Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[wachtwoord]

As if holding fiat stalls economic growth. As if fiat is not designed to steal from the uneducated who don't know what else to hold than fiat.

It's not that difficult to protect yourself from about 3% inflation. If one can't manage that they are doing it all wrong.

For the average person it is a lot safer and easier to protect yourself from about 3% inflation (at least in Western countries) than to speculate in something crazy like bitcoin.

1. Most people cannot. Even most university graduates cannot.
2. The real inflation is an order of magnitude higher than 3%

[Mervyn_Pumpkinhead]

So who do you think orchestrated our educational system? Mother nature?

The global education system is colorful and with all kinds of choices for different people.
Sadly to some, it doesn't offer a choice where you can be well rewarded without doing hard work. Most can earn as much as they are willing to work for.

[JayJuanGee]

As if holding fiat stalls economic growth. As if fiat is not designed to steal from the uneducated who don't know what else to hold than fiat.

It's not that difficult to protect yourself from about 3% inflation. If one can't manage that they are doing it all wrong.

For the average person it is a lot safer and easier to protect yourself from about 3% inflation (at least in Western countries) than to speculate in something crazy like bitcoin.

What's a better investment?

[Sandia]

Part of me hates the small percent who owns most of the coins, just sell some already and jump start bitcoin. Greedy early adopters

The distribution will get worse.  It is the little guys who panic sell, take big risks and lose everything, and generally don't understand the market.  They are the ones who will sell GABI and COIN cheap coins and then watch the price quintuple.  When the price is $5k, they will be angry at everyone except themselves.  It is heartbreaking, but we all know it is true and we know it will happen.

For the little guys, buy and hold is a good strategy (but not as good as buy, spend, rebuy).  Selling every time the price drops 5% makes them roadkill.  The price increases, on average, 0.6% per day.  Have some patience while the whales play their silly games.

NB: I admire any early adopters that still have most of the coins after the last 18 months.  I do wish they would do more to help the market though: less manipulation, more supporting the infrastructure around their investment.

[Dalmar]

1. Most people cannot. Even most university graduates cannot.
2. The real inflation is an order of magnitude higher than 3%

1. Any monkey throwing darts at a list of stocks and other capital assets can even get higher yields than that.
2. Typical gold bug/libertarian argument. Yeah, stay away from that risky fiat and buy gold/silver, even though you will probably get slaughtered more holding precious metals over the next couple of years.

[sickpig]

Hoarders who stall economic growth are punished for a reason.

At last bitcoin learned me that lesson.

really? how?

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Erdogan]

What I wonder, with these multiple hundred coin dumps: Where do they get them from? Do they print them? 

[madmat]

What I wonder, with these multiple hundred coin dumps: Where do they get them from? Do they print them? 

24 * 6 * 25 = 3,600 new coins mined everyday. Miners sell them to pay bills (electricity, miners..).

[Hawkix]

What I wonder, with these multiple hundred coin dumps: Where do they get them from? Do they print them? 

MtGox' coins.

[Moria843]

Remember it's only money. Or is it  

For the old Beatles fans
Ask the guy who says "I'm the taxman, ... yeaa I'm the taxman ...an"
If this doesn't make sense, you're too young to be complaining  

[Bagatell]

What I wonder, with these multiple hundred coin dumps: Where do they get them from? Do they print them? 

24 * 6 * 25 = 3,600 new coins mined everyday. Miners sell them to pay bills (electricity, miners..).

And they're so stinking rich they don't care about slippage?

[falllling]

$57x
goodbye $580

[Moria843]

It's all relative. I bought a lot of my coins at around $375. Thought it was high way back then (in April) when I bought them. I often wished I would have bought more at that price. Maybe I'll get a second chance.

[bucktotal]

It's all relative. I bought a lot of my coins at around $2.75. Thought it was low way back then (in 2011) when I bought them. I often wished I would have bought more at that price. Maybe I'll get a second chance.

fyp

[skivrmt]

What I wonder, with these multiple hundred coin dumps: Where do they get them from? Do they print them? 

24 * 6 * 25 = 3,600 new coins mined everyday. Miners sell them to pay bills (electricity, miners..).

This.  For most people its a near break even or losing game for them with the current difficulty.   This of course includes initial hardware, upgrades, electricity, etc.  They -have- to sell.

[JorgeStolfi]

I'm not sure what your trying to say here.  But I think the Chinese exchanges don't really represent new money.  If there are trades going on then I think it's just trading the same coins back and forth and selling mined coins.  
I looked into the add funds section of these sites and there seem to be very few people selling coins for rmb.  A few months ago there were dozens of people acting as agents to sell coins and even people selling on TaoBao but now there are only a couple of sellers so I don't think there's really a lot of new money coming in from China.

Indeed there are signs that interest in China has been waning and, on the balance, money has been leaving the market.  The most obvious sign is the gradual price drop from February to May, and the general drop in volume (Huobi typically had ~60 kBTC/day in Feb-Mar, noy only ~15 kBTC/day).  Also, the CEOs of Huobi, OKCoin and BTC-China sounded very gloomy in their recent interviews.  They described the opening of the "international" sections as attempts to preserve their businesses in face of increasingly bad prospects in China.

Until March, clients of the Chinese exchanges could use bank transfers to deposit money.  By orders of the central bank (PBoC), they lost that channel.  For a while it looked like they would soon lose the withdrawal by bank option too, and some banks (as well as AliPay) stated that they would not allow their accounts to be used for any bitcoin-related business.  However the withdrawal by bank is still working: according to OKCoin's CEO, the banks are reluctant to follow the PBoC directive to the end because they don't want to lose their fees on that service.

In addition to bank deposits, Huobi had some sort of debit card that apparently is still working.  After losing the bank deposit option, OKCoin arranged for some "brokers" who would sell "recharge codes" privately to clients, but they may have had to stop that too.  BTC-China had "vouchers" that could be bought in stores, but they cannot sell them via internet.

Since January there was also a crackdown on use of bitcoin in e-commerce.  Merchants were prohibited from quoting prices in bitcoin, and major e-commerce sites like Taobao banned the sale of bitcoins, maybe even of bitcoin mining equipment.

The new "international" sites by Huobi (BitVC) and OKCoin (OkCoin.com), that opened in the last two months, are located in Hong Kong or Shanghai, "special economic zones" which have more relaxed controls on financial businesses.  BTC-China has always been in in Shanghai IIRC. AFAIK these new sites can take deposits by bank, but not easily from ordinary Chinese citizens in the mainland; and their volume is still very small.

Indeed, my best guess about the cause of the recent rally (since ~May/20) is that some traders at Huobi and OKCoin got inside info about the imminent opening of those "international Chinese" sites, and stocked in bitcoins in order to move their trading over there.

[Richy_T]

Hoarders who stall economic growth are punished for a reason.

Hoarders allow resources that might otherwise not be used well to be used for productive activity and should be rewarded.

[Richy_T]

It's not that difficult to protect yourself from about 3% inflation. If one can't manage that they are doing it all wrong.

2% instead of 5% is not protection. You are still being stolen from. And this:

2. The real inflation is an order of magnitude higher than 3%

(Though probably not quite an order of magnitude. More like 3x)

[Panteraswift]

Ok, I have a question for you all. I see many who firmly believe that btc will go very high in the future. Taking into consideration  current world events (economy, politics, the possibility of war, etc.) do you still believe in that future? How much of your beliefs is gut feeling vs a dispassionate analysis? Share your views.