Bitcoin Forum

Hi All,
    Has anyone noticed that the recent price jumps seem to happen around 00:00 UTC, and they all happen in a small number of very large buys?

Why would that be? To me it suggests a small number of people or one person making their move at one time (perhaps after they get in from work EST...).

IF it is a small number of people making large buys, what are they doing with multiple $10s of thousands of USD's worth of BTC?

bitz

Holding it? Buying marijuana? Who knows.

It's 10:00AM in Eastern Australia. Normally about the time I've crawled out of bed and sitting at my PC having the first coffee of the day.

I've noticed the same, and i've noticed that during the fall of last week from  9 to 5.60 the market started to drop when it was 9am in NY, basically when americans wake up.

Does it matter why somebody buys or sells a lot of bitcoins at any given time?

Predicting big sells and buys makes it easier to play the market.

It matters to me if there is a single big player in the bitcoin currency who has the ability to make huge trades on what is currently the only liquid exchange.

I don't mind people trying to manipulate the market. For a single, non-rich investor, this might be the one opportunity they would have in their life to have enough strength to move an entire market (legally, that is).

There's a symbiotic relationship here, where miners and those only interested in trading bitcoins are mutually beneficial. Traders, even vicious ones, give value and validation to the currency. Also, other v-words may be involved.

Hmmf. I see what you're saying. If I had $50k that I could afford to lose it sure would be fun to bat around the BTC market like a cat playing with a mouse, but this is similar to saying that what some hedge funds or other big institutional 'investors' have done in the past is OK too.

The result of both of these types of actions is clear - it makes the market for the smaller player unpredictable and dangerous to be involved in.

In one case, the small guy might lose or gain big on his BTC, in the second case, people might (and did) lose their houses.

Personally, I think these two should be classed as the same, and the guy paying with BTC is as bad as the actions of people in the sub prime mortgage crisis.

If from the above we can infer that US bitcoin population is selling and the rest of the word is buying than there is no surprise. Lots of early adopters are from US. Lots of investors are coming in from everywhere. I do not see anything surprising there.

However it could mean that early bitcoin fortunes are being liquidate/diversified and transferred to latecomers which is only natural.

What you do with your own money is fine. It only influences the market to the extent that you pay for it.

The housing/bailout shit is totally different. They played the market in a bad way and lost and then stole money to make themselves whole. Yes, they made houses too expensive, people who did the right thing and refrained from overpaying for a house should have benefited by their saved dollars being worth much more, but instead new dollars were printed their deserved gains were taken and given to the losers of those bets.

If someone makes bitcoins too expensive then they will be cheaper later and you will be rewarded by affording more bitcoins later. If you are wrong and bitcoins are currently undervalued because tons of people still don't know about them then you miss an opportunity. Make your best guess.

Nice one, it is one of the best and simplest explanation of what's going on with the housing bubble. In UK it is even worse, they have not allowed it to pop at all. It seems robbing prudent and giving to banksters and over indebted idiots is the new black. One more reasons why Bitcoin will be a HUGE success.

The guy trying to play the BTC market doesn't have a lender of last resort, the Fed, that also enacts the fractional reserve banking act in his favor. In the sub prime crisis, you had financial institutions speculating with money that wasn't theirs on a bubble they created themselves while the Fed ensured them it was all good and that it would cover for the losses (and it did). That's called moral hazard IIRC. The guy playing on BTC is risking his own money and won't be covered by public funds if he messes up.

http://blockexplorer.com/tx/da88c9594b1ab8693399dbd2d8c0dfef095d19a80949b4030ece2e884217e6fd

Oof!  Wonder what people are up to.

I'm hoping someone's going to set up an exchange in Time Square or something.