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

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[aminorex]

It was interesting after AnonyMint's lengthy and detailed rebuttal of why Bitpay is such great news for BTC that responses there came...none.

Or should I say...sheesh

Yeah, maybe I should compose a lengthy rejoinder?  I don't think it's worth the time.  Anonymint is clever and educated, but obstinate and sometimes obsessively ideological.  Which works for his purposes, but I see little point in trying to correct him (unless he's making an error which is likely to hurt himself or someone else).  Heck he argues well enough so that he might convince me to be wrong too.

Anyhow, bitpay adds liquidity to BTC which increases the utility and hence use of BTC, which increases demand.  Everyone who spends via bitpay has to get BTC somewhere, somehow.  It is certainly true that if one could only buy BTC and never sell it, then in the presence of a fixed non-zero demand, the price of BTC would be higher than if selling was an option.  But the fact is that demand is not fixed, and in the long run, steady-state, demand would go to zero and price to zero in that scenario.  The sustainable condition is that supply and demand are matched, and price varies to accomodate that equation.  The more BTC is used, the higher the demand, and the higher the price will go to find supply. 

Bitpay is use.  Use is good.

[p0peji]

And see here the problem with Bitcoin. Miners are accumulating without wanting to sell "Because MOON!!!11", buyers are unwilling to buy "Because through the FLOOR!!!111". So the only conclusion that rests is that the bitcoin economy is saturated atm.

[JorgeStolfi]

Nice, but I would just have bought 75k more btc at this point.. (Hopefully Bitpay do)

I thought I read somewhere that Bitpay does not hold bitcoins, they sell them right awy.  Am I wrong?

[rpietila]

Nice, but I would just have bought 75k more btc at this point.. (Hopefully Bitpay do)

I thought I read somewhere that Bitpay does not hold bitcoins, they sell them right awy.  Am I wrong?

You are probably right, but after some time you will see why I suggested holding their company kitty in BTC 

[dreamspark]

It was interesting after AnonyMint's lengthy and detailed rebuttal of why Bitpay is such great news for BTC that responses there came...none.

Or should I say...sheesh

Yeah, maybe I should compose a lengthy rejoinder?  I don't think it's worth the time.  Anonymint is clever and educated, but obstinate and sometimes obsessively ideological.  Which works for his purposes, but I see little point in trying to correct him (unless he's making an error which is likely to hurt himself or someone else).  Heck he argues well enough so that he might convince me to be wrong too.

Anyhow, bitpay adds liquidity to BTC which increases the utility and hence use of BTC, which increases demand.  Everyone who spends via bitpay has to get BTC somewhere, somehow.  It is certainly true that if one could only buy BTC and never sell it, then in the presence of a fixed non-zero demand, the price of BTC would be higher than if selling was an option.  But the fact is that demand is not fixed, and in the long run, steady-state, demand would go to zero and price to zero in that scenario.  The sustainable condition is that supply and demand are matched, and price varies to accomodate that equation.  The more BTC is used, the higher the demand, and the higher the price will go to find supply. 

Bitpay is use.  Use is good.

I do agree and certainly in the sense of the long term but I find it hard to wrap my head around the idea that just because its being used its a good thing. In money velocity terms it is but the fact is if 10% of people don't buy btc to replace what they spend the net effect on the price is that to sustain the same levels you need new investors to inject that missing 10%.

The other thing is while you are right that they had to get the coins sometime and somewhere, that demand theoretically drove the price up, if that demand is lost (by spending and not buying again) how can the net gain , without new investors, be positive?

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[JorgeStolfi]

The other thing is while you are right that they had to get the coins sometime and somewhere, that demand theoretically drove the price up, if that demand is lost (by spending and not buying again) how can the net gain , without new investors, be positive?

IIRC, Bitpay said that they processed about 100 M$ in payments in 2013. 

At today's prices, it would be roughly 200'000 BTC.  I wonder how much of that is spending from old hoards, as opposed from BTC bought recently at some exchange.

Anyone knows how much money they made from that?  I can't see how to figure it out from their fee policy...

[aminorex]

The other thing is while you are right that they had to get the coins sometime and somewhere, that demand theoretically drove the price up, if that demand is lost (by spending and not buying again) how can the net gain , without new investors, be positive?

"Demand" is a complex concept.  In ordinary language we use the word to refer to many things.  But the underlying system has well-defined characteristics.  There is a finite resource:  The integral of holdings over time.  This 2d space is denominated in btc-seconds.   Every square unit is always allocated in some way.  If you require a rectangle of this plane, then you are adding demand.  It doesn't matter whether the rectangle is vertically oriented (large amount, short time) or horizontally oriented (small amount, large time).  What does matter is whether the demand (the regions of the plane which are desired to allocate) overlaps.  Overlapping demands drive the price up until the demand regions no longer overlap.  Any BTC in the air in bitpay constitute a very long shallow slice of this rectangular space.

[tupelo]

aminorex, may I say that you are a fantastic addition to this forum. Your usage of the english language is impressive

[rpietila]

The other thing is while you are right that they had to get the coins sometime and somewhere, that demand theoretically drove the price up, if that demand is lost (by spending and not buying again) how can the net gain , without new investors, be positive?

Any BTC in the air in bitpay constitute a very long shallow slice of this rectangular space.

What is perhaps the more important effect, though: Having transactional uses for bitcoins make it a more interesting holding in general, adding incrementally to the height of many of the other rectangles.

[thezerg]

The other thing is while you are right that they had to get the coins sometime and somewhere, that demand theoretically drove the price up, if that demand is lost (by spending and not buying again) how can the net gain , without new investors, be positive?

"Demand" is a complex concept.  In ordinary language we use the word to refer to many things.  But the underlying system has well-defined characteristics.  There is a finite resource:  The integral of holdings over time.  This 2d space is denominated in btc-seconds.   Every square unit is always allocated in some way.  If you require a rectangle of this plane, then you are adding demand.  It doesn't matter whether the rectangle is vertically oriented (large amount, short time) or horizontally oriented (small amount, large time).  What does matter is whether the demand (the regions of the plane which are desired to allocate) overlaps.  Overlapping demands drive the price up until the demand regions no longer overlap.  Any BTC in the air in bitpay constitute a very long shallow slice of this rectangular space.

Here's a simple way to think about it.  The existence of a bitpay outlet probably won't increase/decrease the fundamental consumption of the stuff being bought medium and long term.  So people would (on average) sell the BTC on an exchange and buy the same products anyway.  

But every time they use BTC directly, the overall economic system directly gains the difference between the cost to use BTC and the cost to use paypal/credit card potentially with regional currency conversions (so around 2.5% to 5+%).  And both the customers and merchants have indirect savings in time and efficiency by not having to battle credit card fraud.  Consumer time savings when doing international transfers or WU is also huge.

Ignoring all the hype, adoption etc, its this fundamental advantage that will drive Bitcoin adoption long term.  

AnonMint's silly argument wins the battle but loses the war.

[hd060053]

does anyone know where the major volume is now?

seems like huobi is not market leader anymore and the low (still faked?) volume has no more impact.


Bitstamp has low volume too.


so where is the volume now ? (first it was gox, then btcchina, then huobi, and now? whats the next big thing?? )

[EuroTrash]

The other thing is while you are right that they had to get the coins sometime and somewhere, that demand theoretically drove the price up, if that demand is lost (by spending and not buying again) how can the net gain , without new investors, be positive?

"Demand" is a complex concept.  In ordinary language we use the word to refer to many things.  But the underlying system has well-defined characteristics.  There is a finite resource:  The integral of holdings over time.  This 2d space is denominated in btc-seconds.   Every square unit is always allocated in some way.  If you require a rectangle of this plane, then you are adding demand.  It doesn't matter whether the rectangle is vertically oriented (large amount, short time) or horizontally oriented (small amount, large time).  What does matter is whether the demand (the regions of the plane which are desired to allocate) overlaps.  Overlapping demands drive the price up until the demand regions no longer overlap.  Any BTC in the air in bitpay constitute a very long shallow slice of this rectangular space.

I simply love this analogy.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[JayJuanGee]

...Until yesterday he probably thought that the yellow press articles were true! Shocking.  
...

Yeah, the media could be somewhat unreliable at times...

How The Press Sees it:


Teh Reality:

...
Challenge him his ideas, theories, charts, lack of ability to admit mistakes, etc. But I think his mental health, real estate and photo ops are off limits, unless its in good nature.

The d00d brought up that "castle" apropo of nothing, posting a shooped picture just to brag.  Not even mentioning it was a shoop.

No one cared about his mental health until he flooded the forum with confessional attention whoring, painstakingly cataloging every detail of his lulzy predicament.

The second picture looks fake, too.  A little reality would be nice. 

I do agree that Rpietila seems to have a tendency for attention whoring and self-aggrandizing, that likely contributes to the level of wrath that he receives in this thread.  Some of his posts are fairly clear and well organized, and other posts are like ? what the fuck is he saying?   

Maybe if the BTC price could move a little bit (hopefully in the "right" direction), then some of us will feel less inclined to write about Rpietila, and his latest shenanigans or his seemingly purposeful evading of clarity or responsibility?  Then if the price moves in thte "right" direction, Rpietila can come into this thread and tell us, "I told you so?"   I certainly would like him to be correct in some of his fantasy land predictions... that way I would be able to invoke some SSS, at least my own variation of such.

[BitChick]

...Until yesterday he probably thought that the yellow press articles were true! Shocking.  
...

Yeah, the media could be somewhat unreliable at times...

How The Press Sees it:


Teh Reality:

...
Challenge him his ideas, theories, charts, lack of ability to admit mistakes, etc. But I think his mental health, real estate and photo ops are off limits, unless its in good nature.

The d00d brought up that "castle" apropo of nothing, posting a shooped picture just to brag.  Not even mentioning it was a shoop.

No one cared about his mental health until he flooded the forum with confessional attention whoring, painstakingly cataloging every detail of his lulzy predicament.

The second picture looks fake, too.  A little reality would be nice. 

I do agree that Rpietila seems to have a tendency for attention whoring and self-aggrandizing, that likely contributes to the level of wrath that he receives in this thread.  Some of his posts are fairly clear and well organized, and other posts are like ? what the fuck is he saying?   

Maybe if the BTC price could move a little bit (hopefully in the "right" direction), then some of us will feel less inclined to write about Rpietila, and his latest shenanigans or his seemingly purposeful evading of clarity or responsibility?  Then if the price moves in thte "right" direction, Rpietila can come into this thread and tell us, "I told you so?"   I certainly would like him to be correct in some of his fantasy land predictions... that way I would be able to invoke some SSS, at least my own variation of such.

Let's face it. Rpietila is just an interesting person.  Who else on this board has purchased a castle?  He is pretty transparent compared to most of us too so he has unfortunately given people a "target" or personality that they can focus on.  When we get bored and Bitcoin isn't doing much then we have to find something interesting to discuss.     

[Ultros]

and you always tend to lick his balls, dont you have a husband for that ?

So classy. Internet...you never disappoint.

[F-bernanke]

Lots of jealous people here... I for one have a lot of respect for Rpietila. Keep up the good work Risto!

[JayJuanGee]

a $30mm investment round by the looks of it?

think it through, people. sheesh.

Nice, but I would just have bought 75k more btc at this point.. (Hopefully Bitpay do)

Somebody has to invest in the bitcoin infrastructure, no?  If we only have people buying BTC and NOT making bitcoin infrastructure investments, then what?  Probably some stagnation. 

Actually, some sources put total bitcoin infrastructure investments at less than $200 million.  That less than $200 million number sounds quite low to me, but it does seems that the more investments that are made into BTC infrastructure, then the more publicity of BTC in order to promote such infrastructure investments. 

I would imagine that the real exponential growth potential regarding BTC comes through various BTC infrastructure investments (and NOT merely the buying of coins), and even you personally seem to be propagating investment in the bitcoin infrastructure by marketing your hotel as a potential bitcoin hub.  If you truly are holding in the neighborhood of 10k coins, it seems prudent for you to utilize some of your stash towards the expansion of the BTC infrastructure.