It wasnt a single person, it was Greed.

Everyone saw the price skyrocketing and jumped on the bubble, which was followed by profit taking and panic selling.  Dont worry, it'll happen again (and again).

It could be, I dont know. I really only look at price in the very short term.

If I had to guess though, I'd say we will see another major crash within the year (down to singles). 

I don't really care about what the USD/BTC price is,  I care about the amount of movement in the price...with an overly swift price raise (which will be followed by correction), I get in as close to the bottom of the correction as possible and then take profit on the bounce.


wash. rinse. repeat.




Will there be another dump? Probably. I should be back in USD by that point though (ready to do it again)....if I'm not, I have clear exit points to minimize any loss of profit.

aaaaaaaannnnnnddddd there it is.


Im in.

Still wondering? Price raising too high and too fast for no reason, combined with profit taking leading to a panic sell.

I think its because there has been a steady price rise, and hasn't been a major price crash in a while....people are trying to jump in before the bubble pops.

I'm betting we will continue to see the price soar, followed by a major crash sometime this year.  


 

17.85197


edit: someone had my number already, so I changed it

Here ya go, Phin...the original bet post (scammer tag condition bolded in red):

$25

no.

As someone who had an extremely large stake in Matthews bet, the whole thing was obviously bullshit from the start (and I was very vocal about the fact that I didn't think he would pay out a dime).  In fact, I cleared him of any responsibility to my debt in responce to a PM he sent me last week.

I mean, on a personal level, I dont really care for Matthew....I think he is an impulsive attention hog, but I think he is harmless for the most part. He deserves the scammer tag (as it was a condition of his bet) and general shaming from the community (which he has and will continue to recieve), but beyond that, I could care less.

Its how I've made a large percentage of my profit. 

I'm thinking that this sort of upswing generally comes with a swift crash... once I see that, I'm in and taking profit on the recovery. 

Its not wrong, its simply a difference of opinion (the ECB's opinion doesn't represent the "whole of the law").  Other countries may not follow/agree with the ECB's report, and the ECB (in my opinion) likely ruled that way to protect thier ability to regulate it if it is deemed necessary (basically, just being proactive). The jury is far from in on how the banking communities and governments across the world are going to treat it.

That said, i still think BTC has more in common with ISK or something than a virtual version of the euro or usd.

When you die, your body decomposes and provides energy for plant life, bacteria, etc.  So in a way, your energy does become a part of other living creatures.

That said, I dont believe in a soul or anything, so I dont think your consciousness transfers when you die...it just ceases to exist. So no, I don't believe in reincarnation in a religious or spiritual sense; but if the definition is stretched to mean transfer of energy, then yes, I do believe.

I think bitcoin falls under whatever classification you give to wow gold, linden dollars, or eve isk....IMO, its virtual property that is being used as a currency.

Magic internet money works too.

I've already spoken about OTC trades, the problem is that it leaves you very open to scammers (hell we have a whole board on this forum specifically for scam accusations) unless you FTF or escrow.



What in the fuck are you talking about?

The client isnt user freindly, takes a good deal of research to use, takes a lot of time to download, your average person is computer illiterate (read:likely to delete thier wallet, send to the wrong address, etc), and it requires a lot of steps to keep your money secure.

The exchanges are a hassle to get money in and out of, leave you open to having your money stolen by the owner of the exchange (as we have seen a shitload of times), most require an ID (so much for anonymity), and (if you are lucky enough) you might not get your money stolen in a hack.

Where exactly do you think you "took the wind out of my sails"?  



Yeah, history shows us that's another good way to get your money stolen by a hacker or the owner shutting down and stealing it.





Even with the other exchanges volume added in, it still doesn't bring total volume anywhere close to mt.goxs peak in 2011

Mt Gox has always had the lions share of the BTC market volume (which is why it is almost always used as the metric when discussing price/volume).

Since I was talking about historical volume, its the only chart that is relevant to the discussion.

Usability can definitely make bitcoin fail, because it creates a high barrier of entry that the average person isnt going to bother with. Hell, it took me three months after I discovered bitcoin to actually buy some, just because of the hassle it took to get money on the exchanges... and this was before the mtgox hack...now you need to show passports and other ID and wait even longer for money to enter/leave your account (which is why i havent added anymore to the system beyond my initial deposit.


Add in the complexity of the system (which isnt that hard to figure out, but does take a good deal of research to use), the fact that most people are not very computer literate (beyond basics like email, miscrosoft office, etc), and a block chain that's bloated to a few gigs (and gets worse everyday) and takes forever to download, and you end up with a giant hassle that most people wont bother with.

Can these problems be solved? Some of them, yes. Can they all be fixed before BTC becomes a distant memory? I doubt it




The very nature of a psuedo-anonymous currency (because its not truly anonymous, and traffic analysis can reveal a LOT) makes it prone to scamming.  I've seen people run off from this forum with a few hundred thousand dollars, and guess what? There isn't a single bit of recourse. If someone runs off with my cash, at least I can get police/legal help.  The cops arent going to investigate someone taking your imaginary internet money.

In my opinion, it is naive to think that rampant scamming doesnt affect the userbase. When just about every article on btc is about a crash or a hack or a scam, people are going to be weary of using it (and even more so when they see the barrier to entry).   Hell, I wont use any other exchange but MT gox because it seems like every other month a new one goes down (and takes its users money and runs) and I only half trust mygox not to steal my cash (another reason I wont put more money in the system).



You can keep a influx of new rubes going for a little while (particularly with raising BTC prices), but that wont last forever. People will get sick of jamming thier dicks into beehives and losing all their money (and have, I dont see half the users I remember when I joined the forum, the lack of old timers should be concerning).  

Look at the volume, with the exception of the bottom of the original bubble, its never really reached the level it had at the peak of the bubble...in fact, it looks downright anemic compared to how it was...how many times can that happen before it drops to almost nothing (meaning no users trading)?








Thats cute, but I measure my profits in USD, not BTC.  The price of BTC is meaningless to me, all I care about is whether or not the days movement beats the spread/fees and whether or not there is a clear trend.  If the answer is no, I stay in dollars (in fact, I stay in USD most of the time, unless I see a clear opportunity to make a profit so Im not exposed if/when there is a crash)

I'm being quite reasonable; the problem is that your analogy sucks (and I was trying to show you that without being blunt about it).

You guys can get mad if you want to, but I'm simply being pragmatic.  I still trade BTC (albeit a small amount that I wouldn't miss if it was lost) and I still participate in the community....I just don't hold the lofty (and in my opinion, naive) point of view that BTC will be worth 1000's or that it will ever have usage on a large scale or replace the dollar or any other crazy thing I hear on this forum.