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

[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?

[1715009916]

1715009916

[1715009916]

1715009916

[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.   

[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.

What? Mkay Bye bye

I won in three words. That's got to be a record!

EDIT: Well, I guess 4 technically.

[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.

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

Agreed, that "10x demand" is just a very rough guess, based not only on the price increase but also on the demographics of the market as some articles have described it (not nerds, but mostly amateur speculators with no computer expertise, who used to speculate on other things - a profile that seems to be common in China but not in the US).

What is your guess for the number of coins that Chinese speculators have bought to speculate with -- 2x, or 50x, the Western number? 

[adamstgBit]

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?

Agreed, that "10x demand" is just a very rough guess, based not only on the price increase but also on the demographics of the market as some articles have described it (not nerds, but mostly amateur speculators with no computer expertise, who used to speculate on other things - a profile that seems to be common in China but not in the US).

What is your guess for the number of coins that Chinese speculators have bought to speculate with -- 2x, or 50x, the Western number?  

1/10th

[aminorex]

To clarify, your models suggest that:
1) BTC will bottom out in the period you have suggested (shortly after the China deadline, as it happens)
2) The US stock market is due for a downturn later this year (pointing to an economic downturn a few months later?)
3) Therefore Bitcoin 'outperforming' in this context could mean no growth at all, while the stock markets dip

What are your models' track records?

Correct.  The broad market model gives me roughly an 12% edge on directional r2k futures positions over 1 month.  The BTC model is not mature enough to measure accurately.  The more parameters in your model, the more data you need to avoid overfit.  BTC doesn't have enough history to provide useful quality metrics on a scale more than a few hours, for models of this complexity.  I've tried to use some tricks to avoid overfit, but I can't yet quantify my success or failure in that regard, for the current model, with a usable p value.

[dreamspark]

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?

Okay well for a start Chinese markets were open as early as 2011 so your mistaken there.

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.

Right and you don't think an exchanges price rising has an effect of dragging the others up. Yes it was 10% higher a lot of the time but the fact is when there is a decline in price as was seen mid to late last year because you couldn't get fiat out people would catch the falling knife quicker and thus would hold up other exchanges. As you have seen over the last several months arbitrage holds exchanges prices closely together so you don't have to be a brain surgeon to see the effect this has on the overall market.

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?

Thats because you weren't involved with Bitcoin earlier than last year. The only thing people like you had to say about BTC was its just used for buying drugs theres no other reason for it etc etc. Well look , the price didn't go to $0 as many were trying to say guess what that does? All the detractors who wrote it off as drug money are suddenly very interested, I mean how can something that was only used to buy drugs have value outside of drugs  

Really with the same old rhetoric ? The dollar and its ponzi scheme is the coin of crime.

Silk Road was open in 2011 so no. Your research is terrible and it makes your points almost laughable. How can I take you views seriously when you can't even find out when Silk Road opened, its even got a Wikipedia page.

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.  

The market went from 2 to 30, 15 - 266 in those sorts of time frames as well. Whats your point? It doesn't need earth shattering developments. Just like your seeing now good news came out and developments were happening all the time in the run up to November but the price hardly moves then all of a sudden the price starts rising. All the bears stand around wondering why even though they've just sat around for two months listening to all the developments, no doubt the same will happen this time. You seem to think the market is 100% speculation and needs 'news' to move. The market can move by normal dynamics such as adoption as well you know.

As it currently stands millions of dollars of vc funds and normal investors are building Bitcoin businesses, everyday those services open and gain a wider customer base. In time no doubt the price will rise again to accommodate this and you will be one of those screaming it back down saying how irrational it is. Its very easy to be like you in a bear market I can't wait to see what nonsense you produce in a bull one.

[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.

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

Agreed, that "10x demand" is just a very rough guess, based not only on the price increase but also on the demographics of the market as some articles have described it (not nerds, but mostly amateur speculators with no computer expertise, who used to speculate on other things - a profile that seems to be common in China but not in the US).

What is your guess for the number of coins that Chinese speculators have bought to speculate with -- 2x, or 50x, the Western number?  

1/10th

Jorge has been wooed by Chinas pretty volume numbers and actually thinks they own 90% of the coins.

[adamstgBit]

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?

Agreed, that "10x demand" is just a very rough guess, based not only on the price increase but also on the demographics of the market as some articles have described it (not nerds, but mostly amateur speculators with no computer expertise, who used to speculate on other things - a profile that seems to be common in China but not in the US).

What is your guess for the number of coins that Chinese speculators have bought to speculate with -- 2x, or 50x, the Western number?  

1/10th

Jorge has been wooed by Chinas pretty volume numbers and actually thinks they own 90% of the coins.

GIGO

Garbage in, garbage out

[adamstgBit]

thought it was funny so i share

[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?

Agreed, that "10x demand" is just a very rough guess, based not only on the price increase but also on the demographics of the market as some articles have described it (not nerds, but mostly amateur speculators with no computer expertise, who used to speculate on other things - a profile that seems to be common in China but not in the US).

What is your guess for the number of coins that Chinese speculators have bought to speculate with -- 2x, or 50x, the Western number?  

You're starting on a strangely simplistic premise, that "the Chinese" bought up a number of coins, have been hoarding them, and are now (slowly? not so slowly?) selling them off one by one, depressing the price.

It is probably more instructive to think of this in terms of supply/demand, which practically seems to mean: in terms of volume. (EDIT: /actual/ volume, not inflated one, hence the entire discussion in here how much we can trust volume on the Chinese exchanges). The relation between volume and supported price is complex, and I make no claim to fully understand it, but in a thread of my own I did some back-of-the-napkin calculations looking at volume on Western exchanges over the last months, arriving at a price target of 250 to 350. As in: if China drops out entirely, the current volume on Bitstamp+Btc-e+Bitfinex supports a price between 250-350, under the assumption that USD volume is a rough predictor of USD/BTC together with the conservative (and probably wrong) estimate that the lowest supported price per coin is related to an average of USD volume of the recent period by a constant.

[Bronstad]

Hey Guys look what I found on pastebin, looks like someone leaked some marching orders from the puppet masters.

How embarrassing!

Troll Talking Points
 May 6th, 2014

Greetings gentlemen, first let me start off and say you have been doing very good work lately.
However we would like to remind you that you need to post in other forums besides Speculation,
as it is becoming quite apparent when you purchased your account from a real member since the account
stopped posting in other forums. Remember keep up your appearances, so as to not blow your cover.

Also some of you have been posting too much in "TOTAL TROLL" mode. Remember you need to dial it back
every now and then and post like an actual moderate bear would. This lends you creditability for your
"TOTAL TROLL" mode, when it is deemed necessary by the powers that be. And also keeps the actual bears
on your side, and they will even back you up sometimes... LOL.

Now onto today's talking points:

* OPERATION FUD - People were starting to react positively to the term FUD being thrown around, and it was
  starting to dilute our message. As you know the effort to re-term it to mean Fact U Dislike has worked moderately.
  Please keep mentioning it when someone points out our actual use of FUD.
  
* CHINA, CHINA, CHINA - The powers that be are coming to the end of the China ban milking. Now that China's actual
  influence on the markets has dwindled its time to switch tactics. Let's try "China is the only thing that makes
  Bitcoin worth more than $100". Find correlations between events in China to price rising and failing. Nevermind
  the growth outside of China, keep them focused on China. We want maximum panic when the exchanges finally mention
  they are leaving China.
  
* CHARTS - Now that you've all been through "negative slope" training, don't forget throw up a couple trendlines
  that point out how Bitcoin is going down to $0. Remember its not you making the numbers go down, its just what
  the trend it pointing out. Don't forget an emoticon for an effective reaction
  

That's it for today. Your Bitcoin payments are on their way. Don't forget to put your shorts in, as you know we
definetely will let YOU know when the squeeze begins.

[Erdogan]

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

Value attractor. Is what it is. Allmighty.

[kireinaha]

Hey Guys look what I found on pastebin, looks like someone leaked some marching orders from the puppet masters.

How embarrassing!

Troll Talking Points
 May 6th, 2014

Greetings gentlemen, first let me start off and say you have been doing very good work lately.
However we would like to remind you that you need to post in other forums besides Speculation,
as it is becoming quite apparent when you purchased your account from a real member since the account
stopped posting in other forums. Remember keep up your appearances, so as to not blow your cover.

Also some of you have been posting too much in "TOTAL TROLL" mode. Remember you need to dial it back
every now and then and post like an actual moderate bear would. This lends you creditability for your
"TOTAL TROLL" mode, when it is deemed necessary by the powers that be. And also keeps the actual bears
on your side, and they will even back you up sometimes... LOL.

Now onto today's talking points:

* OPERATION FUD - People were starting to react positively to the term FUD being thrown around, and it was
  starting to dilute our message. As you know the effort to re-term it to mean Fact U Dislike has worked moderately.
  Please keep mentioning it when someone points out our actual use of FUD.
  
* CHINA, CHINA, CHINA - The powers that be are coming to the end of the China ban milking. Now that China's actual
  influence on the markets has dwindled its time to switch tactics. Let's try "China is the only thing that makes
  Bitcoin worth more than $100". Find correlations between events in China to price rising and failing. Nevermind
  the growth outside of China, keep them focused on China. We want maximum panic when the exchanges finally mention
  they are leaving China.
  
* CHARTS - Now that you've all been through "negative slope" training, don't forget throw up a couple trendlines
  that point out how Bitcoin is going down to $0. Remember its not you making the numbers go down, its just what
  the trend it pointing out. Don't forget an emoticon for an effective reaction
  

That's it for today. Your Bitcoin payments are on their way. Don't forget to put your shorts in, as you know we
definetely will let YOU know when the squeeze begins.

lmao

[UglyTroll]

Imao too

[p0peji]

Hey Guys look what I found on pastebin, looks like someone leaked some marching orders from the puppet masters.

How embarrassing!

Troll Talking Points
 May 6th, 2014

Greetings gentlemen, first let me start off and say you have been doing very good work lately.
However we would like to remind you that you need to post in other forums besides Speculation,
as it is becoming quite apparent when you purchased your account from a real member since the account
stopped posting in other forums. Remember keep up your appearances, so as to not blow your cover.

Also some of you have been posting too much in "TOTAL TROLL" mode. Remember you need to dial it back
every now and then and post like an actual moderate bear would. This lends you creditability for your
"TOTAL TROLL" mode, when it is deemed necessary by the powers that be. And also keeps the actual bears
on your side, and they will even back you up sometimes... LOL.

Now onto today's talking points:

* OPERATION FUD - People were starting to react positively to the term FUD being thrown around, and it was
  starting to dilute our message. As you know the effort to re-term it to mean Fact U Dislike has worked moderately.
  Please keep mentioning it when someone points out our actual use of FUD.
  
* CHINA, CHINA, CHINA - The powers that be are coming to the end of the China ban milking. Now that China's actual
  influence on the markets has dwindled its time to switch tactics. Let's try "China is the only thing that makes
  Bitcoin worth more than $100". Find correlations between events in China to price rising and failing. Nevermind
  the growth outside of China, keep them focused on China. We want maximum panic when the exchanges finally mention
  they are leaving China.
  
* CHARTS - Now that you've all been through "negative slope" training, don't forget throw up a couple trendlines
  that point out how Bitcoin is going down to $0. Remember its not you making the numbers go down, its just what
  the trend it pointing out. Don't forget an emoticon for an effective reaction
  

That's it for today. Your Bitcoin payments are on their way. Don't forget to put your shorts in, as you know we
definetely will let YOU know when the squeeze begins.

Busted! 

[JorgeStolfi]

Jorge has been wooed by Chinas pretty volume numbers and actually thinks they own 90% of the coins.

They certainly do not own 90% of all bitcoins, but it seems quite possible that the Chinese speculators (active exchange clients) own 80-90% of all the bitcoins owned by speculators worldwide.  (Of course there is no sharp divide between speculators and investors, but you get the idea, I hope.)

Most of the bitcoins that exist are probably owned by Western hoarders and long-term investors.  Which should be another reason to worry, besides the closing of the Chinese market: if a small fraction of those coins were to be dumped on the public market, they could easily push the price below 100$/BTC.  There is no dispute on this point, I suppose?