Blah-fucking-blah.

The Chinese exchanges have been inflating volume and other hi-jinks for as long as anyone can recall. So what if they're finally being beat into compliance, it was going to happen eventually. So we'll see less bullshit price swings from highly leveraged chinese traders -- that's a good thing.

Maybe we would have held on to our 1,000 rally if these knob-gobblers hadn't been leveraged all to hell and back and liquidated.

I assume this knob has heard of cold storage and hardware wallets?

Why is it that academics usually are the ones with their heads furthest up their own rectal cavity?

Price jumped 20 bucks on Bitstamp on Jan 20th. I don't know what these goofballs are talking about.

How about some actual data?

https://btcvol.info/

From the site -- "How volatile is Bitcoin relative to gold and other currencies? For comparison, the volatility of gold averages around 1.2%, while other major currencies average between 0.5% and 1.0%."

Eventually Bitcoin will reach this target, and you can see we've had a nice downtrend that supports that thesis. As far as Chinese "controlling the price" -- they sure as shit didn't keep price above 1,000 - did they. I'd say that means they can't control anything.

But yet again, market newbies think they understand the big picture when all they're staring at is their big toe.

There's less than 5 million coins to go.

The real race for any investment vehicle is getting a supply of coins. If it isn't the Winklevoss ETF it might be a listed futures product, or something else. Let's not forget that real futures are trading now on a Ukrainian exchange, which is fully regulated.

The players that understand the dwindling supply numbers will get on the ball and make it happen. It doesn't have to be one specific investment vehicle -- its inevitable that the larger money comes in. We're talking about the biggest potential market move in the making with a reducing supply. Any good trader knows what the hell that means.

Other stories only mention IBM being the partner. Somehow I doubt they'd enlist multiple sources - they have to pick one kind of implementation, after all.

Where to begin...

Most of the stories I've read referencing the PBoC's contact with Chinese exchanges insinuate or outright state that these meetings are commonplace, with the end-goal of monitoring compliance with their AML/KYC and other policies. There's no mention of an outright ban, or a policy decision that materially impacts Bitcoin. What DOES impact Bitcoin, however, is the constant war in the currency markets for the Yuan, which increased in strength recently due to the PBoC intervening.

As most students of Forex know, bank interventions are spurious and temporary, and usually don't result in any massive long-term changes. I suspect this will be the case with the Yuan, instead of strengthening to sub-6.74 and beyond, it will weaken and go back to the nearly 7.0 level where it was when the Bitcoin rally was in full swing.

There are new bank capitol controls on money transfer, specifically via UnionPay and other conduits. This was mainly targeted towards those heading to Macau for some gambling and offshore asset transfer during "vacation". There would be shops of dusty merchandise that a customer could "buy" but really what was happening was a POS swipe and cash being handed over with a fake receipt. That kind of laundering is being cracked down upon, so I wouldn't be surprised to see other attempts by the PBoC to put a finger in that particular hole.

In any case, it costs the PBoC reserves to intervene, and they are running out of said reserves. This leaves an uncomfortable option -- liquidating more U.S. Treasury debt to refill the coffers -- which has its own knock-on effects that don't help the Chinese economy any. By the way, they are targeting sub 6.7% GDP and will probably fail even that goal-seeked number, so we haven't seen the last of the weakening Yuan just yet.

The summary is -- the Chinese Central Bank is running out of reserves, the Yuan will weaken again and return to near-7.0 values and beyond, and they'll continue to scramble to prevent outflows of assets ... and fail.

You know how I know Bitcoin isn't a pyramid scheme?

I want to buy them all for myself, screw anyone else who wants them.

That's pretty much the opposite of any ponzi, ever.

Anyway, just the usual misinformed garbage that we've come to learn to laugh at. They'll certainly learn a lesson when we attain a new milestone this year.

It is, as shown by the fact that we're in the 1,000's. The amount of notional currency needed to push Bitcoin to 1,000 is a lot larger than it was back in 2013. This increased market momentum also means that once we cross a given price, with the current trend, its much harder to push it back down.

2013's bubble was a blow-off rally on volumes that we would laugh at today. I find the rise-pause-rise cycle encouraging because it doesn't adhere to the parabolic blow-off pattern, which means that it has a higher likelyhood of persisting in the current trend versus a sharp and direct selloff.

Anyway, we've breached the psychological four-digit barrier yet again (something a lot of people thought would NEVER happen again by the way), and now we're simply arguing over technicals and how high it might go. All of these things are significant.

Small amounts really when you think about the total number of Bitcoin holders out there.

Just means older coins are moving, which isn't surprising seeing how we are above 1,000 now. This doesn't even guarantee that any of them will end up on an exchange, just that they've moved. That is about all we can infer unless an exchange feels like corroborating the data somehow -- which I doubt they'd do.

So really, the story isn't that "unusual", and just points to how rarely these coins move at all, given their vintage.

Just for fun, take half of 371% = ~185%

From a starting point of 800 that gives you ~2,275

From slightly lower at 700 that gives you ~2,000

No real scientific basis, just having fun with numbers....

Google translate is no help, but the chinese page exists (I think they are actively blocking google services):

http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2016-12/27/content_5153411.htm

Switching to "EN" in the upper right only brings you to the main page, not the specific page.

The articles on the 5 year plan don't reference blockchain, but does make allusions to other technologies. Closest I could come was an english article posted this past summer:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-06/27/c_135467923.htm

But that indicates further testing and exploration needed, etc... not a direct implementation plan.

Greenspan is an idiot. He created the housing bubble, and encouraged the 2000's IPO-a-thon that crushed itself. I wouldn't trust that man to predict the weather, much less interest rates. He's a useful idiot though, promoting failed policies over and over like they're some kind of "new" idea.

As for Bitcoin, well golly-gee, its almost like its an inherently deflationary currency that has only 5 million or so units left to distribute! How could have someone seen that one coming? Eh? Like maybe read the whitepaper, understand its underpinnings, add to a position as time goes on... if you got in around the early years at near parity you're looking at 100,000% plus returns right now. But hey, what do we know... just let the central banks keep printing their shit-money and let Bitcoin keep its algorithmic enforced gold standard.

Anyone who sells around here is a complete fucking moron. And I mean that in the 5 years-or-more timeframe. Of course, I meant that way back when the dizzying highs of 20 were a big deal. Some listened, some didn't, much to their dismay.

But whatever, I'm sure there are plenty of "whales" on the "whaleclub" channel eager to throw around a few thousand BTC to soothe their egos. I welcome it, actually, so those coins get redistributed to people who actually understand value instead of trading like a complete fucking moron.

Nice blaring graphic of crap there.

How about this graphic - a nice chart of ETH/USD showing how its in a nice downtrend and probably will hit 6 (if not lower) due to all its mismanagement and constant forking -- https://www.tradingview.com/chart/LrqUp8gM/

What a frickin' train wreck of a coin.

While you enjoy being a pedant, I will just point to the price that LTC commands as a true measure of its value -- https://www.tradingview.com/chart/LrqUp8gM/

Which is about 4 dollars too high, but they'll get to the true rock bottom eventually.

Did you also stop to do a search on "LTC Scrypt ASIC"? Because then you'd see that there is purpose-built gear using scrypt to mine LTC on ASICs... but hey, being an internet tough guy is so much easier, isn't it?

I've been around a long time, and I remember their GPU-centric bullshit that was coming out as a protest to ASICs in general, and then laughed my ass off when they accommodated ASICs anyway...

Its like having a politician run an alt-coin, promise one thing, then do another.

So is this "news" or just a PR piece?

..... really, do you have to shill stuff on here? If it was great, don't you think it would succeed by word-of-mouth recommendations?

Blah blah blah blocksize blah blah.

You know LTC originally was spawned as a PROTEST to ASICs, right?

Then they added code so they could mine LTC on ASICs.

So what the hell point is LTC anyway? Its a nice way to "wash" coins I guess if you're a thief, but otherwise, nobody trades the bastard which is why its languishing even when Bitcoin rallies.

Reduced confirmation times was a bad idea, since it doesn't allow scaling, I don't care what their blocksize is, you have a network that tries to confirm faster -- all you get is increased reorgs and duplicate chains that end up being the wrong "split" as the network struggles to confirm everything.

It was a crap idea back then, and its proven to be a crap idea now.

There's a reason its trading at 3.80 - 4.00 -- the MARKET KNOWS what its utility is, which is MARGINAL.

Then LAUNCH ANOTHER BLOCKCHAIN TO  POLLUTE WITH TWEETS.

Why is every solution "Stuff random crap into the blockchain"? Can you understand the long-term harm this does? Its a SHARED resource, not a personal hard drive.

If the demand was there, another network could co-exist. What this tells me is that there's a gimmick that someone wants to make money on, so hey, why not dump all of their pollution into the Bitcoin blockchain. Everybody does it, amirite?

Its absurd thinking and I detest anyone who promotes this kind of activity.

So you're fine with people using the blockchain as a disposable resource? If there are going to be "many blockchains" maybe you should pollute one of those first...

What a fucking idiot.

Seriously I could think up 5 better ideas than what the fuck you think is so ground-breaking.

"Tragedy of the Commons" in action here, folks.