Reflections about Bitcoins

[bitsalame]

We know that bitcoins are the future. The functional beauty of the currency is unprecedented. It is not just a personal opinion, both professional cryptographers and economists are praising its design and observing attentively its evolution.
It is objectively much more robust than the current financial system out there, even its being considered by Western Union to process their own transactions.
The future of the bitcoins are either a metacurrency (ie, being used as a representation of the currency for transactions) or a full blown currency/commodity, depending on its behavior.
It is well designed, it is being adopted in many places and it is becoming studied by big companies.

The bitcoin currency has already experienced two bubbles, the first rallying to $30 and imploding to $2, and this one from $13~ all the way to $266.
In both bubble 'bursts' MtGox was the main responsible, and in both cases they ended up acting in the same way: lame excuses and halting all the trades artificially.

The lesson we may learn from this is that:
1st: MtGox sux big time. Again.
2nd: The robustness of the currency. I can't recall any currency or equity being able to survive two bubble bursts in a row.
3rd: Pump and Dump operations... which probably YOU've been part of it.

The 3rd point is the thing that concerns me.
Who are you listening to, and why do you act? Are you listening to investment advisors who claim to have the holy grail of (technical) analysis?
If you do, you should put your mind into red alert. If you and your fellows follow the advises from one person or a group of persons, certainly his prediction will become reality because you will make it happen by following his advice.
Just to confirm this I made an experiment by creating a group of followers, over 9000 fans following me at whatever I do. I gained the status of guru after I made predictions that were against common conventions. I wasn't predicting the future, I was creating the future at will. At the last part of the experiment I just made random predictions, which ended up resulting in correlations with my predictions. Fortunately the 9000 followers weren't big players, but if they were big it would have had a devastating power.
It isn't really that surprising, and it happens every time. Be sure who you listen to, and why you behave in such a way.

Don't follow Technical Analysts (chartists), do a Fundamental Analysis of it (how many businesses are adopting bitcoins, how is their revenue in BTC, how many partnerships are out there, how is the acceptance of bitcoins in other countries, the ability to pay taxes with bitcoins, the integration with the financial system, projects involving bitcoins in communities, markets developing, research the news, etc...).

Besides the self-fulfilling prophets, and influential "gurus", I am more concerned about the institutional players who might be playing with the market to destroy its reputation. Without credibility, the bitcoins are dead. The only thing that gives value to the bitcoins are the trust of the people in it.
These are the enemies we are trying to fight against our currency, and we CAN'T allow them to manipulate our faith in it.

Stop thinking about squeezing short term profits, you might end up killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
They want you to focus on your personal benefit instead of the benefit of the community, that's the best way of fragmenting our cause.
If you want this currency to truly compete against the financial institutions, for the sake of bitcoins and individual freedom, trust in bitcoins and nurture it by thinking in the long term.

Everytime the DDoS hits an exchange, the forum, bitcoinity, you shouldn't react on panic.
You should react enraged acting exactly in the opposite way that they expect us to react. Hold your positions, even buy higher.
It is time to wise up, people. Pay attention at the trash transactions with the volume of 0.01 BTC that are keeping the prices artificially high or low.
There are forces, big entities who will benefit with the discredit of the bitcoins, which will cause a public embarrassment which will erode the possibility of the general adoption of the currency.

Our currency is at its infancy and it has tremendous potential to leave central banks absolutely obsolete, way beyond the reach of the government's tentacles.
They want to squash us before we even begin to crawl, when we are still vulnerable.
Are you going to let them win?
Are you gonna let them manipulate YOU?

[wksantiago]

Hallelujah Gloria a Dios! Well said.  Agree 100% Let's keep the calm and no over reactions!

[jag2k2]

Here here.  I'm only selling if I'm actually buying a good or service.

[bitsalame]

Thank you guys.
Btw, btc-e is the most dramatic exchange out there. They are selling from 60 to 80 USD per bitcoin.
Other exchanges like cavirtex is calmly staying around 100 CAD which is roughly around 90 USD.
The sky isn't falling, and it may very well recover its market price above 100 USD.

This is what I call robustness of the currency. It is here to stay.
Lets Never Forget the ultimate purpose of Bitcoins, it is here to set us all free.
Don't abuse it, don't let people abuse it, and don't allow yourself to be abused.

~bit

[bitsalame]

The Winklevoss twins (the inventors of Facebook, before Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea) are bringing investors to bitcoins and they are themselves one of the biggest bitcoin holders with 1% of the total bitcoin in circulation.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/as-big-investors-emerge-bitcoin-gets-ready-for-its-close-up/

They are taking advantage of this crash to buy even more bitcoins.
The Winklevoss brothers said that this week’s chaotic trading are only “growing pains” like those seen by other young technologies, and not enough to scare them away.

A Maltese company, Exante, started a hedge fund that the company says has bought up about 82,000 bitcoins — or about $10 million as of Thursday — with money from wealthy investors

These are the news that you have to watch, not stupid charts.

[tomwoods]

Don't abuse it, don't let people abuse it, and don't allow yourself to be abused.

We should make it so that it cant be abused, satoshi took the first steps, but I think we have to finish the job

[bitsalame]

Don't abuse it, don't let people abuse it, and don't allow yourself to be abused.

We should make it so that it cant be abused, satoshi took the first steps, but I think we have to finish the job

Right, but the main form of abuse right now is in psychological manipulation through FUD.
The problem is that I realize that we have more vulnerable teens and n00bs in these forums, easily reacting to panic and bad advices, not realizing that they are being victims of manipulation. Or coming in with the delusion of becoming rich fast.
We have a good thing here, lets not be shortsighted.

[evoorhees]

In both bubble 'bursts' MtGox was the main responsible

Okay this kind of sentiment needs to go away.

While MtGox can and should be blamed for having a crappy trading platform, it is NOT correct to blame the deflating of bubbles on them. Speculative bubbles are a part of a normal, healthy market, and in something as wild and revolutionary as Bitcoin bubbles should be expected every so often. It's not Gox's fault that the price bubble occurred, and it's not Gox's fault that the bubble popped.

If you want a culprit to blame, it is this: price discovery. The market is trying to figure out how to price this amazing new invention. It's a dirty process, but we will tend to find the right price over time.

[Gurthang]

For the most part, I agree with Bitsalame.  The fact that the currency has survived is a testament of its resiliency and long term viability. 

What I must disagree with is his point of holding the currency.  A mature currency will survive ups and downs of speculation.  When companies form to allow shorting of it (making a profit from the currency going down), then we will have a true mature and relatively trusted world wide currency that will have value well beyond our life times.

Volatility is good.  Greed is good.  The currency will mature as it survives our baser instincts.

So buy or sell, which ever you wish.  It is an investment.  As with any other investment, do not panic.  If you buy or sell based upon emotion, you are probably making a mistake.  Do it because of the fundamentals.  Buy low and sell high.

Above all, enjoy the ride!  Life is good.

[bitsalame]

In both bubble 'bursts' MtGox was the main responsible

Okay this kind of sentiment needs to go away.

While MtGox can and should be blamed for having a crappy trading platform, it is NOT correct to blame the deflating of bubbles on them. Speculative bubbles are a part of a normal, healthy market, and in something as wild and revolutionary as Bitcoin bubbles should be expected every so often. It's not Gox's fault that the price bubble occurred, and it's not Gox's fault that the bubble popped.

If you want a culprit to blame, it is this: price discovery. The market is trying to figure out how to price this amazing new invention. It's a dirty process, but we will tend to find the right price over time.

Lets make something clear.
I am not making MtGox responsible of the speculative bubbles, I am blaming solely for their incompetence as a company and their constantly failing PR.

Lets review the history of MtGox.
The infamous hack in June 15th 2011, they lied their asses off by calling it "force majeure", basically saying that it wasn't preventable... when it was actually a very negligent mistake. I caught their lies by analyzing their facial expressions and I accurately confirmed that it was a company account that got compromised, it wasn't an individual customer who got hacked and got their btcs dumped. Eventually they ended up admitting it in the "press release".
Btw, all the client accounts got leaked with their hashed passwords.
They reversed all transactions that were executed at the big dump. That is quite scandalous.

What I don't accept is that they tried to lie to us. I would had been fine if they were forward from the beginning. Shit happens, we all know that.
But trying to wash their hands by denying responsibility, is not acceptable.

Yesterday they said that they were "victims of their success".
Making more than half million dollars a month and not being to take preventative measures is being victims of their shortsightedness.
That is called incompetence in my book.

I understand that there might be a lot of shit going on in MTGox, no doubt about that.
Some of the incompetence would be forgivable if they were upfront and honest about it.
What is infuriating is that they are treating us like suckers.

[Syke]

I regret not buying coins after the first bubble burst. I'm not going to make that same mistake again. This burst bubble is just setting up Bitcoin for another all-time high in the coming months.

[neoivan1987]

+1

[bitsalame]

For the most part, I agree with Bitsalame.  The fact that the currency has survived is a testament of its resiliency and long term viability. 

What I must disagree with is his point of holding the currency.  A mature currency will survive ups and downs of speculation.  When companies form to allow shorting of it (making a profit from the currency going down), then we will have a true mature and relatively trusted world wide currency that will have value well beyond our life times.

Volatility is good.  Greed is good.  The currency will mature as it survives our baser instincts.

So buy or sell, which ever you wish.  It is an investment.  As with any other investment, do not panic.  If you buy or sell based upon emotion, you are probably making a mistake.  Do it because of the fundamentals.  Buy low and sell high.

Above all, enjoy the ride!  Life is good.

Well, I wasn't saying to hold them indefinitely. I meant to hold their impulses and to think twice before executing anything.