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

[kurious]

According to http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/25/what-does-the-mt-gox-meltdown-mean-for-bitcoin-maybe-not-much/ there will soon be a freakonomics podcast on bitcoin. Now they have an estimated 750 000 podcast listeners per episode (Some of it also goes out on public radio, not sure what the numbers there are). Now this is a factor ~14 less than the estimated viewership of The Good Wife, but the demographics are a great fit for bitcoin. Whereas the median age of a "The Good Wife" viewer is 60 the freakonomics listeners are

Our listeners are, in a nutshell: rather male (77%); relatively young (45% are 25-35 years old, another 24% are 35-44); well-educated (38% have a graduate degree; another 43% have a bachelor’s degree); and — according to the survey data at least — pretty well-off (17% earn more than $150,000 and another 23% earn between $100,000 and $150,000; then there are the 14% who earn between $0 and $30,000, most of whom are likely students).

Here is a graph showing the distribution of occupations


Also, they are obviously interested in economics and unlike the case in the Good wife episode, it will be clear from the context that Bitcoin is a real thing and not a figment of some scriptwriter's imagination.  

They tend to see things in a way what would seem to a layman to be contrary to the way it looks.

To anyone not 'in the know' Bitcoin is looking a bit disastrous right now.   But I think these guys will argue (rightly) the opposite may be the real truth.

EDIT: for clarity

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[TERA]

Where did all that dirty FIAT come from? we were around 15million the whole time, now 20+?

Former MtGox users who want to get back into the market? Not sure whether deposits clear that fast though, there might be a LOT more coming.

No. The sudden fiat on stamp effect usually comes from bitfinex. When an investor/trader/short-cover/etc from bitfinex buys from a trader from bitstamp, the coins are removed from bitstamp and sent to bitfinex and the fiat is sent to the trader on bitstamp. The trader on bitstamp is then left with a bunch of fiat which is replaced on the order book to make his next bid and rebuy, hence there is more fiat on the book. So in essence bitfinex serves the purpose of accumulating coins away from and injecting fiat into bitstamp during these crashes. The sudden huge amount of fiat today could be attributed to massive short squeeze on bitfinex as bitcoin hit bottom and bounced 55%. Short interest on there was extended extremely high before this. Some of the whales accumulating in the 400s were probably Bitfinex also.

[kkaspar]

Ol' Gil is not worried, even if he bought in at 700$600$.
Ol' Gil sees that the price is going down very slowly, so it's not dangerous at all! Soon there will be an upwards wave and Ol' Gil will finally catch his big break with his bitcoin investments!

[kwest]

To anyone not 'in the know' Bitcoin is looking a bit disastrous right now.   But I think these guys will argue (rightly) the opposite may be the real truth.

EDIT: for clarity

I hope so.. I subscribe to Freakonomics, so I will be listening in for sure.

[rpietila]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

[magicmexican]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

500 maybe not, i am thinking 530

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[fluidjax]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

500 maybe not, i am thinking 530

I think a lot of people who lost BTC on Gox will want to buy in again.
For many the coins they had on Gox are fairly old, so getting hold of new fiat whilst the price is cheap may not be a problem, both practically and mentally.
Its going to take a few days for the bank transfers to make their way through the system. This may hold the price higher for a few days.

[Miz4r]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

Yesterday I would have agreed, but my opinion has changed and I think this pullback will not go below 530. I would not surprised if we already bounce off 550-560 as there's too much demand right now. We will see $800 within the next 2 weeks mark my words.

[podyx]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

what is currently the long term trend??

around $680 right?

[mmitech]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

what is currently the long term trend??

around $680 right?

I think it is 530 520...

[MikeH]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

still bearish, you know you only got your 400 through an act of Gox!

I think we're going back to 800+ soon..

[zyk]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

Yesterday I would have agreed, but my opinion has changed and I think this pullback will not go below 530. I would not surprised if we already bounce off 550-560 as there's too much demand right now. We will see $800 within the next 2 weeks mark my words.

You should rather expect a withdrawl queue to be announced at bitstamp....if Marks cat don´t even need to get lifted from the

keyboard while beeing transfered to the cayman - islands  stop being idiot people ...you are holding the bouncing cat while

the insiders have cashed out...new insiders only come in the double digits...MARK my facts !

[hdbuck]

It is going down - 500 to be tested soon.

Reason: we are not that much below the long-term trend, so given the sentiment, we are "hanging in the air" when the solid ground is in 400-500, below that is a steal and above that is hopes.

Yesterday I would have agreed, but my opinion has changed and I think this pullback will not go below 530. I would not surprised if we already bounce off 550-560 as there's too much demand right now. We will see $800 within the next 2 weeks mark my words.

You should rather expect a withdrawl queue to be announced at bitstamp....if Marks cat don´t even need to get lifted from the

keyboard while beeing transfered to the cayman - islands   stop being idiot people ...you are holding the bouncing cat while

the insiders have cashed out...new insiders only come in the double digits...MARK my facts !

rofl ^^

[Sitarow]

[podyx]

get ready to bounce boys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35KLBpSpIfg

[dreamspark]

Lol this explains a lot, from Marks twitter

@magicaltux why is the MtGox withdrawal for faster processing 0.005BTC when the network is set to 0.0001BTC/kb?

@zikuladrak because it works better. Minimum fee is required for relaying, higher fee helps even more getting in the blockchain

[oda.krell]

You seem to be forgetting that there were also a lot of fiat afloat at mtgox that was meant for BTC. BTC will lose that fiat, and probably any new fiat that would of came from those who owned it.

It's fun to see how everyone are trying to downplay the gox situation and are trying to make this look good.

Exactly.

Between Feb/6 and Feb/11 the price had a permanent drop by some 50--60, almost certainly due to news of MtGOX's troubles. (Feb/10 was the first disappointing press release IIRC.)  

I believe that the final demise of MtGOX did not have an immediate effect on price because speculators had been following the story and were expecting that event, so their reaction happened weeks ago (and it was negative).  

However, the headlines in mainstream media are going to scare away potential investors who might otherwise have joined the market.  As for the long-term investors (who own bitcoins but do not read the forums and may check the charts only now and then), some of them will decide to sell their coins and invest into something else.

Oh dear, Jorge. Have you *still* learned nothing? This time it's not about misunderstanding BTC, but how markets work...

>However, the headlines in mainstream media are going to scare away potential investors

Repeat until you understand: Price does *not* follow news.

Some will claim that "news follows price", which probably goes too far, but in principle even this (exaggerated) mantra is useful to remind our naive monkey brains of (admittedly unintuitive) truths.

Fact is, the *exact* same argument ("this will scare away new investors!") was made in September last year when Silk Road was taken down.

The *exact* same argument was made when price dropped sharply from ~260 to ~60 in April last year.

In either of those cases, nothing like that happened. In case of SR, it was particularly stunning how the brief flash crash (that did happen as a result of the news) revealed a solid underlying buying pressure that was lying dormant until then. It started the rally that led to the December ATH, in fact.

Please note what I am saying vs. what I am *not* saying: I don't claim to know whether the bear market just reversed. Just that looking at an "objectively bad" news item and concluding it will negatively affect price will get you nowhere in market analysis. It's simply not how the human mind seems to work, collectively: any event is interpreted in a highly contextual framework. And right now, I would be careful to conclude that the result of that interpretation is going to greatly depress price (see, e.g., the very solid recovery to ~600, or the huge jump in USD on the Bitstamp order book)

[dreamspark]

Dunno about you guys but I am sick of having to defend bitcoin over the last couple of days against all the told-you-so mockers.

Its like everyones gone retarded and decides nows a good time bring up all the old fallable arguments against Bitcoin.
I even had the old " You can't pay yoru mortgage in BTC so its a speculative investment and thats it" to "I heard that the CEO of bitcoin took everyones money"

One co-worker couldn't understand when I said I'd rather hold a deflating asset than an inflating one that I meant in general and to convert btc to fiat if and when necerssary. To which he replied so you could live without cash now?!

 I mean WTF these are intelligent people.

[ShroomsKit_Disgrace]

Dunno about you guys but I am sick of having to defend bitcoin over the last couple of days against all the told-you-so mockers.

Its like everyones gone retarded and decides nows a good time bring up all the old fallable arguments against Bitcoin.
I even had the old " You can't pay yoru mortgage in BTC so its a speculative investment and thats it" to "I heard that the CEO of bitcoin took everyones money"

One co-worker couldn't understand when I said I'd rather hold a deflating asset than an inflating one that I meant in general and to convert btc to fiat if and when necerssary. To which he replied so you could live without cash now?!

 I mean WTF these are intelligent people.

LOL you ve just discovered the real world! Welcome!