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

[oda.krell]

Sometimes I really wonder if theymos was paid by somebody for closing - and keeping closed - newbie jail...

I mean, I and many others repeatedly asked to re-open the "probation period" so that, at the very least, the number of utterly useless new troll accounts is *limited*, even if it doesn't get rid of the problem entirely.

Mods respond to that request by "only theymos can change that", and he seems unwilling to do so. Really beyond me why he feels that way, which is leading me to come up with paranoid theories (see first line)

yes, people often raise questions about theymos collecting donations, closing newbie jail, letting run obvious scams and ponzi securities threads open...

but guess what libertards...that's free market of yours.

Right. Because it's one of the defining features of places run by "libertards" that they're dens of corruption, scams, etc., while in the rest of the world, those qualities are mercifully absent.

The world must be a wonderful place if you conceptually dumb it down enough to fit into a simplistic scheme.  Also, allows you to avoid coming up with better answers to questions posed.

Do we even know what "libertards" means? I want to knock it but I don't know where to start.

Probably something like "people who never pass up a chance to rage against the state". Not my favorite type either.

Then again, people that throw around names like "libertards" tend to be the type that never passes up a chance to rage against people that voice meaningful criticism of the state, and that type I like even less ^_^

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

Do we even know what "libertards" means? I want to knock it but I don't know where to start.

Dunno. But I will postulate thats its an idiot who benefits from freedom, but wants it tightly controlled at the same time.

[ImI]

TrollChop

SERIOUSLY?

Sometimes I really wonder if theymos was paid by somebody for closing - and keeping closed - newbie jail...

I mean, I and many others repeatedly asked to re-open the "probation period" so that, at the very least, the number of utterly useless new troll accounts is *limited*, even if it doesn't get rid of the problem entirely.

Mods respond to that request by "only theymos can change that", and he seems unwilling to do so. Really beyond me why he feels that way, which is leading me to come up with paranoid theories (see first line)

yes, people often raise questions about theymos collecting donations, closing newbie jail, letting run obvious scams and ponzi securities threads open...

but guess what libertards...that's free market of yours.

lol, just another balkan-fascict.

[JorgeStolfi]

A multiple-bubble descriptive model of bitcoin price
Preliminary version


[ click on the graph for a full-size version. ]

Alright. So, by now, I believe you know that I don't follow your basic premise ("Current price is a function of 'bubble like' market events that are closely linked to external events, like new markets."), and that you don't follow mine ("Current price is largely a function of the current and previous market state, with minor input from external events, which is best thought of as some sort of cyclical 'market mood' periods.").

A good summary of my position, yes.  

But I'm interested nonetheless what you have to say, even though you're wrong

Which leads to me to my question: is there any predictive element in your model? From what I can tell, the answer is no, correct.

Put differently then: any idea how to extend the model to be somewhat predictive of future market states (doesn't matter what kind, direction, volatility,  return)?

I was careful to say descriptive in the title precisely because I don't think that it is of much help in predicting the future.   I don't believe that any analysis of the price chart will let one predict if and when there will be another large bubble that will compensate for the drop from 1200.

The model does give some hints about the future, though.  For example, it says that the general downtrend since the 2013-11-29 peak can be entirely attributed to deflation of the single bubble BJ0 that created the 2013-11 rally.  The other features of the price chart since then can be explained as sudden "markets" that quickly bought some large number of coins and then dumped them entirely -- sometimes right away, sometimes after holding them for a few months.

That analysis would then imply that the deflation of the main Chinese bubble BJ0 still can drag the price down by another 100$ over the next year. Unless more "markets" open up, of course -- like the US market that is hoped to open up if/when COIN is approved and/or GBTC starts trading.

However, even that limited prediction is uncertain because the state of previous bubbles is not observable at present.  Take the magenta bubble at the center of the plot, for example, that took the price from a low of ~5$ in 2012-04 to ~12$ in 2012-09.  According to that model, without that bubble the price would have continued dropping, becoming ~2$ on 2012-09, and the magenta bubble added ~10$ to the price.  But it is nearly impossible to tell what happened to that "magenta market" after 2013-01, when the "Shanghai" bubble SH1 started to dominate and took the price to ~120$.

I got a better fit assuming that the magenta bubble started to decline in 2013-01, but that may be just noise, or an artifact of the nonlinear relation between demand and price.  It may be that the magenta "market" remained stable or even continued to grow up to the present, in which case the shape and magnitude of the following "bubbles" would have to be adjusted by 10$ or more.

EDIT: clarified that, without he magenta bubble, the price would have been ~2$ in 2012-09. It would have fallen further afterwards.

[aztecminer]

i think the auction is legit.... dealing drugs is one thing........but when you start ripping everyone off, killing people, threatening to kill people; then your ass is garbage and you belong in jail. #straightup gratz on your successful auction marshal's ... i own two b4c camaros from albuqueque and a undercover t-top firebird from los angeles (i just got this one) i got from auctions....and i have owned three other 9c1's before those i got from auctions. drug dealing is one thing....but there are a lot of bad people out there that belong in jail and from what i have read that silk road guy was a piece of trash. this is why i disagree with the sentiment around here that is against the auctions.

Who did he kill, and why wasnt he charged with this?

Other than that, you're basically saying crime is ok, as long as you get a cheap trashy car from it, Yeah?

my cars arent trash dorky .. i got the good ones. you jealous ??

seems i'm not the only one who buys from their auctions....

how many coins now ??

[JorgeStolfi]

Who did he kill, and why wasnt he charged with this?

He was charged with the alleged attempts to hire the murder of several people in a separate criminal case in Maryland, to be tried later this year IIRC.  Were those charges withdrawn?

[aztecminer]

Who did he kill, and why wasnt he charged with this?

He was charged with the alleged attempts to hire the murder of several people in a separate criminal case in Maryland, to be tried later this year IIRC.  Were those charges withdrawn?

that is likely the main reason why they took him down. he was no bitcoin hero...he was a piece of trash that belongs in jail .

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[NotLambchop]

Good morning, gentlemen.
This paint, perhaps enamel of some sort?  Are you positive you added enough hardener?

[JorgeStolfi]

The value in his model is that it's a futile exercise in overcomplication a la Ptolemaic epicycles in order to support his misplaced ideological beliefs.

The Ptolemaic model was actually a great achievement, compared to the previous mathematical models that relied on carriages racing across the sky, pulled by flying horses.

For a sample of the latter, check the /Book of Enoch/, which was once part of the Hebrew Bible but was dropped from it some 2000 or more years ago.  (It was thought to have been lost, until scholars in the 1700s learned that it was still part of the Ethopian Christian Bible.)  It includes an interesting explanation of why the Sun traces different paths on the sky at different times of the year.  (That may have been one of the reasons for its exclusion.)

The Ptolemaic system is no more primitive than models that people build today for all sorts of phenomena, consisting of simple functions -- like straight lines, exponentials, polynomials, Fourier series, splines, sigmoids -- that have no justification in terms of nature of the phenomenon, but are just convenient to compute.  The astronomers in Ptolemy's time did not have analytic geometry nor algebra, so they used geometric constructions (the rotating spheres within spheres) in their place. 

In particular, the popular analysis of bitcoin price, that fits a straight line in log scale, is "crudely Ptolemaic" in this sense, because there is no reason, economic or other, to think that the price would evolve in that way.  I would dare say that my "bubble model" is at least Copernican (who explained the complicated paths of planets relative to the Earth as the difference of simpler paths of the planet and the Earth around the sun).  Maybe even a bit Newtonian... 

[dreamspark]

MIT Bitcoin Expo Starting now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIgjogLipvk

[KryptoFoo]

I would be careful selling these spikes, everyone expects it and I believe they will be defied soon. Then higher.

Logic here being that everyone thinks, hey I'll just sell the spike (or short) and buy back lower. Once too many traders expect the same thing, the opposite happens, and they have to buy back higher.

[bad trader]

It looks like China is sleep buying bitcoins again.

[Tzupy]

The triangle seems to break to the upside. But no major pump yet, hmm...

[criptix]

The triangle seems to break to the upside. But no major pump yet, hmm...

Sunday pump inc

[gkv9]

Seems some injection of sells will be there before we go where we want it to go...
Let's go bulls, the weaker hands seem to have vanished...

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

...alleged attempts to hire the murder of several people..

So, he didnt kill anyone? But we are going to just say that, like, its the same thing, kinda? Whuuup Whuup!  I bagsy the cararo, dude!!   

Jeez, Stolfi, for a guy who can get so anal about possible trends in a chart, you can skim over some pretty important details with ease.

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

i think the auction is legit.... dealing drugs is one thing........but when you start ripping everyone off, killing people, threatening to kill people; then your ass is garbage and you belong in jail. #straightup gratz on your successful auction marshal's ... i own two b4c camaros from albuqueque and a undercover t-top firebird from los angeles (i just got this one) i got from auctions....and i have owned three other 9c1's before those i got from auctions. drug dealing is one thing....but there are a lot of bad people out there that belong in jail and from what i have read that silk road guy was a piece of trash. this is why i disagree with the sentiment around here that is against the auctions.

Who did he kill, and why wasnt he charged with this?

Other than that, you're basically saying crime is ok, as long as you get a cheap trashy car from it, Yeah?

my cars arent trash dorky .. i got the good ones. you jealous ??

seems i'm not the only one who buys from their auctions....

how many coins now ??

Dorky?  Seriously?  The US Marshals must be getting desperate if they accept bidding from 12 year old kids.

show us an instagram of your bidding card or this is bullshit.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[dreamspark]

I predict a knee-jerk drop in price after the results of the auction based on the unfounded fear that the coins will be immediately dumped. It is during this drop that I will buy. Then in a week or two some piece of good news will lift the price over 300 settling back down to exactly where we are today. Go on..Quote me

No.

Several reasons.

Firstly you wont get results the best you will get is something like this. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/19512/us-marshals-auction-participant-price-not-significantly-market/

People who didnt win saying what they think etc. That article tells you they didnt go for any less than $220.

Secondly people who think that the coins would be dumped just don't understand the sort of people who are bidding. They are investment firms etc that have no interest in just dumping on the market for a few thousand $ profit, they are after liquidity for their ventures. The fact the coins come from the government is a big plus, they get a receipt for their coins from the US gov. How much more legit from a business perspective can you get? This coupled with that fact the auction process is long winded and difficult but trusted compared to wiring millions to an exchange of people you dont know in hong kong means they just aren't going to be dumped.