Potayto, potahto.

None of us knows if, over a very long term time horizon, the bubble cycle will continue, or whether the market will stabilize, on average, as capitalization increases.

Here's what we do know on the other hand:




The market is currently moving towards high (local) stability. The last time that happened was in 2012, which gets a lot of people excited, since they expect this is the prelude for another bull market -- I'm not saying I agree with that necessarily, but it's at least a coherent thought.

You're a competent trader from what I can tell, which requires some decent skill at short to mid term directional prediction.

I just don't generally trust anyone's ability for long term predictions based on technicals - not those predictions that were made by the uber bulls at the height of exuberance, and not those of the bears either.

^ As if you're any less greedy, only difference is, you're betting in the other direction ^_^

That said, that graph is the biggest pile of sh*t TA I've seen in a long time. Sorry guys.

Nice to see you again, OP. Don't think I've seen you post in a while.

Tentatively agreed, although, "memory fades" is a bit ill defined. After the 2011 peak, memory 'faded' within about a year: by late 2012, the technicals pointed upwards, but the forum sentiment still seemed to be "I'll believe it when I see it" (I wasn't around back then, but have been browsing the old pages).

Probably we're in a different era of the market, and things move a bit slower overall. Almost two years since the 1000+ peak, and I'm starting to get the impression memory of that event (the ATH) is indeed fading a bit -- if not in here, then in the public perception.

That said, before there's even just a chance for another serious run-up, major waves of new capital need to enter the market, imo. And that is only likely to happen for fundamental reasons (i.e. the "killer app", and network size drastically increasing, i.e. exponentially, not steep linearly like in the past year), or for mostly technical reasons -- which, I believe, requires a plateau / stability phase takes place first.

So, two years of decline, followed by maybe two years of mostly sideways? Seems at least a possibility to me.

Tell me about it. I put a recommendation in my sig that I think could be really useful for newcomers, but I'm always wondering if it'll just be seen as another one of those paid ad campaigns, and actually has the opposite effect of what I'm trying to achieve. /shrug

You're thinking in terms of total supply (or demand). Important, sure, but not sufficient. Bitcoin mining reward can be seen as a case of increasing supply (up to a finite total value, assuming for a moment the protocol will never change on that matter ), with a predictably changing growth constant -- as opposed to the supply situation of, say, USD, without a declared finite total value, and undergoing unpredictable (or at least: less predictable) growth. If market participants would be perfectly rational and able to calculate ahead, the changing reward eras shouldn't matter. Whoever thinks that, however, will be rather disappointed, I'm quite sure (which is not to say I belong to the "Rally to the moon, once reward halving" camp).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative

Let me know when you're done reading. In that case I might be up for another 'discussion' with you on the topic, but no promises :3

You're starting to sound like a broken record. Hope you'll eventually realize this, and will go back to writing more interesting, bit more varied posts. But, of course, do as you please.

*gasp* Supply might be a relevant factor for price discovery? Who would have thought?

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=supply+demand&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=The+Quarterly+Journal+of+Economics

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=supply+demand&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=title&as_sauthors=&as_publication=The+American+Economic+Review

Moments like this, I wish I could look ahead around a year (well, July 2016 more specifically), then go back to now. Not to trade it, but, don't know, simple curiosity.

It's so tempting to attribute (at least partially) the current trend to early halving anticipation, similar to how the November '12 halving is likely to have contributed to the emerging of the next pricing era (with upper bound quadruple digits, and unlikely to go back to double digits).

At the same time, it's probably too early for it, and I expect the halving impact to be more smoothly priced in, since the market is (slightly) more mature today than it was in 2012.

Oh, don't be coy. Your sell order was the cause of this little rally, and you know it. I mean, what else could flog this anemic cryptohorse so hard it's getting up again? ;)

It sort of does, but even better actually

Hm, honestly just wondering: in which way do you think it is 'the most valid'?

To me it just seems that ("manipulation" on the exchanges aside), the more liquid price discovery mechanism trumps the less liquid one. Unless you mean it as an indicator for what the long-term expectations on the price might be, i.e. what people 'on the street' are in principle willing to pay per coin... but not sure how much that should influence the mid-to-short term price predictions. But quite possible I'm missing something in the above...

If you can't see the cause and time when stamp, currently undergoing wash trades or not aside, recovered a substantial number of their previously lost clients, you're at least as clueless yourself.

Then, again, miscommunication -- unless you consider the likes of Mircea Popescu "not status quo", which would be just plain twisting of words.

Problem is, the public argument pretty quickly turned into a binary choice of sorts, pro XT vs. pro status quo. Given that choice, anything other than being on the fence would be naive.

You put into few hilarious words what I think and express clumsily and convolutedly. /reacharound

On 1: Wouldn't refer to him. Remember: "if (blocknumber > 115000) maxblocksize = largerlimit"?

On 2: As is the lack of confidence when (not if) we hit a proper, non-artificial bottleneck.

Think I'll stay with the moderate position, thanks.

Well, since I'm mostly on the sideline of the XT issue (because I don't consider max block a significant enough economic factor), I'll add that the protocol literalists have spun a respectable number of fabricated crisis narratives themselves (uncontrollable spam, lack of LT mining reward, etc.). IMO, it replaces one potential pitfall (mostly technical) with another one (mostly psychological): turning the Blockchain into a pure high-stake clearing network before it had a chance to establish itself as a useful, reliable tool for smaller transactions is not without risk either.

Agreed, and bit of a miscommunication I suppose: "big deal?" as in "what's the panic about?"