Crash coming?

[nobbynobbynoob]

If you have a BTC stash, it would be wise to sell some now. Then when this speculation-spike is over, you can buy even more BTC back. -Or buy more hardware.

No thanks. My stash is nowhere near big enough to consider placing asks on an exchange*. I do buy stuff with BTC sometimes, though, to help bitcoin retailers and the economy.

* I'm following Trace Meyer's advice, basically. In future, I might want to make something useful of my life and run a bitcoin-related business. I have a BTC stash stored offline - no need to get into a pointless bragging contest about how big it is or isn't, let's just say, it's greater than BTC1 - and will put that to good use when it has appreciated into something meaningful. Can I start an enterprise with equivalent of 100 USD? No. 5000 USD? No. 50000? Possibly. When it's worth at least $100.000 in terms of today's dollars, and in all likelihood a lot more besides, that's the time to start unloading, but by then there'll be no need to place asks on an exchange! Buy fiat currency? No thanks. To speculate, to take a short position on bitcoin, there are always altcoins: that may be their killer use.

[1714773153]

1714773153

[Malawi]

if its like gold ... nope .. it wont go down 

If it's like gold, it means that it wont go to 0, but keep some value.

http://www.macrotrends.org/1333/gold-and-silver-prices-100-year-historical-chart

[naphto]

It only needs one single event that let people think that the price will decrease, and it will most likely come close to 0, everyone being afraid of loosing money and willing to take a few bucks out of nothing.


Still, it's not proven that a single negative event will appear anytime soon ...

[Malawi]

If you have a BTC stash, it would be wise to sell some now. Then when this speculation-spike is over, you can buy even more BTC back. -Or buy more hardware.

No thanks. My stash is nowhere near big enough to consider placing asks on an exchange*. I do buy stuff with BTC sometimes, though, to help bitcoin retailers and the economy.

* I'm following Trace Meyer's advice, basically. In future, I might want to make something useful of my life and run a bitcoin-related business. I have a BTC stash stored offline - no need to get into a pointless bragging contest about how big it is or isn't, let's just say, it's greater than BTC1 - and will put that to good use when it has appreciated into something meaningful. Can I start an enterprise with equivalent of 100 USD? No. 5000 USD? No. 50000? Possibly. When it's worth at least $100.000 in terms of today's dollars, and in all likelihood a lot more besides, that's the time to start unloading, but by then there'll be no need to place asks on an exchange! Buy fiat currency? No thanks. To speculate, to take a short position on bitcoin, there are always altcoins: that may be their killer use.

Meaning that you agree that it would be wise to sell some if you had 500+ :-D
I am just saying that if you have enough bitcoin for it to be equal to several months of paid work, and the price have skyrocketed within a few weeks, it would be wise to diversify.

[nobbynobbynoob]

Meaning that you agree that it would be wise to sell some if you had 500+ :-D
I am just saying that if you have enough bitcoin for it to be equal to several months of paid work, and the price have skyrocketed within a few weeks, it would be wise to diversify.

Yes, I agree. But I'd probably be buying gold and general stuff, not fiat.

[Malawi]

It only needs one single event that let people think that the price will decrease, and it will most likely come close to 0, everyone being afraid of loosing money and willing to take a few bucks out of nothing.


Still, it's not proven that a single negative event will appear anytime soon ...

I do not think that BTC will become valueless, but my bet would be that it goes down to the $30-50 range. Most likely the lower end of that bracket before rebounding to the upper end of the bracket.

But then again, I'm not an economist. If I were, I would scream buy buy buy(at all cost) as long as it went up, and then sell sell sell(at any price) as soon as it started to decline.

nobbynobbynoob : I think gold is also overpriced ATM, just like in the start of the 80's. But I guess that you live in the US where the economic outlook is not too promising ATM.

If you really wanna hedge, you should go for a solid home in the countryside, some livestock and hunting gear. ;-)

[BitcoinAttorney]

What no one has been talking about is the floodgate of ASICs that are coming online very soon. Miners are going to produce a lot of coins soon. More coins in circulation means lower value. That will burst the bubble, allowing a new set of long-term (stabilizing) investors to get in at a lower price. When is BFL delivering? Crash to follow.

They will not mine more coins. The distribution of coins are already set. The effect will be that they will get a larger proportion of the coins, and that mining with GFC's will become absolete.

What do you mean they will not mine more coins? What do you think the point of mining is? Bitcoins are a finite "resource," (is that what you mean by the distribution being already set?) but not all of them are in circulation today. Coins have to be mined before they are available (valuable). You can't buy a Porsche with unmined bitcoins. When production of coins increases, the value will decrease as people sell them for real money.

[holy_cow]

What no one has been talking about is the floodgate of ASICs that are coming online very soon. Miners are going to produce a lot of coins soon. More coins in circulation means lower value. That will burst the bubble, allowing a new set of long-term (stabilizing) investors to get in at a lower price. When is BFL delivering? Crash to follow.

They will not mine more coins. The distribution of coins are already set. The effect will be that they will get a larger proportion of the coins, and that mining with GFC's will become absolete.

What do you mean they will not mine more coins? What do you think the point of mining is? Bitcoins are a finite "resource," (is that what you mean by the distribution being already set?) but not all of them are in circulation today. Coins have to be mined before they are available (valuable). You can't buy a Porsche with unmined bitcoins. When production of coins increases, the value will decrease as people sell them for real money.

The network tries to mine 2016 bitcoins per 2 weeks.  If the 2016th block is mined before the end of 2 weeks, the difficulty will go up and it will be harder to mine.  The network corrects itself.

[Malawi]

I agree with previous poster ;-)

The amount of bitcoins mined per week will never go up, only the effort needed to get the next one.

Actually - the amount of new bitcoins will only decrease, until the end where you will (probably)need many times the current total hashpower to mine a single coin.

[Kernel32]

I think that what ASIC's from Avalon did so far, was only streangtening the Bitcoin value. Not only by distributing hash power between individuals (thus decreasing 51% HP attack possibility), but also by accepting Bitcoin as payment (it is still basicelly a computer, whatever it is used for).

Yes, there will be more bitcoins mined in short term. But the difficulty will rise for sure and solve that problem as it was ment to.

[nobbynobbynoob]

I do not think that BTC will become valueless, but my bet would be that it goes down to the $30-50 range. Most likely the lower end of that bracket before rebounding to the upper end of the bracket.

Just like $2 was the floor after the bubble popped in 2011, I think $40ish is the new floor now, so your $30 to $50 range speculation sounds about right. But I have no idea if a crash is imminent. If I knew a severe bear market was imminent, I would obviously sell now and buy back in the trough. If only trading were that simple.

nobbynobbynoob : I think gold is also overpriced ATM, just like in the start of the 80's.

The real gold price is (at most) about half what it was in 1980. I was pretty young back then, though, so I don't have any real first-hand recollection of economic events as such, but I know that the Fed (Volcker?) raised interest rates and somewhat tightened the inflation spigot, which helped pop the gold "bubble" at the time; gold remained depressed through the '80s and '90s because tech stocks and stuff like that made for a far more profitable investment.

Gold is outrageously undervalued right now iff we look at it as money. But there's no guarantee gold is going to be remonetized, even unofficially, so Peter Schiff-like predictions of $5k+/ozt could be way off base... or not, as the case may be.

But I guess that you live in the US where the economic outlook is not too promising ATM.

No, I don't, but the economic outlook for much of the western world looks bleak (in a relative manner of speaking at least - this is not the 1930s), and the major central banks are starting to print money like the world is Zimbabwe writ large. Gold, silver and crypto look like good bets for store of value, volatility or no. I'd rather hold currency that can go either up or down at the whims of the markets, than currency that only goes down at the whims of banksters.

[CalicoChris]

Uhm ... I really don't find much political in what I wrote, but, currency is politics - and I'm certainly not the only one who knows this.  

I wish I had written this    :  "Bitcoin is getting there. But it’s not there yet. When it gets there, expect governments to panic and society to be reshaped into something where governments cannot rely on taxing income nor wealth for running their operations.

That is a bigger change to society’s fundamental structure than the ability to seek and share culture and knowledge we got with the net."

http://falkvinge.net/2013/04/03/why-bitcoin-is-poised-to-change-society-much-more-than-the-internet-did/#

I think the advent and popularity of crypto currency is a lever for massive societal change.  Anyway, I'm in for the long term.  If this run-up comes to a crash, I'm gonna get more at a more reasonable price!  Either to do something with in the future, or to move to an alternative currency as much as possible personally.

Wow, this must be post number 3 or something.  

This is not a technical analysis - it is just an evil thought (grins).

I think we're seeing an attempt at a 'corporate take-over'.  I think big fiat is now chasing little crypto 'cause big fiat has nothing else to chase today.  They've chased themselves into rather major holes.    

In my opinion, if you want to be true to the spirit of bitcoin, hold - take profit for sure, but make that big fiat struggle and pay for every bitcoin they are most probably trying to buy.  

And then, when they get tired of the game, have some limit orders in there to buy at a lower price.  And then let bitcoin continue in its own spirit, a currency that cannot be controlled.  

Without the political mumbo-jumbo, you are talking sense.

If you have a BTC stash, it would be wise to sell some now. Then when this speculation-spike is over, you can buy even more BTC back. -Or buy more hardware.

[DropZite]

If a lot of people here would sell their stashed coins now, the value of bitcoin would come done.

[_ingsoc]

Do we really think BTC will reach $1,000?

[PachucoBro]

Do we really think BTC will reach $1,000?

In time I am sure... I think right now we are still seeing the whole "OOOooo pretty coins!" and "OMG 20-50% gains in a couple weeks!" and people are just throwing money in. Unless there is more media coverage, easier ways to get money turned into BTC or more businesses actually taking BTC as payment. We will see a sharp fall at that time.

The hope is the hype continues to the point where a few of the above things have a chance to happen.

[winnate]

if you sell you'll regret it.  People always thought a crash was coming-  at $5, at $10, at $50, at $90, but it never has.  Sure, it may crash, but until then, lets ride

[Malawi]

if you sell you'll regret it.  People always thought a crash was coming-  at $5, at $10, at $50, at $90, but it never has.  Sure, it may crash, but until then, lets ride

If you never plan on selling any coins, I guess the price is moot anyways...

My point is that now BTC has real and high value, meaning that it's a good time to sell some. At best it will level out some time soon, before continuing to rise more slowly. But I think the price is much more likely to drop considderably, before climbing at a more healthy rate.

[PachucoBro]

You buy into BTC and hope you timed it right and get INTO the money with it by atleast $20 or so.... then you can weather out any small drops even $10 because you are already IN the money.

then you wait to see a huge down turn starting and guess at where it should stop. If it is going to stop more than $5 below where you currently at. It would be best to sell, take some profit then rebuy at the lower price.

Problem with BTC is it is popping the investment cherry of alot of people who really don't know how stocks, commodities or currencies work. So the price fluctuations won't mimic other types of investments. Especially with sentiments like above... Buy and NEVER sell... HOARD it all!

[Arvie]

Is it not just a matter of supply and demand?

Demand is: the total of those who want to invest their savings (Cyprus) + the increased use of BTC in trade
Supply = the total of those who want to sell BTC + the increment mined.

If that balance is lost, there is a sharp rise or a sharp fall. A look into the exchange rate development is a look into to symtoms. It says nothing.

So who can provide us with the data?

[naphto]

Is it not just a matter of supply and demand?

Demand is: the total of those who want to invest their savings (Cyprus) + the increased use of BTC in trade
Supply = the total of those who want to sell BTC + the increment mined.

If that balance is lost, there is a sharp rise or a sharp fall. A look into the exchange rate development is a look into to symtoms. It says nothing.

So who can provide us with the data?

To me, the main problem is that BTC is not a standart trading asset. You can not open "short positions", hoping for prices to go down.
Furthermore, I do not see any demand.


The recent media coverage, and speculation of maybe 10 or 100 BTC that got buy, and overbuy by mtgox in order to increase their fees and benefits is not anything logic.
I mean, BTC are worthless. If you do not own a website giving BTC for ads, captchas or whatsoever, it is totally pointless. You just can buy it and hope the price to rise before selling it and making a small profit. But you can not buy anything in the real world or on internet cheaper with BTC than with euros ... You can't even buy it faster, since you need to wait days and days before being able to actually get your first bitcoins, and weeks to make your wallet synchronised.

The recent increase is probably due to:
- some people thinking that they can make profits, buying low, selling high ...
- the exchangers, making fake trades, increasing the prices in order to increase their benefits.


When the people will start understanding that you can not do anything with a bitcoin they will probably massively sell it.
I can't see any utility to that actually.


Some cyber-punk might say that they are fighting for freedom, being anonymous, but it is bullshit.
Everyone is now buying btc, hoping it to increase in value, nobody wants to sell, except the miners becoming rich

But when people will start thinking and seing that you can't do shit with a bitcoin.
At the end of 2014, btc will either has disappeared or worth 0.001 USD.




The problem is that it is nothing but a speculative asset that can be lost forever with a technical problem (and can only trade when price is increasing...).
If it has a value, utility or whatsoever, it could become consistent, and maybe last.