Bitcoin Forum

The thread title was changed from "Can we, forum users, affect the bitcoin price?" to the current.

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So, looking at the Bullrun you might think: "how far will it go?", "will it stay at this high price level?", "what exactly is causing the rise?" or "this fast rise will be followed by a fast drop anyway...".

First, let's figure out what exactly does the real impact:

https://i.imgur.com/dZa9FKW.png Credits to Google

DEMAND...what is demand?

https://i.imgur.com/JUse6iM.png Credits to Google

A desire to purchase...uhmm

As a simple man, I tend to (most time) invest professionally in stuff that I'm closely familiar enough with and surely this is not a secret formula of investment - no one puts his money in what he doesn't know about. By educating people who have willing to get into crypto but are being skeptical, we could literally affect the price. But to educate someone you have to have someone :) So, where does Bitcointalk get traffic from?

https://i.imgur.com/lcTZigl.png Credits to Similarweb

Not talking about the direct traffic, that's the people who are already deeply familiar with BTC and who already own their shares. 39.45% of the total visitors of the forum are coming from the search. Let's analyze them a bit:

https://i.imgur.com/FVJTQ19.png Credits to Similarweb

These data are, of course, far not accurate but they might help to see the overall pattern. As you see, most part of the traffic that the forum is getting from Google are people who are interested in mining. However, there are hundreds of keywords related to bitcoin that attract millions of people and these keywords are taken by blogs/magazines who don't give a fuck about the future of crypto (the page shown as an example below does not even have a comment section, it's natural that people will have questions after reading this particular article.). They just paid someone to write the articles, took positions on the search, and monetizing their traffic. For example,

https://i.imgur.com/DH6PPhT.png (https://www.investopedia.com/tech/how-does-bitcoin-mining-work/)

Guess what? This single page has (according to Ahrefs) more visits than the whole Bitcointalk forum.

https://i.imgur.com/mfMYwAo.png Credits to Ahrefs

Again, these figures are not accurate, they are only for having an overall pattern. So, what keywords and positions does this "gigantic page" have on search?

https://i.imgur.com/gVvoWEJ.png Credits to Ahrefs

Oh, these keywords seem to be related to the forum's Mining (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=14.0) section. Unfortunately, the section does not have any positions on these keywords.

I can list hundreds of other examples of the keywords that are meant to be leading traffic to Bitcointalk but are taken by other blogs/online magazines/news websites those aim out of these pages are only to monetize or promote affiliate links. Bitcointalk has all the resources to fight for each of these keywords. Google lists your page higher when the page is in-topic, when the domain is aged/authoritative, when other sources are linking to your page, and when people are engaging on this page. We have each and every of those, I think the forum needs more informative threads in form of articles covering questions that are being searched.

So,
 - More informative articles on more different topics = more keywords.
 - More keywords = more traffic.
 - More traffic = more crypto educated people.
 - More educated people = more demand.

What do you think?

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The idea of the thread is wholely based on my thoughts and experience. Any idea, including against it is highly appreciated. Thanks and Happy New Year!

I found the forum from Google when I started here, it came up in my Google searches at the top at the time several times so I thought I'd join in case I wanted to post anything...

I think a deeper analysis should be done on this (potentially with api calls on Google) in order to analyse some actual stats as apposed to what that site brings up as it might not be accurate. The social side, if relating to social media, might also be a reference to people clicking on bounty Anns here also.

I always thought we were fairly well covered by search engines and normally competing with other related projects (bitcoin.org, the bitcoin wiki and reddit). 

I don't know if I'm missing something, or if my brain just doesn't understand complex concepts.

The answer to the question posed in the title of the post, "Yes".

There are certainly members with enough sway to push the market around. Satoshi was/is a forum user.
Forum users have been the people since the beginning to be the movers, shakers, miners and everything in-between.

If you are suggesting that theymos et al. start really pushing for SEO and turn the forum into bitcoin manipulation tool rather than a discussion board, then I just simply disagree.

If the person is searching for knowledge and resource materials, they will probably not stop into written articles by a single site. They would be looking towards different resources that could support their studies regarding anything about cryptocurrency. Almost everything is already here in the forum, and you just have to use the search bar if you really are interested in it.

In general, as forum users, we will be the outlines of the faces of crypto users. I assume people who are noticing the rise in the price of BTC has created the want to research Bitcoin again and would stumble here. If they see a topic that they agree with, they might become users themselves. Still, if they stumbled upon a topic that they don't necessarily agree with, then they wouldn't be interested in participating in discussions here, hence, fewer people if there are fewer people involved, less demand.

There may be a correlation, but there's still no definite exact measurement of how to determine how much we are impacted. For sure, we all want Bitcoin to the moon, but would visitors feel the same way and act on it by buying BTC?

I'm suggesting to make more people know about bitcoin and the forum.

Yes. Because even me telling a friend to buy $5 worth of bitcoin would still technically count as 'demand', affecting bitcoin's price. It's just that of course, that $5 transaction would just have a very very minuscule effect that it's pretty much nonexistent. Same with Bitcointalk, but obviously the effect would be bigger, but I personally don't think Bitcointalk can affect the price in a noticeable manner; probably more of a 'gentle push' in helping price rises.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that, and I appreciate you dumbing it down for me.
I get caught up in the details and sometimes draw conclusions that wrongfully attribute motive.

The problem is that there is only going to be a certain type of person that is drawn to use bitcoin, and even fewer people amongst those that would be interested in using the forum.
It's an idea I can support, but it's not for everyone.

HODL and Inform are probably the best ways to increase demand for bitcoin - there's been more of both than ever, and it's having the desired affect if you ask me.

The price is not determined simply by supply and demand any more. Large transactions are performed via p2p movements, and not by exchanges. The price seems to be an average of sales via exchanges, and they seem to be subject to whale manipulation and speculative pressures.

Not really any more.
The forum achieved its goal to form a community around bitcoin that would eventually help it reach critical mass for mainstream recognition and adoption. Job done.

It is still a great place for newbie investors or just those interested to come and learn and appreciate decentralized trustless systems one of which is bitcoin. They can also post their own views and ideas freely to a certain degree.

This forum can of course influence public opinion and therefore adoption in a small way but it is now not a minor influence on price as serious investment groups and firms and even backs are accumulating holdings. Also much of the public hear about bitcoin via social media, word of mouth, msm etc.  This to me is still the core of bitcoins community but some may disagree. Whales of course are very influential on price.

The forum is still a great place for real enthusiasts to hang out.
It's gone downhill in recent times (volume) due to lack of understanding as to what made it very popular at its peak and what could have been tweaked or adapted was hit with the Nuke of merit and other terrible control systems.
What was once seen as place of opportunity is now seen as a pointless and thankless task by most new members purely from a financial standpoint. Their volume, shit posting and spamming of social media all contributed to a spiral in incoming traffic and interest. Also many great elder posters have left due to various disputes or being bullied by those that have been allowed to assume positions from which they can discredit legitmate and valuable contributions.

Tldr - not much these days,  some alts perhaps.
I mean there are likely some super huge whales here 50k plus holders that could certainly influence the price.

To some extent, sure. But regardless where the transaction comes from(from p2p platforms in this case), wouldn't it still count as "demand"? I don't think "demand" should necessarily come from spot exchanges. One huge transaction from 2 parties should still be considered as "demand" as far as I know.

The answer to your question is "yes," but not in the way that you think it is.

What we need to do to affect the price of BTC is all set aside 15 minutes a day where we do nothing but meditate on the price of BTC of going upward. We need to coordinate it all to one time zone, so it will be forum time (UTC). So from 12:00 - 12:15 PM UTC each day, everyone drop what you're doing and meditate on the price going up. Collective meditation is the best shot we have.

Then more demand gets channelled to buying bitcoin and avoiding alts lol. The forum always has a way of convincing her members to invest in just bitcoin and avoid alts. The whole sentiment about bitcoin on the forum is positive even in trying times. I can't count the numerous times I got the heads up from reading through speculation thread and did further research and finally ended up buying more coins to my holdings in the past.

To some extent the forum does have its own contributions to the creation of demand for the currency. The speculation on the forum does have its influence on a her members. I can't give others perspective so I'll go with just mine, during the just concluded halving period I reminder reading different speculating of the likely short term reaction would be and it played out just that way.

There are also 2 studies about it,

[1] When Bitcoin encounters information in an online forum: Using text mining to analyse user opinions and predict value fluctuation (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177630)
[2] How Does Social Media Impact Bitcoin Value? A Test of the Silent Majority Hypothesis. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324118265_How_Does_Social_Media_Impact_Bitcoin_Value_A_Test_of_the_Silent_Majority_Hypothesis)

^This, manipulation is a very important factor that people tend to forget about, many big players use peer to peer and OTC methods to exchange their coins and simply refuse to use exchanges for their transactions specially non-P2P ones for two main reasons:

1. Using exchanges to sell/buy big amount of assets will affect orderbooks and market price significantly which could lead to panic/fomo from retailers and that means that person has to buy at higher average price or sell at lower average price.

2. Risk losing their funds holding their assets even for a short period of time on a centralized exchange which could happen for various reason like the exchange gets hacked or the exchange just lock the users fund because they supposedly detected suspicious activity or they come up with other made up reasons to ask for even more documents apart from KYC.

Imho less than 1% of forum users here would or are willing to buy BTC (or any crypto for that matter).
99% is just here for the airdrop, bounties, free stuff and scams.

Granted those 1% might consist of some early adopters with thousands of bitcoins, but they are far and few in between.

Doesn't this manipulation and speculative pressure also result in the total supply and demand in the market?  if I think it still culminates in supply and demand as well.  However high speculation in the market is, what will determine the price in the market is the supply and demand.  No matter how fast the investor wants to make a profit, what is done is the buy option and the sell option.  There are no other options.  Why do prices go up because of high demand, why do prices go down because the supply is higher.  When asked why supply and demand are high, there are several reasons that are commonly used.  It could be for fundamental reasons and technical reasons.  If you direct the market price to be influenced by speculation it looks like that is the only motive of investors in owning bitcoin.

So the question is that do we have any whales on the forum ?  I am sure there may be few whales who have a lot of bitcoins with them and they would have visit the forum to keep upto date on bitcoin and crypto news.
As an individual we could promote bitcoin and this forum to as many users as possible. Maybe more people will buy bitcoin once they come to know about it and it will help to increase the bitcoin price to some extent.

I think maybe you've been hanging around meta too much. Sounds to me like you are describing DT1 members.
There are a lot of people taking punts all the time on alts and those have to usually buy btc first.

There are a lot of genuine investors here but due to the rampant proliferation of alts many of which are scams really even some of the very largest are scams. They just take longer to sink and crush way more hopeful investors.
Due to the mass dilution and scams people are far more wary. Except defi lemmings.

Early adopters are loaded just on btc. I doubt they will bother to dabble with any alts seriously. Maybe the top 10 but I guess you never know.

Still with the exception of whales ( who I doubt are swayed by what a bunch of newbies say or do) large investment Corps and regulations are the main influence now.

The forum is great for small fish to learn and gradually become a part of the original crypto community.
It's nothing at all to what it was ( especially the alt main board which was once super interesting and full of good natured characters that rubbed each other up the wrong way but few were scammers or overtly greedy, more real enthusiasts for trustless decentralized projects and solutions)in many ways, but where else is better? Nowhere atm.

Bct needs huge volume back to bring any real influence on btc now.
It's not really viewed as the equal opportunity and fair playing field it used to be. So that wont happen as it is.

Either I’m underestimating the size of some whales here, or everyone else is underestimating the massive liquidity in the Bitcoin market. Outside of the idea that every trade effects the marketplace, I’d say this entire community likely could not have any prolonged or meaningful effect on the Bitcoin exchange rate. Sure, there may be a couple asset managers lurking around here with the power to move hundreds of millions of dollars, but if we’re talking regular active members, there’s absolutely no chance to band together to control the market. In other words, there’s always a bigger fish.

I don't remember ever seeing a specific thread regarding content and SEO, but has theymos and the mods ever considered paying a SEO experienced content writer to create some articles and drive some more traffic towards the site? Seems that mining is the most popular term people search for, but there are surely many others. Someone who knows more about this stuff could probably chip in. Why not increase the userbase in this way?

https://media.giphy.com/media/1Z02vuppxP1Pa/source.gif

Finally someone got my point.

This is one of the nicest topic I've read in for a while here. It's true that any person having questions regarding Bitcoin should at first take a look here, in this forum, the original forum of bitcoin having all resources and information and it's a shame if other websites and blogs steal the attention through search engines that this forum deserves. Infact the forum was created for this only, to engage conversation and solve doubts regarding the Bitcoin technology!

They should, but if they never heard of Bitcointalk, how could they? There are tons of discussions on reddit and Twitter, maybe some of those users would gladly come here, they just don't know about this forum. That's why I suggested paying someone to create some content to divert more traffic to Bitcointalk.   

Actually google will give results of bitcointalk in their first page when the user used the most accurate keywords along with bitcointalk apart from this any deeper question will leads to bitcointalk so no matter how much we improve the actual quality here the goggle is going to give the paid ads in the first page along with shit exchanges and articles when simple keywords used while searching.

At the moment I think people have no trouble getting basic information and knowledge about bitcoin even though they don't come to the forum. There are so many articles available on Google about bitcoin that these people will gain some understanding.

Wikipedia is one of the sites that in my opinion provides sufficient information related to bitcoin and so far Wikipedia also refers many Begginers to the forum who want to discuss more things about bitcoin. So in my opinion there is no need to pay people just to increase visitor traffic to the forum. Some people don't want to talk about bitcoin but they just want to know a lot about bitcoin by reading articles. Bitcoin.org also stores a lot of information about bitcoin which is also a great place for someone to gain knowledge.

OP, I think you've done a good job of keeping the forum clean by simply asking users to write quality posts. But we will still see dozens of spam posts all the time flooding into forum by bounty hunters and signature campaign participants. Only some of us really care about the quality of our shipment and some may not. See how crowded the altcoin discussion board is with repetitive, low-quality, spammy posts. Will they listen to this good advice ? And I know they're too comfortable with the habit because there's not a lot of mod action in that section. If the mod acts decisively, then hundreds or even thousands of posts will have to be deleted every day.

I was directed here repeatedly by Google back in 2013/14 when I was searching for bitcoin--in fact, I think some of the top hits for just "bitcoin" directed me to bitcointalk.  I haven't checked to see if that's still the case, but I'm also not sure Theymos really needs to employ any SEO folks, as the forum gets tons of traffic as it is.  Theymos is also intelligent enough to already have considered that if more traffic is what he wanted.

If newcomers to bitcoin start to bone up on the history of it, they'll eventually discover bitcointalk--and probably sooner rather than later, too.  The forum in the early days was mentioned in Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper if I recall correctly (I haven't finished it yet), and that's a pretty popular book for those wanting to learn about bitcoin.

Yeah, and I can't stand Google because of their dominance and their fucking algorithms.  Talk about a single company wielding too much power.  You probably couldn't find a better example of one.

The price is still determined by supply and demand though the last time i check the OTC or P2P trading price is different from the exchange.

Yes and I believe there are acouple of whales in the WO price movement section cause in the previous ATH market one user said he will dump the rice of the market which happen some minutes after he make the post.

There's always a bigger fish but regular active members can still play a role to influence the price of the market when it comes to debating block size increase etc.

In addition to that there are also groups created on discord,facebook and telegram who helps newbie to learn a information regarding on bitcoins.

Also the main problem about the spam is the manager tolerates and count those shitty post made by their participants if only professional managers will handle the camp and don't count those irrelevant post then for sure the problem will get minimize.

But I believe this is not really a big problem since actually in the other hand in can increase the forum activity.

And the main problem for what I see is those scams still unmoderated here if this one will be moderated by the mods newbie can wander here around safely without worrying about getting scam, but this is hard to do.

But the immediate aid for spam is always click the report to the moderator button so that the post will be deleted.