How do you define "bull market" or "bear market"?

If we had an overall up trend from late 2015 to late 2017, are we out of that uptrend, or just in a short term correction?  That would not necessarily be a bear market, even though the trend turned downward for a period of correction.

Regarding alt coin rise, what the fuck are you talking about?  Alt coins were pumped into a state of craziness, and they had a few pumps that might have been riding on the tail of bitcoin, but also had some of their own dynamics, depending upon which of the shit coins you are referring to.  Some of the various alt coins and ICOs are continuing to be pumped far beyond any feasible value that they have, yet concededly, there pumping potential has dried up somewhat in recent months, and perhaps some of the froth was removed (at least temporarily).  I am not so presumptuous as to assert that I know where alt coins are going to go, but there is likely still enough ambition and permission in the crypto space that they are likely to have some more pump periods that go much beyond any kind of real value that they are likely to provide to the space, except for bringing a lot of dumb money into the the space that might get smart enough to migrate some of the value over to bitcoin, perhaps?

Your framing of the question and the other two responses in this thread, so far, seem to miss the importance of bitcoin, and seem to attempt to conceptualize bitcoin as if it were the equivalent to other crypto projects, but with merely a larger market cap...

In reality bitcoin is the only coin that really matters because of the way that it is set up.  It solves the byzantine general's problem and networking effects have been being built upon it since the genesis block... There are nine networking effects that are outlined by Trace Mayer, and you can easily look them up in order to better attempt to understand the importance of bitcoin and it's paradigm shifting contribution to securing value in a way that is outside of centralized authorities that has never been available before it, and might not even have been possible until the internet had reached a certain level of maturity in recent years.

So bitcoin the currency and bitcoin the blockchain are a combination of dynamics that create incentives to build network effects and to continue to build such network effects.

The level of adoption remains less than 1% of the world's population, so it is nearly inevitable that BTC's price is going to be considerably volatile for many years to come (probably decades), and accordingly, the price will not always accurately reflect value... and it is also possible that networking effects could move over to some other superior coin/project, but there is nothing even close at the moment, so it is likely that any merging over to some other project would allow users to move with it, if such a project were to evolve in the space.

O.k.  Factually, the application is there, but seems like something like that is much further down the road, no?  We would have to cross the barrier of bitcoin only first before going down that seemingly weird road of a basket of cryptos.

And how would the system choose, exactly which cryptos to include in the basket?  I'm sure the application says, but I cannot see any reliable methodology that has been established, yet in part because the history of alt cryptos is much shorter, smaller liquidity and a lot more volatile than bitcoin.  Even bitcoin has it's limitations in terms of a short history and questions/concerns about volatility and liquidity.

I kind of doubt that they are specifically any more shady than any other people, and they have shown a decent amount of restraint and morals based on their having had opportunities to exit scam, but did not (at least not yet). 

Of course, BTC-e has been one of the oldest exchanges, and they have been accused of a lot of shady things including collaborating to allow stolen GOX coins to be dumped on their exchange, and also other kinds of money laundering accusations - but merely because the USA govt makes such accusations does not necessarily make them true.

It is true that from the beginning BTC-e was an exchange that allowed you to do almost no KYC and AML verifications, so they would let you open up and account and begin to exchange with a mere sign up that involved only an e-mail address and a password... so I doubt that the mere fact that they had been attempting to allow freedom in the use of the exchange and to attempt to stay out of the reach of governments would have been shady in and of itself - beyond governments and banks not liking it. 

Accordingly, there has always been some mystery concerning exact ownership and management and who works with them, but I doubt that mere attempts at anonymity means that they are engaged in shady operations.

Of course, there are a lot of aspirations to create decentralized exchanges, and it seem that BTC-e operators have shared a lot of the cypherpunk type aspirations - and maybe even have been pursued because of their ideologies - yet now they have a real business/creativity problem, and that is to figure out how to inspire a sufficient amount of confidence in order to not continue to experience a run on their bank (exchange)

Well last July 2017, they got seized by the US Govt (they were operating as BTC-e), some of their bank accounts were seized and the websites, but I believe that they were able to keep a large majority of the crypto, based on their own self reporting.  About a month and a half later, they reopened as WEX and did a Bitfinex style socializing of the loss (about 40%-ish), and they issued tokens that they said would be reimbursed.

In the ensuing year, they have not been able to regenerate their previous trade volume and it appears that a lot of folks are trying to withdraw their funds, which seems to snowball, including WEX restricting withdrawals which continues to exacerbate the lack of confidence problem and the run on the exchange.  So accordingly confidence has been lost about whether WEX has enough money to cover all deposits, and surely they have been a whole hell-of-a lot less profitable after reopening because they have not been able to return to their former self (trade volume wise).   There is likely some other continued legal wrangling behind the scenes too because they USA Govt does not give up in terms of attempting to prosecute folks that they can find associated with the exchange, and that could be continuing to affect their operations and their expenses.. and may even motivate them to do an exit scam if they cannot pay everyone or to cover their expenses. 

Yeah.. just pick some random words, and then string them together to say whatever you wish.  In other words,  I am a meanie, and I admit it.    



The WO-bot, aka mymenace, comes up with some real nonsense.. start to watch this mymenace character - could hardly be a real person.  


O.k... that is one bridge too far.  I am certainly NOT "a nice guy."  That sounds like gay.   

Tell us again, that you are not a bot, you fucking goofball.. with your half-english and largely difficult to discern content.

I joined this forum in February 2014, so surely my posts in that time had a lot of fucking peeps following them, right?    Furthermore, individuals can have all kinds of opinions that evolve with the time and they are attempting to engage in a dialogue with other peeps in this thread.. wasn't that what I was doing?  Hello you fucking misaligned fuck, do I claim to be a sorcerer at any time?, so get the fuck out of here with your attempt to dig up dirt that ends up being largely irrelevant.  


A bot is not too likely to engage in seriously engaging communications, and yeah it seems that mymenance is engaged in a kind of shit-stirring, that trolls do at opportune times to distract from any meaningful exchanges of thread-relevant information that we might be having.

Nice to see that you are back, RJC.  You would not want to get a "hiding in the cupboards" reputation like Rosewater, right?

I don't know if we are out of the woods, but surely it feels pretty good to have some upwards BTC price action that might reck a few bears in the process.  And, maybe they deserve such recking especially if they had been thinking that they were going to profit from shorting BTC in the $5ks, $6ks and $7ks?

It's like early 2016, when bears were shorting BTC in the $350 to $450 range - and got reckt....

and

It's like early 2017, when bears were shorting BTC in the lower $1000s and upper three digits range - and got reckt....

and

It's like July / August  2017 (and even September 2017), when bears were shorting BTC in the $2000s - and got reckt....

Good luck (NOT) bears, you are going to need it.   

O.k.... that's fair enough, and it seems that the levels are different for different people, even though we may have been into bitcoin for similar amounts of time.

So I was considering that perhaps there were quite a few folks whose BTC holdings were kind of in the hole when prices were below $500, and then as prices raised above that level, then your BTC holdings were profitable and became more and more profitable as far as the BTC price going up. 

Another thing that I was considering was that traditional investments could reliably return 4% to 12% annually, if you engaged in a kind of sound investing, so if you are achieving BTC returns that squash those traditional returns, then in the end you will be doing very well.. and surely more well the higher the BTC price, and kind of assuming that the value of your overall BTC portfolio is going up, even if you screw up a bit here and there in terms of losing some of it.

But, I also understand that depending upon the amount of your initial principle investment (which includes any additional amount that you might add on the way up), you may require greater returns if the principle was lower.  So, some people are doing quite well with 10x returns while others might require 100x returns to do well and then even greater returns to get into the "fuck you" territory.  Actually one level of fuck you is just having enough money to be able to support yourself without having to work again, so therefore you can say "fuck you" to any terms of employment that you do not like, and another (higher) level of fuck you is being able to flaunt your wealth or to have a kind of freedom to spend freely without having to really account for your income going down...

so, depending on your cost of living, maybe baby fuck you would be in the lower millions of dollars, and then $3-$5 million in the first world to be able to live off of the money, but bigger levels of fuck you are in the $30 million plus territory... but if you live in an area of the world with a lower cost of living, you might be able to accomplish a decent amount of extra fuck you with less than $10million dollars of  wealth.

Those were more of less the parameters of some of my assumptions.. and understandably will vary from personal circumstances, such as if you believe that you need a yacht in order to have "fuck you" status.


I am happy with all of this, and including if the price were to get stuck below $10k for an extended period of time, but of course, the more the price goes up, the greater it is to just go a bit wild with the extra wealth that flows in my direction... like an unexpected gift (that was a little bit expected because you peaked under the wrappers when your parents weren't home ... hahahahahahah)....



EXACTAmente... there are various levels of "we"   

I don't mind sharing because I consider these kinds of matters to have potential for brainstorming for me to consider and to reconsider my strategy, along with others being able to employ the strategies or to tailor them for themselves.



I think that in 2014, and perhaps part of 2015, I felt the same way, especially while I was in the largely BTC accumulating stage.  Others have expressed such selling reservations, especially when they consider that they are in the earlier stages of building their position.

Largely I got my framework thinking from Rpietila's SSS thread.

He advocated a kind of strict planning ahead to rake in profits at about 10% for every 10x increase in BTC price.  Of course, he suggested that you could tailor the increments, but he also suggested taking those profits off of the table.

Accordingly, not only did I decrease the increments, I also incorporated a buying back plan, too.   So, yeah if you are finding that you gambling too much, then you can figure out some middle ground that is somewhere between my approach and Rpietila's.



I think that it takes time and effort to initially plan it, set it up and to get used to practicing it, and accordingly, I would recommend practicing with smaller amounts and smaller increments and then working your way up.

Even today, I tweak my increments around, depending on how much time I have available (and want to spend on it) and my tentative projections about how fast and far BTC's price is going to move.  In other words, I would suggest practicing a bit to get used to it, and if you do not want to spend a lot of time on it, then you set it up for BIGGER price swings, and set it up in such a way that you become  somewhat emotionally neutral about the actual movement of the price direction.



Personally, I don't really consider the matter in terms of gains, but instead of in terms of creating a kind of insurance for myself and also a kind of comfort level that seems to cause me to be less nervous about the BTC price direction because I feel covered for either price direction.


Like I just mentioned, I don't get caught up with measuring short term gains, especially on one or two trades; however, I have some spreadsheets that can show (in a price projection manner) that I am in the process of accumulating BTC through this process, and I end up having both, more cash and more BTC... .at various price points, but I will also manage the percentage of dollars or BTC that I have in reserve because I project ahead, and I do not ever want to run out of dollars to buy BTC in the even the BTC price goes down and it also overshoots in its going down (which BTC does have an ongoing tendency to overshoot expectations both to the downside and to the upside).   I also don't want to run out of BTC to sell on the way up, so I tweak here and there my projections about how many BTC I am selling on the way up, and really in recent times, I tend to kind of stay within a range of having plenty of BTC, even though I continue to sell it on the way up.. .so for example my range of BTC might be as high as 98% when the BTC price goes down below expectations and even go as low as 87% or 88% when the price shoots up.  Of course, I can tweak the amount of dollars or BTC that I am holding in order to attempt to maintain a certain quantity or even to anticipate a price reversal (but so far, these tend to be tweaks for me, rather than large moves).

Even though I am not breaking down actual numbers of how much fiat and/or BTC I am accumulating on each end, I know that my system provides considerable satisfaction for me in terms of stacking up BTC and dollars up and down the spectrum of BTC price possibilities and it also gives me a sense of insurance and security to have those dollars and BTC stacked up on each side and I can tell by looking at my accumulation that my reserves grow on each end to a level that remains satisfying and worth while for me and the amount of time that I put into it. 

I frequently say to people that one of the most guaranteed thing about bitcoin (rather than price direction) is that it is going to be volatile, both up and down, and what I do intends to profit from some BTC price dynamic that seems as close to guaranteed as anything can be in cryptolandia.

One final point, is that I do have a kind of ingrained presumption that in the long term BTC prices are going to go up, rather than going to zero... so my system would likely not be profitable (at least not as much) if BTC prices go to zero (even though I could pull out a certain amount of principle that I refuse to trade, perhaps?).

Is that BJA?

If you are not sure about the reference, I am talking about this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12156.msg169810#msg169810

This thread is not about "€"  whatever the fuck that is?

 

Substantively, you can still be a bitcoiner and be a socialist or a democrat.  It is misleading to attempt to frame sound money in terms of levels of government support.

Some ideas about the role of government is quite perverted, and frequently anti-government folks get distracted into false dichotomies and misunderstandings about how to get from here to there - including thinking that they can just hit reset and get rid of all government... ... sorry to break it to you, but a reset is not going to happen, and even bitcoin does not provide a "reset."

Bitcoin, if successful, is going to cause a fundamental check on systems that are already in place, and that is part of the reason that bitcoin is likely a paradigm shift, and has already caused changes that are paradigm shifting in  nature, even though it is going to take a considerable amount of time for the real significant changes to play out - though of course, some of the changes might be revolutionary too.. and perhaps, go slowly and then suddenly, which is likely why bitcoin is going to continue (for a long time) to have spurts of growth that are gradual and sudden.  Hang on baby!!!!!

I hate to set my expectations too high.

Maybe poor was around $200, and then just making it was around $600, and feeling pretty good was around $1,000.

Above $1k are just relative variations of well off  merging into lower levels of rich and then higher levels of rich that come from $10k and above.. perhaps approaching fuck you rich at $100k and filthy rich at $1million?

Yes.. perhaps a "bit" of FOMO.   

Real FOMO is not really going to kick in until either getting in the $10k testing area or perhaps breaking above $10k.. so if there is an actual meaningful breaking above $10k, we might get the real deal FOMO, perhaps, perhaps.

Good idea.  You gonna deserve it.   

hahahahaha

There is still hope for some of the bears.. they just don't wanna say anything right now.. they waiting for a correction in order to pile on the FUD spreading.

First, the linked article is about 5 weeks old. 

Second, within the article there seems to be a kind of underlying assumption that December 2017 was a blow off top, which still gets us to the question about whether we are in an early 2013 like scenario or a late 2013 like scenario... so seeming like blow off tops occurred in both time periods, but only the second blow off top resulted in a longer period of correction, which really meant that the first "blow off top" was not a "blow off top," even though the first seemingly "blow off top" had a lot of the same characteristics as the second one.

Certainly, the question is still not conclusive about whether we are going to experience a longer kind of BTC correction at this time, or whether this particular correction period is going to be shorter in duration, resulting in another period of upward price movement, rather than downwards.

Likely it would be best practice to prepare for either possible scenario rather than putting too much weight into one scenario happening and then the other scenario ends up happening.

You have bought more BTC in the last 3 years, though, correct?

If so, you are engaging in a kind of HODL and ACCUMULATL strategy that does not involve selling, right?

I thought that most peeps here understand my methodology.

In brief, largely I am an incrementalist.  I buy on the way down, and I also dollar cost average buy, and I sell a small amount of the way up.  I sell between about 1% and 1.5% of my bitcoin stash for every 10% that the BTC price goes up, and I use a decent amount of the sales proceeds to buy back, in the event that the BTC price goes down.

I have been engaged in such incrementalism for almost 3 years.  In other words,  before October 2015, I was largely accumulating and dollar cost average buying... I also was establishing my initial BTC stake in 2014, and in a kind of maintenance during 2015, so if I ever sold any BTC for any reason, I would replace such BTC (and a bit more) quite quickly thereafter.

Currently, largely, I do not really change my practice by BIG price moves or make any BIG moves of my own.. so I am constantly selling on the way up and constantly buying as the price goes... I do tend to play around with the increments and the amounts based on how the BTC price is moving, but the amount that I authorize to buy or to sell is based on ongoing similar percentages that I authorize for myself and only tweak in small ways.  Regarding the actual price points of $8,000 and $5,800, yes I was buying all the way down.  Actually, I sold all the way up to $19666 and then I bought all the way back down and was largely prepared to keep buying , even if BTC prices were to go below $1k (which surely seems unlikely, currently).  Largely also I had been selling all the way up through the $6000s until reaching our $8000 of today.. so if the price goes above $8k I will continue to sell, and if the price goes below $7700 or something like that I will resume buying..