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

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[dnaleor]

Can anyone make a case that the price will not be at least twice this level within 90 days after COIN lists?

If not, let's assume it is so.  If there is a 50% chance of listing by November 8th, and the best estimator of the February 8th price without COIN is the current price, then the expected gain by 8 Feb is 50%.

That's roughly 100% annually.  It is a very very low estimate of the expectation of holding.  It may underestimate holding time however.

If you know anyone who can do without some non-zero amount of cash today, with the expectation of a 50% gain by 8 Feb, you should inform them, or you are no friend.

In other words, I'm done accumulating BTC for a while.  (Still working on XMR though.)

i'm done accumulating too
(and also working on XMR )

I told all my friends to get in at 70 level previous summer. Also told them to get in at 400-500 (and told they about the Bitcoin ETF)
They had their chance, I don't want to nag

[jeezy]

I'm really skeptical regarding these recurring trends. The situation is completely different, but we have seen in the past that even big world or bitcoin news don't seem to move the price that much. So maybe it will repeat like you suggest, maybe it will be flat till new year. Well, I guess I'm still waiting for the Indians to wake up and go crazy on BTC 

Okay, umm but what's so different? We actually had less positive news last year, it seems. In fact, we just had the silk road seizure back then.

There is no positive or negative, there is just movement. Every news can bear or bull. If that is "good" or "bad" for you is a whole other story.

[empowering]

Could this get any less volatile? nope... but it soon will do methinks     Nearly at an all time low... similar to before past rallies

 I wonder what this next spike in volatility is going to bring... last few rallies had three mini spikes in volatility during bear runs,  before going to near ATL in volatility , and then .....massive spike.  Hopefully we get a massive rally too



 

[Dotto]

Bids on Stamp look healthy. 1000 BTC to 620$ ; 3000 BTC to 610$. Ready to lift off. We also have a very similar fractal compared with the 430$ breakout.


TO THE MOON

is this a Fonzie I see before me?

You are the only one here not ignoring fonzie  

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[diebuntekuh]

Bids on Stamp look healthy. 1000 BTC to 620$ ; 3000 BTC to 610$. Ready to lift off. We also have a very similar fractal compared with the 430$ breakout.


TO THE MOON

is this a Fonzie I see before me?

You are the only one here not ignoring fonzie  

Whenever fonzie shows up it's a good time to buy

[sickpig]

Can anyone make a case that the price will not be at least twice this level within 90 days after COIN lists?

So for you it's just a matter of "when".... I'm glad.

[greenlion]

Can anyone make a case that the price will not be at least twice this level within 90 days after COIN lists?

So for you it's just a matter of "when".... I'm glad.

Objectively speaking, once an ETF is available as a public investment vehicle, anyone who does not at least have exposure as a small percentage of a tax-deferred retirement portfolio is completely out of their mind. That alone is a monstrous amont of capital, total US retirement assets are on the order of $20 trillion. Capturing just one tenth of one percent of that would be about $20 billion slamming right into the float.

[birr]

I've always found staggering credibility in your posts.

Perhaps in this case my staggering credibility derived from copping to the fact that I'm too lazy/dumb to do the proper maths.  And from the fact that I am staggering just a bit.

stagger |ˈstagər| verb
1 walk or move unsteadily, as if about to fall:
2 astonish or deeply shock: (as adj. staggering)

The question is: did he mean definition 1 or 2?

In any case, I agree that it is difficult to overstate the potential impact of COIN.  

Difficult, yes.  But you guys are doing a bang-up job.  Of hyperventilating.
The effective New York ban on bitcoin (which they call "bitlicense" or "regulation")
will have a much profounder long-term impact than COIN.

[empowering]

just going to pop this here :  http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/22/uk-argentina-debt-negotiation-analysis-idUKKBN0FR16M20140722

[QuestionAuthority]

It looks like the stable value of Bitcoin is between $600-$630? How long has it held in this range now?

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[empowering]

It looks like the stable value of Bitcoin is between $600-$630? How long has it held in this range now?

It has not gone below 600 in past 22 days- it has flipped a few times over 630 by varying amounts

Something happened around 22 days ago.....

[QuestionAuthority]

It looks like the stable value of Bitcoin is between $600-$630? How long has it held in this range now?

It has not gone below 600 in past 22 days- it has flipped a few times over 630 by varying amounts

Something happened around 22 days ago.....

That's pretty good stability for Bitcoin. This is what's needed for adoption. Gradual small moves I mean.

[empowering]

It looks like the stable value of Bitcoin is between $600-$630? How long has it held in this range now?

It has not gone below 600 in past 22 days- it has flipped a few times over 630 by varying amounts

Something happened around 22 days ago.....

That's pretty good stability for Bitcoin. This is what's needed for adoption. Gradual small moves I mean.

Indeed, though I do think the market cap/trade volume needs to increase for there to be the greater liquidity needed to keep the volatility
down once and for all- I do not think we are there yet by a long chalk - which is pleasing in a way   - and so I expect plenty more volatility for quite a few years to come yet.  I do not think we are going to have to wait too long for the next round of volatility either tbh.

[JayJuanGee]

The listing of COIN will be a liquidity event like no other in BTC history.  The most extreme bubble in BTC history is the 53x ramp from April to June of 2011.  It would be unreasonable not to consider that the impact of COIN might exceed that event, therefore.  A 60x ramp would achieve that by a significant margin, without breaking new territory.  

Let's suppose that there is a 50% chance of COIN being listed, and an 90% chance of a multi-month topping formation to ensue, and a 10% chance of that formation, conditional upon its formation, breaking a new scale record.  I consider all of these estimates to be low-ball.  The resulting contribution to the aggregate value of a bitcoin in Q1 2015, over all scenarios, is 920; a 25 bp/diem return means that if all other scenarios were flat zeros, even so your expection is net 9 bp/diem positive carry against current BFX margin rates.  

If the stopping time of a 13% margin call at 620 is less that sqrt((920-620)*9/25) ~ 10 times the duration of the scenario (I take at 160 days), then there is a net negative expectation.  I will spare you the stopping time calculation (a bunch of stochastic integration very ill-suited to a forum post).  It is much less.  In other words, I consider provable given a few reasonable and not very limiting scenario assumptions (although not here proven even conditionally) the (perhaps obvious) conclusion that even the most eggregiously optimistic scenario cannot justify the risk of full margined carry, unless you can get substantially better rates (or higher leverage limits) elsewhere.

Holding, on the other hand, is a no-brainer.  

Intermediate leverage falls between, and I have yet to calculate the optimum, which depends on better scenario coverage for its confidence margins.  It really requires a numerical approximation to do it on a principled basis with reasonable margins, at my level of understanding.  I couldn't expect to produce a closed form for the general case in the time one could allow to do a doctoral dissertation, so it's just not practical for me to try.

TL;DR: HODL

Your posts tend to be fairly inspirational regarding the likely bullish direction of BTC prices.

Currently, I hold more than 100BTC, and I have been very tempted to double or triple my BTC holdings; however, I am a little nervous about such a decision.

I have around $400k in tax deferred index fund accounts (stock market, bonds and govt bonds), and it would be possible for me to make a one-time withdrawal of part or all of those funds, without any tax penalty - though it would likely be a taxable event, unless the funds are rolled into another tax-deferred vehicle.  I have been considering withdrawing $150k to put towards BTC... but then I would definitely be less diversified in my total investment package, and I would have a larger percentage of my quasi-liquid assets invested in BTC....   

I am pretty confident about the direction of BTC going up rather than down, yet I remain a little uneasy about making such a leap with my quasi-liquid assets and to take such a step.

Over the years, my various tax deferred index fund investments have earned an average of a bit over 6% per year, even though they have been doing better in the last few years - especially after recovering from the 30% decline in 2007.  For example, these tax deferred index fund investments they earned more than 21% in 2013, and about 6% in the first half of 2014.   

Nonetheless, I continue to lose confidence in holding these various quasi-liquid assets in USD, in part b/c I have additional other less liquid assets in USD, as well.  Additionally, as many participants in BTC believe that there are a considerable number of impending problems with USD, especially given the intense levels of quantitative easing that had been occurring, since about 2008 and seemingly ongoing. 

It seems that if there are future failures with USD, then those USD failures will be inversely related to BTC appreciation in value.   In this regard, it seems more likely that BTC values will double or triple (or even appreciate greater 10 to 100x) in the next few years, rather than my index funds, which could double (2x) in 10-15 years, if I am lucky.

I understand that ultimately these remain personal investment choices that each person has to make based on his/her own risk tolerances, assets and investment timeline.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[JustBetweenUs]

The listing of COIN will be a liquidity event like no other in BTC history.  The most extreme bubble in BTC history is the 53x ramp from April to June of 2011.  It would be unreasonable not to consider that the impact of COIN might exceed that event, therefore.  A 60x ramp would achieve that by a significant margin, without breaking new territory.  

Let's suppose that there is a 50% chance of COIN being listed, and an 90% chance of a multi-month topping formation to ensue, and a 10% chance of that formation, conditional upon its formation, breaking a new scale record.  I consider all of these estimates to be low-ball.  The resulting contribution to the aggregate value of a bitcoin in Q1 2015, over all scenarios, is 920; a 25 bp/diem return means that if all other scenarios were flat zeros, even so your expection is net 9 bp/diem positive carry against current BFX margin rates.  

If the stopping time of a 13% margin call at 620 is less that sqrt((920-620)*9/25) ~ 10 times the duration of the scenario (I take at 160 days), then there is a net negative expectation.  I will spare you the stopping time calculation (a bunch of stochastic integration very ill-suited to a forum post).  It is much less.  In other words, I consider provable given a few reasonable and not very limiting scenario assumptions (although not here proven even conditionally) the (perhaps obvious) conclusion that even the most eggregiously optimistic scenario cannot justify the risk of full margined carry, unless you can get substantially better rates (or higher leverage limits) elsewhere.

Holding, on the other hand, is a no-brainer.  

Intermediate leverage falls between, and I have yet to calculate the optimum, which depends on better scenario coverage for its confidence margins.  It really requires a numerical approximation to do it on a principled basis with reasonable margins, at my level of understanding.  I couldn't expect to produce a closed form for the general case in the time one could allow to do a doctoral dissertation, so it's just not practical for me to try.

TL;DR: HODL

Your posts tend to be fairly inspirational regarding the likely bullish direction of BTC prices.

Currently, I hold more than 100BTC, and I have been very tempted to double or triple my BTC holdings; however, I am a little nervous about such a decision.

I have around $400k in tax deferred index fund accounts (stock market, bonds and govt bonds), and it would be possible for me to make a one-time withdrawal of part or all of those funds, without any tax penalty - though it would likely be a taxable event, unless the funds are rolled into another tax-deferred vehicle.  I have been considering withdrawing $150k to put towards BTC... but then I would definitely be less diversified in my total investment package, and I would have a larger percentage of my quasi-liquid assets invested in BTC....   

I am pretty confident about the direction of BTC going up rather than down, yet I remain a little uneasy about making such a leap with my quasi-liquid assets and to take such a step.

Over the years, my various tax deferred index fund investments have earned an average of a bit over 6% per year, even though they have been doing better in the last few years - especially after recovering from the 30% decline in 2007.  For example, these tax deferred index fund investments they earned more than 21% in 2013, and about 6% in the first half of 2014.   

Nonetheless, I continue to lose confidence in holding these various quasi-liquid assets in USD, in part b/c I have additional other less liquid assets in USD, as well.  Additionally, as many participants in BTC believe that there are a considerable number of impending problems with USD, especially given the intense levels of quantitative easing that had been occurring, since about 2008 and seemingly ongoing. 

It seems that if there are future failures with USD, then those USD failures will be inversely related to BTC appreciation in value.   In this regard, it seems more likely that BTC values will double or triple (or even appreciate greater 10 to 100x) in the next few years, rather than my index funds, which could double (2x) in 10-15 years, if I am lucky.

I understand that ultimately these remain personal investment choices that each person has to make based on his/her own risk tolerances, assets and investment timeline.

Get rid of that worthless fiat. Only keep what you plan on spending. You know it is the right thing to do, you explained it pretty well yourself in your second-to-last paragraph.

[JayJuanGee]

Nice!!!!!!!

We moved up $3.00!!!!


 

what do I know just my pessimistic view over getting beat up on bitcoin by the above family/friends/co-workers etc that I tried to tell about it
last fall.....the consensus in my small world/group has not changed..in fact it seems more hostile...again if I'm right they all missed the boat


Searing

..Had a conversation last weekend with an otherwise very intelligent guy. He also thinks bitcoin is a ponzi and a scam..
We talked about the concept on money and ponzi's.. i didn't convince him of anything.. nor did he convince me of anything.. (his arguments were nothing i haven't heard before anyway)
At least he had heard of it and some opinions on it.. even if i thought they were wrong.

I don't waste time on people like this.. it's not my job to change their minds.. but maybe like you, we can revisit the topic in another 1/2 year.. and might have a different conversation.

Actually, over the 4th of July week, I had various opportunities to talk with a lot of old friends and relatives, and certainly, I brought up bitcoin with a number of them.  In fact, a few of these people had heard about bitcoin and seemed fairly well-informed about it  (even though their sources seemed to be from mainstream media - which caused them to be much less informed than they thought they were about the topic). 

In the end, it was fairly apparent that I was much more informed then each of them, and a few of these people told me that they would look into the matter further.  I have considerable doubts regarding whether more than 1 or 2 of them will invest.  I suggested that they just set up an account, and buy a small amount... anywhere between .1BTC and 20BTC.

I do enjoy talking with people who are interested in bitcoin, even though in the end, they have to decide for themselves about whether they are going to invest or NOT or whether they are going to research into the matter.  I tell them what I am doing regarding my BTC investment (more or less), and I tell them that I have researched into BTC fairly extensively, and I tell them that I am NOT trying to persuade them to invest or to sell them on the idea b/c even though I profit with increased BTC adoption, my profiting from BTC does NOT depend upon whether or NOT they invest.  I say that BTC prices are going to be going up, whether they chose to invest or NOT.

I tell these people that  I am only giving them a pointer of inside information based on my researching and investment into the matter, and in the future, they will likely thank me, if they act upon my information and chose to invest at this time and then to develop an ongoing research and investment strategy into BTC...or alternatively, just hold the BTC that they buy for a few years.  I also indicate that I can be available as a resource, in the event that they have questions or concerns about their research into BTC specifics.