Bitcoin Forum

Just decided to check out bitcoin US prices. I am very impressed with the priced increase.

mtgoxUSD 8.5201

Do you think taking out the gambling aspect (e.g. Bitcoinica) has to do with the soaring prices?

Quite a run, and the 24 hour volume on MtGox is nothing to sneeze at either.  This is going to make it harder for me to invest in more bitcoin.  Must...Suppress....Price!  Minions, go!

BINGO!


Bitcoinica if it was done well, and worked as was intended would have been a nice stabilizing factor in the bitcoin world..


But it wasnt..  clearly, and all it was, was an indicator and a tool to be abused, and abused it was.... heavily, suppressing the price artificially, and having mad mad mad algorithm failures, which in turn caused mass panic selling.


I for one am thankful its toast..  but I feel for all the people waiting on coins that Bitcoinica has stolen.   Yes..  I said STOLEN..

Bitcoin allowed "gambling" in both directions - you could leverage long or leverage short. Removing Bitcoinica doesn't necessarily put upward pressure on anything. In fact, if more people were leveraged long on Bitcoinica then removing it would actually depress the price.

I think the lack of Bitcoinica is relevant.

I don't know if that's because aggressive shorting on margin was suppressing the "true" price, or because the ability to short at all was keeping bullish sentiment from running up another bubble.

If there was a functional futures exchange (i.e. with market makers and fiat deposits/withdrawls), maybe I'd feel better about it.

Right, because a bucket shop was going to suppress the value of the best money ever created.

anyone move this to speculation board, please?

I don't see how Bitcoinica would have any effect one way or the other except in short time spans.  And I don't see how it would be biased in either the up or down direction.  Bitcoin just made leveraged trading in either direction easy.  If you think the price is too high right now…sell some bitcoins!  You don't need Bitcoinica to short Bitcoin.

You do if you're not holding Bitcoins.

Right now, a person can only act on what they think is an overly high BTC price if they've already bought in to that extent. Similarly, a "true believer" in Bitcoin can only act on a low price if they have fiat lying around.

Futures or options contracts - or, alternatively, margin trading at a 1:1 ratio - counteract that, and let people who weren't confident to begin with act on the market when it starts to act (in their eyes) irrationally.

That's the theory, anyway. Margin trading at a higher ratio (such as the ones Bitcoinica allowed) could also allow people to just make very unwise bets and swing the market around even more irrationally than normal.

Ding ding ding.. we have a winner..

All Bitcoinica did was increase volatility. Both ways.

I actually think the price is skyrocketing because people are buying BFL stuff with cash-thus converting into btc via bitpay and providing an artificially high demand for BTC at the moment.

Maybe. But BFL takes their payment denominated in USD... so wouldn't BFL itself just immediately re-sell the BTC they received from BFL's customers?

If it's BitPay volume, why hasn't the price receded in the week+ since this rally began?

Their stuff was available for preorder a long time before the price started rising so dramatically.

Also, BTC9.24 and rising!

You are mistaken:

In order for BitPay to pay BFL with dollars they need to sell all those bitcoins and you're right where you were at the beginning and maybe even lower since not all who used BTC needed to buy them first.

I think BFL stuff may be part of it, but just as much Paypal cutting off cyberlockers and Mr Dotcom's publicity, as well as general greater use of bitcoin.  

That is one way it could happen but that is not what we think is really happening......

Since Bit-Pay is announcing that they have a large amount of coins to sell (optionally outside of the exchanges) and that they came from BFL, Bit-Pay probably has paid BFL as normal in USD and is now long that much more bitcoin.

If this is true... Bit-pay has been on the right side of a WINNING BET!  They (on paper) may have made over $20,000 if they had over 10,000 BTC long due to BFL.

This. If he implements bitcoin for megabox the last high will seem miniscule in comparison.

And why did I forget...

Third reason for BTC to go up (the scary one)....

Pirate has continued to pay out dividends and people are bringing more money into bitcoin to deposit with him.  This could be causing massive upward pressure as well.  

I think Kim decided to dump a few hundred thousand he had hidden away somewhere into Bitcoin. He'll wait a few days before making a big announcement about how awesome Bitcoin is before quadrupling his money  8)

USD$9.30 / BTC...crazy and dangerous swing

+1

You have all of these factors working together to push BTC demand:
Megabox
Pirate BST
Bit-Pay
Bit-Instant
BFL
Satoshi Dice

Here's why bitcoin price increases are just getting started:
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/7319/028trillions.png

The infographic is part of a larger presentation on the potential of bitcoin (http://bitcoinmedia.com/using-memes-to-explain-bitcoin/) which I made.

dont forget bitcoin has created a new market within its self (call it speculation market), as the bitcoin grows due to new demand for example more users on SR. the speculation market grows as well.

The next few weeks will be epic! 

OH JOY :D

I think that by next month, it is very possible that we may never see Bitcoin worth single digits again...

Nah, it'll be worth single digits into next year.

You've claimed you have a paper wallet stash... so sell a buy option at 9.99 expiring 2013/04/15

hehe, this is the last bear who kept waiting for the decline.. Don't miss your lunch, bear. ;p


http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6192/6053457813_bf270c0e37_b.jpg

He's not serious.

I have to confess, with a smidgen of embarrassment, that even I'm having a hard time taking myself seriously lately.  In fact, Lately I've been feeling some cognitive dissonance about my bearishness.  The fact that I've got a stash of offline bitcoins is good evidence of this.  Get it together Proudhon!

http://i49.tinypic.com/2a4o6fr.gif

Drat!  I had a winning strategy:

1. Needle proudhon
2. Use his pride against himself to acquire BTC options.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Instead I was met with honesty and integrity... what's happening to BTC?  ;D

yes and no

Bitcoinca actually hurt the price

If bitcoin would of never been hacked and just got better and better, allowing people to securely DOUBLE their money  ( up to 10 million dollars .. which Z could of done if hehe wasn't hack 3 4 5  ??? times) Bitcoin would be a slightly bigger market then it is today  ;)

Hey, that was weird.  Somehow you've been on ignore.  Don't know how that happened.

Or more inflated market...