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

[petahashminer]

in the recent month there is no volatility in all the exchange sites,

i wonder , is this a good thing or a bad thing.

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[ashman102]

in the recent month there is no volatility in all the exchange sites,

i wonder , is this a good thing or a bad thing.

There were times when it was volatile in Sept.

[JayJuanGee]

Interested in your thoughts

http://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-price-analysis-here-comes-the-breakout/

What about your thoughts, newbie?

I take all short term BTC price predictions with a grain of salt.

Well I feel rather skeptical regarding Deutche Bank. Not so sure about the ETF deadline on the 12th Oct, I haven't been following it closely, but its bound to be pushed back again.

I would not put too much weight in a few macro-events, even though it is quite possible that bitcoin prices could move in one direction or another, and possibly the odds for up are greater than the odds for down, but really, none of this is a given.  In the short term, BTC Prices can be manipulated in either direction, especially when we have relatively low trade volume across all exchanges.

One thing that can give us some assurance that there is a possibility for prices to move in one direction or another is the fact that they have been relatively flat for a couple of months - yet even the fact that they have been flat for a couple of months does not necessarily mean with any high probability that they are going to break out in one direction or another.

In that regard, it is also possible that we could have an additional couple of months of relatively flat prices... everyone waiting for someone else to attempt to make the move.

[JayJuanGee]

in the recent month there is no volatility in all the exchange sites,

i wonder , is this a good thing or a bad thing.

There were times when it was volatile in Sept.

Periods of non-volatility is part of the process when prices are going through a kind of consolidation period.  In that regard, trade volume goes down and everyone is waiting for others in order to figure out whether to attempt to move prices in one direction or another.  Sometimes, in that regard, a group of players may attempt to push the price in one direction or another based on news or an attempt at low trade volume momentum, but if they experience too much resistance in one direction or another, they may give up because they do not want to spend their own coins to cause the price to move in their preferred direction and instead they would prefer to create enough momentum that will cause others to use their coins to cause such price movement in the direction that they want.

[Meuh6879]

Their sizes are ridiculously high - if they want to attack BTC. There is no cost that is too high. The only thing that there is is whether this attack is visible or not (they don't want "banks are scared" type of publicity), and the cost of preparedness for the next "iteration" of BTC.

well, in reality, they move number in your privat database ... and that cost nothing.
if they want attack bitcoin network, they must SPEND.

they can't.
this is Bitcoin.

[Meuh6879]

but the problem of banks are ... they have the power to block the business :
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/dnb-norways-largest-bank-shuns-bitcoin-boots-bitcoin-association/

[JayJuanGee]

I saw the below thread today while I was waiting in line at the bank, and I noticed that some of the folks are really emotionally attached in one direction or another regarding how bitfinex is going about its attempt to deal with it's early August 2016 "hack."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/557w4b/bitfinex_redemption_of_13152_of_bfx_tokens/

So, in essence, in mid-August 2016, bitfinex gave tokens that they deemed valued at $1 per token (BFX coins), and gave a 36% haircut to all of their then customers and by calculating the balances of all of the funds that their customers were holding on Bitfinex.  All Bitfinex account holders received BFX tokens in the equivalent of 36% of the August 2, 2016 value that they were then holding on Bitfinex.

Even though the supposed  "hack" only involved their bitcoin assets, Bitfinex decided to spread out and to "socialize" the loss, which pissed off quite a few folks, and others considered the approach as being innovative regarding other options available to Bitfinex.  Also, if we look back at the situation, there were a lot of folks who were given really dismal odds to bitfinex even reopening after the supposed "hack", and questioning whether any of the funds would be returned.

We certainly don't know al the facts of the hacks nor all the options available, but bitfinex's approach has been a bit outside of normal approaches, and surely, some folks continue to question whether bitfinex is on the up and up or if they are just engaging in continuing scam attempts in their future approach to this matter.

Bitfinex also claims that they are continuing to investigate the matter, and they are also communicating the creation of other equity buy in options for folks who hold some of their BFX coins.   

When Bitfinex first opened back up in mid August 2016, the BFX tokens fluctuated in value largely between $.20 and $.40; however, by September 1, 2016, when Bitfinex redeemed 1.1812% of the BFX coins at full $1 value, the price of BFX tokens increased to float largely between $.50 and $.60.  So again today, Bitfinex engaged in another $1 redemption of 1.3152% of the outstanding BFX coins at full $1 value.

Yeah, sure, we can consider Bitfinex as potentially corrupt and potentially engaging in an ongoing scam, but they also have a reasonable story, and surely your perception of the matter and your approach may vary depending on whether you have some BFX coins with them and if you sold your coins earlier or if you took some other approach in which you are still holding BFX coins.

I personally held some value on Bitfinex on August 2, and I received the 36% haircut of what I was then holding on the exchange.  As a USA resident, Bitfinex has allowed these folks to sell BFX tokens, but not to buy BFX tokes.  Accordingly, I had decided to begin selling in small increments starting at about $.39, and accordingly, so far I have sold about 17% of my total BFX coin holdings at about an average price of $.58 (which includes the two 100% payouts that amount to a bit over 2% of my holdings).

Even though I have structured my incremental selling of BFX coins, I have my doubts about whether I am going to receive close to my lost amount, but in the end, I still consider this Bitfinex approach to be interesting and creative and the situation could have turned out much worse.

[coins101]

Price is being kept subdued because we don't have enough fresh blood coming in. Over all these years, we should be at 100m users:



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1628738.msg16381537#msg16381537

[savetherainforest]

China.

[AZwarel]

In this case, if you allow miners the liberty to include as large blocks as they like, an external actor that hates bitcoin can just say to a miner "you know what? I'll pay you more fees than what the others are making, and if your block is orphaned, I'll pay that too - just make sure to put in there as many txs as you like".

At that point, the enemy of bitcoin who has employed "bad miners" for very little money (compared to the multi-billion dollar interests of banks/payment companies/governments), can bloat bitcoin to death for extremely small costs.

Just because the miners (in this hypothetical) are allowed to create blocks as large as they desire, does not mean that other miners are forced to accept those blocks as valid. If such a large block (presumably the result of your bribe above) is deemed detrimental to the system by the other miners (i.e., detrimental to these other miners' interests), these other miners are incentivized to orphan that block. Resulting in no problem to the network. The 'problem' solves itself.

Not really.

1) The network is being spammed every day - even with stated spam attacks and stress tests. These blocks are now sitting in the blockchain as bloat. If the rejection scenario actually happened, they wouldn't be sitting in there.

Well, no. Any transaction that has made it into the blockchain is -- by definition -- a valid transaction. You don't get to call valid transactions 'bloat'.

Not to mention the fact that this has nothing to do with the scenario you posited to which I was replying.

2) Let's asssume I'm the exo-attacker and plan to do what I laid above. I also hire a programmer, modify bitcoin core to use GPU for validating big blocks, the ability to process blocks is raised significantly, and then release that software as open source so that miners will use it to "speed up new block verification and help scale bitcoin".

By employing GPU power *and* the fact that network propagation between the large miners is good, there is no valid reason for others to reject very big blocks because I've also given them the tools to process them. I mean the (other) miner is not going to need minutes to process them, so why not?

There is nothing wrong with your scenario 2. Other than the fact that you are completely changing the terms of the scenario re: the single attacker incentivized by an external payment that you opened with. If miners make bigger blocks, and other miners accept them as valid, then great. The system is able to accommodate more transaction volume. Wishful transactors don't need to shuffle off to alt coins in order to transactionate. The only possible problem here is if a critical number of validators can't keep up. Note that validators are free to employ the same techniques to improve their performance. Regardless, I say good riddance to a network hobbled by RasPis.

(this could happen too:)
3) The larger the miner, the biggest the incentive to accept even bigger blocks so that they can crush the opposition who can't handle them. It's like corporate cartel forming. You lower the price (to your detriment) until others fall out of the market. And then you raise the price. You can do the same with blocks. You accept the largest blocks possible, so that those who can't catch up fall behind. It's their problem, not yours. The less they mine, the more you earn.

Technological advancement rather akin to the CPU > GPU transition, the GPU > FPGA transition, the FPGA > ASIC transition, etc. That's worked out reasonably well in practice. Except this advantage is really not about size, but rather efficiency.

But really - you want to put some efficiency improvement numbers out for discussion? If it is more than a scant percent or two, would such not already be coded up and in the wild? Lacking evidence, reasoning suggests your 'crushing' speedup is not a potential significant possibility.

Yepp. But let me agree differently, and save You a lot of trouble/time arguing the sceptics.
There is a simple answer to these "hypothetical doom scenarios":

If bitcoin, the network, is open accessed - by that i mean that anyone can jump into the mining race (for the probabilistic chance to create the next block. PROBABILISTIC(!)) -, and bitcoin the currency unit is valued by - alas semi - the free market, and any central bank **insert evil bank cartel here*** can buy/sell it with free air printed fiat -, than all those hypothetical "sinister powers would be" should have been able to strangle it in the crib already, if they have wanted to/capable to do it. AKA, bitcoin would be dead.

Since bitcoin is still alive, and the aggregated network security is at an all time high, price is stable and obviously on a long term uptrend, none of the above has happened/can be done despite the intent -> hypothetical attacks have failed/can't be done as of yet.

I am a bit tired of all these "but what if...[insert totally unrealistic scenario] things happens, and kills bitcoin..."
The mere fact, that they did not happened in the last 7 years - despite the enormous incentive of the legacy system to act upon it - shows us that it can not be done, or they could not have found a way to do it so far (but yeah, they have tried, like - terrorist, drug dealers, ponzi, etc bullshit).

That is why blocksize arguments are meaningless. The free market - self interested actors with risk involved - will produce a solution at the exact moment - like, literally in days/hours - when the cost/opportunity cost of not acting/acting reaches the average-n+1  profit margin.

Let the free market work it's ways, and just HODL!

EDIT:

While i am aware, that in the long term, we do need to scale the tx/sec capacity (even though, that is an entirely different argument about what is bitcoin, the new "baby VISA", or the new "electronic gold"),  data show no imminent(!) threat:

https://blockchain.info/charts/median-confirmation-time?timespan=all

[AlexGR]

If bitcoin, the network, is open accessed - by that i mean that anyone can jump into the mining race (for the probabilistic chance to create the next block. PROBABILISTIC(!)) -, and bitcoin the currency unit is valued by - alas semi - the free market, and any central bank **insert evil bank cartel here*** can buy/sell it with free air printed fiat -, than all those hypothetical "sinister powers would be" should have been able to strangle it in the crib already, if they have wanted to/capable to do it. AKA, bitcoin would be dead.

Since bitcoin is still alive, and the aggregated network security is at an all time high, price is stable and obviously on a long term uptrend, none of the above has happened/can be done despite the intent -> hypothetical attacks have failed/can't be done as of yet.

I am a bit tired of all these "but what if...[insert totally unrealistic scenario] things happens, and kills bitcoin..."
The mere fact, that they did not happened in the last 7 years - despite the enormous incentive of the legacy system to act upon it - shows us that it can not be done, or they could not have found a way to do it so far (but yeah, they have tried, like - terrorist, drug dealers, ponzi, etc bullshit).

Most people would say that because their thought isn't Machiavellian enough. A dumb hacker might think along the lines of "oh I just found an exploit, let's go out and use it". Not the Elite.

The Elite has an arsenal of attack vectors for any given situation. They will strategically deploy these, as needs arise, and only as a last resort. This is necessary to protect their arsenal. They don't use it mindlessly.

An attack will be wasted if it's launched early, because, in our case, such an attack will have a small effect, BTC can be patched and continue. The attacks become more potent the more "established" BTC becomes. Thus the cost/reward ratio for early attacks doesn't compute in its favor. Instead, attacks would be better deployed later to cause maximum damage. It's not the same attacking bitcoin while it has a 1-2-5-10bn marketcap, and when it's, say, 100bn marketcap. The "crash'n'burn factor" multiplies. The same attack can be more catastrophic later.

That's why the rationale "if it hasn't been attacked so far, it won't be later" isn't valid. Because early attacks don't make sense (they waste an attack vector for dubious results).

For the Elite, it's better if the cryptoanarchists, say, build an ecosystem for 10 years, and THEN go in and kill it. Then, until they regrow something different, from the lessons learned from the first iteration, they'll let them for a few years to slowly grow AND THEN kill the next project. If the Elite acted in "panic mode" and had kill-cycles of one month, then in 3 years the cryptoanarchists would be in the 37th iteration, having patched 36 attack vectors. The Elite's job would be far more difficult to keep finding attack vectors to a constantly patched system that circumvents them.

If I were the Elite, even if I had 10 bitcoin kill-switches, I would have no incentive to activate anyone right now. I'd have to let it grow more and then trigger a switch. Or play around with something like a half-switch, for entertainment value (panic). Or even 0.25x switches, like bloating, where you slowly make it unusable and centralized.... or instigating community division where you let bitcoiners rip one another apart while you laugh for triggering the fire.

Under no circumstance would I want the kill cycle to be fast because it depletes my arsenal of attack vectors faster than I can replenish it, creating a very hardened rival that will inevitably become impossible to kill. As the Elite, I do not want to bring the inevitable closer to the present. I want it to be towards the future.

As a bitcoiner I'd like bitcoin to have this hardness right now, not after I go through multiple kill cycles. In order to do that, the best way to go about it is pre-empt possible attacks by making the worst assumptions possible about the hostile environment that we are operating, thus closing possible attack vectors that could manifest.

If assumptions of a hostile environment aren't in place, then I have no reason to even be invested in Bitcoin. It would be a jokecoin surrounded by wishful thinking instead of actual security.

[beastmodeBiscuitGravy]

[mymenace]

 
sell walls have shrunk a little

no wonder with all this great news and investment



India gonna get big with bitcoin

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rogeraitken/2016/09/30/bitcoin-fintech-unocoin-sets-1-5m-vc-indian-investment-record/#43227c345a9f



bitcoins slow dominance of the market

http://wall-street.com/bitcoins-slow-dominance-internet-good-thing/



bitcoin more than a digital currency

http://www.moneyobserver.com/news/30-09-2016/bitcoin-roundup-more-just-digital-currency-story

[nindie]

if not big news impact
bitcoin price is next friday my prediction only incraese to 630 dollar every one bitcoin

[600watt]

the author of the wallstreet article mentioned above is not getting it. i mean we talk about DIGITAL stuff here. bitcoins are divisible, that is basic knowledge. do digital things exist that cannot be divided?

When it comes to wagering on online games such as poker, it becomes difficult to use them as a currency because it is difficult to break them down into smaller units that can be used as a wager

http://wall-street.com/bitcoins-slow-dominance-internet-good-thing/

[savetherainforest]

dot . dot . dot .


Does any of you know what day is today??

1 October!   

http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2016/09/30/AM16-PR16440-IMF-Launches-New-SDR-Basket-Including-Chinese-Renminbi

[Denker]

the author of the wallstreet article mentioned above is not getting it. i mean we talk about DIGITAL stuff here. bitcoins are divisible, that is basic knowledge. do digital things exist that cannot be divided?

When it comes to wagering on online games such as poker, it becomes difficult to use them as a currency because it is difficult to break them down into smaller units that can be used as a wager

http://wall-street.com/bitcoins-slow-dominance-internet-good-thing/

Ouch!
That's indeed so embarrassing! However it says a lot about the qualification and competence that author is having regarding that topic.
Someone should make them aware how dumb that statement is.
The whole article is just again an attempt to present Bitcoin again in proper light!
But should we be surprised? This is Wall-Street talking!

[Cassius]

the author of the wallstreet article mentioned above is not getting it. i mean we talk about DIGITAL stuff here. bitcoins are divisible, that is basic knowledge. do digital things exist that cannot be divided?

When it comes to wagering on online games such as poker, it becomes difficult to use them as a currency because it is difficult to break them down into smaller units that can be used as a wager

http://wall-street.com/bitcoins-slow-dominance-internet-good-thing/

Ouch!
That's indeed so embarrassing! However it says a lot about the qualification and competence that author is having regarding that topic.
Someone should make them aware how dumb that statement is.
The whole article is just again an attempt to present Bitcoin again in proper light!
But should we be surprised? This is Wall-Street talking!

Also, it is possible for hackers to create bogus bitcoins! I never realised.

[spooderman]

the author of the wallstreet article mentioned above is not getting it. i mean we talk about DIGITAL stuff here. bitcoins are divisible, that is basic knowledge. do digital things exist that cannot be divided?

When it comes to wagering on online games such as poker, it becomes difficult to use them as a currency because it is difficult to break them down into smaller units that can be used as a wager

http://wall-street.com/bitcoins-slow-dominance-internet-good-thing/

lol

it'll never be as easy or effective as tearing a 10 dollar bill in half. author gets it.

[Torque]

the author of the wallstreet article mentioned above is not getting it. i mean we talk about DIGITAL stuff here. bitcoins are divisible, that is basic knowledge. do digital things exist that cannot be divided?

When it comes to wagering on online games such as poker, it becomes difficult to use them as a currency because it is difficult to break them down into smaller units that can be used as a wager

http://wall-street.com/bitcoins-slow-dominance-internet-good-thing/

Ouch!
That's indeed so embarrassing! However it says a lot about the qualification and competence that author is having regarding that topic.
Someone should make them aware how dumb that statement is.
The whole article is just again an attempt to present Bitcoin again in proper light!
But should we be surprised? This is Wall-Street talking!

Yep. We just had a U.S. presidential candidate refer to the Internet as "The Cyber". So what does that tell you about these idiots?