bubble or bulltrap?

[fcmatt]

matt, I like how you stay bearish for what, 3rd year now, even though history is trying hard to teach you a lesson, but you just would not listen would you?

what history? you mean where bitcoin was created and worth nothing...
then it ran up to 32...
then it fell down to 2...
and now it appears to be running up again...
and if history repeats...

[notme]

matt, I like how you stay bearish for what, 3rd year now, even though history is trying hard to teach you a lesson, but you just would not listen would you?

what history? you mean where bitcoin was created and worth nothing...
then it ran up to 32...
then it fell down to 2...
and now it appears to be running up again...
and if history repeats...

He's a miner.  He can make a pretty nice profit with much lower risk by being bearish.  Not my style, but I imagine my life is very different from his.

[creativex]

Sometimes being familiar with cryptos works against us.

The competing digital currencies are fiat, BTC, and LTC. Everybody thinks Litecoins are beaten down to death because they look atrocious next to BTC, but they've actually held their own or gained vs the worst of the bunch...USDs. It doesn't matter how overvalued we BTC old hands think they are currently, people just finding out about them look at the all time high and think they're getting a bargain...even at $25.75.

I know this happens because I was recently contacted by an old friend, who wanted to ask me if I was into those "bitcoin thingies" he recently heard about and obtained. My response was WTF! I TOLD YOU TO BUY BTCs OVER  A YEAR AGO!

[Crypt_Current]

I don't have access to my marked up chart at the moment, but even the most recent high of 25.7 was at the top of the trend channel, and it has slightly corrected since then with possibly more on the way. Based on that, I don't think there was a breakout, but the oscillator is possibly showing the increased exhaustion of moving higher at this point which worries me. I think we've got a short term correction to the bottom of the trend channel before anything else. My answer to your question is dependent on whether or not that small correction happens.

Please post that marked up chart when it becomes available.

[byronbb]

matt, I like how you stay bearish for what, 3rd year now, even though history is trying hard to teach you a lesson, but you just would not listen would you?

what history? you mean where bitcoin was created and worth nothing...
then it ran up to 32...
then it fell down to 2...
and now it appears to be running up again...
and if history repeats...

It fell to 2 because gox was hacked. The hacking was very serious because "fake coins" were sold on the exchange. There was no way to know how many of these fake coins were sold for fiat. So the value of the price ON GOX was untrustable. Of course this was NOT a weakness of the bitcoin network itself, but because gox was the market pricing mech the price HAD to be reset. 

[piramida]

what history? you mean where bitcoin was created and worth nothing...

Yes, the history which says "if you wait for a year, you bitcoin is guaranteed to be worth at least twice as much". But you keep selling them whenever you get them. It is good to see people hold on to their beliefs, even when market steadily goes into another direction. I'm a permabull, I was buying at $20, then at $10, then at $5 etc all the way down, now buying the way up, and I don't plan to stop soon, so I hope there are more permabears who don't stop to sell to me. That's all

[dooglus]

The real test for bitcoin's enthusiastic investors and speculators is the previous highest mark, which briefly touched $32 before plummeting down to barely more less than $2. 

FTFY. It was $1.99998

No, it was $1.994.

long term, bitcoin remains bullish as long as prices stay above the November 2011 low of 1.994 $.

[fcmatt]

The real test for bitcoin's enthusiastic investors and speculators is the previous highest mark, which briefly touched $32 before plummeting down to barely more less than $2. 

FTFY. It was $1.99998

No, it was $1.994.

long term, bitcoin remains bullish as long as prices stay above the November 2011 low of 1.994 $.

We have two finalists for the most anal point of the year award! Congratulations.

[Crypt_Current]

The real test for bitcoin's enthusiastic investors and speculators is the previous highest mark, which briefly touched $32 before plummeting down to barely more less than $2. 

FTFY. It was $1.99998

No, it was $1.994.

long term, bitcoin remains bullish as long as prices stay above the November 2011 low of 1.994 $.

We have two finalists for the most anal point of the year award! Congratulations.

Hey, value had here == "long term, bitcoin remains bullish as long as prices stay above ... 1.994 $."  S0352 said so 

[DoomDumas]

I am quite confident there are many more suckers out there who will be happy to buy bitcoins at an even higher price.
I will patiently wait until they blow their load.

eh, I'm still buying, and will continu to buy all the way to 100$ !

- aBTCsucker

[MJGrae]

I don't have access to my marked up chart at the moment, but even the most recent high of 25.7 was at the top of the trend channel, and it has slightly corrected since then with possibly more on the way. Based on that, I don't think there was a breakout, but the oscillator is possibly showing the increased exhaustion of moving higher at this point which worries me. I think we've got a short term correction to the bottom of the trend channel before anything else. My answer to your question is dependent on whether or not that small correction happens.

Please post that marked up chart when it becomes available.

Here you go, it's actually fared even better than I thought it had earlier. Price has so far perfectly adhered to the channel:



As you can see, we established support and resistance between 1/24/13 and 1/26/13. An ascending price channel with support and resistance was confirmed between 1/31/13 and 2/2/13, and today we tested (and so far kept) the upper channel resistance around 25.75.

I had more stuff on here earlier, but my chart got reset. Regardless, this is the point I was making.

[zby]

I don't have access to my marked up chart at the moment, but even the most recent high of 25.7 was at the top of the trend channel, and it has slightly corrected since then with possibly more on the way. Based on that, I don't think there was a breakout, but the oscillator is possibly showing the increased exhaustion of moving higher at this point which worries me. I think we've got a short term correction to the bottom of the trend channel before anything else. My answer to your question is dependent on whether or not that small correction happens.

Please post that marked up chart when it becomes available.

Here you go, it's actually fared even better than I thought it had earlier. Price has so far perfectly adhered to the channel:



As you can see, we established support and resistance between 1/24/13 and 1/26/13. An ascending price channel with support and resistance was confirmed between 1/31/13 and 2/2/13, and today we tested (and so far kept) the upper channel resistance around 25.75.

I had more stuff on here earlier, but my chart got reset. Regardless, this is the point I was making.

You have three tops here - you choose to draw the line through the current top and the middle one - but miss a bit the bottom one, if you draw it through the bottom one and the middle one - then you'd see that there was a break out, however small.  If you always draw the line through the current top then you'll never have a breakout by definition.

[MJGrae]

I don't have access to my marked up chart at the moment, but even the most recent high of 25.7 was at the top of the trend channel, and it has slightly corrected since then with possibly more on the way. Based on that, I don't think there was a breakout, but the oscillator is possibly showing the increased exhaustion of moving higher at this point which worries me. I think we've got a short term correction to the bottom of the trend channel before anything else. My answer to your question is dependent on whether or not that small correction happens.

Please post that marked up chart when it becomes available.

Here you go, it's actually fared even better than I thought it had earlier. Price has so far perfectly adhered to the channel:



As you can see, we established support and resistance between 1/24/13 and 1/26/13. An ascending price channel with support and resistance was confirmed between 1/31/13 and 2/2/13, and today we tested (and so far kept) the upper channel resistance around 25.75.

I had more stuff on here earlier, but my chart got reset. Regardless, this is the point I was making.

You have three tops here - you choose to draw the line through the current top and the middle one - but miss a bit the bottom one, if you draw it through the bottom one and the middle one - then you'd see that there was a break out, however small.  If you always draw the line through the current top then you'll never have a breakout by definition.

Nice theory, but no, that line was actually drawn BEFORE the current top existed. In fact that "line" was drawn when price was still around 24.30 or something like that. the "miss a bit of the bottom one" is 90% wick that is exposed above the line. These "lines" are drawn as parallel rays, not free-floating lines so there isn't any way I could have just chosen whether or not to change the angle of one of them to fit the chart.

Furthermore, the top resistance is based off of the bottom channel, as I use a parallel ray tool to draw the bottom support, which then duplicated the bottom ray's angle and I moved that up top so as best to fit the bottom and middle resistance. This is the best fit, and it has applied perfectly. Go ahead, check my logic.

REGARDLESS, I wouldn't be worried about a five pip "breakout" anyway. That's not a breakout, that's a cocktease waste of breath. Especially since I purposely included the top channel resistance from before the current one, so you can see how there was a little breakout there that didn't matter even the slightest bit because it tanked shortly thereafter.

And, seeing as how price has adhered to my price channel, while "breaking out" of your top resistance, I'd say of the two of us that I have the more accurate markup at the moment.

You're entirely reading into it too much. Markets don't perfectly adhere to lines most of the time. They over and under-shoot. There's no reason to make sure you draw your lines from perfect top to perfect top and perfect bottom to perfect bottom, etc. Because markets just don't to that. If markets worked off of pure technicals, bitcoin itself would drop down to 0.01 and 100.00 multiple times a day. The markups are to show general trends, they are to show ideas and hive-mind mentality in markets. A difference of a few cents from where you thought support and resistance are and where price actually reversed is not significant most of the time.

What does "worry" me about my resistance level on this chart is that it looks like we might have another loose inverse (bullish) head and shoulders forming with the neck line which would significantly break out above my resistance level. Alternatively, it could be a gartley in which case it would tank down and confirm my resistance. Image:

[twolifeinexile]

Bitcoin is in a bullish trend, it will continue until it stops. This could last very long time (markets are known to be stubborn and irrational for longer than many can remain solvent).

The Bitcoin market can remain stubborn and irrational (nonsensical term!) indefinitely because it is an equity based play where, currently, there is very little in the way of leverage instruments. That means holders of bitcoins can remain solvent indefinitely; there is no debt to service and no margin calls.

BingGO!, most people didn't realize the difference of bitcoin market (as of now) vs. stock market, even bond market.
Those market sare highly leveraged and also depend on credit to function.
bit coin is not!

(But note Chinese stock market is not leverageable in the past but still volatile)

[Jutarul]

I know this happens because I was recently contacted by an old friend, who wanted to ask me if I was into those "bitcoin thingies" he recently heard about and obtained. My response was WTF! I TOLD YOU TO BUY BTCs OVER  A YEAR AGO!

Lol. Similar experience

The smartest thing to do is to tread BTC as a savings account. Only cash out when you need to cover bills. No intelligence required.

[ElectricMucus]

The smartest thing to do is to tread BTC as a savings account. Only cash out when you need to cover bills. No intelligence required.

wow, just wow.

[Vladimir]

Some could actually argue that some intelligence is required to be able to make a conscious decision to not daytrade Bitcoin.

[mccorvic]

News flash: In fact, 2011-2012 was just one big beartrap

Some could actually argue that some intelligence is required to be able to make a conscious decision to not daytrade Bitcoin.

This means I'm practically a genius!

[MJGrae]

Some could actually argue that some intelligence is required to be able to make a conscious decision to not daytrade Bitcoin.

Let's not forget that there's a difference between day trading and tactical (re)allocation once a week or so. Just because I follow the charts daily doesn't mean I react to them as a day trader would. Some could argue that some intelligence is required to realize that you should periodically re-position your savings vehicle so that it has the least likelihood of losing value and a greater likelihood of greater return.

[Vladimir]

"tactical (r)eallocation once a week or so" is effectively daytrading just on a bit longer timeframe. Some intelligence is required, lol, to realize that if one uses euphemisms it does not change the reality.

Also claimed likehood of a greater return is a very arguable, could as well be an illusion. With greater rewards there are usually greater risks.