rpietila public diary -- Episode II

[AnonyMint]

Ah I finally made contact with someone on eastern side of Samar that the typhoon hit first. I mean it was really bad over there, I saw photos of entire towns gone and even the concrete coastal road broken to pieces.

The family was not contactable by cell phone, yet I received a reply in facebook as follows.

oh yes,.my family was really affected by the super typhoon and we don't know how to start again,.our house was  damaged and now we only slept in a tent.
If you have something to help, I will be much greatful.
because its really hard for us to start all over again.
I will send you pictures of our damaged house.
Thank you very much.

I'm sharing some, so others can see this is sincere. Also just in case I made any mistake upthread about the real state-of-affairs on the ground, to show it is not intentional. I am collecting information.

Follow up from Catbalogan, Samar, so not on the east side instead 50 km north of Taclocan. I was mistaken. So don't expect the damage to be as bad as I described above. Also appears their house is concrete so it mostly survived other than the roof.

There is no phone connection here for how many days but now, thank God it was brought back.
Our roof was completely gone, it was taken away by the strong wind.
our windows are broken and also our door.
Yes, some of the international aid was brought to us, but some are not. Honestly, foods are not not enough. And sardines are mostly brought to us.
The food here are so expensive and there was a panic buying in our place. And we don't have sufficient money to buy those necessities for us.
oh yes, I will surely take photos of whatever I will buy from that money.
for now, I will send you the picture of our house.
Thank you very much for the help.

And from Naval, Biliran a different contact and the 3rd confirmation of the lack of aid reaching there:

...biliran leyte?
Our town is 2 hours away from tacloban... we are just a little disappointed coz the relief and all helped coming from different countries never arrive here...

I actually have few photos here... just a neighbors house totally wrecked

From Bogo, Cebu:

Hi good evening. Im lowbat a while ago. Our house is fall down very damage no roof. Only the room where we sleep has left but the roof also damage. The rain come inside the room. Our door now is the window bec. The real door is damage danger to get inside thats why we use the window as the door.

[rpietila]

Some people are in actual dire straits, lost their houses, etc. Meanwhile we had a nice flash-goxx-crash where pros including me made a nice chunk of money. It is quite ironic, to think of it. I will therefore not go into details, just express my satisfaction of the result of trading.

AnonyMint has accepted the responsibility of compiling the lists of needy people and sending the BTC to them. I will safekeep some of the donations before the recipient is assigned. We have enough money at present and do not want people to give us more, it goes against the principle of P2P helping.

[kdrop22]

Just woke and ready to convert to pesos, but the price is $770.

Any one willing to offer a trading opinion (see linked poll)? Should I rush to convert now or wait it out? Best to comment there at the linked thread. Appears the votes are split 3 ways between all possible outcomes.

Googling Bitcoin price, shows Greenspace said something about it being a bubble and no intrinsic value. Does this remove some resolve of the bulls or should I just wait for them to scoop up the panic sells of the weak hands?

Anonymint, I am not qualified to give trading opinion. I will leave it to more capable members of the forum. However, the sell off is not due to the Greenspan comments, but due to the recent regulations in China.
http://fr.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1s5hzl/my_human_translation_of_the_china_regulation/
http://fr.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1s8y6b/the_circlejerking_here_is_out_of_hand_my_thoughts/
(So, you might want to reword your poll or create new one).

[AnonyMint]

I have corrected myself on that. Thanks. And I have concluded that the China news is very bullish. See the linked post.

Edit: I created a poll to ask if my interpretation of the recent China news is correct.

[rpietila]

As soon as I reversed the previous bearish call (below), the market decides to turn down, quite much in a sense that I anticipated, but with the wrong timing. Timing is very hard to get right, therefore it is good to be prepared, should any of the possible scenarios happen (and even some of the impossible).

In the grand scheme of (my) things, some may remember that I sold at an average price of 0.672 in November, and just calculated the average buyback so far is 0.745. If a serious dip follows, I will be ahead Most of the money is still not committed, and the volatility is giving good arbitrage/swingtrade opportunities.

Now is perhaps a good time to visit the long-term trend thread, pointing that since December target is only 0.428, we might possibly have lots of downside left. The support levels are around 0.400-0.600 and 0.400. What I can say with reasonable certainty is that 0.300 will hold. It depends on individual circumstances, how much to buy and at what level. I have been buying ever since I turned bull at around 1.100, bought a lot in 0.800 when it seemed to be the low point, am buying now, and will be buying all the way down.

I don't believe anything has happened that warrants a panic sell now. But if you have 100% of your wealth in bitcoin, I suggest to take it to 80-95% anyway and now is as good a time to sell as any.

In times of high volatility, if you do not have a compelling reason to trade, don't. Our gains come from your pockets. If you have a reason, do a minimum of several hours of excelwork, and make yourself a trading strategy. Then stick to it - teach yourself to think that you win if you follow your strategy, irrespective of where the price goes. Because it is true.

My trading strategy is currently such that there are major fluctuations in relative prices in BTC China and Bitstamp. I chart them and analyze them and have both fiat and bitcoins in both exchanges. I sell in China (buy back BS) when it goes like 10% ahead. When it goes back to 0%, I reverse.

Another is modest daytrading - increase short term position when price is extended to the downside, and sell when it has bounced. Or other way round.

Third is position management. Like now bitcoin price is down by almost -50%, surely I will increase its share in my trading accounts. But even this I do according to a predetermined plan that covers all bitcoin prices from zero to infinity. When I woke up, I saw that bitcoin was at 0.600 instead of 0.820 which was the last before my going to sleep. I just checked that I need to buy 400 bitcoins to balance it. No emotion. I even took a shower first and saw that price had rebounded to 0.640. You never know, it could have gone down as well.

Today was a really intense day. I turned bear. That does not happen often, and there is always the chance to be wrong. If you want to reap the juiciest rewards, you have to act before the others. Then you better bear the uncertainty.

During the bubble top, BTC China had a maximum of 75% premium over Bitstamp. I set myself to explore this opportunity, whether it is viable to open an account there and sell bitcoins, even though the chances of receiving fiat currency in return are slim (CNY has currency controls and I don't have many links to Chinese banks). I decided that the arbitrage opportunity even without the fiat exit is good enough reason to go China, and opened the account.

During the day I bought 10 million CNY, which kind of feels funny. (Until Tuesday I had had no plans to play in China.) In addition I sold coins at Bitstamp, which rose higher than I expected a few hours ago, providing an opportunity.

The following 48 hours are most critical concerning the bubble/no-bubble issue. If we fail to surpass yesterday's highs, and make even lower highs (and potentially lower lows), then this was indeed a bubble, and it will get weeks to sort it out, with the opportunity to buy at $300s at some point(s).

In the complementary scenario, highs are broken and/or flashcrashes abate, we enjoy a week or so of high consolidation ($500 or over) before assaulting new highs. This is a possibility, but I stick to my evaluation that it is less probable than bubblepop. I have written extensively in Wall Observer about the matter. Perhaps open a new thread inspired by SlipperySlope's bubble collapse journal.

There are so many things that can happen but have not yet happened. DDoS, hacks, scams, bubblepop articles, REAL dumps, etc. If we evade all this and happily continue up despite that we are already 1.8x the trendline, I am gladly wrong.

In this case, somebody help me how to spend the ¥10M...  


To whom it may concern: The trades revealed in the public diary have been executed on behalf of numerous entities in multiple jurisdictions. As such, they do not correspond to the ownership, holding, position or change thereof, or realizing of taxable or tax-deductible gains/losses or income of any natural or corporate Person.

[rpietila]

Meanwhile we had a nice flash-goxx-crash where pros including me made a nice chunk of money.

You will have to explain that, because all your price predictions have been consistently wrong.

You will have to listen, and understand. You know all of this from beforehand but perhaps the understanding part requires some thought.

A. Total position is 10M USD (10k BTC), and its standard allocation is 80% bitcoins, 20% other. In practice about half of "other" is in different exchanges as fiat position.

B. "Making money" is defined that the amount of either of both of the components of Total position increases. Note: amount, not "value".

C. Holding does not "make money" because of the definition above. If USDBTC rises, there is no gain, neither is there a loss if it goes down, provided that the total position is allocated 80/20.

D. Of the possible trading strategies, they make money as follows:

- Allocation. The percentage of "other" in portfolio can be temporarily set to 10-30% to take advantage of the mispricing of the general market. Easiest way to know if you have gained is after resetting the percentages. These trades last days or weeks for me. More BTC -> win.

- Arbitrage. Explained in above posts. After you have made the total of 4 trades with the coins and they are sitting in their original order, you can count the gains. I normally price the gains in USD (ie. trade with fixed amount of BTC).

- Daytrading. Taking positions in smaller intraday moves, with the intention of closing the trade in a few minutes/hours. I normally price the gains in USD.


Now, everything else in your talking just reveals that you don't think at all like me. If the wallobserver frequents actually believe that guessing the future price, and taking on/off action with your whole position of BTC2 is a road to riches, I don't know if they can be helped.

Out of context nothing is understandable, and any reasonably advanced trading plan is indistinguishable from magic. Thank you, good bye

[CryptStorm]

Rpeitila, how do you think this big drop effects bitcoins long time price projections? Is it good that we get a cooling of the price or is it bad that the bears get fuel on their fires about bitcoin volatility being so large? Also i know you mentioned this whole China thing being slightly bullish could you care to elaborate on that?

I think shorter term the sentiment is now damaged so that 0.800 is resistance, and people will take a look at the fact that we are still 2x the trend.

Mid-term I don't believe it will affect much. Everybody knows already that bitcoin cannot be tamed. Even if we go to 0.370, it is only -70% from the ATH, which means that the volatility in large crashes is decreasing.

Longer term it has no effect, except to keep us closer the average trend of 12x per year instead of 100x it was starting to look already

Got your link through from the Wall, and wanted to thank you for that; but, I have been reading your stuff for months-- it's quite fascinating to take a broader look at this marvel. Trading it, on the other hand, is like going to war, and I've learned a lot from this first mega wave (parabolic uptick...).

I'm not sure exactly where I think resistance levels are anymore, so glad to see some cogitation on it. Looking forward to cheap coins below the 'trend' line (the big one). 

Looking forward to a tour of your castle, if you choose to go in that direction-- personally, I just want land and a garden big enough to provide. 

[BitChick]

Sure, every time you call a top or a bottom or you disclose if you are selling or buying you get it wrong, but them you give a pompous but empty explanation about how you are making money day trading,

Since I obviously cannot make one of the most rational minds in the wallobserver (you) to understand how I can actually make money almost every time I trade, with little or no risk, and despite the way the price goes (note: others have differing strategies that they employ and I have not even tried), I will kindly have to ask you to put me on ignore

Most of the wall observer is rubbish way below my level, still you nitpick on my bragging, because all individual trades are not disclosed, to make sure that money was indeed made.

When otoh I do disclose the transaction data, everyone is quiet.

LOL I am like the 10th largest Bitcoin trader in the World based on that I accounted for 0.53% of the volume. Greetings, Mom! 

Now, go away. Don't you have anything else to do?

I believe you Rpietila.  I also am humbly aware that there are some people on this board, such as both you and Rampion, that are smarter than I am and better at predicting the movement of the market and making wise decisions based on these things.  I, realizing that I suck at that, just need to buy and hold.  It is the best strategy for "Dummies."     So far it has worked well.  Granted there is part of me that wishes I could be good at it and take advantage of the ups and downs to increase the amount of coins we have, but not everyone is capable of doing that effectively.  In fact, most can't do it or try and fail!  That is probably why it is hard for some to believe you are so successful at it!

BitChicksHusband is really excited about your plan for cashing out too and has it all charted out and seems like a really great way to take advantage of our position in the future.  It just requires patience at this point, especially as "holders."

[rpietila]

Granted there is part of me that wishes I could be good at it and take advantage of the ups and downs to increase the amount of coins we have, but not everyone is capable of doing that effectively.  In fact, most can't do it or try and fail!  That is probably why it is hard for some to believe you are so successful at it!

I aim to net at least 3% (and seldom get more than 12%) per successful trade. Let's say the average realized gain is 5%. If I manage to employ 200,000mBTC per trade, the gain is 10,000mBTC. It takes a few hours of active work. I am not especially good at it, but I know math, I have the coins and I have the time and freedom.

Can you now see why I did a same-day attack to China in Nov 19th, after seeing that 1. the coins were selling for 50% higher there, 2. the price had just overshot and was 3. crashing everywhere, and 4. I was too heavy on coins due to not selling during the whole runup? Properly executed, this was a literally million dollar profit deal opportunity, 100 times bigger than the staple.

If only I had managed to get the account right with the first try, I would have gotten an average of 0.819 exit point compared to 0.672 a day later.

I am so big and intelligent that I don't need to brag. The information here is disclosed so that prospective traders can take heed. I have received several exhortations and even warnings via PM to not tell so openly about the ways to make money, as opposed to be fleeced.

I think most of us (99%) should not have any intention to make money with bitcoin, just to keep the bitcoins that they have and add to the position.

[Rampion]

Risto, I don't see why you have to delete the honest and completely on topic critics to your price predictions, to then quote selectively only a small part of them.

I appreciate a lot many of your posts - and when I agree with you, I agree publicly. On the other side, I very much doubt of your "I'm making a lot of money by trading" brags because they are not supported by your posts, on the contrary they are invalidated by your public calls. I try to keep my critics constructive, and I try to point out the contradictions in your discourse to help both you to adjust it and the newcomers to don't get impressed at first sight and look better. I believe this adds value to the board and that it's completely on topic in a thread that is precisely about "Risto Pietila" and his performance.

Finally, it's kinda discouraging to have longish posts like the two I just wrote in this thread ruthlessly deleted. Please remember that precisely that kind of attitude made people to create "alt" threads about you which were mostly pure mockery.

Let's try to keep it civil and not repeat past mistakes.

[rpietila]

I only see 2 possible modes of failure in rpietila's strategy:

1. If his trading gains are outpaced by the appreciation of BTC relative to his non-BTC proportion.

2. BTC collapses in price forever and he tries to trade it all the way down instead of having a stop-loss.

1. is not a failure mode, it is a feature I don't think that I can outpace bitcoin's appreciation with my fiat part, but the fiat part gives diversification against failure of bitcoin, and trading earns higher APR than a current account still.

2. It is true I never use a stop loss, because I never initiate trades that would need to be "stopped". If the short-term position goes against me, I may close it if I am trading. When I am sleeping, I will just let it run, because it will balance out with another position (a leg of arbitrage for instance) later, or with the overall 80/20 allocation if nothing else. At times I augment all trades that I have "in mind" to a complete position sheet and cancel the contradicting ones.

I perhaps should fix that I will also use a SSS-style permanent rake, which is taken out of exchanges and converted to other asset classes and never returned to crypto. (In practice this is the case already, but it's not part of the model yet.)

(Edited for 2.)

[AnonyMint]

Rampion, you are missing the point that his trades don't apply to your concept of what a winning trade means. He has a holistic trading strategy across multiple asset classes, exchanges, metrics, and models.

Thus your comments are pure noise and slanderous, unless you are simply making the point that his trading strategy doesn't apply to the simple trader who is only in or out of BTC-- which would be a correct observation.

I don't think you did this intentionally. You apparently just didn't realize.

Edit: picking a few trades and trying to analyze if his strategy is succeeding is analogous to tracking a few ants and trying to declare you know what the colony is doing.

[rpietila]

P.S. You continue to provide evidence that without decentralized (no one can control) debasement, capital moves from the 97% to 3% without limit until the 97% are complete slaves. Note I don't consider "tax" to be an alternative, since it too ends up with the 3%.

It could be that the 3% are able to increase their capital, but how come does that mean that all the others would end up being slaves?

If I traded with 20,000mBTC, the % increase would be much bigger because all trades would be 100% of position. So the 97% are in better relative position to increase their wealth, but the problem is that they don't know how to do it and lose money. Like I said, I believe 99% fare better using the SSS strategy with "accumulation" phase, "purchasing power and share of portfolio gaining" phase and "divestation/diversification" phase.

I have tried to provide insights to professional trading to everyone who's willing to listen. WHILE EXPRESSLY SAYING THAT IS NOT FOR YOU IN MOST CASES. What more can I do?

[AnonyMint]

Here are example photos I am receiving from Naval and these are some of the families we are helping. Thank you to those who donated.

Note allocating keeping in mind how self-sufficient filipinos are and not spoiling what they can do on their own. This requires considerable analysis and fact checking. Time consuming.

[EdsWow1]

@rpietila: Thank you for sharing your insights & wisdom here... - i appreciate a lot. Found your "sss-strategy" only just recently and now also the trading-strategies here in this thread.

For me it feels like beeing one of those, for whom you've written all that. Can understand the ideas behind, even had similar thoughts somehow, but not as clear and detailed as you expressed it, and moreover, you show the way how to do such things. last spring e.g. i already thought about that it should be best to trade the way, that both sides of the coin has to go up... - but somehow could not find a real system in it and even thought it is just some wish-thinking. but your description makes it clear, that it is not only possible, but in fact the only senseful way to call it "make money". to only speculate on one side of the coin and the xchange-rate has, compared to your modell, not much to do with "making money", more with prophecy or hoping or guessing or feeling... hoping to find the "right moment" a.s.o. ... just too much wish-thinking.

it was such a delight and something made *booom* and *click* in my head, when you made it clear, that "making money" is about increase the *amount* of coins on both sides (and not only some "value in the head"). made it clear, that its a big illusion to only concentrate on the virtual values based on current rates. they are not real, here, now. real is only, whats on the table... on both sides. everything else is only luck in exchange-rates. it could change every moment.

and it does absolutely not count to "guess" the "perfect right moment", but just to see on the end of the day, if there is more money now, or less. e.g. selling at 1200 in this model is not "better" then selling at 800. and buying at 300 ist not better then buying on 600. its just about selling highter then buying, finish. you showed that clearly, and yes, nobody has a time-machine, this whole thinking about "right moments" is just rubbish and depends only on luck and nothing else. but yours is mathematics. wonderful.

after reading you, i came to see, that up to now i even never did real trade... it was just more like roulette i played. thank you for that. my mind was blanked after reading some of your statements... just so awesome true. and does not fit much to "normal trading style". its much more about strategy. not even to have the "right" strategy (as i thought before one must have), but to have at least ANY (senseful) strategy and to hold onto it. so to say, "making money" out of strategy, and not out of luck.

So... thanks again... i enjoy reading you ... you help me finding a total new approach into all that (at least for me it is new; as one said: much more holistic.... - it needs a different kind of thinking, to really "get it". not just a little adjustement, but empy the mind out and look completely new on that, from a totally new viewpoint. wonderful !)

theEd

[AnonyMint]

also i'd be more interested to know how you manage to move capital out of chinese exchanges since it's not that easy due to strict capital controls towards foreigners

Wouldn't buying BTC solve that?

You say his trading strategy is obvious and then it seems you don't realize he doesn't necessarily have to move CNY out of China if he was able to lower cash position else where.

selling BTC with a markup to newcomers that are looking to buy and understand BTC quickly and without going through an exchange or the usual routes.

Where did you get that from?

Seems to me he provides liquidity on exchanges and else where. All of his models such as the fix he used for his silver business was about providing liquidity. Liquidity is often more important than price.

[EdsWow1]

also i'd be more interested to know how you manage to move capital out of chinese exchanges since it's not that easy due to strict capital controls towards foreigners

Wouldn't buying BTC solve that?

You say his trading strategy is obvious and then it seems you don't realize he doesn't necessarily have to move CNY out of China if he was able to lower cash position else where.

Then he is not doing arbitrage in China because the only way to do arbitrage is to buy low and sell higher, and given that BTCChina is consistently higher the way to do arbitrage is buying on stamp - selling on BTCChina - rinse and repeat.

To be able to do arbitrage you must be able to quickly move between exchanges both currencies: BTC and fiat. That's extremely difficult (at best), and that's the reason why such spreads exist.

there are just different stages....

stage 1: putting up an amount of btc AND fiat on both exchanges .... (sending btc, wait for good price, selling some part, have btc+fiat and then: wait) (stage 1 can be go on and repeatet "for ever" - no closure needed)

stage 2: waiting for a moment, where arbitrage (EVEN A SINGLE ONE) can be done (e.g. way higher price in china then on bitstamp) -> doing the deals (meaning that after doing so, you have in sum of both exchanges now same amount of e.g. btc, but more fiat, or other way around. its not an "ongoing arbitrage" like you are maybe thinking of...)

stage 3: waiting again (even for some days!) where btc is more down in china then on stage 1.... and buying back btc there. (re-adjusting)

you can even transfer then "fiat" between china and stamp via btc on a day where the price is almost close to each other (there are moments like that).

(and anyway, all of that was described by rpietila already in this thread ... - i did already similar things just for the fun of it in spring this year... with different exchanges... but only with low one-digit-bitcoin-values, cause i dont have a higher budget... ;-) - ).

[AnonyMint]

As markup over elsewhere on BTC China decreases he can buy BTC there and sell BTC else where. It doesn't matter if he is buying at a higher or lower price than he sold on BTC China.

Yeah I would probably be richer had a pursued what Risto did since time I met him. But it doesn't fit my personality nor my interests nor my venue nor my preferred flexible schedule.

[rpietila]

When otoh I do disclose the transaction data, everyone is quiet.

How much do you make per hour? If it is a reasonable $25, your work should be worth $100 per hour to your employer considering overhead and such. Would you waste your employer's time talking to people who:

A. could understand if they took the time to read again, and then think some
B. (even worse) could not understand regardless.

When you think of the value of your time, certainly not. You could be fired for wasting your time like that.

Now, I did an allnighter. 12 hours trading session, in which I traded as follows:

My trading strategy is currently such that there are major fluctuations in relative prices in BTC China and Bitstamp. I chart them and analyze them and have both fiat and bitcoins in both exchanges. I sell in China (buy back BS) when it goes like 10% ahead. When it goes back to 0%, I reverse.

Trading report today 00:00 UTC+2 -> so far.

Sum trades      1590479   mBTC (about 1% of global volume during this period)
net position decrease     -148160   mBTC
      
Gain USD      164489   
Decrease in net pos. USD     -115417   
China credit      -26737   
Fees      -1581   
      
VOL USD   1147166   
PROFIT USD   20754   
% of volume   1.81 %   
      
Profit in mBTC   26304

The profit was $1,600 (about 2,100mBTC) per hour. Ergo my time is 16 times more expensive than yours, and I must manage it more efficiently.

I don't need anything from the trolls. They don't add anything to the discussion. There is no reason for me to even let the negative opinion be expressed, especially this thread is not a "public opinion about me" thread. Also many here don't have any reverence or even manners. Why am I doing it and pouring $1,000s per day to the forum? It is for the readers. You trolls are enemies of the readers, so you desire to be deleted.

If somebody does not understand the fact that even writing this clarification post cost me about $1,000 of my time, he is very much free to go and search for wisdom elsewhere.

Also I hope that nobody is offended if I delete a "good" post from the thread, just to keep it more easily readable for mobile devices (for example if your post was quoted in full, it will appear many times, and I cannot edit posts only delete them, so I delete the original) etc, or if I do not answer some question publicly or do not reply to a PM. (But feel free to be offended if you like, this is currently the only way to keep it working and it will stay this way.)

[rpietila]

As markup over elsewhere on BTC China decreases he can buy BTC there and sell BTC else where. It doesn't matter if he is buying at a higher or lower price than he sold on BTC China.

Yes, explained on the 3rd day of the last crash (funny to be reposted as now is also the 3rd day).