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

[Rosewater Foundation]

Hodling is depressing in times like this.... it's my cold wallet that is being brutally hit what concerns me.

Just think about the WinkleVii's or Tim Draper's cold wallet and you'll feel a whole lot better.  

I tried. But it doesn't help. Still having more money than you could probably spend (as such whales do) is not that terrible even if your net worth gets a cut of several hundred millions. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think they are as much depressed as I am right now.

I keep repeating it but... If we could act as if that $20K peak never happened (so ridiculously soon) I would be pretty happy right now. That's the only thing that helps for me.

I played this past peak much worse than I did the previous (2013) in which I doubled my Bitcoin count. The blame is on me (or my greed).

P.S.: No, not going to break/sell. I can perfectly (and depressedly) ride this thing until ZERO. I am more worried about the amount of profits already (even if temporarily?) lost than what I still have to lose (which is LESS).

Are you really willing to let your current net worth get cut in half? Again?

The good thing is that at current price is not possible anymore that BTC cut my net worth in half no matter what it does. Or is that a bad thing? I forgot...

Btw, you didn't answer if you finally capitulated and sold everything... even though you sometimes sound as if you did.

I sold bits and pieces. Not enough that I'm not a mountain of regret. TBH

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[shahzadafzal]

#1 Someone has a habit of doing this:
 - Issuing new USDT
 - Within days, moving that USDT to BitFinex, Bittrex, and/or Poloniex
 - Using that USDT to buy crypto (seemingly a portfolio of BTC & others). They especially like to buy crypto when the price is just below whole numbers.
 - Moving the resulting crypto back to BitFinex
 - Rarely or never selling the crypto for USDT again
 
The authors argue that this is Tether/BitFinex themselves, and I think that this is in fact the most likely explanation.

We rarely see @theymos around here but welcome. I would say that is the pretty much summary of last one year of  crypto market. Just I would like to add “whales” to this point. Whether intentionally or unintentionally big players of Bitcoin are part of this game too.

The thing is we are fighting against a very big enemy, I would say we even did not reach the stage yet where we can say we are in a competition now. No, that stage is still far. So this is not game over but this is the new beginning. Remember we are big in numbers, they can’t defeate us in terms of quantity.

Panic is there too... but they are good at manipulating and hiding it.


https://i.imgur.com/dvDEHis.jpg

[Tyr808]

Miners won't let the price fall to 5000.
This is only one aspect to the manipulation that’s been going on since September. However if you look at the hash rate, it’s trending upwards, almost parabolically. This is because asic miners are in excess and they can ship them out much faster than last year, when demand was at ATH. Coupled with strange miner confidence in bitcoin which I cannot explain. Even if you ignore hashrate increase, assume miners do not leave bitcoin, and look at the price vs. block difficulty by the end of the year, profitability approaches 0 in all cases from 7500-10000. If miners switch, it can alleviate this pressure, but who will be leaving and who can afford to weather this storm currently? Big farms are more economical than small miners. It seems like an effort to weed out small miners and their coins, while centralizing mining, all while they can make money by liquidating people on longs/shorts. If it wasn’t a manipulated market I wouldn’t believe this, but it seems likely. I welcome regulations and investigations into market manipulation. After all, exchanges are the only ones who can see real volume.

People don't seem to understand that miners can and will mine at a loss.  The only real limit is that it be cheaper than other forms of money laundering.

Please elaborate - you mean money laundering is what mining is all about?

[JayJuanGee]

Hodling is depressing in times like this.... it's my cold wallet that is being brutally hit what concerns me.

Just think about the WinkleVii's or Tim Draper's cold wallet and you'll feel a whole lot better.  

I tried. But it doesn't help. Still having more money than you could probably spend (as such whales do) is not that terrible even if your net worth gets a cut of several hundred millions. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think they are as much depressed as I am right now.

I keep repeating it but... If we could act as if that $20K peak never happened (so ridiculously soon) I would be pretty happy right now. That's the only thing that helps for me.

I played this past peak much worse than I did the previous (2013) in which I doubled my Bitcoin count. The blame is on me (or my greed).

P.S.: No, not going to break/sell. I can perfectly (and depressedly) ride this thing until ZERO. I am more worried about the amount of profits already (even if temporarily?) lost than what I still have to lose (which is LESS).

Possibilities seem like this:

1) you did not sell enough on the way up  (anyone can kind of feel like that)

2) you sold on the way up, but you bought back too soon, so now you are running out of money to buy  (there seems to be a remedy for this, and that is to just budget a plan for on the way down - but of course, if you don't have any money for buying and you don't want to sell any then you just have to HODL, suck it up , and hope to fix the mistake in the future).

3) could be some other possibilities, but I cannot think of them, at this moment.   

[Rosewater Foundation]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

Seeing as how I have TERA2 on ignore, I dub thee, the new, "official" Bitcointalk Wall Observer "Debbie Downer"

So, why are you so down on Lightning, Debbie ?

I'm just trying to adjust to the reality on the ground. Not sure what micropayments have to do with the price of eggs at this point.

[Tyr808]

I read through the Tether manipulation paper. IMO it made two convincing points:

#1 Someone has a habit of doing this:
 - Issuing new USDT
 - Within days, moving that USDT to BitFinex, Bittrex, and/or Poloniex
 - Using that USDT to buy crypto (seemingly a portfolio of BTC & others). They especially like to buy crypto when the price is just below whole numbers.
 - Moving the resulting crypto back to BitFinex
 - Rarely or never selling the crypto for USDT again
 
The authors argue that this is Tether/BitFinex themselves, and I think that this is in fact the most likely explanation. But the authors didn't address the alternative possibility of this being a particularly ham-fisted whale who is a close partner of Tether.

#2 Due to end-of-month trading, Tether has probably always been trading with USD deposited with them (fractional-reserve), though at least until March 2017, USDT was probably not complete monopoly money, since they did go to the effort of achieving an end-of-month USD balance.

The authors also tried to argue some other points which I didn't find convincing.


I took the paper's data at face value. There were several points where I thought that they could be cherry-picking data, but it's too difficult to check this sort of thing. Cherry-picking / confirmation bias is especially easy to do with block-chain analysis. And I know for a fact that their method of grouping block-chain transactions is not robust in general, though it probably was sufficient for what they did here.

I've thought for a long time that USDT is almost certainly a scam, and this paper makes me think so even more. Though I was actually a little surprised that this provides evidence (via the end-of-month trading) that USDT ever had any real USD.

The paper estimates that if you removed the USDT issuance events which the paper's authors regard as most likely to be BTC price manipulation, the BTC price would be $4100 as of March 31. But that's based on a whole pile of assumptions; I wouldn't give it much credence. I think that the collapse of USDT will be mostly limited to the obvious direct effects (ie. some exchanges would have major troubles, there'd be many people stuck with worthless USDT, etc.), and there would not somehow be a natural "rollback" of any gains which monopoly-money USDT may have driven. Also, the paper makes clear that all major crypto was affected, often much more than BTC, so this isn't any sort of argument against BTC in particular.

Very interesting paper Theymos.
My two points:
1. I won't keep a cent in Bitfinex because there's a chance this will end very badly.
2. SHingTF won't result in a BTC price correction. USDT holders will be the ones paying the price. I don't see how things could go differently from this.

---

To anyone thinking BTC price will drop once the USDT shenanigans are exposed:

Imagine there's a small planet of fishermen who use shells as currency. There's a limited supply of shells.

One day an astronaut arrives  from an advanced planet; he carries a secret device which allows him to create several fake shells.
For some weeks the astronaut buys a lot of local diamonds (unique and also limited in supply). He pays with his synthetised shells but the fishermen don't know they're fake and thus his market demand drives the diamonds prices up.

One day the astronaut returns to his planet with the diamonds and then the fishermen find out all the shells he gave them were fake and have now turned to ash.

Will the price of diamonds go down?

Nope.

The fishermen will still use shells to buy diamonds, and astronaut gone or not, there's still the same amount of shells around and the same amount of diamonds.

What happens next? A few possibilities
1. Other astronauts from other planets will come back with fake shells, but hopefully the fishermen won't be fooled (regulations on the crypto market coming next)
2. A proxy will come back to sell the astronaut's diamonds amd he'd be ready to cash them out at a slightly lower price via OTC trades.
3. Fishermen will lose faith in shell-to-diamond trades and will prefer gemstone-to-gemstone P2P trades (raise of dex vs centralized?)
4. The space police will find the astronaut and force him to refund those he gave fake shells to; he might do that with giving them back diamonds or other gemstones.
5. Etc

[Rosewater Foundation]

New guy thinks he knows me.

(You don't know me )

[Rosewater Foundation]

I'm just trying to adjust to the reality on the ground. Not sure what micropayments have to do with the price of eggs at this point.

Oh yeah, well, you're the one equating my discussion of micropayments with the slump in the price of corn, so... yeah.

I hold you personally responsible for most of the things that happen here. I thought that was understood.

[bitserve]

Hodling is depressing in times like this.... it's my cold wallet that is being brutally hit what concerns me.

Just think about the WinkleVii's or Tim Draper's cold wallet and you'll feel a whole lot better.  

I tried. But it doesn't help. Still having more money than you could probably spend (as such whales do) is not that terrible even if your net worth gets a cut of several hundred millions. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think they are as much depressed as I am right now.

I keep repeating it but... If we could act as if that $20K peak never happened (so ridiculously soon) I would be pretty happy right now. That's the only thing that helps for me.

I played this past peak much worse than I did the previous (2013) in which I doubled my Bitcoin count. The blame is on me (or my greed).

P.S.: No, not going to break/sell. I can perfectly (and depressedly) ride this thing until ZERO. I am more worried about the amount of profits already (even if temporarily?) lost than what I still have to lose (which is LESS).

Possibilities seem like this:

1) you did not sell enough on the way up  (anyone can kind of feel like that)

2) you sold on the way up, but you bought back too soon, so now you are running out of money to buy  (there seems to be a remedy for this, and that is to just budget a plan for on the way down - but of course, if you don't have any money for buying and you don't want to sell any then you just have to HODL, suck it up , and hope to fix the mistake in the future).

3) could be some other possibilities, but I cannot think of them, at this moment.    

It's mostly 1, also 2... and for 3 here comes the explanation: In 2013/2014 I had most of my BTC on exchanges for active trading, that let me double my stash in BTC count even if the total value was lower than before the drop. This time I kept reducing my exposure to exchanges. In the end I was only trading with around 10% of my total stash, and I didn't even sell all of that 10% as I keep doing scalping in a way similar to yours as we have discussed before.

So even if I ended with a 30 or 40% gain in my trading during the drop, that is for only a 10% of my total stash... sooooo a measly 3-4% total gain in coins vs a drop of 65% in price from the ATH... ouch!

It's basically that.... I didn't play well this time... But hindsight is 20/20... and I really don't like to have a substantial exposure to exchanges anymore.

So yeah, hodl and suck it up. In the end I will be fine... or not. We will see.

[JayJuanGee]

Ok. Here's some despair.

I'm not proud to be asking this question, but...

"Does it look like Doug Polk will lose his bet ?"

I'll bet you 0.1 BTC it does go below $6000.

If it doesn't, I will Jello wrestle you for the amusement of JJG.

I am not sure whether I understand the bet?  There is a jello wrestle between infofront and yefi, but only if BTC prices go below $6k?

This is like a win, either way?    If prices do not go below $6k, then value of BTC holdings remain strong.  If prices go below $6k, then get to have a jello wrestling session. win win.   

[Rosewater Foundation]

It's basically that.... I didn't play well this time... But hindsight is 20/20... and I really don't like to have a substantial exposure to exchanges anymore.

So yeah, hodl and suck it up. In the end I will be fine... or not. We will see.

I remember when this happened like it was yesterday.
I was cool as Kim Deal. Now I'm a total wreck. Karma coming to get me.

[Anon136]

I just ran into this. This is so stupid.

No shit it can't look like the one on the right. The one on the right is the problem. That's what bitcoin looks like right now and it's the reason why it doesn't scale.

What Lightning ACTUALLY looks like.


https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/

We're in good hands.

That looks most similar to the middle one of the three wouldn't you say?

Also, omg that hr tag. I am so excited to incorporate that into my posts. Just the sort of thing I have been looking for. +merit for you sir.

[cAPSLOCK]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

If you have a Whole Foods (Amazon-whiteguilthippiefoodstore)  in your area you might procure yourself a bottle of the Don Simon Cabernet Sauvingnon.

It's currently ~ 0.0006 BTC.  You can afford it.

For swill, I find it has a very spicy and interesting palate and it makes all your pain very quiet... not silent mind you... but it shoves it into a cheap sort of grape filled cave in which you will mistake a random rock for a pillow.

It's that good.

You can rinse and repeat tomorrow.

If you don't have a Whole Foods (virtuesignalinguppermiddleclassemporium) in poutine-land perhaps you could try a 2 buck chuck?  

I'll review one of those if need be.

Let me know.

[Rosewater Foundation]

Meritorious^

[cAPSLOCK]

This is actually pretty fucking good.

Maybe some of the better TA I have seen in a while

(No offense Toxic... your TA is more than TA... it is art.)

[bitserve]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

If you have a Whole Foods (Amazon-whiteguilthippiefoodstore)  in your area you might procure yourself a bottle of the Don Simon Cabernet Sauvingnon.

It's currently ~ 0.0006 BTC.  You can afford it.

[jonoiv]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

If you have a Whole Foods (Amazon-whiteguilthippiefoodstore)  in your area you might procure yourself a bottle of the Don Simon Cabernet Sauvingnon.

It's currently ~ 0.0006 BTC.  You can afford it.

0.00016 in Barcelona

[Rosewater Foundation]

Between that and the cat food I should have a couple good years left. There's your bright side.

[infofront]

I read through the Tether manipulation paper. IMO it made two convincing points:

#1 Someone has a habit of doing this:
 - Issuing new USDT
 - Within days, moving that USDT to BitFinex, Bittrex, and/or Poloniex
 - Using that USDT to buy crypto (seemingly a portfolio of BTC & others). They especially like to buy crypto when the price is just below whole numbers.
 - Moving the resulting crypto back to BitFinex
 - Rarely or never selling the crypto for USDT again
 
The authors argue that this is Tether/BitFinex themselves, and I think that this is in fact the most likely explanation. But the authors didn't address the alternative possibility of this being a particularly ham-fisted whale who is a close partner of Tether.

#2 Due to end-of-month trading, Tether has probably always been trading with USD deposited with them (fractional-reserve), though at least until March 2017, USDT was probably not complete monopoly money, since they did go to the effort of achieving an end-of-month USD balance.

The authors also tried to argue some other points which I didn't find convincing.


I took the paper's data at face value. There were several points where I thought that they could be cherry-picking data, but it's too difficult to check this sort of thing. Cherry-picking / confirmation bias is especially easy to do with block-chain analysis. And I know for a fact that their method of grouping block-chain transactions is not robust in general, though it probably was sufficient for what they did here.

I've thought for a long time that USDT is almost certainly a scam, and this paper makes me think so even more. Though I was actually a little surprised that this provides evidence (via the end-of-month trading) that USDT ever had any real USD.

The paper estimates that if you removed the USDT issuance events which the paper's authors regard as most likely to be BTC price manipulation, the BTC price would be $4100 as of March 31. But that's based on a whole pile of assumptions; I wouldn't give it much credence. I think that the collapse of USDT will be mostly limited to the obvious direct effects (ie. some exchanges would have major troubles, there'd be many people stuck with worthless USDT, etc.), and there would not somehow be a natural "rollback" of any gains which monopoly-money USDT may have driven. Also, the paper makes clear that all major crypto was affected, often much more than BTC, so this isn't any sort of argument against BTC in particular.

Very interesting paper Theymos.
My two points:
1. I won't keep a cent in Bitfinex because there's a chance this will end very badly.
2. SHingTF won't result in a BTC price correction. USDT holders will be the ones paying the price. I don't see how things could go differently from this.

---

To anyone thinking BTC price will drop once the USDT shenanigans are exposed:

Imagine there's a small planet of fishermen who use shells as currency. There's a limited supply of shells.

One day an astronaut arrives  from an advanced planet; he carries a secret device which allows him to create several fake shells.
For some weeks the astronaut buys a lot of local diamonds (unique and also limited in supply). He pays with his synthetised shells but the fishermen don't know they're fake and thus his market demand drives the diamonds prices up.

One day the astronaut returns to his planet with the diamonds and then the fishermen find out all the shells he gave them were fake and have now turned to ash.

Will the price of diamonds go down?

Nope.

The fishermen will still use shells to buy diamonds, and astronaut gone or not, there's still the same amount of shells around and the same amount of diamonds.

What happens next? A few possibilities
1. Other astronauts from other planets will come back with fake shells, but hopefully the fishermen won't be fooled (regulations on the crypto market coming next)
2. A proxy will come back to sell the astronaut's diamonds amd he'd be ready to cash them out at a slightly lower price via OTC trades.
3. Fishermen will lose faith in shell-to-diamond trades and will prefer gemstone-to-gemstone P2P trades (raise of dex vs centralized?)
4. The space police will find the astronaut and force him to refund those he gave fake shells to; he might do that with giving them back diamonds or other gemstones.
5. Etc

If diamonds were a speculative asset like BTC, the price would go down.

[bitserve]

Bob touting the merits of Lightning Network. Get ready for another leg down.

If you have a Whole Foods (Amazon-whiteguilthippiefoodstore)  in your area you might procure yourself a bottle of the Don Simon Cabernet Sauvingnon.

It's currently ~ 0.0006 BTC.  You can afford it.

0.00016 in Barcelona

Yup, the "fancy" bottle comes for a price.