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

[AliceGored]

Sadly, it's not looking good for additional capacity in time for the halving. Shocker.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=30days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

~0.6mb/block lately... median fees at 0.04$.

Business as usual.

Agreed, the relief valve working just fine.

[AlexGR]

Agreed, the relief valve working just fine.

I checked out of curiosity, seems like their block explorer is full of mining and poloniex txs... so I don't think they are taking any load from BTC. Actually it wouldn't make any sense to do so as LTC, DASH and DOGE have more widespread adoption than ETH - they are the primary candidates for taking more txs.

[USB-S]

Sadly, it's not looking good for additional capacity in time for the halving. Shocker.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=30days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

~0.6mb/block lately... median fees at 0.04$.

Business as usual.

Agreed, the relief valve working just fine.

Vitalik:


The cool bitcoin kids:

[Blacula X]

I checked out of curiosity, seems like their block explorer is full of mining and poloniex txs... so I don't think they are taking any load from BTC. Actually it wouldn't make any sense to do so as LTC, DASH and DOGE have more widespread adoption than ETH - they are the primary candidates for taking more txs.

But we can still use Segwit on testnet, right?

[AliceGored]

I checked out of curiosity, seems like their block explorer is full of mining and poloniex txs... so I don't think they are taking any load from BTC. Actually it wouldn't make any sense to do so as LTC, DASH and DOGE have more widespread adoption than ETH - they are the primary candidates for taking more txs.

Speculation and mining are the main economic activity of all coins, including BTC. A growth-capped BTC is good for all alts, I'm sure your DASH will have its day in the sun too. No need for concern, just keep supporting Blockstream, it'll happen.

[USB-S]

I checked out of curiosity, seems like their block explorer is full of mining and poloniex txs... so I don't think they are taking any load from BTC. Actually it wouldn't make any sense to do so as LTC, DASH and DOGE have more widespread adoption than ETH - they are the primary candidates for taking more txs.

Speculation and mining are the main economic activity of all coins, including BTC. A growth-capped BTC is good for all alts, I'm sure your DASH will have its day in the sun too. No need for concern, just keep supporting Blockstream, it'll happen.

But in bitcoin you can invest in a ponzi of every kind. You know, fun money.


Bitcoin


Ether


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIasr2AiyZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5TGN7eUcM

[PoolMinor]

I checked out of curiosity, seems like their block explorer is full of mining and poloniex txs... so I don't think they are taking any load from BTC. Actually it wouldn't make any sense to do so as LTC, DASH and DOGE have more widespread adoption than ETH - they are the primary candidates for taking more txs.

Speculation and mining are the main economic activity of all coins, including BTC. A growth-capped BTC is good for all alts, I'm sure your DASH will have its day in the sun too. No need for concern, just keep supporting Blockstream, it'll happen.

But in bitcoin you can invest in a ponzi of every kind. You know, fun money.


Bitcoin


Ether


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIasr2AiyZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5TGN7eUcM

[2015Bubble]

I checked out of curiosity, seems like their block explorer is full of mining and poloniex txs... so I don't think they are taking any load from BTC. Actually it wouldn't make any sense to do so as LTC, DASH and DOGE have more widespread adoption than ETH - they are the primary candidates for taking more txs.

Speculation and mining are the main economic activity of all coins, including BTC. A growth-capped BTC is good for all alts, I'm sure your DASH will have its day in the sun too. No need for concern, just keep supporting Blockstream, it'll happen.

But in bitcoin you can invest in a ponzi of every kind. You know, fun money.


Bitcoin


Ether


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIasr2AiyZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5TGN7eUcM

[USB-S]

I checked out of curiosity, seems like their block explorer is full of mining and poloniex txs... so I don't think they are taking any load from BTC. Actually it wouldn't make any sense to do so as LTC, DASH and DOGE have more widespread adoption than ETH - they are the primary candidates for taking more txs.

Speculation and mining are the main economic activity of all coins, including BTC. A growth-capped BTC is good for all alts, I'm sure your DASH will have its day in the sun too. No need for concern, just keep supporting Blockstream, it'll happen.

But in bitcoin you can invest in a ponzi of every kind. You know, fun money.


Bitcoin


Ether


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIasr2AiyZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5TGN7eUcM

This some next level bitcoinin

[marcus_of_augustus]

ok, this is it, get in ... don't ask me how i know, shut up and get in ... 470 is ours now.

[USB-S]

[adamstgBit]

Bitcoin

Ether

lol nice gifs

[adamstgBit]

From Peter Todd's chinese AMA, https://www.bikeji.com/t/3831



So no segwit until HF code is released (Blockstream considers "released" a pull req, apparently). Wake me up in 14 months grentlement.

so some chinese  miners said " no segwit until 'HF to 2MB next year' code is released  "

fuck ya, good for the miner.

shame on core for interpreting "released" as the code is available with a pull-req.
no you little dumb fucks, it means the code is PART OF THE FUCKING BUILD!
you shit heads!


sorry i sometimes lose my cool when i get worked up about core devs.

[Gyrsur]

From Peter Todd's chinese AMA, https://www.bikeji.com/t/3831



So no segwit until HF code is released (Blockstream considers "released" a pull req, apparently). Wake me up in 14 months grentlement.

so some chinese  miners said " no segwit until 'HF to 2MB next year' code is released  "

fuck ya, good for the miner.

shame on core for interpreting "released" as the code is available with a pull-req.
no you little dumb fucks, it means the code is PART OF THE FUCKING BUILD!
you shit heads!


sorry i sometimes lose my cool when i get worked up about core devs.

0.5 MB blocks now!!

[adamstgBit]

From Peter Todd's chinese AMA, https://www.bikeji.com/t/3831



So no segwit until HF code is released (Blockstream considers "released" a pull req, apparently). Wake me up in 14 months grentlement.

so some chinese  miners said " no segwit until 'HF to 2MB next year' code is released  "

fuck ya, good for the miner.

shame on core for interpreting "released" as the code is available with a pull-req.
no you little dumb fucks, it means the code is PART OF THE FUCKING BUILD!
you shit heads!


sorry i sometimes lose my cool when i get worked up about core devs.

0.5 MB blocks now!!

that would be so cool if the damn core devs forked off to a 0.5MB chain

finally we would get rid of these control freaks.

[adamstgBit]

[JayJuanGee]

We are talking about $25K - $250K in the coming decade or so without taking into considerations non mathematical elements, am I right ?

This is theory and throwing figures around. What it truly requires is people. Alot of real people. Real people take alot of convincing and they usually don't do what you want them to.

I think that these kinds of discussions of market cap and which assets are comparable in terms of utility are good, whether we be talking about theory or throwing numbers around - because in the end, we cannot know for sure how it is going to play out, but throwing out the theories and numbers can help us to view possible areas and to conceptualize what is more possible or not... and as we go along, we will continue to have to tweak our view of bitcoin and it's future based on developments in the space, whether those developments expand or contract bitcoin's actual market share, usage and utility.    $25k to $250k seems like reasonable possibilities in the coming 5-10 years - even if there may be some forces that continue to attempt to manipulate bitcoin down and to break it, possibilities of $25k to $250k seem reasonable(though certainly not inevitable - and that is where we have to account for the various forces that fight bitcoin in various ways that continue to make efforts to keep bitcoin down, and the downward force could also be explained by some attempts at downward speculation, even though downward speculation is not a complete explanation of downward price pressures, either).

If you truly believe that, and I believe you do + I am not saying you are wrong, why are you then still publicly trading for a few bucks profit per bitcoin? Is it the rush you are getting when the price runs away from you in either direction? Are you hedging against your own bullish judgement? This seems like a dangerous strategy believing what you are saying is sincere.

Yes, I attempted to make my above highlighted statement to be within what I really believe, and I framed my statement general enough that it is reflective of what I believe at the moment to be within reasonable possibilities.  

Concerning my own buying and trading strategy, I believe that I have structured my own buying/trading consistently with my beliefs and my financial circumstances.

A quick overview of my own bitcoin situation:  I started buying at $1,200 in November 2013 and fairly consistently, I continued to buy at various times and in various amounts down to $182 in January 2015 (a form of dollar cost averaging, but not selling any BTC during that time).

Between January 2015 and October 2015 I continued to buy at various price points throughout the $200s (more or less to accumulate BTC and to bring down my average cost per BTC), and beginning in October 2015, I began to trade BTF in the mid $200s, retrospectively realizing, as it was on its way up to $502.  

Initially, in October 2015, I only authorized myself to trade small amounts and small percentages of my portfolio, and the authorization level became higher and higher, as the price rose until now.. however, note that during the price spike to  $502 on November 4, my BTC portfolio and trading strategy (and experienced) was not very well tuned to prepare for that situation, and I was not very well able to take advantage of that short-term price explosion.

By the way, regarding my forum posts, starting in about mid-2014, I discontinued telling very many specifics regarding my own actual buying amounts, but instead to talk in terms of percentages and other kinds of overall framing of my buying or approximations or ranges that would help to illustrate my BTC accumulation and dollar cost averaging strategies and to attempt to brainstorm feedback to the extent that forum members would engage in such discussions.

So, for example, after October 2015, I have posted as hypotheticals regarding my staggering of projected trades, and in this regard, hypothetically to suggest that "here is what I am doing in proportion to my total BTC holdings, if I were to have 100 BTC in my portfolio, blah blah blah" and that would show my projection of my plans to buy BTC on the way down and to sell BTC on the way up... which is consistent with my approach throughout..  while throughout, only trading a few percentage of my total BTC holdings at a time.  

By the way, since my BTC portfolio is only recently coming out of the red (depending on how it is framed), I have not really been in a great position to sell large amounts of my BTC holdings, because it would not make sense to take such chances and to potentially lock in losses, which I really did not want to do - because my view has always been that BTC fundamentals are strong enough that I am kind of presuming that it is going to go up sooner or later.. hoping for sooner, but prepared for later, just in case.

Contrary to what you seem to be asserting (or implying) bitebits, I don't see my BTC trading strategy to be contrary to my view that BTC prices have decent probabilities of reaching $25k to $250k within 5-10 years.  Decent probabilities can mean a lot of things including beliefs of anything between a 10% chance and a 90% chance, and these kinds of speculations about probabilities can change based on a large variety of factors - and I am going to play conservative with my own finances, and I am not going to put a large amount of money on probabilities that are based on both math and human actions (it is not just a math formula that is inevitable).  Anyhow,   I believe that I am acting consistent with my beliefs in that I am accumulating BTC (and have accumulated a decent amount of BTC), and I plan to continue to trade BTC in order to both accumulate and to cash out of some of my BTC holdings (but at the same time buying on dips in order to preserve or increase the quantity of my BTC holdings with the view that BTC prices are going to continue to go up).  

Somehow to me, bitebits, I get the impression from your above comment that you believe that in order for me to be consistent with my views, I should be buying more and more BTC and even leveraging more in order to buy BTC because the present value of such a view (if I really believe it) would seem to dictate that I invest more financial resources into BTC.  

Really, I don't think so.  

As you recognized, my disposition has been to attempt to prepare for either price direction and not to gamble too much with my BTC holdings or my total financial situation, and really I tend to be disinclined towards any kind of major leveraging (because guys can easily lose a lot of their BTC holdings based on short term manipulations when they attempt to leverage, which is a form of too risky gambling, in my view).  

In fact if BTC prices were to spurt up, let's say 10x within one or two months, maybe I would end up selling nearly 50% of my holdings on the way up... but even in that scenario, I would likely still retain 50% of my BTC holdings, and I would still be doing pretty well in terms of total value.  I will concede that I feel that I have a pretty decent plan, and I believe that I have pretty decent abilities to stick with my intended plan; however, when push comes to shove and the rubber hits the road, I cannot be completely certain that I may not make some mistakes and maybe panic at a few moments and engage in behavior that I did not plan.  

Of course my plan is not set in stone, and my so far practicing with it (with smaller amounts) is providing good experiences for me to be better prepared for the future if we experience some surprise price movements.  Anyhow, I plan to kind of adapt my overall plan to how I see the BTC price dynamics playing out and to tweak here and there, if I believe it is necessary, as I go along while in the meantime attempting to keep a broader vision in mind to be prepared for either price direction.

 I hope that makes sense to clear up what seems to be a kind of inconsistency in my position from your point of view.

By the way, in a nut shell, what are you doing in terms of attempting to prepare your BTC holdings in a way that you believe is consistent with your view of BTC's future and in light of your own financial circumstances?

[Fakhoury]

We are talking about $25K - $250K in the coming decade or so without taking into considerations non mathematical elements, am I right ?

This is theory and throwing figures around. What it truly requires is people. Alot of real people. Real people take alot of convincing and they usually don't do what you want them to.

I think that these kinds of discussions of market cap and which assets are comparable in terms of utility are good, whether we be talking about theory or throwing numbers around - because in the end, we cannot know for sure how it is going to play out, but throwing out the theories and numbers can help us to view possible areas and to conceptualize what is more possible or not... and as we go along, we will continue to have to tweak our view of bitcoin and it's future based on developments in the space, whether those developments expand or contract bitcoin's actual market share, usage and utility.    $25k to $250k seems like reasonable possibilities in the coming 5-10 years - even if there may be some forces that continue to attempt to manipulate bitcoin down and to break it, possibilities of $25k to $250k seem reasonable(though certainly not inevitable - and that is where we have to account for the various forces that fight bitcoin in various ways that continue to make efforts to keep bitcoin down, and the downward force could also be explained by some attempts at downward speculation, even though downward speculation is not a complete explanation of downward price pressures, either).

If you truly believe that, and I believe you do + I am not saying you are wrong, why are you then still publicly trading for a few bucks profit per bitcoin? Is it the rush you are getting when the price runs away from you in either direction? Are you hedging against your own bullish judgement? This seems like a dangerous strategy believing what you are saying is sincere.

Yes, I attempted to make my above highlighted statement to be within what I really believe, and I framed my statement general enough that it is reflective of what I believe at the moment to be within reasonable possibilities.  

Concerning my own buying and trading strategy, I believe that I have structured my own buying/trading consistently with my beliefs and my financial circumstances.

A quick overview of my own bitcoin situation:  I started buying at $1,200 in November 2013 and fairly consistently, I continued to buy at various times and in various amounts down to $182 in January 2015 (a form of dollar cost averaging, but not selling any BTC during that time).

Between January 2015 and October 2015 I continued to buy at various price points throughout the $200s (more or less to accumulate BTC and to bring down my average cost per BTC), and beginning in October 2015, I began to trade BTF in the mid $200s, retrospectively realizing, as it was on its way up to $502.  

Initially, in October 2015, I only authorized myself to trade small amounts and small percentages of my portfolio, and the authorization level became higher and higher, as the price rose until now.. however, note that during the price spike to  $502 on November 4, my BTC portfolio and trading strategy (and experienced) was not very well tuned to prepare for that situation, and I was not very well able to take advantage of that short-term price explosion.

By the way, regarding my forum posts, starting in about mid-2014, I discontinued telling very many specifics regarding my own actual buying amounts, but instead to talk in terms of percentages and other kinds of overall framing of my buying or approximations or ranges that would help to illustrate my BTC accumulation and dollar cost averaging strategies and to attempt to brainstorm feedback to the extent that forum members would engage in such discussions.

So, for example, after October 2015, I have posted as hypotheticals regarding my staggering of projected trades, and in this regard, hypothetically to suggest that "here is what I am doing in proportion to my total BTC holdings, if I were to have 100 BTC in my portfolio, blah blah blah" and that would show my projection of my plans to buy BTC on the way down and to sell BTC on the way up... which is consistent with my approach throughout..  while throughout, only trading a few percentage of my total BTC holdings at a time.  

By the way, since my BTC portfolio is only recently coming out of the red (depending on how it is framed), I have not really been in a great position to sell large amounts of my BTC holdings, because it would not make sense to take such chances and to potentially lock in losses, which I really did not want to do - because my view has always been that BTC fundamentals are strong enough that I am kind of presuming that it is going to go up sooner or later.. hoping for sooner, but prepared for later, just in case.

Contrary to what you seem to be asserting (or implying) bitebits, I don't see my BTC trading strategy to be contrary to my view that BTC prices have decent probabilities of reaching $25k to $250k within 5-10 years.  Decent probabilities can mean a lot of things including beliefs of anything between a 10% chance and a 90% chance, and these kinds of speculations about probabilities can change based on a large variety of factors - and I am going to play conservative with my own finances, and I am not going to put a large amount of money on probabilities that are based on both math and human actions (it is not just a math formula that is inevitable).  Anyhow,   I believe that I am acting consistent with my beliefs in that I am accumulating BTC (and have accumulated a decent amount of BTC), and I plan to continue to trade BTC in order to both accumulate and to cash out of some of my BTC holdings (but at the same time buying on dips in order to preserve or increase the quantity of my BTC holdings with the view that BTC prices are going to continue to go up).  

Somehow to me, bitebits, I get the impression from your above comment that you believe that in order for me to be consistent with my views, I should be buying more and more BTC and even leveraging more in order to buy BTC because the present value of such a view (if I really believe it) would seem to dictate that I invest more financial resources into BTC.  

Really, I don't think so.  

As you recognized, my disposition has been to attempt to prepare for either price direction and not to gamble too much with my BTC holdings or my total financial situation, and really I tend to be disinclined towards any kind of major leveraging (because guys can easily lose a lot of their BTC holdings based on short term manipulations when they attempt to leverage, which is a form of too risky gambling, in my view).  

In fact if BTC prices were to spurt up, let's say 10x within one or two months, maybe I would end up selling nearly 50% of my holdings on the way up... but even in that scenario, I would likely still retain 50% of my BTC holdings, and I would still be doing pretty well in terms of total value.  I will concede that I feel that I have a pretty decent plan, and I believe that I have pretty decent abilities to stick with my intended plan; however, when push comes to shove and the rubber hits the road, I cannot be completely certain that I may not make some mistakes and maybe panic at a few moments and engage in behavior that I did not plan.  

Of course my plan is not set in stone, and my so far practicing with it (with smaller amounts) is providing good experiences for me to be better prepared for the future if we experience some surprise price movements.  Anyhow, I plan to kind of adapt my overall plan to how I see the BTC price dynamics playing out and to tweak here and there, if I believe it is necessary, as I go along while in the meantime attempting to keep a broader vision in mind to be prepared for either price direction.

 I hope that makes sense to clear up what seems to be a kind of inconsistency in my position from your point of view.

By the way, in a nut shell, what are you doing in terms of attempting to prepare your BTC holdings in a way that you believe is consistent with your view of BTC's future and in light of your own financial circumstances?

By the way bother, you shocked me when I saw you believeing in $25K - $250K within 5-10 years as I don't know if you re-call or not when we were talking on PM, you had nearlly 0.x% chance that we will reach those values within the given timeframe.

Don't get me wrong, you are a buddy and brother of mine, I just see and understand you are a bull and not a permabull like the minority rest of us.

I would like to know what caused to elevate your bullishness to that level, I'm extremely happy btw to see you crazy like us

[TERA]

Wow that looks like a really good chart right? Looks like the price has been 'breaking out' for over a month as it nudges closer and closer against resistance. Sentiments have been tremendously universally bullish for months as bitcoin makes headlines all over the news and the chart looks just like 2012 right before the 2012 halving. Every thread on the forum is positive and predicts the level of the next rise. Meanwhile, CHINA is still the market leader. What could go wrong, right? The BFX order book bids are paper thin and BFX longs are maxxed out at 32M. Each time this margin level was reached in the past was when bulls were buying in to what looked like a big breakout (such as in July 2014) but inflected into the next decline instead. I'd say there is a distinctive chance of another decline to the 300s before any meaningful rise. I'm not betting anything on that though.

[JayJuanGee]

By the way bother, you shocked me when I saw you believeing in $25K - $250K within 5-10 years as I don't know if you re-call or not when we were talking on PM, you had nearlly 0.x% chance that we will reach those values within the given timeframe.

Don't get me wrong, you are a buddy and brother of mine, I just see and understand you are a bull and not a permabull like the minority rest of us.

I would like to know what caused to elevate your bullishness to that level, I'm extremely happy btw to see you crazy like us

I understand what you are saying when you assert that it appears that I may have become more bullish in the past several months; however, really, in spite of the apparent inconsistencies, I don't believe that I have become more bullish than previously without some kind of actual reason based on actual market performance (at least, not in any significant or apparently contradictory way).

More or less, I think about it like this.  There is almost no way that the performance of bitcoin is completely mathematical (sure there is quite a bit of math involved in terms of network effects and reliability of the infrastructure etc) because it largely involves the behaviors (actions and reactions) of human beings.  So even though some things in bitcoin can be determined by math, we cannot really know how the behavior of human beings is going to play out and affect bitcoin in both positive and negative ways.

Look, we PM'd each other in September 2015, a week or two before bitcoin prices took off into a 2x bull run, in which none of us could have really anticipated, and also after nearly 2 years of downward price manipulation.  Those factors, and the place that we are at the moment, affect viewpoint - short term and long term and the various measures that may need to be taken in order to protect one's position (and investment).

There have been a lot of decent developments since September 2015, and also some real significant tests of the downside of bitcoin's price under those recent scenarios.  

Actually, when I PM'd you in September 2015, I gave you very specific probability ranges for various prices in the 5 year projection and the 10 year projection, and in my most recent post, I asserted "decent and reasonable possibilities of $25k to $250k".  Anyhow, I believe the outline of my September 2015 predictions and viewpoints can serve as a very decent thought experiment, and yeah, surely I would not mind filling those in again with actual guestimates of my feelings and viewpoint as of today.  If you want a follow-up post, then I will do it.. I think that it is a very good topic for this thread and for others to chime in if they want.