Bitcoin Forum

So what's your magic formula for telling apart a "burp" and a peak?

Just the consistency of the timing.

and what if it takes longer than expected?

Then I'll be wrong.

*checks Mt. Gox*

*sees a last price of $11.09801*

Huh. Yeah, I could see it. Not gonna bet the farm, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.

This was meant for speculation (obviously). Please move if you see this, mods. Sorry about that, someone was talking to me as I was posting it...

I don't think the same scenario will happen exactly for a second time. People are remembering that big bubble and will avoid another one. Also, the market is getting stronger and more people are involve in bitcoin than last year so we will probably not see a big collapse after a big rise on the pricing. I think bitcoin has get more maturity and is ready for something else.

People will remember, this ramp up will last a looooong time because the cautious will hold back and buy on dips. Eventually people will again mostly have available the idea that it only goes up, then it'll go up faster for a while and then down, probably to some low multiple of the last stable region.

Of course a lot of people won't -remember- they'll just see the data and hear some stories which will weaken that effect some.

Keep in mind how many people have no concept at all of how markets work. I didn't when I first bought in.

I predict a buying opportunity around $13 some time between October '12 and the end of February '13. Then back to never-
ending bull run.

I think you are right on the timing, I'd think on the late side of that. I have no idea about the price, probably $8-20. I think it really depends on the amount of old coins that people still have access to vs just waiting to use. Even if the old amount that comes back into circulation diminishes it will be a bigger factor because of the reduced supply inflation we're heading into.

In my opinion, at this point it would be foolish if someone with the funds did not pump the price to the levels mentioned in the OP. Lots of money to be made by doing that. Of course there are always those kurtosis risk events.

Yes, because as everyone knows markets always repeat exactly the same patterns over and over again in precisely the same way with no variance  ::)

Ask yourself this:
What would a BTCST implosion do to people's willingness to buy and invest in bitcoin?
As much as the silk road's volume is up, I imagine much of this activity is based on people channelling money into various "investment" schemes.

Ask yourself the same...that will be bitcoin's 2008, occurring sometime after october 2012. After this we will have a mature market that has learned the lessons of the last 40 years of FRNs in a span of 3-4 yrs.

No one is going to lose -bitcoins- even if he defaults all that is lost is promised coins. If anything that will remind people that bitcoins are valuable and promises are suspect. Even if people misunderstand it can't hurt price much because people who are in a justifiably foul mood about the whole thing won't have coins to unload and people who avoided it will just feel clever.

Except it will be totally different than 2008. Anyone who wants their coins back will have to buy or earn them. No one has the magic to dilute the pool.

This is what I think is the whole point of the experiment. Price and adoption need to rise in order to motivate developers to deal with pruning, etc before it is too late.

You can click "Report to moderator" and request a move.

I've sold my house last week. Documents should be signed within 2 weeks at the notary and I will then convert some of the funds into BTC.

Watch-out for the bubble when I hit the market  ;D

You should hit the securities section and see about options. Maybe you can get a reasonably priced right to buy at $13 for the next month or something.

That's exactly what I was trying to figure right now but I personally wish there will be a small drop in price :D

Haha, kim dotcom (not saying you are him) is gunna sell his 20 mil USD house and put half into bitcoins, and the other half into lawyers. This thread is getting ridiculous now.

I cashed in some of my superranuation awhile ago and bought bitcoins at $5-$6  :D

I was ironic. I don't plan on putting all my money on one large buy order so I should not move the market at all.

So you don't deny that it is a 20 mil house...

Tried it:

This is way more than I will ever pay for a house unless it come with a private self-sustaining island.  8)

Seriously people, we need a viable reason for the price to be increasing other than "because it is".

You profess to have learned from the past bubble, but it's clear that people have learned very little.

For example, bitcoin is not a perfect system, it couldn't cope with anything like the transaction volume of even a small stock exchange, hell it'd struggle with 1% of that amount. People were even complaining recently about network issues from satoshidice, when we were running a mere 50,000 transactions per day. That's nothing in finance.

So, bitcoin's market cap currently exceeds $100m. Is it worth it? Possibly. It's certainly more worth it than it was last year, but even so we need to keep some sort of perspective on what a highly speculative and potentially flawed digital currency is "worth", rather than running off into fantasy land and pretending we're not the ones at fault the next time there's a crash.

People on here have such tragically short memories - only last October everyone was totally sure the price was going to $1. I bought a bunch at $2.10-2.75 just because, despite it being relatively high risk, I believed that bitcoin had value much greater than the $20m or so it was valued at at the time. Nobody wanted to lend BTC in quantity on the forums then either, now everybody's doing it.

Please people, let us not repeat this retarded cycle of dot-com-era style insane valuations and "what could possibly go wrong?" buying, followed by crisis, followed by "It's all over!" selling. We've been here once before.

Rapid price expansion isn't even good for bitcoin. The time of greatest expansion and actual trade in bitcoin was in the 3-month or so window that various people held the price between $4.90 and $5.10. Merchants need stability. If you want to build an actual currency here, stop acting like get-rich-quick naive forex traders and start thinking of what you can buy in bitcoin (asides dollars) that would require you to buy as many as you have.
Because protip: If you can't think of something sensible you'd buy with all the coins you've amassed, chances are the economy doesn't support the price you paid for them  ;)

Anyway, I know nobody's going to listen to me, so WOO! $50 by October!

Oops. OK, I reported it.

I think you've misunderstood me. I think this is exactly what is happening, and that is what got people interested in the internet. They didn't want to at first but it was good for them that they did. Buy in now and sell when it peaks.

Well good then we're in agreement. :-)

So what's your call on the second drop down if it is going to bubble up to 50$?
something between 10 or 20$?

Great, I'll always have some ready to sell to you as my mining cost per BTC is currently about $3. I love Bitcoin, and I sell them every day.

This is how markets works, you won't see the price stable until bitcoins reach a price discovery. Right now is a good time to buy as many bitcoins you can possibly buy before the reward gets cut in half. I would not be surprise if bitcoins reach 30 before the reward gets cut in half. Supply n Demand tells me there is only 21 million bitcoins, and only 10.5 million that will be available before the reward gets cut in half. Don't kick your self for taking profit to only buy higher.

Good for you. I still only have a concept of how to market worked up to the present point in time.

Think about it...The shorts are drunk after lolla. SELL.... or is it longs. BUY...

any idea on how many people involved? I would think a lot of people were in before/during the bubble and are gone now

Dumb and dumber, bubble or not, two things: Draghi and Bernanke

Why would you need to do that? You can move your own threads ;)
There is(or was?) a "MOVE TOPIC" link below every thread you start.

You are correct. Now I know. If this rally settles around 16-20 USD it will lend support to my bubble forming hypothesis.

Put your BTC where your hypothesis is: http://betsofbitco.in

I am pretty prude with my bitcoins. Where can I find reviews of this website?

ehm, didn't you predict a much higher value? Or what does the term "settle" refer to?

It did not settle where it would have lent support to my theory. My prediction is about october.

here:

I've used them very successfully including making a winning bet that Batman dark Knight 2nd movie wouldn't gross $200 Million opening weekend

Yea but my bet is that the value rises 10x which, if it occurs, substantially increases counterparty risk or whatever you want to call it. I do like the idea of that site though.

Tried it:
[/quote]

Why would you need to do that? You can move your own threads ;)
There is(or was?) a "MOVE TOPIC" link below every thread you start.
[/quote]

You are correct. Now I know. If this rally settles around 16-20 USD it will lend support to my bubble forming hypothesis.


[/quote]

Put your BTC where your hypothesis is: http://betsofbitco.in
[/quote]

I am pretty prude with my bitcoins. Where can I find reviews of this website?
[/quote]

here:

I've used them very successfully including making a winning bet that Batman dark Knight 2nd movie wouldn't gross $200 Million opening weekend
[/quote]

Yea but my bet is that the value rises 10x which, if it occurs, substantially increases counterparty risk or whatever you want to call it. I do like the idea of that site though.
[/quote]

Seems to be a year old and strong, successful. lots of btc at stake for big bets such as obama vs romney winning presidency

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37069.0

You haven't factored into your idea:

a) the higher volume
b) the longer timeframe
c) the lessons learned from that spike.

B is a function of A, but it also contributes to stability and hurts volatility.

If you take a more reasonable approach and assume that nobody will continue buying when it's unlikely the price will be supported, you could cut that massive peak out from $20 to $30 leaving you at 20x stable price.

Now factor in the higher volume, and the longer decision making process behind it, the peaks will not be as dramatic and again less panic-buy fueled. Cut down to $14-$18.

Finally, with the above compounded, and the larger amounts of cash required for support, you could easily halve that, $7-$9.

As a gambler, you could wait for the same mistakes to be repeated and hope it reaches 30x stability or $120. Safely, I would be looking closer to $35-$45 for a peak.

A,B, and C are factored in. That is why this bubble will take so much longer to really manifest than the last one. You may be right about the peak though, in the past other implementations of this concept have predicted highs and lows pretty well but not so much magnitude. Its all fractal but I don't know anything about fractals really so I just do these heuristics that result in the OP. Markets can be pretty random but bubbles are a special case as far as I can tell. From what I have seen, if someone creates a bubble they can predict what happens with far better accuracy than during other periods, thus encouraging creation of bubbles by the well funded.

As we get closer to the estimated delivery date of ASIC, more miners are going to upgrade to ASIC. Bitcoin is being exchanged heavily nowadays as a medium of exchange for multiple different products/services. The more products/services will be offered in exchange to bitcoins the higher the value of BTC will be in exchange to USD. I've created a thread 3 weeks ago that speculates BTC price reaching 25$ by the end of the year. The speculation was basically bassed on the expected rise in difficulty in addition to 25 BTC block reward that is expected to happen in 4 months from now. I figured out lately that I was wrong: difficulty and block reward are just one of multiple other factors that affect BTC price. I still believe that BTC will continue rising toward 25$ "probably will reach 25$ or even 30$ by the end of October", and that is an effect of multiple facts, the most important of which is that BTC is gaining trust like never before.  

Argument from authority and argument from consensus are the way most people make thier decisions. Search for the rate of mentions of bitcoin in this context vs (btc is ponzi, scam, etc) on twitter, google, talking to people, etc. I would say that is the best method for making predictions.

so you don't see a big crash at that point, you think the value of BTC should be up there? supply and demadn

Only an exchange site hack/incident can cause a crash. Thats how its been and thats how it will always be. btc-e hack that took place last month was one of which that would have caused a crash. But it seems that bitcoiners and exchange sites have learned tough lessons from old incidents and matured in better risk management and incident response. I personally was amazed how btc-e been able to recover the incident in no time.

I really don't see any reason why BTC price would go down, even after reaching 100$

1. False. Any large holder of btc can crash the price by dumping it all at once.

2. Price would go down when people cash out to fiat. Trust me the price never goes straight up forever. Remember this.

1. Wouldn't happen, cause any large holder of BTC is not a dump.

2. People are cashing out every single second and every time they cash out there is a new holder of the asset, who is taking his turn in appreciating it to the next round, hens BTC continue rising but slowly.

bitcoin's 30 year chart is going to look like one crazy ass rally after the next

cant wait to see that  :D

1. You're being naive. It is possible. Remember June 2011? Oh wait....lol  :D

2. You obviously don't understand how markets work. How the fuck do you think we got from $32 to $2? You forget so fast....(don't let me stop you. Hang on to bitcoins forever LOL).

well by definition you'll have to wait almost 30 years

If you read my earlier posts you would understand what I mean. Tell you what, forget about it, you wouldn't get it anyways.

Yeah okay... lol  :D

What's an ass rally?

cuz its gana look F'd up the 30 year chart  0 30 2 7 15 5 45 10... all the way up to 3457$ on year 30 ........ ofcousre the dollar would be what it use to be but still  lol

I think you added some spaces mistakenly. It's going to be 0 30 27 155 4510

its more of a shart than a bubble. i have 30k bitcoins. i can crash the market whenever i wish.  but i know i wont get $13 for each 30,000 of my coins.

Lol very descriptive!

i think i will wait until the real turd pops out at $45

and get left behind as we go to 100$ ?

I think you now have to sell those 30k bitcoins or all of us are going to have to call you a liar. If you have them, you can get damn near $13 each in one solid sell. It will also confirm you are not lying.

Come on.... What are you waiting for? ;D

He doesn't have to sell, just announce a specific pattern of asks that adds up to 30k btc and then make it so.

Or just one ask at $100 of 30k btc

It is better to show this kind of chart with a log scale. With a log scale all price increases are relative. That is, for example, a doubling of the price looks the same no matter what the price is.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=&i=&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=C&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=0&cv=0&ps=0&l=1&p=0&

fantastic. makes the price look steady (steadily rising) this whole year

Necroing this thread, we've gone well over 4 months since the creation of this thread.

Is this theory officially busted?

I wonder of what grounds this model is based other than wishful thinking (sorry OP, didnt grind through the whole thread)

Why would there be another bubble of epic proportions that can already be foretold?? Other then the high probability of anything big that happens to change fundamentals and to spur another bubble, I fail to see what it is OP bases his prediction on.

past does not predict future

It can be argued however, that history tends to repeat itself in financial markets and there is nothing that hasnt been there before (99.9% of the time correct). Thats why chart patterns and the likes can be observed.

For a "pattern" of such magnitude as described by the OP nonetheless, I fail to see the drivers or precedents.

Let's hope the OP doesn't call this correctly. BTC now at $104.

He didn't. He said mid-october 2012.

Regardless of the timing he still said a 2 month run up to a bubble that pops at $120... which we are well on course for.

Depends when you put the start of the runup. I'd put it at beginning of January. That's a slower runup than predicted. I'd still say it's a good call if we crash down to $15 or below after we've reached $120, though. (A bubble always pops all the way, right?)

Unless its just a speed bump on our way to $1000 :) lol

Your timing was half a year early, but otherwise you seem to be astonishingly well on course. It looks as if $120 is now well in reach.

It is impossible to make any reliable and precise predictions for a bubble like this, but I would guess that this one will burst within the coming weeks. Since the number of transactions will explode when it bursts, Mt.Gox will stall as usual, so the trick is to sell your bitcoins before the panic sets in.

Since real-world bitcoin use has not increased by much since before the bubble, we can expect prices to sink back to $20 or even below $10 within about half a year. Don't believe the Cyprus news—the Cypriots have not bought bitcoins. Neither have the Spaniards. And if some very few actually have, they will be the first to join the sell-off panic to save whatever little bit they can still get out. Nearly everybody in the bubble has bought bitcoins for only one reason—because the price was rising. That's pure bubble-mania.

loooooooooool.

No way in hell prices are going back to $20.

"by much" - much relatively (% increase in users, transaction, merchants) or absolutely (No. of users, transaction, merchants)?

It is difficult to get at precise data, but when you look at actual, real-world bitcoin use to pay for goods and services, you see mainly Silk Road, Satoshi Dice, and a few others. Who is paying with bitcoins at namecheap.com or wordpress.com? Very few, an insignificant fraction of their customers.

And don't believe for a moment that Cypriots and Spaniards are buying bitcoin to flee from the euro. If anything, they buy gold or simply transfer their money to foreign banks. The Cyprus myth has had an effect though, it made more newbie speculators buy bitcoin.

So by how much has real-world use of bitcoin increased? Before the bubble, real-world use justified a bitcoin price of $2. If that real-world use had indeed doubled since then, it would now justify a price of $4.

Then you have some long-term speculators, who keep the price somewhat higher, simply because they believe in a fair chance for a bright longer-term future for bitcoin. I am one of them. I bought bitcoins at $10. I might be tempted to buy some more if the price falls back below $20, but that's about it.

Bitcoin will not live forever. It may get cracked. It may suddenly be superseded by something else. It may get stuck in its own technical problems because of its inability to handle a much higher number of transactions than it can barely handle today. It may get destroyed by its enemies. Its grand idea will certainly live on and may never go away again, but its first incarnation may not live for very long. That said, I'd be very happy if I could still use bitcoins 10 years from now.

Have you not seen silk road?  There are many thousands of sellers, it's huge and growing, it's WAY more than doubled.

Its funny that this past performance -> future results analysis seems to be somewhat accurate. But how else would you expect the price to go other than a series of these "bubbles". The value really is either zero or a lot. If the answer is a lot it won't be a straight line, that is for sure.

How do you know?

Even if that were true, if the bitcoin value were mainly based on illegal drug trade, we would be doomed.

I am already expecting the current bubble to burst and then the next bubble peak to follow in another two or three years.

But this is not good for bitcoin's reputation. If bitcoins shall be used for real-world trades, i.e. paying for goods and services, then we need stability.

On rainy Mondays I consider bitcoin to be a first try, hopefully to be followed by something better that incorporates the bitcoin experience and improves on it.

On Sundays I tend to think that these are teething problems and that bitcoin will stabilize in a few years, after all those newbie speculators have given me their money. :)

Why do you think bitcoin cannot "incorporate the bitcoin experience" and be improved itself? That seems like the path of least resistance. I think many people miss the social aspect of bitcoin. Anything can be changed, even the 21 mil limit. Personally if that looks like that will happen I'm out though.

If they raised the 21 mil limit peoples confidence would be shattered. I would be out as well.

We have seen 600% growth in price over the last three and a half months.  When do people think it looks, acts and feels like a bubble?  When we see 1000% in five months? 10,000% in twelve months?  In most bubbles there is evidence of the price curve experiencing exponential growth before the bust when everyone tries to sell at the same time. 

Nobody knows where the peak is with this one.

Just discovered this thread, good read. I'll add to that chorus of if they increase the 21 million limit, i'll be out.

Was curious where you got the $120 figure from ?

can they do that?    even if they can, i doubt they will. 

See the OP 30 x 4 ...

Its some lines of code, if everyone agrees it can be changed... It will go against the bitcoin prime directives to do so and the project will be abandoned by the critically thinking people if it occurs. It is still a possibility if enough foolish people get involved and somehow influential. The rest of us will move on to the next thing.

I have to be honest, I think the bubble is going to burst in the next 6 months.

There are some fundamental issues with bitcoin that will surface in next few months. On the other hand I have no doubt until these issues surface, the price will continue to rise.

Buyer beware!

It is hard to warn about alleged issues with Bitcoin without sounding like you just wanna scare peeps a little so you can buy a bit cheaper...

I agree 110% that there are fundamental issues with Bitcoin... the most important being that I don't have enough of them! :)

Especially when you blame "fundamental issues" yet provide no examples.

yeah thats why you hedge into LTC/TRC

also if the 51% did decide this they would be massively shooting their own value in the foot so to speak so it is unlikely they will change...what value would it have to them to do this??? none, just dilute their asset price

Yeah.  You keep saying that, in many threads.

And yet you never say what those "fundamental issues" are, do you?

I won't bother asking, since I see your ignorance and know you can't and won't respond to that.  But I will ask this:

Why?  Why troll?  Does it make you feel powerful?  Influential?

You aren't either of those things.  But I'd be interested in your own take on it.

I don't think it's trolling, but rather someone trying to spread FUD in order to buy in lower, as mentioned a few posts earlier

Because to change bitcoin you would need a solid majority in favor of a particular change. Then  you'd have to fork, which can be a painful process involving double-spending and all kinds of technical errors and fraud.

But I agree that this is also possible. I wouldn't mind going that way if it turned out to be workable.

Just noticed this post from back in August. Nothing lasts forever of course but not too shabby thus far. http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg360ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv

Excellent prediction, right on target, except for "never-ending". There are no never-ending bull runs. But I take that as a benevolent exaggeration, and so you should be admired, calian.

Of course there is always the suspicion that, with hindsight, we can now pick out just those predictions that turned out to be correct by sheer luck.

It may not be never-ending but I'm loath to try to predict where it will end. Anyway this whole thing is just a preview. Bubble/bull-run #3 will be the really fun one. I'm pretty sure the crash from this one will not be as deep and prolonged as the last one either.

Since we are reviving old prediction threads, I revived my own:

I'd like to go on the record again saying that Bitcoin price increases are just getting started. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7985.0)

There is no bubble, only coming singularity. Buy now as much as you an as fast as you can. Train is about to leave the station forever.

I think the most fundamental issue with Bitcoin is the lack of scalability, and very long lead times of any planned scalability enhancements. If Bitcoin's actual use (number of transactions) grows along with the price increase, we'll hit the 1M block size limit at around $300 to $1000. Of course bitcoin won't lose its usefulness at that point, it will just mean that only transactions with very high fees will have a chance to get included in "the next block".

I think the claims that Bitcoin would provide cheaper transactions than the alternatives were misguided to begin with.

I think the same. Perhaps some trust-based micro-payment system on top of bitcoin could solve this problem. Bitcoin could then be used for regular (for example, daily) rebalancing payments. Bitcoin would, of course, still be used directly for large payments.

I know what the Scalability wiki page claims. But:

1) There's nowhere unanimous support for altering the 1M block size limit. It's an either-or choice between "everyone must be able to run a full node" and "everyone must be able to make bitcoin transactions". Of course this is idiotic, there is no use running a node if you can't make transactions. But we really can't convince some people until the MINIMUM fee is worth several dollars.
2) Even if there was an unanimous support, the lead time for the change is long.

The good thing about billion dollar p2p open source currencies is that smart people will be attracted to solve problems. As capital is invested into coins themselves, coin holders will be FANATICAL about ensuring the network is secure and efficient.

Devs will find a way. Focus will shift from the meteoric rise to BTC's application anyway at a certain moment. Remember, it is still beta.

I will start to spend BTC when the Chinese electronics sellers start to accept them.

Most people don't care about wallets, they wont even install the client

A MtGox account is enough

Was $260->$60 massive?

she likes her paper dollars: http://youtu.be/cBJWLAKpfY4

If Bitcoin becomes THE preferred world currency for cross-border transactions, not supporting micro payments is not a terrible trade-off. One-coin-catch-all system makes little sense.

After all, for smaller transactions, there are always other options: LTC, PPC, Ripple, etc.

reward for who can get me HQ original news footage (FOX)

tbh: 5 weeks ago I messaged one of these guys on ebay to negotiate a better price for 4 arduino nano clones by going around ebay (I know, against ebay policy). He made a good price and I paypaled the money. No product arrived and no communication. I must say I'm glad he didn't take bitcoins. Now I can do a chargeback on paypal (hopefully they wont notice I violated eBay policy)... not possible with BTC.

Those guys sending stuff from HK or wherever are great: competitive prices and often good products. However, I don't think I would send BTC to them unless I had previously made good business with one of them.

Bitcoin technology contains more complex forms of transactions, for example, transactions with a third-party escrow function. We are currently not using bitcoin technology fully.

And even without that, you can have an escrow service like silkroad does. You pay SR, SR pays the seller when you say you've received your delivery. No reason why ebay couldn't include something like that down the track (apart from the fact that paypal probably would put pressure on them not to, of course).

There could even be room for someone to set up a pure 3rd party escrow service. They set up a transparent dispute resolution procedure, take a tiny bit off the top for themselves, and start working to building up a solid reputation. You buy things off ebay or whereever else, and use this well known third party to escrow the transaction. Could work.

You just need an escrow service.  There used to be a few bitcoin escrows.

the last 3 posts said: use escrow.

I've been pondering making one for a long time.

Is there already one using 2 of 3 signature transactions to avoid escrow to be able to run with the money?

Should I go for it?

Yes, you should.  We won't be buying and selling a lot of big-ticket items (houses, islands, yachts, & etc. - even some cars) without a proper escrow service.

I use escrow for some of the higher-end books I sell ($1000 +) to unestablished customers on the internet, too.