Proliferation of fora is a big pain for me personally.  I would rather see BTCT create an Other > Alternate cryptocurrencies > Monero board.

Why? Not like there's anything I can do about it but destroy my arteries. Better to be Zen about it. Bitcoin's time will come in due course and if not, it is not worthy of it anyway.

Who will make the remaining 20%? Lucif himself? 

It may just mean we will follow a less steep exponential trend, or even a linear trend. Obviously, the exponential trend has to be broken someday or we will be able to buy everything in the world in 10 years.

interesting.  they actually claimed price doesn't correlate with tx volume as Peter argues.

"With few exceptions, the long-term hash rate drives upwards — as does the value of the currency".   i've argued this all along.

Ukrainian rage debates GTFO.

Miners, stop selling privately.  Here is why it is not in your best interest:

-Miners typically need to sell their coin immediately as they have invested in equipment that expects a return

-There are deals for fixed liquidity privately. Where the miners can sell their coins outside the open market at a premium or at a guaranteed price range for a set period of time

-Those deals exist because there are market makers who profit immensely from pulling wool over the miners eyes

For example: the maker can buy 10,000 coins privately, which reduces the volume on the public order books. They can then “splash” the thinner books by selling 2000 coins; thereby bringing the price down. Now they can continue negotiating with miners stating that the market rate is $X - which is significantly lower than the market rate had the miners just sold on the open market. The makers are intentionally trying to keep volume off the open books so that they can keep the price low so that they can continue buying their coins low. Someone with $20,000,000 they want to invest in bitcoin would be able to acquire many more bitcoins by using the above methodology.

I don't claim I believe with certainty that this is going on, I am submitting that, if a large enough entity (or several) would plan to buy large amounts of coins, and have some patience, this would probably a scenario worth exploring. In terms of tax efficiency, waiting for the ETF would probably be the better choice, but in terms of price control, the method I described would in principle beat a fund that is, ultimately, positive feedback linked to the markets.

I disagree that miners would prevent this taking place. No disrespect to miners, they're the backbone of the network, but amateur miners seem to be not necessarily the most economically rational actors. Go look around in this forum how often the fall for the fallacy: 'It's sunk cost anyway, I'll let my outdated miners run as long as they produce coins', and how often more economically minded users need to tell them that the actual calculation needs to be based on total cost of future production of coins (mainly: energy costs) vs. number of coins bought at market for the same costs.

Larger mining operations are undoubtedly much more economically savvy, but I've argued over and over again that I believe that, with the increasing "professionalization" of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining, short-term profit opportunity will probably outclass long-term speculative investment. In other words: large miners sell more than they hold, especially considering that we are currently nowhere near a new uncontested bull market (which means the ratio of sold vs. held coins can change if the market sentiment changes, and miners might hold more than they sell if they feel it's a sure thing price will go up.)

Finally, we have plenty of evidence that public market price as determined by on exchange trading is a major reference point for off exchange transactions (just one example: the SR coin auction, where every party that spoke on it refered to "the market price" as if it were the obvious metric). Binding a large mining operation to you in a mid to long-term contract, maybe even offering a premium (although, from hearsay, I've only heard of large holders being made sub market offers, off exchange), then using some fraction of the coins to strategically depress price, would seem like a very good strategy to me, and relatively risk free: if it works, market price stays low, and accumulation proceeds at a low cost. If it fails, and price refuses to be depressed, the account value of coins gained so far appreciates, which is a sweet little consolation price.

Arbitrage by miners could throw a spanner in the works of this mechanism, but profits would be comparably marginal: the goal of the accumulator is not to destroy the on-exchange price, just to keep a lid on it. For the arbitreur miner, the reward is small (sold his coins at market price, is able to buy them back slightly below perhaps), and more importantly: for the large operations, the initial problem would re-appear - what to do with a large amount of coins, when you in reality prefer to hold USD (by my assumption that professional mining operations are short-term opportunistic, and not long-term married to Bitcoin success).

It's a tragedy of the commons style scenario: presumably, miners would be better off selling directly on the exchanges, since the higher volume generated there would ultimately drive up price, but individually, they fear the risk of lower profits because of increased selling pressure on exchange, so they seek arrangements off exchange.

I'll say it one more time: The above is (motivated, I think) speculation. I make no claim this is necessarily happening. I only point out that I believe it is a possible, maybe even probable, mechanism taking place, accounting - at least partially - for the current stagnation period.

I don't like viewing bitcoin as primarily a payments-tech product. I feel the conversation has shifted largely to how bitcoin excels at executing online payments, which is true, and which I've myself pointed out to skeptics for a long time. The reality, though, is that the core proposition is control of your own money, an open ecosystem, and a mathematically known money supply (as we all appreciate). It just so happens that bitcoin is currently superior to virtually all payment networks as well, but that probably won't be the case forever. Legacy payments will probably get much better (more secure, faster, cheaper) over time, and then it should be clear that bitcoin's real distinction lies in the monetary characteristics. Perhaps ApplePay will re-shift the conversation.

It was, see The fifth growth spurt from December 24, 2013

I wish people would adopt this terminology because "bubble" now is even used by the people that don't believe one of the peaks in the growth represents a large overvaluation (which is the meaning of the word bubble).

They are more correctly waves than bubbles since they all have reverted to higher lows, so far.

Big money are here now, confirmed.

From first and second hand discussions with people employed with large financial institutions, including several megabanks, that have active research into bitcoin as an investment strategy or data analytics tool. Notably one with ~US 1.5 T (yes trillion) under private wealth management and a consortium of banks who are interested in establishing a BTC futures clearing platform (apparently legally easier than adopting/handling the BTC itself in their legal/accounting, go figure).

No BS, you heard it here first.

Looks like lower lows will have to wait for now



Last time there was bullish div on 4h was just before the rise from $440. This time it's also compounded with the PayPal news (although I'm not sure how much, if any, effect that will have).

Also unrelated, SierraChart is amazing Can't believe how much smoother it runs compared to the memory hog TradingView.

oda.krell,
It's not that everything for me is about money for me--very few things are.  It's just that money is always about money.  Anyhow, recycling an old Hodler post from a securities thread (and continuing my dickishness)