Read more about the cup and handle: http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:chart_patterns:cup_with_handle_cont

The Cup with Handle is a bullish continuation pattern that marks a consolidation period followed by a breakout. It was developed by William O'Neil and introduced in his 1988 book, How to Make Money in Stocks.

As its name implies, there are two parts to the pattern: the cup and the handle. The cup forms after an advance and looks like a bowl or rounding bottom. As the cup is completed, a trading range develops on the right hand side and the handle is formed. A subsequent breakout from the handle's trading range signals a continuation of the prior advance.

Cup:



Handle:

Looking at the previous bubbles along with this chart I can't help but get a fractal-esque impression. For example go to clarkmoody's bitcoin charts, set each candlestick to w1, then zoom back to 2011 and you get this picture:

(This is what happened after the 2011 crash leading up to the bubble (on the right side))




That looks remarkably close to where we are now (however the bottom is not as low since we survived a bubble already making people more confident):



It looks like a similar pattern is repeating on a shorter scale during each successive bubble.

We could very well see >$1000 soon.

[BFL Single SC]

In my other thread someone suggested that since mining is a way many people first get into Bitcoin that an increase in the price of mining each coin could increase Bitcoin market price. I think its definitely a plausible theory. The steady flow of new investors who would normally buy equipment are instead going to buy Bitcoins directly as long as the market price is less than the price per Bitcoin from hardware manufacturers. The real question is whether most miners can afford to hold out for these high break even prices or whether they will sell early (or potentially hold for a long time to double their profits?). The price per BTC represents what price point a miner would have to sell at to make his money back (no profit).

So how much does it cost to mine one Bitcoin? Assuming a 76% increase in difficulty per month, .15$/kWh, and a 2% pool fee:

(I used mining.thegenesisblock.com for these estimates)


BFL Single SC

Power cost over 7 months: ~$280
Initial cost = ~$1300
Total cost over 7 months: ~$1580

For people who get their Single SC 60 GH/s tomorrow: They will mine about 18 coins over the next 7 months. Cost: ~$88 per Bitcoin.
For people who get their Single SC 60 GH/s at the beginning of October: They will mine about 10 Bitcoins over the next 7 months. Cost: ~$158 per Bitcoin.
For people who get their Single SC at the beginning of November: 5.6 Bitcoins mined over 7 months. Cost: ~$282 per Bitcoin.


Bitfury - 400GH/s

Power cost over 7 months = ~$280
Initial cost = ~$8000
Total cost over 7 months = ~$8,280

Delivery day October 1: 66 Bitcoins mined over next 7 months.  Cost: ~$126 per Bitcoin.
Delivery day Nov 1 = 37.5 coins generated over 7 months. Cost: ~$220 per Bitcoin


KnCminer - 400GH/s Jupiter

Power cost over 7 months = ~$490
Initial cost = ~$7000
Total cost over 7 months = ~$7490

Delivery October 1: 66 coins mined over 7 months. Cost: ~$114 per Bitcoin
Delivery Nov 1: 37.5 coins mined over 7 months. Cost: ~$200 per Bitcoin

HashFast - BabyJet

Power cost over 7 months: ~$259
Initial cost = ~$5600
Total cost over 7 months = ~$5859

Delivery Nov 1: 37.5 coins mined. Cost: ~$156.24 per Bitcoin
Delivery Dec 1: 21.3 coins mined over 7 months. Cost: ~$275 per Bitcoin

[The massive rate of increase of hashing power has made blocks be confirmed much faster than normal]

There's several factors that will likely effect the price of Bitcoin in the near future.


The massive rate of increase of hashing power has made blocks be confirmed much faster than normal

Normal rate of block creation is one per 10 minutes. That means 3600 new Bitcoins are created per day normally, equalling about $400,000 per day at current prices.

With blocks being made much faster than that this source of new Bitcoins could drive prices down.

Likely effect on price:down


On the other side, difficulty rising means more $$ must be spent to mine each Bitcoin

Consider a Bitfury miner, one of the most cost efficient miners that can be purchased right now. http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/576b0ab173

If they deliver in october as expected buyers will not make a return on their investment at current prices.

The story is much the same for every other asic manufacturer (run the numbers yourself if you don't believe me).

Miners are going to have to hold onto their coins until the price rises to make a profit. However at least some of them are going to need to sell Bitcoins right away to pay their bills, so this likely will only reduce the rate of inflation caused by increased supply (rather than driving the price up)

Likely effect on price: up


Potential ending of quantitative easing by the federal reserve

See: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-21/fomc-minutes-show-broad-support-for-bernanke-tapering-timeline.html

Quantitative easing is believed to have an upward effect on the price of gold because QE reduces public confidence in the dollar holding value. Ending QE will likely reduce demand for gold and other alternatives to the dollar.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kitconews/2013/06/18/tds-eventual-qe-tapering-to-hurt-gold-potential-for-short-covering-into-september/

Higher confidence in the dollar holding its value means less demand for hedges like gold and Bitcoin.

Likely effect on price:down





I have to conclude the trend over the next few months will be downward. These definitely aren't the only variables that effect Bitcoin. I'm just trying to wrap my head around what the next few months will look like. If you've got any other suggestions for relevant factors please share.

So I've been posting in "dacoinminister"'s thread about "Mastercoin". He asks people to send him coins directly in exchange for "1000 mastercoins" but there's currently no client and no source code. Once he gets "enough money to develop full time" he'll get around to making those he says.

Could this be any more obvious of a scam?

-He controls the creation of "mastercoins"
-You send him Bitcoins directly in exchange for a promise of future "mastercoins"
-He then develops the project at his own pleasure with no way to keep him honest
-Nothing stopping him from running with your Bitcoins or making as many mastercoins as he wants
-He deletes any posts criticizing his project

YOU CAN'T MAKE A VIABLE ALT COIN BASED UPON CLOSED SOURCE AND GIVING ONE GUY A BUNCH OF MONEY

Can you say nigerian prince scam?

He deleted the following post over 10 times rather than reply to it:

This is a scam. He keeps deleting my posts hoping someone else will send money to his scam.

"@dacoinminster: In order to succeed as an open source project leader, you will need to keep this in mind: http://youtu.be/ZSFDm3UYkeE"

ITS NOT OPEN SOURCE. There is no source code. There are no "mastercoins". He will take your money and run because there's NOTHING keeping him honest.

Unfortunately, Reddit remains (mostly) a swirling cesspool of ignorance.

I think what you really meant to say is you're butthurt because I exposed your bullshit on Reddit and you can't self moderate the thread.

I'm sorry you have lost faith in the basic decency of most people.  You are right there is risk in sending him money, but people have the right to spend their money how they want.  Your concerns have been voiced (he left my quote of you), and you are derailing productive discussion.

We shouldn't have to have faith in the creator if the protocol is sound. We didn't have to have faith in Satoshi Nakamoto or buy Bitcoins from him. The rules of the system create the system. He's set this system up to let him cheat as much as he wants with nothing keeping him honest so that's what is going to happen. This is a fatal flaw with the "project" not a "concern".

He's going to keep deleting this post and I'm going to keep posting it. If he had a valid answer to any of these criticisms he'd reply instead of deleting.

SCAM. STAY AWAY.

Mods please move his post to the "scams" section. Link to original (SCAM don't send him coins): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.0

This one quote in particular is painfully bad.

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/winklevosses-trying-bring-bitcoin-mainstream-investors-171834667.html

[Bitcoins] don't act as a substitute for physical money. They are just a barrier between you and your cash.

Imagine every dollar in your wallet being worth anywhere from $13 to $266 depending on what an anonymous trader decides at any given moment. While the premise of Bitcoin and all digital currencies is that they are free from the manipulation of Central Banks that's only partially true. All digital currencies do is swap out groups like the Federal Reserve or Bank of Japan and replace them with whomever it is that's in charge of the manufacturing Bitcoins themselves.

Who is that central banker in control of the Bitcoin supply? No one knows. Here's how it's explained in the regulatory S-1 filing:

"Satoshi Nakamoto is considered to be the creator of Bitcoins and the Bitcoin Network; however, no individual with that actual name has been publicly identified as the Bitcoin Network’s creator, and the general consensus is that the name is a pseudonym for the actual inventor or inventors."

How stupid can these 'journalists' get? Satoshi Nakamoto doesn't back the value of Bitcoin personally. He's not a central banker. He doesn't even develop code for Bitcoin anymore as far as we know.

They could have bothered to do even a little bit of research before jumping to publishing.

They say this right after explaining that "if someone will pay $100 for a Bitcoin" that's what its worth. Well that's certainly half of it. Satoshi doesn't back Bitcoin himself rather the community of developers and the community of users who trust the cryptography and design of Bitcoin do.

In this video http://www.bloomberg.com/video/bitcoin-is-start-of-brave-new-world-gelfond-says-jE1q_HF5R2y8lixcxq4iLg.html Bob Gelfond proposes the idea of a currency based on computing power. I've seen this idea thrown around before. I've even heard that Nikola Tesla proposed a currency based upon electricity.

With GPU miners becoming useless for mining quickly this could be an alternative way to 'mine' with the added bonus of the computing power actually being put to use rather than wasted. GPUs are used for many different types of computer models and a huge distributed super computer could really be worth quite a bit of money. We could even use Bitcoin to pay the miners since it would be by far the most efficient method of payment for a global distributed network.

Is anyone working on anything like this?

See: http://blockchain.info/pools

The "Unknown" miner had 9% last week, 11% a couple days ago, and 13% now. Even just 1% of the network is a huuuuge jump in hashrate.

To give a comparison, ASICminer has 19% of the share of the network and they actually are a corporation that reinvests their profits into making their own miners (a sure formula for insane growth).

Could this be a government attempting to destroy Bitcoin by dumping a few million into making their own ASICs? Or possibly a private actor trying to gain total control over BTC?

The rapid growth of this unknown miner is very concerning.

I was using Cgminer version 2.1.1 for a long while and with a high intensity I could max my Radeon 7870 out at 400 MH/s. I normally had my intensity set to 7 for a cool running 360 MH/s.

After upgrading to version 3.2.1 I've found the highest stable MH/s I can get is around 305 MH/s at any intensity.  

Here's my conf file:

{
"pools" : [
   {
   }
]
,
"intensity" : "7",
"vectors" : "1",
"worksize" : "256",
"kernel" : "phatk",
"lookup-gap" : "2",
"thread-concurrency" : "10000",
"shaders" : "1280",
"gpu-engine" : "0-0",
"gpu-fan" : "0-85",
"gpu-memclock" : "0",
"gpu-memdiff" : "0",
"gpu-powertune" : "0",
"gpu-vddc" : "0.000",
"temp-cutoff" : "95",
"temp-overheat" : "85",
"temp-target" : "75",
"api-port" : "4028",
"expiry" : "120",
"gpu-dyninterval" : "7",
"gpu-platform" : "0",
"gpu-threads" : "2",
"hotplug" : "5",
"log" : "5",
"no-pool-disable" : true,
"queue" : "1",
"scan-time" : "60",
"temp-hysteresis" : "3",
"shares" : "0",
"kernel-path" : "/usr/local/bin"
}

Anyone have any ideas why this could be happening?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c1jqd/butterfly_labs_may_be_scamming_us_all/


Text:

"Is anyone else tired of waiting for their BFL asic's to ship? Anyone pissed off about the increased price and lowered hash rate? Anyone else wondering when the hell they're even going to ship their product? I know I am. On all accounts.

Today a buddy of mine approached me with some very interesting research he did. So let's look at what we've got.

First is this address. http://blockchain.info/address/1NLg3QJMsMQGM5KEUaEu5ADDmKQSLHwmyh

Now look at that data. Blocks solved and new coins created at 12 o'clock, 2 o'clock 4 o'clock and 8 o'clock today (4/9/13). One address solving 4 blocks in 8 hours. I mean, sure, that's obviously possible with the new hardware, but that's some serious power. Especially for one address to have. Seems a little fishy to me.

Next: Let's check that most recent block. http://blockchain.info/block-index/371485/000000000000019025d6a44dfa2af3a9b8965e277c04a2d4c50d9ae1d4711142 Solved and sent to the same address. So we've got the block. And where it's located? The Kansas/Missouri border.

Ok. Pause. How does this relate to and/or implicated BFL? So far, it doesn't really. But looking at the facts. We've got one party mining alone, solving a ton of blocks at an alarming rate. There's no problem with that. But then I check BFL's website.

Their contact page: http://www.butterflylabs.com/contact/

Awfully close to the exact same spot on the map as the IP solving those blocks, no? And BFL would certainly have the power to mine like that if they didn't sell their machines.

Now also take into account that these devices were supposed to ship months ago. Those of you who follow the forums keep getting told "soon" or "within the next month" or whatever it may be. But here we sit, sans BFL-made ASICs. They've been taking money since June, but have yet to deliver. We've seen pictures of chips on boards, and we've seen the rising price of coins. We haven't been given an update on shipment dates either, and that was supposed to be this week(again).

I hate throwing the conspiracy theory card around, but this is looking an awful lot to me like these guys saw they could make more money by mining than by selling their products which people have paid for. I don't know if that's illegal, but it's certainly immoral. Given that BFL has already been suggested a scam I think this may hold some weight. Thoughts /r/Bitcoin?

If I'm wrong here, interpreted data incorrectly, or anything else please let me know.

TL;DR - Butterfly Labs is holding onto their ASIC's and using them to mine instead of shipping them to everyone who pre-ordered."



What do you guys think?