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

[Sitarow]

[manfred]

Lets see how this translates 2,600 years ago...

Real wealth is houses, land, cars, food, services, etc.  Wealth gets created and destroyed, sometimes both in quick succession, as when a cook prepares a meal that gets eaten right away.  

Gold does not create any wealth. Its contribution to productivity, by (allegedly) being a more efficient payment instrument is tiny.  In fact, the contribution of gold to world's production of wealth, so far, has been humongously negative: 100 times (at least) more wealth has been destroyed by the gold system than has been created thanks to it.

Does not translate.  The replacement of barter by money transactions hugely improved the flow of goods and services, by breaking down complicated multi-party trasactions into independent two-party steps, that could be widely separated in time and space.

There was something between barter and gold. Currencies like salt, rare shells, rai stones, to name a few. Gold coins replaced those. While the other currencies were local, gold worked globally (well, almost, it didn't get to the Americas). See the parallel between contemporary local fiat currencies and the global bitcoins?
  

The losses caused by bitcoin include, first, all the wealth consumed by the "bitcoin phenomenon": the bitcoin mining equipment and electrical energy used by miners, all the time spent by bitcoiners looking at charts, trading bitcoins, and watching Antonopulos videos, all the time and equipment and electricity consumed by bitcoin companies, all the time spent by non-bitcoiners listening to bitcoiners and trying to understand the thing.  We should also add all the losses and hardships suffered by victims of bitcoin thefts, scams, and collapse of bitcoin companies.  Even if we discount from the latter the losses of wealthy people (which, a communist might argue, were just cases of thief stealing from thief), we can easily get to a billion dollars of damages.  

Hence the claim that, so far, bitcoin has brought 100x more losses than benefits to mankind.

How much losses are caused by gold mining? By moving cash around? By people devoting their lives to making money off the financial markets? Etc...

That is the same trick that governments and banks use when they create more money, indeed. But when the government does it, it is just another kind of tax: the government is supposed to use the wealth that it buys with that new money for the benefit of its citizens.  When banks do it, of course, there is no such return: there is net and permanent transfer of wealth from the general people to bank owners.

And that is the case too when private entities create new money, whether it is gift certificates or Linden Dollars -- or scarce metals.  *That* is why scarce metals are a scam, even if they were to succeed.

These statemetns of course make no sense when applied to gold. Banks and governments do not create more gold, and private entities do not create new scarce metals.  It obviously applies to fiat money, such as dollars and cryptocurrencies.

Gold mining companies mine gold. As such they bring more gold in circulation that wasn't in circulation before -- just like with bitcoin.

There are private entities that try to make other scarce metals (apart from gold and silver) sexy enough to act as a store of value.

Energy is Wealth (see my personal message)

[JorgeStolfi]

There was something between barter and gold. Currencies like salt, rare shells, rai stones, to name a few. Gold coins replaced those. While the other currencies were local, gold worked globally (well, almost, it didn't get to the Americas). See the parallel between contemporary local fiat currencies and the global bitcoins?

Why do you insist with gold?  I said already that I am not a "gold bug".  To me, the speculative overvaluation of gold is almost as bad as that of bitcoin. ("Almost" only because gold does have some intrinsic value, although it has little infuence in the gold's market price.)

[macsga]

There was something between barter and gold. Currencies like salt, rare shells, rai stones, to name a few. Gold coins replaced those. While the other currencies were local, gold worked globally (well, almost, it didn't get to the Americas). See the parallel between contemporary local fiat currencies and the global bitcoins?

Why do you insist with gold?  I said already that I am not a "gold bug".  To me, the speculative overvaluation of gold is almost as bad as that of bitcoin. ("Almost" only because gold does have some intrinsic value, although it has little infuence in the gold's market price.)

Very few of this traded gold is "out in the open". In that perspective it's in essence the same with bitcoin. Only it's here longer.

[tomothy]

Thanks for the update Sitarow-

I'm not really sure what to think about the markets right now. We seem to just be holding steady and going sideways in a pattern on multiple fronts or slightly down in all of BTC/LTC/NMC/PPC. There just isn't much volume anywhere either.   LTC has been especially stagnant except for few attempts to move the market. (Random Cryptsy dumps filling the buy/order book). Nothing happened after those moves though; just strange. I'd expect a correlated rise or fall which would inversely transfer into another market, i.e. from ltc into btc or vice versa, but nothings happening in any arena. Is it relatively safe to say that everyone is just waiting on 'something' to happen? I.e., 30 days until implementation of NY Bitlicense and/or the Marshalls Auction? (Is the auction next week)? I was expecting to see some significant movement leading up to the auction but maybe it's still a bit premature? One way or another my popcorn is getting cold! I was expecting a show!

On another note, anywhere care to speculate on what the effects of the NY BTL will have on the markets and/or exchanges? Think they will try to assert jurisdiction over BTC-E? And has anyone noticed delays moving coins? (I made a withdrawal of ltc that took far too long to move for my comfort levels).

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[Sitarow]

Thanks for the update Sitarow-

I'm not really sure what to think about the markets right now. We seem to just be holding steady and going sideways in a pattern on multiple fronts or slightly down in all of BTC/LTC/NMC/PPC. There just isn't much volume anywhere either.   LTC has been especially stagnant except for few attempts to move the market. (Random Cryptsy dumps filling the buy/order book). Nothing happened after those moves though; just strange. I'd expect a correlated rise or fall which would inversely transfer into another market, i.e. from ltc into btc or vice versa, but nothings happening in any arena. Is it relatively safe to say that everyone is just waiting on 'something' to happen? I.e., 30 days until implementation of NY Bitlicense and/or the Marshalls Auction? (Is the auction next week)? I was expecting to see some significant movement leading up to the auction but maybe it's still a bit premature? One way or another my popcorn is getting cold! I was expecting a show!

On another note, anywhere care to speculate on what the effects of the NY BTL will have on the markets and/or exchanges? Think they will try to assert jurisdiction over BTC-E? And has anyone noticed delays moving coins? (I made a withdrawal of ltc that took far too long to move for my comfort levels).

I expect weekend movement before the silent bids next week.

The Bitlicense 30 day comment period is over march.
www.coindesk.com/30-day-comment-period-bitlicense-begins/

As for BTC-E paul hinted at development of a Bitlicence BTC-E exchange.  The chat is on a few screen shots from btc-e trollbox that I had recently posted.

FEB 9TH 2015 1AM UTC

[bassclef]

Price seems to be going down a bit now. But I don't think this is going to end in another flash crash. And even if we should go down as much as last night, it will only show the resilience Bitcoin has managed to gain over the past weeks!

to me it looks like a slow grind down.

We've been consolidating with higher highs since Feb 30. Hardly a grind down.

[Fatman3001]

Price seems to be going down a bit now. But I don't think this is going to end in another flash crash. And even if we should go down as much as last night, it will only show the resilience Bitcoin has managed to gain over the past weeks!

to me it looks like a slow grind down.

We've been consolidating with higher highs since Feb Jan 30. Hardly a grind down.

FTFY

[Hfertig]

Price seems to be going down a bit now. But I don't think this is going to end in another flash crash. And even if we should go down as much as last night, it will only show the resilience Bitcoin has managed to gain over the past weeks!

to me it looks like a slow grind down.

We've been consolidating with higher highs since Feb 30. Hardly a grind down.

Interesting... it appears I am living in the past. That might be the reason I do see a grind down. I got another 5 days left to see what you see. Hope you are right...

[Andre#]

There was something between barter and gold. Currencies like salt, rare shells, rai stones, to name a few. Gold coins replaced those. While the other currencies were local, gold worked globally (well, almost, it didn't get to the Americas). See the parallel between contemporary local fiat currencies and the global bitcoins?

Why do you insist with gold?  I said already that I am not a "gold bug".  To me, the speculative overvaluation of gold is almost as bad as that of bitcoin. ("Almost" only because gold does have some intrinsic value, although it has little infuence in the gold's market price.)

Because gold is very much comparable with bitcoin (except for a few differences). By transposing your arguments against bitcoin to gold, the flaws are more easy to spot. But then, if you say gold is/was just as bad as value storage and value transfer as bitcoin, then we can end this discussion. I think gold did a good job until recently. Nowadays, it's not practical anymore. But bitcoin is. IMHO, of course.  

[explorer]

Speaking of "marshall auction next week"  is this the last of the coins the feds have to auction at this point?  I hope so.  I think that it has caused some parties to keep prices deflated for hopes of purchasing in at a lower price, or just the fears that price will plummet because of such a huge amount being sold off.

No, there will be 44k left after this one.

I believe the Australian govt stole some as well, and plan to auction them.  The lower they sell for, the better.

[Andre#]

What I meant is that "bitcoin insurance" can probably only be what circle and coinbase are offering, basically telling people that "it's all insured" but if your computer/account gets hacked you are screwed and they don't give you a penny.
Considering bitcoin is irreversible and all, good luck with actual consumer protection.

If I let my computer get hacked, and the thieves empty my fiat bank account, I'm screwed, too. No difference.

One of my neighbours had her bank card stolen after she went to an ATM. The thieves had seen her typing in her code. She got nothing from the bank.

Sounds like utter bullshit.  What country do you live in?

The things I say can't sound more like bullshit than the things you say. I live in the Netherlands. (Because you asked so nicely.)

Seems that people in the US have problems like these, too.

https://medium.com/@adamdraper/a-hacker-stole-50k-from-my-bank-account-388822389671

[Hfertig]

Price seems to be going down a bit now. But I don't think this is going to end in another flash crash. And even if we should go down as much as last night, it will only show the resilience Bitcoin has managed to gain over the past weeks!

to me it looks like a slow grind down.

We've been consolidating with higher highs since Feb Jan 30. Hardly a grind down.

FTFY

why would someone look at this chart and make this assumption on a less than a one month timeframe? Zoom out to one year and all I see is lower highs and lower lows with no indication for a turnaround. Even the downtrend has not been tested once...

[NotLambchop]

What I meant is that "bitcoin insurance" can probably only be what circle and coinbase are offering, basically telling people that "it's all insured" but if your computer/account gets hacked you are screwed and they don't give you a penny.
Considering bitcoin is irreversible and all, good luck with actual consumer protection.

If I let my computer get hacked, and the thieves empty my fiat bank account, I'm screwed, too. No difference.

One of my neighbours had her bank card stolen after she went to an ATM. The thieves had seen her typing in her code. She got nothing from the bank.

Sounds like utter bullshit.  What country do you live in?

The things I say can't sound more like bullshit than the things you say. I live in the Netherlands. (Because you asked so nicely.)

Seems that people in the US have problems like these, too.

https://medium.com/@adamdraper/a-hacker-stole-50k-from-my-bank-account-388822389671

Hahahahahahahahahaha  Another BITCOIN SCAMMER

"My name is Adam Draper, I run an accelerator for Bitcoin startups called Boost VC and on January 14th, 2015 I had $50,000 stolen from me. Which is a lot of money, and the worst part is, I don’t know who did it, so I can’t take my rage out on them. So this was my $50,000 lesson."

[NotLambchop]

...
No, there will be 44k left after this one.

I believe the Australian govt stole some as well, and plan to auction them.  The lower they sell for, the better.

Oh, you mean that MDMA idiot who got popped in Transylvania Tasmania?
Bitcoiners are the most inept criminals.  Not for the lack of tryin' tho

[ChuckBuck]

...
No, there will be 44k left after this one.

I believe the Australian govt stole some as well, and plan to auction them.  The lower they sell for, the better.

Oh, you mean that MDMA idiot who got popped in Transylvania Tasmania?
Bitcoiners are the most inept criminals.  Not for the lack of tryin' tho

India laughs at your feeble Tasmanian $500k drug bust.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/drugs-dri-drug-bust-delhi-30-crore-amphetamine-mephedrone-maharashtra/1/420560.html

[samsonn25]

What I meant is that "bitcoin insurance" can probably only be what circle and coinbase are offering, basically telling people that "it's all insured" but if your computer/account gets hacked you are screwed and they don't give you a penny.
Considering bitcoin is irreversible and all, good luck with actual consumer protection.

If I let my computer get hacked, and the thieves empty my fiat bank account, I'm screwed, too. No difference.

One of my neighbours had her bank card stolen after she went to an ATM. The thieves had seen her typing in her code. She got nothing from the bank.

Sounds like utter bullshit.  What country do you live in?

The things I say can't sound more like bullshit than the things you say. I live in the Netherlands. (Because you asked so nicely.)

Seems that people in the US have problems like these, too.

https://medium.com/@adamdraper/a-hacker-stole-50k-from-my-bank-account-388822389671

Hahahahahahahahahaha  Another BITCOIN SCAMMER

"My name is Adam Draper, I run an accelerator for Bitcoin startups called Boost VC and on January 14th, 2015 I had $50,000 stolen from me. Which is a lot of money, and the worst part is, I don’t know who did it, so I can’t take my rage out on them. So this was my $50,000 lesson."

This guy is also dumb.  And wires can be stopped after  they are transmitted.  I assume the receiver had a fake  bank account and id  too to open  it and make the  withdrawal.

[Andre#]

What I meant is that "bitcoin insurance" can probably only be what circle and coinbase are offering, basically telling people that "it's all insured" but if your computer/account gets hacked you are screwed and they don't give you a penny.
Considering bitcoin is irreversible and all, good luck with actual consumer protection.

If I let my computer get hacked, and the thieves empty my fiat bank account, I'm screwed, too. No difference.

One of my neighbours had her bank card stolen after she went to an ATM. The thieves had seen her typing in her code. She got nothing from the bank.

Sounds like utter bullshit.  What country do you live in?

The things I say can't sound more like bullshit than the things you say. I live in the Netherlands. (Because you asked so nicely.)

Seems that people in the US have problems like these, too.

https://medium.com/@adamdraper/a-hacker-stole-50k-from-my-bank-account-388822389671

Hahahahahahahahahaha  Another BITCOIN SCAMMER

"My name is Adam Draper, I run an accelerator for Bitcoin startups called Boost VC and on January 14th, 2015 I had $50,000 stolen from me. Which is a lot of money, and the worst part is, I don’t know who did it, so I can’t take my rage out on them. So this was my $50,000 lesson."

This guy is also dumb.  And wires can be stopped after  they are transmitted.  I assume the receiver had a fake  bank account and id  too to open  it and make the  withdrawal.

Apparently not, because he tried (did you read the story?). So where is the fabulous consumer protection? Oh, right, there was no merchant paying for it. So, though luck!

[samsonn25]

I did  read  it.

Both the  account  and  guy were wrong if  they blindly  send  50k wires by email  instructions.