I apologize if you feel I ignored your post or did not answer your question. The past few days, including today, have been very busy for me. Keeping up with this thread and the other thread on the other forum plus the PMs isnt a time-free set of tasks. Let me ask you a question: Have you seen the price of Casascius' coin shipping? He charges much more than I do per coin even when ordering a dozen. I'm only charging what I feel the market will pay. Hence my comment about it being the free market. You asked me "why not just sell the shipping at the cost". Well that is a bit difficult to always do given the fluctuation in BTC and LTC. So I set a price, that is the price. I'll make adjustments as time goes on. Which then brings me to my statement I think is a fair one: Please don't buy my coins if you feel my prices are too high. It is a simple concept. Thank you for the interest, even if I may not have answered your question the way you wanted me to the first 1, 2, 3 times.  Thanks for the replies Smoothie. I am aware are Casascius' shipping charge. A couple of points, most of us buy them on Ebay and we never have to deal with these shipping charges (if we do we buy in bulk and become a reseller on Ebay - I think). 2nd, are you aware of logical fallacies? By bringing up another seller you got into that area. Two that I can think of "Appealing to the poplular" as well as "Appealing to tradition". The point isn't what others do, the point is what is the right and nice thing to do. It is normal on this planet to have war, but that is a bad argument to have war. "But John has a Nintendo, so why can't I have one?", and on and on... Lastly, I guess I'm in a false dilemma (""Giving two choices when in actuality there could be more choices possible." There are only 2 choices - Either buy my coins or don't... Just be fair smoothie. If you can ship a coin for $11 don't charge 4 times the price or 6 or whatever. It is sort of ironic, these coins represent freedom from repressive systems... or so I thought.... |
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BTC and LTC price changes drastically, hence the change in price.
I have denominated the shipping in terms of BTC and LTC. I do not see a problem with that.
I've asked the same question twice and you have avoided it twice. I didn't ask about the shipping cost's denomination. I posted the shipping cost from USPS. Why are you charging 4X the shipping cost (now), and originally 6X? It doesn't cost anywhere near what you are charging. I'm just asking for some honesty here as a customer. Wouldn't it make more sense to just charge what it is? That protects BOTH the buyer and seller. To quote myself: When this thread started on June 26th BTC was just over $100. That would mean a shipping price of (.62X$103) = $67. USPS's top shipping charge that I saw was around $50.
The current price of BTC is not around $70, which would put the shipping rate at (.62X$70) = $43 I calculated out that the cost roughly to ship the two coins and the case within the U.S. would be $25 with registered mail. So I put a buffer on that based on the BTC/LTC fiat price. Do the same with international shipping via priority mail and registered mail and you get a price closer to $40 if not more. Also put a buffer there. Does this answer your question? Aside from that there really isnt anything left to explain on the shipping costs other than, it is the price I am charging. You don't have to buy my coins as I've stated many time previous to this. This is the free-market. If people decide I am charging too much I will get the message and may make changes. Technically I don't have to sell these coins if I dont want to. I choose to because the point of the coins is to get people who dont understand cryptocurrency in the virtual form to understand it in a physical form. So, after 3 times asking the same question, fist time getting completely ignored & 2nd time getting an evasive answer, and I now get 3 - "You don't have to buy my coins as I've stated many time previous to this.", "This is the free-market.", etc. What? This is how you talk to customers? I've dealt with many sellers before and they are 100% cooperative with shipping pricing. I've never experienced this before. I'm a bit confused actually. Do you realize that by being nicer to the customer you will get more customers? Maybe you will make your money anyway, but wouldn't it be better to get more of these out there? I didn't say you were charging too much for the coins, it is the shipping. Don't try to confuse the question. I am being explicitly clear. Charge more for the coins if you want and make the shipping price what it is. I was just asking a question that would benefit everyone. Better and lower rates for you and us. Charging so much for shipping (if we are only buying 2 - the limit I thought?) makes it a huge % of the coin cost. Oh, and you'll lower the rate if sales aren't so great??? Why not just find a shipping charge that is reasonable. I posted the image and I know it is true because it is all over Ebay. Insured to $400. Mine arrived in one week from the States to Germany. Further you don't have to tell my why you are doing this. I truly appreciate you making these coins, honestly. It is a GREAT service to us. But you don't have to justify your shipping costs with justification for making the coins. Thanks for your time regardless and good luck to you. I do hope to purchase your coins anyway but I'll just hope for a more reasonable shipping rate. (Perhaps once the price of BTC comes down a bit more.) IAS |
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BTC and LTC price changes drastically, hence the change in price.
I have denominated the shipping in terms of BTC and LTC. I do not see a problem with that.
I've asked the same question twice and you have avoided it twice. I didn't ask about the shipping cost's denomination. I posted the shipping cost from USPS. Why are you charging 4X the shipping cost (now), and originally 6X? It doesn't cost anywhere near what you are charging. I'm just asking for some honesty here as a customer. Wouldn't it make more sense to just charge what it is? That protects BOTH the buyer and seller. To quote myself: When this thread started on June 26th BTC was just over $100. That would mean a shipping price of (.62X$103) = $67. USPS's top shipping charge that I saw was around $50.
The current price of BTC is not around $70, which would put the shipping rate at (.62X$70) = $43 |
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Thanks for the information Smoothie. You didn't answer my question about shipping though. I just checked on the USPS website and it confirms the shipping rate of silver coins on Ebay.com to Germany. When this thread started on June 26th BTC was just over $100. That would mean a shipping price of (.62X$103) = $67. USPS's top shipping charge that I saw was around $50. The current price of BTC is not around $70, which would put the shipping rate at (.62X$70) = $43 All I'm saying is why not charge what the shipping actually is or just charge more for the coin?  |
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Thanks for the comments. I should have added (and almost did) that it was really hard flashing the SD Card. It took me like 6 tries to get it to work. I even re-downloaded the image to be safe.
I used both, command line tools as well as two Gui tools (SD Formatter & RPi-sd card builder v1.2) - problems with both. It was a cheap card.
I still have the old version on another (great card). I'll reflash that one as it doesn't appear to be a problem with MinePeon.
Hope that helped a few others out as well.
Appreciated,
IAS
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Beautiful coins smoothie. I would be interested in picking up 2, shipped to Germany.
Just a few questions:
For those of us that live in Europe we have to pay a VAT Tax (I think like 20%). It doesn't make sense to pay a tax on a currency. Also, the customs VAT Tax includes shipping in its calculation, a double whammy.
Would it be possible to have the receipt made out for the value of the coin without the LTC or could we have the option of self funding the coin ourselves ?
I've ordered silver coins from America before and you can definitely find shipping to Europe, insured, for pretty cheap. I just checked on Ebay.com (you can quickly verify) and found this:
Using USPS 1/2 ounce silver coins ship at $7.00 - $10.00 to Germany. (And many actually have free shipping).
It seems like you have a price of 28 and 25 LTC listed on the first page. Is the 2nd on the latest?
Thanks,
IAS
ps -
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I've been buying and selling the whole way down. My feeling is we will see the 50's but that may very will be the bottom of this thing. If we break though the amount of resistance in the 50's and hit the 40's, abandon all hope...Bitcoin is dead.
It is worrisome how easily we have gone down and with no real volume. If this keeps up I say we go way below 50. We need to have some capitulation volume when we reach the bottom, at least I would think (barring some great news of the like). Considering we are roughly at 70, have fallen pretty hard from 130 and 50 is not that far away, I really really wonder about the lack of volume. What happens when people really start selling? Look out below is my guess. |
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I'm experiencing some weird behavior with version 2.1 of Minepeon.
When I got home I noticed my erupter light was on (something wrong).
I couldn't log in using SSH nor connect via the GUI, so I restarted it. All was working fine and I checked things via SSH. I noticed it took a while to connect.
Then using the GUI the status pictures were not displayed. (They showed as little 1/4" "broken" pics.)
I then tried changing the Timezone to Berlin time and it kept resetting it to the first in the drop down list - Africa. It also wiped away the 15 minute donation (So now I have to see the dead kitty message.)
Of note here, I'm in Germany and we are +1 hr, as it says in the Berlin drop down list, but it still has my time off by 1 hour. So I have to select +2 hours to get it to work right (when it was working there.)
I tried resetting the donation time and pressed set but every time it wiped it clean.
Any ideas or log files I can check out?
Appreciated,
IAS
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I'm thinking out loud so please don't take this as advice. Rather looking for comments.
You'll get my usual response for this kind of TA: Candlestick bodies aren't suitable to derive support/resistance or derive trendlines from since they can be viewed as arbitrary in a continuously traded market like Bitcoin. The bodies only have meaning in relationship to directly adjacent ones in the form of candlestick patterns. What you can do instead is to find the largest volume around the target and use the that. Thanks for the comment. Gives me something to really think about. I notice I follow volume allot with candlesticks, so perhaps you are on to something. Which types of TA do you find the most accurate? IAS |
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Just read all five pages of this thread. I feel stunned at some of the comments. Those people are exactly why the denial --> fear --> capitulation phenomenon exist, and are a major source of profit for profitable traders.
$50 won't be the bottom. However, how big the $50 bull trap is will influence how hard the drop sub-$50 is. People who think this is a scare tactic are simply not thinking rationally, although it's almost disadvantageous to try to change people's thinking around since it requires people making mistakes in order to make money in a zero-sum system.
Very well said. I am almost convinced (a dangerous place to be so I have to stay on my toes) that 50 is not a bottom at all. We are going down hard and the volume just isn't there yet. Guys should start paying closer attention to what Rampion, Blitz, etc. are saying as these guys and guys like them are bulls, but realistic of the current situation. It is important to not confuse feelings with observation. In other words, don't let fear and belief guide you. Don't let loving BTC mean that you shouldn't sell when the chart say sell. I'll just post this chart again for those who care to look as there are some obvious statements being made.  |
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I think the down move is excellerating.... It is called... THE QUICKENING!  I also definitely agree that the fall is still faster.... We fell below the red line, then we fell between blue and now it's even faster (orange ellipse) About the bottom. I think that the bottom will look long (weeks or months). I think that the bottom will look long (weeks or months). But I hope that around 55 to 30, will either bounce (as the 9th June and May 3), or fall slower. About 50 area support is heavy, a lot of people waiting for this price and I think it will be a long-term profitable price. The bottom but may be below $ 50. I am thinking that 50 is not going to hold as a bottom (but might be a bounce point. It is just too psychological of a number). We have to see how the volume plays out though. That is probably key imo. |
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Notice the below chart. We are pretty much sitting on "support" from April 16 and 17th. HUGE volume days. I do give where we are a lot of consideration. But I would prefer to buy at 6 - 8 (edit - after looking at the chart I'd say around 17) dollars below where we are at (or more) ($50 is) and thinking we bounce up to form a hammer. I'm thinking out loud so please don't take this as advice. Rather looking for comments. I think it is too chancy to buy at the bottom of a red candle with essentially no wick (and on a Friday - weekends can be bad). |
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[...]
The three candles in a row point is just 3 days though, doesn't mention volume or the like. I still am confused by your statement. Also, I listed a lot of points regarding what I look at with TA, the size of the shares being sold, to me, is still significant.
I mean what are the chances that the sell sizes would be consistently larger than the buy sizes? Why not just have more volume down than up? When you throw the larger sizes in there it adds an alarm to me as the moves down like that, can start an avalanche. Know what I mean?
So again, my argument, or rather just a part of the points I mentioned, is not volume based, it is "sell sized" (I said blocks) based.
I'm cutting down the quote size, hope you don't mind. I'll try to make my points more clear... (1) The "three green candles" comment was an analogy, and had nothing to do with volume. The idea was: imagine someone posts "I am experienced in candlestick chart analysis", and then would drop that line about 3 green candles. You would say that that's not how it works, right? (2) Your "block" size argument rests on the fact that sell sizes are bigger than buy sizes. Since buy side and sell side of any executed trade are by definition equally large, what you mean is that sellers' positions on average are individually bigger than buyers' positions, right? (I'm honestly not trying to nitpick, just want to clearly understand your point.) (3) If so, then my question is simply: what prevents a whale from splitting up his buy orders, but consolidating his sell orders, to create the impression you described? (4) The order book is a prime tool for manipulation. So if (a) the order book tells you that the whales are selling while the small guys are buying, but (b) volume analysis would tell you that money flow is overwhelmingly positive (it is not, btw) then those two observations would conflict. And I would always trust (b) more than I would trust (a), because one is easy to manipulate, the other one less so. I appreciate your "hounding". I find it is how I learn. I know candlesticks pretty well, but not a whole lot else. So, I am learning along with the rest of you. 1) Basically yes. In other words, we have to take context and all the conditions into play. 2) If I understand you correctly, then yes. So, the sellers are selling huge amounts at once. They may break it up, but what gets me is the 5 minutes of silence and then suddenly all these sells go through. Now, maybe they are triggered by the initial sell, but my feeling has been it is the same seller breaking his lot up. The time is exact. But, it can be limit orders being set off. Perhaps it doesn't matter as the picture still makes sense, know what I mean? (Even if I am interpreting things incorrectly, it is still assisting in analyzing this move. ) 3) They do split up their orders but I get the feeling as I said in 2 above. Again, if I am making a fool of myself here, it is worth saying, I don't know a lot about market depth and such. But sometimes ignorance is indeed bliss as a simplified approach (what I think I'm seeing) is correct (or at least suffices.) 4) I really only use the order book to watch the sells go through. I used to use it more to give me an idea of the market (and still do a bit, but more as a trend analyzer than a overall "now" picture). I watch money flow, but that is particularly a dangerous indicator with BTC. I mean, think about it, the BTC's we see were all mined and not bought. (That happened later). So, unlike a stock, the money flow can be completely off. I think my thinking here is correct, no? I'm a candle guy (that sounds weird...) so correct me if I'm wrong... IAS ps - I don't really see lots of fear yet, hence as I said in the wall thread. I am thinking 50 is not a bottom, unless huge volume comes then. |
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I've placed my bid at $56. Too soon?
Don't think its soon, I placed around that, just to play the bounce. But I'm very doubtful its going to be the bottom. Probably we will bounce a few times from the 50s, and despair and capitulation will take more time to come. We went from $105ish to $66 very very quickly. I guess there will be a "wait and see" period sooner or later. Good call and I agree. What do you think about moving the bottom down a lot from 50? As I said above, the volume isn't there yet and we are still in the 60's. This move down may be much more violent than I thought. |
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I think the down move is excellerating. I was looking at the long red candles and they are getting larger in size on this down move. The volume is still not huge so it looks like we are building towards a very hard move down. Now, I might play the bottom of that one if there is volume, huge volume. Notice what I'm saying and the last red large hammer candle... It is called... THE QUICKENING!  Spot on here again IAS. Your "QUICKENING" is even more formed now. Good job. Thankyou Voodah, I think it was pretty obvious if one gazed at the chart. Do you know what I mean? The way the curve was increasing was like a reverse exponential curve (complete with growing volume. ) You see, the people who are big holders know we are going down faster and faster. The acceleration (spelled it right that time) is almost a mathematical function visible in the chart (sort of ironic when talking about BTC, no?) In light of our price, relative to the volume (still not high), things are actually looking worse. I thought about this tonight as I was coming home tonight. We are not seeing huge volume on this down move. I am just guessing (feeling, intuition and just a fraction from the chart), that 50 IS NOT the bottom. What do you TA guys think? IAS ps - Not to freak you out and I'm not joking, as I sat down to my computer (before refreshing) I said "67" and it was 67. When I left earlier today it was in the low 70's and holding. Hmmmmm... |
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To those of you guys/gals that are bullish on BTC, let me ask you the following:
1. Have you been following the tape? I have watched it for weeks (on and off) now and something has stood out to me. The size of the sell orders are usually much much larger than the buy orders. This tells me common Joes (like me and probably you) are doing the buying, while large holders are doing the selling. Is this not INCREDIBLY alarming to you? Have you even checked this?
Hi IAS, I believe your observation is correct that the sells come from large early adopters and the buys are smaller common Joes. However, I'm not sure that this needs to be alarming. If bitcoin were to succeed in mainstream adoption a - massive - distribution from few large to many small holders will need to have happened (in contrast to traditional stock & commodity markets). Assuming large holders will try to buy back the same amount of coins they are dumping today, if they would get a chance to buy them back for a considerable lower price, their plan needs to not work out for a distribution to occur. The price not going as low as they expect so that they do not succeed to buy the coins back is one scenario that would accomplish this better distribution. Another scenario accomplishing better distribution is whales selling too early before the bubble. I can imagine this happened to a considerable amount of whales too in the bubble runup (those selling below $30 for example). However if the price goes to say $10 now, those whales will yet again get a chance to buy all those coins back. I think bitcoin achieves this wider distribution mostly by going up much faster than even hardcore believers can imagine. Because I think a distribution cannot happen when the price goes lower than imagined as this concentrates the coins more to a few smart, courageous and cash rich investors. So I would think that with the sole exception of a few months during the 2011 crash when it was depressed, all other periods achieved wider distribution. Many people expect the same to happen today, a crash whereby todays sellers can buy a lot more coins later. But if that would be true no wider distribution would be accomplished. And although this can happen yet again, as it did in the depression of 2011, the odds are lower rather than higher I would think. I could be wrong. I have no emperical proof to support my claims about when distribution is happening and when concentration is happening. Just thinking out loud. I agree that these early adopters will by back in lower (and perhaps already have started to add some insurance). But, imagine this, if they sold shares in larger volumes, like 100, 500, 1000, etc., why would they be buying back in at 10, 20, 50, etc? That is the buying pressure I see. I think when they buy back in we will all know it. I am not saying I know, just sharing my opinion. Clearly this area is a bit of a guessing game with lots of possibilities. Interesting regarding the distribution. I think we have to consider that we are the early adopters ourselves. We are still pre Netscape Navigator in a sense. Back to the thread, the fear is really going to start once we hit the 60's. $68 is a kind of key support imo as is $60. IF we slice through those, look out below. We are not so far from 50 and the volume is not anywhere near heavy yet. |
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I really wonder how much longer we can go down without having a noticeable bounce up. I don't want to test this level with a buy (even though we are near a critical level (68 ish to me)) as it is still possible to slice down lower. But looking at our last big move down (130ish - 100, with bounce off 88), makes me think this current move might settle around 70ish (with a bounce off the low 70's or upper 60's (edit)).
Just throwing that out there.
Starting to feel a bit the same ... we are holding up here pretty well Then again, that spike to $78 got rejected pretty damn quick Hmmmm Yes and that is partly why I'm staying put. (no pun) I feel like Yoda is sitting on my shoulder and saying greed is bad. So, I will just sit and hope to by back in when the dust clears... There is still a bigger purpose here. Use the Force. |
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[long, extremely insightful comment]
Thanks for posting. I agree enthusiastically on (almost) all points. I also very much appreciate that, despite your trust in sound TA (which I generally share), you also acknowledge that any sufficiently strong good news will throw out all the (technical) predictions out of the window, at least for a while (I've been saying something similar in several different threads in the past). There's one minor? maybe not so minor? point of criticism. One of your arguments appeals to the intuition that all the large volume trades are sales, while the heavy lifting of buying is done by the small guys (I'm paraphrasing here), and then another comment following a similar line. I would like to point out that this is a somewhat naive form of volume-based analysis you're doing there. A bit as if I would look at a candlestick chart (which you said is more your specialty), and state "there are three green candles in a row, that must mean we're in an uptrend". More specifically, the situation you describe could also be the result of large holders of bitcoin selling en masse, then rebuying, in smaller portions, at a lower price. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case, but your argument seemed like an appeal to intuition (about volume), and that alone is probably not up to the task of analysing the market. See for example chodpaba's posts of the past days for a volume based argument why the current downtrend isn't sustainable, and decide for yourself if you see any merit in his statements (I more often than not do). Thanks for the comment (and honesty). Regarding the volume of trades, maybe you misunderstood or missed my point - I am watching the buys and sales go through on clarkmoody or http://trading.i286.org/ and I notice the size of the "blocks" are generally MUCH LARGER on the sells. This is purely observational, the intuitive part, if I can call it that, is that "I get the feeling" those large block sizes are early adopters and miners. But even then, it makes sense. I mean who can afford to buy 100, 200, 1000 shares? That is a lot of money in a small small market. Let's say I can afford to buy 100 shares, if I sold I would probably not do it at around the same time as other guys selling those large blocks, which is what I see happening. And the buys (as you say being smaller in block size) are no where nears as much as the larger blocks, that is why we are going down. That part is purely volume, but I was talking block size. I might be mistaken as I am no expert with "watching the tape" and no one else has commented on this that I have seen. But it does fit my theory. I understand your point, as far as I can tell. unless, when you say "block", you're actually talking about the technical concept. then I didn't understand your argument Assuming you're talking about size of individuals trades (yes?), your argument makes some intuitive sense. Agreed. So does "three green candles in a row, up we gooooo!". My point was that what you see (small chunks for buying, large chunks for selling) could also be the result of a/several not-completely-stupid large holders covering their tracks. If that's the case, then the immediate observation you described is not able to support your conclusion ("confidence in bitcoin is eroding"). There are more sophisticated methods to gauge if volume and supply/demand supports or contradicts the current trend. I'm not an expert in them, all I was saying is, your volume based argument sticks out somewhat as being slightly, sorry for calling it that, naive, compared to the rest of your points. The three candles in a row point is just 3 days though, doesn't mention volume or the like. I still am confused by your statement. Also, I listed a lot of points regarding what I look at with TA, the size of the shares being sold, to me, is still significant. I mean what are the chances that the sell sizes would be consistently larger than the buy sizes? Why not just have more volume down than up? When you throw the larger sizes in there it adds an alarm to me as the moves down like that, can start an avalanche. Know what I mean? So again, my argument, or rather just a part of the points I mentioned, is not volume based, it is "sell sized" (I said blocks) based. |
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I really wonder how much longer we can go down without having a noticeable bounce up. I don't want to test this level with a buy (even though we are near a critical level (68 ish to me)) as it is still possible to slice down lower. But looking at our last big move down (130ish - 100, with bounce off 88), makes me think this current move might settle around 70ish (with a bounce off the low 70's or upper 60's (edit)).
Just throwing that out there.
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I think the down move is excellerating. I was looking at the long red candles and they are getting larger in size on this down move. The volume is still not huge so it looks like we are building towards a very hard move down. Now, I might play the bottom of that one if there is volume, huge volume. Notice what I'm saying and the last red large hammer candle... It is called... THE QUICKENING! pun? Freudian slip? heheheh, really, I thought my spell check was broken! I couldn't figure it out and it just hit me now... (This is what happens when you live in a foreign country for years....) |
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