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

[Fakhoury]

I can't see any more down the hill. Don't expect 180-190 $ coins.

I guess the ground will be $200 by max.

So you think the price of Bitcoin will never go below $200 again, ever ?

It may go sub $200, but will bounce again quickly.

[Cconvert2G36]

I can't see any more down the hill. Don't expect 180-190 $ coins.

I guess the ground will be $200 by max.

So you think the price of Bitcoin will never go below $200 again, ever ?

It may go sub $200, but will bounce again quickly.

[Mrpumperitis]

Bitcoin-XT is not a re-implementation, it's a patch on top of Bitcoin Core that adds two features, double-spend relaying (which can be flagged for inspection) and the BIP64 getutxos message (which he needs for Lighthouse). The reason XT exists is because Mike Hearn can't get BIP64 implementation merged into Core (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/4351). Gavin happened to be for putting BIP 64 in, so moving forward if this happened, Bitcoin-XT would be a proper fork based on the actual Core codebase, simply with these two differences plus the blocksize changes. The fact that moving to XT is considered a viable option might suggest that there is a much larger "turf war" going on here since at least the middle of 2014.

Thanks!

Indeed there seems to be more going on than a simple technical disagreement.

I won t say that Gavin's proposal is the best one, but at least I understand his position: "with 1 MB blocks the network is close to saturation and will not handle the volume that we would like to see, so let's make the blocks bigger".

The thinking of his opponents (who include Peter Todd, Gregg Maxwell, and Luke Dash Jr.) seems less clear: they say that they are worried about the consequences of bigger blocks, but they have no alternative proposal to deal with impending congestion, and seem to want to see the network saturate.

Someone on reddit pointed out that most or all of those big opponents work for Blockstream, the company that was supposed to develop sidechains and is now working on a thing called the Lightning Network,  Those are projects that would provide fast bitcoin transactions and other bitcoin services (such as micropayment channels) outside the blockchain.  That could be a reason for wanting the network to saturate.  However, Greg says that they were opposed to big blocks well before creating Blockstram.

Someone else suggested that they may want to see the network saturate so that big non-payment users like NASDAQ and Factom are forced to pay huge fees, like $50 on a 1000 satoshi transaction.  That would push common users out of the system and turn bitcoin into a tool for big corporations only.  (Peter Todd does not miss a chance to mention that he is "talking to Big Banks".) Sounds like the FUD that only JorgeStolfi would write.  

Anyway, last Friday night a handful of reddit users set out, without much planning, to try to saturate the network with small transactions.  In the course of 2 hours (23:00 to 01:00 UTC) they put out maybe 30'000 transaction requests.  The queues at the nodes got over the 20'000 mark and the backlog took 8 hours to clear.  It is not clear what fees the guys paid, but they did not put much money into it.  Yet Luke Jr claims that the test only showed that 1 MB is fine.  Boh.

Perhaps the real fear is how the system will react to an intentional hard fork, that is not mandated by a bug...

good info, cheers guys 

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[Mrpumperitis]

wtf, so many bears here,lol you are all posting so you can buy cheaper btc...gd luck, it could happen but there wont be much volume. BTC might be getting forked but you are playing with fire if you help push below $200, im telling everyone some true facts...
Gaining huge momentum in mainstream adoption through regulated,insured exchanges.
We hit over $1k with a handful of exchanges, small user base and silk road closing.
Now we have banks (goldman sachs) billion dollar businesses like, expedia, dell, microsofts xbox , soon playstion and nintendo will add btc. Mobile games and almost any website that has digital( music,games,videos) content will offer btc payment option.
our children will receive btc from us as pocket money to spend on digital goods.
Greece wont beable to pay there debts ( this week ) , if another bailout doest come ..what happens? another cyprus where the banks decide to close and take 40% of your life savings cause they fucked up! italy, spain and portugal will be watching very closely.
btc reward halving in around 12 months, this will lead to some truly innovative ways to mine and maintain btc network, an example: companies are now installing free electric radiators in peoples houses, these look like heaters but are actually pc's that are helping to secure networks, the company pays the electric bill and the consumer gets free heat.( kinda like what we have been doing when we mined pc's in our rooms during winter and kept the heating off,lol ) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05vwlbm/click-16052015
We now live in the digital generation, the world needs btc as there is no reliable, independant, decentralised, secure, double spend proof and working currency that fits into our digital way of life.
btc is not dead, its growing....

[shmadz]

I can't see any more down the hill. Don't expect 180-190 $ coins.

I guess the ground will be $200 by max.

So you think the price of Bitcoin will never go below $200 again, ever ?

It may go sub $200, but will bounce again quickly.

Difficulty has flatlined. In my experience, the average electricity cost to mine a bitcoin is still around 150 USD.

As Satoshi said "The price of any commodity tends to gravitate toward the production cost. "

Of course, if there is another speculative bubble which drives up price, the increased profit motive would incentivize more mining capacity to be brought online, which would cause difficulty to increase, thus the production cost also gravitates toward the price.

Quite an interesting economic feedback loop.

[dannyspk]

I can't see any more down the hill. Don't expect 180-190 $ coins.

I guess the ground will be $200 by max.

So you think the price of Bitcoin will never go below $200 again, ever ?

It may go sub $200, but will bounce again quickly.

Difficulty has flatlined. In my experience, the average electricity cost to mine a bitcoin is still around 150 USD.

As Satoshi said "The price of any commodity tends to gravitate toward the production cost. "

Of course, if there is another speculative bubble which drives up price, the increased profit motive would incentivize more mining capacity to be brought online, which would cause difficulty to increase, thus the production cost also gravitates toward the price.

Quite an interesting economic feedback loop.

Simple, yet so effective.

[Cconvert2G36]

I think a limit of 2.7 tps could be considered a "bug of sorts" when you consider the aspirations outlined in Satoshi's white paper. I know it is one of my main concerns with the protocol as it stands today.

How this issue is handled is critical to those looking from the outside, with broad implications for the continued growth and survival of the network. Allowing 20 ,21, 8MB blocks doesn't mean we would have blocks of this size any time soon, it's simply headroom. And if we did... that would arguably be a great thing, more users, more tx, more fees for miners. In fact, when block subsidy dwindles... this IS the incentive for miners to keep securing blocks. Satoshi foresaw the professionalization of miners and full nodes long ago.

A terabyte drive is well less than $100 these days, and bandwidth use at 20MB blocks isn't all that bad either, considering they are securing millions of $ worth of transactions. Given technology cost curves, it will be even better at the time we could potentially see 20MB blocks. Full nodes are already not the domain of the average user. But the demands and costs aren't out of reach for the average user either.

The concerning part of this debate is the somewhat ego driven/side project incentivized nature of the discourse. The pricing via fee of block space scarcity may well be a factor in the future, but to pursue it now... before any kind of widespread usage, seems ridiculous. It's like jumping out of the trojan horse before it has even been rolled inside the curtain wall.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[shmadz]

<tinfoil>

Gavin has been increasingly aggressively pursuing the block size increase ever since he started receiving paychecks from MIT. It would be interesting to trace the funding he's receiving all the way back to see who's really pulling the strings now, but it's fairly safe to say that if you are dependant on another person/group/entity for your livelihood, you are exposed to potential pressure from that person/group/entity.

The only alternative way to increase transactions without increasing block size is to enable some sort of off chain transaction method. Off chain transactions allow for channels to be set up that would allow effective mixing and increase anonymity. The smaller the block size, the larger the number of transactions that take place off chain, the more difficult it becomes to trace coins.

</tinfoil>

[adamstgBit]

I wonder exactly what this drop is about, my guess is all the 1MB block limit talk, poeple are realizing that bitcoin isnt perfect and there are problems to overcome, it scares them and they cut losses...

they invest with the notion that its the future of money, and its going to make them rich. they watch it crash. they here bitcoin is limited to 1MB per block, they investigate further and read everything in a very doom and gloom mood ( because there dreams of quick easy money are crushed ) really they are just looking for a good reason to sell and they find one, bitcoin is BROKEN.

that's my theory...

[Tony Abbot]

My kingdom for Satoshi's opinion on all of this..... I think it's time he re-appeared to give us all some hope. He's not the messiah, I get that... but his input would certainly have a huge effect on the momentum and the attitude of the revolution that he spawned.
Where art thou Satoshi?  There's good people mixed in with the greedy rabble that want to see this succeed for all the right reasons and making some bank in the process is a fitting reward for those of us who have tirelessly supported what was a futuristic and revolutionary idea, with our time, our money and our emotions.

Also, would someone please be kind enough to post an updated troll list? 

[adamstgBit]

pretty soon all the people that will be left holding coins are crazy &  hard headed investors who never sell and always buy more.

i didn't want bitcoin to bottom this way, but seems to be it's happening, how else would you explain this retardedly low price?

[shmadz]

pretty soon all the people that will be left holding coins are crazy &  hard headed investors who never sell and always buy more.

i didn't want bitcoin to bottom this way, but seems to be it's happening, how else would you explain this retardedly low price?

Ummm...

Difficulty has flatlined. In my experience, the average electricity cost to mine a bitcoin is still around 150 USD.

As Satoshi said "The price of any commodity tends to gravitate toward the production cost."

That's one explanation.

Btw, that's 150 just for electricity, that does not include rent, wages, taxes, etc... so true cost of production is likely somewhat higher.

[Mrpumperitis]

as i was saying..new ways to mine and maintain btc network   , http://www.coindesk.com/bitfury-light-bulbs-mine-bitcoin/

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[Mrpumperitis]

pretty soon all the people that will be left holding coins are crazy &  hard headed investors who never sell and always buy more.

i didn't want bitcoin to bottom this way, but seems to be it's happening, how else would you explain this retardedly low price?

Ummm...

Difficulty has flatlined. In my experience, the average electricity cost to mine a bitcoin is still around 150 USD.

As Satoshi said "The price of any commodity tends to gravitate toward the production cost."

That's one explanation.

Btw, that's 150 just for electricity, that does not include rent, wages, taxes, etc...

150 is cheap, is this for a dedicated miner or pc?

[adamstgBit]

[Cconvert2G36]

<tinfoil>

Gavin has been increasingly aggressively pursuing the block size increase ever since he started receiving paychecks from MIT. It would be interesting to trace the funding he's receiving all the way back to see who's really pulling the strings now, but it's fairly safe to say that if you are dependant on another person/group/entity for your livelihood, you are exposed to potential pressure from that person/group/entity.

The only alternative way to increase transactions without increasing block size is to enable some sort of off chain transaction method. Off chain transactions allow for channels to be set up that would allow effective mixing and increase anonymity. The smaller the block size, the larger the number of transactions that take place off chain, the more difficult it becomes to trace coins.

</tinfoil>

This is the kind of speculation that's not really helpful. Was it better when Gavin was being paid by Vessenes, Shrem, Karp, etc etc? I don't think he has handled it perfectly, but he certainly isn't being shy about his vision, the steps to achieve it, and the reasoning behind it.

2.7 tx per second is an artificial and harmful bottleneck... if not today, in the near future.

If anonymity/convenience side chains are desired and functional, they will happen... with either 1MB or 20MB blocks. We shouldn't manufacture compromised capability just to nurture them.

I think it's not surprising and actually healthy the price is reacting to this rancorous debate, and it's just getting started...

This was designed to be a self directing network motivated by the mutual self interest of many disparate parties, let's see if it works.

[shmadz]

Btw, that's 150 just for electricity, that does not include rent, wages, taxes, etc...

150 is cheap, is this for a dedicated miner or pc?

PC?   I don't even think a pool would recognize or accept your hashrate. It wouldn't even register.

my guesstimate is based on my personal experience with knc Neptune (around 3 TH/s at approx 2000 watts) and 0.10 $/kWh