https://twitter.com/PeterLBrandt/

Given Peter's historical venom towards BTC:

Bears: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Bulls: Heeheehahahoohoo. Ahem. 

On point.

Haha, tell that to all the leveraged shorts @bitmexrekt.

Up 25% off bottom.

Not a bad couple of weeks return.

Only 75% off bottom before we hit $10k. 1/3 of the way there.

100% off bottom and I dare say Bitcoin is going up again rather than merely sideways.  Anything less is still sideways.

News or FOMO?

Comments on Cboe BZX (BTC ETF) Rulemaking

The Lord hath spoken:


The comments are piling up, but there is a several day lag before they are actually posted. A (very slow) human must be reviewing. I suspect a tsunami of comments is building up.

While the vast majority support the ETF, I managed to find a couple negative nancies:

The daily 200 MA is falling pretty steeply these days. At this rate, it won't be much longer until it encounters the 50 MA for a golden cross.

Assuming the 50 MA flattens out around current prices, this would bring us to mid-September-ish. This is how it played out the last time we had a golden cross in 2015: the 200 MA fell to meet a flat 50 MA.

Following a more aggressive 50 MA trend from the recent bottom, it could even happen as early as mid-August-ish.

1 to 2 months. Right around when we expect some ETF news. Who wants to guess the date?

Straight Outta My Ass (tm) TA


Daily 50/200 MA

Agreed this is the most likely reality. Frustrating that the SEC will likely do little to nothing to actually protect and legitimize Bitcoin investors, choosing instead to just cover their own sweaty little asses.

It's a bit chicken and egg, no? Is the SEC is waiting for Bitcoin markets to miraculously come under global regulation, while regulated market players patiently wait for the SEC to approve something they can offer on their exchanges?

I think targeting accredited investors first and offering custody and insurance solutions as Cboe is attempting is as good a way as any to start this ball rolling. It's retail investors I imagine the SEC is most concerned with, people mortgaging their grandma's house, etc. Who cares if accredited investors lose a few million? Pure speculation vs lifetime savings. Start there.

The SEC's job is to protect US investors. They can't be the global police but they can try and make the US a safer place to invest first rather than last. As regulated markets continue to spring up in the US and other countries, volumes will shift away from unregulated markets and the manipulators will have fewer places to turn.

The SEC can't protect US investors if they don't approve regulated products in the first place, though. People will still invest, regulated or not.

So which will be first, the chicken or the egg?

To help nervous noobs and even some old timers out, I made a handy-dandy BTC Price Action Decoder (TM).

Print it out. Put it in your pocket. Show it to your friends. Quiz yourself.

That link is to read submitted comments.

To actually submit comments is a bit more convoluted.

First, go here and scroll to or search for release "34-83520":

https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/cboebzx.htm

Then click the javascript 'Submit Comments' link:



Or, if you prefer to click through from the comments page:
>How to Submit Online Comments:
 >Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) filings:
  >Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (CboeBZX)
   >SR-CboeBZX-2018-040 (Release 34-83520)

Or, you can email comments to rule-comments@sec.gov.
 
The subject line of your message must include the File Number SR-CboeBZX-2018-040

See if you can't do a better job than these yahoos:
SEC comments about a proposed bitcoin ETF are 'liiiiiiiiiit'

Only 1 month away:

10-Aug-2018 SEC to make decision on latest ETF filing

Which way will the SEC swing?

Expecting volatility as hype approaches this date.

I invite the more lucid Bitcoiners to add their comments, too:

SEC comments about a proposed bitcoin ETF are 'liiiiiiiiiit'

02-July-2018 Coinbase Custody is Officially Open For Business

The main problem I have with all these 2013-2015 comparisons is that they provide the perfect bear food; they become self-fulfilling prophecy, opium for the masses, for no other reason than they half-assed sorta-kinda match a trend we saw years ago, under completely different circumstances.

I'm as guilty as anyone for seeking patterns in the knucklebones and chicken guts; however, shorters and manipulators are using this to great advantage, because every little dump they prescribe has all the sheeples and lemmings running after them with sky-is-falling syndrome, pointing to the holy charts as evidence that Satoshi has indeed forsaken them, exactly as written in 2013-2015 scripture.

By mid 2015, nothing historical could any longer predict the future, until finally the great 2015-2017 bull run took off on its own fundamental and speculative merits, charting brand new territory, all the way from $200 to $20,000.

Not until we break free of the soothsaying charters comparing the future to the past, will present-day fundamental analysis and actual technical development once again take control of the market.

Whether it takes a dump to $4k or a break for $8k to finally shake free of these medieval shackles is anybody's guess, but charters and manipulators definitely seem to be winning the holy war at the moment.

It really boggles the mind that even the monumental Mt Gox civil rehabilitation announcement, the SEC declaring Bitcoin as not a security, and lightning network mainnet achievements are having nary an effect on this bear market.

We are truly a superstitious lot, despite all evidence to the contrary.

The gaussian adoption curve.



We've a ways to go...

Wow, I really didn't expect the Mt Gox civil rehabilitation news to come as soon as it did. For those of us who were around when Gox collapsed, this is monumental news. A shame it's wasted on a bear market.  

Thanks for contributions, I've updated some significant early forks, I'm sure I'm missing some.


Price? Who said anything about price?  

I'm not simply interested in short-term speculative impacts on price, but rather milestones that effect more of the long-term fundamentals of Bitcoin as a emerging technology. The more meaningful milestones don't necessary have an immediate effect on price for several reasons, e.g. they were anticipated long before and already priced, market momentum is too strong, news distraction, etc. Also, exchange hacks are a dime a dozen. Bitcoin was created to be trustless, without the need for centralized exchanges, so fools who keep trusting exchanges can continue being fools, esp in a post-Gox world. Mt Gox definitely was a milestone, however, continuing to influence fundamentals to this day. It highlighted the very essence of trust vs trustless systems.

I cannot wait for decentralized exchanges to be become the dominant form of exchange, this day cannot come soon enough. This will be an enormous technological milestone.

Already, I feel like exchanges are becoming relics of how we used to do things. Exchanges are so heavily manipulated at the moment, I really don't trust exchanges to provide even a meaningful price anymore. That day ended the day futures emerged.

5420

Thanks for contributions. I've also added Bitcoin Obituary milestones to the timeline.

And links to some other nice timelines.

Keep em coming. Any future milestones on the horizon to add?

I'd like to think Mt Gox is already priced in at this point, and I'm hoping that civil rehabilitation in kind might soothe any future panic. But who's to say creditors won't just cash their Bitcoin in immediately after receiving, too?

Institutional money is probably betting on further Mt Gox panic, and waiting for the whole fiasco to be settled before committing any further speculative funds. At some point, a big player might make a preemptive strike and institutional FOMO might kick even before Mt Gox is settled. By then, maybe the market can absorb the supply without much of a shock. Or not.

There is also a chance that further institutional money coming in is a myth. Possible, but I have a hard time believing that more institutions wouldn't test even a little toe in the crypto waters, shark infested or not. The prize is just too big. Nothing beats greed. And a little toe from a few big players is all it would take to jump start this ship. Retail FOMO would only compound blast off.