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

[conspirosphere.tk]

Hm BTC spam attack is over and ETH is crashing. What a coincidence 

"Some lose yet gain, others gain and yet lose."
               — Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

[BitconAssociation]

Hm BTC spam attack is over and ETH is crashing. What a coincidence  

"Some lose yet gain, others gain and yet lose."
               — Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

"Dear Log:
Can it be true? Do all bitcoiners go through a process of dumbening? ... Wait, that’s not how you spell dumbening.
Wait, dumbening isn’t even a word!"
               — Lisa Simpson, The Dumbening Meditations

[JimboToronto]

Good morning Bitcoinland. I see the small window of buying opportunity is closing fast.

I hope everyone got their cheap coins yesterday when the price was below $400. I also hope nobody here was foolish enough to sell at such a low price, although obviously someone had to sell cheap in order for the smarter ones to buy.

Sideways for a while or back up over $420?

[ChartBuddy]

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Explanation

[JayJuanGee]

Bitcoin looking healthy again.

Yes, and blocks are still maxxed out.

The blocks are hardly maxed out ----- unless you are just making up shit in order to attempt to exaggerate some problem that is not even close to what the loud mouth FUDsters are attempting to portray.


Blocks floating around 65% at the moment... ... but they had  experienced some peaks approaching 90% in recent days (within the past week)

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=60days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=


Surely, there may be some more spam/ddos attacks on the bitcoin network in the coming days that could return bitcoin transactions to peaking at 90% or possibly more, but so far, the blockchain seems to have been handling such attacks pretty well (and I have seen pretty decent descriptions of apparent attacks that may also largely be undermined once seg wit is implemented in the coming months), and even in current times, bitcoin transactions have been going through in reasonable times given the value transferred and the potential for various kinds of self-directed control over 24/7 transactions.. without middlemen (banks taking out a cut)..

Bitcoin transaction fees still remain low as fuck and can be as little as .0001BTC per kilobyte or even lower and transfer a lot of value in a relatively short period of time and be finalized in less than 24 hours (more frequently less than an hour but sometimes a bit longer time frame).


There can be a bit of a variance in the median transaction time with small fees, but surely, median transaction times seem fairly reasonable too... getting 1st confirmations largely within 9 to 12 minutes (and would go through completely relatively quickly after the first confirmation has taken place - I think 3 confirmations are currently required to have the coins available to the recipient - used to be 6 confirmations, no?)

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespan=60days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=


In sum, bitcoin is looking relatively healthy and the price seems to be decently moving away from the most recent $382 bottom, causing some comfort that another short term bottom has been visited and we will be moving upwards, again.. No?  At this point, I put the odds of upward price movement (of maybe a 5 % adjustment) to be a bit greater than downward movement.. maybe 57% to 43%...

[JayJuanGee]

There's a fella on r/btc doing a sterling job bringing the Chinese side of things to life. Here's his latest summary of Jihan Wu from Antpool's post on 8btc - https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/495866/the_rbtc_china_dispatch_11_summary_selected/

What seems bizarre to me is that the HK CRTA comes out and the market shoots up from $375 to $450, a seventy five dollar increase. Then pools start coming out one at a time making it clear there is no consensus, and the market only retraces 60 bucks.

It seems like there should be more than a complete retrace.  28.4 million in leveraged longs on BFX. It seems crazy to say this, especially so close to the halving, but I think there is a real possibility that $300 will get another serious test of support.  There is still too much uncertainty with scaling and governance. 

Were you able to close those shorts that you had opened in the $370s and $380s?   Oh?  why am i asking?  it seems you are still predicting $300, so probably, you have not closed those shorts, yet.  Oh well... It's starting to seem more and more like $382 may have been the bottom... at least for now...

My short is a hedge because I am way too heavy and undiversified, having almost my entire life savings in Bitcoin. I WANT that short to blow up. It is a hedge. So no, I didn't close it and I won't until and unless it
1) blows up
2) I can see some tangible progress on the scaling, governance and mining concentration problems
3) there is a real, honest to goodness long squeeze.

That sounds like a decent plan, even though the downward movement of a couple of days ago, and the 3000k coin dump (on stamp) should have demonstrated a sort of short term bottom... and maybe even a longer term bottom given the whole dynamics in the space (as you describe scaling etc)....

And, surely your plan to hedge does not sound bad either so long as you are doing that with your own coins, and you are not paying interest on the coins. 

Sometimes, you seem to be playing reasonably, but also sometimes you seem to be playing a bit more balls to the walls than me, and accordingly, I generally agree with you that you would not necessarily want to close or partially close if you are closing at a loss, but sometimes, it becomes more clear that the short term price is inclined to move in one direction or another (but yeah with bitcoin, we can never really be sure and we gotta hedge to some extent in order to feel more comfortably on a personal level).

Also, even though I don't really engage in balls to the walls investing (including my bitcoin investments), even after a while, my dollar cost averaging into bitcoin of "no more than you can afford to lose" begins to add up to really significant amounts of money that causes more and more emotions and after some price appreciation - for example bitcoin prices going from below $200 to $502 and then largely floating in the $360 to $460 price range for more than 3 months can cause considerable amount of value to have been appreciated in a dollar cost averaging bitcoin investment and then there are ongoing questions regarding whether to reallocate some of the profits and to hedge.. which I have been engaging in my own tailored efforts of such since October 2015.

[AlexGR]

Surely, there may be some more spam/ddos attacks on the bitcoin network in the coming days that could return bitcoin transactions to peaking at 90% or possibly more, but so far, the blockchain seems to have been handling such attacks pretty well

All is working as Satoshi said:

I am not claiming that the network is impervious to DoS attack.  I think most P2P networks can be DoS attacked in numerous ways.  (On a side note, I read that the record companies would like to DoS all the file sharing networks, but they don't want to break the anti-hacking/anti-abuse laws.)

If we started getting DoS attacked with loads of wasted transactions back and forth, you would need to start paying a 0.01 minimum transaction fee.

...although the min fee is much lower nowadays. But the essence is the same. If there was no abusing of the network we could be sending coins for free right now due to the max blocksize being more than accommodating for our genuine transaction needs.

Zero cost txs / near zero cost txs => bring zero-cost abuse or near-zero cost abuse.

When that happens => cost to transact increases to bypass the abuser's queue.

[JayJuanGee]

If you're a trader and haven't bought back in yet you're doing it wrong.


disclaimer: i just hodl

If you are not a trader, then you are not really in a position to suggest what traders should be doing because, as you said, you just hodl.

Your form of trading is not to trade, but you are suggesting what traders should do?  Hm?  Go figure.

Even though I am quibbling a bit with your ability to make such a statement, I do largely agree that because of the recent large attempts at downward price manipulation within what appears to be an upwardly price inclination, a large portion of a BTC trader's portfolio should be BTC heavy at this point.  Personally, I am about 97.5% bitcoin and 2.5% fiat... and I think that I am aspiring towards 95%/5% (that would make me more comfortable), but I have to let the price come to me rather than attempting to force it (or maybe if prices consolidate for a little bit in this $410-ish range, then I will be able to readjust my allocations within the consolidation zone).

[BitconAssociation]

< >
Zero cost txs / near zero cost txs => bring zero-cost abuse or near-zero cost abuse.

When that happens => cost to transact increases to bypass the abuser's queue.

Yup. Just goes to show you that miners don't care about Bitcoin. Otherwise, they wouldn't fill blocks with junk low-fee transactions. It's as if they never heard of rational self-interest, or doing it wrong on purpos.
What we need is some sort of a central authority to continuously adjust the Bitcoin protocol to compensate for such irrational behaviors.

[European Central Bank]

What we need is some sort of a central authority to continuously adjust the Bitcoin protocol to compensate for such irrational behaviors.

Doesn't that automatically stop it from being bitcoin any more?

[ChartBuddy]

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Explanation

[BitconAssociation]

What we need is some sort of a central authority to continuously adjust the Bitcoin protocol to compensate for such irrational behaviors.

Doesn't that automatically stop it from being bitcoin any more?

Not at all! That's what developers are for.
They understand Bitcoin and are able to interpret, in code, the teachings of Satoshi, within today's complex socioeconomic context.
Developers must familiarize themselves with the everchanging financial landscape to foster consensus within representatives of Bitcoin's Financial Majority, which is to say CEOs of mining farms and various exchanges.

[Meuh6879]

disclaimer: i just hodl

you MUST buy now !

[bankingbtc]

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Explanation

the price seems to be getting back slowly but surely, also for me it is good to see that ethereum price is dropping a little bit, i believe only in bitcoins and nothing else, its the future of all money in my opinion

[ChartBuddy]

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Explanation

[Andre#]

Bitcoin looking healthy again.

Yes, and blocks are still maxxed out.

The blocks are hardly maxed out ----- unless you are just making up shit in order to attempt to exaggerate some problem that is not even close to what the loud mouth FUDsters are attempting to portray.


Blocks floating around 65% at the moment... ... but they had  experienced some peaks approaching 90% in recent days (within the past week)

At the time of writing, these were the latest blocks.

401423: 0 MB
401422: 976.48 MB
401421: 974.79 MB
401420: 974.77 MB
401419: 906.65 MB
401418: 0 MB
401417: 974.64 MB
401416: 912.66 MB
401415: 976.45 MB
401414: 974.72 MB
401413: 965.86 MB
401412: 974.55 MB
401411: 974.74 MB

Looks pretty maxed out to me (with thousands tx waiting in tradeblock's mempool). I guess I must be making it up, then.

BTW, you also could have looked at ChartBuddy.

Explanation

Explanation

Explanation

ChartBuddy knows his shit -- I'm only making it up.

[hdbuck]

Bitcoin looking healthy again.

Yes, and blocks are still maxxed out.

The blocks are hardly maxed out ----- unless you are just making up shit in order to attempt to exaggerate some problem that is not even close to what the loud mouth FUDsters are attempting to portray.


Blocks floating around 65% at the moment... ... but they had  experienced some peaks approaching 90% in recent days (within the past week)

At the time of writing, these were the latest blocks.

401423: 0 MB
401422: 976.48 MB
401421: 974.79 MB
401420: 974.77 MB
401419: 906.65 MB
401418: 0 MB
401417: 974.64 MB
401416: 912.66 MB
401415: 976.45 MB
401414: 974.72 MB
401413: 965.86 MB
401412: 974.55 MB
401411: 974.74 MB

Looks pretty maxed out to me (with thousands tx waiting in tradeblock's mempool). I guess I must be making it up, then.

BTW, you also could have looked at ChartBuddy.

Explanation

Explanation

Explanation

ChartBuddy knows his shit -- I'm only making it up.

would you fork off already? you pitiful inflative little whiner?

[AlexGR]

Looks pretty maxed out to me (with thousands tx waiting in tradeblock's mempool). I guess I must be making it up, then.

Anyone can activate a script and broadcast millions of transactions. When the cost to transact is near zero, the cost to spam the system tends to near zero as well. This means that the transaction backlog is to be expected under these circumstances and it won't change whether the blocksize is 1mb or 1gb - as long as people can spam it for free or near-zero cost.

[BitconAssociation]

Looks pretty maxed out to me (with thousands tx waiting in tradeblock's mempool). I guess I must be making it up, then.

Anyone can activate a script and broadcast millions of transactions. When the cost to transact is near zero, the cost to spam the system tends to near zero as well. This means that the transaction backlog is to be expected under these circumstances and it won't change whether the blocksize is 1mb or 1gb - as long as people can spam it for free or near-zero cost.

Why do those dumb miners include all those spam transactions, don't they know about rational self interest?
Can't we have them arrested for bloating our blockchain? Isn't that illegal?

EDIT, GREAT IDEA: Let's script some nodes that will instantly start DoSing any node relaying transactions with < 8c fee. Anyone here good with computers?

[JayJuanGee]

Bitcoin looking healthy again.

Yes, and blocks are still maxxed out.

The blocks are hardly maxed out ----- unless you are just making up shit in order to attempt to exaggerate some problem that is not even close to what the loud mouth FUDsters are attempting to portray.


Blocks floating around 65% at the moment... ... but they had  experienced some peaks approaching 90% in recent days (within the past week)

At the time of writing, these were the latest blocks.

401423: 0 MB
401422: 976.48 MB
401421: 974.79 MB
401420: 974.77 MB
401419: 906.65 MB
401418: 0 MB
401417: 974.64 MB
401416: 912.66 MB
401415: 976.45 MB
401414: 974.72 MB
401413: 965.86 MB
401412: 974.55 MB
401411: 974.74 MB

Looks pretty maxed out to me (with thousands tx waiting in tradeblock's mempool). I guess I must be making it up, then.

BTW, you also could have looked at ChartBuddy.

Explanation

Explanation

Explanation

ChartBuddy knows his shit -- I'm only making it up.

I've cited my sources as blockchain.info charts, and you cited your sources as chartbuddy?  If someone could explain why blockchain.info is lacking in credibility, then that may be helpful.  I really do not understand the significance of chartbuddy because I put through several transactions during supposed congested periods last week, and my experiences reflected those described in blockchain.info, which was relatively quick confirmations and finalization of transactions (in spite claims of fulblocalypse).

So, yeah, I don't think that these various claims of fullblocks really materialize into real world problems, and yes, I think that the blockchain is suffering from various spam/ddos attacks yet is still functioning pretty fucking well in spite of attempts to make it seem full and in spite of attempts to describe some kind of supposed tragedy in the alleged clogged up nature of the blockchain.