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

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[readysalted89]

Two years ago today when we crossed into 1k territory. Unfortunately, as we were later to find out, that was 1k GoxBux

I believe we're starting to see some more flakiness from the Gox server here returning old data. The cause of this was never really addressed but I have my suspicions that the Gox order book was almost entirely imaginary.

I remember Gox used to snottily claim it had its own custom wallet software, and didn't use the bog standard wallets everyone else used. Its statements gave the impression that flakiness from the Gox server was impossible due to its superior technology and genius developers. Considering it had its own superior custom wallet software it's funny how it lost 200k coins in an old "forgotten" wallet.

[mixan]

price going to dump soon

It is happening already and I thought it would be soon the trading day for it to go down. Was $357 last I checked around ten minutes ago thought it broke 360 barely two hours ago. Up to $366 and down to almost $10 is not very promising end of the month tally.

[natewelt]

price going to dump soon

It is happening already and I thought it would be soon the trading day for it to go down. Was $357 last I checked around ten minutes ago thought it broke 360 barely two hours ago. Up to $366 and down to almost $10 is not very promising end of the month tally.

Yes, we are crashing uncontrollably. Except...we aren't.

Zoom out a little bit on your charts and stop trying to be cute with little moves. Look at the pattern, not the pattern within the pattern, within the pattern.

[Cconvert2G36]

price going to dump soon

It is happening already and I thought it would be soon the trading day for it to go down. Was $357 last I checked around ten minutes ago thought it broke 360 barely two hours ago. Up to $366 and down to almost $10 is not very promising end of the month tally.

 

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[r0ach]

The big surge in volume is in the Chinese exchanges, especially Huobi and OKCoin.  

This is wrong.  Bitfinex was leading price the majority of the time in the rise.  This is not a China pump, China just also wants to go up.

Two years ago today when we crossed into 1k territory. Unfortunately, as we were later to find out, that was 1k GoxBux

Since nobody seems to know how many Bitcoins Gox actually had, it's still possible that instead of pumping, Gox might instead have had a negative effect on the market by selling more coins than they owned (shorting).  Yea, they're buying and selling with customer funds, but that doesn't mean they're pumping if they have 600k coins in liability on the books and only had 200k coins.  They would be naked shorting like Blythe Masters and silver.  I haven't really seen any good summary of Gox liabilities vs assets over time, but if there's always more liabilities than assets, they're doing internal naked shorts!

If Gox coins were actually stolen, and the thief dumped his coins while Gox is increasing sell side liquidity with coins they don't even have, then you have even more shorting!  In other words, nobody knows what the hell kind of influence Gox had on the market.

[Cconvert2G36]

Two years ago today when we crossed into 1k territory. Unfortunately, as we were later to find out, that was 1k GoxBux

Since nobody seems to know how many Bitcoins Gox actually had, it's still possible that instead of pumping, Gox might instead have had a negative effect on the market by selling more coins than they owned (shorting).  Yea, they're buying and selling with customer funds, but that doesn't mean they're pumping if they have 600k coins in liability on the books and only had 200k coins.  They would be naked shorting like Blythe Masters and silver.  I haven't really seen any good summary of Gox liabilities vs assets over time, but if there's always more liabilities than assets, they're naked shorting!

Think it through again champ. Mark was missing 600k btc. Closed banking channels meant that no one could withdraw via wire transfer, but they could withdraw btc. He was buying real btc with fake and/or customer money to keep btc withdrawals working. This having a negative effect on exchange rate is ridiculous... until the scam came crashing down of course.

[r0ach]

Think it through again champ. Mark was missing 600k btc. Closed banking channels meant that no one could withdraw via wire transfer, but they could withdraw btc. He was buying real btc with fake and/or customer money to keep btc withdrawals working. This having a negative effect on exchange rate is ridiculous... until the scam came crashing down of course.

If Gox coins really were stolen, and the thief dumped coins for cash, then how is Karpeles pumping by buying a smaller amount of coins with customer funds to enable withdrawal?  It would be a wash or probably negative movement from him not buying as many as were stolen.  The only way Karpeles is pumping in that scenario is if the "thief" didn't sell any.  Who would steal $200 million dollars in goods and not sell any?

One of the few pump situations is if Karpeles stole the coins himself, hid them, didn't spend any, then uses customer funds to fund withdrawal with the intent of letting the business collapse and run off with the hidden coins later.  Gox is a mystery to me because he was already making lots of money and doing something like that would be lots of risk for not much of a lifestyle improvement over what you already have.  He could already buy gold toilets.

There's also always the chance a govt entity shows up making threats or saying they'll set him up for prison time if he doesn't help them get control of the keys or implode the market.

[Cconvert2G36]

Think it through again champ. Mark was missing 600k btc. Closed banking channels meant that no one could withdraw via wire transfer, but they could withdraw btc. He was buying real btc with fake and/or customer money to keep btc withdrawals working. This having a negative effect on exchange rate is ridiculous... until the scam came crashing down of course.

If Gox coins really were stolen, and the thief dumped coins for cash, then how is Karpeles pumping by buying a smaller amount of coins with customer funds to enable withdrawal?  It would be a wash or probably negative movement from him not buying as many as were stolen.  The only way Karpeles is pumping in that scenario is if the "thief" didn't sell any.  Who would steal $200 million dollars in goods and not sell any?

We have no idea really when the theft occurred, it could have happened as early as 2011. It could have been liquidated at much lower prices. One thing we know for sure, a criminal clever enough to waltz off with 100's of thousands of btc, would not be trying to sell them on mtgox in the late 2013 bubble when there was no way to get the fiat out.

[JayJuanGee]

Think it through again champ. Mark was missing 600k btc. Closed banking channels meant that no one could withdraw via wire transfer, but they could withdraw btc. He was buying real btc with fake and/or customer money to keep btc withdrawals working. This having a negative effect on exchange rate is ridiculous... until the scam came crashing down of course.

If Gox coins really were stolen, and the thief dumped coins for cash, then how is Karpeles pumping by buying a smaller amount of coins with customer funds to enable withdrawal?  It would be a wash or probably negative movement from him not buying as many as were stolen.  The only way Karpeles is pumping in that scenario is if the "thief" didn't sell any.  Who would steal $200 million dollars in goods and not sell any?

We have no idea really when the theft occurred, it could have happened as early as 2011. It could have been liquidated at much lower prices. One thing we know for sure, a criminal clever enough to waltz off with 100's of thousands of btc, would not be trying to sell them on mtgox in the late 2013 bubble when there was no way to get the fiat out.

People frequently will assert that Gox shenanigans caused the BTC market to go in one direction or another, yet neither is really clear and unambiguous.

In the end, it appears pretty clear that Gox did increasingly engage in a kind of fractional reserve banking of bitcoins to be trading coins that it did not in fact have in its possession.

So a bot created pumping is one thing to cause the price to go up, but a flooding of the market with non-existing coins, is another thing that causes the real price to go down....

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[JorgeStolfi]

PS. About MMM's  Bitcoin Ponzi, a perturbing factor is what MMM will do with the bitcoins that it collects. 

(Ostensibly, the victims send bitcoins directly to each other, and MMM does not touch the bitcoins and does not take commission.  However, it is a safe bet that many of the people asking for donations are actually MMM bosses.)

I doubt that he will want to keep bitcoins for long.  So, after the ponzi collapses, the price may eventually return to the $220 level.

[Cconvert2G36]

Think it through again champ. Mark was missing 600k btc. Closed banking channels meant that no one could withdraw via wire transfer, but they could withdraw btc. He was buying real btc with fake and/or customer money to keep btc withdrawals working. This having a negative effect on exchange rate is ridiculous... until the scam came crashing down of course.

If Gox coins really were stolen, and the thief dumped coins for cash, then how is Karpeles pumping by buying a smaller amount of coins with customer funds to enable withdrawal?  It would be a wash or probably negative movement from him not buying as many as were stolen.  The only way Karpeles is pumping in that scenario is if the "thief" didn't sell any.  Who would steal $200 million dollars in goods and not sell any?

We have no idea really when the theft occurred, it could have happened as early as 2011. It could have been liquidated at much lower prices. One thing we know for sure, a criminal clever enough to waltz off with 100's of thousands of btc, would not be trying to sell them on mtgox in the late 2013 bubble when there was no way to get the fiat out.

People frequently will assert that Gox shenanigans caused the BTC market to go in one direction or another, yet neither is really clear and unambiguous.

I'm not saying Mark's scrambling to stay functional caused ALL of the movement of that rally, China was obviously a factor, their relative effects are difficult to ascertain and quantify.

In the end, it appears pretty clear that Gox did increasingly engage in a kind of fractional reserve banking of bitcoins to be trading coins that it did not in fact have in its possession.

Yes.

So a bot created pumping is one thing to cause the price to go up, but a flooding of the market with non-existing coins, is another thing that causes the real price to go down....

That's the problem, people were withdrawing coins, something that can't be done with "non-existing" coins. Hence, the reason he had to "buy" them at almost any price (and entice people to deposit more coins in the process.)

[brg444]

PS. About MMM's  Bitcoin Ponzi, a perturbing factor is what MMM will do with the bitcoins that it collects. 

(Ostensibly, the victims send bitcoins directly to each other, and MMM does not touch the bitcoins and does not take commission.  However, it is a safe bet that many of the people asking for donations are actually MMM bosses.)

I doubt that he will want to keep bitcoins for long.  So, after the ponzi collapses, the price may eventually return to the $220 level.

 

Still entertaining the MMM boogeyman?

I thought we had put this to bed once and for all. Considering the volume of the last few weeks it seems pretty clear that their role in last month's rally was quite exagerated and marginal at best.

[Richy_T]

Since nobody seems to know how many Bitcoins Gox actually had, it's still possible that instead of pumping, Gox might instead have had a negative effect on the market by selling more coins than they owned (shorting).  Yea, they're buying and selling with customer funds, but that doesn't mean they're pumping if they have 600k coins in liability on the books and only had 200k coins.  They would be naked shorting like Blythe Masters and silver.  I haven't really seen any good summary of Gox liabilities vs assets over time, but if there's always more liabilities than assets, they're doing internal naked shorts!

Oh, almost certainly Gox weren't pumping. They got in the mess they were because the price went up and they didn't have the coins that were on their books. A rising price thus meant that they were getting dug deeper and deeper in the hole.

The reason the price was going up (absent any Willy bot type input) was because they had frozen fiat withdrawals. The only way to get anything out of Gox (pre-total-collapse) was with bitcoins. Thus anyone with an ounce of sense was trying to buy bitcoins before the price went up more and before it all went south, further putting Gox in the hole.

The Gox rise was not natural exuberance (though that also played into it) but simply the largest exchange imploding spectacularly. What should the price had been? Who knows. I suspect we would not have touched 1k for a good while if Gox was running an honest ship.

[JorgeStolfi]

The big surge in volume is in the Chinese exchanges, especially Huobi and OKCoin.  

This is wrong.  Bitfinex was leading price the majority of the time in the rise.  This is not a China pump, China just also wants to go up.

The pattern of volume at Bitfinex over the last year is similar to that of Bitstamp.  Namely, the volume during the "sub-rally" of the last 2-3 days is above average, but still much less than the peak of early Novermber, and comparable to the volume seen several times during 2015.. 

Two years ago today when we crossed into 1k territory. Unfortunately, as we were later to find out, that was 1k GoxBux

Since nobody seems to know how many Bitcoins Gox actually had, it's still possible that instead of pumping, Gox might instead have had a negative effect on the market by selling more coins than they owned (shorting). [ ... ]  In other words, nobody knows what the hell kind of influence Gox had on the market.

My theory is that new demand in mainland China created the Oct-Nov/2013 rally, and perhaps also the Mar-Apr/2013 one. The prices in China were clearly higher than the "Western" prices during the rally, and lower during Dec/2013 crash.  In my theory, Willy's operator was doing arbitrage: buying coins from Gox clients with non-existent dollars, and selling them for real yuan at some Chinese exchange(s).  I think that it is possible that the yuan (worth perhaps 0.5 G USD) were confiscated by China's central bank after the Dec/2013 decree that closed the bank accounts of all Chinese exchanges.

[Meuh6879]

As a HODLER and a believer in the Bitcoin ecosystem...I have continuously bought a couple coins here and there if and only if it brought my average down. This has proven to be a profitable strategy.

+1 ... and it's because Bitcoin contain my Life Economies, too.
so i buy regulary ... or i sell when needed.

i have started in december 2013.

like my old bank account.
but nothing can freeze my money or restrict me to the SAFE BANK limits (cashless society).

[JorgeStolfi]

Still entertaining the MMM boogeyman?

I thought we had put this to bed once and for all.

In your mind, perhaps.  I have not seen a better explanation, or a reason to exclude it as the cause.  IIRC, the CEOs of both OKCoin and BTC-China thought so too.

Considering the volume of the last few weeks it seems pretty clear that their role in last month's rally was quite exagerated and marginal at best.

AFAIK the ponzi is still going on.  The rally to $500 in early November was magnified by speculation (traders all over the world buying more BTC because they saw the price rising), but probably half of the rise (from $220 to ~$330) could well be due to the ˜fresh" demand created by the MMM ponzi and its copycats in China. It definitely attracted many Chinese citizens who had no interest in bitcoin until then.

[JayJuanGee]

The big surge in volume is in the Chinese exchanges, especially Huobi and OKCoin.  

This is wrong.  Bitfinex was leading price the majority of the time in the rise.  This is not a China pump, China just also wants to go up.

The pattern of volume at Bitfinex over the last year is similar to that of Bitstamp.  Namely, the volume during the "sub-rally" of the last 2-3 days is above average, but still much less than the peak of early Novermber, and comparable to the volume seen several times during 2015.. 

You don't really seem to give up with your coming up with various FUD offerings.

In this case you seem to making a broad general statement without contextualizing specifics.  What the fuck matters regarding some alleged similar volume pattern when for one, they are two years removed from each other.. and bitfinex allows some creative low fee arrangements and bitfinex also allows quite a variety of marginal betting... which in the end becomes a BIG ... SO WhAT?   Apples and Oranges.

Two years ago today when we crossed into 1k territory. Unfortunately, as we were later to find out, that was 1k GoxBux

Since nobody seems to know how many Bitcoins Gox actually had, it's still possible that instead of pumping, Gox might instead have had a negative effect on the market by selling more coins than they owned (shorting). [ ... ]  In other words, nobody knows what the hell kind of influence Gox had on the market.

My theory is that new demand in mainland China created the Oct-Nov/2013 rally, and perhaps also the Mar-Apr/2013 one. The prices in China were clearly higher than the "Western" prices during the rally, and lower during Dec/2013 crash.  In my theory, Willy's operator was doing arbitrage: buying coins from Gox clients with non-existent dollars, and selling them for real yuan at some Chinese exchange(s).  I think that it is possible that the yuan (worth perhaps 0.5 G USD) were confiscated by China's central bank after the Dec/2013 decree that closed the bank accounts of all Chinese exchanges.

Your theory would be a whole hell-of-a lot more interesting if you were invested in a material way in Bitcoin, one way or another, rather than contributing with your supposed detached analysis. 

For the sake of mustering some form of credibility - rather than arm chair quarterbacking the situation, Go buy or sell a bitcoin, then likely many of us would take more interested in your  "theories."