Average time for a 10% move in the USD price.

[dscotese]

On average, it has taken 112 days for the USD price of bitcoin to permanently (so far) rise by 10%.  This is using data only up to the end of March, 2013.  The Spike in May/June 2011 seems like a decent model for the spike to 265.  It took about 21 months from the top of that spike for bitcoin to exceed it by 10%.  I don't think it will take that long this time.

For over 2/3 of its life, bitcoin's USD price has permanently risen by 10% in less than three months.  If it falls below the low (about $70) of tax day 2013 (AKA Boston Bombing Day, and also the day of an extremely large drop in the price of gold), this will cut off only about two weeks, or two percent, of bitcoin's nearly three year history.

The price has consistently made 10% gains in less than a month for a month or more six times (Sep - Oct 2010, Nov 2010 - Jan 2011, end of March and beginning of April, 2011, Nov - Dec 2012, May & June 2012, and Dec, 2012, through half of March, 2012).  The last one was the longest stretch of such fast 10% moves, and, as we all know, preceded the shot to 265 and then fell back to a low of $68.  That move, however, started under $15.

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[WackyWilly]

Thanks for your data analysis.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say, though. If you're trying to say that BTC will keep rising in a similar fashion, then let me just add a word of caution: thinking things will be the way they always have been, is a inherent flaw in the thinking of us, humans. It may have saved us thousands of years ago out there on the Savannah ("if I see the grass moving, I start running for my life. It could be a tiger, or just the wind, but my running at least has never got me killed") but that doesn't make it valid reasoning.

Never undererstimate reality, Bitcoin could remain on that 10% track, or it could simply not.
Always be prepared to adopt the unthinkable, that's basically what I'd like to address.

[dscotese]

Thanks for your data analysis.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say, though. If you're trying to say that BTC will keep rising in a similar fashion, then let me just add a word of caution: thinking things will be the way they always have been, is a inherent flaw in the thinking of us, humans. It may have saved us thousands of years ago out there on the Savannah ("if I see the grass moving, I start running for my life. It could be a tiger, or just the wind, but my running at least has never got me killed") but that doesn't make it valid reasoning.

Never undererstimate reality, Bitcoin could remain on that 10% track, or it could simply not.
Always be prepared to adopt the unthinkable, that's basically what I'd like to address.

Indeed.  At some point, either no one will care any more (What's the price of a bitcoin in Weimar Republic Deutschmarks?), or else the average will slowly grow to infinity (doubtful).  A bitcoin will always represent a certain amount of work that proved something in the past.  A dollar has no such intrinsic representation of value.  A dollar may always represent a peculiar government that started out with heaps of liberty and shriveled into one of the most tyrannical, but if that happens, dollars created after some date will just be novelties that anyone could make if they wanted; fancy scraps of green cotton fabric.

Watching the average move fascinates me.  That last nearly three month stretch of consistent sub-month 10% increases is a useful signal for an overbought condition.

[naphto]

If bitcoin always did that before, I guess it is over.

[Seal]

I admire how you try to find rationality in what many see as very irrational movements. Its a little more difficult to predict than that though as the market is so illiquid in general (compared to typical currencies). A speculator with a large balance can easily move the market at their discretion.

Having said that, one trend I have seen continually repeat itself is the calm before the storm. Every major swing we have had, has been preceded by a long period of relative inactivity. Definitely looks like a hype driven market to me.