Bitcoin Forum

Well I bought in at 16.10 and just sold at 13.00 after mtgox kept going down, now the price is very unstable got to 12.50 now it's at 13.00

I hope this is just the usual jitter... It'd be bad if prices went down for a longer period.
Bought some Coins just the other day just to see prices drop down today  :'(

a) Why did you buy them?
b) Why did you sell them?

I sold at 17 something. And Have my buy order in for when it hits a number I like.... love people who panic sell..

Indeed.  I just wish that it didn't take so *LONG* for $ to get to Dwolla from my bank.  I'm new at this and don't have funds available where I can get them into the 'bitcoin system' quickly.  I want to scoop up some of these panic sells! ;D

In my case it wasnt panic I think its trending down time to bale, now 12.75 @ mtgox ;)

well, i hope nobody expect stable exchange prices to bitcoins when is all so new and prices is not so much coupled with real goods markets

right now we sell $ or € for bitcoins or buy bitcoins in exchange of $ or € ... until will begin to sell and buy bitcoins to real goods, real meals, real popcorns, real houses and so on, will be a wild market

mtgox 12.75 $

i blame the hackers who are zombie farming btc and dumping them on the market.. this shizle could go on for years

I liquidated my 12 month mining hoard at $15.5.

As I write this, the price on Mt Gox just dropped through $13 and is at $12.75.  Way back in April, 2011, one could buy a bitcoin for a dollar.  I speculate that we will return to at least the April price level as the bubble deflates.

There should be a way to exclude botnets...
For example, some kind of notification once a week that's hardcoded into the miner. Also, pools should only accept miners that have this notification feature (e.g. by checking the hash of the miner code).
At least, this would ensure that the pools are bot-free...
Further, the original Bitcoin client should have the same feature.

I know that this would only temporarily stop the botnetters, but at least it gives us time to invent a better solution to protect the real Bitcoiners from hordes of Bots.

My mining operation is currently affected by the botnet problem.  Here is my understanding of what is being discussed on the BTCGuild pool thread.

A botnet consisting of thousands of nodes was configured by its operator to conduct CPU mining and used BTCGuild as the pool.  These CPU mining workers earned a very low amount of coins each, but in total overwhelmed the pool servers operated by BTCGuild.  As a result of analyzing the situation, the BTCGuild operator blacklisted the IP addresses of the CPU miners - no doubt affected a few legitimate miners who do not care about inefficient mining.

The botnet operator, now denied his bitcoin earnings from BTCGuild, retaliated by performing a distributed denial-of-service attack against BTCGuild.  In such a DDoS attack, each botnet node pretends to be a real pool mining client, but floods the victim server with an overwhelming number of fake requests - thus precluding access by the legitimate clients.

At the time of this post, BTCGuild is offline, and being enhanced to cope with this DDoS attack.  Details can be obtained from the BTCGuild forum thread in the pool section.

You only lose money trading if you sell lower than you buy.  The only exception to this is if a company goes bankrupt or the price never recovers.  This goes for any market.

If the price drops below what you bought it for, just WAIT.

@ Slipperyslope or anyone that knows...

 Dumb question here, but what's to prevent the botnet operator from creating his own mining pool that is exclusivly used by the bots?  

No, if you realise the loss, it falls still lower, and you buy in then, your loss is minimised. The fact you're already sitting on a loss shouldn't stop you selling if you think it's going lower still.

Nothing...it would have to be quite the botnet to compete with the current pools.  Btcguild for instance is ~2500gh/s...when its running that is.

That sounds great and all, but it doesn't really make sense. The price may never come back up, in which case he would lose far more by not selling now. Taking a small loss is better than losing everything.

Of course in this case prices will more than likely be back up in a few days, but that's another topic.

That still doesn't negate the fact that you lose money if you sell lower than you buy.  You don't know what is going to happen in the future, so waiting to buy in doesn't guarantee that the price won't keep dropping.  What's better than minimizing a loss is not accepting a loss.  That's the reason most day traders fail.

yea if the price drops I normally buy some more depending on how much of a risk. that way it it has to go up less to make yourself come out even.

anyway 12.40 is around my magic number.

That's why I included those two exceptions in the original post.  Losing a little money over and over again can lead to losing it all.  Also, the number one rule of trading is to not use money that you aren't willing to lose.

That is what I was always taught by people who actually end up making money...panic sellers are the same ones who tell you not to invest ever.

Botnet wranglers I think are lazy people who would rather focus their talents on no-competition illegal activities, than on something economically profitable and legal.

However, there is no technical reason that I know of to prevent the formation of a pool with unlawful miners.

Agree. Don't invest what you cannot afford to loose. And be ready to take risks and hopefully mine has just paid off. Sold at 17odd bought at 12.40 was hoping it would go lower but its at 12.70 now.

I know what my next sell point is at lets see if it goes that high... Hmm wonder if any miners are panic selling hardware.

There are always (supposed) miners panic selling equipment...I never see any reasonable prices.  It's always "...I want out now (but I want ebay new prices for my used cards) bitcoin is failing, I am getting out while I can (but pay me top dollar)..."

It's pretty clear by viewing the market depth what the real market value is ($14+)...but there are a few hundred btc keeping the "last sold" price down.  If I had the money that is how I would control the market also...make people panic and buy more.

aye noticed that about hardware.... and people are holding out on there prices. when you can get better cheaper else ware.

aye I just w8 for a shift and ride the waves. sometimes I am right sometimes I am wrong... Hopefully this time I am right.

for me its how little of my own cash I have to risk. All my profit is from the markets or mining so if the market crashed tomorrow I would of lost nothing.

I think the price will stabilize at the cost of electricity for mining at the current difficulty level, multiplied by some markup to pay for hardware and time, say 20%-50%.  Miners located in areas with cheap electricity will have an advantage.

Bitcoins are like any other commodity, with both supply and demand. Few miners will sell at a loss, and those that do will quickly leave the market, leaving miners that price their bitcoins at an acceptable profit range, where it's still worth participating in the market.

I've seen various calculations that cost of electricity is around $1.50/bitcoin at a recent difficulty level, so I think with a few more increases in difficulty, bitcoin will be somewhere in the $5 range.  The 1000% markup that was happening at the $17 level just can't last.

Here's a cartoon showing what is going on:

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/6914/excelsellbyebuy.png

Just replace "a stock" with "bitcoins".

This is ridiculous... it's rising again. Perhaps a good time to buy some BTC ;)

This idea has been brought up and rejected many times.  The cost of electricity is a moving target.  If miners leave, difficulty drops.  If miners come, difficulty increases.  This is not a fundamental.

There is some weak influence, as current miners might not be inclined to sell for less than their costs, but there is more influence the other way- miners look at the profitability and decide whether to mine or not, which tends to drive total btc costs up or down toward a suitable value.

There are a ton of market factors, but ultimately if, say, $1B of goods are being traded with btc, then a minimum of $1B worth of btc must be purchased to support the market.  Nobody buying btc to use as currency cares what the value is, as the bitcoin is divisible.  e.g., if Bob wants to send $100USD to Amsterdam, Bob will buy $100USD worth of bitcoin, regardless of how many bitcoins he receives.

The total market required for day to day exchanges is an absolute minimum value of the bitcoin.  This is obviously only one factor in the bitcoin value, but it is a clear counter example to your claim.

Down to $11 but have good support at $10 I'm interested can it go lower that $10?:)

Back in April, one could buy a bitcoin for $1. As the bitcoin bubble deflates, prices should return to pre-bubble levels.  It has been argued in a bubble thread that this one should be completed by the end of August.

From the price chart, below $10 I see support at $8.  But the current downdraft - July 5 - has such momentum that it may simply blow past these supposed supports.

Bought in at 14.350 here and sold at 13.7 in a panic.

it's rising again, buy now.

Probably not great advice right now. I bought in at a little over $14 and panic sold around 13.5 like lunar, I'm either going to hold out until they are around $4-5 or just keep my involvement with the community as strictly a developer working for USD.

Looks like the channel I've been following all day finally has a sideways breakout following the spike down to $11.  It will be interesting to look again in a couple of hours to see where the current activity around $12.5 goes.

[update] July 5 - the channel pattern is ended with a brief breakout to the upside.  Resistance was reached at $14 and presently prices are settling in around $13.  If the bitcoin bubble deflates further, one could expect support at $11 which was the recent low.

lol'd at the transition from real popcorn to real houses ;D

Well because popcorns < houses obviously.

Totally unstable, woke up to find it back at 13 then went to 13.50 now at 12.95 and dipping, the market is pure speculation with people profiting buying at short lows and selling at short highs.

loving this thread, I hope others are seeing the lesson that is being handed out here.

So glad I never speculated on the market.  :)

I grew up in rural America.  Every so often I would hear a story about a farmer crossing the line and speculating on the cattle futures.....  Same type of guys as the Mt Gox speculators!

There is a difference, at least the farmer thinks he has some subjective knowledge about what he is speculating about. We are more gamblers than anything else, The price components of BTC have been commented about I.e difficulty rating, miners and hackers off loading the booty etc but what I see is that most of the trade is spectulating on speculating, in an essence gambling.

I'm looking for at least a test of $10. I would be a buyer if it holds that level.

i thought with difficulty rising, the price should rise as well? Why it's dropping?

Well the last two days we've saw the price drop on heavy volume. As long as theres panic selling I would stay out the way.

Well it's been all over the shop today currently $14

Come on IT'S been a fantastic DAY..

I love it when trading goes my way for once. Hoping it hits my lucky number.

being serious buying from bitcoin7 at13.50 and selling it as soon as I could at mtgox at 16+ for a quick turn around was the cherry on top today.

Lol congrats zerokwel  ;D

Sadly I didnt get my funds into the exchange in time ah well that will teach me to leave a little pool ready in the future.

Was a vvvvv fast bounce back tho. Too good to be true ? or it it just going to yoyo all over the place for ages? Who knows.

aye its just a pity I could not get the funds back to bitcoin7 fast enuff. for another round of buy and sells.

I want It to go up in price tbh WAY up. but at this point I could not say which way its going to go. Best to have a little change ready in bitcoin and an exchange as you never know how its going to play out. and just have to be ready when it does

Mtgox has always been very jumpy. For now its fairly stable. Last month the trends were barely predictable. For now, margin and day trading isn't the way to go. Monitor the 5-day moving averages if your intent on trying to sell consistently. Otherwise keep glued to the ticker and wait for the sell off spikes. Then buy and resell when it goes back to normal. Theres been some consistent drops couple times a week lately. That's where you can make your money.

But always think twice before selling off. Currently there is NO downside to holding your current investments for later.

I'm still trying to reclaim my account, but I will be very interested to see where it goes.I bought at 16.50

It would be more fun trading if mtgox wasnt so damn slow, i feel like rage quitting ...