Oh dear. This comment is symbolic of something, but I'm not sure what. A sign of the times I guess.

Until these posts disappear with people claiming that we are at the bottom or that we are about to start a bull run, or that this crash is just like previous crashes and that we are about to start an uptrend, we are not at the bottom.

Bitcoin can go alot lower than you imagine. Regardless of the merits of the technology, it could go to zero. There doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement of that.

If it is the end of bitcoin, that's sad for Isabella since she's invested so much time in covering it. The only place she could have got that chart is on these forums, so she must be reading the material here. She's invested in it as well, even though she has put herself on the opposite side to most of us!

Bitcoin remains highly risky. It's a call option on a new financial system, and carries the same level of risk as a call option.

Half of the problem has been a wave of douchebags who think it's the 'next big thing' to speculate on, encouraged by a wave of brokers, "bitcoin binary options", bitcoin pit trading, etc.. The ironic thing is that most of these offerings only emerged after the price topped out at the end of last year.

Would you buy and sell a call option on apple in the way people buy+sell bitcoin? Would you create trading apps, charts, ATMs and all other sorts of things for a call option, that could one day be worth zero?

I think that's the way to look at bitcoin.

Having said that, the world is right up shit creek financially and otherwise in almost all respects, so the argument that we are living in exceptional circumstances is pretty valid IMO.

In retrospect a massive crash this year was obvious and probably it's not the last time it will happen.

TL;DR

I'm taking this FT article as a load of tosh, since usually their calls are wrong

So I'm a subscriber to Elliott Wave International , a newsletter service that I assumed was bona fide but I'm now wondering if this is a scam.

Here's the latest newsletter from them.



Since the crisis they have been saying that there's going to be a crash, the same message over and over. If a prophesier of doom continuous long enough, eventually he will be right. That's their strategy it seems. It also seems they've been riding on the coattails of fear generated by the 2009 crisis in order to sell more of their newsletters.

I'm asking myself now if this is just a plain scam or are they actually credible at all? Wikipedia says Robert Prechter was once a successful trader, but we all know Wikipedia is basically edited by self-promoters.

Is this company a scam now? The subscriptions are not that much compared to average Wall St research from IBs or other services (eg. Casey) but they are still significant ($400 per year for the main publications). It seems they also manage to claim their forecasts are right at the end of every publication, despite them continuously being wrong.

Right now there arent any high probability pathways in existance for the bitcoin price. That is to say, it's not really clear. Sentiment is probably slightly positive on balance and it seems there may be some room for another correction, but most of the weak hands seem to have sold out now.

It's very possible we are close to the bottom now and preparing ourselves for the next big bull market.

Having said that, there is also a strong possibility that bitcoin may go down more.

The future path of bitcoin is now in the hands of the politicians. Bitcoin has hit the mainstream and is now (for all intensive purposes) a standard financial asset, that is traded amoungst professional traders and fund managers. It is not going to get more mainstream than that until we see a big change in the wider economic circumstances.

That said, the price may go up, it may go down over the next few months but, barring any "black swan" events (which actually are now less black swan than you might think), I can't see it moving up alot if at all.

There are circumstances however under which the price could move down, namely if people loose faith in bitcoin, or dump coins because they are no longer getting rich quick. However as said before, I think we have just been through that period of shaking out.

In summary, no significant moves predicted yet in either direction for the time being but stay tuned, with eyes focused on the macro situation. That's where new drivers of the price may emerge.

PS. Whether a deflationary or inflationary trend takes hold, then bitcoin prices may go up. However in the case of a deflation first, prices may initially decline, to be followed by a subsequent increase during an inflationary period. There is a chance that with the Eurozone announcing QE, we are now at the end of the deflationary phase and beginning of the inflationary phase that so many pundits have been forecasting since the 2008 financial crash.

TLDR;

short-term BTC price prognosis: weak bullish.

hm, it seems right now we're in the "investment memory is long" phase, and have yet to reach final capitulation.

Can someone actually explain the purpose of ethereum? I mean, what is it used for exactly?

agree with you guys, bear market still on

Give it 2 years until we have a major financial collapse

The "global economy" - all sources of current economic growth - are completely unsustainable.  The main source of this is china's 30-year manipulation of the foreign exchange market.

We are in the ending stages now.

Still , my feeling is bitcoin *MAY* go down more before it goes up. However, that's not a very strong feeling. I wouldnt want to be out of the rally that started in April/May. So, keep some cash on hand but also be in the market.

If only things were as simple as that ...

There is icbit.se

The problems with bitcoin options


* Liquidity.

* Difficulty in pricing.

* You need a trusted third party ("counterparty"). In the bitcoin world - where exchanges go under regularly - I believe that can be pretty hard to find.

* Regulations.

I think mainly though it's a problem with liquidity. There is icbit.se already, but most of the derivatives there are thinly traded. Once the spread gets beyond a certain point, it doesn't really work..

PS.

I dont see "nobody would write it" as a valid reason why , for example, a CALL option does not exist. I'm sure *somebody* would, it just would depend on the price.

Inevitabley the markets will crash. They always do. Human psychology moves from fear to greed and then back.

Right now, the atmosphere seems to have a lot of fear. No end of articles talking about a correction or crash in the press. So I think we are still in the "fear" zone. As soon as people forget about crashes, we'll be back into greed area, and then the crash risk is imminent.

However, in the last 2 big market crashes, the US gov't has always been able to engineer a recovery using interest rates and money printing. The big worry now is that - if they don't get things back to normal before the pendulum swings - there will be no tools left to them when a crash occurs.

However, if they manage to hike rates without any big disasters, that could be avoided.

So goes the conventional theory. Basically, the economy has been in complete unchartered territory since 2009, so there's a lot of if's and could's. The best answer is that nobody knows how it will work out , just that it will be interesting to see either way how things go.

Yup I agree with OP 100%.

Hold is not the best strategy.

Bitcoin is a religion for many, that's why it has further to go down.

Right now, bitcoin is pure speculation. It is not backed by anything. The value of bitcoin is based on speculation about the future financial system.

The changes to the world required for bitcoin to attain significant value are huge. That's what makes it a particularly high risk investment.

There is nothing religious about bitcoin. It is a high risk investment just like any other. Would you continue to hold a stock that has depreciated 60% from ATH ?

Whilst these "HODL" People are spreading their bullshit here, and whilst the religious nature of bitcoin still prevails, the bear market lives on.

Incorrect. Better to be a seller at 1200 and buyer at 350.

Do not forget the mantra: buy low, sell high

Yes. It's buy low, sell high NOT buy and hold

Agree 100%

Just 1 thing. The "end of fiat" could take some time to play out, so you might want to convert some of your BTC into dollars / gold / some conventional investments now so you are not forced to sell your coins later in the case of a serious interim bear market.

Either that or get a job in order to cover any interim expenses. What I mean is, it could be many years or decades before bitcoin ever reaches huge adoption, and during that time the price could go much lower. Sure, bitcoin is receiving plenty of media hype and attention now, but that can disappear quickly. Be sure you are not caught out by this. Dont disregard your other options.

Don't forget also the risk of confiscation, so might be good to store on different devices in different global locations. The same goes for gold as well.

The last thing you want is to panic sell when the price is crashing. The best way to do that is to have some cash available in other places, so you are not putting all your eggs in one basket, and not to invest more than you can afford to loose.

Yes, it sounds boring. But - I've been in this situation before and trust me, it really does produce the end result of you keeping more of your money. Each of us has a certain amount of risk we can handle. The trick is to hit that amount, not to cross it.

(Which of course leads to the maxim: bulls and bears profit , pigs get slaughtered.)

I've been here since 2011 also. I have to admit, I think you're (OP) suffering from bear market syndrome.

Given where the world is going, I would not be surprised if we hit $1,000 coin again. Having said that, bitcoin will continue to be highly volatile, so we could well go down to $100 in the meantime.

RE: Ripple / Ethereum - these new coins may or may not be better than bitcoin, but bitcoin was the 1st crypto-coin and it will always have that 'first mover advantage' as a crypto-currency, as being the most heard of and used crypto-currency. Besides, the innovations offered by all the alt-coins, ripple and ethereum are not (yet) really substantial enough to cause people to drop bitcoin and move to something else. The innovation that satoshi created (bitcoins vs. paper money) is head and shoulders above anything added by any alt-coin.  Ethereum in particular has a long way to do. Ripple I am not so sure of and have not investigated fully (particularly as the source code was not available for a long time). However, the kind of scenario that would see bitcoin go alot higher would also drive the prices of all alt-coins higher. Even if bitcoin is superseded in the long term, it will not happen overnight and there is still profit potential remaining in holding bitcoin.

I have to admit that it is a little crazy to sell every coin. However, I have been in and out of BTC over the last few years (would have been better just to hold of course) ... so I know your feelings and motivations.

The market is always open however. The thing that worries me the most is if bank accounts are locked down (like is happening in Ukraine these past few days) it would become very difficult to get money to exchanges.

Perhaps I am naive but I still think the best days of bitcoin are ahead. Although I agree with you that I don't think crazy 3,000% returns are possible, I  still think it's feasible that bitcoin could go into the thousands of dollars again. That, and the possibility/probability that FIAT money may evaporate or be confiscated, keeps me invested in bitcoin.

However, if you're worried about bitcoin and would rather have something more historically stable, you can always buy gold instead. In the event of economic problems, bitcoin, gold and alt-coins will retain value together.

Interesting theory... watching this for sure.

HI,

I appreciate you're looking for practical solutions.

Let me make a few points though:

(1) All UK banks are extensions of the government, even if they are not directly owned by the government. AT some point then, even if not immediately, they will have to accept the government's line on bitcoin.

(2) For this reason, I think your best approach is to start at the government level not the bank level

(3) I would follow up by suggesting you meet the bitcoin group of supporters, based in London. There is a meetup group called Bitcoin London, I would suggest maybe talking to them in order to organize a collective effort.

(4) Finally - I would say that it will require huge action to get a UK bank to operate with a bitcoin exchange . Why ? Because it needs change at the government level, and that is not forthcoming right now.

Im not saying its impossible, but it is going to be quite a task.

Honestly, if I ws you ? Just buy bitcoin and hold.  The time will come when the government is forced to take bitcoin seriously. Until then, it will continue to be hard to operate a bitcoin-related venture in the UK.


PS. in the interm, I appreciate that means it's perhaps more difficult than it needs to be to acquire bitcoins. However, at least you can (still) buy them.

The UK is definitely not an open, free society. It's an oligopoly, run for the benefit of a small minority and the expense of everyone.

Don't kid yourself, as an individual you have basically no rights unless you have political connections or a lot of money. The banks don't care about you. Case in point: I have a perfect credit history and interest rates are 0%, so no cost to borrow money. However, I was declined even the ability to apply for a OVERDRAFT.

As stated , a small number are profiting at the expense of everybody right now. It's unacceptable but somehow unquestioned. If you want a chance at succeeding In th UK , your bet shot is to join the government.This is not what happens in a free society. This is what happens in 1980s Brazil, 1930s Germany, 1940-1990 Russia, 1950s China.

Basically, forget the banks. The whole system is run by and for the benefit of criminals. Bitcoin is the alternative