Bitcoin Forum

The price has gone from $91 to $76 in thelast 24 hours, with a large acceleration of this drop in the past couple hours.  Looks like a massive dump with panic selling in illiquid market.  Volumes way up too in last couple hours.  Any news I am missing?!

Maybe GPU miners are exiting the market today. Cashing out to fiat and moving on. Pure conjecture.

It really seemed even though it was tending down all day, it outright crashed between 5:30pm and 7pm EST with a huge spike in volume.  I was wondering if Mt. Gox gave some news indicating more problems with USD withdrawals or something else occured.  Why would the GPU miners be selling out today in particular?

Price is dropping like crazy!  If it doesn't go back up then most mining will end up worthless. ASIC are expensive and will take even longer to recoup their costs. GPUs will be costing way too much in electricity for their return now

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/160043-bitcoin-compliant-mt-gox-registers-as-money-service-seeks-federal-blessing-to-continue-operations

Maybe people are realizing what's is going on with MtGOX.

The Mt. Gox news has only improved over the last week.  They went from freezing all USD withdrawals to continue processing, albeit slowly, on a manual basis while they work on opening a new bank account.  Also, they are making moves to comply with the us AML provisions.  Listen, for the last 6 weeks, this has gone from $130 to $70s.  However, today and in particular a span of 2 hours, the volume quadruples and it sold off from high 80s down to the mid-70s in a couple hours.  That is a sign of panic selling in an illiquid market - the quesion is, what was the news or precipitating factor which started this panic selling?  It could even have been a single or couple of holders dumping and driving the prices down.

Perhaps people are not aware that Mt. Gox has been trying to process withdrawals manually and are on their way to making things operate in a better way?  I think with the deadline for the 2 week hold on withdrawals looming tomorrow, people are panicking and worried something else is going on.

Be careful with calling this "improved news". As I've posted in other parts of these forums, I think that the FinCen registration is a red herring. I've done FinCen registration, its literally just one form, very simple, you dont even need a lawyer. You simply pledge to have KYC policies in place and that you will abide by reporting rules (CTR, SAR, etc). Its really not a very complex process. Personally, I think the FinCen registration is nothing but a red herring designed to make you feel better (obviously, it's working!) but the reality is that Gox is most likely in a world of hurt right now and bad news and even worst times are on the horizon.

I will just quote another poster:

If you see the potential failure of the exchange that claims to handle 80% of BTC transactions as "pure speculation" then I'd like to interest you in a nice timeshare in Boca . . .

every round of panic selling has some sort of trigger - true panic selling begets panic selling of speculators, particularly those buying on margin or with automatic stop losses in place.  Still, tere must have been something to trigger the initial plunge in prices with the huge uptake in volume that has set the selling off, right?!

Of course there was a trigger. Are you not aware that Gox is not doing well?

I'm always thinking about one problem, if I use $1000 to buy 10 bitcoins, I'm afraid no panic, If you fear the price dropping, maybe you invest at least $10000 in it, why you just want to hoard more but not try to spread bitcoins?

Because you ultimately cant do very much with the BTC. You wouldnt put $10,000 in unless you were reasonably sure that you could get about $10,000 worth of products from BTC. If you dont think you can actually use the BTC then you probably wouldn't make the investment at all, regardless of the price.

OMG, BTC SHTF!

I still think that the bottom will be at $57. So we still have like $25 more to fall before its finally over.

Why because that was the "flash crash" level?

FED is going to tighten, the institutional traders get less quota to operate on bitcoin trading, means USD outflow

And there are two facts:

1. The number of people who have accumulated enough coins are increasing
2. The bitcoin price now is at a level that it can support some serious spending, 10 bitcoin can buy you a travel package

After someone  have acquired hundreds and thousands of bitcoin, they might consider spend 5-10 coins to buy something, since this will not affect their total holding but still provide some usage

The problem is that currently there are still not a lot you can buy with bitcoin. In most of the cases you can only sell it and spend fiat, if there are lots of merchat accept bitcoin, for those people who want to spend the coins, they could just spend them, there will be no sell presure on the exchange

Interestingly, just in the last 24 hours the arbitage opportunities between the 4 major USD exchanges by volume (Mt. Gox, bitstamp, btc-e and CampBX) have all but vanished during this vicious sell-off.
http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html
Looks like there is a bit of a bounce and plateau now - the question is will it hold the weekend - hell, will it hold the next couple hours?

What about just someone trying to kill Gox?

Yup, nobody's going to want to sell below that. Look at market depth, even without the inevitable wall that'll form right there, youd need almost 47000 BTC sold to go below that level. Thats practically half a winklevoss.

I do not think it will get down that low, though in the low 60s I would be a buyer assuming no new bad news

not completely...  that is only one step further.   The merchants will need to have a cycle for the btc or they will need to be converted anyway.

B2B btc transaction is a key component to stabalize the price.  But not sure how many are in the position to do that heavy lifting.  

-- If the Winkle Twins wanted to really be revolutionary, and not just dump their coins in a ETF, they would create a Commercial Paper system based on btc for small size businesses.  That would allow the coins to have a home that cycles.

Agreed

I'll repeat my response to the other thread:


after which some moron started singing, so very predictable, phrase about how Henry Ford did ... blah, blah.

The overall idiocy and the lack of education (predominantly from Merkens) has reached such a stage that anything can be associated with anything, and can be held as a valid argument.

Margaritas ante porcos (guess no Merkentard can figure this one out)

I am speculating that a lot of people are cashing out for fiat right now for summer holidays. You can't spend btc at Disney or the beach yet. A lot of btc holders aren't big investors but early adopters that are now enjoying the summer. This will make for some good buying opportunities now. The news hit in April and a lot of people are figuring out what to do with bitcoin now. Love'em or hate'em the Winklevoss twins wouldn't be starting an ETF without careful analysis of the market, and trading like that has strict rules and regulations.

I believe we will see a jump in value in the coming weeks as people come back from holiday and as new tech materializes.

BTC is literally like Gold. Falling...

margaritas ante porcos -> pearls before swine.  (Latin - not that tough)

Looks like the big sell on gox coincides with the Egyptian military staging their coup. Probably just coincidence but.....

GOX regox'ing it up , withdrawals resumed:  

https://mtgox.com/press_release_20130704.html

Why exactly $57?

Could be just some group with thousands of coins throwing them into the market to move the price to $50, just to buy them all back at lower prices?

I agree with 57. Highly likely due to it being a Fibonacci retracement level for support

That is good news.  Hopefully that props the price up a bit?  I suppose it can take a little while for things like this to recover.

Perhaps there are other factors beside Mt. Gox at play too, but this news should help a little.

Seems like a lot of guys want to have it both ways.  They want BTC to be a genuine medium of exchange, and thus have its own exchange rate v. other currencies, but also, then, they want BTC to behave like a good bubble (or Central Bank manipulated) market, and always be in secular uptrend, so they can BTFD (Buy The Fecking Dips) mindlessly.

In USD terms, if its at all "real," BTC should represent "stuff."  And, in USD terms, a lot of "stuff" is falling right now.  Put your cursor over any of the commodities on this grid http://www.finviz.com/futures.ashx and look at the charts.

There's also, of course, two immutable truths about thin markets (and BTC is a thin market):

o The market price is set by the most optimistic, not by a valuation conscensus;

o When there are, even if by pure Poisson arrival processes, more offered than bid, the price goes down.


So, I'd say, just relax, and if you're a speculator, just short it.  Oh, wait ....   

It's not exactly an ETF, but anyway, remember that they found themselves holding around 1% of the outstanding BTC, and it was time to find a way to unload them. 

Can't do that in an absurdly high commission/low liquidity environment like the "exchanges."

True it is not really an ETF, more what they call an ETC - sort of like the GLD or SLV. Shares backed by basket of the commodity held in trust.  The trust charges a small fee for holding the bitcoins (basically security costs of the vault) and administration, then the market sets the price of the ETC.  Each shares will be equivalent to 1BTC (each share is 1/50,000th of a basket and each basket contains 50000BTC.  I am guessing each basked is a single paper wallet containing 50000BTC, kept in a vault with a high level of security. 
The problem is this is merely the filing of the paperwork for the ETC, it still needs to get approval from regulators.  They are being very optimistic (or reckless) trying to get this listed in the US, I think a european listing would be more likely to succeed, but I guess they want the liquidity of direct access to the US markets.  Anyway, I think politics will enter this and approval of the ETC is very unlikely.  If it were approved though, this would bring in a whole new class of speculators and hot money and add even more volatility. 

I think they should also make a rule that if any investor has 50,000 shares of the ETC (a basket), they can convert it to the actual Bitcoins for a small fee (0.25% or something).  In this way, it would make trading the ETC really more the equivalent of holding the underlying bitcoins - otherwise I think the ETC is likely to deviate significantly from the NAV in what will likely be a fairly thinly traded vehicle for bitcoin investment.

Exactly, loaded traders milking the numbers, "sell high, buy low" winklevii?
What will happen to the market when ASIC's hit hard in September?

The concentration of mining power to fewer players will be a negative since all the gpu miners will stop mining bitcoin and either sell their gpus (will be great prices on ebay for 7950s!) or mine an alt coin

Just wondering, on what ground could this possibly not be approved?

"Blue Sky," a traditional term meaning one cannot issue securities that are backed simply by the blue sky, and nothing concrete.

Traditional Blue Sky laws in effect put regulators in the business of deciding on the merits of investments, and are mostly gone at Fed. and State levels in the USA.

However, this could force the SEC to make a de facto determination as to the legal existence of bitcoins, which might not be something that it would want to do.  

I am fairly certain that if the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) were approached on futures contracts on bitcoins, it would be laughed out of Washington.  It's going to be interesting to see how the SEC handles this.

Im buying, great opportunity. How many investments can you expect such a huge return on?

I dont trade, I just buy when its cheap, and Ive made a killing doing this.

Smart.  Very smart! 

Wish I had not gotten so emotional and bought as it went up.  It is a little hard to know how low it will go at times though.

cause people see the future of crytocurrency that will destroy bitcoin http://forum.emunie.com/

 I have never heard of emunie.  Of course that does not mean it is NOT better then BTC.

But BTC has a few things going for it-  It is the first to get widespread usage,  it has millions of dollars being thrown into it by VCs, it has had some press (good and bad) and many people have heard of it now, it is starting to be used as an actually currency by places, and I just saw this post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=250027.0

If BTC starts taking off in places like Africa, it will be really hard for emunie to catch up.  But who knows, there might be room for more players in this?

Many traders disagree with your opinion. I sold yesterday (not much, but a notebook worth). When the price rises 10$ from some level, I will buy again. They last few weeks that din't occur once...

I suspect many are dumping btc and jumping on gold. Not a bad strategy given gold's current price.

I had not even thought of that.  There are so many things that could affect the price.  I guess it is just the way it goes.

hitting double bottom, major support around 60-65.  buying 100

nobody is jumping on gold, stop making stuff up. The crash is a combination of factors, take your pick

1) mtgox re-enabled cash withdraw, all the people who exchanged cash for btc to transfer out for safe keeping are doing the reverse trade now

2) i dont know how much this actually applies to btc specifically, but looking at it macro, interest rates are going up and market is stable. Under those conditions, you will see mass cash outflow from safe heavens like gold/silver, btc is in the same category.

3) asic preorder craze has died down, you had am/bfl/avalon/knc/terrahash etc.. asic orders/preorders all firing off all require btc as payment. Now that all those preorders have died down, there is not such a demand for btc.  On the flipside, some those btc received by those guys are getting converted to cash. Double whammy.

4) in the end view it as a part of your high risk diversified investment portfolio, if you have a majority of your networth in btc you should have cashed out a long time ago, noone to blame but yourself.

   If you have a majority of your networth in bitcoin you better believe in bitcoin.

   I don't care what the price does because I'm participating in this movement because I believe in the potential for bitcoin to refresh the global financial structure. I am just going to try to continue spending bitcoin at any price, ideally making all of my purchases with them asap and cutting the banks out of my life. If all the speculators follow suit the amount of money being made buying high and selling low right now will seem truly laughable.

Every revolution requires sacrifice.

But stay connected with reality

sadly the largest market for bitcoin by far is asic hardware purchases, with the sole purpose of generating btc to sell.

not totally..  i think a few will be tossed down the SR

As more asics flood the market, bitcoin value will continue to tank

what does asic = increased difficulty have to do with bitcoin tanking?

I am not sure I get that either.

there are a few things but they lead to the same situation

increased diff by some big miners, instead of increased diff by more people with smaller mining rigs put more btc into less hands.. what does that do?  same thing that the miner makers are dealing with.  A few big players with piles of btc trying to beat the other guy in grabbing what ever bids are out there buying btc...

if the btc are spread around smaller piles to more people it would take a pure panic to get everyone to go sell at once..  here you have the prisoner's dilemma...  it would be best if both prisoner's don't fess up and the cops have nothing, but usually one will fess up first since they don't know for sure if the other guy will keep quiet.

If the big miners and miner makers all took their time in a slow sell, then it would be best to all..  but since they cant really trust each other they do what they know is good for them right now.. and that is sell as fast as they can

so enjoy the low btc price until probably next spring when it evens out..   then you got the Winklefools that are going to dump their pile in an ETF that will bring bad publicity.   rough times for BTC next 8 months

ASICs being pumped into the market means increased profitability, with revenue in BTC. Basic economics indicates that with higher profitability comes inflation, so currently some inflation is expected. This is a consequence of a healthy economy.

Increased profitability with revenue in BTC for those with asics, and decreased profitability i.e, less BTC for those without asics, and increased cost requirement in BTC for those who want asics.

John Doe and his GPUs can not make a profit anymore. Only John Trump and his larger investment can.
Bitcoins were only valid when anyone could make a profit, albeit small, and drive its economy.
Right not, it's elitist. As in, bad.
John Doe has left the building.

the elitist with deep pocket will not be making any money either from mining as the Fiat/BTC ratio drops. 

poppycock.

the average joe will be more interested in mining with a lower entry point via single chip asic miners.

Everyone else can buy bitcoin from miners.

Miners can and will make money if they manage their investments well. I for instance, shut my gpu farm down 6 weeks ago (not because it was unprofitable) but because I miner sense tingled and told me to resale them rather than switch to an alt coin. That was lucky (as it turned out). But and this is the fun part - most of the smart miners were still working off plans that had a slower increase in hash rate... and a btc price of 10 or 20 bucks. (and the current high prices have let us continue mining long past our expectations).

Just because every joe can't 'make his puter make bitcoin' doesn't mean people still won't want bitcoin. So no - I don't care in the least that joey had to turn off his gpu and stops stealing electricity from his parents and can't buy pot on SR. This is business... and having most miners be businessmen is going to be a good thing for bitcoin in general.

Fed is printing trillions of fiat and is eminently elitist, yet even the poorest of the poor don't refuse using that fiat on account of their righteous disgust for elites.
Why? Because they need it. As it stands, people don't really need BTC. Reddit subscription and such won't cut it.

Using Bitcoin clients is clumsy and slow, ripe with errors and complications of maintaining/securing the wallet. Not for a computer geek, but for the average person definitely. There are hackers preying on you everywhere, as if walking through the street in ghetto and waving a few $100 bills.

The poor can't buy bread with BTC. Tell a person they're virtually unable to eat without a specific currency and certainly they will take it regardless of moral and reliability calms.

that's the thing. no more news. no more attention.

the hype is gone. that's what bitcoin had going for it when it reached 200+. do you honestly think a bitcoin is really worth that much?  i cant even get a hooker for btc.

Interesting.

This is one of the most insightful comments I have seen on this forum for some time.

As someone interested in economics, I think the establishment of a measure for the adoption level of a digital currency would be useful, and I think 'The Hooker Point' is perfect for it.

If we take an average city of (say) 100,000 inhabitants we can deem it to have reached this point when it is possible within the city's limits to find a locally available defined sexual service directly from a provider (without a 3rd party exchange involved) with a given currency in a (controlled) 24 hour period.

So a country can be defined by how many Hooker Point cities it has, or what proportion of its qualifying cities have reached the Hooker Point (for BTC).

Comparisons can be made over time and against other countries.

Since currencies go back to pre-literate times and prostitution is the oldest profession, it is a measure likely to remain current for the foreseeable future.


Further comment:
1. Market prices fall when more people want to sell than buy, and prices rise for the opposite reason.

2. People's choice as to whether they wish to be a buyer or seller is affected by their needs (entering or leaving a market due to the need to buy or sell what the market trades) or for reasons of sentiment (optimism or pessimism about the market price).

3. Although economics supposedly deals in rational situations in the market place, it is a fact that markets and sentiments are not necessarily rational.  A herd instinct, or copying instinct means that people often buy because people are buying - or sell because people are selling.

4. At present BTC has little practical utility (see 'Hooker Point' above).   Therefore, the market for it is much more heavily influenced by sentiment than other markets.  Since most people do not need to pay their rent or buy food with it, its value is almost entirely based on sentiment.

The only conclusion a rational person can reach in the light of the above is that any price predictions for BTC are very likely to be completely and utterly useless.

So much non-sense. Seriously go do some basic trading on an exchange with 1 btc (or even 1 ltc) and get some basic buy/sell understanding of the market. Really it will open your eyes and mind to price movements. Not to mention there are these crazy things called computers that make trades automatically.  :o

My GPUs are still working just fine and making a profit.

The sky will fall, eventually. But I doubt it will be today or even this year.

Price fluctuations come and go, just like cheap hookers.

Live long and prosper.

What is to stop people from making a profit now? Shouldn't all the old gpu miners just reinvest their profits from the pre ASIC days? What is to stop somebody new to bitcoins from buying an ASIC to start mining?

I don't understand the argument that asics are centralizing. Unless you mean short term, but that is short term.

Old GPU miners either have left the building or are leaving in droves, heading to a greener pasture in LTC or other cryptocurrencies. Most of us have already sold all or most of the bitcoins mined. BTC is now for the ASIC owners and, if you are not an ASIC owner, suckers.

I think we have a lot of bitter gpu miners who are erroneously blaming the BTC price fall on ASICs, when in fact it is completely unrelated.  The hype is gone and speculator are leaving.  Will not reinflate until adoption increases.

It's not like this bubble scenario has happened before or anything, more than once  ::)

I love it! :-)

Ente

out at ~78, +$1100

Lol, logic 101.  If you pass your BTC to a third party, he can just sell them instead.

Perhaps you also didn't notice that when bitcoin was at $10 there wasn't much you could spend them on then either.  Yet they went to $266.

Seems to have stabalized in the 70s - will it hold through though?

We hit the bottom last weekend at US$65 a coin. Weekend is fast approaching and it will be interesting if the price goes down or holds steady or even goes up by Monday next week. For the record, price held steady at $75, give or take, this whole week.

Nice pop today with Bernanke saying will be continuing QE - acting like gold now.

shhhhhhh... now is goin' up... almost 10 euro from yesterday...  8)

Up again

I can now buy a hooker for a bitcoin - it a real currency!

https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/cadc234094fbadd572db86d161ee2734/tumblr_inline_mmo21xF4Nx1qz4rgp.jpg


Ente

Yup the price is so "crashing"...upwards.

Love it. Slow motion crashes upwards are the best.  :D

Yup mid 60s was the floor, now it in a steady uptrend.  Which will end eventually, bitcoin = volatility.