Bitcoin Forum

Some thoughts:

Bitcoin is very different from other markets in that it never sleeps. Someone that slept through the crash would wake up to find his assets have halved in price; someone that slept through the cooldown announcement would not have had time to move their funds. When we picture the typical hotshot Wall St broker who works 90 hours a week and does coke on the job, even they sleep. With Bitcoin, you snooze, you lose. For the first time (maybe ever) we actually have an interesting situation: the Bitcoin market (i.e. Mt.Gox) is about to "open", following some serious events in the past 24 hours, and some movement in other markets. The opening bell will ring, and then nobody knows what is going to happen. This is pretty much how all markets work. With Bitcoin, we have always enjoyed the luxury of "temporal liquidity", i.e. there is never any spring-loading of big sales in anticipation of a certain time point. Right now this is exactly what is happening. Everyone in the Bitcoin world is planning their move right now (even if that move is to do nothing at all).

So what will happen to the price? For sure it will move violently in all directions. There is money to be made over the next 48 hours, if that is what you are in the game for. Beyond sentiment, speculation and conspiracy theories, I believe there are two opposing theories to consider:

1) UP: Those who were holding Bitcoin and wanted to sell could have easily moved their Bitcoin to another exchange and done so (assuming it's less than their nominal withdrawal limit). And this is exactly what happened, with the price now somewhere around 50-70 USD. However, those who were holding fiat and wanted to buy are still holding fiat and still want to buy. This suggests that buying pressure will outweigh selling pressure significantly after the "opening bell".

2) DOWN: With the price at other exchanges now half of that at Mt.Gox there is bound to be a lot of "pre-meditated panic selling". This would be coming from (a) traders who hold too much Bitcoin to withdraw to another exchange ("big traders" with six-figure amounts), (b) traders who are not aware of other exchanges, or for whatever reason won't use them (e.g. newbies, your mom who took out a loan to buy BTC, etc.), (c) traders who already withdrew their daily limit from Mt.Gox and want to sell at as high a price as possible between 123 USD and the current market aggregate. This suggests that A LOT of market sells will be made at 02:00 UTC, driving the price way down, even if for just a brief period. Because the orders are market orders, there is no opportunity to react to the market. These sells will erupt like one huge market price dump, and inevitably push the price way below the current market aggregate.

What is my pure speculation on this? I think it will go as low as 20, before rebounding to 100+. I really believe the market dump is going to be HUGE, and I think the buys will be more calculated. A lot of people will probably wait to see how low it goes before trying to get back in.

Thoughts?

+1

I will be snoring lightly. I may wake to adjust my pillow and/or blanket a bit.

i've been buying cheap coins at $66 all day long on virwox.  haha suckaz

I will be in bed sleeping. When I awake I'll check the price.

Nothing will surprise me. Well, I will be very surprised if there's a new ATH.

I think its gonna be so wild it will invent directions we never even heard of ;)

Here's a bit of speculation for you.

I've been watching clark moody today, because it appears that though trading is frozen, the order-book still looks like it being updated.

I've noticed the number of bids has only dropped by a few hundred, whilst the asks have dropped by thousands. Its not a very scientific experiment, as didn't record the numbers at the start and the numbers now.

My interpretation, fwiw, is that it seems there are still a bunch of buyers who are either i) asleep or ii) leaving their bids up intentionally

The sellers might have just  left the order book so they can pull their BTC (whether they then go sell that elsewhere is anyones guess) but either way the sell orders have been pulled.

Overall, that still feels like a fairly bullish net sentiment. I was as skeptical as the next man, about all the posters shouting 'lalala' with fingers in their ears, proclaiming everyone is an idiot and that this was just a shakedown and we'll be at $1000 by April 31st ;)

Now I am daring to beleive, that actually the immense buying pressure that was fuelling the pre-rally growth, wasn't entirely bubble-crazy speculators. Rather, that the world is coming to realise just what a potent thing BTC is.

I'm still putting in my lowball bids 10s and 20s but I am seriously thinking they won't get filled now, and I'll just have to be happy with what coins I have left, because I am too chicken to buy any higher :D

I'll be there to watch it happening. This is going to be more exciting than, say, a night out clubbing - or maybe your favourite TV series. And there's BTC to be made.

Good luck to you all - but most of all, good luck to me  ;D

I have been drinking coffee all day in anticipation of this magnificent event and now I am twitching like a madman. Will be watching all the major chart sites at the same time from the moment the first trade hits.

LOL

Bag of chips and some beer. Don't have too too much $$ involved so I'm just going enjoy watching the ticker tonight.

Great thread and nice, well thought out analysis.... a welcome change from the bulls and bears spreading FUD around these parts!!!  :)

+1

It will certainly be interesting. :-]

This is all I need to know:

http://blockchained.com/depth_mtgox_15d.png

I'm holding, but it's not Bitcoins. Give me $30 and we'll start talking.

Anyone with 1/2 a brain will cut their losses.

Anyone with a full brain will scoop up the cheap coins. It may fall further, but not for long.

BTC is a roller-coaster folks. Hang on and enjoy the ride.

Other exchanges have bottomed out at about $70.

I would assume that as soon as mtgox opens the price will shoot down to $70, at which point the buying will start bringing it back to somewhere around $100.

I get your point, but from my perspective fiat is the roller coaster.

BTC is slow and steady. 11 million... drip, drip, drip... 21 million.

I'll be mining at 02:00 UTC, just like every other night (or day).

When Gox suspended trading, people who wanted to sell at all costs could easily their bitcoins out to sell at other exchanges, lowering the price on those low volume exchanges.

People who wanted to buy cheap coins on those exchanges couldn't get their $ in as easily. The speculation threads are full of people cursing that they have no fiat on these exchanges to buy cheap BTC.

My guess is that everyone buying $50-70 coins are going to try dumping them on gox for 120 at the same time even though likely all the buys that high were canceled, and the price is going to spiral down again because of the mad dash to about 35.

Losses from $5 or losses from $250?

It's only a loss right now, but it might be a gain tomorrow if you hold.

I do not get paid until next Friday so I all I can do is watch.

I think that gox will not restart trading at 02:00 UTC.  8)

I concur.

I will watch it for a few minutes, edit my config file and then type
ruby bot.rb

Agree

I think they may try, but the rush will screw it again.

Cut their losses is what a lot of people need to do.

I predict we'll have sub $50 coins within the next 24 hours.

I still think that the non-bubble price of bitcoin based on a reasonable amount of transaction activity and hoarding is probably somewhere between $7-$15. Add on a little hype tax, and I'd start buying coins again to hold at $20. I buy coins to use at any price though.

I think I'm going to put bids from $90 down to $35 and see how many cheap coins I can pick up. Come Sunday night I'll see what has gone down and make plans from there.

Looks like it's headed that way, actually.

are you on other exchanges? could you just sell now even if it means taking a loss to try to get the dip, say if it did go to 10 or 15 then buy up those coins to double,tripple,quadripple your coins?

ive been buying up all these cheep coins.....well at about a hundred i did, but im thinking of sell just a few so i have money to buy the ridiculously cheep coins, anything below 20 ill snag up.