Bitcoin Forum

I've taken on about $2k of paper losses from the top... :(
How about you?

(by the way, these are paper losses... I got in at $2.  Also, I never trade, because I always manage to screw myself when I do.)

I hope you got out or get out soon.  I don't think we've seen the worst of it yet.

This boat?

http://media.katu.com/images/120114_cruise_ship_crash_660.jpg

Loss $28 yesterday, was little slow to convert BTC proceeds to USD. (from silver sale)

Eating popcorn in my lounge chair and enjoying the show.

Waiting for Bitcoin Clearance Sale.

That's why I always make sure to reserve my cabin on the Starboard Port Side.

Sold @ $6 just before thing really started to go downhill... going to buy @ $2.50

I'll never get out.  I don't trade.  Everything I have in this is play money :)

I'll clean your boat for btc.

I'm sitting on Gox, trying to throw my weight around and bully the prices back and forth...



I'm not doing so hot...

Im on a horse....

http://i46.tinypic.com/2wd4ymc.jpg

http://youtu.be/M-xkyuc08UY

No worries, Bitcoin isn't going to disappear. While I have my concerns about the BIP 12/16/17 issue regarding P2SH, I think it's unlikely that it will cause real damage to the system during implementation. Other than that, we've seen this week that there is no end in sight to inflationary policies. Long-term that's beautiful for our intangible tokens.

That said, if the $4.64 spike low from the 17th fails to hold, the most likely new low will be around $4. The $3-4 range is where buying should begin to emerge in size. For large mining operations, the profitability zone is still around $2-3 which creates a 'hard' floor as we saw a few months ago.

Besides, there was a solid 2 month run up that needs to be bled off. I wouldn't be surprised to see a spike to just below $3 before the capitulation selling is done (maybe over the coming weekend). At least with Bitcoin, technical analysis is more relevant due to its transparency.

So I'm with StewartJ - bring on the clearance sale!

:D

wow go there and do the same thing using this
http://www.gearfuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/monowheel1.jpg

That was quite the ride down...too bad there was no one inside the tire....

Money management is more important than you trading strategy.

This reminds me of the south park episode lol.

A buyer appears.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2ntzk6.jpg

so much action!

bitcoin is a one big show, the front row seats start at 10,000$ each, and the nose bleed section is only 5$

GRRRR i panicked and  sold all my coins at 5.19 lol   right before it jumped up to 5.48          GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR IM SO BAD AT TRADING!

Sold a little late.  5.94 I believe... took about a $150 haircut... then did some trading, up down sideways... ended behind about $20 (down about 3% total I think...)

Not the worst thing in the world when the coins lost ~18% of their value in the last few days.

Hoping to end up with ~10-12% more btc than when this started.  

Don't hope or panic - that doesn't change a trend or highlight tops & bottoms. Read Goomboo's Journal thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60501.0). If you're not simply holding long-term positions, he offers some excellent perspective. Besides, anyone who recommends Jesse Livermore is aces.

FTFY

I hear dope takes away the emotions.

Well Im jumping back in...

i dont get it. like there was a huuuge ask wall at 5.20 and like 0 bid walls till like 4.50 so i panic sold all my coins at 5.19 then right after that happens it jumps up to 5.49 .   THE MANIPULATOR HATES ME!!!!

They just like your money. Listen to more rap I hear they know the game.

Just for fun, went 10:1 short @ 5.30 just now...

... with 1 BTC.   :D

I shorted .33 btc at same..

I have 77 cents in usd left on there :D

couple more wait-see upticks and I'll join you.

k so, smoke dope and listen to rap? gotcha   omw

Lol, I short @ 5.30, then it shoots up to 5.50.

I picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue.

Yeah, I'm thinking that was the bottom we just hit.  I was sitting at 4.x, but am jumping back in at "close enough".  Someone appears to be putting a lot of support at ~$5.40; I'll take that as an implicit floor.

Sometimes lesser profits are nice because they are still profits.

Weird huh?

lol

Oh manipulator, you can no longer hide in plain sight.

Im on a boat

http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/478648/I+m+on+a+boat/

This. I fucking did this too.

Hey.  Quick idea... Don't short sell!!!

-EP

+1... Stampeding in one direction won't solve the volatility issues everyone seems to be worried about.

I have seen personally seen much bigger losses than that, just to see them regained 48 hours later.

It's the nature of BTC, and it should not scare of the traders who are currently on board.

BTC (at the moment) is very similar to gold, when it comes to swings.

11k play money? You’ve got too much of it. ;D

Better idea, don't panic.  I see this all the time in bitcoin - a small (50%) price movement and people get worried.  Wait until you start doing forwards (futures).

The problem now are bitcoinica cascading forced liquidations - if that happens again it can drive the price down very quickly and at this point is is quite probable because we are close to the recent bottom and the star was on the buy button well into 5.4 prices.

Indeed. I think if we go < $5 the price will tumble.

Well... I just have about 30 bitcoins left... the rest I sold @ 5.75... hoping for this to go lower so I can rebuy cheap... I made a $500 profit with what I sold... so, not bad.

Not selling a single BTC. Buying more if it drops really low. Nothing has fundamentally changed to not be bullish about Bitcoin long term, there have been some confidence breakers recently but nothing compared to what we had after the big bubble. I will ride this one out and see you on the other side. That could be in 3 months, 6 months or 12 months. Doesn't matter.

I did quite well in the last half a year  doing the opposite to what you were advising: selling when you were so enthusiastic and then buying when you started posting more balanced notes.

SHHH, you’re screwing up my contrarian indicators!

I did quite well too and I'm still doing well. I made a lot of BTC going down because I eventually gave in and now I'm long from $2.3. Traditionally long of course, haven't used Bitcoinica and I never will. I did buy some more at $5.x going up but that was with less money, my average entry point is still very good at these prices.

The reason I'm doing nothing is not that I don't think that the price can't go down from where it currently is, I just don't see the fundamentals for a bigger crash. If we go below $4 I might start to think differently but we'll see about that then. I give that kind of a drop a low probability and I don't want to take the stress of selling now and then having to look at the charts all the time and think about the point of re-entry.

One of my favorite indicators which is the network transaction count, has been very healthy in the past weeks. Hasn't dropped very low for a single day and is showing an uptrend. That's in part due to the fact that panicking people are depositing coins to exchanges but still, I see no sign of a fundamental decline. I think of this as a correction in an overly aggressive uptrend. The uptrend will continue once the correction is over so I don't really have anything to worry about.

Right now I simply think that I have less stress from looking at a weaker long position at a possible $4.x than I would have if I sold and had to look for a re-entry point. If I had more money invested in Bitcoin my view could be different but I honestly haven't invested anything I can't afford to lose.

Fundamentals don't matter to short term prices.  Also, you didn't see the fundamentals last time either for a big crash ;)

I agree that fundamentals don't matter to short term prices. That's why I rarely do anything short term. As far as seeing the fundamentals last time, I did eventually. Later than many others but not as late as some of us.

Still it's important to understand that long term players who never sold during the big crash are still fine. They will always be fine as long as there is at least a glimmer of hope in Bitcoin's future. I see a lot more than a glimmer so I'm not worried at all.

My fundamental analysis from last summer was way off.  I would not have believed it could have gotten down to $2.00 absent a system failure, and not even close.  For this reason, my confidence in my own ability to estimate the lows that can be plumbed remains weak.  So, I'm ready for anything...including that my fundamental analysis could be low on the upside as well.

Fortunatly I always considered Bitcoin to be a long-shot with a high probability of total loss and a outside possibility for enormous gain (years down the road, and not limited to monetary gain) thus any money I put in I considered disposable.  That remains the case, and it was thus not difficult for me to hold everything I have ever had (except for a tiny bit of hour-by-hour exploitation of Tradehill artifacts.)  I also had no inclination to cash out when I could have done so at a profit (which is not the case at this moment.)

I remember telling people that .mp3s were the next big thing in 1993. I also remember saying that Apple was a screaming buy at $4.  Sometimes it takes a while for the market to properly value something...

In my opinion, the best way to value Bitcoin is to think of it as a publicly owned company.  Right now, there are roughtly 8 million bitcoins in existance, with a $5 value.  That's about a 40 million dollar market cap.  You could even go a step further and say that investors have already priced in the roughly 20 million bitcoins that will be in existance.  That would be an estimated 100 million dollar market cap.  Is the Bitcoin idea/network/economy worth 100 million dollars?  In my opinion, it is will be worth far more.

The closest publicly traded company that offers the service that Bitcoin offers is Western Union.  Western Union charges higher fees, isn't anonymous, can't be be claimed from the privacy of your own home, isn't supported by an enormous public network and can't be used as a tax shelter.  Even with all of those shortcomings to Bitcoin, Western Union has a market cap of nearly 12 billion dollars.  If Bitcoin were to be widely accepted 10 years from now, it wouldn't be insane to assume that it would match Western Union's market cap.  For the sake of argument, lets say that Bitcoin did reach the adoption of Western Union.  If Bitcoin were worth 10 billion, that would be $500/BTC...

+1

The market cap is indeed one of the best fundamental indicators you can possible use when it comes to Bitcoin. It gives a solid idea of what Bitcoin could be worth now and what it could possibly be worth in the future. My thinking in regard to investing in Bitcoin takes this into account very strongly.

If you trade short or mid term then this indicator is not much use because it's hard to say at what level we are right now and how much of the expected future value is already priced in etc. But for a long term player like me this is very useful. There is indeed a realistic chance that Bitcoin could eventually challenge at least Western Union, I believe Bitcoin could go even bigger than that but that's just extra. This potential alone gives me reason to be bullish at these prices, from a long term perspective.

Bitcoin at three digits might still take a while but Bitcoin at single digits is something that we will say good bye for good sooner or later, most likely sooner. If Bitcoin doesn't totally fail for some reason, I have a very hard time believing that it could be at single digits in 2013, not for one day. In fact 2013 could be the first year we have a go at three digits.

That's nice analogy in theory, except Bitcoin is not traded like a publicly-owned company.

When you invest in shares of Western Union, you are doing so in a proven, viable business that is
financially regulated, and accountable to shareholders.

When you "invest" in Bitcoins you are entering a world of unregulated if not somewhat nefarious
manipulators, out-of-control margin "gamblers', and over-exuberant traders who are speculating
Bitcoin out of existence with parabolic rallies, pump-n-dump crashes, and Bitcoinica starfish nonsense.

Probably the most important factor in the adoption of Bitcoins: a stable trading price. And when
is that going to happen?

Probably never. It's simply not in the nature of BTC to have a "stable" price.
 
Will the volatility and swings decrease in the future?

Sure, but the price will never be "stable" like the USD is to the Euro and so on...

Those currencies are only "stable", because they are kept that way artificially..

Not until people grow a pair and accept losses.  As it is now, everyone panics and runs in one direction when there is a strong move.

Exactly.

Revolutionary currency/technology meets immature trading exchange.

I agree.  However, this is sort of a Catch-22 because people will not keep their money in Bitcoins unless they know it's stable.

There was a time when USD wasn't stable at all until they tied it to gold.  Once it gained stability, everyone started using it (other countries tying their currency to the dollar) they were able to keep it stable without anything backing it.  Even with inflation as it is USD is still a reliable currency.

At what time (before 1913) was the USD not tied to gold?  I'm a little fuzzy on the pre-fed history of the dollar.

What a shame.  How can I sell the concept of Bitcoins to my friends when I honestly tell them
they could lose their USD value overnight?

It either needs to be traded on such a large scale the trading price is smoothed out, or a huge
adopter (facebook, amazon, google) implements it.


Edit:  I had been day-trading in Bitcoins like most everyone else. Now working on looking for
longer trends and actually investing in it. Need to appreciate the long traders a little more,
who are inBTC for the longer haul.

You say: "Either you lose a couple $100, or you get potentially humungous returns."

Sold !!??

Gold standard for the USD was implemented in 1900.  Before that there was a bimetallic backing for the dollar.  This might sound silly but I'd like to think of this as the various currencies you can cash out for with Bitcoin.  As gold and silver prices fluctuated the ratio was always different for how much silver or how much gold you could get.  Once they fixed the standard amount of gold a dollar was worth it remained stable (of course, until 1913, when they ran out of gold to back it and it again entered bitcoin-like instability)

If, for example, Mt. Gox promised you could get $6USD for every bitcoin and (no other currency, no arbitrage possible) it would certainly fix the problem of these huge up and downswings.  Of course they would have no reason to do this because they make money on volatility as does almost everyone in the market.  Bitcoin does not have stability in mind - unlike the US government did when creating the dollar.  This is one of the problems with having an international currency with no banks or government to protect it.  Sure, there are benefits, but there are also many flaws and there is a reason why most currencies are and will always be safer than bitcoin. They will never be as fun, or as profitable to trade, though.

Still waiting for the value to drop way more. Wanna buy me a whole load of them :)

I think it would suffice if there weren't people trying to hype the price up to whatever the next USD value target is moments after they buy BTC.

If people would keep the future-huge-value speculation low and speculate on a more reasonable scale, we could get this stable in no time. But noooo, "Next stop, $8!" "No way we'll stay in single digits" "pah, single or double, triple digits is the future!!!1"

Nice to be enthusiastic, but calm down, there's a very long and very bumpy road ahead.

Thanks for the info... as for a MtGox peg, eventually the market would run them out of funds on one side, then the market would move past them and they'd be on the losing side.  You can't peg, even the US government "ran out of gold to back it".

...unless they had $21M and said they'd back it at $1.  ;)

Yes, I believe you have correctly identified the reason why Bitcoin is trading at 1/100th of it's most established legitimate competitor in spite of being far superior.

You can do both.  Spread your BTC around.  Gamble, trade, invest, donate, spend...  Do it all.  

We have something better than banks and governments.  We have a community of people who are working together to see Bitcoin succeed.  Eventually the real bitcoin holders will outnumber the margin gamblers, you just have to be patient.

Backed at $1  != pegged at $1

+1

This is something that always helps me think on the positive side of things, it's undoubtedly true that things will get better as Bitcoin gets bigger and more widely used. I also agree with Vandroiy that it's important to be a bit more conservative. People in this forum tend to heavily overhype at times and then at other times they do the exact opposite and give an overdose of FUD. I admit I've been guilty of the former at times but never of the latter ;)

Yes, this is true.  I kind of misread that part of the conversation.

This is exactly it.

Bitcoin can only go one of two ways.

Either it goes huge, and the dream is a reality ($100,000 coins). - This is entirely possible based on simple mathematics, and (again) full adoption becoming a "reality".

OR

It goes bust, and turns out to be nothing more than a clever ponzi scheme.

One thing never changes.

Bitcoin is only useful, because people choose to use it.

Now based on your perception of life and own self value.

This can be one of the most empowering things you've ever heard, or the most demotivating reason to ever get into BTC.

That's why Bitcoin really is so beautiful. It really is up to YOU whether we embark on this beautiful dream, or we crash land right back to "reality".

YOU back Bitcoin.. That's probably the main reason the exchange rate is so unstable right now..

People are on the fence and I don't blame them...

Mix that in with a bunch of newb traders and a few well-funded sharks, and you got the most one of the most volatile games I have ever seen in my life.

+1

"Check yo self before you wreck yo self"

Yes the value in bitcoins is mostly driven by speculation and hope, but those dreams have the potential to transform into reality.

Just think about how the price of a coin is currently determined. People just place bids and asks according to information about where other people are placing their bids and asks

That means the price of bitcoins is non zero as a result of dependent origination (a Buddhist might say). The bids and asks support each other like the two sides of an arch bridge, essentially creating a stable structure out of two opposing forces. This kind of interaction is why it is possible for value in bitcoins to arise out of nothing. Without being backed so to speak.

Pratītyasamutpāda

bitcoin Buddhism? 

Bitcoin price is an illusion that only stands because we all chose to believe in it.  However, if we maintain the illusion long enough, the Bitcoin economy will develop and we will transition to a fluid, stable currency.  A Buddhist may argue it would still all be based on illusion, but then again, so is every other market in their view.

~ sitting in lotus position now ~

FTFY

I thought that covered it.

Like MF Global?


To the point I alluded to in my smart-ass rhetorical question, another way to skin the cat (or for the cat to be skinned) would be if the 'traditional' markets start to fail.  I don't rule that out, and in fact, I am anticipating it to some degree.  To what degree I do not really know, but if people start to feel like they are being bent over and the regulatory and enforcement agencies are not looking out for them, the mathematical certainties of Bitcoin may start to look attractive in spite of the volatility which it exhibits.

I do believe that the goal of the MF Global take-down was, in part, to establish in case law certain features which were introduced into legislation along with the bankruptcy reforms were put into place circa 2005...just in time for the housing bust funny enough.  As I understand things (derived from reading non-mainstream ravings) part of this legislation involved a shuffling in how creditors line up to take haircuts when financial organizations fail.

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=198650

Regulated, accountable markets lend a veil of legitimacy. I would compare it to wikipedia. Before, everyone took what was written by "experts" in textbooks and encyclopedias as gospel. We all know it is impossible to completely avoid bias and misinterpreted/incomplete information. If you read wikipedia articles, this is blatantly obvious, you cannot ignore it. I prefer this to the pretend reality dependent upon trust.

The Buddhist perspective explains Bitcoin's magic perfectly. It's also what makes Bitcoin so hard for most people to grasp. The thing about it is that there is no trust among people, but an agreement between machines; as though something were truly created from nothing. Machines aren't alive and yet a glimmer of it has become visible.

As for MFing Global, I find Jesse's Cafe (http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/) has provided the greatest level of detail with strong insight. It isn't the first, won't be the last, and has decimated any legitimate functionality in traditional western markets for a long time to come.