Not so overbought that it can't hold the levels, I think, or even rise significantly from here.  We've all seen it before.  Whether it is happening again at any given moment is always an open question.  When I look at supply and demand (albeit through a dark lens - you never know what is waiting on the sidelines) it seems likely to wander up for a while yet, which is consistent with the fundamental context of falling BTCUSD and crashing DASH.

Anyhow, it's good to sell on strength in small-cap instruments, so I am happy you found a comfortable exit for that fraction.  Personally, I look forward to the day when I can buy gold and productive real estate with XMR directly, without transiting the BTC-sphere.  That's my comfortable exit ramp.

Yeah, the monkey underperforms in BTC relative to other instruments, but he still outperforms me, if I interpret him correctly, and does represent a slight edge.  I don't have enough data (or time) to quantify the edge, but I guess its about 5-8%.  Consequently my sizing is small in BTC.  In SPX, UST, GLD, OIL, JPY, EUR, he does much better (or my interpretive skills are better, mutatis mutandis) -- about a 15-20% edge.  I have enough data to quantify that, but haven't bothered.

You will notice that I said I was not going to trade with the monkey in January.  It turns out that was the right call.  This time I am trading with the monkey, and time will tell.  So far he has me up about 4% since Saturday, on that small position.  XMR on the other hand has been a rocketsled up the mountain.

Oh, I do love the dumps.  So long and thanks for the monero.

The 16% overnight gain was enough to shake a few out.  As BTC declines, the fiat-break-evens for XMR miners go up, denominated in BTC.  We are probably pretty close right now.  I am guessing most of the 100k or so shaken loose on the intraday spike was held-back mining stock which was waiting for a profitable sale price.  When that is gone, it is gone.  Until it is gone, we can't see the price of which you speak, since it is higher, lost in a sea of mining liquidity.

A question for those who watch:  Any evidence of rising short interest?

monkey is looking for downside through next sunday, roughly.  also bearish through at least mid-September.  supports are 561, 537, 490, 444, 224

Germany too.  The co-op bank in Gmund am Tegernsee announced negative depositor rates last Friday.

Residents of Greece are now required to report their cash holdings, to the last Euro.  Solution:  Private currency.

Seems like supply is getting very tight again.  This can keep running.  Especially if dash crashes and the hot money flips into xmr.   Probably we can shake out some old monero at 410k though. 

Anything past 500k, and I will start dredging the lake, if I run low on  supply-side liquidity again.  If it goes parabolic, though, I will just give up on market making completely, and get ready to catch it on the retracement.  If btc keeps dropping, and xmr goes parabolic, that means I bring in usd, and scoop up monero on the downside overshoot. 

The worst case scenario is leveling up while my supply side is depleted. (Actual drops below, say, 320k, seem extremely unlikely right now.  But I try to be ready for 240k nonetheless.)

Expecting gold to decline over the next week or so.  Definitely a buy below 1250

On advice of monkey I am short btcusd over the coming month or so.

Higher highs and higher lows since the end of May.  Btcusd should continue down for 4 to 8 weeks, so I expect XMR safe haven trade to continue that long.  I am short btcusd myself, since Saturday.

Monkey is rather bearish btc out to mid September.  Alts may correlate, but adverse events elsewhere and/or positive xmr developments would favor xmr on a relative basis.  I plan to short some btc, get it back in Sept. - and bank gains in xmr, naturlich. I might short some *ahem* other alts on bfx via my Hong Kong proxy when they reopen margin, and rates settle.  I probably will add xmr if there are serious dips.  Anything below 1.8 USD is a steal, but who knows how deep a flash crash can cut ?  Buy your boats before summer is over, people!  Flash me a few k!

I had a little chat with McAfee.  He seemed to have some mistaken ideas about XMR.  I provided enough info and links so that he can correct any misinformation, if he chooses to do diligence.  Heck I would take the time to spoon-feed him , if he had any reason not to think me a typical crypto scanner - but he doesn't, so there's no point in that.  I hope he gets a more realistic and nuanced picture of the issues, because I think he will become a stalwart. XMR-maximalist, if he does.

Extreme upside.


I am 90% cold storage.  That is the measure of extremity on the upside.  For the day trading, I just need volatility, but if it runs away from me, like yesterday, I end up all btc, or all xmr, which means an end to any possibility of gains.

.00336 yesterday was nice, but .00325 today was brilliant for me. I now have enough xmr to keep a reasonably balanced book, again.  Lower still would be nice, as I still have more BTC than I want, but that seems unlikely, as the dip to 325k filled the intraday gap up from 9 August.  One a gap gets filled, it tends to mean support.  I will be more cautious about selling now, as I can't guarantee such cooperative markets in future.!

In other instruments I take a more agnostic view.  I usually only trade very liquid things, SPUs, treasuries, oil, gold, FX, and there my edge comes from swing timing and risk control.  It's a completely different game.  I adore XMR and consider market making to be a positive contribution.  I want any gains I make to be part of a win-win scenario, for XMR.  Heck if I was making too much gain, I would dial it down, just to avoid creating losers in the XMR markets.

In contrast, I want to rape central banks.  I am too small to do that effectively, but I do manage to eke out a bit of pillage in the macro world from time to time.  

Speaking of which, the macro instrument markets today look like a false move, technically.  I can see maybe 3 more days of upside in oil, but I am very skeptical of gold, treasury strength, and of DXY weakness, and think these will trend oppositely real soon.  I look for an oil bottom around November.  I still think gold should correct into the 1200s before resuming the major uptrend.

Edit: Nevermind about oil upside.  That died before I even wrote the text above.

How could it get better than this?  A neat little pullback!   So happy that my game is back on, if only in a small way - BTC alone is dead money these days.

As I see it, in 5 days, the bfx btc balances become eligible for transfer, at which time I expect some to flow into XMR.  It seemed like about 5% of DAO panic funds ended up in XMR.  Maybe 100kBTC flees bfx on Sunday, and about 0.5% (SWAG) of that flows into XMR, moving market cap by about 12%.

Totally wild guesses on those numbers, though.

Until this pattern of higher highs and higher lows is decisively broken, I can no longer justify my cheap/dear brackets. Nothing is too dear if the price is up every single week, week in and week out.  You can't make a market if you can never buy cheaper than you sell.

Frankly, I have run out of xmr I am willing to sell before GUI/RingCT/mulitsig levels are discovered.  Hopefully other players will provide liquidity at these levels. Sadly I let my book get too imbalanced, so I am out of business for now.  Cold wallets are sacrosanct.

I am leaving bids scattered in hope that someone decides to buy a boat, but my hopes for a fill are slim.

Maybe they are dumping 2700 btc to hedge an auction bid.

Price speculation:

Higher highs and higher lows in XMR\BTC have persisted since the last days of May.  The trend channel aggression has been moderating on a scale of weeks, which suggests that it is asymptotic to sustainable price levels.  Every channel baseline since May is bullish, but recent action suggests a choice upcoming: Continue the mid-June support line upward, or go nearly sideways on the July support baseline.   

I am inclined to expect sideways action through August, until declining supply or a demand catalyst (e.g. GUI) force it up.  I find it difficult to imagine anything more than a brief excursion below 280k going forward because of the $2 attractor, assuming stable XBTUSD.  My new marks for cheap/dear in the coming week are 298k/348k, but I always keep in mind that the risk is asymmetric, and mostly upward, especially on longer horizons, and moderate exposure accordingly.

~200x as many views as the next-most frequently viewed topic in the alt-spec forum.

Yeah, this one is da bomb, ticking down.  But vision, and confidence to act, is, thankfully, in short supply (hence hyper-valuable).