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

[JorgeStolfi]

PS. To be precise, I will be happy if any cryptocoin succeeds in providing cheap and convenient international payments, even if the actual use will be only a tiny fraction of all international trade. 

I will be happy even if cryptocoins fail but force the banks to lower their abusive charges, by making people aware that there is no justification for them.

For bitcoin to be a good investment, of course, it would have to be bitcoin specifically, not any cryptocoin,

[medialab101]

According to Wisdom, there are some shenanigans going on at Gox. A few hours ago a dump was marked as a 200 BTC order in the order history but only showed up as a 155 BTC sell on the volume indicator. Also, are the orderbooks on Wisdom accurate? I might be seeing things but it seems to me that there are "phantom orders" that show up in the books but that don't get counted when a dump eats them.

Billy cashed out around 10k BTC during the last downtrend and doesn't seem to be out of coins.

Billy???

Billy is dumpling like a fool

[TERA]

the bottom is when the price smashes against a certain level for a good amount of time and there's an unlimited amount of support until it starts slowly creeping up. Like gox did at 300, and then there's multiple additional high volume tests and they are all supported at gradually increasingly higher levels, until an explosion happens. a huge vertical wall of support continues to build behind the action as a new base.

So how long is a "good amount of time" and what do you mean by "unlimited support"? We've smashed into the ~$530 level twice now (stamp), the second time with a lot more volume. Are you saying that can't be the floor or is it just too soon to tell in your opinion?

it wasnt smashed against 530, it bounced off quickly. im thinking of like in july when 66 got hit a bajillion times on high volume over 3 days. you should see a clear trend of high volume support doing stealthy accumulation of heavy dumping at slowly incrementing levels.

[T.Stuart]

Willy's back! And this time he's gone full "beartard"!  

[billyjoeallen]

The corporations would provide the blockchain processing and hold large stocks (maybe even infinite) of coins, using them to maintain price stability etc., and will collect fees from their use. Those corpcoins will look superficially like bitcoin in the way people will use them, but of course will not be anything like the libertarian dream.  For 99.9% of the population, that will not matter.

Or they could be issued by governments instead of corporations.

Or they could be something else entirely, who knows what governments, banks and stores may invent.

They have something else entirely NOW. I need to nail down what burden of proof exactly we're talking about because I don't want to waste my time if you are not even really open to the possibility that your belief is incorrect.

 they void the argument "one bitcoin will be worth a small fortune one day since there are only 21 million of them and umpteen trillion dollars of e-commerce per day".

There are many things wrong with that argument, but one of them is that there is an infinite number of cryptocoins, and they all are in principle as good as bitcoin for the purpose of low-fee payments via internet.

Umpteen trillion dollars divided by infinity is equal to zero...

You know our answer to that. The issue is whether or not the network effects are strong enough to prevent that scenario.

So I would have to wait an infinite amount of time for you to admit you were wrong?

I will admit that I am wrong (about bitcoin being a terrible investment) when lots of people really start using bitcoins for payments, not because they want to support the cause but because they are more convenient and cheap than other methods.

This is already true in a very limited but growing number of cases.

As I see it, right now the bitcoin price is sustained mainly by speculation: by "hodlers" who will buy at even higher price if they had the money, by day traders who do not look beyond the next month or two, and by people who see it as a form of gambling.

I don't entirely disagree, but why is this a problem?

[magicmexican]

Why are people still mass selling on Gox, really makes no sense at all

[T.Stuart]

Why are people still mass selling on Gox, really makes no sense at all

It's Uncle Willy. He's gone mad.

[ft73]

Why are people still mass selling on Gox, really makes no sense at all

It's not mass selling, it's just a very few people making big dumps.
It does not make sense, judging by the information we got.

[dreamspark]

dump city again at gox

[TERA]

when bitstamp and btce disabled withdrawals, it wasnt an all out apocalypse like gox. i think someone knows something at gox that we don't

[T.Stuart]

when bitstamp and btce disabled withdrawals, it wasnt an all out apocalypse like gox. i think someone knows something at gox that we don't

To me it really looks like the infamous bull bot Willy, put in reverse.

[MoreFun]

Why this bot is still selling at such a low price???

He probably has some insider info (gox has no coins?), otherwise he would be able to move coins to other exchange in a few days when withdrawals are fixed on gox.

I believe this is very important question to be answerd.  

[600watt]

strongstamp saves it us again.

[xulescu]

Because they void the argument "one bitcoin will be worth a small fortune one day since there are only 21 million of them and umpteen trillion dollars of e-commerce per day".

There are many things wrong with that argument, but one of them is that there is an infinite number of cryptocoins, and they all are in principle as good as bitcoin for the purpose of low-fee payments via internet.

Umpteen trillion dollars divided by infinity is equal to zero...

There is something to be said about this however. The primary reason that Bitcoin caught on and didn't fizzle like all other virtual currencies or even other cryptocurrency proposals is the blockchain -- the center of trust for all similar cryptos. The older and larger the chain, the more trust there is. This means that all (most) the alt coins can quietly disappear into niche uses. This is the main reason I was excited about merged mining -- one chain to rule them all. [Namecoin, however, has its own problems]

Basically it's the same argument about Visa/MasterCard and the zillion other card companies.

[...] when lots of people really start using bitcoins for payments, not because they want to support the cause but because they are more convenient and cheap than other methods [...]

I was sceptical too until actually using BTC to pay for minor stuff online. For example Fiverr was a nice surprise. I made two orders and paid each with a different system (PayPal and Coinbase). And I've realised, PayPal is mad fugly. It is immensely bloated for what it's supposed to do. You probably have more menus than Amazon has for all your settings and preferences. In comparison, Coinbase's plugin was simple and easy to understand and use. According to comments on Fiverr's announcement to take BTC, many sellers appear to ask to receive BTC directly (to wallet or Coinbase account), simply because PayPal charges immense fees.

It can also be argued this is not the "true" way to use BTC, but does it really matter? I can easily visualize a unified crypto payment plugin. Select currency; select wallet or wallet provider; pay.

I believe cryptos are here to stay. Can't say about BTC, but it's a working proof of concept / minimal viable product.

[HairyMaclairy]

Ok I bought at 646.  Time to go up.  Lets see if I get plastered on this one 

Well that didn't go so well.  Wasn't watching the market the last hour or so then looked at the screen, got a surprise and got straight back off again at 646.  

Lol.  Thank god it's BFX so the fees are tiny.

[T.Stuart]

strongstamp saves it us again.

The difference between the two will prevent the market from developing. It is not sustainable at all. Pure madness. Until the difference is closed how can we go up?

[spooderman]

This makes NO sense. Something here is fishy. I have been mystified for days. To me it gox should be bullish. You can get money in, you can buy crazy cheap coins, you will be able to get them out again soon. (they're not fucking insolvent, Mark would be found and murdered straight away.)

Meanwhile, stamp is double the price?? At first I thought the "malleability issue" was a joke and entirely the fault of gox's poor heigene, then the other exchanges followed suit, and silk road 2. So if this is a legit issue with btc itself, and we are capable of understanding that that doesn't really matter as the protocol can and will be changed whenever it is required by enough of us, the only reason for the doom and gloom is....people just don't like gox, but the reason for that should be because of the FIAT withdrawal problem which they have had for months and months, yet it DOESN'T SEEM TO BE.

[medialab101]

when bitstamp and btce disabled withdrawals, it wasnt an all out apocalypse like gox. i think someone knows something at gox that we don't

No, just whale flopping around in the dark. Just like the bot that drove up the price to a 25% disparity last week trying to get out the Coin exit... now same bot is making a run for the fiat exit at whatever cost. Must have a lot of coins, be risk averse, and be poorly informed.

[ft73]

and be poorly informed.

Less informed than us? It should be hard.

[Nemo1024]

Ok I bought at 646.  Time to go up.  Lets see if I get plastered on this one 

Well that didn't go so well.  Wasn't watching the market the last hour or so then looked at the screen, got a surprise and got straight back off again at 646.  

Lol.  Thank god it's BFX so the fees are tiny.

You are in the wrong mindset. In a year's time it won't matter if you got on at 646, 570, 720, or even 850. It'll all look almost the same. Get on whenever you have fiat.

Take it from my experience, if you try to get on and off looking for the lowest price, you'll either be left behind when the next upward correction starts, or will slowly bleed away on fees.