Is this a massive "correction" or what?

[cjspiller28]

A few weeks ago we saw BTC rapidly increase to ~$85 and then drop to ~$60 and admittedly I panicked and sold 3 of them at that point. It was the first time I witnessed a drop and did not realize that it was a "correction" in effect. A day later it was back.

Now it has gone up to $260 at an unbelievable pace and down to $200.

I do believe the day will come when BTC falls and can't get back up, but I would seriously doubt it's any time in the near future.

So what do you think? Time to take advantage and buy? Or time to panic?

For the record, I'm not going to do either (buy or panic).  I have already sold back most of my expense in Bitcoins over time, and I'm just going to sit back and hope for the best

[jrlichtman]

Looks like somebody messing with MtGox again to me.

Went down to $190, and now (maybe) heading back up again.

[klondike_bar]

Looks like somebody messing with MtGox again to me.

Went down to $190, and now (maybe) heading back up again.

it backed down to almost $150 now. What's happening looks like 1 of 2 things (or both combined):

1) the bubble has burst. The climb from $20 to $280 was an obvious bubble, but no-one knew its ceiling (my guess was gonna be around $350). The drop in price has multiplied perceptions that the ceiling was hit, and we will see very rapid rippling of this across the network. and will test a lower valuation limit today or tommorrow. (probably around $100) and bounce up to hunt for a new happy medium around $125-$200 range

2) BEAR RUSH. This is more common then many might think, and boils down to a few heavy hands that hold thousands of coins putting a significant portion for sale below market. this drives down the asking price, saturates the market, and triggers others to panic sell. The heavy hands then re-buy for cheaper and walk away smiling. Right now we would be in the tail-end of this mechanism, and should see some large asks in the 125-175 range as these people rebuild thier wallet with almost 2X the coins they had prior.


I think both have occurred, and its hard to judge where the price will level out. I think >$100 is entirely justified for bitcoin at this point, and we could easily resume the rally at a more linear pace to test $300 again this week.

[Guido]

the problem is all sites have substandard servers and infrastructure

go visit 5 main sites, all have different prices for bitcoin!

bitstamp,btc-e, mtgox etc
no-one knows true price so rumour control sets in

plus mtgox are handling orders hours old or longer

[Thrasher66099]

I think it's combo of things. Here is my timeline of what happened.


1) A big player decides $265 is a good time to cash out. They decide to drop a couple thousands btc on the market all at once.

2) The epic price rise slows, then stops and stabilizes as demand can't eat through the thousands of coins as quickly as it normally can.

3) The "DDoS bandits" see that now is the right time for another DDoS snatch and grab.

4) As the DDoS brings many of the major exchanges to a near halt people begin to panic and the inevitable correction begins to take place.

5) As the correction continues the DDoS bandits realize they can create an overcorrection if they continue the attack.



And here we are.

[jrlichtman]

The question is this: after manipulating the market down to 'n', will they then manipulate it back up to some higher peak?

If so, is there anything to the value of BTC beyond the current consensus of the (name your favorite) mafia?

[tsaranen]

Looks more like a ddos than a legit correction. Still hope I had the funds to buy at this point, allas it will take a few days more to get verified.

[capaman]

Is't basically a classic panic-sell effect.
You have to decide what you feel will be happening in the near future: will it bounce up, will it crash forever? Is it still good to buy low, anways? I'd say yes, but hey, it's your money.