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

[minerpumpkin]

Yeah, Finex seems to lead today's rally! Good to see that happen for a change!

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[Fatman3001]

Yeah, Finex seems to lead today's rally! Good to see that happen for a change!

What rally? I can't see it. Am I going loony?

[inca]

What worries me the most is that for 95% of all the bitcoin startups, VCs are just throwing huge sums of $$$ at them, but they are all basically creating "solutions looking for problems" instead of solving real needs.  Gee, where have I seen and lived through that before?  Oh yes, the DotComBomb of 2000.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Indeed. But there were a few trillion dollars to be made before it all went tits up and then things really got rolling after the wreckage had been cleared. I hope it doesn't pan out that way but it's kind of a natural cycle.

Believe it or not, one of the companies that I'm most worried about is Coinbase.  

For example, go look at their employee roster page at the bottom.
https://www.coinbase.com/about

In in the past 2 years, I have literally watched that page grow from about 5 employees to what you see now on that page.  And they just keep adding more employees.  At the rate they are going, unless something drastically changes I don't think that they are going to have a business model that will support all of that headcount and still make a profit.

Not wrong, but not the full picture either:

a) true, it might quite well go down in flames, and that early VC capital will be lost like tears in the rain;

b) then again, it's a (controlled) gamble on their side, similar to early dotcom seed/investments: if it pays off, it'll pay off rather royally, if not, it's a (comparably) minor hit to their total holdings. Which brings me to:

c) on a different scale, through a different aspect of the market, that's similar to the "bet" we're making here as well: most who hold some long-term BTC position do so because of the chance (by his/her best judgement) that there's a big unrealized economical potential for the Blockchain (emphasis on the Blockchain), which (again, by his/her best judgement) in turn would likely lead to a major appreciation of market value per token.

The flip side of this bet just as the one by VC: it might not work out that way - alternative blockchains might take the lead, public and business interest might stay comparably small (i.e. "solutions looking for problems" turns out to be true and stay true), etc.

Some people here conveniently ignore the latter point, only going on about the limitless potential. Others pretend there is no potential, only risk, and eventually: doom. Personally, I think it's simply too early to draw either conclusion, 6 years since launch, and ~2 years since VC started pouring in for real.

Nice balanced post as always. Plus marks for the blade runner reference..

[oda.krell]

Not wrong, but not the full picture either:

a) true, it might quite well go down in flames, and that early VC capital will be lost like tears in the rain;

b) then again, it's a (controlled) gamble on their side, similar to early dotcom seed/investments: if it pays off, it'll pay off rather royally, if not, it's a (comparably) minor hit to their total holdings. Which brings me to:

c) on a different scale, through a different aspect of the market, that's similar to the "bet" we're making here as well: most who hold some long-term BTC position do so because of the chance (by his/her best judgement) that there's a big unrealized economical potential for the Blockchain (emphasis on the Blockchain), which (again, by his/her best judgement) in turn would likely lead to a major appreciation of market value per token.

The flip side of this bet just as the one by VC: it might not work out that way - alternative blockchains might take the lead, public and business interest might stay comparably small (i.e. "solutions looking for problems" turns out to be true and stay true), etc.

Some people here conveniently ignore the latter point, only going on about the limitless potential. Others pretend there is no potential, only risk, and eventually: doom. Personally, I think it's simply too early to draw either conclusion, 6 years since launch, and ~2 years since VC started pouring in for real.

But why won't the same people more consistently invest directly in BTC? It wouldn't take much for all those VC investors to prop up the currency/token such that their more indirect investments stands a much better chance of succeeding.

I would guess: because it's VC, not quasi-Forex gambling money. Also, because the market is rather illiquid. Paper profits are extremely far from actually realizable profits at current levels. Finally, they probably do hold some stake in the native tokens. So it's really asking "why won't they prop up price?". Only, why would they?

There is no function the Blockchain would suddenly & magically be able to perform just because total valuation is twice of what  it is now, at least not without public interest growing equally as well. Probably the only thing price affects right now is speculative interest, but I see it as largely unrelated to fundamental growth of the Bitcoin economy, as long as per coin price is high enough to make the network "secure enough" - which it is, despite the sometimes desperate seeming attempts of Sirer, Stolfi et al. to prove otherwise.

Why continue building your position if you're not also working on building the economy that eventually, hopefully, leads to an increase of valuation of position? From that point of view, it makes sense to me that any accumulation that might occur from the VC side would be rather marginal compared to current inflation... Let's say $50M of VC capital are flanked by the same amount of "accumulation effort". At ~$300 per coin, that would have soaked up around 50 days of block reward. So even if it would be on the program (which I doubt, they might be perfectly happy with their position built at vastly lower prices), it wouldn't single-handedly turn the tables on the greater market situation.

[billyjoeallen]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[inca]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

It is far to soon to correlate USD and bitcoin to any meaningful degree. Volume is so low globally we can clearly see individual traders footprints..

[billyjoeallen]

What worries me the most is that for 95% of all the bitcoin startups, VCs are just throwing huge sums of $$$ at them, but they are all basically creating "solutions looking for problems" instead of solving real needs.  Gee, where have I seen and lived through that before?  Oh yes, the DotComBomb of 2000.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Indeed. But there were a few trillion dollars to be made before it all went tits up and then things really got rolling after the wreckage had been cleared. I hope it doesn't pan out that way but it's kind of a natural cycle.

Believe it or not, one of the companies that I'm most worried about is Coinbase.  

For example, go look at their employee roster page at the bottom.
https://www.coinbase.com/about

In in the past 2 years, I have literally watched that page grow from about 5 employees to what you see now on that page.  And they just keep adding more employees.  At the rate they are going, unless something drastically changes I don't think that they are going to have a business model that will support all of that headcount and still make a profit.

Not wrong, but not the full picture either:

a) true, it might quite well go down in flames, and that early VC capital will be lost like tears in the rain;

b) then again, it's a (controlled) gamble on their side, similar to early dotcom seed/investments: if it pays off, it'll pay off rather royally, if not, it's a (comparably) minor hit to their total holdings. Which brings me to:

c) on a different scale, through a different aspect of the market, that's similar to the "bet" we're making here as well: most who hold some long-term BTC position do so because of the chance (by his/her best judgement) that there's a big unrealized economical potential for the Blockchain (emphasis on the Blockchain), which (again, by his/her best judgement) in turn would likely lead to a major appreciation of market value per token.

The flip side of this bet just as the one by VC: it might not work out that way - alternative blockchains might take the lead, public and business interest might stay comparably small (i.e. "solutions looking for problems" turns out to be true and stay true), etc.

Some people here conveniently ignore the latter point, only going on about the limitless potential. Others pretend there is no potential, only risk, and eventually: doom. Personally, I think it's simply too early to draw either conclusion, 6 years since launch, and ~2 years since VC started pouring in for real.

The potential value of colored coins is limited by the security of the blockchain used. No altcoin can come close to bitcoin, nor can one come close without an investment comparable to bitcoin's current market cap.

The limits of transactions and block size can be overcome with core client changes or even sidechains. Blockchain investment is either bitcoin investment or wasted money.  It may take the Wall Street idiots a while to figure that out.

[billyjoeallen]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

It is far to soon to correlate USD and bitcoin to any meaningful degree. Volume is so low globally we can clearly see individual traders footprints..

We don't know that. It could have already started. Correlation is only clear after the fact. What we do know is that, all things being equal, it should correlate at some point.

[oda.krell]

@bja Sure. That, and a 15 times larger "market cap" than the next biggest crypto competitor (and I use the term "competitor" very loosely here) are pretty clear signs which horse to bet on right now. I'm just mentioning as well that the best horse in the race currently isn't guaranteed to be the historical champion ... hm... I suck at metaphors.

[Wandererfromthenorth]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

It is far to soon to correlate USD and bitcoin to any meaningful degree. Volume is so low globally we can clearly see individual traders footprints..

We don't know that. It could have already started. Correlation is only clear after the fact. What we do know is that, all things being equal, it should correlate at some point.

[inca]

Anyone else just waiting for a 10k market buy or sell on finex?

[billyjoeallen]

[ ... ] It may take the Wall Street idiots a while to figure that out.

They're no match for a fireman from the sticks, granted. Give them time.

Ad Hominem is a logical fallacy. Points for putting "match"' "sticks" and "fireman" in the same sentence.

[phoenix1]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

It is far to soon to correlate USD and bitcoin to any meaningful degree. Volume is so low globally we can clearly see individual traders footprints..

We don't know that. It could have already started. Correlation is only clear after the fact. What we do know is that, all things being equal, it should correlate at some point.

All things being equal, the price of BTC would drop in other currencies as the dollar weakened if BTC:USD remained constant, so I don't quite understand your comment on how their charts would look more bulish in a weakining dollar scenario (talking purely about effect of FX rates here, nothing else)

[billyjoeallen]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

It is far to soon to correlate USD and bitcoin to any meaningful degree. Volume is so low globally we can clearly see individual traders footprints..

We don't know that. It could have already started. Correlation is only clear after the fact. What we do know is that, all things being equal, it should correlate at some point.

All things being equal, the price of BTC would drop in other currencies as the dollar weakened if BTC:USD remained constant, so I don't quite understand your comment on how their charts would look more bulish in a weakining dollar scenario (talking purely about effect of FX rates here, nothing else)

The correlation is negative, obviously. Otherwise my argument makes no sense. Dollar down= bitcoin up in other currencies. We need diversification of BTC ownership for stability and the market incentives suggest we'll get (or possibly are getting) a relative boost from outside the U.S.

Bitcoin was designed to be a dollar inflation hedge.

[phoenix1]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

It is far to soon to correlate USD and bitcoin to any meaningful degree. Volume is so low globally we can clearly see individual traders footprints..

We don't know that. It could have already started. Correlation is only clear after the fact. What we do know is that, all things being equal, it should correlate at some point.

All things being equal, the price of BTC would drop in other currencies as the dollar weakened if BTC:USD remained constant, so I don't quite understand your comment on how their charts would look more bulish in a weakining dollar scenario (talking purely about effect of FX rates here, nothing else)

The correlation is negative, obviously. Otherwise my argument makes no sense.

The comment makes no sense
Inverse correlation between  $ and BTC price flatters the BTC:USD chart more than that of any other currency as the dollar weakens

[billyjoeallen]

Has anyone stopped to consider that the dollar index is down for two months in a row? What this means is that bitcoin is already in a clear bull market (significantly above the 200 day moving average) in almost every fiat currency other than the USD and currencies that are pegged to the dollar.

Just in case you are wondering why there has been no correction for weeks.

It is far to soon to correlate USD and bitcoin to any meaningful degree. Volume is so low globally we can clearly see individual traders footprints..

We don't know that. It could have already started. Correlation is only clear after the fact. What we do know is that, all things being equal, it should correlate at some point.

All things being equal, the price of BTC would drop in other currencies as the dollar weakened if BTC:USD remained constant, so I don't quite understand your comment on how their charts would look more bulish in a weakining dollar scenario (talking purely about effect of FX rates here, nothing else)

The correlation is negative, obviously. Otherwise my argument makes no sense.

The comment makes no sense
Inverse correlation between  $ and BTC price flatters the BTC:USD chart more than that of any other currency as the dollar weakens

My assumption is that BTC:USD is NOT constant, quite the opposite. We're already in a BTC:Euro bull market, for example. I'm basically saying that the market has more upward momentum than the BTC:USD charts are showing. How much more is unknown.

[inca]

I think we move up soon..

[sleger]

The correlation is negative, obviously. Otherwise my argument makes no sense.

The comment makes no sense
Inverse correlation between  $ and BTC price flatters the BTC:USD chart more than that of any other currency as the dollar weakens

My assumption is that BTC:USD is NOT constant, quite the opposite. We're already in a BTC:Euro bull market, for example. I'm basically saying that the market has more upward momentum than the BTC:USD charts are showing. How much more is unknown.

I am going to join the other posters and agree that your comments do not make any sense.

[ricmi]

Too bad fireman's bull market* is happening in the middle of a china's stock bubble.


*