I didn't want to click on that link, so I didn't read it but had to take a look at the chart for TSLA.  Looks like there was a spike, a plateau, and then a drop but it isn't as though the stock was going haywire constantly.  I've seen worse.

It has to do with how many shares are on the market and what the market caps are for each company.  Small companies with small amounts of shares being traded can have very high stock prices, and big companies with billions of shares can have low stock prices. 

TSLA shares outstanding:  180.25 million
F(Ford) shares outstanding: 3.92 billion
Source: Marketwatch.com

Eh....yeah, I guess I won't be partaking in this particular auction.  Nor would I really want to be buying bitcoin from the US government.

I agree--it's not like there should be a premium for this particular batch of bitcoins.  They're not collectibles.  And I'm sure the government is going to make a nice profit from this, basically legally stealing from criminals.  Meanwhile the rest of us are taxed to death.  Grr.

I'd say if you were going to buy that amount of bitcoin, you'd have the patience to spread the buy orders out over more than a few days.  People with lots of money do basically the same thing in the stock market all the time.  It's certainly possible to buy thousands of bitcoins without moving the market much--I think it would just take patience and tons of cash.

LOL.  That is indeed funny as hell.

I was wondering what the hell happened the first time Sun was supposed to have dinner with Buffett, but it's interesting that it finally happened.  I doubt that those gifts of bitcoin and Tron are going to spark any interest on Buffett's part, but it was a nice gesture.  Buffett isn't likely to include crypto in his investment portfolio at this point in his career--and he certainly doesn't need to.  I wonder if he even uses a smartphone at all.

I'm pretty sure there's not, though I agree it would be fascinating to be a fly on the wall for whatever conversation they had.

I'm not sure that's the case with OP, who probably didn't read the rule about participating in giveaways to begin with.  In fact I seriously doubt most newbies read the rules until after they've gotten caught breaking them--and even then they probably don't bother to do so.

It's fortunate for OP and others that the penalty for doing what he did is a temporary ban and not a permanent one, and having to sit on the sidelines on a forum for two weeks shouldn't be that difficult.  The only reason it's probably a big deal for members is that it keeps them from shitposting for whatever bounty they're participating in.  I'd like to offer some sympathy here, but I couldn't do it with a straight face.

I think I'm going to up the number of merits I gave him as well, since this obviously took a lot of effort on his part and he presented the evidence very well.  Great job sniffing this BS out, OP. 

These idiots are sneaky and many times they just fall under the radar, especially when they make their spam posts in sections that are already heavily-laden with shitposts.  They know exactly what they're doing--but I'm glad this particular ring got busted.

Well, that covers all the bases pretty much (lol). 

I do hope that we don't see a repeat of the bull market craziness that led up to December 2017, because who knows how long it would take the market to recover from another crash like that.  I certainly would like to see bitcoin have some big gains this year, but exponential price growth, while it might be really fun to participate in, isn't sustainable or good for bitcoin in the long-term. 

Right now the price is creeping up to $10k--or at least it looks like it's doing that--and I think that's much better than if I woke up tomorrow morning and saw preev showing bitcoin with a 5-figure valuation.  True, I might be elated at first but the rational part of my brain would realize that a serious correction would be looming.

I'd definitely be wary--if a bank sells you bitcoin, you can be sure they're tracking where you send it, just like Coinbase does.  And although they might not be able to determine who the recipient is or whether the coins were used for anything shady, who knows what the banks would do with that information.  On the other hand, if you have a bank account they can track everything you spend your money on anyway, so it's probably not that big a deal.

Personally I'd like to be able to purchase crypto for cash without having to resort to an exchange.  It was so nice when Circle was providing that service, even though that's just about the same as buying bitcoin from a bank.  I have a feeling that these kinds of services aren't going to become widespread in the US anytime soon, but we'll see how it works out in the countries where banks are starting to do this.

One thing I wonder is whether banks are going to keep bitcoin on hand or whether they're going to act as a third party, just buying it from wherever when a customer wants to buy it from them.  I don't think there's enough bitcoin in existence to allow banks to buy it in anticipation of customer orders, nor do I think they'd want to bear the risk of keeping a volatile asset like bitcoin on their books.

I tend to agree with you on that, though I don't think exponential growth is usually a good thing in any market.  And look what happened after each of those episodes in 2013 and 2017--there were major crashes that followed, and bitcoin is still climbing back from the last one and isn't even halfway to its ATH from 2017. 

But whether I like that kind of growth or not, I do think Tom Lee's prediction might come true this year.  We're already seeing some bullish movement, and bitcoin is pushing $10k as we speak--and it wasn't too long ago that the price was a few thousand dollars less than that.  On the other hand, it also wasn't that long ago that bitcoin was at $10k.  It's only been about six months, in fact.  Anyway, let's hope for all the long-term holders that bitcoin doesn't start going exponential in the near future.  Slow and steady gains are the most sustainable.

Lately it's been in the morning for me, as I've become less of an insomniac.  There was a long period of time there when I'd be posting very late at night, and if you look at that graphic that shows the times during the day when I've posted the most, it's probably all over the place--I haven't looked at it in a long time, since it's a chart that doesn't interest me much.

On a related note, some of my more manic, oddest posts have come when I've been awake for close to or more than 24 hours.  For whatever reason, that's when the strangeness starts pouring out of my brain--but it's been a while since I've gone that long without sleep.  It's not an unpleasant state, just not something I tend to seek out.

My question to you is: were you buying bitcoin when it was getting pounded down to below $7k?  That would have been the ideal time to be buying, whether you're looking for short-term gains or investing for the long term (IMO).  If you're wondering whether you should be buying bitcoin when it's on an upward tear, you might have missed out on the best opportunities already.

However, I do think bitcoin is going to go higher--$10k within a very short time frame isn't out of the question, because as I'm writing this post it's above $9700 right now.  So even if you didn't buy when it was low(er), I don't think it would be a bad idea at all to buy now.  You definitely don't want to miss out if we start shooting past $10k, nor do you want to wait until bitcoin's price is near its peak (wherever that may be).

Edit:

Gotcha.  You could always wait for a dip, but you'd be taking a chance of missing out--you don't know how high bitcoin is going to go before there's a dip.  If I were you and I had the money to invest and the stomach to take the risk, I'd buy in right now.  But you know your situation best, so do what you think is right and good luck.

Yeah, and there were major crashes after each one of those bull runs.  Granted, bitcoin is waaay higher than it was back in 2012 and 2016, but if it starts going nuts like it did with those halvings it could end in disaster.  That's what worries me.

And as I write this, bitcoin is at $9675--that's pretty incredible.  I always wonder whether these quick gains can be sustained or not, so we'll see if this level sticks.  And I'd love it if bitcoin went to $20k again this year, but I just don't want it to get there that quickly.

Yeah, I'll take all you have.  Sent you a PM.

Edit:  Deal done with Timelord2067.  Locking thread now.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I don't think it's necessarily whales that were responsible for bitcoin's recent rise, and if it falls a couple thousand dollars I wouldn't blame it on whales.  They're always an easy scapegoat, like the boogeyman.  Anonymous and mysterious.

And since there's really no fundamental analysis going on with bitcoin, those analysts are just watching charts and seeing patterns that might not be patterns--and they're trying to predict future prices from past ones, which amounts to lunacy in my mind.

It's also not that hard of a prediction to make to say that bitcoin might drop after it's risen substantially.  That's happened so many times in the past that it's not worth the breath it takes to mouth the words of the prediction.  It's a derp prediction.

As stated in the title, I need $50 to $75 worth of BTC at preev 1:1. We can use whatever preev is at, at the time we finalize the deal.

I will not send first unless you have significant green trust or if I've done business with you before.

This will be a neutral feedback transaction.

Send me a PM if you're willing to help me out, as I might miss seeing this thread if you post here.

Local rule:  Please do not post here unless you're interested in doing this deal.  PayPal is very risky because of the chance of chargebacks, but I have never done this and won't ever.  Also, I won't deal with anyone under Full Member unless they're willing to send first.

His statement is all about TA, which I don't believe in so what he said amounts to a simple guess to me.  I know he's one of those "bitcoin celebrities" and he's always making predictions, but his guess is as good as anyone else's--whether you're analyzing charts or not.

If bitcoin were to hit $27k by this summer, it could be in danger of a serious correction and possibly a crash that it would take a long time to recover from.  Every time I see predictions like this, I think of 2017 and how euphoric everyone was about bitcoin (and altcoins, too), and then December rolled around and everything kept falling right through 2018.  And why was that?  It was because there was so much buying, so much hype, and prices went up way too far, too fast. 

Bitcoin at $27k would represent a 2.84x rise from where it is now, and to get that level of growth in a matter of a few months is frightening to me.

I haven't been watching the stock market for a while now and wasn't aware the Dow had dropped 500 points--but in terms of percentage, I don't think that's a whole lot.  Nor do I think this media-hyped corona virus is responsible for that or whatever it is China is doing with the money printing.  How many of these viral outbreaks have we seen make the news?  They all have turned out to be much less deadly than the media would have you believe, and I'm pretty sure this current virus isn't wrecking the global economy--or even affecting it to an appreciable extent.

That's the difference between the government and its citizens.  It's not China's government that's mining bitcoin; it's the people.

I had to LOL at your post, because I basically went through the exact same ordeal as you did--and I don't like Kraken to begin with, but I don't have any way to purchase bitcoin with fiat so I tried the KYC procedure.  All the pictures I took weren't good enough, and eventually I just gave up.  Not worth it to me.

As to OP's question, it's a bit strange to me.  If you need fiat and have USDT, you might not be able to exchange it directly depending on which exchange you're using, but if you're able to trade with fiat you can always do the USDT->BTC->USD route.  It might be somewhat of a hassle, but it solves the problem.  I've never dealt with USDT myself, so I don't know how the exchanges treat it as far as letting you trade it for fiat--but from reading some of the responses here, it sounds like it's not that big a deal.

If Kraken is one of your only options, then go for it.  Just make sure you have a ultra-mega-super high resolution camera that can pick up every hair follicle on your face.

That's what I was basically thinking, but I'd also say that it depends on what you're trading.  If it's stocks, dividends can help you out in a bear market but those obviously aren't an option with bitcoin. 

OP, I've always had the impression that crypto traders do the exact opposite of what's going to make them money.  If the market is extremely bullish and has gone past all rationality (like in 2017 with bitcoin), then it might be a good idea to short.  You have to be very careful if you're shorting something, since your losses can be unlimited if the market keeps going up and I wouldn't recommend it.  The worst time to be buying bitcoin (or anything else) is when prices are constantly going up.

The best time to buy is when the market is bearish, when it seems like everyone has lost enthusiasm and hope.  Bitcoin was in that state not too long ago when the price was stalled at $7k or so, and it had crashed from $13k, and everyone was wondering if it was ever going to recover.  Smart traders would have been snapping up as much bitcoin as they could buy when it kept dipping to $6600.  The old addage is "buy low, sell high" but so many people find it difficult to do the first part, to buy low--but that's what you have to do.

I'm curious as to why you think that account and OP are linked.  I don't remember any evidence being presented to suggest they are, but I could have missed it.

Why would an obvious alt account of what's probably a senior member with a grudge against DT buy a Copper membership?  Being able to bypass the usual newbie restrictions in order to troll must be damn important to him, and it makes me wonder if CH/TOAA hasn't left the forum after all.

I agree with you--the bitcoin economy is absolutely dwarfed by the aggregate economy of the entire world.  Just think about how much money is in circulation, not just in a single country but in all countries.  And then look at the market cap of bitcoin.  There's no comparison; bitcoin's contribution doesn't even make a dent, nor do I think it ever will.

I'm not even sure trading even contributes to the economy all that much, and my grasp of economics and finance is certainly not that great, so I'd rather not give my opinions if I can't back them up.  However, bitcoin trading is also dwarfed by trading in the stock market (and other markets) done by huge institutional investors, who so far don't seem to be all that interested in crypto.