Nice, so you actually didn't pull your prediction out of your ass, but used (polynomial) regression on historical data (not sure if it's wise to exclude bubble data/outliers, though). I respect that.

But do you want to know what is the single biggest assumption you make in your analysis, an assumption that some (including me) would consider completely unfounded, and in fact completely unrealistic?

That there is a single underlying growth function that governed the price of btc over the entire course of the data you looked at, and will continue to govern it.

Sure, you're free to make this assumption. But with that assumption removed, your analysis falls apart.

I know, I'm late to the party, but...

the premise of the entire question is somewhat meaningless, at least in the upper range of the answers (5000 USD+). If the USD/btc price reaches that level, there will be no reason anymore to "cash out", btc will factually have attained full adoption, at least in whatever niche it settled in (store of wealth in crisis countries, online payments, black market payment, who knows).

So for any value per btc that corresponds to a market cap in the 3 digit/high 2 digit billion range, the question about "strong hands"/"cashing out" doesn't mean the same it means for the lower values.

Fantastic tool! Rarely happens that a new one besides clarkmoody, bitcoincharts and one or two others enters my daily bitcoin routine, but your site did immediately.

Can I a make a few suggestions? Some things that don't work 100% yet, at least for me...

1) button to disable moving averages. not always needed, and they tend to cover the price graph which i tend to look at more often.

2) labels in window 1 (rate USD) and window 2 (bids/asks) tend to cover up the price. Maybe it's just on my small-ish screen, but if the price graph is in the upper third of the screen, the labels cover large parts of it.

3) as you gather more data (or if you include historical data that you can download, AFAIK), could you implement the option to go back further than 2 weeks?

4) perhaps the biggest selling point of your website for me is that it finally includes the option to look at the order books of the 2 biggest exchanges. but:

4.1) any chance you can include the 3rd largest, btce, as well? together they acount for 80? 90? percent of the entire USD market, so seeing the order books those 3 exchanges would really mean something.

4.2) even if 4.1 is not an option right now, could you perhaps include the option to "aggregate", under what is now the "both option". Ideally, if you would have 3 exchanges (or even for the 2 you have now), the "both" option shows the separate graph of the exchanges. However, I would love to see a checkbox that adds up the data of all exchanges. Sure, it would be an average that is not entirely accurate for any particular exchange, but to gauge the market as a whole, I would find it extremely useful.

fuck off-topic, thanks for posting this.... *extremely* useful tool, and exactly what I've been asking for in a thread a while ago: something that combines data from different markets, which is increasingly important as the dominance of mtgox is diminishing.

Thanks :)

as I pointed out in my note 2, the argument wasn't even that much about which direction we're going, but rather which momentum to expect, as in: based on the increasingly higher lows, I didn't (and still don't) see the momentum to carry us to 80? 30-40? USD, as some bears seem to believe.

Guess I didn't phrase that right... I don't doubt TA at all. I doubt the pseudo-TA assumption some in here seem to follow that there is THE ONE trend that the price follows at a given time. Hence why those people get their panties in a bunch if that trend is broken, and hence their surprise when the price then doesn't necessarily fall all the way down to the next ONE TREND one level below, as they were expecting.

Anyway....


I don't like it that one large move can disturb the market like that. This market needs more volume, spread across more participants. I'm afraid however the last months have rather seen a concentration of btc in a few hands :/

Also, I don't believe in the "whale cashing out" explanation. Wrong time, wrong behavior... I think it was a deliberate move by someone to bring down the price and (probably) buy back cheaper afterwards.

Title is kind of self-explanatory, but here's the graph to go with it:



Note 1: I don't believe much in trendlines, or rather: I strongly doubt the wisdom of hunting the right trendline at a given time, as some seem to do. However, I do believe in psychologically important levels of support, and how they develop.

Ever since the April crash, after each further correction we've continued trading from a higher low than before. The previous one was at ~100. Right now, we're at 117, after hitting 115 yesterday.

Should we fall below 100, I would probably consider that a fundamental change in the perception and mood of the entire market. Until that happens, I interpret the reactions I see now as panicking behavior by a few participants.

Note 2: Understand the following: I'm not actually ruling out the possibility that we go below 100. I'm only saying, until that happens, I don't see a reason to fundamentally change my assumptions about the market.

Note 3: For the nitpickers: I know, the actual lows were closer to 48, 79, and 103. My point remains the same.

I missed it, I missed it. Oh boy...

Can somebody please summarize what just happened? How big was the sell, when exactly did it happen, were there any indications... can somebody fill me in on what I missed?

Chaikin money flow lackluster on mtgox, and sharply dropping on bitstamp. That, plus weekend lull, makes re-test of 125 a possibility. If that happens, I don't expect this barrier to fall though. jm2c

Pretty good, but here's the real test: did you act on it, and with how much commitment?

Cause for example, I called yesterday's dip with high accuracy and well before it began, yet I didn't make any trades that took advantage of it, part out of laziness, part out of doubt about my own analysis.

don't feed the... you know the drill

To put things into perspective, I personally don't expect the rally that started 4 days ago to be over yet, but I'm wondering if the recent drop in buying pressure (see my CMF post above) could correspond to a short-term dip, perhaps testing 125 again. If nothing else, that would give us the chance to increase our btc stashes :D

Nobody else worried about the massive drop in CMF since the approach to 135/btc? Not consistently negative yet, but still a drastic reduction. On the other hand, bitstamp looks solid.

just reading through your previous blog posts. don't really understand yet what kind of models you use, but something something ML it seems :-P

That's were I'm puzzled. We've been trading sideways for 10 days now (the occasional spike upwards or downwards nonwithstanding), no breakout happening during that time. The genesisblock post was relatively early calling it, but was phrased pretty cautious as well. Plus, I think trading sideways is mainly seen as a phase of consolidation, after which the previous dominant trend continues (strengthened). And determining what the dominant trend was/is still an open question (although I'm also leaning more towards up uP UP now )

Thanks for the input, some interesting points were made.

One thing though, I probably should have made my original question a bit more clear: I wasn't really asking for (post-hoc) explanation for why it makes sense that the price went up, but rather was wondering how your own {complex, simple, bordering-on-the-retarded} predictive models fared with this rally.

My interpretation of fundamentals aside (which is bullish mid term), about 24 to 48 hours before the early morning of the 23rd (does it make sense to call that the beginning of the rally?), I was strongly expecting further horizontal movement. And I was proven wrong.

So what I wanted to find out was how you arrived either at the right conclusion, or why you think your own analytical tools didn't catch this one. Bit of a public review of your methods, I guess.

I didn't have quite that pessimistic an outlook, but like I said, I didn't see this coming either.


and to be honest. I'm a bit surprised about the "well duh, it was obvious" attitude of the other posters. I'm following the wall thread pretty closely, and at least in there, there was nothing like a consensus that we're about to not only break 125. but 130 as well, in one swift motion.

Did you look at the numbers yourself? I didn't say they are permanently below 50%, but during a 48h or so period, they sure were. Now they're back to above 50%, so the point you make is valid in principle.

I mean of course the (mini?) rally of the past 2 days. Did you suspect this would happen?

I can say for sure I wasn't prepared for it at all. Volume was ultra-thin, and the indicators I tend to rely on (e.g. Chaikin money flow) had looked spotty for the past days, so I expected horizontal price movement, with maybe a slight upwards direction, but nothing like what actually happened.

What's your story?

Very useful, thanks. Didn't know it.

My point is not so much that there are absolutely no ways to look at the various markets, I know they exist, but that some of the best (free) tools are still very much centered around the idea that mtgox is the defining market.

I'm sure some here use proprietary tools and don't care about any of this, but a lot of us are using the free tools, e.g. clarkmoody (which is altogether just a brilliant design), and unless those sites adapt to the new market situation, they are less useful than they were before.