So, are we going up or down?

[sgbett]

I sold a big chunk my speculative coin at 33 before the run up. Just leaving my "Never sell" coins.

Yeah I was disappointed to miss out on more, but I was delighted that this paid off all my initial bitcoin investment (and some!). Really the latter is far more important than 'theoretical' possible gains.

I see the recent crash as ending up being more of a correction, perhaps I have been fooled but fortune favours the brave, and everything is play money now! So, leveraged back up my remaining speculative coins back to what I had before I sold (bitfinex - did I learn from bitcoinica losses... appatantly not hehe). Enough margin to cover a serious move, but I really don't expect one.

These ghosts from the past have a habit of cropping up, people need something to fixate on, especially with something so fundamentally un-valueable (should that be invaluable? ) as bitcoin.

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[ehoffman]

Yes, I think that prices will stabilize for some time.  People don't want to see another bubble.  Although it goes along with the Bitcoin news.  The last one was triggered by a series of good news (mainly Mt.Gox goes North-America, but also Namecheap, Amazon, WinPoker, etc. all in a few hours apart).

When difficulty start to rise though (ASIC), I suspect there will be a dramatic raise in the BTC price, probably followed by another crash/correction.  The difficulty won't have to raise so much though, that bubble will mainly be driven by the speculation and hype about imminent difficulty raise.

Also, throw in some major bad news and people will lose confidence in BTC and price will go down.  BitInstant is just a glitch, and it was surrounded by good news. But what if it occurred while there were no other news, while the mediatic attention would have turned solely at it?

So, it resumes to this...  If you want to know if BTC will raise or fall, you must not attempt to predict it directly, but you must instead be able to predict news surrounding Bitcoin.  That is the driving factor in the end.

Look at it, the last raise from 35$ started to happen suddenly and sharply.  Here on the forum, everyone was asking 'Why does the price raise suddenly?".  I didn't saw much anyone writing that it could be due to the Mt.Gox news until a day or 2 later.  People just looked at the prices rising and massively bought.  There's always a reason behind every moves.  And if people can't find it, and see that the price raise too quickly, then it leads to inevitable correction.

However, Bitcoin is much more mature than in 2011, and have a lot more attention and investors, so I don't think we'll see a crash like back then, unless something really bad happen to the Bitcoin network itself (which could be a possibility also...  51% attack, yet to be discovered vulnerability/security breach in the Bitcoin protocol itself, etc.).

So, always keep in mind that Bitcoin is play money.  A curiosity.  It may get you rich.  But it can make you bankrupt.  It's a game!  If a breach of Bitcoin is found, there's no turning back.  There's no one who will stop accounts in hope for better days.  It will be game over.  So invest wisely, always knowing that it's a gamble.  Don't ever invest money/mining hardware/etc that you're not ready to lose.

[AndyRossy]

I haven't got a clue. I'd rather just hold onto my bitcoins until I need to sell them. I'm hesitant to sell since intersango has lost a lot of liquidity and trust from people after the bitcoinica incident, and I don't like the idea of selling for GBP on any other exchange. I'm worried about ridiculous fees and security issues. I guess I can always store GBP on MtGox without a bank transfer and buy bitcoins back in the future. Yet I'm unsure as to if selling is a good idea regardless. Bitcoin is very volatile, so best to buy when on dips and then sell when you need to, rather than speculate, I think.

Made me smile.

[MatthewLM]

Why smile?

[zkay]

Why smile?

The OP said don't bother with speculating, just buy low and sell high. In other words, don't bother speculating, just speculate.

[notme]

Why smile?

The OP said don't bother with speculating, just buy low and sell high. In other words, don't bother speculating, just speculate.

No, he said buy low and sell when you need fiat.

[donjoe]

Time for another exchange, maybe?

Time to spread out and reduce the impact of any single exchange. For example, I moved everything to bitcoin-24.com this week because they don't require any documents or "verified status" to send me my € when I want them.

[Richy_T]

Time for another exchange, maybe?

Time to spread out and reduce the impact of any single exchange. For example, I moved everything to bitcoin-24.com this week because they don't require any documents or "verified status" to send me my € when I want them.

Interesting. I have not bought any BTC though exchanges yet (partly for those reasons) so I may have to check them out. I wish Currency Fair would take on BTC as I have had a fairly good experience with them so far.

[MatthewLM]

Why smile?

The OP said don't bother with speculating, just buy low and sell high. In other words, don't bother speculating, just speculate.

No, he said buy low and sell when you need fiat.

More or less I meant that. Buy when it dips and sell when you need to, ie. Need to buy stuff.