Looks... a little bearish.

Is annoying.

I know that it's a lot more exciting to day trade with volatility... but if there is long term price stability in BTC, wouldn't that kind of help aide in it's adoption in the larger marketplace?

I mean... anyone counting on a BTC -> oz gold equivalency is going to need a shit freakin ton more value in the BTC economy to accomplish.

Howdy folks...  I notice some anomalous data having to do with low returns on short blocks, so I did some analysis and this is what I found:

This looks like some interesting data that seems to point at pretty substantial losses due to pool hopping in early parts of rounds.

Basically I ran a bunch of numbers and I'm looking at some anomalies that would be highly unlikely to be caused by chance.

Since I was seeing what seemed to be much lower numbers than I should have seen on short rounds, I had to do some data analysis with small sample set that had some progressive variance caused by systems going down from time to time.

So, my analysis is off a somewhat normalized figure of 5 chronologically continuous blocks average payout.  I compared the 5 block normalized average to individualized payouts as a percentage compared to the average of all payouts in the sample set.

It shows that in blocks that move faster (are shorter), payouts deviate from running averages to the tune of 85.34% in this small sample set.

Larger blocks have a mean average of 104.47%.

You can see the analysis here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AhhejNMzWwx8dGpYZE9FYXk3d05MQjVDNUxLcHNXZkE&output=html

In this small sample set, short rounds with the problem account for about 27% of the blocks. 

So... my first day I netted a whopping .01%.  That's .002 btc on my 2 btc.

The fee to withdraw my 2 btc would be .035 btc, so basically about 15+ days for me to recoup the fee. (not the worst thing in the world when mutual funds often take 6 months + to recoup commissions.)

PLUS...

They claim that you can make "up to 5%" which stands to reason that if they net more they keep 100% and they probably keep a portion of lesser amounts.

Which is fine.  In all honesty I EXPECT it.  I just feel like full disclosure is a great thing.  I just don't buy that their only revenue comes from the 1.75% fee.

Am I wrong?

So... since there is a reaaaally good chance that we'll have another bubble... would people be interested in gathering together to convert some of their profits into other investments?

It seems like if you properly structured things, you could bring together up to 38 individuals into buying things like oil wells, billboards etc... that provide a longterm cash payoff.

It seems possible to me that folks are going to take their money up 10x - 20x their investment this year, it would make sense to utilize some measure of collective resources for longterm gain.

Market volatility for bitcoin isn't likely to vanish overnight.  (unless there is some sort of... calamity to strike fiat currencies... however unlikely that may be)

So yeah, if there IS another bubble and folks want to diversify in tangible assets, maybe some sort of co-op investment club would be useful since you'd combine many times the buying power with many times the # of opportunities.

So... I've been looking a bit at bitcoinica.  I'm really interested in it because it will train me in some advanced trading techniques... but... is the big money in shorting bull markets at their peak or going long when bullishness is around the corner?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I'd be willing to lower my pricing a touch to do some comprehensive SEO or copy writing for BTC.

I am very good at what I do.

I've just been thinking about things, since it seems like I've been pretty reliably able to predict price variation on the top and bottom price side (+/- 20% of net variance).

What I was thinking is that there would seem to be a limitation on the total volume in microtrading by way of % of profit per transaction.  Basically, the amount of profit it is possible to net per transaction by providing liquidity to the market is inversely proportional to the total volume of all microtrading taking place (because everyone is competing with one another).

IE: price variance is reduced to the level of those microtrading at the slimest margins whose margins are reduced when they are competing with other microtraders.

So... if this were true... what would anyone suppose the volume per unit of time's relationship to average % of profit per transaction to be?

OR, would variance continue to be the same or be exaggerated based upon bets being placed on bets and trends being exaggerated up and down?

Does anyone here do their own elliott wave analysis?

I've been tinkering with it and finding that after a pretty short while, it's reasonably accurate IF you're correctly identifying trends.  For instance, when and which waves to identify and whether to consider them bull or bear (which again has to do with identifying the trend).

Seems to make sense as a method for quantifying the movement of waves as a factor of market psychology.  I'm sure you could lose your shirt acting on it as if it is the holy grail though.

So, I've been thinking about this a lot.  It seems like if bitcoins were a more widely utilized medium, the price would stabilize because people would be interested in exchanging from within the currency rather than just using it as a transactional medium.

Just as a thought... if the bitcoin community at large spent a great amount of time on PR and either started offering valuable services at a discounted rate if BTC is used or convinced businesses to offer certain services for BTC, you might see prices regulate and become more stable.

I honestly expect to see BTC price reflect a combination of mining cost and economy size.  IE, if the average person began to transact 1% of their total expenditures in BTC and BTC held a fixed value more widely (as opposed to currently being only as valuable as it's equivalent trade value in USD), you would see the trade value stabilize because price wouldn't strictly be the result of speculation.

Basically if their were a demand for the currency because it had implicit trade value, the value and liquidity would improve.

What this would take:

Many service providers to begin to offer services at a slight discount in BTC OR offer services or web products for a fixed BTC price regardless of trading value.

For so long as the currency serves little purpose besides speculative and transactional ease, it will lack the necessary market depth to regulate price.

Any thoughts? 

Is there a list anywhere of service providers that will trade in BTC?  Something we as a community can help to promote in order to increase the adoption of the currency?

Been posting this around a bit.  I feel that transaction authority is a MAJOR flaw in BTC for its stability in the long run.  Basically, if heists keep happening and virii can rob you of all you possess, the currency lacks the level of faith that will attract a really schrewd following.  So... I suggest two factor transaction authorization.

Basically as a part of wallet generation, a client side key is generated with a corresponding encrypted hash assigned to the address.  So, wallet data wouldn't be enough to transact anything.  I know wallet encryption provides a level of security as does truecrypt, but having a keychain would liken the transaction process to safety deposit box rather than a wall safe at home.

The level of sophistication would bring thefts to almost nil and make keeping a wallet file somewhere a way less risky operation.

It could lead to the development of more credit card like interfacing because your wallet data would be fine stored by an intermediary and one would need then only a keychain to validate a transaction.  (hypothetically someone could make an RF keychain card with a fingerprint scanner so you could take your btc with you while you shop.

OR transactions could be partially transacted pending keychain verification allowing users to review their transactions and authorize only valid ones.

I believe this would go a long way to improve confidence in the currency which is vital to it becoming widely used.

Been posting this around a bit.  I feel that transaction authority is a MAJOR flaw in BTC for its stability in the long run.  Basically, if heists keep happening and virii can rob you of all you possess, the currency lacks the level of faith that will attract a really schrewd following.  So... I suggest two factor transaction authorization.

Basically as a part of wallet generation, a client side key is generated with a corresponding encrypted hash assigned to the address.  So, wallet data wouldn't be enough to transact anything.  I know wallet encryption provides a level of security as does truecrypt, but having a keychain would liken the transaction process to safety deposit box rather than a wall safe at home.

The level of sophistication would bring thefts to almost nil and make keeping a wallet file somewhere a way less risky operation.

It could lead to the development of more credit card like interfacing because your wallet data would be fine stored by an intermediary and one would need then only a keychain to validate a transaction.  (hypothetically someone could make an RF keychain card with a fingerprint scanner so you could take your btc with you while you shop.

OR transactions could be partially transacted pending keychain verification allowing users to review their transactions and authorize only valid ones.

I believe this would go a long way to improve confidence in the currency which is vital to it becoming widely used.

So... I was thinking about the problem with theft with bitcoins and its effect on price.

It's bad.

So... as a solution, I was thinking it would be cool if a RSA client key could be implemented with bitcoins as a new option moving forward.

How it would work:

When you create a bitcoin account or with a current one... probably through the current wallet software... create an option for an RSA client key.  You would submit something like a RSA 4096 client key that would be processed against some random number and associated with your address.  For a transaction to be verified, the key would have to be submitted with the transaction.

You would then have a couple options.  Creating a key file which could then be stored elsewhere, in the cloud or on a flash drive.  That way in order to transact a theft, the thief would then have to obtain both an unrelated key file AND access to the bitcoin wallet data OR would have to crack an RSA4096 key which would require the use of every computer in the world for thousands of years.

This would require that the initial key would be randomized for best security (making the loss of such a key tantamount to the loss of all BTC at that address) or could be an interpretive key that would be more prone to brute force cracking.

Regardless you'd virtually eliminate unauthorized transactions from the bitcoin universe thus making the currency FAR more attractive to hold, use or trade.

Thoughts?

Gotta start working on my rep

Joined a while ago and can't post in the threads I've been watching.

I'm currently running at ~1.6mh per second (would be more if my new power supply didn't start spiking when I oc my 5790 a TINY bit), going to be stepping up to 2.2mh pretty soon.

Like the community.  Dig the purpose of everything.  Maybe a little addicted even.

Currently mining with slush after mining with deepbit for the last few weeks.