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

[Faraday]

barbs clearly left his blinders at home. we don't like to talk about the elephant in the room here.

[gizmoh]

And turns out yesterday was actually bigger than post silk road.
We might be going down/sidways over the next few days... but next week will be ridiculous.

It takes 2 to 4 weeks for a newcomer to learn about bitcoin, set up a Verified account and wire funds.
IMO the recent good news, press coverage and anticipation of new money is already reflected in the price.

So you expect selling to equal the anticipated new money?

Rather most participants are long(when the forum is full of 'to the moon' posts) anticipating newcomers to continue the price ascension. Buying now means paying a premium anticipating the new cash inflow, the proportion of incoming funds is the real question here. I doubt it will be a mass hysteria and buying spree like April. That's why it is usually wiser to sell on the news.

[solex]

Remember BTC is the only real way to pull money out reliably from MTGox..

And this is why Bitcoin will ultimately succeed: it is the superman of currency. If MtGox was engaged in the business of exchanging anything else it would be dead in the water months ago with its fiat transfer system so crippled.

Bitcoin is far bigger MtGox, and the problem of where whales dump coins is not a make or break issue. Many whale sells are trickled out over days and never detected.

[samson]

And turns out yesterday was actually bigger than post silk road.
We might be going down/sidways over the next few days... but next week will be ridiculous.

It takes 2 to 4 weeks for a newcomer to learn about bitcoin, set up a Verified account and wire funds.
IMO the recent good news, press coverage and anticipation of new money is already reflected in the price.

So you expect selling to equal the anticipated new money?

Rather most participants are long(when the forum is full of 'to the moon' posts) anticipating newcomers to continue the price ascension. Buying now means paying a premium anticipating the new cash inflow, the proportion of incoming funds is the real question here. I doubt it will be a mass hysteria and buying spree like April. That's why it is usually wiser to sell on the news.

Careful now, you'll be branded a troll by some big Bitcoin holders in here if you don't believe in up,uP,UP

[windjc]

I think bitcoin is awesome but I have ongoing concerns.  I agree with all of you that bitcoin is going to explode but at the same time have worries that I don't think are unfounded.  Bitcoins are still largley paced at the whim of people with self interests at heart who control the majority of coins.  In addition you have a major exchange that probably has a huge stockpile of coins themselves. Then we see these buying patterns from the whales of big buys into walls -> large bid walls placed to support the new price. This is not the behavior of your neighbors getting into btc.

I'm still concerned about MTGox and their FIAT problem.  You're a BTC millionaire, and it amounts to several millions, lets say.  You email them about making a withdrawal and you get this response (i got this response yesterday regarding my transfer request over SEPA, not USD, and not for that much ).

Hello XXX,

Thanks for your email. Kindly note that all the international withdrawals are delayed due to backlog. We are working hard to clear such pending requests manually. We are in the process of forming relationships with new partners, banks, and taking other steps to clear the backlog. So as of now we do not have an ETA to follow up and we are unable to determine the exact time frame for withdrawals. Kindly let us know if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Mt.Gox Team
https://www.mtgox.com

This has been going on for months. I take on board what people are saying that this could be a non issue. However people need to eat, and right now you can't go to the supermarket and feed your family with bitcoins. So you have essentially a number balance at an unregulated exchange which is really just a limited liability company. What else can you do but buy bitcoins with your milliions?

Then you have other exchanges providing a way out for payments, but that takes time and patience because until today these exchanges generally did not have a great book order depth.  So slippage is a real problem for the BTC milllionaire who's only way to get his 10's of millions out from mtgox is to slowly pump it into bitcoins and try for an exchange that pays out.  Luckily MTgox, for whatever reason still basically sets the BTC price.  So what can you do? you can pump the price with your millions and patienty wait for bids to fill in on the other exchanges. You can move your accumulated BTC to liquid exchanges and slowly build up a fiat balance on that as bids support smaller dumps. If i put on my real tinfoil hat you wait until those exchanges build enough supporting bids and then you dump and start transfering your millions finally home.

I know all of this has been said before but it haunts me.  If MTGox was paying out and if they werent still the exchange that sets the price and buy / sell panic on the other exchanges I'd be way less concerned about this new price.  Remember BTC is the only real way to pull money out reliably from MTGox..

Look. There is no elephant in the room. Mtgox is slowly be becoming a niche Japanese exchange.

Day traders still use it for volatility reasons but they don't even accept usd deposits anymore.

Meanwhile we are on the cusp of major exchanges opening in the UK and US. Within a year there will be several new players including an ever more likely ETF fund.

Mtgox will shrink in market share. A year from now I would be surprised if Mtgox had more than a 15% market share. And quite frankly, if they ran off with everyone's Btc, which is ridiculous, it would kind of serve the numbskulls right for still using the overpriced dinosaur anyway.

[barbs]

Remember BTC is the only real way to pull money out reliably from MTGox..

And this is why Bitcoin will ultimately succeed: it is the superman of currency. If MtGox was engaged in the business of exchanging anything else it would be dead in the water months ago with its fiat transfer system so crippled.

Bitcoin is far bigger MtGox, and the problem of where whales dump coins is not a make or break issue. Many whale sells are trickled out over days and never detected.

And the annoying part here is I AGREE with you. But where you and I probably differ is I see bitcoin surviving not equal to bitcoin staying at current price levels. Of course bitcoin will survive. I'm just concerned with the forum's recent posts of to tha moon linear 1000$ by January etc.

My point is that today's price is not certain to be correct based on these factors and you guys need to awknowledge the uncertainty caused by this situation it is being underplayed big time.  I could be totally wrong (probably am?)  The biggest exchange is crippled fiat wise and the only way out is BTC, they set the price, rising BTC price makes other exchanges follow.

Bitcoin has a bright future long term but right now MTgox is the dark shadow over the short term with huge stores of BTC in their control, no ability to pay out, and continued dominance in BTC price setting.  Imagine this blows up and the newbs get burned again like in april. Everyone runs for the hills again. Lets be clear this is a possible scenario.

Edit: you guys are right regarding foolishness of staying on Gox, and I've recently wised up.  I'm verifying for Stamp and moving my funds (not much) asap to Bitstamp, UK exchange, I'm in the UK, feel much better about that.  Wish I did it earlier when we hit 180.

[rpietila]

This was so hot, it was moved to off-topic by the BTTT. (List of bitcoin richest people with references)

[NewLiberty]

And turns out yesterday was actually bigger than post silk road.
We might be going down/sidways over the next few days... but next week will be ridiculous.

It takes 2 to 4 weeks for a newcomer to learn about bitcoin, set up a Verified account and wire funds.
IMO the recent good news, press coverage and anticipation of new money is already reflected in the price.

So you expect selling to equal the anticipated new money?

Rather most participants are long(when the forum is full of 'to the moon' posts) anticipating newcomers to continue the price ascension. Buying now means paying a premium anticipating the new cash inflow, the proportion of incoming funds is the real question here. I doubt it will be a mass hysteria and buying spree like April. That's why it is usually wiser to sell on the news.

The proportion is the issue I agree.  There is not even US$2.5B in existing bitcoin.  Of that, much less is active.  Whether it gets swamped by inflow depends on the size of the wave.  I'd be happy for some consolidation though.

[ChartBuddy]

[molecular]

Holy crap: http://stats.grok.se/zh/latest90/%E6%AF%94%E7%89%B9%E5%B8%81

Can someone post a screenshot? I'm on the phone.

Beat you to it by a few minutes =P

I posted link chinese article stats which are even more "woah!":



probably due to the cctv coverage of bitcoin

[molecular]

It takes 2 to 4 weeks for a newcomer to learn about bitcoin, set up a Verified account and wire funds.
IMO the recent good news, press coverage and anticipation of new money is already reflected in the price.

I'm not sure, but depending on what you mean by "recent", those 2 statements contradict each other.

It might be that by "priced in" you mean that "big old" investors have already gone long. If so: yes.

The "fresh money" will have an effect on price nevertheless. I'm assuming some of the current longs will try to sell into the strength when the fresh blood starts flowing.

[ChartBuddy]

[MikeH]

Day traders still use it for volatility reasons but they don't even accept usd deposits anymore.

I just looked at funding options, there was no mention of not accepting USD.

You can do bank transfers to our bank in Japan in the following currencies:
USD, GBP, EUR, CAD, CHF, SEK, DKK, NOK, AUD , NZD, HKD, SGD.  Any fee charged by your bank or an intermediate bank will be deducted.  Our bank charges a 1,500 Yen receiving fee. 

[ChartBuddy]

[NewLiberty]

Even after the big bad news from Western Union that dropped their stock yesterday, I'm not buying back my short position on NYSE:WU.
Long Bitcoin, Short WU unless and until WU buys MtGox and saves both WU and Gox, then I buy back and go long for the long bomb.

Seriously though, if Gox had WU's Money transfer licenses and global reach, and WU had... well...  bitcoin, they would both survive.  As it is they are both dieing.
If the goxxers here need any help putting that deal together, give me a buzz. 

[Chaz]

Edit: you guys are right regarding foolishness of staying on Gox, and I've recently wised up.  I'm verifying for Stamp and moving my funds (not much) asap to Bitstamp, UK exchange, I'm in the UK, feel much better about that.  Wish I did it earlier when we hit 180.

Are you storing your BTC on an exchange?

[ChartBuddy]

[wachtwoord]

Even after the big bad news from Western Union that dropped their stock yesterday, I'm not buying back my short position on NYSE:WU.
Long Bitcoin, Short WU unless and until WU buys MtGox and saves both WU and Gox, then I buy back and go long for the long bomb.

Seriously though, if Gox had WU's Money transfer licenses and global reach, and WU had... well...  bitcoin, they would both survive.  As it is they are both dieing.
If the goxxers here need any help putting that deal together, give me a buzz. 

If WU bought MTGox wouldn't they instantly lose all their US licenses and be liable for all fines the US wants to pin on MTGox for things that happened in the past?

[bobdude17]

From Reddit: Trending #2 on Wikipedia



 

[damnek]

Even after the big bad news from Western Union that dropped their stock yesterday, I'm not buying back my short position on NYSE:WU.
Long Bitcoin, Short WU unless and until WU buys MtGox and saves both WU and Gox, then I buy back and go long for the long bomb.

Seriously though, if Gox had WU's Money transfer licenses and global reach, and WU had... well...  bitcoin, they would both survive.  As it is they are both dieing.
If the goxxers here need any help putting that deal together, give me a buzz.  

Hi-five!! I covered it right at the open and reshorted it on the bounce. Interesting future targets are Visa and Mastercard.

I went over the conference call transcript and interestingly there was no mention of bitcoin specifically, but they did say that the "competition" is becoming stronger.