpetuate completely flawed JSON-RPC protocol with "long polling" addition where successful use is indistinguishable from a DDOS. All that while the existing financial software development community has almost 20 years of experience with protocols like FIX which are both more efficient and more resistant to DDOS attacks.

If the Bitcoin was the 20-million company the shareholders would remove you from your seat on the board of directors.

I tend to agree with the essence of this.

This is probably the biggest problem with open source projects. While open source software might be great, open source projects like bitcoin do not work at all, and are probably worst than government projects.

Why? Because there is no organizational structure, no clear goals, no clear and united strategies, no clear leadership, no clear decision making.

Instead, many people duplicate work without knowing and / or going different directions.

The bitcoin project is the best example of this theory.

Excuse me, but you don't know what you're talking about. DDoS attacks aren't related to chosen protocol (although I agree with you that mining protocol isn't good). You probably forgot that PayPal, company with revenue 2.2 bilion USD in 2009, has been under DDoS many times.

Btw DDoSing mining pools is annoying,  mainly for pool operators, but you can see that it don't affected bitcoin security at all.

I also have many year experience as enterprise IT architect for one large european bank (enterprise architect has, in the oposite to solution architect, responsibility for overall logic infrastructure of the bank). Thanks to this experience I don't have any ideals about security and technologies used in bilion dollars companies.

With all respect to you, you're probably not a developer and you probably didn't work for for large company with tens of thousands employees and thousands of people in IT department. There is NOT a clear strategy in such companies, because of their internal politics games and changes in structure.


I cannot express how much I diagree with you! Bitcoin is the right oposite of typical opensource project. There is clear leadership, clear structure and responsibility, which is very rare in opensource projects. Of course it isn't ideal, but after 13 years of commercial experience in IT I see it as normal. There is also pretty good agreement between independent parties like pool owners, which are basicaly competitors and have only small reason to cooperate.

Please don't mix development in bitcoin core/protocol and development of other related projects, like mining pools (getwork interface, LP, alternative clients). It's completely different story, but it's good there IS some progress.

Excuse me, but I was working on defending against attacks on financial institutions even before DDOS become a common word.

If you have long-lasting (hours or days) TCP/IP connections you can ignore most SYN packets early on the switch.

Long-lasting sessions also allow you to do filtering by origin IP address.

Today's DDOS defense business is so focused on the HTTP protocol that it completely forgot the basic lessons in inter-networking. Overuse of HTTP does rot the brain. Edit: This does include the Paypal code monkeys who had fallen into the HTTP rut.

To Slush:

Thanks for shedding light on this. I was probably over simplifying it.

I have experience in a big company (many tens of thousands of employees), but not directly in the IT area.

What I really mean is that bitcoin lacks either a big company that focuses on it or having some kind of association that does

• Marketing
• PR
• ER

etc..


This could have avoided a lot of biased press coverage as there is no PR work going on, no dedicated advertising of bitcoin as such.. etc.[/list]

This is becoming slightly OT, but fine, one more response from my side.


Well, I agree, in 80' and the beginning of 90' DDoS was not a problem :-).


Who told you that those attacks were SYN floods?


Seems like some people still don't understand one thing; when you have 1Gbit pipe and 11Gbit traffic trying to pass that pipe, it WON'T WORK. Really. It does not depend on chosen protocol.


But mining isn't B2B, it's client-server, with unknown parties on client side. Using HTTP have many other advantages.

I'm not talking that everything is ideal in Bitcoin world, but we aren't group of total idiots.

Yes, I definitely agree on this. I see that biggest problem of bitcoiners is that they're too much focused on technologies and they're ignoring anything else, like marketing. Unfortunately I'm developer too and I many times failed in attempts of doing non-IT stuff in my projects :-), so I'm trying to do what I can and I hope that somebody else good in marketing will join us soon :-).

Great, so we are 100% aligned. This is what I meant.

I am quite experienced in marketing but currently lack the time to spend more time on it...

I would have to agree with slush on this one.  This open source project is pretty organized compared to the many other thousands of open source projects out there.  Organization and structure is slowing coming into fruition with BIPs, leadership (Gavin), release candidates, GIT, etc.  I would say the organization is comparable to Linux and BitTorrent development.

As for marketing bitcoin has a lot of publicity both good and bad but it has been in the lime light more than most open source projects.  It's been featured on Slashdot numerous times.  If you compare bitcoin and PayPal it is night and day in terms of marketing, so yes I agree with S3052 on this.  I think most everyone wants to help out with their own ideas, but there is not really one central big marketing push.  For example, what if we all chipped in for one super bowl ad?

In the end market forces will determine if bitcoin will succeed and not advertising.  Bitcoin, in my opinion, has so many unique properties for it not to succeed.  If it really is cheaper and faster to make transactions, if it's possible to make transactions "anonymous", if it's better than other alternatives then it will grow.  I think for me it is a question of how fast it can grow.

I've pretty much devoted most of my time to marketing bitcoin with my blog and not trying to make money on it.  Sometimes I wonder if I should start being selfish (no offense) and start building a site or trading bitcoins on the side.

Your insistence on HTTP with long polling is the perfect example of the bunker mentality and obsession with reinventing the wheels prevailing at the top of the Bitcoin pyramid.

That and 3 years now with not even a single entity with an audited accounts (even pro-forma) is the reason why the Bitcoin implementation has to change before it can become successful.

It isn't "weak investor hands" that need to shaken off. It is fly-by-night opportunists that will stifle the progress until shaken off.

Well back on topic since we're being oppressed  ;)

The price is not slowly climbing, but it is stabilizing a bit.  The cycle continues. 

How do you guys not see the history and the cycle? It happens every single effing month. The price crashes by ~20 to 50%, people panic and say Btcoin is dead, It stays down for about a week then the price rises, and people all say that this is the turning point. Eventually the price falls in line with the same straight (log) line of slow decline that it has been on since the middle of the summer and everyone declares that Bitcoin has stabilized. Then it happens again. It happened first in June, it happened in July, it happened in August, it happened in September, it happened in October, and now it's happening in November yet everyone is surprised every month.

So how exactly does that help you when the DDOS not only overwhelms you allocated bandwidth but the ISP entire pipe and thus the hosting provide just null routes you?  You can't ignore packets that never get to you.

Can we agree one should at least be informed on the type and scope of the DDOS attacks that large mining pools were facing before they offer completely useless "advice"?

That why I am waiting to buy in at -$100.   The chart shows it.  In about 2 years people will pay me $100 to take a Bitcoin off their hands. 

:-D

where does -100 go on the log chart

It goes UP!

I work with providers who understand the difference between "null-route" and "policy-based null-route".

Absolutely. I'm not itching for a place in the Bitcoin Bunker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunker_mentality). The weather outside is too gorgeous.

If you have any viable proposal how to improve anything (namely pools to be more ddos resilient), feel free to open new thread for it. Or provide your own pool which will resist DDoS attacks; I'm sure you'll find an audience for this. So far your comments aren't constructive.

Btw you really think that market price is affected by chosen pool protocols? Like changing protocol from json-based to something proprietary will move price in any direction? I really doubt it.


You must be blind, otherwise you'll see that price of capable firewalls and network infrastructure to doing such things are many-times over total income from running pools. That's why I was arguing that even paypal with 2.2bilion USD in revenue failed with handling DDoS attacks.

I don't think anyone would resist using a more DDoS resistant system. Where is this "bunker mentality" accusation coming from? Do I have to drop everything and implement your proposal? On the other hand I would gladly criticize it, support you while building it, either donate or pay for your services, etc. Shortage of resourceful developers is the only problem that I can identify here. This is off-topic, so it would be better to move the topic if further discussion is needed. :)

Also, no, price isn't slowly climbing, it's just procrastinating.

Only inside the bunker FIX protocol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Information_eXchange) and Zero MQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0MQ) are called "something proprietary". (edited to add 0MQ).
It isn't how much money you spend. It is how you cooperate with the NOC personnel before, during and after a network event.

Firstly, I was not talking about FIX, only you're. Then, please can you be so kind and explain, how FIX solve problems which we have? I'm not satiric, I'm asking for real - because I really don't see how this is solving problem which we have. Feel free to open new thread to not be offtopic here.

And the last - can you be so kind and stop saying those bullshits about bunker mentality? It's only leading me to the point that you're the trolling and your real motivation isn't to improve anything, only demonstrating that *you* know *we* are doing everything bad.


Ok, previous data center kicked me off because of attacks overloading their network. Me cooperating with them better probably don't change the fact that DDoS was over their capacity. I don't know how current data center will handle those attacks, I hope they'll handle it better. However I really doubt that there is any provider offering such filtering services for reasonable price. If you know any, tell me; I tried to find anything and obviously I failed at this point.

It seems the manipulator wants cheap coins and the price to fall under 2. Look at that bidwalls! It will be very hard to go under 2

Final note since the last remnants of this act are evaporating before my eyes.

There was one interesting observation in that the entire wall (the remaining 6k or so of it anyway) moved to market and was purchased in one gulp.  Then it seemed to be distributed linearly across the a 50cent current ask-wall range.

In the last week, it seemed that something (possibly some of these funds) would sneak out of the trading range and catch whatever had accumulated in a broad trough between buying and asking.  This created price 'drop outs' which were ridiculously easy to capitalize on, and the breadth of the trough made it worthwhile to do so.

Just now, it seems like the last of this steep ask-wall is going really really fast.  Possibly the Euro conference, Keiser, and Fox News stuff is creating incentive for people with money at Tradehill to buy in.  I would expect Tradehill prices will rebound to Mt. Gox levels and possibly overshoot and be generally much more flexible for a while.

Right.
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=640&m=mtgoxUSD&r=150&i=&c=0&t=S&b=&a1=SMA&m1=30&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=0&cv=1&ps=0&l=0&p=0&
BTC/USD, last 5 months, with 30 day trailing moving average.

I've been saying "long, slow slide" for months.

It's still not clear what the endgame is. It hardly matters at this point, though. As I point out occasionally, if one business the size of a typical single supermarket used Bitcoins, liquidating their daily receipts would crash the market.  Bitcoin is now too dinky to be used as a currency.

Another way to look at it is that as long as the network does not crack, Bitcoin is to useful as a currency for at least certain corner case uses.  Ergo, as awareness and utilization of it for such roles increase, so to will it's valuation against other currencies.

And this is not even considering the possibility for other currencies to undergo some sort of a crisis.  Or another round of bubble mania especially if the new users feel some pressure to get in.  An increasing price or threats of legislation could produce such motivation.

Sure, bitcoin doesn't scale yet, but that's a half-hearted criticism.  After all, if a typical supermarket used bitcoins, then all their customers would have to buy bitcoins before spending them, and the net effect would be a wash.  You can't have chickens without eggs.

Your previous "bitcoin is losing $4 per month" trend prediction has clearly been broken, with the price between $2 and $4 since Oct 9th.  Let me ask you a question: how long does price need to stay in this range before you agree trend has been broken?  I think if it stays in the range until the end of the year, the trend is officially broken with a relatively flat 30 day moving average.

The trend has never been $4 per month which is clearly unsustainable from the onset. The trend is 40% drop per month which can go on indefinitely. It's the rate of change that matters not the value. If you are ever unsure whether that trend has actually changed or if it is maybe just a market bounce, take a look at Google Trends and see if there are actually more people interested, or just the same money as before moving around differently.

It's also important to remember that it isn't required for the Google Trend graph to rise for there to be fresh interest in Bitcoin. It's not often that an old Bitcoiner types "Bitcoin" to Google so it's safe to say that as long as the trend doesn't go to 0 there is continuous new interest in Bitcoin.

Right now the trend indicator has reached a fairly stable level after declining from peak hype levels. It's still on relatively healthly levels meaning there is a lot of new interest every day. I expect there to be a slow growth in trend levels in the future, based more on actual development, less on pure hype.

There are some other indicators that seem to indicate that we have reached a bottom at this time: http://www.blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions & http://www.blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction

I have a hard time seeing it going anywhere but up from this point on, unless something radically negative happens. Although I do think that the growth will be different this time. I certainly hope it is, we don't really need a price increase that's 99% based on speculation. That doesn't help Bitcoin much because it will again lead to a massive decline. And it will take volatility through the roof again as well.

Personally I'm hoping the early adopters (those who haven't lost their coins) do the right thing when Bitcoin starts growing faster than it should. I hope they understand that when the speculative demand spikes, they should counter it by selling massively. If the big holders decided to sell big when the speculative demand is spiking and then hold when demand declines, that would keep price volatility in decent levels and it would help to circulate those coins.

It is puzzling that a lot of the early coins haven't moved regardless of price which means that most likely a high percentage of early coins have been lost. So maybe there are not as many active early adopters as some think. Maybe it's the speculators that hold all the cards these days, not the early adopters.

I don't think that's a reliable indicator.  Simply reassuring current users that their value won't disappear breeds confidence, making it more likely that they will speculate/invest in the future of this virtual currency.  I know that others send $$ to the exchanges every month, like myself.

Also, 30-day moving average is a lagging indicator: note that it misses the clear run-ups in February and April by weeks.
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=360&i=&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=S&b=&a1=SMA&m1=30&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=1&cv=0&ps=0&l=1&p=0&

I'm so curious to see where bitcoin goes from here. What will the next chapter be?  Where will it be a year from now? It's too interesting to not play this game while it's in flux.  We're making history, no matter which way it goes.

Nagle is looking only at half the equation- for the supermarket to acquire that many coins from that many buyers, those buyers must first buy the coins. Any company earning so much that it can crash the market with sales is simultaneously earning so much that demand for coins will rise in roughly similar proportion. Sprinkle in smart traders, bots, and arbitrage, and you'd see the volatility caused by a large company dwindle.

Further, by the time such a store was accepting coins, the market volume and depth would be far higher almost necessarily. This is Non-Issue #51851

Wow, imagine how much it would crash the price if bitcoin was accepted everywhere.

We're doomed!

Simple solution ... do everything you can to slow or reverse the adoption of Bitcoin.  Do it now man before Bitcoins are worth pennies.

Looking at that graph, it is clear that it's a very good indicator of an upcoming rally - every time the price crosses the 30 day MA rally starts. And we currently are very close to the line. So either we break $4 and move on or drop below 2 soon.

I'm trying to short the shit out of this market again and this "slow climb" is killing me.  Stop it!

Be patient, the fall is coming.

Where did you short from? I'm about 2.82 right now I think.

I shorted at 2.75 and then more at 2.80.  I'm sure it will fall back to 2.50, even if momentarily.  The waiting is killing me.  I'm a day trader, not a big slow swing trader dangit.

Shouldn't pick the big slow positions then.

It used to swing whole dollar amounts in seconds a couple months ago!  I'm actually not waiting for it to hit 2.50, Just even 2.70 or 2.65 would be good.  The spread on Bitcoinica is so large it turns day trading into swing trading, though.  We need the spread of a few pips, not 10 cents!

mtgoxlive is very damn exciting right now!
edit: BIDWALL AT 2.95 let's see $3 today!

$3 here we come! Too bad I might lose out on this one again because I sold at the wrong price. 2.88 lol

Good thing im only playing around with less than 3 coins and I have more than that in my wallet.

No.

Damn 6 confirmations.. it's really getting annoying.  I suspect 3 confirmations would be enough.

We won't see $3 today and probably not ever again, at least not for any significant amount of time.  Too many people want out of bitcoin, not enough want in.  It's obvious where this ship is headed.

Going to get liquidated on your shorts at bitcoinica if it does? That would really be funny, losing your shorts so to speak. I think we are headed for $3 BTC sooner rather than later.

How did you fare? I had an account with 1$ holding up a position shorting 10 BTC. It now has a margin value of negative 20 cents.

On our way back down to 2.8 and lower.  Sorry to whoever got burned in that faux-rally.  Look at all the ask volume filling right back in.

Similarly on the other side - I've been watching the bid-ghostlines re-solidifying.  I guess both buyers and sellers are happily trickling in their hidden liquidity.
Who will run out first?

Buyers, if the cannot get their fricken' funds into the exchanges :/

Oh how I long for the days when I can instantly transfer whatever part of my net worth I like to whoever I like, and need only to worry about how to ensure that I am unlikely to get ripped off.

This is what I have been thinking. Someone bought about $40k in BTC, up to $2.96 just to let it drop back to the $2.80's...
I think they were *hoping* for some help pushing it past $3, but that help never came.

That 'help' always seems to be delayed though. It rarely comes instantly, just gets the market in the mood to push higher. It is already back up to 2.92.

Since I've stopped doing daytrading, watching these threads has been a lot more fun :)

And, a lot less stressful I'm sure!  ;)

Yeah, definitely. I still have an investment though, but not for the short term. Also, not on bitcoinica anymore, I suck at that :P

I'm not in the green yet  :'(  Gonna wait this one out.  I agree with the predictions of the resistance level at $3.00.  We are still on a long term down trend, haven't really shown up trend for long enough.  HOWEVER, I do feel like the 2.00-3.00 range is the bottom and soon I will switch to bull mode.  I don't know how to trade on a market that rises very well, yet.  I have done most of my trading on the slide from $30 to now.

I think the trick is to buy and then hold…

this isnothing yet .

double digit btcusd values will easily be reached - not in a straight line, but in a stair step pattern

B-b-b-baby, you just ain't seen n-n-n-nothin' yet!

*you shall be necromanced*

impressive.