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

[Bronstad]

At the end of 2013, OKCoin closed a Series A round of funding led by Ceyuan Venture Capital, raising $10 million USD. A large portion of this funding will be invested in team building activities, R&D and security improvements.

[dreamspark]

So no serious answers then?

What is one good reason to have OKCoin on the foundation board if they are about to get shut down... There isn't one. And gox doesnt count, gox was on the board way before most the trouble and was also probably the only exchange to choose from in regards to having one on the board.

Sorry, but where did you read that okcoin is going to shut down? They have problems with banks that's all. As soon as they move to Hong Kong they will solve those problems   They already said they are moving out soon...

EDIT: they got 10mil$ few weeks ago... I doubt they will shut down so easly  

Maybe I should make it clearer, there are people in this thread who have been telling us that the Chinese exchanges will have no choice but to shut down when they have no banks to work with. They were particularly loud about it this morning with the exchange announcement but have since been abit quieter after the price bounced back. That was a rhetorical question to them more than my assertion.

This is in addition to the quotation I posted earlier from another forum member who was saying that the reason exchanges are having their accounts shut down is because they are not registered and they are using personal bank accounts rather than business ones.

TBH me personally would rather they just shut up and shut up shop or just move abroad. Whether they are getting shut down or not the uncertainty is just suppressing prices.

EDIT: That $10mm was the end of 2013 likely before the PBoC announcement.

[JorgeStolfi]

The chinese businessman in the other thread explains it very well. Basically the PBOC is too big to typical involve itself with something as small as bitcoin (which shows how threatened they are by it). For this reason, because the PBOC communicates with only the top level bank officials, the top level bank officials feel its beneath their pay grade to deal with and it gets passed down and eventually lost, because the people authorized with the responsibility don't want to do it - its embarrassing for them. It is in fact the exact opposite of what many bitcoin enthusiasts imagine - bitcoin is actually TOO SMALL for the banks to want to deal with closing all the accounts.

I don't know how much we should trust that Chinese businessman's analyses.  (How much would you trust a random American businessman's analysis of the US Government's policy about bitcoin?)

That said, most of it seems to make sense.  Huobi's trade volume is sometimes over 100 kBTC/day which means 50 M$/day, but that is only internal accounting and generates zero revenue.  They may take 1-2% of cash withdrawals, but even with 1 M$/day of withdrawals that would give 20'000 $/day at most.  Is insider trading their real source of revenue?  In any case, their revenue is probably less than that of a typical supermarket.  Would the US Federal Reserve Bank care about the troubles of five US supermarkets?

However, I would guess that money, rather than embarrassment, was the cause of the delays at the bottom of the command chain.  The banks definitely charge a few % for deposits and withdrawals. Several thousand dollars per day may mean nothing for the PBoC, but may quite significant revenue for a single bank branch.  The branch managers would want to keep that revenue coming in as much as they can, I would think.

[JorgeStolfi]

I'm unclear does all this apply to bitcoin manufacturer's? ....in other words you have a company that 'builds' asic devices for sale ....does this also effect them?

I would guess that the Chinese government has no objections to bitcoin mining and manufacture of mining harware, as long as their products are sold overseas.  On the contrary, they contribute to the country's exports and are therefore good.

[RUEHL]

BTC China, Huobi, Okcoin and two other exchanges are pulling out of the BTC Summit. 

http://www.coindesk.com/five-chinese-exchange-ceos-pull-out-conference/

"CEOs of five major Chinese bitcoin exchanges have withdrawn from this weekend’s Global Bitcoin Summit in Beijing, after banks forced most of them to close accounts related to bitcoin activity."

I saw that too.  It seems pretty last minute and pretty bearish.

Yea, the BTC Summit is going to be a bust.

[JorgeStolfi]

As far as i know we had bubbles of comparable magnitude before, with or without China.

The evolution of the BTC price since Oct/2013 can be explained in terms of Chinese events only, and does not seem to react to any events outside China.  Even the Feb/10 drop related to MtGOX was probably due to Mark's claim of a 'bug in the protocol' rather than the dealings of MtGOX itself. 

So it is hard to deny that the rise from ~100$ to ~1000$ and the current ~450$ are entirely due to the Chinese market.  If we consider percentual increase in price, indeed there were comparable bubbles before.  If we consider total demand for BTC, China was about 10x all the previous bubbles combined.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[dreamspark]

As far as i know we had bubbles of comparable magnitude before, with or without China.

The evolution of the BTC price since Oct/2013 can be explained in terms of Chinese events only, and does not seem to react to any events outside China.  Even the Feb/10 drop related to MtGOX was probably due to Mark's claim of a 'bug in the protocol' rather than the dealings of MtGOX itself. 

So it is hard to deny that the rise from ~100$ to ~1000$ and the current ~450$ are entirely due to the Chinese market.  If we consider percentual increase in price, indeed there were comparable bubbles before.  If we consider total demand for BTC, China was about 10x all the previous bubbles combined.

Jorge it is asinine to suggest that any rise in price since OCT was entirely due to the Chinese market I dont see why you make such broad, unsubstantiated and above all unprovable point.

Of course though to someone who now borders on the line of trolling its to be expected. The fact that the biggest exchange in the world stopped fiat withdrawals so the only way out was BTC of course did nothing to the price. Added to that the fact that SR was busted and everyone realized there was more to BTC than just SR that didnt help at all. Every single positive thing that happened between $100 - $1000 was of course down to the Chinese 

[oda.krell]

As far as i know we had bubbles of comparable magnitude before, with or without China.

The evolution of the BTC price since Oct/2013 can be explained in terms of Chinese events only, and does not seem to react to any events outside China.  Even the Feb/10 drop related to MtGOX was probably due to Mark's claim of a 'bug in the protocol' rather than the dealings of MtGOX itself. 

So it is hard to deny that the rise from ~100$ to ~1000$ and the current ~450$ are entirely due to the Chinese market.  If we consider percentual increase in price, indeed there were comparable bubbles before.  If we consider total demand for BTC, China was about 10x all the previous bubbles combined.

Obviously. Because price and demand driving the price are in a linear relation, huh?^*

It's a good thing you're a computer scientist, and not an economist, Jorge :D


^{* At least that's how I understood your argument about 10x price increase and "total demand".}

[octaft]

Another day in the mid 400s range. I'm telling you we will be in 400-500 land for quite a while. Accept it.

for a long time sellers have been in control of this market.

because, bad news weekly.

Or maybe it's because we just had an enormous bubble that needs to deflate?

[adamstgBit]

Another day in the mid 400s range. I'm telling you we will be in 400-500 land for quite a while. Accept it.

for a long time sellers have been in control of this market.

because, bad news weekly.

Or maybe it's because we just had an enormous bubble that needs to deflate?

it takes both  enormous bubble that needs to deflate and  bad news weekly. to really do some damage to the all mighty value creator that is bitcoin



you know it true....

[CoinHamster]

4h bitstamp 30day EMA-indicator follows since 2 days nearly exactly an 6-month trendline!?


 

 
 

[JorgeStolfi]

Yea, the BTC Summit is going to be a bust.

Who are the sponsors?  I saw a page that mentioned a company with apparent Chinese ownership and with ".pe" (Peruvian) domain, but never heard of them before.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[adamstgBit]

[octaft]

Incorrigible bull troll is incorrigible.

[knarzo]

Incorrigible bull troll is incorrigible.

So if the sign of the almighty $ would be printed on this bag you'd call him bull troll?

[octaft]

Incorrigible bull troll is incorrigible.

So if the sign of the almighty $ would be printed on this bag you'd call him bull troll?

Strawman. Try again.

[knarzo]

Incorrigible bull troll is incorrigible.

So if the sign of the almighty $ would be printed on this bag you'd call him bull troll?

Strawman. Try again.

What? Mkay Bye bye

[JorgeStolfi]

it is asinine to suggest that any rise in price since OCT was entirely due to the Chinese market I dont see why you make such broad, unsubstantiated and above all unprovable point.

I repeat: every move of the price since Oct/2013 correlates with events in China, starting with the opening of the Mainland Chinese market a couple of months before. The crash of early december, the recovery in late decenber/january, the decline since february - all can be explained with China only, with no obvious sign of influence from Western events.

Understandably, bitcoin enthusiasts and entrepreneurs in the West must hate the idea that bitcoin price is set by Chinese speculators, at the mercy of an extremely "statist" foreign government.  How can you promise profits and security to investors in that context?

The fact that the biggest exchange in the world stopped fiat withdrawals so the only way out was BTC of course did nothing to the price.

That came only after the Oct/Nov rally.  By early december there were still many who claimed that MtGOX withrawals were mostly working, only a bit slow.

The dollar withdrawal delays explained why MtGOX prices were 10% higher than those in other exchanges, but they cannot possibly explain the 1000% increase.

Added to that the fact that SR was busted and everyone realized there was more to BTC than just SR that didnt help at all.

I cannot follow that reasoning.  The busting of SR made people realize that bitcoin transactions were not invisible to the FBI at all. How could that have helped other uses?

The "cleansing"of bitcoin's image (which did not actually happen, it is still the "coin of crime" for many people)  cannot possibly explain a rise of 1000% in 2 months.  "Other uses" could not and did not expand that fast.  The Chinese market could and did.

By the way, I still don't know what caused the April/2013 jump.  Some said it was videos on YouTube; perhaps.  Could it have been the opening of the illegal drug market by SilkRoad?  Or was it the initial opening of the non-Mainland Chinese market by BTC-China?

Every single positive thing that happened between $100 - $1000 was of course down to the Chinese 

No, only that the "positive" things that happened outside China had very small effect, because they were relevant to only a small part of the market.  Why would the Chinese care about things like Overstock or SMBIT?

Besides, the rise from 100$ to 1000$ took less than 2 months.  What earth-shaking bitcoin developments happened in that interval?

Moreover many of those "positive" things were just vaporware or fizzled, and others had a negative impact when they failed.