The blood moon.

April 15 is the "blood moon" (a lunar eclipse)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/03/lunar-eclipse-april-15-blood-moon/7210901/

When I post here, I am not doing so out of talking my book. This is not only due to my integrity, but because I don't believe that my words here can have any impact on the market at all. I was not aware that... the whole bitcoin investment community was here on this subforum. I thought bitcoin, a 6 billion dollar market, was bigger than that now. I was under the impression that much bigger forces were at play and I would hope that the serious investors either aren't here in the speculation subforum of bitcointalk or that are not the type of people to base their decisions on the opinions of traders on a web forum. So, when I make a post here, be it bullish or bearish, it is not because of my position. When I make a post, it is because I have a serious academic or economic concern to discuss (or sometimes I'm making a joke), or some TA based on charts.

I will also argue against any statement I think is false or stupid - I hate misinformation, manipulation, and stupidity and will argue against it, whether it is bullish or bearish. I even argue against my own position sometimes. I have always been making bearish posts. Even when I was max leveraged long during November I was in here starting discussions about aspects of bitcoin I thought were bearish and how ridiculous I thought some people's projections were. It didn't matter because I didn't believe that I could affect the market. So anyway stop asking about my position everytime I make a post. You also sound ridiculous when you ask about that rather than discussing the actual topic.

Most of us know that the majority of the bitcoin price (if not 90%) is caused be speculators, traders, and hoarders. What would be the actual price of bitcoin if exingent circumstances caused all these players to be removed? What is the price of bitcoin based on it's underlying economy? I understand that there is this 'trendline', but alas, the trendline itself is composed to speculative prices. If you would like, support you answer with mathetmatical figures regarding underlying businesses, the velocity of money, etc.

Justify yourselves. I'm tired of hearing this. What makes you keep saying that the China situation is FUD?

As far as I'm aware, it is a FACT that the PBOC issued statements in DECEMBER that third party payment processors and banks should not transact with bitcoin exchanges or in bitcoin. Since then, Chinese exchanges have ignored the guidance and continued to use bank accounts, and attempted other manipulations and tricks in defiance of their government. Bulls have been attempting to use sheer hope and willpower to turn this temporary situation into a permanent one and pretend that nothing ever happened in China and that everything is ok. They are deluded! To think that the Chinese government was not going to enforce PBOC rulings or for the bulls to think that they could go in and change the fabric of the universe to reverse things with their sheer bullishness, enthusiasm, and willpower. Moooooo! No! It was bound to fail eventually. Now the inevitable enforcement action rolls around. Even if the current news is fake (which I'm hearing it probably isn't), enforcement action could STILL be right around the corner, and I've been warning about this months, and how I never really liked this 'recovery' because it was always led by or supported by China which was doomed to fail eventually.

One more thing: Someone argued with me that cash vouchers were the reason everything was ok. You know well as I that it is not cash vouchers but bank transfers that have been moving the real money, cash vouchers are just another trick to defy the government which will probably also be banned, and that cash vouchers are not even on Huobi - the highest volume exchange, so they are practically irrelevant.

So anyway, anyone who still subscribes to the "China FUD" theory, explain yourselves?
1) Why do you think the rulings in December were fake, or did not really imply that bank accounts should not transact with Bitcoin exchanges? Provide proof. If there is a mistranslation, please provide the appropriate translation, and proof of how it is a valid translation.
2) Why do you think the current news is fake? Again, provide proof.

see poll

Does anyone here have a strategy where they buy in on time intervals and the strategy is almost as effective as finding a buy point based on charts? I am ready to take a break from charting and I want to do something much less involving, perhaps at the cost of a small amount of profits. I'm thinking of it something like driving a race car - you can drive a manual or automatic and you will get slightly better performance in manual, but will still get great performance in automatic and can't make mistakes. I would like to drive in automatic now if the implications are small. I see the charts and see that the price is likely reaching a reversal point, so I want to start buying. However, I also acknowledge that this could be a trap or that there are various negative events that could start driving prices down again, especially if another major exchange goes down like huobi or bitstamp or if someone really has 750,000 coins and starts dumping them. I don't want to go all in and be screwed if such an event occurs and be stuck with relatively high priced coins with no ability to buy the new cheaper coins. So does anyone have any experience with some type of time based buy in strategy? For example you buy at some point once a week? What is your experience with this strategy and its profitability versus other strategies? Thanks.

In case you were having trouble getting a chart with the entire history now that gox is dead.

https://www.tradingview.com/e/T8GEpm09



Commence speculation.

I told you this correction wasn't going to be easy and there would be some news event and lots of fear and fud.

"This is going to be like 2011"
"Were assuming the chart will follow 2012 or 2013 but it might be like 2011"
"There is an outlier in bitcoin's history we cannot ignore"
"A hacker might have 850,000 coins and put unnatural forces on the market"
"There was a hacker in 2011 too"
"What if gox was actually the heart of bitcoin whether you like it or not"
"It looks like were on our way to retest 400, or go lower"
"What if the 1 week EMAs cross down"
"The price has actually gone below the trendline before. We cant rely on the trendline for support"
"It looks like the fad of bitcoin is over. There will never be another rally. Things cant possibly get any better, only worse"

Will you succomb to da fear?

Analyze the TA in the follow charts of bear market recoveries, particularly the Stochastic RSI, the depth of the trading range, and the amount of time spent consolidating before breakout. These are all logarithmic charts to help emphasize and compare the depth of trading ranges.











Now look at the CURRENT recovery. Again pay attention to the Stochastic RSI.



The current recovery is completely unlike any other btc recovery in history.

1. The stochastic RSI was never down and is on the moon instead, appearing to give a SELL signal rather than a buy signal. In every other recovery, stochastic RSI is very low and then works its way upwards into the breakout.
2. It has a 55% trading range when every other recovery has a 20% trading range.
3. There is this hammer candle with a complete abandonment of the previous lows in 400-550. Every other recovery has gone down to retest the lows.
4. It has spent 2 days trading before breakout when every other recovery  has spent at least a week.

Thoughts?

As I shift into my final bear form to stave off this latest bounce, I should remind you guys that there is some very strong FUD going around right now that has nothing to do with bitcoin.

How would an upcoming U.S. (or multinational) economic collapse affect bitcoin?

Some of you may have been hearing all the theories within banking and foreign relations about an impending U.S. economic collapse which would result in a depression, a collapse of the U.S. dollar, civil war, and possibly even a Chinese takeover of the U.S. Also, it might not just be limited to the U.S. but apply to other countries as well all over the world.

If such an event were to occur, would bitcoin be a reliable store of value and what would it mean for the price of Bitcoin? Would bitcoin

A) Rise because many people are fleeing to Bitcoin as a store of value, such as with Cyprus and China. or

B) Fall in value due to a REDUCED demand due to:
1. People exiting bitcoin for more reliable stores of value such as gold.
2. Bitcoin primarily does business in the U.S. and primary trades against USD, which will both be crippled.
3. There will be no interest in speculative investments once people enter into survival mode.
4. The banking system may be disabled, leaving people unable to send money to exchanges.
5. The central banks may ban business with bitcoin exchanges such as in China or Russia.
6. The internet will be inaccessible.

C) Stay the same because bitcoin is now so popular all over the world that the U.S. doesn't really matter. Or some other reason (explain)

D) I'm a banker or government official and have recent updated information that there is no possible chance of an apocalypse. This is bogus.  (still answer A,B, or C hypothetically please)

Don't mind the "single digits" part - I just wanted to create a title as ridiculous as the one that said "ATH coming soon". Anyway, here is the news.

https://support.mtgox.com/home

Dear MtGox Customers,

MtGox Co.,Ltd. (Japan) has moved to the address below:

MtGox Co.,Ltd.
Cerulean Tower 15F
26­1 Sakuragaoka­cho
150­8512 Shibuya Tokyo
Japan

Please address all documents/letters to the above address from now on.
Thank you for your kind corporation.

Best Regards,

MtGox Team

Problems besides mtgox:

There seems to be a very narrow minded focus on the forum lately about mtgox. People seem to think that if mtgox' issue was resolved, that bitcoin would go straight to the moon. Let me remind you there are other issues besides mtgox.

I'm not trying to say "sell everything" or "bitcoin crashing to hell" etc. I just want to divert the narrow discussions.

Here is a list I compiled. It might not even be complete. Feel free to add.

1. Final Capitulation
2. PBOC policies still stand in China and no new chinese capital has come suddenly flying in as of Jan 31st/Feb8.
3. Russian ban.
4. Cyprus issues a bank advisory (like China), which leads to at least the perception that btc-e is at serious risk.
5. India
6. Apple removed blockchain app from app store, and the implications that this has about corporate control of what the public eye sees.
7. Major exchanges were able to flashcrash to $100 (indicates weakness)
8. Flaws on Bitfinex have been exploited, traders on Bitfinex have lost money. The staff at Bitfinex showed themselves as bad at responding to issues and unfit to be running an exchange.
9. The exchanges have had large amounts of funds (millions) stolen from them which could lead to potential insolvency or unethical actions in the future (or at least more mistrust in exchanges).
10. A large loss in confidence and trustworthiness in the existing exchange system, for a variety of reasons.
11. The malleability bug and its lasting impact on public trust and confidence in the Bitcoin software even if it gets fixed.
12. Loss of trust in bitcoin foundation board members.
13. Large amounts of hacker coins, which will eventually be dumped for fiat.
14. FBI Silk Road coins (27K or 144K) entering the market (somehow).
15. Men in florida were arrested and received felony money laundering charges for using localbitcoins. Even if it was really due to credit card fraud, it makes the public scared of using LocalBitcoins and casts a bad light on government perception of Bitcoin.
16. Silk Road 2 closed its escrow service.
17. Gox started processing cash withdrawals, fiat is actually exiting the system, and many jaded investors are most likely actually leaving the economy altogether.
18. Btce halted fiat withdrawal.
19. The closure of btc withdrawals by major bitcoin exchanges. (resolved)
20. Major indicators on charts that turned down before the gox crash even began.
21. Gox

Two parallel logarithmic trends and one linear trend. I guess if Trend 3 holds, then Trend 2 also holds. So the question is whether or not we are looking at Trend 1. Trend 1 would put a buy target around $300, or possible higher depending on how long it takes to hit.

I think that fact that we have and rely on a development team is element of centralization and a weakness which somewhat defeats the purpose of a decentralized currency. Who is coordinating the efforts of the developers? How do you become a bitcoin developer? Who decides what versions of the code to release? Who reviews the code? I know it is open source but who is actually making sure that the code is reviewed and how do they go about approving and denying code? Who pushes the releases? Who controls the website where the majority of people download the releases and who controls what shows up in the app store of mobile devices? How do you trust anyone in this chain of people and how do you know that any one of them isn't going to become malicious? How do you know a government or some powerful powerful people aren't going to secretly blackmail, bribe, or capture these people and gain control of the system by having something malicious inserted into the code or by having the team unable to solve problems?

I know you, the bitcoin community, trust all of these people, and knows that somehow everything is going to work. But try to think from the perspective of a business looking to adopt bitcoin. They don't know any of these people. They don't trust any of these people. They didn't hire any of these people. How can I trust my business to a group of people that I don't know? Wait why am I trusting people when the whole purpose of this was supposed to be decentralization?

I do not trust the international exchanges with my fiat for a prolonged amount of time anymore. I would like somewhere else to store my fiat during Bitcoin bear markets. I want a safe place to store the fiat where I don't have to have any worries about it at all, but also have the ability to instantly (or quickly) transfer the fiat back to a bitcoin exchange or buy bitcoins when the bull market starts. Ideally the account has:

-Legal establishment with a bank regulated by the united states.
-Some some of FDIC, SPIC, etc. insurance.
-Legal channels that will be able to receive my funds if something wrong happens
-The ability to instantly (or quickly) send the funds to a bitcoin exchange, or the ability to buy bitcoins.
-The ability to transfer very large amounts of cash (no limit)
-Non-ridiculous transfer fees for doing the above.

If you know of something similar to this (it doesn't have to meet every single one of my ideal requirements), please let me know.

Something has just occured to me: The Chinese charts do not look nearly as oversold as the USD charts. Instead, they look like they have just begun a normal drift into a downtrend. Now I realize that I may be making an error in analyzing USD charts:  What if... the trend is actually driven by China? China has been instrumental in driving prices throughout the past 6 months and movements on their charts have always trumped ours (whether that's due to some type of manipulation I do not know). If the volume in btcchina during the bull market was in fact real, then we could assume that the Chinese are actually driving the bear market as they sell out now. If so, it would be prudent to follow Chinese charts. I know it is a complex mess because the support will ultimately come from the US but the sellers are Chinese, and there is a U.S. chart and a Chinese chart and somehow you have to combine these... But let's assume hypothetically the Chinese chart is actually more important. If the bear market actually plays out on Chinese charts, and looks something like the bear market in 2013, then it could play out something like this:



I'm not sure how this would affect USD trends. USD could fall as low as low as $300, or it might find support at $500 after all if fiat starts flooding into Bitstamp by new investors. In any case, expect the trend to be different than what you are currently analyzing on USD charts now. It will be a rough game.

The low volume is creeping me out now. This is something new that we have not experienced before... prices falling on declining volume? Combine this with: the exchanges that I trade btc on are all facing some type of issue and and are not trustworthy, and.. Can someone give me a convincing reason to even remain in this market anymore? I'm starting to think the wisest thing to do is just to pull my funds from bitcoin exchanges and play the stock market or something.

This whole 'china 31st' thing seems like one of those troll box myths that only noobs fall for. In reality, nothing happens on the 31st that hasn't already happened.
-the Chinese exchanges don't close
-the bank transfer to huobi doesn't disappear
-the whales do not start dumping tons of coins
-the whales don't start buying tons of coins
-the price doesn't go up
-the price doesn't go down
-nothing happens

The whales who move the price aren't going to suddenly change their positions, because they already know the truth: the 31st deadline only applies to third party payment processors, and all the third party processors have ALREADY CLOSED, while bank transfers are unaffected. The whales are intelligent people who have done their due diligence and already know this. People aren't going to suddenly think "wow omg it didn't crash buy buy buy", because anyone with half a brain ALREADY KNEW what was going to happen. It is already PRICED IN.

So don't be surprised when during the first week of February NOTHING happens and the consolidation pattern continues. And please stop saying you're certain that a rally will occur due to Jan 31st, because that is bogus.

Do you want to know why the market is really in limbo? It is about when the Chinese government is going to shut down Huobi's bank account and arrest the owner. This has nothing to do with the 31st. It is a completely unpredictable event.

Anyone want to take a guess where the largest bid wall on all of crypto is right now?  Is it on mtgox? No. Bitstamp? No. Huobi? No. Is it even on bitcoin? No. It's...



This is ridiculous. Who would even trust 3000btc to btce? I would just keep that shit in codl storage.

Bitcoin is a transnational currency. It is not a stock. It does not follow news as if news is the only thing that moves the price. It follows supply and demand. There are large market forces at play that have nothing to do with news events. When there are more coins going in than fiat, then it goes down. When there is more fiat going in than coins, then it goes up. Whenever there is a bad news event like Silk Road but the price recovers, people like to say "oh honey badger dont care". Well guess what - it's the same thing with GOOD news events - If the price is in a downtrend then the price will "recover" from the good news events and continue its trend down. Bitcoin runs a boom/bust/hype cycle about every 6 months and there is always a capitulation regardless of whatever news events are going on. The whales behind the scenes pushing hundreds of thousands of coins and millions of dollars are much more powerful than the people reacting to news events. So please guys every time there is a drop or a rise - stop saying "omg what is the news?". It looks silly.