Sorry for the offtopic (I know that this thread is about LTC, bcash, jews, etc.), but I noticed a n00b/shorter/miner whale selling 600-1000-ish BTC's on Bitfinex in the last few days. May be he has more, since several big sells coincided with flashing a couple of 200BTC asks. His actions led to a smaller gap between Bitstamp and Bitfinex from 2.5% to 1.5% for a moment. I honestly admire the stupidity of all such people with thousands, even tens of thousands of Bitcoins that are desparate to sell when they see a couple of $'s increase of the price. I mean, in a low volume day, why selling so much? I don't get it. Unless, he is a shorter and want's to defend his position. It is like trying to stop the flooding with bare hands. These people need a reality check, not a bank check. Thankfully, they tend to lose all their wealth in a matter of days, so God bless the true hodlers!

It sounds like a perfect plan, except a little tiny itsy bitsy detail: Do you know what the top will be with an 100% certainty? Unless you have a time machine, I doubt it. In early 2017 the top was almost certain to be $1000, 3 months later $3000, then ... you know the drill. I got burned by that logic 5 times in 2017. If I was just holding, now after all crashes, I should have had 4 times more bitcoins than I am having now. In reality, if you sell with the hope of 80% gains, you will certainly sell at least 10% below the top, and if you got the luck to nail the momentary dip, you could get like 20-30% tops. And that, if you are extremely lucky! Besides, there is a risk leaving fiat on exchanges and 10-40% taxes if you withdraw to the bank account. So, I prefer to hodl in all the coming crashes. Bring it on, baby!

It is so refreshing to see such posts instead of the common shorters FUD like "Oh, no, we are going down, I am selling...". In fact these trolls are gambling with short positions and hope that their posts will influence some newbies that come and read this famous thread for a trading advice. And why should anyone listen to a short term trading advices anyway? Bitcoin for sure is here to stay and with the years its price will grow one way or another. If once some ATH is reached, then it will be revisited again for sure, because first, the inflation rate is really low, and second, on every 4 years there is a halvening. And when Bitcoin hits $20K again, one may try to gamble and sell some assuming that the price will dump temporarily and rebuy lower. I admit that I've been thinking over it, but who knows what the drop will be -10%, 20%, or more? Will it be worth to risk for 10% premium, while one can simply wait more. What if the price doesn't drop but goes much higher and the future drops are near or even above 20K? So, I think the most safe thing is to hodl until there is a need or a strong desire to pay for something useful with part of the stash like house, car, college for the kids, etc. And after the purchase, any proper opportunity to recover the stash should be used. If only all people were thinking like that, we could have avoided all these idiotic crashes. But that's impossible of course. There will always be manipulators, shorters, 1% daily traders, etc. The good news is that the hodlers always prevail and this is what moves the price upward.

$6666.66 

Warning: If the number of short positions increases, expect that the number of unknown trolls telling us that they liqudated their BTC holdings, increases too. (Of course, they didn't, they just opened short positions, gambling the price will go down)   This is ideal for the true bulls to kick the bears in the balls! Massive short squeeze coming in 3...2...1

https://www.ccn.com/fbitcoin-technical-indicators-show-bullish-trend

"According to one technical analyst, for the first time since the bull run in late 2017, a technical indicator called Bollinger Bands is holding above the 30 moving average (MA) level, which often signals a positive upside movement.
...
The $4,300 level could be crucial in the near-term because as one cryptocurrency trader explained, there are a relatively large number of short contracts stacked up in the $4,200 to $4,300 range. If bitcoin initiates an optimistic price movement above $4,300, it could trigger a short squeeze and fuel its near-term momentum."

https://twitter.com/i/status/1107395549966274565

The reaction of Betis fans after the incredible 3rd goal of Messi! G.O.A.T.!

The history always repeats. The whales that thought they control the market in 2015 by pressing the price down to 220$ 6-7 times, in 2017  understood that all this was in vain.  Now, the whales that think too high of themselves and dump, in 2 years will realize that all was in vain. ($100K party, cough, cough)

https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/sec-chairman-clayton-blasts-bitcoin-as-critics-assail-regulatory-stance

The agency is expected to decide on both proposals in the coming months. Clayton declined to comment on any specific application, but noted there “may be a case where a bitcoin ETF could satisfy our rules.”



But seriously Clayton, not now! Wait for the price to approach $20K and then give the approval. After that the $100K party will be a matter of weeks.

^^^
Congrats to all daily flies traders on BFX who took advantage of the pump to $4000 and after buying at $3945 they were selling down to $3860. I may be a professor in math, but I can't calculate how much money they made today! phew! that's a big blow!

Which site gives the accurate volume of all traded bitcoins (not USD but only BTC's, including Binance and excluding China's fake volume)?

I am watching in the last days the short and long positions. In Bitfinex shorts are 49% and longs are 51%. According to https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/BTCUSDLONGS/, the longs are very low - 22010, while the shorts are climbing in - 21150. The last pump was preceded by longs on ATH for the last months and shorts on ATL. This may be the reason the pump didn't go beyond the resistance $4200. Now, the bulls have a golden chance to rekt the shorts by a bull run that will breach that resistance.  Come on, bulls, eat that bear short n00bs, who still have wet dreams for $2000.  The shorters don't realize how vulnerable are they this time. In 2018 they may had some wins, but not this time, n00bs! You really need to learn a lesson that you can't play games with the king BTC! I just want to see the faces when we reach $5000 of those who trolled that we have not bottomed yet! Something like that:

Just got promoted to Sr. Member Hodler.

Going to $3900 (Bitstamp or $4000 BFX) is like:

This post reminded me that in this life there is no justice, nor God's care for the people. In my first year as a University assistant my salary was 4.5$ per month in the midst of hyperinflation in Bulgaria, and now it is only 800$ as full tenure professor in mathematics, 23 years later. In 2012 my mom died from cancer, my GF cheated on me, and I had kidney stones that almost killed me. In 2017 my father had serious issues with the blood pressure and I wasn't able to mentally endure the crashes of Bitcoin, so I missed the opportunity for a profit. I don't make exact calculations, but may be I am on a loss currently.  Jesus/Satan/fate fucked up my life, but I don't care. Now at least I have hope that Bitcoin will give me the freedom to live a bit more decent life. And if I have, say 1 mil, I will find a way to donate at least 10% to sick children, who are more fucked up by Jesus/Satan/fate than me.

First of all, Bitcoin is in a bull market since the beginning  in 2008-2009. For a truly bear market we can talk if the prices are lower 20% from the ATH after 10 years or more (this is the case with gold and silver, which are nearly 10 years much lower than the ATH - the so called "secular" bear market). What we have with Bitcoin is a partial case of a cyclical bear market that can last up to 4 years because of the halvings. The actual length of the cycles is much less than 4 years - so far 1 year tops. And even if we use the term "cyclical bear market" we won't be 100% correct, since the other conditions are not fulfilled: widespread pessimism and negative investor sentiment (which actually define the bear market). The reasons for the dips and crashes may be multiple (MtGox dump fear, fork fear, etc.). but are not relatable to the future of Bitcoin at all. What happened in 2015 and 2018 is the most common falling wedge pattern, which is part of the bull market: (https://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:chart_patterns:falling_wedge_reversal)

"The Falling Wedge is a bullish pattern that begins wide at the top and contracts as prices move lower. This price action forms a cone that slopes down as the reaction highs and reaction lows converge. In contrast to symmetrical triangles, which have no definitive slope and no bias, falling wedges definitely slope down and have a bullish bias. However, this bullish bias cannot be realized until a resistance breakout occurs. "


So, at some point this year, we will break out from the falling wedge pattern and resume the bull trend. All we need is more volume so the break out will be defended.

The arbitrage with Bitcoin to fiat is very risky. First, Bitfinex is nothing like the US exchanges (which are under the supervision of SEC) and is known with their "hacks" and "bank problems". This means your money can be stolen and you can't do anything about it. Second: if you buy at Bitstamp and transfer the Bitcoins to Bitfinex, you have to wait several hours during which time the price may dip. And finally, you are allowed to withdraw fiat only once per month a sum less than 1 mil$. Otherwise, you have to pay 3% fee. And since USDT is traded 2% higher than the USD, you are not able to withdraw on a profit USDT. Speaking of arbitrage, it is better to use ETH or other alt, because they are faster. But the premium is smaller, I think 1.5%. Anyway, it is not worth the risk IMO.

Edit. This does not mean that there are no people who take advantage of this arbitrage possibility. I am sure most  of the miners prefer to sell in Bitfinex to have a bit bigger profit. And since the volume is very low recently like 1.8K for a time last Sunday and 6-7K like today, this may have a significant negative impact on the price. If the price is the same, not many miners will risk to use Bitfinex. So for me, the sooner this gap is closed, the better.