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

[DaRude]

Bottom lineis if i pay you $100 in BTC you'll get $99.99 worth of BTC. If i pay you $100 via credit card you'll get about $97 and it'll come with additional risk of chargeback if i decide to dispute that transaction as a bonus

why  $0.01 less? I suppose you will pay the miner's fee. normally buyers pay it. So merchants pays nothing unless they want to convert to fiat.

Errr ok if $100 leaves my wallet $0.01 will go to miners and $99.99 to receiver, or to put it another way if i want merchant to receive $100 it'll cost me $103 with credit card or $100.01 in BTC. Ok ok BitThink 103.09278350514 in CC geeze  

[DaRude]

Better question from all of this is why are there laws in some states that prohibit credit card surcharge 

[twiifm]

Better question from all of this is why are there laws in some states that prohibit credit card surcharge 

Because consumers don't like it and they're the voters

[samsonn25]

The federal government likes the credit card system because it increases consumer spending and boosts the economy, sales, jobs, etc.

Also the cc exchanges have powerful lobbies.

But they probably leave it to individual states whether or not they want customers to pay same price using cash or credit.  They might see it as punishing the customer who does not have cash, although the intermediaries make the percentages and extra fees.  Uhhhhh.  Its a whole scam  lool

[DaRude]

Ohh Found some good stuff here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/creditcard-surcharges-lawsuit-idUSL1N0HT18B20131003

"Even beyond the informational content of surcharges, sellers' inability to effectively inform consumers of the true costs of credit has the effect of artificially subsidizing credit at the expense of cash, increasing overall credit-card usage and consumer debt,"

"The card industry wants to perpetuate the myth that using a credit card is free, or priceless. But the cost is baked into the price of all the goods and services we buy."

argued that the state law protected shoppers by enabling them to rely on advertised prices, rather than be surprised at checkout with surcharges.

tl;dr blah blah blah creditcards companies should get tons of $$$ because we're afraid that dumb people can't grasp the concept of paying 3% more if they want to pay with their credit card

[samsonn25]

"The card industry wants to perpetuate the myth that using a credit card is free, or priceless. But the cost is baked into the price of all the goods and services we buy."

Thats why alot of places have given up on all that BS and raised the cash prices to same level as credit card price to create the illusion that credit price is same as cash.

[twiifm]

Ohh Found some good stuff here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/creditcard-surcharges-lawsuit-idUSL1N0HT18B20131003

"Even beyond the informational content of surcharges, sellers' inability to effectively inform consumers of the true costs of credit has the effect of artificially subsidizing credit at the expense of cash, increasing overall credit-card usage and consumer debt,"

"The card industry wants to perpetuate the myth that using a credit card is free, or priceless. But the cost is baked into the price of all the goods and services we buy."

argued that the state law protected shoppers by enabling them to rely on advertised prices, rather than be surprised at checkout with surcharges.

tl;dr blah blah blah creditcards companies should get tons of $$$ because we're afraid that dumb people can't grasp the concept of paying 3% more if they want to pay with their credit card

Most consumers prefer to use CC because of cash back incentives and an easy way to itemize their spending record.  By surcharging it'll just irritate the majority of consumers.  Seems like only the small shops care about this.  The big shops like Target rather just have one price

[DaRude]

Ohh Found some good stuff here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/creditcard-surcharges-lawsuit-idUSL1N0HT18B20131003

"Even beyond the informational content of surcharges, sellers' inability to effectively inform consumers of the true costs of credit has the effect of artificially subsidizing credit at the expense of cash, increasing overall credit-card usage and consumer debt,"

"The card industry wants to perpetuate the myth that using a credit card is free, or priceless. But the cost is baked into the price of all the goods and services we buy."

argued that the state law protected shoppers by enabling them to rely on advertised prices, rather than be surprised at checkout with surcharges.

tl;dr blah blah blah creditcards companies should get tons of $$$ because we're afraid that dumb people can't grasp the concept of paying 3% more if they want to pay with their credit card

Most consumers prefer to use CC because of cash back incentives and an easy way to itemize their spending record.  By surcharging it'll just irritate the majority of consumers.  Seems like only the small shops care about this.  The big shops like Target rather just have one price

Ok i can buy the argument that Creditcards are more convenient than cash, and creditcard companies are willing to provide that convenience for a certain fee of course. And they hate for you to know that you're actually paying a 2-3% fee, instead why not give you a 0.5%bonus points and make you feel smart like you're actually making money while at the same time lobby to pass the law that prohibits merchants to directly pass that fee to you and instead just cost average their fees on people who don't even use that "convenience"

[twiifm]

Ohh Found some good stuff here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/creditcard-surcharges-lawsuit-idUSL1N0HT18B20131003

"Even beyond the informational content of surcharges, sellers' inability to effectively inform consumers of the true costs of credit has the effect of artificially subsidizing credit at the expense of cash, increasing overall credit-card usage and consumer debt,"

"The card industry wants to perpetuate the myth that using a credit card is free, or priceless. But the cost is baked into the price of all the goods and services we buy."

argued that the state law protected shoppers by enabling them to rely on advertised prices, rather than be surprised at checkout with surcharges.

tl;dr blah blah blah creditcards companies should get tons of $$$ because we're afraid that dumb people can't grasp the concept of paying 3% more if they want to pay with their credit card

Most consumers prefer to use CC because of cash back incentives and an easy way to itemize their spending record.  By surcharging it'll just irritate the majority of consumers.  Seems like only the small shops care about this.  The big shops like Target rather just have one price

Ok i can buy the argument that Creditcards are more convenient than cash, and creditcard companies are willing to provide that convenience for a certain fee of course. And they hate for you to know that you're actually paying a 2-3% fee, instead why not give you a 0.5%bonus points and make you feel smart like you're actually making money while at the same time lobby to pass the law that prohibits merchants to directly pass that fee to you and instead just cost average their fees on people who don't even use that "convenience"

That's how the world works.  I didnt like it when they banned indoor smoking.  But that's what the majority wants

[ChartBuddy]

Bitfinex

Bitstamp

Explanation

[DaRude]

Ohh Found some good stuff here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/03/creditcard-surcharges-lawsuit-idUSL1N0HT18B20131003

"Even beyond the informational content of surcharges, sellers' inability to effectively inform consumers of the true costs of credit has the effect of artificially subsidizing credit at the expense of cash, increasing overall credit-card usage and consumer debt,"

"The card industry wants to perpetuate the myth that using a credit card is free, or priceless. But the cost is baked into the price of all the goods and services we buy."

argued that the state law protected shoppers by enabling them to rely on advertised prices, rather than be surprised at checkout with surcharges.

tl;dr blah blah blah creditcards companies should get tons of $$$ because we're afraid that dumb people can't grasp the concept of paying 3% more if they want to pay with their credit card

Most consumers prefer to use CC because of cash back incentives and an easy way to itemize their spending record.  By surcharging it'll just irritate the majority of consumers.  Seems like only the small shops care about this.  The big shops like Target rather just have one price

Ok i can buy the argument that Creditcards are more convenient than cash, and creditcard companies are willing to provide that convenience for a certain fee of course. And they hate for you to know that you're actually paying a 2-3% fee, instead why not give you a 0.5%bonus points and make you feel smart like you're actually making money while at the same time lobby to pass the law that prohibits merchants to directly pass that fee to you and instead just cost average their fees on people who don't even use that "convenience"

That's how the world works.  I didnt like it when they banned indoor smoking.  But that's what the majority wants

Yeah i didn't like you smoking next to me, how did that work out? Now i don't like paying your convenience fees lets see how that'll work out that's why i'm here. Cut out middle man but still keep the conveniences

[JorgeStolfi]

Silly me, I spent some BTC at newegg.... BTC is only used to buy drugs? I must have missed the boat on this one...

Actually you bought at Newegg with dollars.  It may well be that drugs and other illegal stuff are still the largest class of purchases that are really paid with biotcoin (excluding online gambling and conversion to other currencies).

[BrewCrewFan]

Silly me, I spent some BTC at newegg.... BTC is only used to buy drugs? I must have missed the boat on this one...

Actually you bought at Newegg with dollars.  It may well be that drugs and other illegal stuff are still the largest class of purchases that are really paid with biotcoin (excluding online gambling and conversion to other currencies).

No, no I did not. I got BTC when I mined some alts. NewEgg is not the only placed I have shopped with BTC. Sure, sometimes I had to get a gift card instead to buy at say .... Amazon but I would have used BTC there too if they accepted them.

On another note, come on, you cant prove one way or another that drugs and illegal stuff make up most of the BTC purchases. I know that is a meme that people like you and the media like to believe.

[samsonn25]

Most bigger retailers like Newegg and Overstock instantly convert btc to usd fiat, they probably have reduced commission rate at exchanges like Bitstamp at maybe under .5% for the transaction charge.  But it is still lower than normal credit card.

I dont think they want to wait 24 or 48 hours to batch out all the bitcoin transactions for the last 1 or 2 days because the price may drop 20-30% just like that what we have seen last week.

[Searing]

That pretty much sums it up. 

For users it needs more adoption, it cost most people to acquire bitcoins and the price fluctuates every minute.

well kinda being an ass here...but here goes:

1) 2013- 2014 price bubble popped

2) 2014-2015 (now) the miner/data hall bubble popped

3) 2015-2016? the adoption/USEAGE?infrastruture/as an actual means of use for bitcoin/and alts...now that...... bubble pops?
 (ie slowdown of bitcoin/altcoin/adoption due to above other 2 bubbles with price tanking and press FUD)  (i hope not just saying)

hope I am incorrect....but if adoption  is the next bubble we are all screwed!

[JorgeStolfi]

Found this on some thread. That is the second bottom you decribe, right?

That picture may be comforting if you believe that the future price will be magically determined by what it did over the past year and in 2011.

I would rather believe that each "bubble" in the bitcoin price history was caused by the opening of a new "consumer market" (a new set of people, or a new application). 

That is why they all had similar shape: an exponential rise as adoption spreads through that consumer market, by "contagion" and media reports, amplified by speclative buying;  a crash when the market saturates and the speculative buyers dump; oscillations while the speculators over-react and then over-correct.

When the oscillations end, in most cases we see a plateau: the price remains relatively constant, at some level higher than the pre-bubble price.  The plateau implies that the buyers keep holding the coins that they acquired during the rally, and the miners' outputs are somehow being bought too.

In some cases, however, instead of a plateau we see a slow exponential decay towards the pre-bubble price.  Presumably that happens when the consumers in that market gradually give up bitcoin and return their holdings to the exchanges.

The exponential decay was observed in the bubbles that atarted around Apr/2011 and Nov/2013.  In the tail of the 2011 bubble, the price would probably have dropped to the pre-bubble level, 0.75 $/BTC; but then on Nov/2011 another bubble started, that lifted the price to ~5 $/BTC.

The Nov/2013 bubble seems to be on its way to deflating too.  If no new "market" opens, the price probably will continue decaying towards the pre-bubble level, around 120--150 $/BTC.  It is not certain, but the two smaller bubbles that started at the end of May/2014 and in early Nov/2014 may be deflating too.

This analysis is not useful for prediciting the price, since there is no way of telling whether or when the next consumer market will open up, nor how big it will be.  On the contrary, this analysis claims that the recovery that started on Nov/2011 was probably unrelated to the Apr/2011 bubble and its decay.  Therefore, that fact that the Nov/2013 bubble is nearly undone, like the Apr/2011 one, does not imply that a new bubble is about to start, as happened in 2011.

[ElectricMucus]

"The card industry wants to perpetuate the myth that using a credit card is free, or priceless. But the cost is baked into the price of all the goods and services we buy."

Thats why alot of places have given up on all that BS and raised the cash prices to same level as credit card price to create the illusion that credit price is same as cash.

By alot you mean pretty much everywhere. The thing is consumers don't care about fees if they come out of the merchants profit margin, which they are if prices are the same for other payment methods.

[cbeast]

That pretty much sums it up. 

For users it needs more adoption, it cost most people to acquire bitcoins and the price fluctuates every minute.

well kinda being an ass here...but here goes:

1) 2013- 2014 price bubble popped

2) 2014-2015 (now) the miner/data hall bubble popped

3) 2015-2016? the adoption/USEAGE?infrastruture/as an actual means of use for bitcoin/and alts...now that...... bubble pops?
 (ie slowdown of bitcoin/altcoin/adoption due to above other 2 bubbles with price tanking and press FUD)  (i hope not just saying)

hope I am incorrect....but if adoption  is the next bubble we are all screwed!

3.5) the moment IBM and Samsung realize they need Bitcoin for their Internet of Things to be monetized.

[Afrikoin]

Found this on some thread. That is the second bottom you decribe, right?

That picture may be comforting if you believe that the future price will be magically determined by what it did over the past year and in 2011.

I would rather believe that each "bubble" in the bitcoin price history was caused by the opening of a new "consumer market" (a new set of people, or a new application).  

That is why they all had similar shape: an exponential rise as adoption spreads through that consumer market, by "contagion" and media reports, amplified by speclative buying;  a crash when the market saturates and the speculative buyers dump; oscillations while the speculators over-react and then over-correct.

When the oscillations end, in most cases we see a plateau: the price remains relatively constant, at some level higher than the pre-bubble price.  The plateau implies that the buyers keep holding the coins that they acquired during the rally, and the miners' outputs are somehow being bought too.

In some cases, however, instead of a plateau we see a slow exponential decay towards the pre-bubble price.  Presumably that happens when the consumers in that market gradually give up bitcoin and return their holdings to the exchanges.

The exponential decay was observed in the bubbles that atarted around Apr/2011 and Nov/2013.  In the tail of the 2011 bubble, the price would probably have dropped to the pre-bubble level, 0.75 $/BTC; but then on Nov/2011 another bubble started, that lifted the price to ~5 $/BTC.

The Nov/2013 bubble seems to be on its way to deflating too.  If no new "market" opens, the price probably will continue decaying towards the pre-bubble level, around 120--150 $/BTC.  It is not certain, but the two smaller bubbles that started at the end of May/2014 and in early Nov/2014 may be deflating too.

This analysis is not useful for prediciting the price, since there is no way of telling whether or when the next consumer market will open up, nor how big it will be.  On the contrary, this analysis claims that the recovery that started on Nov/2011 was probably unrelated to the Apr/2011 bubble and its decay.  Therefore, that fact that the Nov/2013 bubble is nearly undone, like the Apr/2011 one, does not imply that a new bubble is about to start, as happened in 2011.

2 big events expected in 2015.

Early 2015, bitlicense new york. Google this audio - podcats Ben Lawsky on bitlicense "moneytalking20150109_lawsky_web''

*edit http://50.31.154.46/moneytalking/moneytalking20150109_lawsky_web.mp3?downloadId=53a9d622771f8ef7_fWbQGsRJ_000000Fuwl3

ETFs expected in 2015.

You forget, while we are all traders, we still have an eye (some of us) on the fundamentals. Who wouldn't?

[ChartBuddy]

Bitfinex

Bitstamp

Explanation