I first read it on Zerohedge:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-01/bitcoin-jumps-above-10k-after-cftc-approves-futures-trading-first-trade-take-place-d

Didn't bother checking on CME website as ZH tends to be accurate on headline statements like this:)

If you get an error, just keep refreshing the page. This is actually what Kraken support will tell you as well, "until they fix their bug". Was withdrawing coins today... had to refresh like 10+ times for the page to work. But at least it worked... what can i say...

FYI, the initial listing of bitcoin futures to be launched on Dec 18

From the very onset, I believed that the introduction of CME futures would undoubtedly be a good thing for bitcoin. The inflow of institutional cash would surely push the prices to new records.

However, recently a thought crossed my mind... Is it possible that futures would be used by banks to suppress the prices instead, in much the same way the prices for gold and silver are being suppressed right now? And if so, what could be their motivation behind it?

Could this be some futile effort to discredit Bitcoin and drive attention away from it? But the thing is that I don't believe Bitcoin itself possess any threat to the financial system. Transactions are too slow, costly and the network cannot support nearly enough transactions to allow for real world business applications. The blockchain technology behind bitcoin is a totally different story though. THIS is the big disruptor to the financial system, and there is no stopping it with any form of market manipulation.

So my thoughts are mixed on this. In the short run I believe the inflow of institutional cash could push prices higher. In the long-run though I suspect there may be attempts to suppress the prices... to what end I am not quite sure.

What do you think?

I'd say don't use indicators (except for moving averages). They all lag and you'd just be catching tails of any market moves. Trading strategies don't need to be as complex as people make them out to be. Stick to the basics. Try to identify levels of support and resistance, and then see how the market behaves around those levels. For that you'd need to pay attention to volume, time and sales and what's happening in the order book.

Once CME futures start trading, we'll also have access to volume profiles for bitcoin, which would help tons...

Fair point, with forex brokers you might indeed just be playing against their books.

Sure, but not all exchanges are regulated, which makes their "behind the scenes" that much more invisible and thus harder to sue and prove anything. As an example, just look at the Forex industry (which in my opinion isn't very well regulated at all). Lots of scam brokers out there, and I'm sure you'd find lots of stories with people whose lawsuits went absolutely nowhere. Now, I don't know for certain what crypto exchanges do and do not do, but I'm guessing that due to the lack of regulation, the temptation to utilize that sort of information is pretty big.  I also agree with TheQuin on the point that pro traders have a rough idea where the stops might be, and they place their trades accordingly. That's a big factor as well.

And just to clarify, I'm not completely against stops. I do use stops as well but only on more or less liquid markets. They are ok as long as you use them wisely and understand all the risk involved.

One other thing is that exchanges see where most stop orders are accumulated. Possession of this kind of info is extremely powerful and should not be underestimated. Seriously! You don't need a lot of funds to actually trigger an avalanche of stop orders and then buy cheap at the very bottom. And who knows what exchanges do with this info... maybe they use it internally, or sell it to the highest bidder.

It used to be a lot easier a few years back. Now there's lots of bots out there trying to arbitrage.

Nevertheless, try to search for arbitrage during large market movements. I find that when prices fly either up or down, not all exchanges manage to move in tandem, hence you get an arbitrage opportunity.

One other thing to consider though is that you have to have your funds allocated correctly in order to actually capitalize on the opportunities. You might want to split your funds/coins between a few exchanges that you think you might be using.

I'd personally try to scale it out a bit. Sell a fraction of your holdings once price rises, and keep doing so as the price continues to rise. At least if the price reverses, you would have locked in some profit...

There's a saying in Wall Street: "In a bull market, bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered!"

Two other things that I think worth mentioning:

1. You want to see an active community discussing that particular ICO - if you don't see people actively debating the strengths and weaknesses and how they can be solved, then it's probably not going to catch on...

2. I was always a little suspicious of ICOs that offer a bonus structure, and this is something that Vitalik Buterin also recently mentioned in one of his tweets. If they have to offer you a bonus to buy into their ICO early, then they're all about the hype rather than the actual product content. It could also mean that they don't believe in the product themselves and it won't survive in the long-term.

I personally don't use any indicators except for moving averages. Everything else just clutters the screen and distracts you from the basics.

Try doing a google image search for prop trading and look at what the pros have on their screens. Surprisingly, you will find that pros don't really look at charts, and if they do happen to have a chart, its the most basic chart without any indicators whatsoever. Instead, most of their focus is on analyzing volume, level 2 quotes (the order book) and Time and Sales data. These are the basics from which they can identify strong support and resistance levels. Everything else is just white noise, and I have yet to see a pro trader using ichimoku

I'm holding half of my coins for the long-term, and the other half I use to speculate. On speculation I sure did make money, but to be honest its not as much as what I would have made by just buying and holding...

Trends in cryptoland can last for a long time and move the price very far, so if you exit early, you might struggle to get back in. The train will wait for no one.

Does anyone know when the exact deadline to register your EOS tokens would be? I know that the blockchain would go live next summer, but wondering if the snapshot would somehow be taken earlier than that!

Personally, I'm a man of simple taste. I look mostly at just levels and volume... indicators seem to add too much white noise. With respect to levels, I actually like using Kraken's platform (trade.kraken.com)

charting is easy, practical and simple (execution is another story though )

Sure, demand will keep growing, and it will take the price along for the ride. No doubt about that. But along the way there will be profit taking and there will be panic selling... this is just how markets work. These are your corrections. And bitcoin has had more than a handful of these

I agree with you on this one. From a technical perspective bitcoin has been going up exponentially, and nothing goes up that fast without a correction. HOWEVER, with the coming CME futures (I believe they are expected in December), we're going to see a lot of institutional money pour into bitcoin. And as we all know, wall street guys are a bunch of greedy gamblers... so bitcoin will probably continue to rise for a few month, and then we'll see a correction sometime around FEB.

Anyways, let's wait and see what happens

Its the calm before the storm! Once the 8000 lvl gets retested a few more times, bitcoin will probably (hopefully) go for another leg up.

Bitcoin is not a scam... until the last 21 millionth bitcoin is mined. Who is going to mine all the transactions after no more bitcoins can be minted to pay the miners? But this sad sad day is a long long time away... so I'm a happy holder for now:P

"How can we explain that the bitcoins is not a scam?" - I think its better to focus on the actual underlying technology - blockchain. The implementation of this technology is what's going to keep this whole crypto thing alive. Its impacting us now, and will continue to do so till long after the last bitcoin is mined. I think this is where people's attention should be focused, on the inevitable impact that blockchain technology is and will have on us.

Seems to be working fine right now!