The Bear Market is officially...OFF?!?

[bixcoin]

Looks like double digits today!

[keatonatron]

Down, down, down....

[Shinobi]

Confidence shatters. It's a long slide down folks.

[N12]

Confidence shatters. It's a long slide down folks.

Indeed. We've got a long way down.

[anu]

I also think the still-significant risk of BTC crashing to zero is heavily priced into the current market.

The risk of crashing to zero for pure market reasons is zero. Of course there can always be a fat finger....

[evolve]

Those who are truly confidently bearish on bitcoin (or any commodity/stock) will short sell as hard as possible, given the slightest opportunity. Right?

Not necessarily. I am bearish on bitcoin right now, but I don't see a point in adding more risk to an already extremely risky investment/speculative tool through margin trading.

[evolve]

Confidence shatters. It's a long slide down folks.

This. We will probably bubble up again eventually (after a period of stability at the bottom), but it's all downside for the forseeable future.

[Jutarul]

See, people keeps saying that, but no one really qualifies what they mean.

Here's what I see:

BTC payment services getting hacked (bitinstant), BTC wallet services being hacked, Lag on the exchanges grinding trading to a halt and killing liquidity, an overinflated price driven by media hype and people looking to get rich quick, an overinflated blockchain that may or may not contain child porn (or links to child porn), an economy driven primarily by drugs and grey market goods, etc, etc

....and thats just the tip of the iceburg.




Frankly, the fundamentals look like shit.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180882.msg1888636#msg1888636

[anu]

Confidence shatters. It's a long slide down folks.

This. We will probably bubble up again eventually (after a period of stability at the bottom), but it's all downside for the forseeable future.

History doesn't repeat itself. It only rhymes. Your prediction is self defeating if everyone believes it.

[schmokel]

See, people keeps saying that, but no one really qualifies what they mean.

Here's what I see:

BTC payment services getting hacked (bitinstant), BTC wallet services being hacked, Lag on the exchanges grinding trading to a halt and killing liquidity, an overinflated price driven by media hype and people looking to get rich quick, an overinflated blockchain that may or may not contain child porn (or links to child porn), an economy driven primarily by drugs and grey market goods, etc, etc

....and thats just the tip of the iceburg.




Frankly, the fundamentals look like shit.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180882.msg1888636#msg1888636

Yeah and let's not forget Bitfloor shutting down.

[Frozenlock]

History doesn't repeat itself. It only rhymes. Your prediction is self defeating if everyone believes it.

Indeed... but not everyone believes it.

See this forum and reddit posts "Wiring money to Gox now...  Oh cheap coins... etc".

[Malawi]

There might be a bounce up to $120-125, but I sold out the last of the little I had at 105.

Did cost me about 20% of my meager holdings, but I think FIAT is the safest atm. Have put in buy orders at 80-90 though, because I think it might linger in the $100 area before heading further down.

[Jutarul]

There might be a bounce up to $120-125, but I sold out the last of the little I had at 105.

Did cost me about 20% of my meager holdings, but I think FIAT is the safest atm. Have put in buy orders at 80-90 though, because I think it might linger in the $100 area before heading further down.

That's the kind of thinking which got us in the economic mess in the first place. You have to learn that there are players out there which prey on that strategy. It's called a stop-loss. While this tactics may make sense in an isolated case, it's a mechanism for them to scare you into giving up your BTC. It's similar to how the banks profit from engineered market crashes.

please let me make this clear:
PEOPLE! Stop playing the games you're not good at. If you're not a trading expert, invest only the money you have set aside for hedging with bitcoin and use PRICE-INDEPENDENT CRITERIA to determine whether to sell or buy (like paying utility bills or having spare USD liquidity). Otherwise you set yourself up for a game in which you have inherently the weaker hand.

[ElectricMucus]

There might be a bounce up to $120-125, but I sold out the last of the little I had at 105.

Did cost me about 20% of my meager holdings, but I think FIAT is the safest atm. Have put in buy orders at 80-90 though, because I think it might linger in the $100 area before heading further down.

That's the kind of thinking which got us in the economic mess in the first place.

What economy?

The one which includes "Bitcoin Supernodes"?

[bitcon]

See, people keeps saying that, but no one really qualifies what they mean.

Here's what I see:

BTC payment services getting hacked (bitinstant), BTC wallet services being hacked, Lag on the exchanges grinding trading to a halt and killing liquidity, an overinflated price driven by media hype and people looking to get rich quick, an overinflated blockchain that may or may not contain child porn (or links to child porn), an economy driven primarily by drugs and grey market goods, etc, etc

....and thats just the tip of the iceburg.




Frankly, the fundamentals look like shit.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180882.msg1888636#msg1888636

Yeah and let's not forget Bitfloor shutting down.

bitfloor was a small time operation destined to fail.  the Good you fail to see is Tradehill.com coming back up and other exchanges like btc-e and virwox still going strong.

[Malawi]

There might be a bounce up to $120-125, but I sold out the last of the little I had at 105.

Did cost me about 20% of my meager holdings, but I think FIAT is the safest atm. Have put in buy orders at 80-90 though, because I think it might linger in the $100 area before heading further down.

That's the kind of thinking which got us in the economic mess in the first place. You have to learn that there are players out there which prey on that strategy. It's called a stop-loss. While this tactics may make sense in an isolated case, it's a mechanism for them to scare you into giving up your BTC. It's similar to how the banks profit from engineered market crashes.

please let me make this clear:
PEOPLE! Stop playing the games you're not good at. If you're not a trading expert, invest only the money you have set aside for hedging with bitcoin and use PRICE-INDEPENDENT CRITERIA to determine whether to sell or buy (like paying utility bills or having spare USD liquidity). Otherwise you set yourself up for a game in which you have inherently the weaker hand.

We cannot all be as leet as you.

I feel pretty confident that BTC prices will continue to fall. I really don't know the rate though. Anything tripple digits feel unsecure ATM.
If you want to buy BTC at 105 at this point in time, please do so. But I see 85 as much more probable than 115 and don't want to be stranded with X BTC when I can have X*1.5 or more BTC in a few days.

This bubble is a hype, and we all know it. The prices are about 70% psychological. with a few whales that control the prices. I don't wanna be there when the prices hit 115 or 120 and the whales suddenly get something else to play with, and drop most of or all their inventory.

[evolve]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180882.msg1888636#msg1888636

While those are all nice reasons to buy bitcoin, none of those reasons justify the price rise from sub 20 to 260 in less than 4 months.....None of those things are new, and all of those reasons come with a catch:

1) wealth confiscation and reduced/no counter-party risk (brainwallets and free market valuation)

Exchanges being hacked, Exchanges stealing money, Wallet services getting hacked, Your wallet getting Hacked or deleted, Misplaced, stolen, or forgotten private key

2) quasi-instant trade settlement (no delivery games)

Unless you use escrow (which involves trusting a third party) the buyer risks a no delivery of goods and/or services with no recourse. Check out the scammer accusation subforum.

3) financial privacy (user adjustable)

This is definitely one of BTCs strong suits, its ability to be psuedoanonymous. Its anonymity is unwieldy in practice, though. You can never use exchanges, FTF meetings can identify you, etc...I suppose you could do dead drops or something though. You could just as easily buy a prepaid credit card with cash (or just use cash) for anonymous purchases.

4) batteries included (payment processing)

You also have to download a bloated blockchain (which takes forever, hogs space on your computer, and may contain child porn) or trust a third party wallet source

5) separation of power (money supply governance, miners vs. users)

As far as I can tell, the miners and devolpers are the government. When the blockchain forked a month or two ago, the developers and miners (or at least a mojority of them) decided which fork would be the valid one, and the choice was to comply or be left behind. The developers also have the power to change the protocol as they see fit, giving them the ultimate power over bitcoin. As an end user, I have no power over any of that.

  

[Odalv]

DUMP DUMP DUMP
I like to buy cheap bitcoins. (single number preferred)

[bixcoin]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180882.msg1888636#msg1888636

While those are all nice reasons to buy bitcoin, none of those reasons justify the price rise from sub 20 to 260 in less than 4 months.....None of those things are new, and all of those reasons come with a catch:

1) wealth confiscation and reduced/no counter-party risk (brainwallets and free market valuation)

Exchanges being hacked, Exchanges stealing money, Wallet services getting hacked, Your wallet getting Hacked or deleted, Misplaced, stolen, or forgotten private key

2) quasi-instant trade settlement (no delivery games)

Unless you use escrow (which involves trusting a third party) the buyer risks a no delivery of goods and/or services with no recourse. Check out the scammer accusation subforum.

3) financial privacy (user adjustable)

This is definitely one of BTCs strong suits, its ability to be psuedoanonymous. Its anonymity is unwieldy in practice, though. You can never use exchanges, FTF meetings can identify you, etc...I suppose you could do dead drops or something though. You could just as easily buy a prepaid credit card with cash (or just use cash) for anonymous purchases.

4) batteries included (payment processing)

You also have to download a bloated blockchain (which takes forever, hogs space on your computer, and may contain child porn) or trust a third party wallet source

5) separation of power (money supply governance, miners vs. users)

As far as I can tell, the miners and devolpers are the government. When the blockchain forked a month or two ago, the developers and miners (or at least a mojority of them) decided which fork would be the valid one, and the choice was to comply or be left behind. The developers also have the power to change the protocol as they see fit, giving them the ultimate power over bitcoin. As an end user, I have no power over any of that.

  

+1 !

I wanted to post something similar a few days ago. Those catches seem to be ignored too much by too many. Another one is that transactions are not instant. Sometimes they take far too long to be practical for daily use.
I myself invested in 2011 in BC and made some good money on the way. But I never used it to pay anything with it! I prefer using paypal or similar.
There I know that if something goes wrong, there is some way out of it. In BC there just isnt. And it turned out that this fact attracted many scammers so that nobody trusts anyone anymore.

[giarc]

There might be a bounce up to $120-125, but I sold out the last of the little I had at 105.

Did cost me about 20% of my meager holdings, but I think FIAT is the safest atm. Have put in buy orders at 80-90 though, because I think it might linger in the $100 area before heading further down.

That's the kind of thinking which got us in the economic mess in the first place. You have to learn that there are players out there which prey on that strategy. It's called a stop-loss. While this tactics may make sense in an isolated case, it's a mechanism for them to scare you into giving up your BTC. It's similar to how the banks profit from engineered market crashes.

please let me make this clear:
PEOPLE! Stop playing the games you're not good at. If you're not a trading expert, invest only the money you have set aside for hedging with bitcoin and  (like paying utility bills or having spare USD liquidity). Otherwise you set yourself up for a game in which you have inherently the weaker hand.

use PRICE-INDEPENDENT CRITERIA to determine whether to sell or buy

I'm sorry but this is the very essence of what caused the bubble, fundamentals tell you nothing without price and likewise the price tells you nothing without knowledge of the fundamentals.

What a buyer needs to estimate as well as he/she can is the ratio of  what you get (the value) to what you pay (the price). Value is defined by fundamentals transformed by a complicated function into cash flow and then discounted for risk and risk free return sacrificed, price is the guess of the participants as to tomorrows price and is what must be sacrificed today for the return in the future.

One without the other is useless without the context the other brings.