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

[xulescu]

So much delusion here. Look at 1h charts for Stamp and Huobi. Do you notice anything odd in the last two days?

[knarzo]

So much delusion here. Look at 1h charts for Stamp and Huobi. Do you notice anything odd in the last two days?

Manipulators are getting desperate?

[JorgeStolfi]

The impending (and almost certain) closure of the bank withdrawal channels of Chinese exchanges will inevitably lead to transfer of some of the coins that are now in their client accounts to the Western exchanges.  More coins, no new dollars, can only cause the price in the West to go down. The only question is by how much.

How exactly that will play out seems still uncertain.  The Chinese exchanges have been remarkably silent after the last PBoC move, in contrast to the weeks after the late March Caixin leak.  One of them at least has said that it will avoid public announcements because it does not want to cause commotion in the market.

I wonder how far they will take this new "PR policy":

  1. The Chinese exchanges may give their clients advance warning of the bank withdrawal closure, or the closure will happen only on the May 10 deadline.  In that case I expect that there will be a rush by most Chinese clients to sell their bitcoin (which they cannot use for commerce in China, and probably do not believe it ever go to the moon) and withdraw the CNY while they can.  Other clients who have some connection to the West may choose to move their bitcoin to Western exchanges and continue trading there.  Abitragers, habitual or improvised, will use any CNY still in their accounts to buy cheap coins there and sell them in the West.  Then the price will drop in the Chinese exchanges, and the Western ones will follow.

  2. The Chinese exchanges will close CNY bank withdrawals before May 10, without advance warning.   Then many clients with CNY trapped in their accounts will try to buy bitcoin to move them out.  The price of bitcoin in China will probably rise sharply.  Arbitragers, insiders, and other clients who have other ways of withdrawing CNY will make handsome profits at the expense of ordinary clients.  Arbitrage may temporarily transfer some of that price increase to the West, but that will be counteracted by the pressure of other clients moving bitcoin to the West, even at a loss, to get their money out.  Since in the end the net amount of bitcoin in the Chinese exchanges must decrease, the latter effect must predominate, so the price in the West will decouple and fall while it rises in China.

  3. The Chinese exchanges may just shut down without any prior warning, or block bitcoin widthdrawals as well; so that both the CNY and bitcons of their clients will be trapped inside, except perhaps for some privileged users or some restricted non-bank channels.  This option seems very unlikely, considering what happened to the owners of the GBL exchange.

In any case, I imagine that some Chinese traders who keep most of their bitcoins in private wallets, outside the exchange, may want to sell them, since the withdrawal restrictions may take all the fun & profit out of the bitcoin speculation game.  Therfore some of those coins will also find their way to the Western exchanges.

[BitchicksHusband]

His hatred for our freedom knows no bounds, [ ... ]  He usually manages a semblance of sanity until his "libertarian" reaction formation is activated, whereupon all bets are off.

Good to see you airing those "academic" prejudices a little more openly again, prof.  Have the high priests of the global Bitcoin conspiracy been getting to you again?   Bitcoin could be your saviour but you're so terrified of some of its libertarian fans somehow taking complete control of this massive open-to-all consensus-based network that you'd rather dedicate your time to saving the world from those dangerous imaginary cultists [ ... ]

I think your political bias might be showing a tad. 

My sincere apologies if I ever gave the impression that I had any sympathy or respect whatsoever for the libertarian ideology.  If you care, I could try to remove any lingering doubts you may have about my opinions on the matter.

By the way, I am still trying to figure out what exactly is the "freedom" that the bitcoin "libertarians" are so obsessed about.

It seems that most of them are in the US or "US-like" countries, so it cannot be freedom of speech, religion, travel, residence, association, study, dress, drink, sex, marriage, work, property, trade, investment, enterprise, and many other basic freedoms that the citizens of those countries enjoy to a higher degree than most other people in the world (and that bitcoin cannot do anything about anyway).

So, what exactly are those "freedoms" that the "libertarians" miss, and hope to get through bitcoin?

For sure dinosaurs were discussing for quite a while what that burning thing was and how it will affect them.

The angry medieval mob with torches shouting, "Kill the dragon! Kill the dragon!"?

[octaft]

His hatred for our freedom knows no bounds, [ ... ]  He usually manages a semblance of sanity until his "libertarian" reaction formation is activated, whereupon all bets are off.

Good to see you airing those "academic" prejudices a little more openly again, prof.  Have the high priests of the global Bitcoin conspiracy been getting to you again?   Bitcoin could be your saviour but you're so terrified of some of its libertarian fans somehow taking complete control of this massive open-to-all consensus-based network that you'd rather dedicate your time to saving the world from those dangerous imaginary cultists [ ... ]

I think your political bias might be showing a tad. 

My sincere apologies if I ever gave the impression that I had any sympathy or respect whatsoever for the libertarian ideology.  If you care, I could try to remove any lingering doubts you may have about my opinions on the matter.

By the way, I am still trying to figure out what exactly is the "freedom" that the bitcoin "libertarians" are so obsessed about.

It seems that most of them are in the US or "US-like" countries, so it cannot be freedom of speech, religion, travel, residence, association, study, dress, drink, sex, marriage, work, property, trade, investment, enterprise, and many other basic freedoms that the citizens of those countries enjoy to a higher degree than most other people in the world (and that bitcoin cannot do anything about anyway).

So, what exactly are those "freedoms" that the "libertarians" miss, and hope to get through bitcoin?

Freedom from taxes, of course.

[sporket]

...
So, what exactly are those "freedoms" that the "libertarians" miss, and hope to get through bitcoin?

Freedom from taxes, of course.

"We wanna be free!
We wanna be free to do what we wanna do.
We wanna be free to ride. We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man!
... And we wanna get loaded!!"

[lynn_402]

His hatred for our freedom knows no bounds, [ ... ]  He usually manages a semblance of sanity until his "libertarian" reaction formation is activated, whereupon all bets are off.

Good to see you airing those "academic" prejudices a little more openly again, prof.  Have the high priests of the global Bitcoin conspiracy been getting to you again?  Bitcoin could be your saviour but you're so terrified of some of its libertarian fans somehow taking complete control of this massive open-to-all consensus-based network that you'd rather dedicate your time to saving the world from those dangerous imaginary cultists [ ... ]

I think your political bias might be showing a tad.  

My sincere apologies if I ever gave the impression that I had any sympathy or respect whatsoever for the libertarian ideology.  If you care, I could try to remove any lingering doubts you may have about my opinions on the matter.

By the way, I am still trying to figure out what exactly is the "freedom" that the bitcoin "libertarians" are so obsessed about.

It seems that most of them are in the US or "US-like" countries, so it cannot be freedom of speech, religion, travel, residence, association, study, dress, drink, sex, marriage, work, property, trade, investment, enterprise, and many other basic freedoms that the citizens of those countries enjoy to a higher degree than most other people in the world (and that bitcoin cannot do anything about anyway).

So, what exactly are those "freedoms" that the "libertarians" miss, and hope to get through bitcoin?

Freedom from bank bailouts and the continued devaluation of the dollar.

And freedom from having to let a central entithy - whose policies we disagree with in many ways - have total control over our means of exchange, which are perhaps the most important part of a civilized life.

Cryptocurrencies gives people control on their money -thus economical freedom-, while fiat is at the mercy of the whims of an irreasonable government which can't see more long-term than its term in office.

[Tzupy]

The impending (and almost certain) closure of the bank withdrawal channels of Chinese exchanges will inevitably lead to transfer of some of the coins that are now in their client accounts to the Western exchanges.  More coins, no new dollars, can only cause the price in the West to go down. The only question is by how much.

How exactly that will play out seems still uncertain.  The Chinese exchanges have been remarkably silent after the last PBoC move, in contrast to the weeks after the late March Caixin leak.  One of them at least has said that it will avoid public announcements because it does not want to cause commotion in the market.

I wonder how far they will take this new "PR policy":

  1. The Chinese exchanges may give their clients advance warning of the bank withdrawal closure, or the closure will happen only on the May 10 deadline.  In that case I expect that there will be a rush by most Chinese clients to sell their bitcoin (which they cannot use for commerce in China, and probably do not believe it ever go to the moon) and withdraw the CNY while they can.  Other clients who have some connection to the West may choose to move their bitcoin to Western exchanges and continue trading there.  Abitragers, habitual or improvised, will use any CNY still in their accounts to buy cheap coins there and sell them in the West.  Then the price will drop in the Chinese exchanges, and the Western ones will follow.

  2. The Chinese exchanges will close CNY bank withdrawals before May 10, without advance warning.   Then many clients with CNY trapped in their accounts will try to buy bitcoin to move them out.  The price of bitcoin in China will probably rise sharply.  Arbitragers, insiders, and other clients who have other ways of withdrawing CNY will make handsome profits at the expense of ordinary clients.  Arbitrage may temporarily transfer some of that price increase to the West, but that will be counteracted by the pressure of other clients moving bitcoin to the West, even at a loss, to get their money out.  Since in the end the net amount of bitcoin in the Chinese exchanges must decrease, the latter effect must predominate, so the price in the West will decouple and fall while it rises in China.

  3. The Chinese exchanges may just shut down without any prior warning, or block bitcoin widthdrawals as well; so that both the CNY and bitcons of their clients will be trapped inside, except perhaps for some privileged users or some restricted non-bank channels.  This option seems very unlikely, considering what happened to the owners of the GBL exchange.

In any case, I imagine that some Chinese traders who keep most of their bitcoins in private wallets, outside the exchange, may want to sell them, since the withdrawal restrictions may take all the fun & profit out of the bitcoin speculation game.  Therfore some of those coins will also find their way to the Western exchanges.

Good analysis, I think along the same lines, but was too lazy to write this down.
The big unknown is how high % of the Chinese bitcoins will be sold on Western exchanges.
If a lot, then we can expect something like 50k+ BTC ask sum on Bitstamp and the bids below 5M$, at the bottom of course.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[hdbuck]

pure example of why control and centralisation is useless and can be avoided with minimum harm:



http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2014/04/pas-besoin-de-rond-point.gif

[adamstgBit]

pure example of why control and centralisation is useless and can be avoided with minimum harm:



http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2014/04/pas-besoin-de-rond-point.gif

wtf is this for real somewhere?

[hdbuck]

pure example of why control and centralisation is useless and can be avoided with minimum harm:



http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2014/04/pas-besoin-de-rond-point.gif

wtf is this for real somewhere?

yeah i guess so, probably in india or somewhere like that with no road signals

[Cassius]

pure example of why control and centralisation is useless and can be avoided with minimum harm:



http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2014/04/pas-besoin-de-rond-point.gif

Blind luck? You can't really call a roundabout centralisation.
Not the best example of subsidiarity since I'm guessing quite a few people have ended up in hospital on that road. Just not in the ~20 frames of that gif.

[edwardspitz]

So much delusion here. Look at 1h charts for Stamp and Huobi. Do you notice anything odd in the last two days?

Yes, last night there was a rather large dump on Stamp but Huobi and OKCoin did not take notice. Maybe the traders on Huobi and OKCoin were busy with other things at that time. Is this what you are referring to?

[aminorex]

So, what exactly are those "freedoms" that the "libertarians" miss, and hope to get through bitcoin?

Rule of law, the freedom from slavery to the whims of unelected beaurocrats and illegitimate claims to the authority of law made by corrupt elected ones, would be nice.  To disillusion you, I offer an undispute fact, expressed in unusually frank and clear language:  The U.S. enslaves more people than any other nation on earth; there are more black males in slavery today than before the U.S. civil war.

[hdbuck]

pure example of why control and centralisation is useless and can be avoided with minimum harm:



http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2014/04/pas-besoin-de-rond-point.gif

Blind luck? You can't really call a roundabout centralisation.
Not the best example of subsidiarity since I'm guessing quite a few people have ended up in hospital on that road. Just not in the ~20 frames of that gif.

hmm i dont know, i mean, sure there must have been people ending up in hospital, but i dont think it outnumbered the people ending up in hospital in countries with road signals..
The point being adaptation. but yeah, im no expert, just trying to provide you folks with some cool illustrations

[octaft]

pure example of why control and centralisation is useless and can be avoided with minimum harm:



http://www.tuxboard.com/photos/2014/04/pas-besoin-de-rond-point.gif

Blind luck? You can't really call a roundabout centralisation.
Not the best example of subsidiarity since I'm guessing quite a few people have ended up in hospital on that road. Just not in the ~20 frames of that gif.

hmm i dont know, i mean, sure there must have been people ending up in hospital, but i dont think it outnumbered the people ending up in hospital in countries with road signals..
The point being adaptation. but yeah, im no expert, just trying to provide you folks with some illustrations and awesome gif

Actually <10 seconds on google reveals India to be one of the worst places for traffic accidents in the world.

[xyzzy099]

My sincere apologies if I ever gave the impression that I had any sympathy or respect whatsoever for the libertarian ideology.  If you care, I could try to remove any lingering doubts you may have about my opinions on the matter.

By the way, I am still trying to figure out what exactly is the "freedom" that the bitcoin "libertarians" are so obsessed about.

It seems that most of them are in the US or "US-like" countries, so it cannot be freedom of speech, religion, travel, residence, association, study, dress, drink, sex, marriage, work, property, trade, investment, enterprise, and many other basic freedoms that the citizens of those countries enjoy to a higher degree than most other people in the world (and that bitcoin cannot do anything about anyway).

So, what exactly are those "freedoms" that the "libertarians" miss, and hope to get through bitcoin?

There should be a different name for "Libertarianism" because it is not an "ism" at all.  "Ism"s are always doctrines of people who want to coerce others to do what the Ismist thinks should be done.  Libertarians don't want to coerce anyone into doing anything.

Libertarianism is simply the acknowledgement that it is the nature of humans to resist coercion.  If you look at the history of government, you will notice that it is quite naturally becoming less and less coercive as the centuries roll past, and it will continue to do so, simply because it is the basic nature of humans to resist coercion.  It doesn't matter if you understand or want this - it is simply a result of human nature.

It's heartening to see that you recognize the evolution of less coercive government that is represented by the United States of America, but I think it's silly that you suggest that we are free enough because we are in some ways freer than others.  It seems very natural to me that humans should always seek to maximize freedom and minimize coercion.

You seem to believe that civilization can only exist through coercion - and on that point Libertarians will disagree with you - but we still don't want to coerce you into doing what we want...  We just want you to stop trying to coerce us.

Maybe you are free enough, but some of us don't believe we have reached the optimal state just yet.  And we believe that Bitcoin technology, whether or not the bitcoin currency succeeds or fails, will be key in the further evolution of freedom and minimalization of coercion.

[donut]

 The U.S. enslaves more people than any other nation on earth; there are more black males in slavery today than before the U.S. civil war.

There are also more black males in general. Proportionally, I am sure there are quite a bit less slaves today than before.

[magicmexican]

6500 pages, bullish?