any news driving this drop

[tickets]

Awoke to see quick dive from 97 to 87 in just a few hours - has there been any news triggering this selling, or does it look like one source dumping, or what?

[Birdy]

Satoshi Dice got sold for $12.4 million and shares get a forced buyback.
(you can also see other stocks like Asicminer raising in price)

[tickets]

re forced buyback - how does that work?  all 123K BTC worth  of satoshidice shares must be sold within hours??  Please elaborate?

[Birdy]

http://bitcoinmagazine.com/satoshidice-sold-for-12-4-million/

The trading platform will take care of this, I guess. Share hoders will receive Btc and lose the share.

[bozak]

re forced buyback - how does that work?  all 123K BTC worth  of satoshidice shares must be sold within hours??  Please elaborate?

No forced selling of BTC, only forced selling of SD shares.  Some people are theorizing that the large BTC payout led to the drop in exchange rate, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  The alternative view is that a BTC company was just sold for a significant sum showing that the BTC economy is thriving.

[Damnsammit]

Satoshi Dice got sold for $12.4 million and shares get a forced buyback.
(you can also see other stocks like Asicminer raising in price)

Gonna be some cheapies soon!

[Damnsammit]

No forced selling of BTC, only forced selling of SD shares.  Some people are theorizing that the large BTC payout led to the drop in exchange rate, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  The alternative view is that a BTC company was just sold for a significant sum showing that the BTC economy is thriving.

Small market.  That is a huge amount.

People will be selling to make profits causing the charts to look negative.  People panic and sell.

Imagine a 100,000 BTC sell on the market.

Total sell on BTC-E: 6560 BTC

Seems like the price drop is just beginning.  I'd sell now, too, and then buy back at a new bottom.

[bozak]

No forced selling of BTC, only forced selling of SD shares.  Some people are theorizing that the large BTC payout led to the drop in exchange rate, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  The alternative view is that a BTC company was just sold for a significant sum showing that the BTC economy is thriving.

Small market.  That is a huge amount.

People will be selling to make profits causing the charts to look negative.  People panic and sell.

I agree with the concept that the amount of BTC being dispersed is large enough to effect the exchange rate.  However, I think it is a leap to assume that these investors will be selling to take profits.  Has this development fundmentaly changed their investment view on BTC?

[Spekulatius]

No forced selling of BTC, only forced selling of SD shares.  Some people are theorizing that the large BTC payout led to the drop in exchange rate, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  The alternative view is that a BTC company was just sold for a significant sum showing that the BTC economy is thriving.

Small market.  That is a huge amount.

People will be selling to make profits causing the charts to look negative.  People panic and sell.

I agree with the concept that the amount of BTC being dispersed is large enough to effect the exchange rate.  However, I think it is a leap to assume that these investors will be selling to take profits.  Has this development fundmentaly changed their investment view on BTC?

Probably not but they will have some UNexpected couple o grand in their hands later tonight, probably with a little profit. What would you do?

[Damnsammit]

No forced selling of BTC, only forced selling of SD shares.  Some people are theorizing that the large BTC payout led to the drop in exchange rate, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  The alternative view is that a BTC company was just sold for a significant sum showing that the BTC economy is thriving.

Small market.  That is a huge amount.

People will be selling to make profits causing the charts to look negative.  People panic and sell.

I agree with the concept that the amount of BTC being dispersed is large enough to effect the exchange rate.  However, I think it is a leap to assume that these investors will be selling to take profits.  Has this development fundmentaly changed their investment view on BTC?

A lot of people would be happy with 200BTC+ at current market price.  That's a new car, or paying off student loans...

Can't get mad about the profit takers in a situation like this.. but you can gobble up the panic sales

[Birdy]

Also people don't want to cash out on Gox, because they still aren't doing many (any?) withdrawals, leading to a bigger price drop on other exchanges.
(difference between Gox and bitstamp >$10)

[tickets]

I guess the main thing I'm trying to figure out is whether this selling is likely to span a few days or if it's all over already.  I got stopped out of my current position...

[Damnsammit]

I guess the main thing I'm trying to figure out is whether this selling is likely to span a few days or if it's all over already.  I got stopped out of my current position...

purchase in thirds to protect against another drop... or play the wave

[lucas.sev]

I guess the main thing I'm trying to figure out is whether this selling is likely to span a few days or if it's all over already.  I got stopped out of my current position...

purchase in thirds to protect against another drop... or play the wave

how is he supposed to play the wave if his stop was likely below current level, and wave begins going back up?

[Damnsammit]

I guess the main thing I'm trying to figure out is whether this selling is likely to span a few days or if it's all over already.  I got stopped out of my current position...

purchase in thirds to protect against another drop... or play the wave

how is he supposed to play the wave if his stop was likely below current level, and wave begins going back up?

I've never seen a wave only go up... 

[lucas.sev]

I guess the main thing I'm trying to figure out is whether this selling is likely to span a few days or if it's all over already.  I got stopped out of my current position...

purchase in thirds to protect against another drop... or play the wave

how is he supposed to play the wave if his stop was likely below current level, and wave begins going back up?

I've never seen a wave only go up... 

you said the wave, not waves. Wave goes down, then goes up. Then next wave goes down, then goes up. This wave is in the 'goes up' phase now. next wave, yeah maybe he can play it. But if he wants to 'play' this one he will be buying in at loss.

[tickets]

okay wave-heads, I'm not surfing.

The question is whether this AM's selloff was actual shares from the satoshidice payout or a closing of positions by several longs
in anticipation of the profit-taking to come.  One factor is the volume - if we'd seen a sudden 120K shares dumped, that would be pretty clear.

I'm guessing that the news of the pending payout triggered selling - given the current lack of liquidity it doesn't take many BTC to make a 10-pt drop.

Also if the drop were caused by profit liquidation, why would it happen all at once like that?     It seems more likely that the payouts would happen gradually simply due to processing time and perhaps to protect against a single dump.    If those conjectures are correct, the real selling will happen in the coming days.

[tickets]

okay here's what I was looking for:

The actual payout begins in about 8 hours - so this selling cannot be profit-taking yet.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101902.msg2751536#msg2751536

The payouts will occur in 20 batches over a period of a few hours, starting 24 hours or so from the time of EVoorhees's post, around 11PM EST July 17th.

I see varous posts estimating the total BTC to be released from 155K to 320K, approximately.   If it's about 200K, and about 20 batches of 10K BTC each -
there's lots more possible selling over the next few days.   As a comparison, the volume spike causing today's drop from 96 to 86 took only about 24K BTC... we have about 10 times that amount about to be released into shareholders hands...

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg10zig2-hourztgTza1gEMAzm1g7za2gEMAzm2g20zxzi1gMACDzvzl

[codesuela]

thanks for that bit of info

if that is not a bearish signal then i don't know what is

of course this could all be ruse by sdice and the bear trap will snap so hard it will crush an entire heard and send the price flying back up to the triple digits

I guess we will see in a couple hrs

[JimboToronto]

I guess we will see in a couple hrs

That seems to be a common sentiment. This is almost as agonizing as the half week of flirting with 100 with opinion almost evenly split as to which direction it would take.