From a technical point of view, that low down to $5,500 looks like the final low. A quick, deep dive down with a quick, steep recovery is always what you want to look for at the end of corrections.

Fundamentally, the BTC blockchain will start moving again two hours from now. That will bring back confidence. Additionally, it looks like BCH has found its short-term peak.

BTC and BCH will probably co-exist in the future. If you buy now, you will have bought at a great point to enjoy the fireworks to come: The year-end-rally.

Still a lot of insecurity in the market, but not that much danger anymore... buy now, when there is blood on the streets!

A message e.g. like the one Satoshi sent with the Genesis block: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."

Just curious how to do this as a normal user.

I'm on the fence whether to buy a Trezor or a Ledger S. I know they are both good. BUT:

1. I recently heard that Trezor had some security vulnerability exposed (with its recovery seed, I believe). What happened there, and is this a danger for the future?

2. Once my device arrives, I want to test the recovery seed (pretend I lost my device, and use the recovery seed to recover my wallet). As I understand, if I do this with the Ledger, the seed and thus my device will be worthless afterwards; whereas with the Trezor this is possible without problems. Correct?

Any hints of knowledgeable people would make me a happy hodler!

https://www.xbt.eu/

What's happening here, did all the miners bail to BCH...?

This doesn't look good.

https://cash.coin.dance/blocks

Also, notice that BHC only has about 3% more profitability than BTC at the moment. Why did  it go so low that fast?

So we hear all of this clueless speculation based on fear or greed: BTC is too expensive already! It's too late to buy! It will go to $10,000! It will be worth a million in 10 years! Yada yada yada...

But where are the facts, the numbers? How do you get to these predictions?

Let's start a thread in which we try to see how far it could go based on actual numbers of other assets. Let's ask the question:

How much of which other assets could go into BTC?

Of course, that's speculation too, but it's educated speculation. I will start out with this very interesting graph here. It shows you the market cap of BTC and many other assets, visualized in little cubes, according to their size:

http://money.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization/

And yes, the graph is a bit behind, as the current market cap of BTC is not 5 billion anymore, but 44 billion at the time of this writing. Check the current BTC market cap here: https://coinmarketcap.com/

For example, the market cap of all physical gold above ground is roughly 7 trillion or 7,000 billion. So taking into consideration BTCs 44 billion market cap, BTC needs to go to about $4,300 in order for it to have 1% of golds market cap (that would be 70 billion). If BTC goes to about $43,000, it will have 10% of golds market cap.

So how much could it draw away from gold? 1%? 5%? 10%? 20%? Even more?

And how much could it draw away from stocks? Bonds? Derivatives? Other assets?

My opinion: If you do the math, you get to quite a staggering number, and you can see the huge upwards potential BTC still has. I could definitely see it taking a bit bite out of gold, let's say 10% at least, which would already let it go to $40,000. And I'm not even speaking of stocks, art, maybe even real estate and bonds here. So I think $100,000 per BTC is definitely possible, IF no terrible thing happens along the way (government restrictions, political wars within BTC, technical catastrophes, etc...). We will see.

Your guestimates, ladies and gentlemen? Which other asset classes do you think BTC could draw from, and why?

I will try to put the most interesting diagrams, observations, etc... into this OP.

I just saw the massive number of threads in the Philippines subforum, wow! Seems like you guys are really into cryptos; I'm sure they are an awesome investment opportunity for you.

I spent six weeks in the Philippines last year, and got to know your country a bit. That was right before Duterte was elected. I was just curious about the state of BTC on the Philippines. When I was there, nobody mentioned BTC to me, but maybe I wasn't hanging out with the right people.

Just interested to hear about new developments, gossip, or whatever it may be. How did you first learn about BTC? Where do you think it will go?

Good luck to all of you!

So we hear all of this clueless speculation based on fear or greed: BTC is too expensive already! It's too late to buy! It will go to $10,000! It will be worth a million in 10 years! Yada yada yada...

But where are the facts, the numbers? How do you get to these predictions?

Let's start a thread in which we try to see how far it could go based on actual numbers of other assets. Let's ask the question:

How much of which other assets could go into BTC?

Of course, that's speculation too, but it's educated speculation. I will start out with this very interesting graph here. It shows you the market cap of BTC and many other assets, visualized in little cubes, according to their size:

http://money.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization/

And yes, the graph is a bit behind, as the current market cap of BTC is not 5 billion anymore, but 44 billion at the time of this writing. Check the current BTC market cap here: https://coinmarketcap.com/

For example, the market cap of all physical gold above ground is roughly 7 trillion or 7,000 billion. So taking into consideration BTCs 44 billion market cap, BTC needs to go to about $4,300 in order for it to have 1% of golds market cap (that would be 70 billion). If BTC goes to about $43,000, it will have 10% of golds market cap.

So how much could it draw away from gold? 1%? 5%? 10%? 20%? Even more?

And how much could it draw away from stocks? Bonds? Derivatives? Other assets?

My opinion: If you do the math, you get to quite a staggering number, and you can see the huge upwards potential BTC still has. I could definitely see it taking a bit bite out of gold, let's say 10% at least, which would already let it go to $40,000. And I'm not even speaking of stocks, art, maybe even real estate and bonds here. So I think $100,000 per BTC is definitely possible, IF no terrible thing happens along the way (government restrictions, political wars within BTC, technical catastrophes, etc...). We will see.

Your guestimates, ladies and gentlemen? Which other asset classes do you think BTC could draw from, and why?

I will try to put the most interesting diagrams, observations, etc... into this OP.

EDIT:

I found this statistic here really interesting, I got it from user "bicork" from another thread (don't know where exactly he got it from):

"Daily average BTC price change:

2010: +0.82%
2011: +0.76%
2012: +0.26%
2013: +1.11%
2014: -0.25%
2015: +0.09%
2016: +0.22%
2017: +0.66%

If this 7-year trend will continue (+0.42% a day) - 1 BTC will hit $250,000 in 2020."

It looks like the biggest uncertainties will be resolved this Friday, July 21st. With far above 80% support for SegWit2x, August 1st should not matter anymore (as BIP 148 will not trigger).

That would mean between now and Thursday should be the best time to buy.

On the other hand, August 1st is passed around everywhere as the "day of doom." Many uninformed people out there. So maybe wait till July 31st to buy? And will there be any risks left after Segwit is activated later this week?

The key question is: How much FUD will be left in the market after Friday...?

I installed Jaxx on my PC a couple of days ago, and tried to import a paper wallet into my Jaxx wallet. It first looked like the transaction was made, but the funds never left my paper wallet. Tried a second time, to no avail.

I just see this screen, and when I press "I understand," it jumps back to the "Home" screen.

Am I overlooking something?

Any help appreciated!

I'm new to mining, and would appreciate any hints you guys can give me.

1. First question: Would you rather mine BTC or ETH right now, and why?

2. How much to invest would make sense? And how much money can I get out with that investment?

3. What does it depend on how high my profit will be? And how much does it have to do with the current price of BTC/ETH?

Beginner questions...

Thanks!

When is "Caspar" coming, do they have a date for this already?

And once ETH has PoS, there will be no mining at all, correct? I'm wondering how new coins will be brought into existence then.

I couldn't find any possibility to do this online.

Would like to convert some Litecoins into ETH via shapeshift.io, but I have all my LCs on paperwallets. 

Any help very much appreciated!

So I still think BTC is the real thing and the way to go - but I want to put a smaller amount into ETC or ETH, kind of as an insurance.

What are the differences, and which one of the two would you recommend?

I only know that ETH was created through a hard fork after somebody scammed somebody, so that scam could be reversed. Which means in ETH, transactions can theoretically be reversed.

Any input welcome.

So I just finished Rickards' brand-new book. It's an ok read, but I also feel like I didn't learn too many new things.

On one hand, 90% of the book makes a lot of sense and there are some smart thoughts to be found in it. On the other hand, if you are well-informed about the current economic disaster (as a lot of posters on this forum are), you will not profit that much from reading it. Also, be adviced that some basic economic understanding is a precondition for reading this book: It certainly brought me to the edge of my economic understanding. All in all, if you know about the breakdown of the monetary system, save some time by reading this post and a couple of Rickards' interviews on the web and leave out the book!

The first half of the book, while a good read, is really relatively superfluous for anybody who knows a bit about the topic. The first chapter is about insider trading of terrorist associates before 9/11, and is really interesting, but has no connection to the topic of the book. Overall, the author really loves to hear himself talk, and that's a problem.

The book continues with chapters about the fragility of todays trading mechanisms, the blunders of the Fed and the region chapters: One about China, Europe and the Emerging Markets each. The ones about China and EM contain some interesting stuff, but the historical and theoretical explanations are way too waste IMO.

The second half is more interesting:There is a chapter on US debt, then one on the IMF (it was the most interesting chapter for me, but it didn't enlighten me in extreme ways either), a chapter on gold that told me almost nothing new (I know a lot about gold manipulation though), and the end of the book is about conclusions and the breakdown of the system. Oh, and Rickards gives advice on how to invest your money in times like these - he elaborates on almost 3 whole pages...

The book does also contain some stuff that I certainly don't believe in: Above all, this concerns the chapter about Europe, "The New German Reich". God, that chapter is one single piece of hogwash! Rickards seems very fond of Europe, fair enough. His outlook on Europe is extremely positive though, and the whole chapter reads like the stuff I see and hear on Main Stream Media every day: Europe is through the crises, brighter times are about to come, etc... As a European, I can only assume that he is too far away to grasp reality here.

Rickards completely ignores devastating numbers from the European economy, which have only been getting worse. Quote: "By late 2012, the European sovereign debt and bank crises was largely contained" (p. 128). Excuse me!?? He enthusiastically writes about a treaty between EU members that "requires signatories to have budget deficits of less than 3% of GDP when their debt-to-GDP ratio is under 60 percent." More rigid requirements are valid for counties with higher ratios - but he completely ignores all the regulations of the past about debt, which have been broken by most EU members without any consequences. So where is this guy living (in the US, I know...)?

According to him, "Greece needs only more flexible work rules, lower unit labor costs, and new capital." This stuff makes me laugh. Greece at least additionally needs/needed stricter tax enforcement and measures against corruption - but also, the Greek and the German economy, for example, just don't make a good fit! The same easy money policy Rickards condemns in the US, is totally ok for him in Europe. And finally, the most outrageous claim of the book is the claim that Germany (edit: the Eurozone) has "real positive interest rates" (p. 127)! What the fuck!?

But enough of that chapter.

Other unusual things Rickards claims are that he believes the official inflation numbers and doesn't believe the US gold is missing. Instead, he believes Germany never wanted its gold back when claiming repatriation, but just had political pressure inside of Germany to make a claim. In fact, Germany wants to keep its gold at the Fed to have it used for ongoing manipulation purposes. Doesn't make any sense to me.

An intruiging thought is that the goal of the international community is to let China accumulate enough gold so it is on par with the other main players in terms of gold-to-GDP-ratio. The others want China equal so it will be able to participate in the building of the new monetary world order. That order will be in gold and/or SDRs (Special Drawing Rights).

I'm glad we have economists like Rickards, smart thinkers outside of the system, but I also think unless you know very little about the topic, you don't have to read that book.

So auntie Janet is in the drivers seat now. The question is: Will she taper on tuesday or not?

I personally can absolutely not imagine the Fed to be crazy enough to taper again. When they did it in December, things got a little uncomfortable and treasury selling accelerated. When they did it again in January, the stock markets rolled over and emerging market currencies started a bottomless plunge. I can only imagine the grave consequences ANOTHER taper would have, especially considering the dire situation with Ukraine. Only to true sociopaths would the idea of tapering come now.

On the other hand, that description might exactly fit on central bankers... I have been saying "No taper" since last summer, and was wrong on the last two occasions, so who knows. This is what happened to treasuries last week, btw:

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/03/Custody%20Holdings_1.jpg

Then, there is another option: Might she even realize what is happening and raise QE? And if she does so, will it be enough for the markets to realize that finally the bankers have lost all control or not?

I believe we are very close to the edge right now.

 

This time it sounds like he has read one or the other discussion about him here on the forum... Hello, Peter!

Starts at 15:30.

http://www.silverdoctors.com/peter-schiff-on-yellen-bitcoin-the-2014-outlook-for-pms/

So over the last 2 months we have seen expansion with BTC on many, many levels: For example, a whole bunch of new BTC ATMs were installed, many more people have heard of BTC now (does your auntie know what it is now?), a lot more businesses are accepting BTC, the MSM press is suddenly filled with articles about it, new services popping up everywhere - but the price has not been rising!

Now you could say I'm way too impatient, the price has just quadrupled or so, and of course BTC evaluation has made huge progress, but that was longer ago than all those innovations taking place. So why is that?

Is this about cycles (fundamental expansion/ price expansion and contraction), or is it simply that price lags a bit behind the fundamentals (how much? wouldn't we have to see a new spike in prices soon? how many people are standing on the sidelines waiting?)?

Maybe some seasoned bitcoiners can tell us their thoughts: How has the expansion played out so far in past cycles (crash last spring, etc..)? Any coherences?

For example, I heard about BTC for the first time in March 2013. It wasn't until December 2013 that I put some money into it though. Maybe that's the ordinary way it goes psychologically - there is just some "incubation period".

How long did it take for you between hearing about BTC and investing in it?

Whoa, whoa, incredible news! Financial Times, an absolute MSM publication, who has been a defender of fiat and the system ever since, suddenly brings out this article:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-25/ft-goes-there-demand-physical-gold-one-day-paper-price-manipulation-will-end-catastr

This would have never, ever been possible even two months ago! The mask is coming down.

I can only guess what implications a call like that by a media outlet like that one could have for the delivery month of February...

I just transfered about 0.2 BTC from my blockchain.info wallet. There was not even an "Unconfirmed Transaction" after 40 minutes, and so I took a look at my wallets transactions and saw that the BTC had in fact been transfered to a totally different wallet.

I had made about 30 transactions from my blockchain wallet already without any major problems. I scanned the QR code of my target wallet, checked it and just sent the funds ("shared transaction"). I'm pretty sure I didn't make any mistake (and it wouldn't have made the transaction anyways had there been a mistake in the target address).

Never heard of problems like this. I guess my funds were stolen - how is this possible?

And even more important: The rest of the BTC in my blockchain wallet is untouched - how can I get them out savely now? (Made a test with $2 worth of BTC 10 minutes later, it went through without any problems).

Any help is very much appreciated!