Bitcoin Forum

What is causing the current downward trend?
I have been watching the price of BTC pretty regularly for the last 2 months. More specifically when it was stalled at $380 for a couple weeks and making no significant movement. Then 2 weeks ago we saw the first actual movement in awhile, losing $30 and going down to  $350. Over the last week or so we have all watched it go downward to $330 yesterday, and at the time of this writing it is at $317 today.
Could someone help me understand what is causing this decline? If anything, with Microsoft and Time now accepting BTC, I would of expected the price to increase some. And I remember when the news that Microsoft was accepting came out, the price went up $10, but obviously has since come back down.

What is causing such a rapid drop?  It’s a large question, but what are the big factors and variable?

Selling pressures due to holidays and IPO altcoin scams drawing temporary interest away from BTC .

Bitcoin is here to stay and will dominate on momentum alone at least for the next 10 years.

Yes specifically the paycoin scam.... I cant believe how dumb ppl are.

Typical IPO of scam coins:
+ premined out of thin air (literally no computational task involved)
+ set martket price $X / coin


Idiots poured in, then start pumping then profits.

 

i dont believe that payscam makes any price pressure here. nobody knows that shit.

Here is your answer: http://altcoinpress.com/2014/12/why-the-bitcoin-markets-didnt-rally-on-the-microsoft-news/

holiday selling pressure.

Those that can think critically and see the clear warning signs will be vindicated on Dec 19 , now DEC 22
and wait for some restrictions which prevent people from cashing out at 20 USD a coin ... probably a complicated KYC process and than Josh blaming regulators. It is already being setup that way with delaying the details of the KYC requirements, and the tiers as an additional stalling tactic. Additionally, the requirement for full KYC between paycoin and BTC which is a bit odd. This reminds me of Mtgox's crazy KYC process instituted to withdraw.

More merchant acceptance = Bitcoin liquidated into $Fiat within 5 minutes.  This is more dumping on top of the $2 million that the miners are dumping everyday to pay for their electrical and computer hardware.

No new Bitcoin users coming in as far as I can tell, at least not enough to reverse the dumping.  $1.4 billion into the ecosystem and yet not one dollar is going towards public relations or any initiatives for user adoption that would be a game changer.    Clearly too much decentralization (headless chicken syndrome) is preventing any organized fronts and rallies.

 The irony here is we already have people who own 1%+ of Bitcoin who would benefit if they dug into their own pockets and funded advertising or hired a PR firm but they aren't interested in doing so because to them Bitcoin is 1 out of a 1000 different investments in their big portfolio or they have so many Bitcoins that the price to them is immaterial (as long as it is above $100).

a common thing i come across is people saying "i'll buy even as the coins are going down." i wonder if they are just saying that and not doing it, because there seems to be a shitload of people who say that. if you're buying coins without any pre-planning, you're making the whales richer.

I see it all the time in alternate coins.  People make a run buy post saying they'll buy out the whole sell wall and it never happens.   :D  It's like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater.

As I have predicted for a long time Proof-of-Stake & contract based crypto currencies will win the game.

Ripple is going up every day while bitcoin is trending down... Now the market cap of Ripple is 1/5 of Bitcoin.
If this trend continues it will be the opposite, ripple market cap 5 times bitcoins.

Yet you still only have a BTC address in your sig(no alt address) and still have "In Hashrate We Trust!" in your profile. Even those that think BTC and PoW is doomed are still hedging their bet and not willing to jump completely into any alt . This is evidence that the network effect and first mover advantage will allow bitcoin to persist and flourish  for quite some time in the future.

If you truly believe what you suggest, I would see a ripple address in your sig and you would immediately sell your BTC for ripple.

I'm not sure, no one ever knows apart from the whale(s) that are causing it, if they are. bitUSD makes a great lifeboat in times like these.  Who knows that 2015 will bring.  Lots of excitement I expect. 

Couldn't agree more , I don't know what that shit is  ???

I don't think the sell off has much to do with bitcoin specifically.

Large declines in oil & ruble means many are having a 'Minsky Moment'.

Initial losses on oil etc over a few months has led to people having to sell elsewhere, namely from emerging markets (hence the outflows). bitcoin holdings are one of things being liquidated.

I suspect the auction helped crash the price straight after it was recovering from the bear whale. That combined with 'Minsky Moments' might have caused the recent turmoil.

<tinfoil> It's CITI bank. They slowly bought coins over the last year using their hoard and super millions to suppress the price. Obama is in on it too! It's a conspiracy! </tinfoil>

Lol, if anyone should be having a Minsky moment it's Bitcoiners
Ruble up 11%/24hrs
BTC down 5%/24hrs.
:(


http://server2.trutube.tv/files/photos/1362181286eb3305_l.png

inflation

The current market value of bitcoin is mostly based on bitcoin as an investment, just like gold or other investments that have 0% dividend.
As ironic as it may seem, as more people and merchans use bitcoin for actual purchases the price goes down further.

The reason is simple from a pure economic perspective:
People are buying stuff from merchants with bitcoins acquired from mining and/or speculation.
But merchants got costs for rent, products, services and employees in FIAT, therefore they have no choice but to hedge bitcoin at the moment the coins arrive (with bitpay et al)
The same is true for industrial bitcoin miners, their costs are fiat denominated.

So we have an increased Supply of coins in the market, but not a matching Demand, which results in a price decrease until we have a new equilibrium that might be around 100 or even lower if Ripple becomes the new Crypto King.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Supply-demand-right-shift-supply.png