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

[Its About Sharing]

Seems quite often that when people encounter bitcoin for the first time, they think it sounds too good to be true, and they come up with a reason why it won't work.  A few years later, when they encounter it again, they are more likely to go for it.  That promises for the next bubble given the widespread media coverage in 2013  .  

I am still bearish for the very short term (next day or 2) though.

i read about bitcoin in a news magazine in feb/march 2011. no IT knowledge at all. i decided to invest $3000, price was around $10. boy, it was hard for me to find out how to set up an account @mtgox and how to wire money to japan. the money took ages to get there while price was rising every day. the day it arrived on my account was the day of the peak bubble. instead of buying 300 btc i could only get 120. i hesitated. price climbed like a rocket. so i bought 100 btc.

aaaaand… price stopped to climb. bubble popped. it went down for the rest of the year all the way down to $2. i had managed to lose $2800 on some japanese online scam. mtgox was hacked while the the price went down, i could´t access my btc. decided to throw my account details/password into the garbage and felt so ashamed that i told no one about it and forgot all about it for years.

it wasn´t until march 2013 when some customer walked into my store and talked about bitcoin. didn´t even rang a bell. when he mentioned mtgox i remembered this tokyo based online scam and told to him to shut up talking about this fuck-up. the customer insisted it wasn´t a scam. i googled it. he was right, mtgox was still around. price was around $68 WAIT…WHAT??  i felt even worse, having no memory whatsoever about account access.

the guy suggested to write to mtgox customer service. i did. fuckin 10 minutes later they granted me access to my account, 100 btc sitting there untouched for 2 years. i got hooked on bitcoin that moment.  

Great Story! Nice that it worked out for you. And it is a GREAT example of how we really didn't know what to make of this bitcoin back then. Buying some of these "scam" coins over the last few years is also going to be interesting as a few might amount to something. And we might look back and say "You know, I had 5,000 Maidsafe, Monero, etc. but dumped it as it lost so much value. Had I known..." Much more likely than the 10,000 BTC Pizza. A few of these are going to amount to something.

You know, a couple of years ago I was trying to send 2 Bitcoin to the ICO for Ethereum. It was the last day I think. It just hung there, for 5 minutes, and I tried that more than once. Just wasn't meant to be, those 2600 Ethereum for 2 BTC. Think that would be roughly 67 Bitcoin today.  

[1714620975]

1714620975

[1714620975]

1714620975

[1714620975]

1714620975

[1714620975]

1714620975

[1714620975]

1714620975

[JayJuanGee]

Seems quite often that when people encounter bitcoin for the first time, they think it sounds too good to be true, and they come up with a reason why it won't work.  A few years later, when they encounter it again, they are more likely to go for it.  That promises for the next bubble given the widespread media coverage in 2013  .  

I am still bearish for the very short term (next day or 2) though.

i read about bitcoin in a news magazine in feb/march 2011. no IT knowledge at all. i decided to invest $3000, price was around $10. boy, it was hard for me to find out how to set up an account @mtgox and how to wire money to japan. the money took ages to get there while price was rising every day. the day it arrived on my account was the day of the peak bubble. instead of buying 300 btc i could only get 120. i hesitated. price climbed like a rocket. so i bought 100 btc.

aaaaand… price stopped to climb. bubble popped. it went down for the rest of the year all the way down to $2. i had managed to lose $2800 on some japanese online scam. mtgox was hacked while the the price went down, i could´t access my btc. decided to throw my account details/password into the garbage and felt so ashamed that i told no one about it and forgot all about it for years.

it wasn´t until march 2013 when some customer walked into my store and talked about bitcoin. didn´t even rang a bell. when he mentioned mtgox i remembered this tokyo based online scam and told to him to shut up talking about this fuck-up. the customer insisted it wasn´t a scam. i googled it. he was right, mtgox was still around. price was around $68 WAIT…WHAT??  i felt even worse, having no memory whatsoever about account access.

the guy suggested to write to mtgox customer service. i did. fuckin 10 minutes later they granted me access to my account, 100 btc sitting there untouched for 2 years. i got hooked on bitcoin that moment.  

Nice story.
I heard about bitcoin when it was 30 cents on a gold blog.   I figured it would be amazing if it would work, but then I thought"people will create clones, thereby cancelling the scarcity".  I thought about throwing 100 bucks at it, but ended up not doing it.  the price chart looked bubbly, and it would probably not end up working anyway. Never look at any decent info or a whitepaper.  I watched this YouTube video of rawdog, THAT buffoon was my source.... I mean I can't even.....   Wish I had bought then, but of course you never know what might have happened (could have lost all on scam exchange or whatever)

When did you finally buy, and what was the price at the time?  Did you go into the BTC investment full bore, or did you invest incrementally?  Do you still hold all of your coins, or do you sell from time to time?

[adamstgBit]

yes i've pulled this theory out of my ass.. but i stand by it.

LoL !

I know what you're saying - as the marketcap increases the volatility gets less which is true in relative terms. However, the stakes just change as it gets bigger.

A 1% short term move in the gold market is considered huge volatility.

For me, short term target for bitcoin is monetary asset markets, not retail adoption. In other words if it could capture 5% of the gold market that would be a massive thing and not unrealistic either because Bitcoin can probably service that market far more efficiently than gold can. Thats what people should be thinking - forget B.S. about Amazon accepting bitcoin or anything. Thats not not going to happen and even if it did would make zip difference to the marketcap.

agreed for now bitcoin is not targeting global reserve currency status, but simply establish itself as a useful asset. %5 of gold is a nice target.

all i'm saying is i dont buy the idea that we CANNOT have stable prices with a fixed monetary supply. and i give a theory of how to achieve stable prices despite an unstable economic outlook.

frankly I find it silly to think you can have price stability in a fiat system, with so many unknown variables, How much QE will the fed do?
how much currency will there be 20 years from now?  the only thing holding the USD price stable is the fact its perceived as stable, it has NOTHING to do with its unpredictable supply. the idea that you can control prices by means of supply manipulation is a fallacy, it appears to work, but it only works because everyone believes it will.

lets not kid ourselves the USD is not stable because of this kinda shit:


fiat leads to speculative bubbles.
BTC leads to retardedly stable prices.

investing in companies will be less attractive in a system in which your money grows in value over time.
holding a BTC = holding a share of the economy as a whole.
holding a USD = holding a coupon with an expiration date.

its pretty clear to me which one is sound money and which one is make believe money.

[Its About Sharing]

Yeah, Black Swan's are hard to spot. The internet might have been a lot easier to see. I mean the internet was freedom of information and Bitcoin is a step in the direction of freedom with value transfer. It isn't THE answer, but a step in the right direction.

If we see $10,000 per BTC this year, I would not at all be shocked.

The strange thing is, due to my background in computer science, I get to talk to quite a few relatively intelligent IT guys. 95% of them just don't get it. They understand tech but they can't wrap their heads around it. Trading stocks gave me another perspective and I find that stock traders might take a chance on BTC for obvious reasons, but understanding it is not one of them.

And these same people who wouldn't buy at $200 because it was too high, won't buy at $10,000 just like they won't buy now. It is almost like there is a stop sign in that part of the brain.

its the normalcy bias at play.

poeple have always used dollars to buy and sell shit
you tell them bitcoin aims to displace the dollar, there normalcy bias kicks in and no amount of logic can convince them that things can and will change.
i think its fairly obvious that things MUST change, its a technical impossibility that fiat and the USD will be the reserve currency for ever.
but most poeple can't accept that, in their minds it has always been the USD and it always will be.
they can understand and even appreciate the idea behind bitcoin, but they can't accept that it has any chance of being anything more than a fun experiment.
their close mindedness will make them be part of the 99% that miss out being an early adapter.

these people might encounter bitcoin has a form of payment for there next IT job.
they will accept the job once they realize how easy it is to convert between BTC and Fiat.
they might even start spending some BTC directly for some neweggs stuff sometimes.
they might even see there BTC hodl value during a high inflation year ( -5% on the USD  in 2017? maybe!)
but STILL they will not believe BTC can displace their USD
because their brain strongly believes that because somthing has always been it will always be.

I think it is a bit hard of a thing to English. It sounds fine calling it "bias" for this discussion, but I think it is as difficult for many to grasp as other common words we throw around, Love and God come to mind. 

We are biased with our money, opinions, etc. But Bias greatly simplifies the depth of this topic.

I basically can agree with you, just saying I think we are getting into the meanings behind words now. And this is an EXTREMELY important topic to understand (cough 1984 cough cough). For just as how we are redefining money, literally, we need to look closely at words that we respect / unconsciously use, and at the same time, imprison us. Take your choice, is it a missile defense shield or nuclear weapons pointed at our enemy. Is it the department of defense or department of war? Is it the CIA or corporate world police? (lol, sorry, couldn't help myself.) Is it propogand or public relations? Not to get political or rather, we need to? Are we along for the ride or creating it?

We need to start paying close attention to our environment as I feel quite strongly, our environment itself is in the midst of a Black Swann. 

[Its About Sharing]

yes i've pulled this theory out of my ass.. but i stand by it.

LoL !

I know what you're saying - as the marketcap increases the volatility gets less which is true in relative terms. However, the stakes just change as it gets bigger.

A 1% short term move in the gold market is considered huge volatility.

For me, short term target for bitcoin is monetary asset markets, not retail adoption. In other words if it could capture 5% of the gold market that would be a massive thing and not unrealistic either because Bitcoin can probably service that market far more efficiently than gold can. Thats what people should be thinking - forget B.S. about Amazon accepting bitcoin or anything. Thats not not going to happen and even if it did would make zip difference to the marketcap.

agreed for now bitcoin is not targeting global reserve currency status, but simply establish itself as a useful asset. %5 of gold is a nice target.

all i'm saying is i dont buy the idea that we CANNOT have stable prices with a fixed monetary supply. and i give a theory of how to achieve stable prices despite an unstable economic outlook.

frankly I find it silly to think you can have price stability in a fiat system, with so many unknown variables, How much QE will the fed do?
how much currency will there be 20 years from now?  the only thing holding the USD price stable is the fact its perceived as stable, it has NOTHING to do with its unpredictable supply. the idea that you can control prices by means of supply manipulation is a fallacy, it appears to work, but it only works because everyone believes it will.

lets not kid ourselves the USD is not stable because of this kinda shit:


fiat leads to speculative bubbles.
BTC leads to retardedly stable prices.

investing in companies will be less attractive in a system in which your money grows in value over time.
holding a BTC = holding a share of the economy as a whole.
holding a USD = holding a coupon with an expiration date.

its pretty clear to me which one is sound money and which one is make believe money.

LOL, can you draw and do you know anyone who can print T-Shirts?

[BTCtrader71]

you are assuming the BTC's value reflects Supply Vs Demand, and there for if the economy expands or contarts the value of each BTC MUST change too.
this is false

It might make more sense to think of it this way: value does reflect Supply vs Demand, and Demand can be divided into two sources:
1. demand from people who buy it for the sake of speculation
2. demand from people who buy it to use it for non-speculative purposes (i.e. as a currency)

You can subdivide its purposes further of course if you wish.

[dumbfbrankings]

lol @ uguise planning world finanshul domination while your 3.7 tps is pegged to the floor, legions of newbs complaining/confused about their "future of money" stuck/gone?, and a VC owned dev team led by a neckbeard with a death wish against fixing it...

puff puff pass da hopium boyz

[adamstgBit]

Is that linear or log?  

imagine its log and the scale on the Y-axis ranges 20%, which illustrates how BTC slowly and predictably gains 1% value year after year while the RAW-Supply Vs Demand(without speculative demand) for the BTC is unstable.

[ssmc2]

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/14/bitcoin-news-bank-of-tokyo-mitsubishi-says-testing-its-own-digital-currency-based-on-blockchain-technology.html

Noticeably absent is the info on how their bankcoin is secured.


Bullish as fawk

[julian071]

I just can't see it NOT being a FIAT vacuum cleaner.

Don't worry, I don't think Bitcoin will ever be a "fiat vacum cleaner". Think of it this way....

There are 2 general types of "money" needed by advanced economies. 1 type that keeps prices stable (for trading) and one type that keeps the supply fixed (for store of value). The one that keeps prices stable is simply a way to denominate trades - it isn't actually "money" in the sense of being a bearer token like commodities, precious metals or cryptocurrencies. On many websites now you can even choose how to denominate your trade - Canadian Dollars, $USD, EUR, whatever.

Those trading currencies need to have a variable supply - like the USD. A fractional reserve system which inflates and contracts according to liquidity requirements. If you don't have that and use a fixed supply currency like Bitcoin for trading then half the businesses in the world will go bust and the other half will make supernormal profits which are not sustainable.

So I don't see bitcoin ever being used as a trading currency en masse. (You don't see prices ever being denominated in gold and neither did we when there was a gold standard). Bitcoin is a base asset which can be used to "back" trading currencies for example or facilitate the capitalisation of whatever markets, but I think prices will still continue to be denominated in prevailing regional currencies.

I should be clear as many have made the "vacuum cleaner" statement. What I am saying is that instead of having a savings account we will (at least) have "Bitcoin accounts". Sure, the money supply by governments will want to be contracted and expanded for reasons that both make sense and are sick. No argument that that will continue for a while, perhaps with different FIAT money though.

But me as a "working"   individual, I do NOT want to have my money sitting in government money as I don't trust it and don't like how it is being used and using us. I would much rather have it sitting in Bitcoin or something stable. Maybe we keep a few thousand in dollars for spending in a checking account (but maybe we don't as if BTC is accepted everywhere, why have anything in government money?)

I just think the numbers won't lie and that people, even if they are only losing a very small amount, say .1% of actual buying power per month, would not want to have their money in the regular bank and would much rather have it in a Bitcoin bank (under their immediate control or not) as it might sound better to them to gain .1% per month, rather than lose .1% per month.

Its about sharing

You make great and valid points, however most people don't have money sitting in the form of fiat. In fact, most people don't have a (relevantly) postive balance on their credits and debts at all! And those who do usually have them tied up in other things.

For example, being a (slightly above) average joe, I own a house. I am actually happy that the mortgage on that is denominated in fiat, because that devalues relative to the value of my house.

Fiat money usually gets spent very quickly. With interest rates being what they are, it's just no use keeping it.

[DARKHOLDER]

Is that linear or log?  

imagine its log and the scale on the Y-axis ranges 20%, which illustrates how BTC slowly and predictably gains 1% value year after year while the RAW-Supply Vs Demand(without speculative demand) for the BTC is unstable.

Hope BTC will reach new ATH before halving

[adamstgBit]

Is that linear or log?  

imagine its log and the scale on the Y-axis ranges 20%, which illustrates how BTC slowly and predictably gains 1% value year after year while the RAW-Supply Vs Demand(without speculative demand) for the BTC is unstable.

Hope BTC will reach new ATH before halving

the graph above assume full market saturation with BTC firmly entrenched as THE global reserve currency, with a market cap in the 10's of trillions, and shows how speculation at that point smooths out volatility.

until then i would expect unbelievable volatility prices with growth spurts and speculative bubbles and random deep corrections.

will speculation drive prices sky high before the halfing? that is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things  

[matt4054]

The blockchain is seriously overloaded right now, transactions are experiencing huge delays:



(this is from my live charts at http://www.bitcoinqueue.com)

I believe this has also a bad impact on trading (i.e. too slow from and to exchanges).

So, what do you think, faster adoption of new protocol and/or higher block size?

[inca]

First noticed bitcoin on a zero hedge article in 2012. Set up my blockchain.info account in November 2012 after reading about bitcoin for an entire weekend. I couldn't figure out a way to buy any in the UK and i didn't trust the idea of escrow. By the time I pulled my finger out and started accumulating that way the price was 60 dollars  instead of 10 or something and i missed out on a significant life changing payday :-)

C'est la vie! All the chaps who hung in there and used the bear market to accumulate should be pretty happy right now.

[Fakhoury]

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/14/bitcoin-news-bank-of-tokyo-mitsubishi-says-testing-its-own-digital-currency-based-on-blockchain-technology.html

Noticeably absent is the info on how their bankcoin is secured.


Bullish as fawk

Private SQL database , wrong ?

[Fakhoury]

First noticed bitcoin on a zero hedge article in 2012. Set up my blockchain.info account in November 2012 after reading about bitcoin for an entire weekend. I couldn't figure out a way to buy any in the UK and i didn't trust the idea of escrow. By the time I pulled my finger out and started accumulating that way the price was 60 dollars  instead of 10 or something and i missed out on a significant life changing payday :-)

C'est la vie! All the chaps who hung in there and used the bear market to accumulate should be pretty happy right now.

We ain't seen nothing yet, inca

[JayJuanGee]

The blockchain is seriously overloaded right now, transactions are experiencing huge delays:



(this is from my live charts at http://www.bitcoinqueue.com)

I believe this has also a bad impact on trading (i.e. too slow from and to exchanges).

So, what do you think, faster adoption of new protocol and/or higher block size?

I like that link that you provided, matt4054. 

Hopefully, the information in the charts is relatively accurate, and we can look at current levels of the mempool, as well as the fees that appear to be attached to such pending transactions, as compared with historical levels.

[bitebits]

^^ Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words.

Nice website Matt!

[toknormal]

all i'm saying is i dont buy the idea that we CANNOT have stable prices with a fixed monetary supply

Well I think it's time you bought it 

You run a fairground. At the entrance people buy tokens - 1 token counts for 2 rides. Inside the fairground, there is only 1 currency: token currency. (Call it Bitcoin if you like).

Each day, you have an average of 100 people inside the gates at any one time, each person buys on average 5 tokens. So you maintain a "money supply" of 500 tokens which are constantly being recycled, even though the ride capacity is not fully utilised.

Then one Saturday, due to excellent weather, you get a 50% surge in visitors. Now you have 3 choices:

1. inflate the prices so that 1 ride costs 1 token instead of half a token
2. turn people away
3. get more tokens (inflate the money supply) and keep prices the stable

Sure, you can have stable prices with a fixed monetary base, but only if demand for liquidity remains stable (which is cannot in a dynamic economy).

[Its About Sharing]

I just can't see it NOT being a FIAT vacuum cleaner.

Don't worry, I don't think Bitcoin will ever be a "fiat vacum cleaner". Think of it this way....

There are 2 general types of "money" needed by advanced economies. 1 type that keeps prices stable (for trading) and one type that keeps the supply fixed (for store of value). The one that keeps prices stable is simply a way to denominate trades - it isn't actually "money" in the sense of being a bearer token like commodities, precious metals or cryptocurrencies. On many websites now you can even choose how to denominate your trade - Canadian Dollars, $USD, EUR, whatever.

Those trading currencies need to have a variable supply - like the USD. A fractional reserve system which inflates and contracts according to liquidity requirements. If you don't have that and use a fixed supply currency like Bitcoin for trading then half the businesses in the world will go bust and the other half will make supernormal profits which are not sustainable.

So I don't see bitcoin ever being used as a trading currency en masse. (You don't see prices ever being denominated in gold and neither did we when there was a gold standard). Bitcoin is a base asset which can be used to "back" trading currencies for example or facilitate the capitalisation of whatever markets, but I think prices will still continue to be denominated in prevailing regional currencies.

I should be clear as many have made the "vacuum cleaner" statement. What I am saying is that instead of having a savings account we will (at least) have "Bitcoin accounts". Sure, the money supply by governments will want to be contracted and expanded for reasons that both make sense and are sick. No argument that that will continue for a while, perhaps with different FIAT money though.

But me as a "working"   individual, I do NOT want to have my money sitting in government money as I don't trust it and don't like how it is being used and using us. I would much rather have it sitting in Bitcoin or something stable. Maybe we keep a few thousand in dollars for spending in a checking account (but maybe we don't as if BTC is accepted everywhere, why have anything in government money?)

I just think the numbers won't lie and that people, even if they are only losing a very small amount, say .1% of actual buying power per month, would not want to have their money in the regular bank and would much rather have it in a Bitcoin bank (under their immediate control or not) as it might sound better to them to gain .1% per month, rather than lose .1% per month.

Its about sharing

You make great and valid points, however most people don't have money sitting in the form of fiat. In fact, most people don't have a (relevantly) postive balance on their credits and debts at all! And those who do usually have them tied up in other things.

For example, being a (slightly above) average joe, I own a house. I am actually happy that the mortgage on that is denominated in fiat, because that devalues relative to the value of my house.

Fiat money usually gets spent very quickly. With interest rates being what they are, it's just no use keeping it.

Most Americans might be in debt and not have large amounts of cash, but many do. And outside of a relatively speaking, debtor nation, many many people have cash or accounts, etc. even if we are talking a small%, we are still talking trillions.

I would also add, most people are not so well off that their money is tied up imo.

What happens when their is an easily accessable choice to govt fiat, one that does that and increases in value? And wait, there's more! Lol