Well at least we can't blame the panic sell-off on finex margined longs this time.

I have always said that crypto exchanges are guilty until proven innocent by default. 

Crypto markets are a bit EASIER to trade imo.  Moves are more organic (albeit a bit more volatile) with fewer whipsaws, stop hunts, ect.  Machines and algos haven't overrun the crypto markets like they have the legacy markets... yet, but it's probably coming.  Anyway, buy-and-hold/dollar-cost-averaging has always been the real winner.  If you can't successfully trade bitcoin, then it is highly unlikely that you will successfully trade stocks.  Regulation doesn't matter.

Retracements should get shallower on the way up if it is a bull.  Last November's retrace was about .75.  .618 of this move would be around 566.  Looks like a good stopping point.

$415 - the uptrend looks be rolling over.  Bitcoin consensus looks questionable at this point.  Mining is mostly centralized.  After 6 years, there is still no concrete vision of long term scalability. 

Of course this could easily be a bear trap... after all, the 21 million limit has yet to be compromised and looks to be set in stone.

Still waiting.................

Why multi-billion and not multi-million?  These chains are already valued in the multi-millions.  Also, some of these attacks are free or nearly free, so why not just go ahead and do it (unless of course it can't be done, which I suspect). 

Again, until someone demonstrates that these attacks are possible and can cause significant damage, then POS is deemed sufficiently secure. 

I'm with spartacusrex.  The ultimate test is for someone to pull of one of these (theoretical) attacks and catastrophically and irreparably damage the network in some way, or at least prove that one of the attacks can be used to consistently and successfully attack the network and/or individual users.  Until this test is completed, I'm going to assume that POS and other variations (DPOS) is sufficiently secure. 

Also, it would be in everyone's best interest if POS was broken sooner rather than later while valuations are low.  So please, if you have a guaranteed attack, go ahead and do it and prove POS useless.

Futures down sharply this morning.  Both S&P 500 and oil testing lower support.






Futures, Global Stocks Tumble As Europe Bank, Periphery Carnage Unfolds



The super bowl prediction market asset was successfully settled.  Check it out to get an idea of how these assets trade.http://cryptofresh.com/a/SPORTS.SBLAFC
Openledger

Lets see if the correlation lasts
S&P 500 And Crude Oil Back On Track


We have had our first few trades now in WTICRUDE.  Check it out

Nice.  Now sufficiently decentralized.

How to gain synthetic leverage with bitshares binary options.

If the S&P 500 is trading at or near 1875, then the SPFIVE binary option should trade around 0.5 bts/SPFIVE as it would be considered ‘at the money’.  Of course the actual price is dependent on liquidity and market participants.  Suppose you take out a short position at 0.5 bts/SPFIVE and suppose the S&P 500 loses half its value to trade at 937.5 by October.  At that point, SPFIVE market participants would likely determine that the chances are very low that the S&P 500 would get back to 1875 and they would subsequently price the option very low.  Suppose you could then buy your SPFIVE back at 0.1 bts (or lower) to cover the short position you took at 0.5 bts/SPFIVE.  That gives you a gain of 80% using the binary option trade vs a 50% gain with a standard, non-leveraged short.  Holding the option until expiration will give you a 100% gain.  However, if the S&P 500 finishes above 1875 at the end of the year, then you lose 100% if you are still short any SPFIVE, but this risk profile is similar to any other kind of leveraged financial product.  The point is binary options are inherently more volatile than the underlying asset, giving traders synthetic leverage, especially as the contract gets closer to the expiration date.

Greeks are often used to gauge the theoretical values of options as derived from performance of the underlying asset and time constraints.  I don’t fully understand them and don’t use them personally as I don’t see the need but they are useful to many traders. 

Right now settlement is dependent upon the creator of the asset, so in that respect settlement is centralized.  Eventually, price feeds similar to smartcoin price feeds will allow for a completely decentralized solution.

https://bitshares.org/technology/price-stable-cryptocurrencies/


If the asset is not settled correctly, then money will not be distributed correctly.  The market resolves to a condition of true or false, so it is pretty hard to get wrong, unless the creator is malicious. 

Some Technical Analysis:

Crude has come back within the long-term range from 10 to 40.  Will it stay there is the question, especially with all the debasement of fiat currencies.




S&P 500 long-term uptrend still intact




Death Cross with bullish divergence and weekly support.  Will we see some range-bound consolidation here?  Iffy

The following Prediction Market assets are available for trading on the bitshares blockchain.

SPFIVE - If the S&P 500 is at or above $1875.00 on December 30th 2016 then this asset will be worth 1BTS. If the S&P 500 is below $1875.00 then this asset will be worth 0BTS.

WTICRUDE - If the price of WTI Crude oil is greater or equal to $40.00 on December 30th at 4PM eastern time. (UTC-5) then this asset will be worth 1BTS. If the price is below $40.00 this asset will be worth 0BTS. If you believe that the price will be above $40.00 buy and hold. If you beleive the price will be below $40.00 borrow and sell.

Click here for more information on how this Prediction Market works.

To trade:
1.    create an account on the OpenLedger platform
2.   Fund the account with bitshares – other assets are less liquid at the moment but should eventually be available for trading.  So for now, you will probably have to use the native currency, bts
3.   Navigate to your market of choice:



4.   Place your bets

Disclaimer:  I am in no way responsible for any problems or financial loss that may occur when using this (still experimental) system.

S&p closed below 1900 today - this could get ugly but short term oversold.  Watching 50 day on bitcoin.

Pretty sure he is taking about the S&P

I see you are back to trolling around here again mat.  If the market doesn't go your way then it is manipulated.  Bear moves fail in bull markets and vice versa.  That's just how it works.  You will have to cite your 70% figure if you can because this is the most bullish I have seen this market in a while.