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

[wpalczynski]

I seem to recall how he lost a laptop with a substantial amount of bitcoin on it but I still don't get the dishonest part?  Whats the gist of the argument you are trying to make?  

In his defense I have never seen him be downright dishonest.  If you have any examples of this I would like to see them.   Has he been wrong on many of his predictions?  Yes, but who has not.  That hardly constitutes dishonesty in my opinion.

This is known as the trolling thread.  No one comes here for TA anymore but rather for the pictures and jokes.  For TA we need to use a moderated thread.  Risto had a good one a while back but its not active recently.
...

He's pimping Monerooo now

I think that Monero would do better, if he would publicly distance himself from it.
Everything starts looking like a shady scam if you find out that he is involved. To me, he represents most of the things that are wrong with bitcoin. He's like the personification of greed, dishonesty and corruption.

I recommend you to read about his "Lost bitcoins & the sauna" stories in the past and then decide yourself if things add up.

So, it makes sense that an experienced bitcoin user holds his coins on an unsecured laptop that he takes with him in his travels?

Totally possible for any number of reasons.  I've never seen him be dishonest personally even if some of his ideas are way out there.

[bassclef]

I see the FUD factory is back and cranking, right on schedule.

Pretty lame guys.

[Meuh6879]

well, it's sunday ....  

[NotLambchop]

I'm not sure if I understand the analogy you used.  In your example does that someone selling the broke family shares in a goldmine equate to risto advising people publicly on this forum to buy bitcoin?  Or am I missing something and there is more to it?

Yes it does.  And telling them that if they see their "investment" tank, it's only because of Bankster cabal suppressing the price to secretly increase their holdings  The Jews with Thermite, or, as his victims put it, "holding our hand through difficult times."

TL;DR:  Yes, but stop top-posting pl0x.

To me that is not dishonest, he probably believed it himself. ...

You've missed "What if he, at the very same time, is selling them *his own* shares" bit.

When confronted with the fact that his strategy has backfired, his vanity got the better of him & he admitted to selling BTC [while telling his faithful to hodl].

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[wpalczynski]

I'm not sure if I understand the analogy you used.  In your example does that someone selling the broke family shares in a goldmine equate to risto advising people publicly on this forum to buy bitcoin?  Or am I missing something and there is more to it?

Yes it does.  And telling them that if they see their "investment" tank, it's only because of Bankster cabal suppressing the price to secretly increase their holdings  The Jews with Thermite, or, as his victims put it, "holding our hand through difficult times."

TL;DR:  Yes, but stop top-posting pl0x.

To me that is not dishonest, he probably believed it himself. ...

You've missed "What if he, at the very same time, is selling them *his own* shares" bit.

When confronted with the fact that his strategy has backfired, his vanity got the better of him & he admitted to selling BTC [while telling his faithful to hodl].

As far as I remember he said he sold at 700 so no where near the top.  Ok, I do see your point but in reality he was not such a large holder of BTC that he needed to Shill the market in order to unload whatever portion he did.  What he sold represented a very tiny fraction of the BTCs being bought and sold during that time.

Anyway, lets go back to trollinig BTC.

[Mervyn_Pumpkinhead]

Totally possible for any number of reasons.  I've never seen him be dishonest personally even if some of his ideas are way out there.

I just can't see situations like these as coincidences, especially when that person has a reputation in Finland for being a shady businessman at best.
I'm a simple guy, and if something looks like sh*t and smells like sh*t, then I'll simply conclude that it must be sh*t. Rpietila carries himself like a sterotypical con-man with all his uncontrollable vanity and "trailer trash rich" mentality, and things around him tend to get screwed up. So my conclusion is simply to stay away from things that he is strongly involved in.

[BlackSpidy]

Now, at the risk of being too optimistic:

[NotLambchop]

I'm not sure if I understand the analogy you used.  In your example does that someone selling the broke family shares in a goldmine equate to risto advising people publicly on this forum to buy bitcoin?  Or am I missing something and there is more to it?

Yes it does.  And telling them that if they see their "investment" tank, it's only because of Bankster cabal suppressing the price to secretly increase their holdings  The Jews with Thermite, or, as his victims put it, "holding our hand through difficult times."

TL;DR:  Yes, but stop top-posting pl0x.

To me that is not dishonest, he probably believed it himself. ...

You've missed "What if he, at the very same time, is selling them *his own* shares" bit.

When confronted with the fact that his strategy has backfired, his vanity got the better of him & he admitted to selling BTC [while telling his faithful to hodl].

As far as I remember he said he sold at 700 so no where near the top.  Ok, I do see your point but in reality he was not such a large holder of BTC that he needed to Shill the market in order to unload whatever portion he did.  What he sold represented a very tiny fraction of the BTCs being bought and sold during that time...

You asked for an example of dishonesty.  I gave you one.  You countered with "well, he didn't profit that much."
My point is simple:  He is not merely insane (as in involuntary institutionalization insane, classified in DSM-5 as "Batshit Crazy"), but a sleazy lying piece of shit.
You don't tell people to hodl while sodling hand-over-fist yourself.

[bitgeek]

Don't feed lambchump

[inca]

By my reckoning he sold pretty much where you did nlc.

You felt the need to troll bitcointalk for 6000 posts afterwards though sadly.

[empowering]

Don't feed lambchump

Ha ha good one.

[NotLambchop]

By my reckoning he sold pretty much where you did nlc.

You felt the need to troll bitcointalk for 6000 posts afterwards though sadly.

I didn't con the mentally feeble into stocking up on this wholesome goodness even as I was dumping it right into their buys.
There's a slight difference

[NotLambchop]

COngratulations! We had our first fall free SUnday. Only 5$ dropped this weekend.

[wpalczynski]

By my reckoning he sold pretty much where you did nlc.

You felt the need to troll bitcointalk for 6000 posts afterwards though sadly.

I didn't con the mentally feeble into stocking up on this wholesome goodness even as I was dumping it right into their buys.
There's a slight difference

Do you consider everyone else here on BCT other then yourself mentally feeble?  Everyone has own brain to decide what to do.  And it turns out that HODLING at 700 was sound advice because it went up to almost 1200.

[JorgeStolfi]

You're forgetting the large group of people who do not think about Bitcoin price at all.

You mean, those who will buy bitcoin for ideological reasons, at any price? They must all have all run out of money, because they are not buying for 255$, either.

I have a tradeable balance of $35,000. I'm not out money or even close. That doesn't even count fiat I have in my bank account. I'm just waiting for a little bit of retracement to maximally punish any weekend dumpers.

You are looking to gain more by short-term trading, profiting from short-term variations of the price.  That is not a rational strategy, since the expected gain of that activity is slightly negative.  Some traders may make a profit, but some will lose money, and the average gain of all traders (compared to the long-term expected gain) will be negative.

If your expectation of the price increase over the next few years is more than the expected increase in value of other possible investments, then the best strategy is basically invest all your disposable money as soon as you can, and hold until you want to spend your profit.

Otherwise, the best strategy is not to invest at all.

Short-term speculation makes sense only if you believe that there is some key attribute -- knowledge, skill, luck, courage, determination, intelligence, reaction speed -- that increases one's expected profit at day trading, and that you have more of that thing than the average speculative trader out there.

Indeed, it seems that the only reason why day-trading exists is that most people think that they are better than average in that regard.  Which is not likely, since the traders that are dumber than you will go broke and drop out before you do, while the super-traders with robots and privileged information, who are surely better at the game than you, will hang around to the end and will probably take your money before you can take theirs. (You may have noticed the absence lately of several posters who apparently enjoyed eating dog food in order to pay for Risto's cigars and for KnC's global warming plants.)

If you accept that you are no better that the average day-trader, and you have a positive expectation for the price in the long run, short-term trading will give less expected profit than just buy and hold -- because you will not profit from the end-to-end trend during those times when you are holding dollars. For example, if you expect a 20% valuation over 3 years, but you keep 50% dollars and 50% BTC, on the average, over that time frame, then your expected profit will be only 10%. 

A similar conclusion holds if you have a negative expectation for the price in the long term: day-trading is a bad idea, because  you are expected to lose money while you are holding BTC.  If you expect the price to drop 20% over the next 3 years, then, by day-trading with a 50% BTC average position, you will have a 10% expected loss.  Whereas, if you don't invest at all, your loss will be 0%.

[wpalczynski]

You're forgetting the large group of people who do not think about Bitcoin price at all.

You mean, those who will buy bitcoin for ideological reasons, at any price? They must all have all run out of money, because they are not buying for 255$, either.

I have a tradeable balance of $35,000. I'm not out money or even close. That doesn't even count fiat I have in my bank account. I'm just waiting for a little bit of retracement to maximally punish any weekend dumpers.

You are looking to gain more by short-term trading, profiting from short-term variations of the price.  That is not a rational strategy, since the expected gain of that activity is slightly negative.  Some traders may make a profit, but some will lose money, and the average gain of all traders (compared to the long-term expected gain) will be negative.

If your expectation of the price increase over the next few years is more than the expected increase in value of other possible investments, then the best strategy is basically invest all your disposable money as soon as you can, and hold until you want to spend your profit.

Otherwise, the best strategy is not to invest at all.

Short-term speculation makes sense only if you believe that there is some key attribute -- knowledge, skill, luck, courage, determination, intelligence, reaction speed -- that increases one's expected profit at day trading, and that you have more of that thing than the average speculative trader out there.

Indeed, it seems that the only reason why day-trading exists is that most people think that they are better than average in that regard.  Which is not likely, since the traders that are dumber than you will go broke and drop out before you do, while the super-traders with robots and privileged information, who are surely better at the game than you, will hang around to the end and will probably take your money before you can take theirs. (You may have noticed the absence lately of several posters who apparently enjoyed eating dog food in order to pay for Risto's cigars and for KnC's global warming plants.)

If you accept that you are no better that the average day-trader, and you have a positive expectation for the price in the long run, short-term trading will give less expected profit than just buy and hold -- because you will not profit from the end-to-end trend during those times when you are holding dollars. For example, if you expect a 20% valuation over 3 years, but you keep 50% dollars and 50% BTC, on the average, over that time frame, then your expected profit will be only 10%. 

A similar conclusion holds if you have a negative expectation for the price in the long term: day-trading is a bad idea, because  you are expected to lose money while you are holding BTC.  If you expect the price to drop 20% over the next 3 years, then, by day-trading with a 50% BTC average position, you will have a 10% expected loss.  Whereas, if you don't invest at all, your loss will be 0%.

Agree 100% about trying to trade, this has been my experience.

[Erdogan]

Well, the price being 252$, it means that everybody who who owns bitcoin thinks that they are worth more than 245$; but, on the other hand, everybody in the world who has some money to spare thinks that 1 BTC is not worth 255$.

You really are not much of an economist, are you ? How does such an oversimplifying way to look at economic choice even go together with your ability to solve abstract mathematical problems?

Okay. To name just one objection to such an incredibly naive model of the market:

Misrepresentation of your actual valuation for strategic purposes.

Similar to the misrepresentation, "tactical voting", in voting theory: sometimes it is individually rational for an actor not to cast a vote according to his sincere preference.

He is basically right this time. Since bitcoins are neither produced not destroyed (by consumption), the only basis for demand is people who think it is worth more, and the only source of supply is people who think it is worth less. Historic value could for some be of importance, but should not, again since they are not consumable there is no reference. Only expected future value should matter. Just like cold and heat, where cold is just absence of heat, and darkness and light, where darkness is just absense of light, bitcoin supply is the same as absence of demand. So in case of bitcoin (and other pure money types), there is really only one parameter: The demand.

The speculation is about projecting the demand for bitcoins in the future. Those never exposed to the idea are one source of future demand.

[NotLambchop]

By my reckoning he sold pretty much where you did nlc.

You felt the need to troll bitcointalk for 6000 posts afterwards though sadly.

I didn't con the mentally feeble into stocking up on this wholesome goodness even as I was dumping it right into their buys.
There's a slight difference

Do you consider everyone else here on BCT other then yourself mentally feeble?  Everyone has own brain to decide what to do.  And it turns out that HODLING at 700 was sound advice because it went up to almost 1200.

>Do you consider everyone else here on BCT other then[sic] yourself mentally feeble?
No.  Only those who listened to Reptilia.  And not even every one of them those, either.

>And it turns out that HODLING at 700 was sound advice because it went up to almost 1200.
Not for those who continued hodling because Reptilia forgot to tell them to dupm even as he himself was sodling.
While [accidently] telling them to hodl

Turned out pretty shitty for those mental giants, actually.

[Sitarow]