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

[JorgeStolfi]

See my post above.  There may be "super-traders" that successfully play such complicated short-term trading strategies, and they may take money from less sophisticated traders; but, averaged over all traders, short-term trading will always be a losing game.

I'm curious what you think of poker and how it compares to the argument you are making.

I don't play poker, but it seems to be a good analogy.  Some players may fare consistently better than others on average, by their greater skills at psychological manipulation and play strategies; averaged over all players, however, it is obviously a zero-sum game.

However, in day trading there are thousands of players who do not know each other.  There there seems to be less room for successful psychological manipulation in that case. 

[1715197274]

1715197274

[Wandererfromthenorth]

If it breaks the trend line currently sitting at around 238-240 with decent volume, it's done.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Why do you keep doing it, Bitcoiners? 

Think of the children!

[Wandererfromthenorth]

There is a lot of emotion and especially "dumb money" in the BTC markets, that's one of the reasons it's so easy to trade.


You can see that by simply looking at the chart, you can see it if you actively trade, and you can certainly see it if you read the reddit bitcoin subforum .-.

[inca]

If it breaks the trend line currently sitting at around 238-240 with decent volume, it's done.

Someone market sold 8000 coins into the orderbook on finex earlier and it didn't even breach 245.

You better get selling or we'll be back in the 250's shortly..

[octaft]

See my post above.  There may be "super-traders" that successfully play such complicated short-term trading strategies, and they may take money from less sophisticated traders; but, averaged over all traders, short-term trading will always be a losing game.

I'm curious what you think of poker and how it compares to the argument you are making.

I don't play poker, but it seems to be a good analogy.  Some players may fare consistently better than others on average, by their greater skills at psychological manipulation and play strategies; averaged over all players, however, it is obviously a zero-sum game.

However, in day trading there are thousands of players who do not know each other.  There there seems to be less room for successful psychological manipulation in that case. 

Most winning in poker comes from good playing strategies. Psychological manipulation isn't as much of a factor as your average layman might think, because you often won't know anyone at the table you're playing at (unless you play pretty damn high stakes or constantly play), and there are a number of successful players who outright ignore it. Most of the psychological aspect involves a lot of guesswork, because for 999/1000 players you play against, you won't ever get to know them well enough to really know exactly how they play.

What's important is that you're playing with players worse than you, and I've got to tell you, if there is a better "table" to sit at then the cryptocurrency markets, I'm not aware of it.

That being said, I would agree that actual day-trading is probably going to be pretty much gambling for most, as short time frames seem to be a lot of noise in such a small market, but mid or long-term trading seems fine.

So yeah, the analogy is pretty apt, I'd say, but it goes a lot deeper than "negative-sum game, best not to play if your goal is profit."

[Hfertig]

Short term trading in bitcoin is otherwise known as gambling.

definetly more predictable and profitable than gambling...

hmmm well i'm long on everything........i HODL because imo the worst situation to be in is holding usd fiat. ......... i will add to but never pull any out of my mined hoard....that keeps me forever always perma-long no matter what trading i am doing .....i buy few coins to trade gamble play with though ... i going to be like billyjoe soon and start yelling i want MOAR!....... that why i did that because i rather be always long than stuck in usd fiat .... i'm not sure if can classify what i am doing as really trading/gambling or not lol ....

I prefer fiat over coins. this is what i live of, feed my family with and pay my mortgage with. I trade coins to generate extra fiat for luxury spending. That's about it. If long or short, I only care about Bitcoin as it is volatile and if you apply a bit of TA the last 4 years were profitable. The USD did actaullay prove to be quite a good investment compared to other currencies, such as EUR, RUB and of course BTC... not too sure why you are negative about it.

/edit. and all I read here is how rich everyone will become with btc in future. Buying yachts and Champagne once btc hits 30000 USD. sounds like that everyone is here for the same reason, just applying a different strategy

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[aztecminer]

Short term trading in bitcoin is otherwise known as gambling.

definetly more predictable and profitable than gambling...

hmmm well i'm long on everything........i HODL because imo the worst situation to be in is holding usd fiat. ......... i will add to but never pull any out of my mined hoard....that keeps me forever always perma-long no matter what trading i am doing .....i buy few coins to trade gamble play with though ... i going to be like billyjoe soon and start yelling i want MOAR!....... that why i did that because i rather be always long than stuck in usd fiat .... i'm not sure if can classify what i am doing as really trading/gambling or not lol ....

I prefer fiat over coins. this is what i live of, feed my family with and pay my mortgage with. I trade coins to generate extra fiat for luxury spending. That's about it. If long or short, I only care about Bitcoin as it is volatile and if you apply a bit of TA the last 4 years were profitable. The USD did actaullay prove to be quite a good investment compared to other currencies, such as EUR, RUB and of course BTC... not too sure why you are negative about it.

/edit. and all I read here is how rich everyone will become with btc in future. Buying yachts and Champagne once btc hits 30000 USD. sounds like that everyone is here for the same reason, just applying a different strategy

sorry not sorry.... i just don't "trust in god" the way you do i guess .... i'm not buying your usd fiat is great theory . i'm sure u wished i did though .

[BlackSpidy]

If it breaks the trend line currently sitting at around 238-240 with decent volume, it's done.

I think we're gonna be going to the moon when e break through $300. I think it's gonna be a sluggish rise (like what we saw in Feb.) until we get to $300.

[Norway]

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%.

Well put, sir. This is exactly how I see it too. I haven't studied finance, just a lot of math and physics. And this is how I figure it has to work. That is why I'm a perma bull. I calculate the expectation value of my investments based on probability of different scenarios where I make the parameters based on what I read and know about bitcoin and it's development.

Still, I have to check the price of bitcoin several times per day and read all the news. I just don't want to miss any of the bullruns the next years to come  

[Hfertig]

Short term trading in bitcoin is otherwise known as gambling.

definetly more predictable and profitable than gambling...

hmmm well i'm long on everything........i HODL because imo the worst situation to be in is holding usd fiat. ......... i will add to but never pull any out of my mined hoard....that keeps me forever always perma-long no matter what trading i am doing .....i buy few coins to trade gamble play with though ... i going to be like billyjoe soon and start yelling i want MOAR!....... that why i did that because i rather be always long than stuck in usd fiat .... i'm not sure if can classify what i am doing as really trading/gambling or not lol ....

I prefer fiat over coins. this is what i live of, feed my family with and pay my mortgage with. I trade coins to generate extra fiat for luxury spending. That's about it. If long or short, I only care about Bitcoin as it is volatile and if you apply a bit of TA the last 4 years were profitable. The USD did actaullay prove to be quite a good investment compared to other currencies, such as EUR, RUB and of course BTC... not too sure why you are negative about it.

/edit. and all I read here is how rich everyone will become with btc in future. Buying yachts and Champagne once btc hits 30000 USD. sounds like that everyone is here for the same reason, just applying a different strategy

sorry not sorry.... i just don't "trust in god" the way you do i guess .... i'm not buying your usd fiat is great theory . i'm sure u wished i did though .

no trust in god here. not saying that usd is great. i like money, I don't care in which form. I liked Bitcoin in 2011, 2012 and 2013. I did like equities in 2013 and 2014 and propety in gerneral. Dept in EUR worked as well the last 3 years. was never into Gold, which was a shame as I completely missed this one...
You are responsible for your own future, hence I don't mind what you do.

[noobtrader]

wow 
the price rebound and stay at 250.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[oda.krell]

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.

Only that my argument wasn't about people who haven't heard of it yet. I was talking about the (overly simplistic) idea that current market price is identical to everybody's sincere valuation, the "worth" of one bitcoin.

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

I'll even point out this goes both ways: someone planning to execute a pump & dump will be (temporarily) willing to pay a higher price than he sincerely values it at (as long as he's convinced he can get rid of the stuff at a profit, before others do), someone who's commited to build a large long-term position might not bid at market for the full amount to avoid driving up price in the process.

[inca]

Nearly there..

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[gbianchi]

[greenlion]

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.

This not correct whatsoever, because future value is discounted by time preference.

[camolist]

10k sale volume on bitcoin during a sunday morning and the market just laughed it off?