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

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[dragonvslinux]

Watching Bitfinex BTCUSD chart, i just realized we're back to the trading volume of 2017-ish levels.

I think all you realised is that Bitfinex is back to 2017 volume levels, not Bitcoin. It used to be one of the top few exchanges, if not #1 when Tether was hot property. Now it's just another Top 10 exchange losing volume to others. This is personally why I avoid looking at these charts, or Poloniex for that reason. Despite the long price history, the volume isn't very reflective.

I prefer Bitstamp as an OG exchange, not just for the price history, but because many OGs still use it, so it's a good sign of OG volume, even if not very reflective of overall volume. I personally think the only people still using Bitfinex as those who are still using Tether, as the exchange now has a poor reputation with it's shady stablecoin. It's not very popular as a derivatives exchange either it seems.

Here's a volume comparison between Bitfinex and Coinbase, CB average is down to 2020 by looks of it (which BLX index also agrees with):



Bitfinex is basically back down to 2017, but going further back it's also back down to 2013!

So it's starting all over again? Transaction volume growth wise?

Possibly, if it starts growing again that is. Coming back down to 2020 volume levels doesn't look like a bad thing to me, as could indicate the start of another cycle to the upside.
Either that or high volume now could be the start or a new downtrend, or further consolidation, but on-chain data still doesn't agree with this theory.

4h

Nice to see the MACD moving back lines moving back into the positive, has been a while 


I'm starting to realise how squeezed the price is becoming in a macro-sense. Price found support from the downtrend line of the $64K and $53K peaks, in what looks like a very non-coincidental type manner, especially after price closed below the 200 Day MA for 4 days, as well as 1 week below the 50 Week MA, confirming weakness at support. Now price has reached the resistance trendline from $69K to the $55-59K area, which lines up with the 21 Day MA. Before the end of the year, I imagine a 10-20% move in one way or another, as either the long-term support trendline will hold, or shorter-term resistance will hold, and given we are stuck between the two. Given the support is stronger than the resistance, personally I'd expect to be to the upside. At least back to $54K-58K level before being able to re-evaluate



The break-out from the descending wedge previously referenced looks confirmed, so the target would be around $53K (+10%) from break-out level. Price is now back above the VPVR point of control around $48.5K, as well as 50 Week MA at $47.9K that continues to rise in a very bullish manner. Price otherwise remains within an accumulation/distribution zone of $45-50K, so nothings that certain as of yet.



Based on the 4hr, a re-test of $46K-48K levels looks relatively likely (long-term support), while still holding the break-out of the descending wedge and remaining bullish. Price for now remains in the structure of lower highs and lower lows, so without confirmation of support in order to make a higher low or a further break-out to the upside to make a higher high, price remains in un-certain in the shorter-term.

Given the amount of times and opportunities to buy long-term support between $46K and $48K in the past two weeks, this shouldn't be a time for fomo imo, unless $50K breaks. Overall, the long-term support is still holding, which simply put is what you'd expect in a bull market when price returns to these support levels, as I've been saying for weeks now. Unless it's convincingly broken of course.

[AlcoHoDL]

You might like

"Physicist Sean Carroll Explains Parallel Universes to Joe Rogan"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ZsDBMPQMI

(Reference to your post from approx. 9:20min )

Clicked the link because of the merits and the ref. to QM. Good video, thanks.

WO greatness.

[JayJuanGee]

If you have access to debt instruments you should attempt to use those to the extent reasonable....

Debt is risk and obligation. How much that is acceptable will depend on your personal viewpoint. However, many people do not treat it this way and then get all surprised when things go wrong.

Of course it takes some skills to use debt in order to actually leverage yourself into a better rather than into a worse situation, so debt is a more advanced tool than other methods of merely working off of your own resources.  Many people might not be able to afford to go to college or to buy a home if they had not had the availability of credit... .. and sure, I am not saying that the credit system is a good thing for society overall necessarily.. but there are ways to use it to your advantage if you are ready, willing and able to figure out proper ways of employing it.. and it is not as complicated as other kinds of financial instruments.

This doesn't apply if you're a large corporation, of course. In that case the government just bails you out.

Maybe... But anyone can use debt in good ways or bad ways in terms of whether their investment is likely to lead to returns or if some entities and individuals might be sucking off of the public trough.. including those who get themselves in to BIG debt and then get bailed out with bancrupcy... I was not necessarily referring to abuse cases when we might be figuring out how normies can strategize in ways to potentially use debt to their advantage.

By the way, I did a quickie approximation in my spreadsheet to find that payments for such Lambo would be around $11,500 per month to pay off such $600k-ish loan in 5 years and the payoff amount would reach around $692k after the interest is calculated into the payoff amount.

Debt also accumulates. So that's 100k on top of your original payment.

Sure it is... and if a person has 100 bitcoins, then s/he may well be able to afford both a lambo and an extra payment of $100k and also to buy something that might depreciate by 1/2 in 5 years.  I am not necessarily talking about building wealth from a decision to use debt to buy the lambo, but if you were going to buy it anyhow because you have $100k, you may well not be worse off to have $600k in debt for 6 years and to keep the value of 12 bitcoin in bitcoin... which currently is about $600k but those 12 bitcoin may well be worth more than $600k in 5 years... what do you think?  We are not all going to come to the same decisions regarding how to invest nor how to consume... and surly I will concede that 100 bitcoin is barely into  entry-level fuck you status if we are referring to our 208-week moving average.. which would put those 100 bitcoin at about 1.85 million currently (so yeah, just barely getting to fuck you status, if we are presuming $2 million as entry-level fuck you status)

Now, you may be expecting Bitcoin to appreciate to more than offset that in the intervening years but so also goes the thought processes of the gambler who is just needs to borrow 200 to put on an accumulator and pay of what he owes so that "Jimmy the hammer" won't remove his kneecaps.

If I am referring to someone who already has 100 bitcoins, then I am not necessarily referring to anyone in a desperate kind of a situation... and yeah, maybe it would be borderline consumption for someone with that level of bitcoin to be getting into a $600k loan... Of course, upkeep of a Lambo will likely require decent access to storage and abilities to afford the other costs.. maybe there is already ownership of a garage to store it and maybe around $10k to $20k per year could be estimated for maintenance.. and surely there might need to be an emergency fund too in case there might be some higher costs that could come up with the Lambo... perhaps?

Debt is also fungible. If you have a large quantity of Bitcoin and borrow to buy something frivolous, consider whether you would have borrowed that money to buy Bitcoin. No? Well, you may as well have.

I am talking about a situation in which the person had already decided to buy the lambo so the question only is whether to finance it or not.  And, yeah of course, already presuming it is a consumption item and not likely to hold a lot of its value in terms of the total various costs.

I will at this point state explicitly that I am not anybody's mother and they can handle their finanaces how they please. I am just giving my angle on the matter.

Seems to me that you are fighting with the hypothetical, and sure I will concede that I might have been being a bit provocative with my use of a lambo as the example of the purchase.

Why would you not want me to get caught up on the percentages?  That was my whole point to get caught up on the percentages.  Yes, I know that people have total discretion regarding what they do, and even if they do dumb stuff, but if we give analysis regarding different kinds of ways to think about the matter, then we are discussing and hopefully being helpful to people (and sure maybe even helpful to myself to go through the exercise).

Percentages are useful in some cases, less so in discussions like this. A house is $X, You have BTCY which is worth $Z, you are probably targeting particular values to own or buy. Percentages are not especially meaningful in these contexts.

Yeah.. but I thought that I explained decently well in terms of starting with 35 BTC, and then discussing the various tradeoffs and the various considerations associated with those tradeoffs in order to reach my conclusion that if I was feeling some kind of need to cash out some BTC at $55k, then I would both base it on the 208-week moving average and likely end up cashing out no more than 1.4 BTC to 2.8 BTC based on that. 

So traditional withdrawal rates consider drawing out 4% per year, but I have started using a different formula based on the 208-week moving average and allowing up to 12% per year based on the 208-week moving average as long as the spot price is sufficiently above 208-week moving average and if the current 208-week moving average is around $18.3k, then $55k is about 3x the 208 week moving average so no problems in terms of the 12% per year rate based on how spot price compares with 208-week moving average... but I still would not feel comfortable cashing out more than 1-2 years based on current price performance and expectations that it is not too likely (in my thinking) that we will not get opportunities to cash out more bitcoin at or above $55k in the coming 1-2 years.. so I would consider too many opportunity costs cashing out above those amounts, which also how I got to the 1.4 BTC to 2.8 BTC maximum.  Sure, if you did not really attempt to grapple with why I was talking about percentages, then you end up criticizing my use of percentages as if it were just some random idea just thrown in there for the pure sake of it.

The question is "should they be happy with what they still have?" which can only be answered on a personal level.

That's ridiculously a different topic than what I was attempting to discuss... so just seems weird that you want to go there.

Not really. I just recontextualized it.

I think that you made a new topic.. but whatever.. do what you like.

If you got why I said what I did about percentages, this follows on. I never look at my sells in terms of percentages, merely if I am happy with the amount of $ I am getting for my BTC and whether I am happy with the amount of BTC I have remaining (though it would always be nice to have more, of course).

I don't really get what you were saying about percentages, and fair enough if you have some other kind of way of looking at the matter of whether to limit yourself in how much you cash out or whether you are trying to keep some kind of purposeful allocation in bitcoin.  Surely, I have felt over allocated since 2016-ish.. and sure it may well not be a bad problem to have, but sometimes I still would rather be careful to attempt to account for the 4 year cycle or whatever seems to be going on in bitcoin in terms of not selling too much at the wrong time, especially if I consider that we have decent odds of UP from that location.. which would be a factor for me selling at $55k a few weeks ago or even a factor of me selling at $48k currently in the event that I would need to sell.. so maybe I would end up selling a smaller amount of my levels of allocation.. but sure, I can do whatever the fuck I want, so I can change my own limits if for some reason I am feeling an urge to consume or to invest or whatever, I am not really limited by the fact that I have more options and my BTC portfolio happens to be up about 20x to 30x higher than even my wet dream scenario of 2013/2014/2015 when I was initially starting some of my BTC investment plans and engaging in maintenance of my BTC portfolio back then.

[philipma1957]

cell phone was cloned almost lost $$$

[lightfoot]

cell phone was cloned almost lost $$$

Wicked. Was it a MFA attack or an attack on the portable wallet?

[JayJuanGee]

cell phone was cloned almost lost $$$

Wicked. Was it a MFA attack or an attack on the portable wallet?

I think that the proper term is "sim port swap" unless you are referring to something else?

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[dragonvslinux]

cell phone was cloned almost lost $$$

Wicked. Was it a MFA attack or an attack on the portable wallet?

I think that the proper term is "sim port swap" unless you are referring to something else?

Or even "sim card swap", or simply sim-swap as they call it these days. Either way, sorry to hear that @philipma1957. This is why I keep giving my bank shit (formal complaints) for not integrating a secure 2FA authentication system for their interface, while they delay my transfers to exchanges due to "security" and "fraud" concerns. So hypocritical. The idea that my phone number or email as 2FA is secure, when no doubt my mail server can be hacked and phone number stolen, is therefore a complete joke. That said, I do use open-source 2FA for my email, but still doesn't secure it from a server leak.

[philipma1957]

cell phone was cloned almost lost $$$

Wicked. Was it a MFA attack or an attack on the portable wallet?

the cell phone was ported to Verizon {this is impressive as no-one has access to phone)

they had my email with access {impressed with this}

This let them change my coinbase password.

But My coin base withdrawals are not enabled by that cell or email so they could not with draw. Or alter my coinbase email address.

So lots of shit is changed now.

[philipma1957]

I was lucky I had one more roadblock to stop them.

I wonder if it is inside work with :

a guy at coinbase
a guy at tracfone
a guy at Verizon

set when coinbase account gets a bit higher say 10k or 20k or a higher level.


of course I now need to alter countless other shit

[aesma]

That's why I like triple authentication, and even more measures for withdrawals.

Well except I need to get some corn from Poloniex and they can't match my face with my passport, I need to get a haircut I guess.

[eXPHorizon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-k_Eg7zXuc

 

[philipma1957]

So they have the phone number

they may have hoped a simple 2fa text would have given them full access to the coins and cash at coinbase. And switching the email. But with my security settings not being 2fa linked to the cell associated with coinbase it was a no go.

So don't use 2fa.

Thank god as I had BTC and  $$$ to hurt

[d_eddie]

Pump on the last week?
Carolina here we come?
Or trap for ant bulls?




#haiku

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Syke]

Note to not-self. Don't EVER use SMS 2FA. NEVER. It is worthless.

[JayJuanGee]

That's why I like triple authentication, and even more measures for withdrawals.

Well except I need to get some corn from Poloniex and they can't match my face with my passport, I need to get a haircut I guess.

Sometimes it can be unclear what kinds of shenanigans can be done, even without withdrawal permissions for example.  

I recall in early 2017 when my phone was sim swapped, and sure there were other factors besides just the sim swapping, but one thing led to another and various accounts compromised including e-mails and surely the target was bitcoin or any other shitcoins that might have been present (I don't recall having any shitcoins at that time).  One of the exchanges that they had gotten access was called BTC-e - and they had a policy of freezing withdrawals for 2 days after any password changes, so the hacker that got into my BTC-e account could not withdraw but they could trade, so pretty much what they did was that they maximized the purchase of an illiquid shitcoin called Novocoin (or something like that), and then they used all of the dollars on the account and all of the BTC to buy Novocoin.. and they dumped all of the Novocoin that they had purchased all at once and then they rebought at some point after the dump, and they did that several times for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, and then my account got locked so they were no longer able to engage in that trading.  The account went down about 1/4 in value during that time.  They traded the account to lose 3/4 of its value in about 1 hour and 20 minutes.  I imagine that they somehow profited by being on the opposite side of those trades... so they moved the price of that illiquid shitcoin called Novocoin.

On my Coinbase account, they withdrew from one side of it and they seemed to have overlooked the other side (the coinbase pro side).  So they withdrew all of the bitcoin, which would have ONLY been about 1/3 of the total value of the account.. and so thereafter, there were several attempts to get back into that coinbase account.. and also to use other little tricks with one of my e-mail accounts. that they continued to breach.  Coinbase had actually helped me to migrate that value into another account, and then 6-9months later Coinbased forced me to close my account (whether related or not, who knows?  they did not exactly give me any reasons why they forced me to close that account.. those fucks.)

Since I am on a roll, I may as well tell about a few other accounts that were compromised.  My Bitstamp account sent me an e-mail that said that my password had been changed and if it was not me, then I should click on the button.. which I did.. and supposedly the account was locked.. but the funds were gone when I got access to the account.. they did not even take 15 minutes to drain the account... My Gemini account did not get lose any funds, but it took me a couple of months (maybe even 3 months of uncertainty) to regain access, so I was sure that there was not going to be any value in that account when I got access to the account back.  My Bitfinex account did not lose funds either.... I had a few other accounts that lost funds, and I am not going to disclose more specifics on those... so yeah, it can be quite stressful and frustrating to go through a sim swap situation and quite a bit that can be done with a short time of access to accounts and then even some difficulties to get them out when they have embedded themselves into your identity...maybe there have been some improvements in the past 4-5 years - even though I heard that sim swaps had continued to be a pretty BIG problem.. and likely a quite lucrative business for those with hacking skills..

Regarding extra measures of course the hackers are likely to go for the easiest targets first so various extra measures can be enough to put enough roadblocks to make it quite a bit harder to break into the account rather than the accounts that might have very few security measures, but if they can confirm a kind of high value in a particular account location, there may well be extra incentives to spend more efforts on breaking into that particular account.. so for example, even once I had gotten my coinbase account back, there were frequent efforts for some hacker(s) to continue to try to get into that account, and likely the reason related to already having information about value having had been in that account..so there was likely some consideration that it was a potentially worthy target.

So they have the phone number

they may have hoped a simple 2fa text would have given them full access to the coins and cash at coinbase. And switching the email. But with my security settings not being 2fa linked to the cell associated with coinbase it was a no go.

So don't use 2fa.

Thank god as I had BTC and  $$$ to hurt

I don't know if the take away should be to NOT use 2fa.. because if you do not have 2fa set up, then the hacker(s) might be able to set 2fa up in your name, and then it could take longer for you to regain access to the account or the hacker(s) might be able to withdraw easier once they set up 2fa in your name...

That also reminds me of some kind of rule that exists in the USA.. I am not sure if it still exists, but one of the frustrations of the phone companies was that if someone comes to the phone company with a phone number and an account number they have to allow them to port the phone.. .. and sometimes they can get the account number that is associated with that phone by getting into the online account.. or they might get it through the e-mail that might have the phone account number if some statement might come by e-mail or through text...so sometimes there can be some additional measures that can be taken to protect the account number, even if the phone number is known but they do not know the account number...sometimes there can be some other ways to protect that account number too.. for example if the account number might be in another person's name... We can infer that hackers spend a lot of times on various kinds of work arounds, especially once they have some information about you, then they can find out other information, and if they have a few pieces to a puzzle, then they can perhaps use those pieces to get other pieces before they even employ the BIGGER attack.. .. such as attacking an account with value and for sure any kind of bitcoin or crypto would be valuable to the extent that there might be some irreversibility once the transaction is sent... so they can work pretty fast once they actually get into an account that holds bitcoin or crypto value.. dollars would not be valuable except that they would trade them into whatever coin they are using to withdraw as quickly as they can before they get locked out.

[philipma1957]

I am not quite sure how they ported the phone.

I suspect they used tracfone had the cell number  hoped by getting the email

that the email linked to tracfone and to coinbase was the same

so if they hack just the email

they could try to port the cell to their carrier.

then get into coinbase change password and use 2fa to allow withdraws and alter the email

Shit makes business harder.

2fa with a simple text 6 digits

and cross linked to your email

would have meant me losing over  0.25btc


Best to buy a burner phone set up google to microsoft auth.

the coinbase account does not know that phone number so no one can port it over to another network.

MY name is well known thus the attack was on purpose by such a long list of possibles.

I have sold gear
I have escrowed
I have sold coin
I have traded coin

Many know my real name
Many know my email
Many know my coinbase account email

I could list 100 possibles that would think I may have $$$ on coinbase. Take a shot.

Never mind the PayPal customers ugh.

This will take time to fix.

[lightfoot]

I am not quite sure how they ported the phone.

I suspect they used tracfone had the cell number  hoped by getting the email

that the email linked to tracfone and to coinbase was the same

so if they hack just the email

they could try to port the cell to their carrier.

*nod* Thanks for the attack vector info. Nasty. SMS is no longer a secure MFA solution, even NIST has dropped it for AAC/AAL2 auth.

Anyone who is watching, be warned. Use a secure 2nd form of auth.