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

[Mikestang]

I was GPU mining 2 bitcoins a day on good days in late 2011 with a bitcoin price around 2$ @ 2 gh/s @1200watts of power at a comfortable profit loss. I'm glad I just kept those coins and didn't only look at the short term profits when deciding to continue. What helped was living within my means, a long term vision, and having reserve capital for expenses during lean times.  

And a little bit of luck, you must admit.  Things could have gone the other way just as easily.  Happily, they didn't, but with any venture luck always has something to do with it.  I'm just getting into all this now, so I look at your situation like I'm hoping someone will at mine in 2019.

[DaRude]

...

A miner isn't going to dump BTC20k at a time, they are going to sell some fraction of BTC3600 per day. Even the biggest miner out there isn't selling more than a couple hundred per day. The vast majority of miners are holding. The current price is laughable. I'll say it one more time and then I'm done. The miners aren't causing the decline in price.

If they're holding and paying for electricity out of pocket then they're becoming investors instead of just miners

[billyjoeallen]

It would take the largest Mining Cartel a month to mine 20k coins

Or a big mine holding them for 14 months, waiting for the price to recover. More probably the net sum of many miners doing the same, but also speculators who need to liquidate some of their holdings for similar reasons.

Unless they have triple deep pockets, im sure they have to pay back the capital expenditure, ultility (electricity a HUGE expense) company, rents and employees salary weekly or monthly.

Well yes, but if they thought the price would recover quickly, they would borrow the money and plan to pay back the loan when the price went back up, but that didn't happen, so they borrowed more...and more. If they are close to maxing out their credit, they could be in deep trouble, particularly when it looks like the next ATH (if it ever happens) could still be a year away.

UPDATE: BTC swaps on BFX now at 21,425.  ~ 3,500 to go before the trap swings shut.  Leveraged bears are taking the bait.

[silverfuture]

I was GPU mining 2 bitcoins a day on good days in late 2011 with a bitcoin price around 2$ @ 2 gh/s @1200watts of power at a comfortable profit loss. I'm glad I just kept those coins and didn't only look at the short term profits when deciding to continue. What helped was living within my means, a long term vision, and having reserve capital for expenses during lean times.  

And a little bit of luck, you must admit.  Things could have gone the other way just as easily.  Happily, they didn't, but with any venture luck always has something to do with it.  I'm just getting into all this now, so I look at your situation like I'm hoping someone will at mine in 2019.

Maybe but it was mostly having a good macro understanding of what I was dealing with despite it being a trollfest in here with horrible daily news, laughing something awful members trolling and hacking the forum and proclamations everywhere that bitcoin was dying or dead and going to pennies a piece. I was buying when the blood was in the streets.

[ElectricMucus]

I was GPU mining 2 bitcoins a day on good days in late 2011 with a bitcoin price around 2$ @ 2 gh/s @1200watts of power at a comfortable profit loss. I'm glad I just kept those coins and didn't only look at the short term profits when deciding to continue. What helped was living within my means, a long term vision, and having reserve capital for expenses during lean times.   

And a little bit of luck, you must admit.  Things could have gone the other way just as easily.  Happily, they didn't, but with any venture luck always has something to do with it.  I'm just getting into all this now, so I look at your situation like I'm hoping someone will at mine in 2019.

Maybe but it was mostly having a good macro understanding of what I was dealing with despite it being a trollfest in here with horrible daily news, laughing something awful members trolling and hacking the forum and proclamations everywhere that bitcoin was dying or dead and going to pennies a piece. I was buying when the blood was in the streets.

the laughing never stopped

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[DaRude]

It would take the largest Mining Cartel a month to mine 20k coins

Or a big mine holding them for 14 months, waiting for the price to recover. More probably the net sum of many miners doing the same, but also speculators who need to liquidate some of their holdings for similar reasons.

Unless they have triple deep pockets, im sure they have to pay back the capital expenditure, ultility (electricity a HUGE expense) company, rents and employees salary weekly or monthly.

Well yes, but if they thought the price would recover quickly, they would borrow the money and plan to pay back the loan when the price went back up, but that didn't happen, so they borrowed more...and more. If they are close to maxing out their credit, they could be in deep trouble, particularly when it looks like the next ATH (if it ever happens) could still be a year away.

UPDATE: BTC swaps on BFX now at 21,425.  ~ 3,500 to go before the trap swings shut.  Leveraged bears are taking the bait.

I don't think they're hitting the market yet. There's barely any volume on finex

[brg444]

If this bear market has been largely caused by Chinese miners that can do nothing with bitcoins except sell them, then it is likely to end when one of two things happen: Either they run out of stockpiled coins to sell over and above coins they are mining, or when the Chinese economy gets so bad that they realize that the killer app is to sneak out of the country with them.

Right now Bitcoins seems to be an answer in search of a problem: Most obviously capital controls in a world where capital is still largely mobile. When this situation changes, it is likely to be sudden and swift although the time frame is difficult to predict with any accuracy.

Miners aren't the ones selling in this market. It's pure speculative manipulation. A miner would never dump coins and cause the price to decline. They would sell the minimum number of coins necessary to cover costs at the best price possible and stock the rest for a much higher price.

Lets put this one to bed, miners are not dumping coins and they are certainly not doing them as a market order.

Best... Post... Recently.

Gotta agree with rolling. Miners are among the most optimistic of the bulls as a group.

It doesn't matter how optimistic miners are. Miners have to service their debt and to meet expenses just like everybody else. If you postpone selling because of a bear market, you can end up NEEDING to sell more rather than less because the price is lower, the loan payments are higher and all your other expenses remain the same.  It doesn't matter one bit if it's market orders or limit orders creating more overhead resistance.

Unfortunately you are making the popular but incorrect assumption that mined coins are mining companies only revenue streams.

[silverfuture]

I was GPU mining 2 bitcoins a day on good days in late 2011 with a bitcoin price around 2$ @ 2 gh/s @1200watts of power at a comfortable profit loss. I'm glad I just kept those coins and didn't only look at the short term profits when deciding to continue. What helped was living within my means, a long term vision, and having reserve capital for expenses during lean times.  

And a little bit of luck, you must admit.  Things could have gone the other way just as easily.  Happily, they didn't, but with any venture luck always has something to do with it.  I'm just getting into all this now, so I look at your situation like I'm hoping someone will at mine in 2019.

Maybe but it was mostly having a good macro understanding of what I was dealing with despite it being a trollfest in here with horrible daily news, laughing something awful members trolling and hacking the forum and proclamations everywhere that bitcoin was dying or dead and going to pennies a piece. I was buying when the blood was in the streets.

the laughing never stopped

Fools will laugh at what they don't understand if you just keep on keeping on despite it and chuckle to yourself as you win. My 2$ coins are now worth almost $300 a piece where I live. Who's laughing BTCest now? Not the ones who said it was a joke then.

There is so many people already involved in Bitcoin that it will not "reach" 0.37 USD/BTC anymore. It will either slowly succeed, or slowly lower, or finally terminate (like not traded in public anymore).

That figure includes the current population of bitcoin users, if they were getting lower short term that would have been lower.
But don't mind, that figure is just were I consider prices to be fair....

@cyperdoc, if they stay at it, it is as simple for me: I'll stay away from bitcoin as far as possible.
Or to put it more directly: If we don't reach that price I won't be joining the economy, even if I miss something.

I ask you this: What do you think are 10k bitcoins actually worth?

Independent of market prices in USD or Fiat currencies. Or to formulate this question differently, what do early developers want to buy with their bitcoins.

The reason I think this is important: The current height of the wealth pyramid is kind of steep. Way too steep to support a scenario where the bitcoin economy would be a significant part of the worlds economy. So you could also ask what are 100,000 or 1,000,000 bitcoins worth but the question remains the same.

In a world were bitcoin would engulf the entire world the richest Bitcoin holder would own the United States.
In a world were bitcoin would equal to 1% of the worlds economy he would still be the richest person on earth.

So here is the tricky part: How do we encourage early adopters to spend their coins? Do we wait till they feel that the price is worth it and they sell them on an exchange? That could work, or possibly not. Some might decide to gamble even if it takes a lifetime. And that is not the would I want to live in. (Power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely. )

Or do we come up with an alternative solution to use bitcoin to create a world more worth living in for everybody, including people with a huge wallet. Some of you may think this is impossible but that has been said of many things.

We have an amazing opportunity here people, something that was never before possible to attempt. There have been theoretical and technical considerations of how this should be attempted but never before there was a potential infrastructure in development to do it for real.

A socialista from 2011 tries to rally the team to trick bitcoiners out of their holdings and laughs endlessly when they are robbed. Nice

[pjviitas]

Sigh...so damn close to 3 green bars in a row on the 1w charts!!!

Oh well...back to the drawing board.

[billyjoeallen]

If this bear market has been largely caused by Chinese miners that can do nothing with bitcoins except sell them, then it is likely to end when one of two things happen: Either they run out of stockpiled coins to sell over and above coins they are mining, or when the Chinese economy gets so bad that they realize that the killer app is to sneak out of the country with them.

Right now Bitcoins seems to be an answer in search of a problem: Most obviously capital controls in a world where capital is still largely mobile. When this situation changes, it is likely to be sudden and swift although the time frame is difficult to predict with any accuracy.

Miners aren't the ones selling in this market. It's pure speculative manipulation. A miner would never dump coins and cause the price to decline. They would sell the minimum number of coins necessary to cover costs at the best price possible and stock the rest for a much higher price.

Lets put this one to bed, miners are not dumping coins and they are certainly not doing them as a market order.

Best... Post... Recently.

Gotta agree with rolling. Miners are among the most optimistic of the bulls as a group.

It doesn't matter how optimistic miners are. Miners have to service their debt and to meet expenses just like everybody else. If you postpone selling because of a bear market, you can end up NEEDING to sell more rather than less because the price is lower, the loan payments are higher and all your other expenses remain the same.  It doesn't matter one bit if it's market orders or limit orders creating more overhead resistance.

Unfortunately you are making the popular but incorrect assumption that mined coins are mining companies only revenue streams.

{sigh} No, I'm fucking not. Yes, they could be selling hash rates to investors, but then the argument extends to the investors who are overextended rather than the mining companies.

[Cconvert2G36]

If this bear market has been largely caused by Chinese miners that can do nothing with bitcoins except sell them, then it is likely to end when one of two things happen: Either they run out of stockpiled coins to sell over and above coins they are mining, or when the Chinese economy gets so bad that they realize that the killer app is to sneak out of the country with them.

Right now Bitcoins seems to be an answer in search of a problem: Most obviously capital controls in a world where capital is still largely mobile. When this situation changes, it is likely to be sudden and swift although the time frame is difficult to predict with any accuracy.

Miners aren't the ones selling in this market. It's pure speculative manipulation. A miner would never dump coins and cause the price to decline. They would sell the minimum number of coins necessary to cover costs at the best price possible and stock the rest for a much higher price.

Lets put this one to bed, miners are not dumping coins and they are certainly not doing them as a market order.

Best... Post... Recently.

Gotta agree with rolling. Miners are among the most optimistic of the bulls as a group.

It doesn't matter how optimistic miners are. Miners have to service their debt and to meet expenses just like everybody else. If you postpone selling because of a bear market, you can end up NEEDING to sell more rather than less because the price is lower, the loan payments are higher and all your other expenses remain the same.  It doesn't matter one bit if it's market orders or limit orders creating more overhead resistance.

Partially true. Miners may have to start selling at some point if they are no longer able to service debt with other income streams but a market order has a huge difference in this market compared to a limit order. A miner would NEVER dump 5k coins in single market order. It causes too much slippage and the market seems to stabilize at a lower price after a big downward movement. It's not miners causing these major movements.

A flash dump of 5k coins is actually the only way to get the least slippage on the public exchange market, doing it piecemeal would chase the bids down. Place bids a bit lower than that, and you can claw some back from the panic sellers.

Most industrial miners have some OTC deal they can look to which is some % under market, or above market if locked in. I suspect most of the action we see these days on the exchanges is whales and sharks, their gambler lackeys, stop hunting, etc.

There are still veterans from 2010-12 who need to be shaken out, or at least forcibly diversified. The Jan 14 shakeout was part of that diversification, not sure it was the last. All that considered, as a speculative bet on a new technology... you could do worse than the good ol' BTC.

[pjviitas]

Sigh...so damn close to 3 green bars in a row on the 1w charts!!!

Oh well...back to the drawing board.

Oh wait...that's 2 green bars...one more to go...come on bitcoin!!!  One more week of the good stuff and I am back in the market.

[billyjoeallen]

There are still veterans from 2010-12 who need to be shaken out, or at least forcibly diversified. The Jan 14 shakeout was part of that diversification, not sure it was the last. All that considered, as a speculative bet on a new technology... you could do worse than the good ol' BTC.

Oh, really? And what if Big Money doesn't want to wait that long? What if  a new innovation sparks a grass roots recovery? There's as much danger in waiting for the optimal time to buy as there is in waiting for the optimal time to sell.

I'm one of those veterans and the reason I have survived this long is because of ideological commitment, not money. You could be waiting a long time if you think you can shake me out.

[ElectricMucus]

-snip-
A socialista from 2011 tries to rally the team to trick bitcoiners out of their holdings and laughs endlessly when they are robbed. Nice

Is there a point to this or are you obsessed so much you really are skimming through my post history? Damn and I thought I had too much time...

I haven't been a goon for all that time, but I tricked Micera Poopscoop into buying me a forums account there with his credit card. (In case you wanna know)

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[silverfuture]

-snip-
A socialista from 2011 tries to rally the team to trick bitcoiners out of their holdings and laughs endlessly when they are robbed. Nice

Is there a point to this or are you obsessed so much you really are skimming through my post history?

It was very easy, no skimming required, just search function. I'm obsessive about some things but not you, don't flatter yourself.

Here's my thoughts at a similar time:

I don't do a lot of trading but when I do it is to increase my bitcoin holdings.  I mine within my means so that I don't have to sell bitcoins to pay for power.  I could easily afford to lose my investment without much harm or loss but the upside for 5-10 years down the road holds a lot of potential. Some call it hoarding, I call it savings.

I agree, it's totally a "hobby" for me right now.  I've spent more on other hobbies.

Mind me asking when you started mining?  I'm just curious if people are still jumping into the game.  I started about June.  I see you have 22 posts, so welcome if you are new to it.  I encourage you to continue posting!

Thanks, I've lurked for a while but just signed up here recently. I started solo mining on my laptop in jan or feb of 2010. People will jump into the game as it suits their own interests.  I like the way mining bitcoin at this point does not incentivize huge monopolizing mining farms with the 2.XXXXXXXX price as the most are unlikely to want to speculate with so much equipment and electricity cost, yet it does encourage cooperation of smaller rigs in pools and thus wider distribution for those without time pressures.

[ElectricMucus]

Your point?

Mine is, Bitcoin and the Drama it generates was funny and it got funnier.

[silverfuture]

-snip-
A socialista from 2011 tries to rally the team to trick bitcoiners out of their holdings and laughs endlessly when they are robbed. Nice

I haven't been a goon for all that time, but I tricked Micera Poopscoop into buying me a forums account there with his credit card. (In case you wanna know)

Good to know. You are quite the trickster huh?

G'night forum.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

KeyserSozeMC skimmed my post history once. Called me 'that meme guy'

Have a lovely week Bitcoiners. I hope.