Bitcoin Forum

Clearly traders are taking out a chunk whenever possible out of Bitcoin's rise in price. Here is some news about bots trading its pants off automatically:

http://www.coindesk.com/stopcoin-turns-coinbase-account-automated-trading-bot/

Given the dramatic rise in price end of last year, traders rolled into the game and have been chopping off peaks as soon as they can, keeping the HODLERS from making any headway!

Hopefully the economic recovery may draw traders away and leave Bitcoin to a steady rise.

There were traders aplenty at all price points above $1. THere were serious shenanigans going on when the price was $3-$15. I remember when it broke $5 the manipulator (aka the trader with the most money) probably got slaughtered.

*shrug* Hodlers gonna hodl. So long as the coin isn't needed for life expenses, it doesn't really matter how long it takes the hodl to fodl; it's in a (mental) vault. Traders are short-term and I assume they more-or-less balance each other out, where their influence is really more in creating stability than manipulating any long-term trends (unless there's a significant number with large stakes about to be burned).

Traders gonna trade hodlers gonna hodl. I like this explanation. Sooner or later bitcoin is going to explode again or die. There's no other outcome.

HODL'ers haven't realized their capital gains/losses by definition. Traders are playing in their own zero sum game with each other. So neither group has won or lost, nor do they need to at each other's expense. The losers are the ones who are neither - i.e. those that exited with a realized loss.

Came here to write a long essay on how OP suffers from a misunderstanding of what 'trading' vs. 'holding' does, but looks like you already answered it better than I could have.

Here's my own version of a similar argument anyway:

Traders don't fundamentally change anything. They add a bit of volatility at the beginning of a trend (momentum following), they take a bit of it away at the other end (mean reversion), and first and foremost, they add a modicum of second-level predictability to the market by preying on the first-level predictability of the 'purely intuitive' market participants.

None of that changes the larger fundamental question every market faces: is buying pressure dominating, or selling pressure?

For the past year, it was the latter, and that can't be the fault of traders - they, like anyone else, can only sell a coin they own once before buying it back again.

There are several significant BTC stashes that will be liquidated soon.
The FTC seized and got permission to liquidate iirc something like 25K BTC from butterfly labs. The Australian government is about to auction 9K silkroad coins. There is the strong possibility that Tim Draper will begin cutting some losses on his 30K auction (or is already doing so). So in the short/medium time, I wouldnt be surprised if the price dropped further or at best remained flat.

Doesnt matter to me, Im still hodling. Ive been progressively selling fractions of my stash from $~10 all the way up to ~$1000 and down to $600. Ever since it dropped below that, I stopped selling. If it drops below $200 I will start buying again for the first time in forever, and I wont resume selling before its above $600 and then continue doing so each month until Ive sold half my initial stash. The rest is a long term pension fund :).

The whole point of bitcoin is to squeeze the most fiat and the most profits out of it. Only bag holders and cultists don't seem to understand that.

I don't think you understand bitcoin at all.

No, you don't. But don't listen to me, you just hodl, while others make money at your expense (I'm talking real money, like dollar, euro, pound)

I am guessing you are a young man with few assets. I wish you good luck trading up your holdings.

Those who are in it for the long run do not care about this. I am one of those. Couldn't care less.

All I can say to you, wealth is not measured in bitcoin, it is measured in dollar (and other fiat). You're not wealthy how much bitcoins you have, you're wealthy how much dollars they're worth.

So what you are saying is assets can be priced in different currency units? What if one doesn't live in the US?

That's why I said other fiat in parenthesis. Just something is priced in different currency units doesn't make it same as them. Bitcoin is an asset, financial and speculative tool, but not a currency.

Why is it not a currency?

It's not used to trade goods and services. Or at least, it's used only marginally for that. Most of it's use comes from speculation, trading other currencies with it, that's why I said it's financial tool, an asset. Bitcoin is a vehicle for transacting other currencies, but it's not a currency itself. It could be a currency, but presently it's certainly not.

Maybe for some, but for the genuine holders , nothing has changed IMO.

Sorry to disagree but it is used to trade goods and services. I buy take away with it once a week. I could buy a new laptop with it on dell, or a hotel on expedia. It is supported by the transactions on the dark web with items priced in bitcoin only.

There is a large component of speculation in the price but i am not sure why that is relevant, given the global forex market which speculates with >4 trillion dollars in currency units exchanged per day, with global gdp being only 100 trillion dollars a year.

When you buy something with it, you're not buying it with bitcoin, but with fiat it represents. Goods are priced in fiat, not in bitcoin. That's why I say it's a tool for transacting a currency. What you're doing is when you buy a laptop you're sending your fiat via bitcoin to a retailer. Purchasing power of bitcoin comes from fiat, bitcoin is just a way of transaction, but not a currency itself. Think about it.

Your argument seems to morph with each rebuttal :)

Dark web, lol. That's all you got?

No but you ignored everything else when I proved that bitcoin is a currency by your own metrics.  Anyway real life intrudes. :)

The same could be said of the currency of a small country. Have you vacationed in the Dominican Republic? The stuff that tourists buy are priced in Pesos but the prices are synced with the USD exchange rate. However this does not invalidate the Dominican Peso as a currency.

The original post is absurd. Traders can not take anything from hodlers.

There are long term holders being scared shitless daily and pulling out their holdings via scary a series of panic sells. Too many panic sells together + actual daytraders make it seem as if it's all day traders fault, but a lot of holders are selling these days.

Days destroyed implies otherwise.

I lost more trading than I have holding.

Don't come at him with facts  :P

Traders have created incredible uncertainty and volatility, causing the overall value of Bitcoin to stay low. Spooked hodlers are bailing out is why the price keeps creeping downwards.

LOL thread.

Holders are traders.

They traded when they acquired their coins (unless they mined them which involves trading their hardware investment and electricity for them) and they will trade again when they use them later to purchase beer, t-shirts, fiat currency, laptops, excursions, etc.

Ditto. My only issue now is having to sync every once in a while  :-\

I;d guess the most reasonable term for people who hodl for extended periods of time ("long-term traders") would be "bears." They hibernate until the price is dramatically higher than their buy-in and don't wake up even if the price tanks. I've never really understood what conventional use of "bearish" was supposed to illiterate, anyway. Bears paw it down and bulls uhh... gore it up, maybe?

You made me look it up. Seems you could be right.

http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/129.asp

Then again it could be bearskin jobbers and bull/bear-baiters.