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

[criptix]

The volatility IMO is due entirely to the hard fork. A big player (likely miner) sold at 450 because they know what is coming.

The most obvious explanation is Mike's ragequit, which got wide exposure in the media (NYT, Motherboard, TechCrunch, Reuters, ...)  It was also commented in Chinese forums. 

I can't think of any other suiltable explanation for the sudden drop.

That's because of your astounding ignorance of economics.

If you ever looked up from your Buttcoin forums, and glanced at say Bloomberg TV, you'd notice there has been an ongoing meltdown in world financial markets since New Years Day.

The Big Money that moves the BTC price is selling to cover losses, and/or take advantage of opportunities in other oversold sectors.

Last time i checked btc had a marketcap of 6.5 billion.
Stocks, commodities etc are in triple digit trillions. ( trillions!)
Covering losses what?

Imho Mike ragequit is much more likely

[1714816008]

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[tomothy]

Satoshi's writing and that particular letter have something in common: Two spaces after a sentence ends. That's the "old" way of writing in the typewriter era where you hit space twice - and you carry over that habit to the PC keyb into the late 80s/90s. You do it too because you are of the "old guard". Younger people, hackers, script-kiddies, well... not only don't they know these things but they won't even spot the difference in order to emulate it. The two spaces, for me, increases the chance that it was original.

Oops, thanks for reminding me.  I must watch out and avoid that old habit, before someone figures out my true identity.

The writing style is quite neutral and it feels ok'ish though and in line with what Satoshi has said in the past.

Well, it is a matter of feeling; but I find the tone of that letter very unlike that of previous writings.  Too dramatic, almost hysterical.  But very much like the tone of Adam and other ardent small-blockians.  The personal and nominal attack against Gavin, in particular, was very strange for Satoshi, but very much like Adam's tone at the time.

As for blockstream people doing it, you are saying that they hacked Satoshi accounts back when it happened and then they used them when convenient to promote their agenda? And how would they know that Satoshi wouldn't pull the curtain on them? [  ] It's a very long leap.

The hacker who got hold of Satoshi's email account may have been a smallblockian or Blockstream sympathizer, or may have offered his services to them. (How else would he profit from that "asset"?) 

Satoshi is either dead, or is much more worried about hiding his identity than about the fate of bitcoin (which he apparently abandoned in 2010). 

That, by the way, is another reason why I assumed that the letter was fake when it came out:  if he did not care to intervene in all the previous critical events, why would he come in just to take a side (the wrong one!) in a relatively minor technical dispute?

Especially after Satoshi came out and said he is not Dorian?

If his account was hacked back then, who knows why the hacker posted it.  Maybe he was sorry for the old man.  Presumably he is a bitconer, and thought that the claim was hurting bitcoin.

By the way, there was another message by "Satoshi" recently, denying that he was Craig Wright -- and then adding "We are all Satoshi".  That last part is obviously something that Satoshi would not have written. I can only think that the hacker is aware that everybody is aware that the account has been compromised, and does not care to pretend anymore.

Jorge, You always have interesting comments. I liked the points you made on /btc regarding Jtoomin's discussion on addressing fees in the future. That was pretty sweet seeing the back and forth discussion regarding bitcoin economics. Sorry, economics are still sexy to me lol. I know I could just do a google search but have you written any interesting papers lately regarding bitcoin? It's a topic that I havent seen a lot of substantial academic research on. Just wondering Keep up the great discussion

[mOgliE]

The volatility IMO is due entirely to the hard fork. A big player (likely miner) sold at 450 because they know what is coming.

The most obvious explanation is Mike's ragequit, which got wide exposure in the media (NYT, Motherboard, TechCrunch, Reuters, ...)  It was also commented in Chinese forums. 

I can't think of any other suiltable explanation for the sudden drop.

That's because of your astounding ignorance of economics.

If you ever looked up from your Buttcoin forums, and glanced at say Bloomberg TV, you'd notice there has been an ongoing meltdown in world financial markets since New Years Day.

The Big Money that moves the BTC price is selling to cover losses, and/or take advantage of opportunities in other oversold sectors.

Last time i checked btc had a marketcap of 6.5 billion.
Stocks, commodities etc are in triple digit trillions. ( trillions!)
Covering losses what?

Imho Mike ragequit is much more likely

I agree, it's not a question of covering losses. Covering losses with btc is not even possible.

The global meltdown could explain the stop but not a lowering trend.

[yefi]

Not only that, but if you notice that particular post with Wright, he had just one space between the two sentences. Yet Satoshi was apparently double-spacing even one-liners:

That means a lot coming from you, Hal.  Thanks.

Given this level of investigative nous, I expect you are in the police force?

[White sugar]

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

[podyx]

Canceled my $354 buy and put it at $345 instead, dammit...

[nioc]

     I always double space. 

[deadpoolx]

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Causing a fall of $ 430 to $ 370, loss of 1 billion dollars in marketcap, in 1 single day? I don't think so.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[mOgliE]

Canceled my $354 buy and put it at $345 instead, dammit...

You know what? I bet you might even put it in the 300's cause I'm pretty sure it will hit it.

In the same way that the rise was slow but inevitable, it's the same for this low trend.

[podyx]

Canceled my $354 buy and put it at $345 instead, dammit...

You know what? I bet you might even put it in the 300's cause I'm pretty sure it will hit it.

In the same way that the rise was slow but inevitable, it's the same for this low trend.

Well, from a fully objective standpoint, I'd say this is just a FUD-storm but you never know of course

[mOgliE]

Canceled my $354 buy and put it at $345 instead, dammit...

You know what? I bet you might even put it in the 300's cause I'm pretty sure it will hit it.

In the same way that the rise was slow but inevitable, it's the same for this low trend.

Well, from a fully objective standpoint, I'd say this is just a FUD-storm but you never know of course

FUD storm, that's right, but backed with some serious facts. And the stronger the storm, the fuller the block, the slower the transactions, the more legitimate the problem given by the article become.

[CuntChocula]

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Causing a fall of $ 430 to $ 370, loss of 1 billion dollars in marketcap, in 1 single day? I don't think so.

I'm sure it helped. Not Cryptsy itself, but Cryptsy reaffirming the (seemingly obvious) fact that so-called 'trustless' currencies, like filthy fiat, rely on trust.
Only instead of needing to trust legacy institutions -- greedy banks and their henchmen, the lying governments -- trustless currencies require you to trust fellers like TradeFortress, Ukyo, and Big Vern.

[Patel]

Price drop is because hard fork is being priced in.

I have a feeling it will skyrocket once hard fork is successful.

[bitebits]

Jorge [...] have you written any interesting papers lately regarding bitcoin? It's a topic that I havent seen a lot of substantial academic research on.

Really? Database of almost 600 academic research papers on Bitcoin, now updated to cover 2015.

[BrewCrewFan]

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Speaking of which, I think Craptsy is dark now.

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Causing a fall of $ 430 to $ 370, loss of 1 billion dollars in marketcap, in 1 single day? I don't think so.

I'm sure it helped. Not Cryptsy itself, but Cryptsy reaffirming the (seemingly obvious) fact that so-called 'trustless' currencies, like filthy fiat, rely on trust.
Only instead of needing to trust legacy institutions -- greedy banks and their henchmen, the lying governments -- trustless currencies require you to trust fellers like TradeFortress, Ukyo, and Big Vern.

Yeah that was kinda my round a bout point yesterday that trust is a huge thing, and with the exchange ( another I might add ) going down and lord only knows how many thousands of dollars are now missing, to the normal joe this is not good. The media will have a field day with this for sure... again showing how much growing this thing needs to do.

[JorgeStolfi]

have you written any interesting papers lately regarding bitcoin? It's a topic that I havent seen a lot of substantial academic research on.

No, nothing formally published yet.  

I only started to write a tech report on how a mining cartel with majority hashpower can force a change in the protocol, such as postponing the next halving, in spite of opposition by the "economic majority" -- by sabotaging the old chain while mining the new one.  But, after countless forum discussions, that attack is now well known, and I haven't got enough motivation to finish it.⁽¹⁾

Other than that, the closest to a technical article I wrote is this post about bitcoin price bubbles.<sup>(2)

(1)</sup> Critics have two arguments to dismiss it.  First, they claim that any such attempt would cause a drop in the price that would negate the cartel's expected payoff. Second, they say that developers could change the PoW algorithm so as to render ASICs useless, and all users would shun the CartelCoin and use only the DevCoin.  I don't accept either argument, but since they depend on predicting the behavior of people, we have no way of proving our positions...

⁽²⁾ That sum-of-bubbles model is less satisfactory after the Dec/2014 crash, unfortunately.  The most prominent "bubbles" became almost rectangular pulses: a sudden rise, a plateau, then a sudden drop.  In 2015 the price became even more irregular: there were three apparent bubbles (in February, June, and September) but their shapes were more complicated than the model that worked before 2014...

[unent]

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Speaking of which, I think Craptsy is dark now.

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Causing a fall of $ 430 to $ 370, loss of 1 billion dollars in marketcap, in 1 single day? I don't think so.

I'm sure it helped. Not Cryptsy itself, but Cryptsy reaffirming the (seemingly obvious) fact that so-called 'trustless' currencies, like filthy fiat, rely on trust.
Only instead of needing to trust legacy institutions -- greedy banks and their henchmen, the lying governments -- trustless currencies require you to trust fellers like TradeFortress, Ukyo, and Big Vern.

Yeah that was kinda my round a bout point yesterday that trust is a huge thing, and with the exchange ( another I might add ) going down and lord only knows how many thousands of dollars are now missing, to the normal joe this is not good. The media will have a field day with this for sure... again showing how much growing this thing needs to do.

Every time another exchange gets reported hacked its a reminder of Gox. Cryptsy made the final news worse by behaving exactly the same as Gox for a year+. They covered up the hack, delayed withdrawals, and eventually stopped allowing Bitcoin withdrawals citing fake excuses.

When the news got out they had done a Gox the media had a field day destroying trust in exchanges.  

[xyzzy099]

By the way, there was another message by "Satoshi" recently, denying that he was Craig Wright -- and then adding "We are all Satoshi".  That last part is obviously something that Satoshi would not have written. I can only think that the hacker is aware that everybody is aware that the account has been compromised, and does not care to pretend anymore.

Theymos is the one who pointed out that that email was spoofed, and even posted the IP from which it was spoofed:

From https://np.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3w6vy4/i_am_not_craig_wright_we_are_all_satoshi_satoshi/ :

Code:

Received: from mail.vistomail.com (cpe-104-231-205-87.wi.res.rr.com
    [104.231.205.87])         
    by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 01BCADF
    for <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>;
    Thu, 10 Dec 2015 06:53:42 +0000 (UTC)

This IP is obviously a TW customer in Wisconsin, where Theymos lives.  How much more obvious does he have to make the joke?

[deadpoolx]

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Speaking of which, I think Craptsy is dark now.

The drop is caused because Cryptsy is collapsing, I think.

If a reasonable solution is reached, then we'll see a recover, otherwise two more years of bear

Causing a fall of $ 430 to $ 370, loss of 1 billion dollars in marketcap, in 1 single day? I don't think so.

I'm sure it helped. Not Cryptsy itself, but Cryptsy reaffirming the (seemingly obvious) fact that so-called 'trustless' currencies, like filthy fiat, rely on trust.
Only instead of needing to trust legacy institutions -- greedy banks and their henchmen, the lying governments -- trustless currencies require you to trust fellers like TradeFortress, Ukyo, and Big Vern.

Yeah that was kinda my round a bout point yesterday that trust is a huge thing, and with the exchange ( another I might add ) going down and lord only knows how many thousands of dollars are now missing, to the normal joe this is not good. The media will have a field day with this for sure... again showing how much growing this thing needs to do.

Every time another exchange gets reported hacked its a reminder of Gox. Cryptsy made the final news worse by behaving exactly the same as Gox for a year+. They covered up the hack, delayed withdrawals, and eventually stopped allowing Bitcoin withdrawals citing fake excuses.

When the news got out they had done a Gox the media had a field day destroying trust in exchanges.  

Cryptsy, like others incompetent exchanges did before, has one hand in it, but the problem must be more related to something with this proportion:
https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7#.9prvrl143

Maybe this guy is exaggerating, but there are relevant points in the article.