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

[JayJuanGee]

The classic posting style of JayJuanGee style of just DROPPING in the caps lock... BAM

Can I ask you something? I am and have been for quite some time, actually been dying to know where you come from ? where are you based and if you do not mind me asking what is your heritage? because I have been trying to figure it, and get an image of you in my mind , and I just cannot figure it...  for example... I am born and raised in the UK , but my parents are Irish and Spanish and I am over somewhere around 40. I am now based in various places UK being one of them.

Tell me to mind my own business of course.. but I am just CURIOUS.

By the way, thanks for asking.

I am NOT really sure how much I should say because of course this is an anonymous forum, and I strive to maintain some of that privacy/anonymity for myself...

Sure there may be reasons and even circumstances in which maintaining a completely open profile would be tolerable, and there are several examples of members like that within the forum (even though it seems like the vast majority are anonymous).

I will just describe a general background of my experiences in order to give you some ideas, and hopefully that will sufficiently respond to your curiosity.

I grew up in the mid-western united states, and then went into the military after high school and was stationed in various parts of the USA and even stationed in Europe shortly (and traveled a little bit around europe).  I am in my late 40s.  I got out of the military and went to college on the west coast of usa and to grad school on the east coast.  Between college and grad school, I taught English in Korea and I had learned Spanish while in college (and used Spanish somewhat in my work after college).

After college I have worked in various kinds of professional positions mostly in the west coast usa, but some of my work had caused me to travel.. mostly in the USA.  Ever since graduating from highschool,  I have invested in various kinds of ways and engaged in various forms of business ventures.  I have had some workaholic tendencies, but I have had various hobbies as well that helped to inform my activities and contribute to my understanding of social interactions and relationships.  Probably, ever since I began attending college and thereafter,  I have tended to write quite a lot.  

In the last year or so, I have been sort of attempting to transition into a state in which I will NOT have to work too much more or at least attempt to be more location independent in my working activities and to increase my travels.. though I continue to have ongoing business obligations that are tying me down somewhat more than I wished and making a complete location independent existence more difficult to transition into.  

I am considering various ways to potentially liquidate portions of my current business obligations or at least potentially to contract out additional portions of my current business obligations in order that my business obligations do NOT cause me to have to be as involved... to work less and to play more.  There remains some uncertainties and ongoing fluctuation in my life regarding some of those transitions and the ongoing requirements that I am going to have in connection with my various business-related obligations.

My involvement in BTC came about partly b/c I want to create greater diversification of my assets and my income - away from the dollar, and also to potentially be able to use BTC in my potential upcoming travels.








 

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[BitChick]

It's decided, we will stay at this price from now on, it's the new equilibrium, there's no way up nor down, we may jiggle a few %, but nothing more.

I think there were similar posts like this last year at about this time. 

Bitcoin is is like a geyser.  It doesn't seem to do much when looking at it for a while, may even let off a little steam, but then there is a jet-like eruption that occurs. 

Just wait for it. 

[Wary]

Let us take it for granted that there is a concerted manipulation effort to drive the price lower.

What knowledge do you draw from this fact? How does it help your trading?

If the manipulator is able to achieve his desires with a minimum of resources, and there is no opposition to him, be it from opposed manipulation or natural buying, then what does it tell you about the state of this market?

It tells us that the manipulator is bullish long-term.

[JayJuanGee]

price is irrelevant bitcoin is doing good.

cosign

There is NO WAY bitcoin is actually WORTH less than it was in March.  Too much new adoption, too many developments.  So if you think it was worth $500 in March or you bought in the $600's in April, you absolutely HAVE to understand that there is divergence between price and value over the last month.

Everything I watch still tells me BTC should have a value around $2400-$3000 by 2019 or 2020.  (NOT price, but VALUE...I'd suspect price will overshoot on the high side of that number, probably more than once.)

I just don't care what the price is today...unless I think it is so inexpensive I can't afford NOT to buy.  And that is currently what I think.  I've hit the button at least 6 times today.

+1....

I wished I had enough cash to hit the button six times in a day... It can be pretty fun to buy so many times... like shopping... .. that is, if you like shopping.    I tend to buy a few times in a day, at most.. but sometimes I do get carried away with quantity in each of those purchase sessions.

You could, you know, try selling some when it looks like price is about to take a dive. That tends to give plenty of powder to buy.

...

I know, I know, not an option. "Hodl for life" and so on

You are too funny with that carrot on your head.  You know I am NOT going to sell, unless I am fairly certain or if prices are well above what I perceive to be the trendline... So you and people like you are NOT going to trick me into selling b/c the price movement is NOT as clear as you are attempting to suggest (merely b/c you are describing it after the fact or merely b/c some people predicted it to be "going down."). 

Anyhow, I feel that I have a system that works pretty good for me at the moment, and selling at the moment does NOT seem very practical or wise.

[Schickeria]

I personally have a lot more trouble with the mid term calls than with the short term predictions. Identifying a likely developing trend, and selling or buying into it seems relatively easy for me. But the question how to take your profits, in USD or BTC, *that's* the tricky bit, imo. Park them in BTC, and you'll see your profits melt away. Park them in USD, and one swing you missed later, and you only buy 2/3 of your original coins back.

How about open a small "hedge fond"? You stay with 50% of profit from beating the market (for example).

[oda.krell]

I personally have a lot more trouble with the mid term calls than with the short term predictions. Identifying a likely developing trend, and selling or buying into it seems relatively easy for me. But the question how to take your profits, in USD or BTC, *that's* the tricky bit, imo. Park them in BTC, and you'll see your profits melt away. Park them in USD, and one swing you missed later, and you only buy 2/3 of your original coins back.

How about open a small "hedge fond"? You stay with 50% of profit from beating the market (for example).

Not sure, but is this a test of sorts? I'm absolutely sure I'm not the only one outperforming the market (i.e. buy & hold), and pretty sure there are a lot more successful traders than me, both in percent and absolute profits. I'm doing... okay.

Anyway, I only started trading last year, and wouldn't claim I really know what's going on, and handle other people's money. Also, a very practical consideration: in an illiquid market like this, I'm already struggling with slippage at my current volume. No idea how that could be handled if managed funds are more - guess that requires a completely different type of trading strategy, that I simply have no clue about.

[JayJuanGee]

 I know I'm not good at finding intermediate tops, selling into them, and buying back lower.  So this just means I have more BTC that I will not lose by outsmarting myself in trades.

Actually, even though some posters in this thread and in this forum attempt to suggest that they have some kinds of skills in regard to predicting and timing the price direction of BTC.  Probably only a very few really are decent at such, and maybe many times there is considerable luck involved.

I get the sense that a large majority are like you and me, and they are really NOT very skilled in the BTC price prediction category... even though they may NOT know it, yet.

Accordingly, investors like us remain unable to really meaningfully predict the BTC price direction, and really we do NOT want to kill ourselves trying to predict such.   Hopefully, it pays off in the end.. whether that is 2015 or 2016 or as you suggest 2019/2020.  Foresight is 2020.     

[JayJuanGee]

Anyhow, your last sentence seems to be referring to absolutes and blacks and whites and seem to be referring to a prediction of a future that has NOT yet occurred and your description of such future seems a little crazy from my perspective at the moment.

It's not a prediction, it's a mental attitude. All my high risks investments are totally worthless.

Until I come to the point where I start recalculating the value, most times...

...to make it worthless for another round.

So you seem to be suggesting that you are employing a psychological tool to NOT invest more into BTC than you can afford to lose.. and then to NOT overly focus on whether your BTC portfolio is in the black or red.. something like that?

[N12]

Anyhow, your last sentence seems to be referring to absolutes and blacks and whites and seem to be referring to a prediction of a future that has NOT yet occurred and your description of such future seems a little crazy from my perspective at the moment.

It's not a prediction, it's a mental attitude. All my high risks investments are totally worthless.

Until I come to the point where I start recalculating the value, most times...

...to make it worthless for another round.

So you seem to be suggesting that you are employing a psychological tool to NOT invest more into BTC than you can afford to lose.. and then to NOT overly focus on whether your BTC portfolio is in the black or red.. something like that?

He's suggesting not to be too much of an optimist so that you can stand a storm psychologically. You know, the 10k by July kind that was bound to disappoint.

High expectations, high disappointment.

[cbeast]

The "ber" months are here. Summer sales are over and fall sales begin. Xmas ads are around the corner. Bitcoin is on sale. They may be the hottest thing this holiday season.

[freedomno1]

The "ber" months are here. Summer sales are over and fall sales begin. Xmas ads are around the corner. Bitcoin is on sale. They may be the hottest thing this holiday season.

If only we could determine Bitcoins seasonality
Although if it was like last year the September and October Rally is incoming lol

[JayJuanGee]

He and a lot of his supporters were murdered too, and that is the nature of the activities of revolutionaries attempting to affect change.  I am just sticking to basic definitions, and NOT really getting into the substance regarding which ideology was right... but Che Guevarra is a symbol of the people b/c he was NOT funded by big money or status quo institutions and he was acting alike a modern day robin hood to attempt to rob from the rich and to give to the poor ... whether his ultimate ideologies were correct or not, his support was generally coming from broad masses of regular people rather than rich people or institutions.

Screw ideology (though we could go there), he was a murdering, scummy murderer and should be denounced as such. He was murdered/executed too? Well, no one is trying to link those people to Bitcoin, are they?

I think that people can link whoever they want to bitcoin, but I understand your point that it is NOT too likely that people overall are going to idolize some western leader and then link that person(s) to bitcoin... though you have to admit that some leaders are more populists than others.

Even though you and others do NOT like Che Guevarra, you cannot deny that he is a very popular symbol for a lot of people around the world.. especially poor people..... and especially people who feel disenfranchised by status quo institutions in various ways. 

It just seems a bit elitist, in my thinking, if you strive to separate yourself from fundamental values that are emanating from the people (whether the people are correct or NOT in their beliefs).  Additionally, since BTC seems to be an open architecture, it seems be equally problematic to attempt to prevent it from being defined with various popular symbols, such a Che Guevarra or maybe some other popular icons..

So stop hating on Che, Richy_T..... 

[Schickeria]

I personally have a lot more trouble with the mid term calls than with the short term predictions. Identifying a likely developing trend, and selling or buying into it seems relatively easy for me. But the question how to take your profits, in USD or BTC, *that's* the tricky bit, imo. Park them in BTC, and you'll see your profits melt away. Park them in USD, and one swing you missed later, and you only buy 2/3 of your original coins back.

How about open a small "hedge fond"? You stay with 50% of profit from beating the market (for example).

Not sure, but is this a test of sorts? I'm absolutely sure I'm not the only one outperforming the market (i.e. buy & hold), and pretty sure there are a lot more successful traders than me, both in percent and absolute profits. I'm doing... okay.

Anyway, I only started trading last year, and wouldn't claim I really know what's going on, and handle other people's money. Also, a very practical consideration: in an illiquid market like this, I'm already struggling with slippage at my current volume. No idea how that could be handled if managed funds are more - guess that requires a completely different type of trading strategy, that I simply have no clue about.

No test, only a proposal.

It's that I experienced for myself not to be able to bear the stress. If you say, that you can handle it and you are successful beating the market (no reason to not to believe you) why not extend your talent? You could set a limit and start trading with peanut amounts to test it out.

I know that there are a lot more successful traders out there and maybe some of them are already trading with other peoples money and I know that it is something very different to trade with your money or the money of other people.

Think about it.

Maybe there will be more people interested. You set a limit: Max 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 BTC per Person, max total amount: 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 BTC.

If you feel uncomfortable at all, no problem. As I said, only a proposal ;-)

[JayJuanGee]

I personally have a lot more trouble with the mid term calls than with the short term predictions. Identifying a likely developing trend, and selling or buying into it seems relatively easy for me. But the question how to take your profits, in USD or BTC, *that's* the tricky bit, imo. Park them in BTC, and you'll see your profits melt away. Park them in USD, and one swing you missed later, and you only buy 2/3 of your original coins back.

How about open a small "hedge fond"? You stay with 50% of profit from beating the market (for example).

Not sure, but is this a test of sorts? I'm absolutely sure I'm not the only one outperforming the market (i.e. buy & hold), and pretty sure there are a lot more successful traders than me, both in percent and absolute profits. I'm doing... okay.

Anyway, I only started trading last year, and wouldn't claim I really know what's going on, and handle other people's money. Also, a very practical consideration: in an illiquid market like this, I'm already struggling with slippage at my current volume. No idea how that could be handled if managed funds are more - guess that requires a completely different type of trading strategy, that I simply have no clue about.

Are you using stamp or some other exchange or a combination?

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[cbeast]

[i dig bitcoins]

I personally have a lot more trouble with the mid term calls than with the short term predictions. Identifying a likely developing trend, and selling or buying into it seems relatively easy for me. But the question how to take your profits, in USD or BTC, *that's* the tricky bit, imo. Park them in BTC, and you'll see your profits melt away. Park them in USD, and one swing you missed later, and you only buy 2/3 of your original coins back.

How about open a small "hedge fond"? You stay with 50% of profit from beating the market (for example).

Not sure, but is this a test of sorts? I'm absolutely sure I'm not the only one outperforming the market (i.e. buy & hold), and pretty sure there are a lot more successful traders than me, both in percent and absolute profits. I'm doing... okay.

Anyway, I only started trading last year, and wouldn't claim I really know what's going on, and handle other people's money. Also, a very practical consideration: in an illiquid market like this, I'm already struggling with slippage at my current volume. No idea how that could be handled if managed funds are more - guess that requires a completely different type of trading strategy, that I simply have no clue about.

Your attitude will make you a better trader yet. When I first started trading the 'coin back in '11, I thought TA would be key. I was wrong. The thing with bitcoin its not only the TA. Technicians always say market news and fundamentals are built into the analysis but with bitcoin you need to be able to "feel" the market. Its difficult to put into words...almost like describing a taste to someone. I hope that after a few years playing in this market, you will develop a gut feeling about the situation. The CMF coupled with MACD, Stochastic RSI and linear regression will hopefully give you a better feel for what's happening. I hope your trade goes well. FYI adhere to the KISS principle, it helps (for me at least).

[Wary]

What is driving the market, right now. During the last downturn it was pretty clear that a mixture of fear and TA were spot on. However, TA doesn't seem to be so applicable outside of a rout. So, what the hell is really driving the price, here. Is there some bad news we don't know about because there seems to not only be good news coming out, but less than priced in good news.

What was "driving the market" between end of 2011 and end of 2012?



Mostly price stagnation, and when there's finally a decent rally (to $16), it gets dumped back to half of that. And keep in mind, at that point, the "ATH" was $32, by that time about 1.5 years in the past.

Sorry, but "stagnation" sounds more like description, rather than explanation What was driving the stagnation? Would it be too tinfoil to suggest that it was coins, stolen from MtGox, sold gradually?

Not sure I agree. I understand the desire to read the market in more fundamental ways, to understand "reasons" for price movements, but most of the time, that line of reasoning goes back to fundamentals and news - and that, in my experience and opinion, misses a big part of what actually drives the market more than half the time.

Anyway, I'm sure there is a narrative for the stagnation period of 2012 that is slightly more explanatory. In essence: necessary consolidation after an extremely volatile period ($1 -> $32 -> $2), together with the fact that no "real world" events took place that were strong enough to overcome that market sentiment (like: Argentinians decide big time to use btc as an inflation hedge).

As for a possible (partial) explanation of the current stagnation, see my point below...

Plus, while I don't have the tools to test this hypothesis, I consider it completely possible that a price suppression regimen is in place, by large accumulating entities (i.e. buying off-exchange at roughly market price, selling a portion on-exchange to suppress market price, repeat). I know it's what I would do if I would plan to buy in to the tune of 100k coins now.

I suspect it can't be done for long. OTC market, just like exchange market, has its own depth chart, it's just invisible. Big OTC purchases would drive OTC price up. OTC market would run out of cheap coins. And miners would start arbitraging: Sell 100K coins off-exchange to suppressors for $550, bought them back from them on-exchange for 500$, rinse, repeat

I don't claim I believe with certainty that this is going on, I am submitting that, if a large enough entity (or several) would plan to buy large amounts of coins, and have some patience, this would probably a scenario worth exploring. In terms of tax efficiency, waiting for the ETF would probably be the better choice, but in terms of price control, the method I described would in principle beat a fund that is, ultimately, positive feedback linked to the markets.

I disagree that miners would prevent this taking place. No disrespect to miners, they're the backbone of the network, but amateur miners seem to be not necessarily the most economically rational actors. Go look around in this forum how often the fall for the fallacy: 'It's sunk cost anyway, I'll let my outdated miners run as long as they produce coins', and how often more economically minded users need to tell them that the actual calculation needs to be based on total cost of future production of coins (mainly: energy costs) vs. number of coins bought at market for the same costs.

Larger mining operations are undoubtedly much more economically savvy, but I've argued over and over again that I believe that, with the increasing "professionalization" of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining, short-term profit opportunity will probably outclass long-term speculative investment. In other words: large miners sell more than they hold, especially considering that we are currently nowhere near a new uncontested bull market (which means the ratio of sold vs. held coins can change if the market sentiment changes, and miners might hold more than they sell if they feel it's a sure thing price will go up.)

Finally, we have plenty of evidence that public market price as determined by on exchange trading is a major reference point for off exchange transactions (just one example: the SR coin auction, where every party that spoke on it refered to "the market price" as if it were the obvious metric). Binding a large mining operation to you in a mid to long-term contract, maybe even offering a premium (although, from hearsay, I've only heard of large holders being made sub market offers, off exchange), then using some fraction of the coins to strategically depress price, would seem like a very good strategy to me, and relatively risk free: if it works, market price stays low, and accumulation proceeds at a low cost. If it fails, and price refuses to be depressed, the account value of coins gained so far appreciates, which is a sweet little consolation price.

Arbitrage by miners could throw a spanner in the works of this mechanism, but profits would be comparably marginal: the goal of the accumulator is not to destroy the on-exchange price, just to keep a lid on it. For the arbitreur miner, the reward is small (sold his coins at market price, is able to buy them back slightly below perhaps), and more importantly: for the large operations, the initial problem would re-appear - what to do with a large amount of coins, when you in reality prefer to hold USD (by my assumption that professional mining operations are short-term opportunistic, and not long-term married to Bitcoin success).

It's a tragedy of the commons style scenario: presumably, miners would be better off selling directly on the exchanges, since the higher volume generated there would ultimately drive up price, but individually, they fear the risk of lower profits because of increased selling pressure on exchange, so they seek arrangements off exchange.

I'll say it one more time: The above is (motivated, I think) speculation. I make no claim this is necessarily happening. I only point out that I believe it is a possible, maybe even probable, mechanism taking place, accounting - at least partially - for the current stagnation period.

Thanks for the interesting discussion.

I agree that even in long-term scale only half of reasons for BTC price are "external" ones. The second half is caused by mass psychology machinery. One example is rally - positive feedback loop aka self-fulfilling prophesy: nobody sells because nobody sells. Now you gave us the second example of the same self-fulfilling prophecy: miners sell because miners sell.

I have to agree with you: currently it makes sense for miners to sell most of mined coins immediately after mining, to speedup capital turnaround. And it's better to sell OTC, to avoid slippage. But by the same reason, it would make sense for them to include a clause in the contract: "do not sell the purchased coins (below XXX$)". The clause would be very easy to control, thanks to the blockchain. Which makes the price suppression hypothesis a bit less likely one.

As for 2012, I still suspect the MtGox coins. 750K bitcoins is a huge amount, we can be 95% sure they were stolen and 80% sure most of them were sold in the following months. Such amount cannot be sold without a trace and I believe the trace is either the slide from $32 to $2, or the following one-year stagnation. Without this dumping the magnitude of the slide and the stagnation would be much smaller.
 
P.S. It would be interesting to see the moment when miners will switch to "don't sell" mode.

[Schickeria]

She's looking cute and relaxed. Short term and momentum trading (with high amounts) let me look more like this:



 

[Assad]

Why poll still asking if we'll see sub 500 next week, when we already ARE in the sub 500