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

[jl2012]

http://www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2015/021815.htm

confirmed!

But this has been known for ages. Not the exact date, but there isn't much left of Q1.

The sale is expected, but it's really annoying that they are not selling all 98000BTC this round.

[bitards]

Auctions are good, rich dumb guys buy all the btc, they hold it, less coins in circulation, btc bagholders win long run.

[damiano]

I wonder if bullscammers like aztecminer & fatman will ever get banned... their only purpose seems to be to lure more people into the BTC trap, which is not only morally totally wrong but eventually also criminal....

lol i am a bullscammer now ...... dood i play my own game and care less what everyone else is doing. take responsibility for your own actions retard.

He is underage, he can't.

[tarmi]

http://www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2015/021815.htm

confirmed!

But this has been known for ages. Not the exact date, but there isn't much left of Q1.

The sale is expected, but it's really annoying that they are not selling all 98000BTC this round.

they are not stupid. selling all of them could lower and crash the price!

oh wait...

and how is this expected? there was a trial and a possibility that ulbricht didnt do it...

[aztecminer]

I wonder if bullscammers like aztecminer & fatman will ever get banned... their only purpose seems to be to lure more people into the BTC trap, which is not only morally totally wrong but eventually also criminal....

Banning them is pointless.  They just buy more aged accounts & get right back to their criminality

[mrkavasaki]

ok, sold all my 200 bitcoins at 231. Looks like we could test the 220

also: http://www.coindesk.com/us-marshals-auction-50000-bitcoins-march/ 

[NotLambchop]

...

We know who you are, Bitcoin criminal scum

[Fatman3001]

Fnitfnatfnitfnat

Buuurp

This really fries my thinker... lol

[NotHatinJustTrollin]

Line breached. Going to retest $215-$220 pretty soon.

It's just a matter of time before it crashes again.

[JorgeStolfi]

CNN: Breaking the bank: Bitcoins hit Africa's money transfer traditions

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/17/business/bitcoin-africa-unbanked/

Transferring cash via a bank or a Money Transfer Operator (MTOs) like Western Union or MoneyGram can be costly. According to the Overseas Development Institute, the average charge to transfer $200 to Africa using traditional money transfer services is 12%. If you send $200, you pay $24. The ODI added up all the transfers that happen in a year, and found remittance fees cost the African continent $1.8 billion a year.

  
What if that money could be spent on things, rather than fees?

As Bitcoin is a virtual peer-to-peer currency -- designed to operate on the border-less internet -- the costs of transferring money can be radically cheaper than traditional methods, and the process is much quicker.

"Bitcoin can greatly alter the remittances industry and beyond," says Michael Kimani, who heads the African Digital Currency Association, a Kenya-based group launched last May to promote digital currency technologies. "From seven days [for a transaction to clear] using banks & PayPal, down to 20 minutes speaks volumes."

A laudable intention, and I hope that international payments and remittances will be much, much cheaper in the future.  However, bitcoin as a remittance mechanism has a problem: it does not actually send dollars to the Zimberians, it only shuffles Zimberian patacas among Zimberians.  This is what happens then:

https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/2vypy9/if_i_was_looking_to_sell_big_or_relatively_big/

Hi guys, I'm from a Bitcoin startup in the Philippines [ReBit] and we have services that range from payment processing, remittance, prepaid cards, and even new order book exchange.

Our business has been growing steadily and we've found ourselves needing to trade out big amounts of BTC for fiat on a consistent basis daily, which we have so far been able to do using our own contacts. Increasing volumes of incoming BTC is making it harder and harder though. [ ... ]

Some comments on that from the premier Skeptic Tank:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/2w1f4g/rebit_having_problems_finding_bagholders_in_the/

[Iraes78]

Down to the deep again, sell before its too late. 

[NotHatinJustTrollin]

Using bitcoin to "save the unbanked" is stupid.

First of all the volatility can make them even poorer and the benefit of paying less fees could be gone. Are you telling me they should convert their BTC to USD to avoid volatility (paying some fees left and right anyway) and having to trust (I thought when using bitcoin it was not required to trust anyone?) an online BTC exchange holding the funds?

They could use the ripple network or something similar, using their preferred fiat currency (avoiding volatility) instead of an unstable cryptocurrency, and the fees would actually be pretty much nothing.


Bitcoin cannot really "save the unbanked". Throwing at them a volatile, irreversible, 0 consumer protection cryptocurrency is criminal.

[Globb0]

[D05GTO]

Down to the deep again, sell before its too late. 

More like sell to me before it takes off again. Nice reverse psychology.. works on 4 y/o's. 

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[NotLambchop]

...
More like sell to me before it takes off again. Nice reverse psychology.. works on 4 y/o's.  

Leave our children alone, shameless Bitcoiner!

[Sitarow]

2:05PM EST

[Iraes78]

Down to the deep again, sell before its too late. 

More like sell to me before it takes off again. Nice reverse psychology.. works on 4 y/o's. 

You're too evil-minded my dear, im just trying to help the comunity   

[jeffhuys]

Hahahaha, thanks for the laugh 

[JorgeStolfi]

The US Marshals have announced they will auction 50K bitcoins on 5th March. I'm wondering if we might get a pamic dump because of it. These auctions seem to have a big effect on the price.
http://www.coindesk.com/us-marshals-auction-50000-bitcoins-march/

The first one caused a drop of ~70 USD on its announcement (~2014-06-11) which was reversed when it was known that one bidder had bought all the coins (~2014-06-30). 

The ssecond one (announced ~2014-11-17, result known ~2014-12-09) did not have any clear effect although there was a ~25 USD drop on the day before the result became known (a leak perhaps?).

Auctions are good, rich dumb guys buy all the btc, they hold it, less coins in circulation, btc bagholders win long run.

It depends... Those coins are now out of the active market, whether open (exchanges) and OTC (off-exchanges).   The auction will take a lot of dollars out of the pockets of people who would otherwise buy bitcoins in the market; so it will put a negative pressure on the price. 

If the coins are bought by long-term hoders, the effect will not be immediate; simply there will be less money around in the following onths.  If the winners are short-term speculators, the drop may be immediate as they offer the coins for sale.

(On the other hand, perhaps there are people who are not buying BTC now because they hope to get a better deal at the auction.  If they do not win the auction, perhaps they will start buying from the market.)