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

[windjc]

$18k -> $3k (6x) wouldn't be unprecedented.  In 2011, we fell from $30 -> $2 (15x), in early 2013 from $250 -> $50 (5x), and in late 2013 from $1200 -> $200 (6x).  

If we get away with a low of $9k (2x) I'd hardly even call that a crash!  

Here are projected lows compared to historical crashes:

2x: $9,000
3x: $6,000
4x: $4,500
5x (early 2013): $3,600
6x (late 2013): $3,000
10x: $1,800
15x (2011): $1,200

Bitcoin is less volatile now. Unless the bull market has ended - which I do not think it has - most of these other crash comparisons are not really valid.

Right now this is a healthy correction - one many people called - that will lead to another bullish year in 2018 with BTC prices well above $50k. BCH might die however

Previous corrections would go into alts but it’s all dropping now.  It won’t get to low Ks overnight but 20k could be a top.  It’s x10 what it costs in electricity per BTC and most past tops were never 20x of previous ATHs.

Look at the log charts. This rise to 20k was not even FOMO yet.

[TERA2]

Look at this USDA grade A bull trap.

[windjc]

Look at this USDA grade A bull trap.

Thats a lame bull trap. A real bull trap would be preceded by a HH on some decent vol.

[wayna]

You guys do not realize BTC rised from about 7000 to 20k EUR in about 3 months (plus all the altcoins rollercoasters).

So, at the end of the year everybody wanted BTC or Alts. Then investors, speculators, bulls or whatever wanted to make profit as well and we had a pretty consistent dump, following a kind of steady dump, now the rollercoaster starts again!

Informed people know this market is crazy and people are starting to approach it, if they let the price rise beyond 20k no one will invest in it, apart of BIG investors. Pragmatically, this is the entry point for 2018 investors, but jerks won't understand.

Again, they both want common people entering the market and shaking their hands at the wrong time.

Don't panic 

[El duderino_]

Just woke up what Will bring bitcoin and the cryptomarket today
So far So good with bcc Going out of the picture now only need to see bch Going down massivly

And for me it ain’t No problem to see BTC Going back to big dominance and catching ATH’s

(Don’t understand who keeps selling bottoms it isn’t me )

[TERA2]

You may also want to consider uncle Sam's role in a new year turn around after a rally.

[Peter R]

...but seriously, why would I use BCH over LTC? Because I don't want a coin with an option to use segwit? I'm trying to get the selling point of using BCH over something that already is established.

Since windjc asked me this exact question last week, I'll quote my response to him:

"I view money as a ledger.  Or "money as memory," as per the work of Kocherlakota. From this viewpoint, it is the information encoded in the ledger about who owns which coins that is of value.  The actual mechanism used to update that ledger is just a technical decision -- which is the best paper to write on?  Which is the best pen?

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Core (BTC) share the same ledger up until August 1.  At this point, the "ledger updating mechanisms" diverged (BCH allowed more information about the state of the ledger to be updated every ten minutes to facilitate growth).

Switching to LTC would be like ripping up the "ledger of money" because the pen we were using to update it ran out of ink.  Instead, just get a better pen and keep updating the same ledger."

If the whole premise is toward the cash part, basically, fast, digital money, why does the length of the ledger have anything to do with anything. When I go to a store and buy something with cash, I don't care about the history or who owned it prior to me spending it. I just want something that the merchant will take and be on my way as quickly as possible. Yes, transactional history is a major selling point of the blockchain (to be able to verify ownership and prevent double spends) but I fail to see why there is more value in a blockchain that is 2 years older. If you want fast cash, you use an alt with fast block confirms and low fees. BCH was created to try to solve a problem that it doesn't actual solve... you're not magically going to scale with 8MB blocks, fees aren't as cheap as other alts, and blocktimes are still 10 minutes (an on average target that was hardly followed given prior diff adjustments).

Bitcoin was designed to be a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system."  When I read the white paper, I envisioned a better form of money for mankind, as we transition into the information age.  BTC has given up on that vision in favor of a sort of "digital gold" designed to be held and not spent.  That is not something I'm interested in.  BCH is a return to the original vision for Bitcoin.

To me, for money to be truly better, it also needs to be easy and inexpensive to use (i.e., low fees and reliable confirmations -- what you call the "cash part") but that certainly isn't the _only_ requirement of better money.  So really, your argument reads mostly as a straw-man because your starting point, that "the whole premise [of BCH] is toward the cash part," was false.  

...you're not magically going to scale with 8MB blocks...

We're going to scale to gigabyte blocks and beyond. But it's not magic; it's really just routine engineering and bottleneck removal.  We're well on our way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SJm2ep3X_M

...fees aren't as cheap as other alts...

I'm not sure how the fee market will evolve (fees will be set by supply and demand in a free market) but I find it comforting that many small blockers say "BCH will fail because fees will fall too low and the blockchain will fill up with spam" while other small blockers say "BCH will fail at achieving it's goals of low fees because fees will go through the roof once transaction volume picks up."  

[realr0ach]

Look at the log charts. This rise to 20k was not even FOMO yet.

LOL, because charts that show assets going to infinity make a lot of sense, right?  Not to mention that bitcoin completely fails as a payment system the second fees go this high because people will just use something else instead.  It's a flat out bloated speculation bubble.  Most of these people buying coins on Coinbase didn't even interact with a blockchain AT ALL.  They pay Coinbase fiat for Coinbase IOUs.  The IOUs just sit on Coinbase while they pray the price goes up, then they eventually dump at a profit or loss.  This entire process could be done without bitcoin existing at all.  It's a 100% speculation pump and dump bubble.

[Neo_Coin]

[windjc]

...but seriously, why would I use BCH over LTC? Because I don't want a coin with an option to use segwit? I'm trying to get the selling point of using BCH over something that already is established.

Since windjc asked me this exact question last week, I'll quote my response to him:

"I view money as a ledger.  Or "money as memory," as per the work of Kocherlakota. From this viewpoint, it is the information encoded in the ledger about who owns which coins that is of value.  The actual mechanism used to update that ledger is just a technical decision -- which is the best paper to write on?  Which is the best pen?

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Core (BTC) share the same ledger up until August 1.  At this point, the "ledger updating mechanisms" diverged (BCH allowed more information about the state of the ledger to be updated every ten minutes to facilitate growth).

Switching to LTC would be like ripping up the "ledger of money" because the pen we were using to update it ran out of ink.  Instead, just get a better pen and keep updating the same ledger."

If the whole premise is toward the cash part, basically, fast, digital money, why does the length of the ledger have anything to do with anything. When I go to a store and buy something with cash, I don't care about the history or who owned it prior to me spending it. I just want something that the merchant will take and be on my way as quickly as possible. Yes, transactional history is a major selling point of the blockchain (to be able to verify ownership and prevent double spends) but I fail to see why there is more value in a blockchain that is 2 years older. If you want fast cash, you use an alt with fast block confirms and low fees. BCH was created to try to solve a problem that it doesn't actual solve... you're not magically going to scale with 8MB blocks, fees aren't as cheap as other alts, and blocktimes are still 10 minutes (an on average target that was hardly followed given prior diff adjustments).

Bitcoin was designed to be a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system."  When I read the white paper, I envisioned a better form of money for mankind, as we transition into the information age.  BTC has given up on that vision in favor of a sort of "digital gold" designed to be held and not spent.  That is not something I'm interested in.  BCH is a return to the original vision for Bitcoin.

To me, for money to be truly better, it also needs to be easy and inexpensive to use (i.e., low fees and reliable confirmations -- what you call the "cash part") but that certainly isn't the _only_ requirement of better money.  So really, your argument reads mostly as a straw-man because your starting point, that "the whole premise [of BCH] is toward the cash part," was false.  

...you're not magically going to scale with 8MB blocks...

We're going to scale to gigabyte blocks and beyond. But it's not magic; it's really just routine engineering and bottleneck removal.  We're well on our way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SJm2ep3X_M

...fees aren't as cheap as other alts...

I'm not sure how the fee market will evolve (fees will be set by supply and demand in a free market) but I find it comforting that many small blockers say "BCH will fail because fees will fall too low and the blockchain will fill up with spam" while other small blockers say "BCH will fail at achieving it's goals of low fees because fees will go through the roof once transaction volume picks up."  

Peter, no offense, but where did you get that "Fozzie Bear" accent?

[Denker]

The dead cat is not bouncing at all

No bullish sentiment, that's why.
Bears control the market now.
Even possible we continue grinding down and ranging for a few months before market starts to turn around.
Therefore be prepared for the worst. FUD will continue to push price down even more.
The big money wants all the noobs and retail traders out!

[HairyMaclairy]

No one has given up Peter.  We just haven’t sold our soul to the Chinese like your pal Roger Ver.  


Tera:  that’s not a bull trap, it’s a retard trap.

[Neo_Coin]

Look at the log charts. This rise to 20k was not even FOMO yet.

LOL, because charts that show assets going to infinity make a lot of sense, right?  Not to mention that bitcoin completely fails as a payment system the second fees go this high because people will just use something else instead.  It's a flat out bloated speculation bubble.  Most of these people buying coins on Coinbase didn't even interact with a blockchain AT ALL.  They pay Coinbase fiat for Coinbase IOUs.  The IOUs just sit on Coinbase while they pray the price goes up, then they eventually dump at a profit or loss.  This entire process could be done without bitcoin existing at all.  It's a 100% speculation pump and dump bubble.

[Peter R]

@roach:

The three big problems I see with gold are that:

1. It can't be sent over the internet

2. It is difficult to know if you have "real gold"

3. It is difficult to store (I can't keep it in my brain, or password-protect it so that it's useless to a thief) and easy for men with guns to take from me

Gold was the best money the world had ever seen, but standing shoulder-to-shoulder with bitcoin, it looks obvious to me that gold will become a relic of a long-ago era of human development.  

[windjc]

Look at the log charts. This rise to 20k was not even FOMO yet.

LOL, because charts that show assets going to infinity make a lot of sense, right?  Not to mention that bitcoin completely fails as a payment system the second fees go this high because people will just use something else instead.  It's a flat out bloated speculation bubble.  Most of these people buying coins on Coinbase didn't even interact with a blockchain AT ALL.  They pay Coinbase fiat for Coinbase IOUs.  The IOUs just sit on Coinbase while they pray the price goes up, then they eventually dump at a profit or loss.  This entire process could be done without bitcoin existing at all.  It's a 100% speculation pump and dump bubble.

Why are you quoting this asshole? Its this stupidity that gives him a forum. Most of us have him on ignore. Now I have to ignore you too.

[HairyMaclairy]

Look at the log charts. This rise to 20k was not even FOMO yet.

LOL, because charts that show assets going to infinity make a lot of sense, right?  Not to mention that bitcoin completely fails as a payment system the second fees go this high because people will just use something else instead.  It's a flat out bloated speculation bubble.  Most of these people buying coins on Coinbase didn't even interact with a blockchain AT ALL.  They pay Coinbase fiat for Coinbase IOUs.  The IOUs just sit on Coinbase while they pray the price goes up, then they eventually dump at a profit or loss.  This entire process could be done without bitcoin existing at all.  It's a 100% speculation pump and dump bubble.

Gee I guess I better buy Ripple instead because it only costs $1.

[Peter R]

Peter, no offense, but where did you get that "Fozzie Bear" accent?

I haven't heard Fozzie Bear before.  I normally get Kermit the frog.  

[windjc]

Peter, no offense, but where did you get that "Fozzie Bear" accent?

I haven't heard Fozzie Bear before.  I normally get Kermit the frog.  

Yeah, there is definitely some Kermit the Frog in there as well. Kinda a "love child" vibe you got going on.

[realr0ach]

@roach:

The three big problems I see with gold are that:

1. It can't be sent over the internet

Neither can bitcoins.  I think my estimates when I ran the numbers a long time ago was that for bitcoin to have market penetration in the upper middle class globally, it would need 8 MB blocks and then only transactions of something like $5-$10k would be economical.  That's WITHOUT any cartel-type of activity artificially jacking up fees to the moon.

With such a system, to "be your own bank", you would store the bitcoins yourself, then transfer something like $10k worth at a time to a 3rd party bitcoin debit card service or whatever.  In other words, there is virtually ZERO DIFFERENCE compared to being your own banker using silver or gold because you can do the exact same thing there:  store metals in your own safe/vault, and transfer $10k at a time to a debit card service when you want to spend.  

This is one reason bitcoin is virtually useless.  It can't compete against metals at all as the base of Exter's Pyramid (aka the prime settlement layer).  The winner of the base of Exter's Pyramid is determined by what asset is capable of removing the most risk.  Bitcoin has built-in middlemen and doesn't remove counter party risk, so it's a complete dud in that competition.  You're essentially attempting to run a 2-legged horse in a race and pretending the invisible hand of the market isn't going to crush you.

Since bitcoin is a currency and not money, it's value has to be derived from transaction flow and not stock (settlement), so the LN would have a better chance at competing, but still, at the end of the day, if people believe both the bitcoin market cap AND metals market cap were peaked, they would dump bitcoin for metals anyway.  Why? If there is no money to be made, money takes a flight to safety.  Bitcoin can be destroyed by more black swans than you can count, while it requires a black hole hitting the earth to black swan metals.

As you can see, it's completely impossible for bitcoin to defeat metals as a settlement system.  Nobody wants to bag hold an imaginary token that can vaporize at any second unless they believe the price is going up.  It's too dangerous.  Unlike most children on this forum, you should be educated enough to understand it's not possible for the market cap to go up forever and the ramifications of what happens once people figure out that point has been reached.  Hal Finney is right.  Bitcoin only functions as a settlement layer.  He just forgot to mention bitcoin as a settlement layer is completely useless when silver and gold already exist.

[criptix]

BTC breaking all support channels:

It's time ladies...


Let the sky fall
When it crumbles
We will stand tall
Face it all together