What has caused the latest drop > 114USD ( Now 107)

[tokeweed]

oh and valence. imagine if btc breaks down below 100 (the psychological barrier). do you think everyone will keep holding on? 

and for the people buying right now believing it is 'cheap' right now but then finds out it keeps going down. they'd go ape shit and click that sell button making it go down further.

now, what you gonna do?  that's the question.

[kelsey]

Maybe people using ripple to buy BTC with XRP's which doesn't require (and often person to person from hoarded investment BTC) then offloading to Mt Gox for USD.

[freedomno1]

Market manipulation
In reality probably development funding and difficulty adjustments

[tokeweed]

sunday bloody sunday.

102 at mt.gox right now. almost at the 100 psychological barrier.

let's if it breaks.

[johnwhitestar]

I think that when the first ASICS went online they took a huge share of net hashpower and was mining a lot of BTC. So they was hoarding a lot of them, creating a vacuum on the market, helped by the halving. That is the reason of the 226 spike.
But as much new ASICS are going online the competition between the ASICS owners become more and more strong and the shares of the total net hashpower are getting thiner for each of the ASCIS owner.
But they need to cover their investments and expenses, so they are cashing out as soon as they can and some of the early ASCICS owners are doing the same with a part of BTC hoarded previously, because they can't be sure they will get the same price soon.
That is the reason why the price is going down right now, from my point of view.

[suryc]

Well, it dipped below 100 momentarily.

Fundamentally, I don't see why the price should go down too much. I would think that as Difficulty increases, the value of a BTC would also increase because the cost of mining new coins has increased (cost in terms of hardware anyway).

[aaaxn]

Well, it dipped below 100 momentarily.

Fundamentally, I don't see why the price should go down too much. I would think that as Difficulty increases, the value of a BTC would also increase because the cost of mining new coins has increased (cost in terms of hardware anyway).

I think it is actually other way around now. Dynamic price increases made mining so profitable that miners could just hoard most mined bitcoins. Now profit margin are much thinner and miners will need to sell most of mined bitcoins and that means more than 3000 new bitcoin landing on market every day. Funny thing is that falling prices self-reinforces this effect.

[bigdude]

$98 ... interesting

[Nik1ab]

Stupid panic sellers 

[suryc]

Well, it dipped below 100 momentarily.

Fundamentally, I don't see why the price should go down too much. I would think that as Difficulty increases, the value of a BTC would also increase because the cost of mining new coins has increased (cost in terms of hardware anyway).

I think it is actually other way around now. Dynamic price increases made mining so profitable that miners could just hoard most mined bitcoins. Now profit margin are much thinner and miners will need to sell most of mined bitcoins and that means more than 3000 new bitcoin landing on market every day. Funny thing is that falling prices self-reinforces this effect.

That is actually a good point. Perhaps as difficulty increases and profit margins are thinner a larger portion of mined coins will go into actual circulation which lower price. I think that will take more time to happen though. Don't think we can attribute this price drop to that kind of behavior.

Also, in general the volume of bitcoin/fiat transactions is low -- too low to have a stable exchange rate.  There are 11 million btc existing and as long as the 24-hour btc/fiat volume is so low (usually much less than 1% of that), volatility is going to be a problem. It does not take much to manipulate and move the exchange rate.

[tokeweed]

The drop could be because the heart and soul of Bitcoin (SHA-2) is owned (made) by NSA. Just look at all the news about PRISM.
The 100 psychological barrier broke, where will it bottom out?

that's anyone's guess. panic selling will start soon after this.

[suryc]

For a professional trader, is there any good way to short btc?
Are there any exchanges that have reliable put/call options contracts?

I'm not contemplating doing this myself, just curious how much sophistication there is in the various bitcoin/fiat exchange platforms.

[tokeweed]

Well, it dipped below 100 momentarily.

Fundamentally, I don't see why the price should go down too much. I would think that as Difficulty increases, the value of a BTC would also increase because the cost of mining new coins has increased (cost in terms of hardware anyway).

there billion dollar companies' stock prices that fundamentally shouldn't go down but they just do. that's the market.

[tokeweed]

For a professional trader, is there any good way to short btc?
Are there any exchanges that have reliable put/call options contracts?

I'm not contemplating doing this myself, just curious how much sophistication there is in the various bitcoin/fiat exchange platforms.

i'm not a pro but the only way is to borrow btc. sell it. then buy back at lower prices then give them back to the guy who loaned it to you.

there's coinsetter (leveraged trading, good for this kind of thing), but they are in private beta i think.

[tokeweed]

watch out for may 5, 2013 low at mt.gox. that's at 79. see if that breaks down.  if it does, start looking at 4/16/2013 low. that's at 50.01 at mt.gox.

such a good market for short sellers right now.

[suryc]

For a professional trader, is there any good way to short btc?
Are there any exchanges that have reliable put/call options contracts?

I'm not contemplating doing this myself, just curious how much sophistication there is in the various bitcoin/fiat exchange platforms.

i'm not a pro but the only way is to borrow btc. sell it. then buy back at lower prices then give them back to the guy who loaned it to you.

there's coinsetter (leveraged trading, good for this kind of thing), but they are in private beta i think.

I've heard talk of futures/options contracts and such, but never seen it implemented anywhere. Anybody know anything about that?

[01BTC10]

To short there is :

https://bitfinex.com/exchange
https://icbit.se

Also CFD trading with fiat:

http://www.plus500.com/?id=67311&pl=1

I'm short since 2 weeks. Notbad.

[tokeweed]

For a professional trader, is there any good way to short btc?
Are there any exchanges that have reliable put/call options contracts?

I'm not contemplating doing this myself, just curious how much sophistication there is in the various bitcoin/fiat exchange platforms.

i'm not a pro but the only way is to borrow btc. sell it. then buy back at lower prices then give them back to the guy who loaned it to you.

there's coinsetter (leveraged trading, good for this kind of thing), but they are in private beta i think.

I've heard talk of futures/options contracts and such, but never seen it implemented anywhere. Anybody know anything about that?

there's btc binary options on some forex trading sites. but those are a scam. you'd be losing money in the longterm playing with those.

[tokeweed]

To short there is :

https://bitfinex.com/exchange
https://icbit.se

Also CFD trading with fiat:

http://www.plus500.com/?id=67311&pl=1

I'm short since 2 weeks. Notbad.

do those sites have leveraged trading?

[01BTC10]

To short there is :

https://bitfinex.com/exchange
https://icbit.se

Also CFD trading with fiat:

http://www.plus500.com/?id=67311&pl=1

I'm short since 2 weeks. Notbad.

do those sites have leveraged trading?

I use bitfinex with 2.5:1 leverage and plus500 with 5:1 leverage.