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

[JulieFig]

JulieFig nice post, welcome to the forums!

I've been reading for a while, but quite frankly, have been too intimidated by you big guns to post before. So thanks for the welcome - it is nice of you .

I think my Dad is in a pretty good situation - he has his 3000+ BTC which I know he would be tempted to cash out to get a nice tidy fiat sum. (Despite being a bitcoin believer, I think the lure of instantaneous gains is pretty strong.) But he physically can't touch it for another 8 years - it's all in his super account. I suspect he will be very thankful that the decision was out of this hands when the time comes to access it.

What's a super account?

The best equivalent I can think of is the 401k, but there are some differences. It is basically your retirement fund - can't touch it until you meet the minimum age.

would you mind explaining how your dad has BTC locked up in an account he can't touch for 8 years?  I've never heard of anything like that.
And if it's true, then doesn't it mean he doesn't actually hold the BTC?  Like holding the derivative of gold, it's nowhere near the same thing as holding physical.
And furthermore, no one knows what will happen in 8 years, in the next 7 years BTC could go to $100,000 per coin, but in the 8th year a newer version with an improvement could come out and over 6 months everyone moves into the newer coin, but your dad is stuck holding the older coin. Or any other of a million possible scenarios that could play out in 8 years.  I would never want to have my coins locked up for 8 years.
So anyway, can you explain this setup he is in??
Thanks!  Please give specifics, not just say "it's like an IRA"
I didn't even think any companies existed yet that were doing this.

I agree, I wouldn't like to have my BTC locked in for 8 years and I'm as bullish in the long term as you can get! If there's anyway for your dad to get the coins so that he controls them himself, he should definitely look into it.

I should clarify - he could technically cash out if he had good reason, but he wouldn't be able to touch the money from said cash-out until he retired.
There are no super companies that I know of that allow investment in Bitcoin (yet), so of course, Dad had to go and create his own super company, of which he is the trustee. He manages the accounts of himself, his wife, and three sisters. When I said that he couldn't physically touch it, I meant that he couldn't physically reap the fiat benefits. But, as long as he still 'believes' in the Bitcoin protocol, why not just let it sit there? Again, if this were to somehow change (in the very unlikely event that some flaw was found in the Bitcoin protocol), he would be allowed to sell his coins and re-invest the fiat as he sees fit.

[fred1111]

I think predicting the value of Bitcoin for the short term (less than 6 months) is like trying to predict storms, you know they will happen some time in autumn, but you have no way of knowing when. Accepting chaos is difficult, but it doesn't change the fact that some things can't be predicted. You could predict a storm a few days in advance, but anything more than that is like looking in a crystal ball.

[rpietila]

You thought I thought that I would make friends here by pushing hard to both eyes at the same time.

No, I did not think I would

Bears roam freely. Bulls, sheep, pigs are domestic animals => get slaughtered.

[rpietila]

But what do you understand? Nothing.

In this and this mainstream media article about my Bitcoin research, both the article and the comment section suppose that the methodology is based on blockhain address balances, which is just plain incorrect.

[Vycid]

My bet stands, by the way, in case you really believe all this and aren't just trying to reverse the mistake you made by selling out at $700.

Breaking out of that triangle in a big way. Anyone want to place bets on recovery or bull trap?

You mean an actual bet? Yeah, sure. I feel we will go visit the exponential trendline.

I am game. 10 BTC that we don't touch your exponential trendline in December?

The one that projects $428, not one that incorporates data up to Dec. 9.

Ah, never saw that one. From the high point of the dead cat bounce, to the day that exponential trend is breached, last time it was 45 days. If we were to bet on similar terms, the bet would stand as follows:

- On or before 25. January 2014, the price is less than 573.

There is no much reason to bet 1:1 whether price goes to 428 in December. I am getting better odds by just selling at >2*428

That's more than fair, there's a reason I tried to jump on that bet.   More respect for not taking a -EV gamble.

I'd rather have access to my coins than bet on 573 though, especially since that doesn't prove anything about the exponential trend.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/06/ruthless-extrapolation/

Once again, trend-fitting is excellent at predicting the past, but is useless for predicting the future unless your trend is a product of the analysis of fundamental growth mechanisms instead of past data. You are simply fitting data.

Incorrect. Phew. Understatement of the century. If you have read any of my threads, you know very well that I know a lot about many things, and actively use this knowledge to my advantage.

What comes to the predictive value, both of the previous big bubbles behaved nicely according to this model, with predictive value. We need to have jumped to something completely different, in order for this model not to continue holding true. The probability of this happening is well under 50%, even with Bitcoin

I would argue we have jumped to something different. $70M in institutional money, pervasive and often positive mainstream media coverage... the rate that people are discovering Bitcoin is not growing at the same rate it has been. I've even started to see news articles that didn't start by explaining what Bitcoin is.

Institutional money is probably the most important thing in the short term. Even if the base of Bitcoin users grew at a fixed percentage rate, if the users coming in start to be financial institutions, that will have an outsize effect.

Up 'till now it's been mostly the spare money from nerds and ideologues. (I say this lovingly, being one.)

Look at these adoption curves: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_D9-JNTtRKgs/TBuFe2NvKHI/AAAAAAAABBE/Z3mDC6xW_aE/s1600/Picture+99.png

None of them were a perfect logistic, despite the fact that none were nearly so frictionless as Bitcoin adoption. The Internet, being the most recent and probably the most rapid, didn't pay much attention to exponential growth expectations.

Bitcoin price and adoption are different, and I have an article about this in store.

That's true, certainly, but what separates it from something like the dot-com bubble? That exceeded all of the expectations of exponential growth, and it made some people very rich on the way up before imploding. No trend could have predicted it before it happened, and any trends projected at the peak would have been horrendously wrong.

[MAbtc]

Bears roam freely. Bulls, sheep, pigs are domestic animals => get slaughtered.

[wachtwoord]

Bears roam freely. Bulls, sheep, pigs are domestic animals => get slaughtered.

bears get left out in the cold and the only way they can survive is if they sleep for 5 months in a row 


now whales on the other hand roam free all the time and do whatever the fuck they want 

Some of them have a beef with Ahab though.

[Miz4r]

Bears roam freely.

And the choochoo train runs them all over.

[Voodah]

I was bored....



EDIT: and apparently too drunk to make stupid graphs:

1.5 M Users = 0.5 % US Pop !!

[rpietila]

Bears roam freely.

And the choochoo train runs them all over.

Buffaloes were bulls afaik....

Bears roam freely. Bulls, sheep, pigs are domestic animals => get slaughtered.

bears get left out in the cold and the only way they can survive is if they sleep for 5 months in a row 


now whales on the other hand roam free all the time and do whatever the fuck they want 

 

If I could post a pic of my castle, I would... there will be cars also, rest assured. Whale-bear castle in Estonia.

[Vycid]

I was bored....



EDIT: and apparently to drunk to make stupid graphs:

1.5 M Users = 0.5 % US Pop !!

i like this post... makes me all bullish inside

It's actually a global phenomenon though... 1.5M users worldwide, but how many are in the US? Half, tops?

[Syke]

the problem with this is, you dont get to hold your btc...

you have to trust someone else to manage it for you.

Which is a very good thing for some people. With Fidelity owning $1.7 trillion in assets, you don't have to worry about them getting "hacked" and losing your coins.

[Voodah]

i like this post... makes me all bullish inside

It does generate a certain warmth inside, doesn't it?

It's actually a global phenomenon though... 1.5M users worldwide, but how many are in the US? Half, tops?

Yes, you're right.

I'm not even from the US. But it is just where most data is available from. Couldn't find good world data in the 10 minutes or so I spent doing it 

[I_bitcoin]

My firm analysis is that bitcoin is overvalued:

... blah blah blah ...

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/06/ruthless-extrapolation/

... blah blah blah ...

This is more about predicting when and if the attention will slow than trying to force-fit exponential curves.

From the statistics blog I linked, a visual aid to help people understand the dangers of exponential extrapolation. This is a logarithmic chart, the straight lines are exponential curves.

I always get a laugh from this one...



old but still fun

[MAbtc]

Feels pretty bearish. Lower low incoming, it seems:

[Syke]

Fidelity now allows clients to put bitcoins in IRAs

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/12/11/fidelity-now-allows-clients-to-put-bitcoins-in-iras/

I talked with a rep at Fidelity. He says they're still reviewing BIT. In any case, this is a big step that they're even considering it.

[OldGeek]

I talked with a rep at Fidelity. He says they're still reviewing BIT. In any case, this is a big step that they're even considering it.

I'm all in favor of IRAs.  I've had one full of fiat since forever.  We had a bad experience when the entire market went south after the 2008 fiasco, but we've been back on track for the last eight months or so.

My IRA earns about twice what a CD earns, so I'm a happy camper.  If you do decide to place some of your coins in the IRA, I would be interested in your experiences.  Perhaps a separate thread tho.

btw:  Glad the forum is back up again.  

[OldGeek]

Sooooo glad I got out of MtSux.  I feel bad for those who suffered during this latest fiasco, perhaps they will bail now.

[bassclef]

Incorrect. Phew. Understatement of the century. If you have read any of my threads, you know very well that I know a lot about many things, and actively use this knowledge to my advantage.

You absolutely do. Which means no one should be listening to your advice if they want to keep their coins.

I do like your pink Mary Kay car though

[OldGeek]

You absolutely do. Which means no one should be listening to your advice if they want to keep their coins.

I do like your pink Mary Kay car though

He's a good contra indicator though.