On Bitfinex and Bitstamp it broke through 300, but fell under again pretty quickly. Breaking through resistance at 300 seems easy enough, it's finding support at 300 afterwards that seems to be the problem (fortunately we also seem to have the same "problem" at around 200, but in reverse).

Bitfinex wouldn't work here, because the loans are internal to the exchange - they're loans to traders wanting to "short" BTC (i.e. sell BTC for dollars or LTC, in expectation that BTC will fall and they'll be able to buy BTC later at a lower price to repay the loan). From a lending perspective, though, I'm becoming more and more surprised that lenders rate BTCJam but won't seem to go near Bitfinex - Bitfinex absorbs the counterparty risk, so it's (IMO) much safer than BTCJam etc where the lender risks the borrower defaulting. (Obviously there's still exchange risk - the risk that Bitfinex becomes MtGox 2.0).

(Disclaimer: I'm not currently lending - on Bitfinex or elsewhere - but I've made loans on Bitfinex in the past. Also right here on BCT, but that's going back several years).

That's certainly possible, but what makes you so certain?

Looks like it is! 20 spots still available for full members (senior and hero members slots are all filled).

Uh, wrong location? Shouldn't this be in Spam Accusations, and not Speculation?

Since late January BTC/USD has been range-bound between ~200 and ~300 - BTC has found pretty solid support at $200. Any time it's been below $200 has been brief, and its returned above 200 pretty quickly. In order for sub $100 prices, I believe we'd need to see the support at $200 broken, and become resistance. Until that happens it's pretty speculative trying to predict when (or even if) sub $100 will occur (and ditto for prices above $300).

OK, not sure I agree, but what realistically can prevent it? How would the Bitcoin network prevent big finance from purchasing BTC?

Last time I looked at BTCJam (about a month back) their rates were on a par with typical rates for lending at Bitfinex - and at 'finex the exchange absorbs the risk of default. (Disclaimer: rates are generally pretty low, when I was lending at 'finex it was only when rates spiked - and obviously there's always the risk that the exchange itself defaults, i.e. does a Gox).

You still claiming there's no risk for us "investing" our BTC by giving them to you? I find that surprising. Once was understandable, but doing it again after you've been called out on it strikes me as very scammy.

Chartbuddy. Everything else is just a pale 2-dimensional imitation.

However, for those agonising 59 minutes between posts, I also use Tradeblock (not a huge fan, to be honest) and Coinut's index (useful for trading on Coinut, but changes way too frequently for my liking). And I usually keep several Bitcoinwisdom tabs open.

I believe many people use preev.com, but that includes OTC trades from Localbitcoins which tends to create wild swings.

(Disclaimer: I get paid for my sig by an options exchange)

Keep your BTC and buy "vanilla call options" - if the BTC price goes down, you profit. If the price doesn't go down you'll only have lost what you paid for the call options.

As an example, say you had 5 BTC that you'd prefer to keep, rather than sell and trust your fiat to an exchange. BTC/USD is $265 right now. Contract size at Coinut is 0.01, so you'd need 500 call options. Call options with a "strike price" of 265 (i.e. they pay out when BTC is below $265) cost ~0.0012 - you'd pay 0.6 BTC and if the BTC price fell to $255 you'd make $50 - in BTC. Apart from the 0.6 BTC you pay for the options, the remainder stays safe in your wallet.

You can save money but lose potential profit by buying calls with a lower strike price.

I don't know if this is what LFC_Bitcoin had in mind, but BTC/USD has been range-bound between ~200 and ~300 USD since late January. My belief is that it's demonstrated it can go above 300 several times, but to sustain a price above 300 it'll need support and a quick dash to >300 won't bring that support - more likely is that people will sell to take profits. If the price rises slowly, over time, people will have more confidence that the rise isn't just a temporary blip.

Someone probably is. It's a risky undertaking, though - you need to keep both BTC and fiat on a range of exchanges so you (or your bot) can move fast when the opportunity arises. There used to be a Google docs spreadsheet (back when MtGox was still active) showing arb opportunities - but the biggest opportunities always involved exchanges where you probably wouldn't want to keep fund for any length of time.

My theory is far more mundane - we've been range-bound since late January. Right now price is cycling upward for the third/fourth time, from ~200 to ~300 (and hopefully higher). Nothing to see here, just routine price movement in a market where bulls and bears appear fairly evenly matched at present. I hope we reach 300 and sail through it. If not I'll sell calls and wait - hopefully the price will bounce up around 200 and I'll sell puts and wait again.

For the past month, every time we've neared a nice round USD number we've fallen back and only passed through it on the second attempt. With the weekend approaching fast, I suspect we won't sustain >260 until after the weekend. I'd love to be wrong, obviously.

That would be awesome. In addition to the prince increase we could reasonably expect from such nonsense, there'll also be an additional premium if we only sell BTC to law enforcement and journalists, who always seem to confuse "street value" with "the only possible value, for any quantity, ever". Good times!

I just hope it is the war on drugs they recycle - if they go down the war on terror route I'll need to drone-proof my paper wallet.

In the UK our wonderful government always appoints a "Czar" whenever they're fighting one of these wars. We'd get a Coin Czar. That sounds cool (they always sound cool).

I dunno - it's never felt right to me, including OTC trades in with exchange trades. I'd certainly be interested in an index of OTC trades (LBC is my default source of fresh BTC), but lumping them in with exchange trades just seems... wrong. And the two different trade types on LBC doesn't help either.

Last time I looked at preev it was the same - but I'm fairly certain it's due to LBC's wild swings (due to an exciting mix of person-to-person and remote trades, and the premium P2P trades command).

Sadly, I think you're all too correct - that's why I'd tend towards recommending 100% cold storage (at least until I felt comfortable that the person I was discussing it with understood risk). The 5% I still have on exchanges is mostly for hedging, and I think even that's a big ask for many traders/investors (and, right now, it's limited to one exchange - which is far from ideal in itself).

I tend more towards the 80% cold storage / 20% investment side (though right now it's more like 95%/5%), but I'd certainly tend towards recommending 100% cold storage as a general rule. But... I don't think the risk of being 20% shorter is that big - unless you stick all your 20% in one "investment" (and I'd hope no one would do that). Part of investing is managing risk, and a big part of managing risk is spreading investments - not putting all your eggs in one basket.