Title: How the US Marshal Bitcoin Auction Affects the Market (Buttercoin Weekly) Post by: kzcoin on December 08, 2014, 10:43:37 PM Hi, I’m Kevin Zhou, Economist at Buttercoin (https://buttercoin.com/#/?r=KS08FiDDPLr) a Silicon Valley / Wall Street backed Bitcoin Marketplace (sign up here (https://buttercoin.com/#/setup?r=KS08FiDDPLr)). Every week we take a look at what’s happening in Bitcoin and share it, here’s the latest.
This week markets traded between $365/BTC and $385/BTC. Volatility has remained low with the exception of a sharp but minor drop on 12/4 from $375/BTC to $365/BTC. Trading volumes continue to decrease. News this week:
This week, I'd like to delve into the second US Marshal bitcoin auction and how it affects the market. Markets should only react to new, unexpected information. The expectation that these Silk Road seized coins would be auctioned off by the government had already formed to some degree on the day the coins were seized and further confirmed by the first US Marshal bitcoin auction. Thus the event of the second auction, itself, should have little market impact because it was, with near certainty, expected by the market. There are broadly two types of bidders in the auction. Those who bid under market price (short and long-term value seekers) and those who bid above market (long-term investors). If an underbidder wins, they could either sell the bitcoin into the open market to lock in some profit or hold onto the bitcoins for a longer period of time. Both of these behaviors are reasonable. However, if an overbidder wins, the only reasonable behavior is to hold. This is because the only reason someone would bid above the current spot price is because they are seeking to take a sizable long position in bitcoin while incurring less slippage than if that position was bought in the open market. There would be no reason for someone to bid above market price only to win the auction and immediately it sell back to the market at a loss. Therefore, if an overbidder wins, we can be reasonably sure that those coins will not be dumped onto the market and create selling pressure. If opinions about the market are distributed between pessimistic on one side and optimistic on the other, you would expect that some people belong to the pessimistic side and some others to belong to the optimistic side and most people are in the middle. If everyone was on the price-pessimistic side, some of them would just sell into the market until both sides become roughly balanced. So of the 11 bidders, we can expect some of them to be underbidders and some of them to be overbidders. This is expectation is amplified by the fact that some of the 11 bidders represent syndicates composed of many smaller bidders who all likely have differing sentiments about bitcoin price. A lopsided 9-2 split is more likely to happen purely by chance than a 900-200 by chance. In light of that, I expect most of the auctioned coins to be won at above market price and for those coins not be be dumped for some significant time. Up until now, we've considered how auction winner behavior affects post-auction price. How about the effect of expected winner behavior on pre-auction price? If we expect most of the auction to close above market, does that lead normal market participants to buy and pump up the price knowing that there will likely be someone who bought at a higher price than them, who will not sell below that price? Intuitively that might make sense but I would argue that it can't be the case. Overbidders by definition are willing to pay more than the rest of the market so the reciprocal is also true: the market is only willing to pay up to a point less than the overbidders' price point. The market sees the overbidder as overpaying in a sort of short-term winner's curse even if the overbidder ends up being right in the long run. Therefore, I think we can reasonably assume:
The last thing we haven't considered is that some bidders could trade on the open market leading up to the auction to influence the market price and subsequently the auction closing prices. This is worth exploring further. Cheers, Kevin & Team Buttercoin Bitcoin Trading Made Easy | Buttercoin.com Hope you enjoyed this week's Bitcoin recap. If you did please up-vote / like / share :D. And if you’re a bitcoin trader, come visit us at Buttercoin (https://buttercoin.com/#/?r=KS08FiDDPLr) for free bitcoin trading. Title: Re: How the US Marshal Bitcoin Auction Affects the Market (Buttercoin Weekly) Post by: ezeminer on December 08, 2014, 11:21:18 PM Just today those seized bitcoins should have been released into the wild, based on the US Marshalls saying December 8th is the day assets are paid out
Title: Re: How the US Marshal Bitcoin Auction Affects the Market (Buttercoin Weekly) Post by: Atdhe on December 12, 2014, 10:04:35 AM perfect analysis of the under and overbidders
Title: Re: How the US Marshal Bitcoin Auction Affects the Market (Buttercoin Weekly) Post by: NUFCrichard on December 14, 2014, 05:16:33 PM Nice analysis, of course someone wanting to get into the market but without affecting the market liquidity could also have taken this opportunity to buy at market rate. If they were sold under market rate, then it will be very little under market rate IMO.
Title: Re: How the US Marshal Bitcoin Auction Affects the Market (Buttercoin Weekly) Post by: Atdhe on December 15, 2014, 06:07:39 AM I agree with the "If they were sold under market rate, then it will be very little under market rate IMO".
One issue is what the analysis says: there were many underbidders, but maybe some overbidders etc. So this is pulling the price to overbidding. but The average amount for one member of the winning poolis like 460 BTC. Why would people go to pool to buy 460 BTC for overbid? If average was 460, that means some had to be even below 460. Low 3figures of BTC everybody can buy at open market and does not move the rate if he is not an idiot who wants to finish the trade in 5 minutes. So I think little under market rate is good estimation. Also we have seen some bigger selld after the auction, it seemed to me like that some of the guys went for small profit. |