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

[elebit]

LTC does add faster confirmation times, and its Scrypt algorithm is more resistant to ASICs. That's pretty much it.

The faster confirmation times is pretty much exactly negated by the fact that you need more confirmations with LTC to be reasonably secure against forks.

"More resistant to ASIC" is just silly seeing that we already have LTC mining ASICs. The only reason we didn't have them earlier was because LTC wasn't valuable enough. So, yeah, a low valuation is resistant to ASICs.

[N12]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303563304579447020246651110

The Treasury Department will come after the many digital currency exchanges and administrators that haven't registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Department's top official for terrorism and financial intelligence said Tuesday.

Goodbye, Bitstamp and BTC-E.

[bassclef]

LTC does add faster confirmation times, and its Scrypt algorithm is more resistant to ASICs. That's pretty much it.

The faster confirmation times is pretty much exactly negated by the fact that you need more confirmations with LTC to be reasonably secure against forks.

True but most people don't know that, or even why x amount of confirms are necessary in the first place.

"More resistant to ASIC" is just silly seeing that we already have LTC mining ASICs. The only reason we didn't have them earlier was because LTC wasn't valuable enough. So, yeah, a low valuation is resistant to ASICs.

More resistant I guess is the key word. They have taken longer to develop than the SHA256 ASICs.

[UnDerDoG81]

I did this a long time ago....

not about to make this mistake again  

We all did that :-D

[adamstgBit]

its not LTC that overstock accepts as payment poeple...

[Threebits]

I suppose that BIT may be tempted try to drive the BTC price down before enabling liquidity, because then they would have to pay less USD to the investors who liquidate.  In that "plan", BIT would later buy back those coins on-market to drive the price back up.  I don't know whether this would work; it may push more investors to liquidate and may scare new investors (not that they have many now it seems).  Note that this manipulation is possible with bitcoin due to the limited liquidity of the exchanges.

Does this make sense?

EDIT: typo

I don't understand why BIT wish to drive price down and then liquidate their bitcoins. This undermines their customers and does no good for themselves. Or I'm not smart enough to understand what is it ?

[JorgeStolfi]

its not LTC that overstock accepts as payment people...

If I recall correctly, Overstock's CEO invested heavily in bitcoin,  Was that from his pocket, or through the company?

[adamstgBit]

its not LTC that overstock accepts as payment people...

If I recall correctly, Overstock's CEO invested heavily in bitcoin,  Was that from his pocket, or through the company?

where did you get that?


just buy a bitcoin Jorge...

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[FTWbitcoinFTW]

its not LTC that overstock accepts as payment people...

If I recall correctly, Overstock's CEO invested heavily in bitcoin,  Was that from his pocket, or through the company?

where did you get that?

From himself : http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1wo1pf/overstock_ceo_reveals_he_now_holds_millions_in/

[jl2012]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303563304579447020246651110

The Treasury Department will come after the many digital currency exchanges and administrators that haven't registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Department's top official for terrorism and financial intelligence said Tuesday.

Goodbye, Bitstamp and BTC-E.

AFAIK Bitstamp and BTC-E neither operate nor have any bank account in US

[Shak]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303563304579447020246651110

The Treasury Department will come after the many digital currency exchanges and administrators that haven't registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Department's top official for terrorism and financial intelligence said Tuesday.

Goodbye, Bitstamp and BTC-E.

since they are not us-based, does it matter? it's more like a "goodbye, US, until you get your own exchange"

[N12]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303563304579447020246651110

The Treasury Department will come after the many digital currency exchanges and administrators that haven't registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Department's top official for terrorism and financial intelligence said Tuesday.

Goodbye, Bitstamp and BTC-E.

AFAIK Bitstamp and BTC-E neither operate nor have any bank account in US

What does it matter? They serve US customers without following the regulations, and the US has global power.

[Zapffe]

its not LTC that overstock accepts as payment poeple...

The overstock news have been a gimmick when considering the price anyway.
People buying things through bitpay -> bitpay converting BTC to dollars -> BTC price lowers.

It's not healthy to create illusions that crypto price has currently much to do with utility. The main attraction and the main factor for the price is speculation. Price rises because people buy and people buy because they expect the price to rise.

[JayJuanGee]

Looks like that 2k dip was a try to force panic sell but it ain't work ^^

We will see, as I stupidly bought at 685 I have to hodl through this.

We are at the same buy-in price point..... I am NOT too worried - even though I was expecting to be in the $750 to $850 price range about now-ish....

It is just a matter of time before we are back in the black.... anywhere between a day and 2 months... - hopefully, it will NOT take 2 months to get back in the black, though....  

i'm thinking about buying more soon

don't wanna miss a good flash crash, I also think this downward trend is very temporary

WE are considering this downward BTC price similarly, me thinks..... At this point, my next buy point would be at $590 or below. if the price gets there and stays there long enough for me to pull the trigger.  In spite of some of this recent discussion about the lack of fiat on the seeable books, I continue to have my doubts about getting to those below $590 levels for any sustained length of time - even though i have been surprised before.

theres not a half bad chance that poeple will start selling because price is low, price inchies lower and lower, poeple get discouraged and sell at the bottom.

I did this a long time ago....

not about to make this mistake again  

Learning from mistakes.... YES... .Hopefully we can all accomplish such, at some point.


I believe that it can be fairly tempting and easy to make BTC trading mistakes - b/c we begin to see a pattern of ups and downs in the BTC price and by the time we think we have the pattern figured out, a whale manipulates in one direction or another - that kind of manipulation can be totally outside of predictability (especially for non-sophisticated traders) b/c the whale or fairly small group is deciding in their own head(s) exactly when to push in one direction or another   - and actually the push could go either way.. but they decide based on their ability to put up walls.

If I had NOT made a few of these kinds of attempted pattern recognition trading mistakes, my average BTC buy-in price would have been in the $650 range rather than its current $685 range.   

The temptation remains, though, b/c it remains very attractive, if an investor could predict a 10 or 20% downtrend with certainty, then his average buy in price could be reduced by a similar percentage is he were to go balls to the walls into such a prediction.... Usually, I am too scared (or possibly too inexperienced in that kind of methodology) to be a balls to the walls kind of investor.

[FTWbitcoinFTW]

What does it matter? They serve US customers without following the regulations, and the US has global power.

Haha, sure about that ? I really hope it's a joke. If not we're screeeeew

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/alabama

[N12]

What does it matter? They serve US customers without following the regulations, and the US has global power.

Haha, sure about that ? I really hope it's a joke. If not we're screeeeew

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/alabama

Yes, I am certain that at least Bitstamp does business with people in the US. It would probably be wise to decline US customers in the future until they register with FinCEN, but I expect nothing out of Bitcoin exchanges.

[Threebits]

Never thought ltc could go up to 0.03 btc. And I still can't imagine it ll go up to 0.04 but only because I missed the ltc train

What a standard ratio btc/ltc the market should give ? For what reason? Anyone has thought of this?

The last peak was 0.05 plus.

[JayJuanGee]

its not LTC that overstock accepts as payment people...

If I recall correctly, Overstock's CEO invested heavily in bitcoin,  Was that from his pocket, or through the company?

I struggle to comprehend - why you want to stretch logic to attempt to see a zebra in a herd of horses.... and zebras are a rarity. 

[JorgeStolfi]

I suppose that BIT may be tempted try to drive the BTC price down before enabling liquidity, because then they would have to pay less USD to the investors who liquidate.  In that "plan", BIT would later buy back those coins on-market to drive the price back up.  I don't know whether this would work; it may push more investors to liquidate and may scare new investors (not that they have many now it seems).  Note that this manipulation is possible with bitcoin due to the limited liquidity of the exchanges.

Does this make sense?

EDIT: typo

I don't understand why BIT wish to drive price down and then liquidate their bitcoins. This undermines their customers and does no good for themselves. Or I'm not smart enough to understand what is it ?

Maybe I am not understanding it right, but this month some of their investors who bought shares at 12$ will be allowed to liquidate, meaning that BIT will have to pay them ~60$ per share (and tear those shares up).

The BIT share price is pegged to the BTC price, so if the latter goes down to 300$ before those investors have time to liquidate, then BIT would have to pay them ~30$/share, instead of ~60$/share.   If the BTC price later returns to 600$, BIT shares will go back to 60$, the other investors (who can't liquidate yet) will be in the same state they were before --- but BIT would have saved a lot of money.