News: Recent price surge (Should I buy now or not?)

[MonkeyMarcel]

Hi Guys

This is my first post so please be gentle.

What do you guys make of the recent BitCoin price surge? From what I can tell it is the result of the Cyprus government possibly confiscating money right out of bank accounts. Even then traditionally safe small accounts are vulnerable. And so the citizens are running to BitCoin. See the article below.

What do you make of it, should I buy now before prices go to high or wait for prices to go down?

Cheers Marcel

Article Source:
http://bgr.com/2013/03/18/bitcoin-analysis-cyprus-crisis-382103/

Article:
Interestingly enough, several Bitcoin-related apps started spiking on the Spanish iPhone market over the weekend. Bitcoin Gold shot up in the Spanish iPhone Finance category from 498 to 72, and another app called Bitcoin Ticker zoomed from 526 to 52 in just one day. A leading service called Bitcoin App jumped from 194 to 151 between Friday and Sunday as Spaniards brooded over the Cyprus crisis.

Some vague rumors about possible savings account confiscations have been swirling around Europe over the past couple of months, but they had been shrugged off as American-style crazy conspiracy theories. Now, Europe is facing the reality of governments suddenly swooping in to take a bite out of even small savings accounts. Oddly enough, an EU official named Dijsselbloem rushed to point out on Saturday evening that further savings account levies cannot be ruled out.

It will be extremely interesting to see if we’ll witness a Bitcoin app craze in Spain over coming weeks.

The past decade has been rocky for virtual currencies. Despite the eternal optimism of Bitcoin fans, actual mass market acceptance seems to always loom “a couple of years in the future.” Every now and then, virtual currency market glitches make headlines, scaring off a chunk of potential customers. However, the fascinating weekend had by a tiny island nation in Eastern Mediterranean just might change the dynamics — at least in Southern Europe.

The most gruesome part of the Cyprus stunner was that even small accounts may have part of their money confiscated by the government. Everyone knows that small accounts are 100% insured against bankruptcies. Now consumers are learning that no such protections exist against government levies. Newspaper reports about how Germany had originally demanded a 40% overnight levy are not soothing the jitters in Club Med countries. Suddenly Bitcoin looks a bit less risky, at least to Spanish and Italian eyes.

What about the Cyprus app market? Bitcoin apps aren’t doing much over there — perhaps because bank accounts were frozen on Saturday and it’s too late to shift money from them.

Poignantly, the biggest top-10 free app climber on the iPhone during the crisis weekend was a game called Find a Way, Jose! It’s a puzzle where you need to free Jose from a seemingly impossible bind by shrewdly moving obstacles around; a goal that the government of Cyprus failed to achieve quite spectacularly.

[1714952003]

1714952003

[paradigm]

I would buy only what you can afford to lose and ideally I would buy mainly for the purposes of later using it for transactions in bitcoins in exchange for goods and services.   In my opinion the investment side of it is a disaster waiting to happen.

[metabyte]

I would buy only what you can afford to lose and ideally I would buy mainly for the purposes of later using it for transactions in bitcoins in exchange for goods and services.   In my opinion the investment side of it is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'll have to agree with this. I would only buy bitcoins right now if I had a place where I intend to spend them. Spend them as soon as you get them to avoid any losses.

[boscorocks]

Waiting for the price to go down will be a mistake in my opinion because it won't stay that way long enough. I am watching the ticker right now. It is going down from its crazy high this evening with a fair amount of selling in about an hour or two. If you don't have an instant way to buy or sell (which at this time I don't know of any) those price lowerings or flash crashes might be missed and it will just start going back up again.
Maybe starting out with partial bitcoins will help prevent the sticker shock that going on.

[boscorocks]

Waiting for the price to go down will be a mistake in my opinion because it won't stay that way long enough. I am watching the ticker right now. It is going down from its crazy high this evening with a fair amount of selling in about an hour or two. If you don't have an instant way to buy or sell (which at this time I don't know of any) those price lowerings or flash crashes might be missed and it will just start going back up again.
Maybe starting out with partial bitcoins will help prevent the sticker shock that going on.

[wopwop]

buy before it's too late

so far everyone who 'waited' lost

[MonkeyMarcel]

Thanx guys!

I am navigating strongly to buy a BFL machine to use for mining. What do you make of this?

P.S. I added a poll, please vote.

[Delitus]

 A working board by BFL was recently demonstrated, suggesting that it may not be too long until they begin shipping. Note however, that if you place an order now, there will be thousands of orders ahead of you which will be shipped first - so it may be a while before you receive yours. By that time, profitability will obviously be lower than today, so factor this into your consideration.

[Thorbinator]

Mining is insulated from price movements and is a steady payout. It has an unknown number of lead months before you actually get one, and the difficulty will be drastically different.

It is possible to day trade bitcoin, as it is the most volatile thing in existence. Be extremely wary of both fundamental predictions and technical analysis of price, since those have underlying assumptions that the nature of bitcoin may flip on it's head. Also be wary of people giving you advice. Be wary of me.

If you believe in the long term for bitcoin, buying and holding at any price under 10 grand is a great idea.

[MonkeyMarcel]

Thanx guys

[Forrie]

My personal opinion is that your question depends on what you need/want from Bitcoin.
If you want to buy things with it then go with a mining rig (although other than a cheap deal on ebay, ASIC is the only longer term way). It baffles me when I hear people complaining about the high price of Avalon #3 when it would appear to me that a 3mth ROI would still be possible at a network hashrate of 175TH/s and a 6mth ROI at 355TH/s assuming a price of $50 per BTC! When was the last time you saw an investment that paid for itself and then went on making money after less than 6mths?! If you only spend the Bitcoin you make then it is almost irrelevant what the exchange rates are.
If you want to make big money then you and me need to invent time travel and go back to when BTC was $5 and the Avalon guys were shopping around for pre-orders... but first we should go forward and see if BFL ever ship
As for currency markets, I am less familiar with this side of it, but from what I have read there are people who say this is a bubble that will inevitably crash and others that say that BTC has been under valued for so long this is just catching up. Consult a psychic, flip a coin... if you can predict it accurately then I certainly wouldn't share how with anyone! lol
I grew up on a farm, cash poor but asset rich... so I will always go with the option of buying an asset that may have some value later (ie. the mining rig).
Anyway that is just my 0.2BTC