Panic Selling

[Cluster2k]

Keep up the good work in this forum scaring people into thinking bitcoin has no future.  At these prices, we should see a reduction in hashing power.

Scaring people, or warning them since several months ago that bitcoin is a highly speculative, high risk investment?

[smoothie]

I sold most of my bitcoins today - this was a carefully considered decision as far as I am concerned. I now have dollars and can use them to buy bitcoins whenever I choose.

I'm glad I sold them all over a week ago when the price was 10.70 and 8.40.

[SgtSpike]

Well, I'm holding what I have for the time being.  I do believe this is a panic sell and we will see a rebound.  How far, I'm not sure, but given the volumes that have been traded, there's just a lot of people who have been scared of the recent price drops and sold in a panic.

We'll see...

[Deafboy]

I really hope that price will stay under 4 eur until next week. Its Friday evenning here, so my bank transfer will not be finished sooner than tuesday. But I am worreid that I have missed it once again How I wish international bank transfers could be finished under hour...

[BGL]

"Panic Selling" my ass.

Like many people i held on for quite a while. Too long, in fact. Yesterday i saw <= $5 coming by this weekend & decided to sell @ just below $7. At a loss, mind you.

I don't understand how people ignored the gorilla in the room this long. I've pretty much lost faith in the community policing themselves.

People on this forum seem unconsciously addicted to drinking their own piss flavored koolaid.

I might buy in again later down the road but i wasn't about to ride this shit into the ground.

[bitcon]

i thought ~$10 - $11 would be a stable market, but it looks more like $5 now.

[nelisky]

I keep repeating myself, I know, but I still didn't get an answer that "computes"...

People sell, panic abounds, prices are going down, people sell even more, price goes even further down, all of that is fine but... who is buying? Are we really that convinced that hitting almost 1M$ in volume on mtgox alone, it's just people SELLING? c'mon, if it was a panic driven bank run, all the buyers of have removed their bids, and that is far far away from the truth.

Bid walls go back, but that sounds more like "I can use the panic sales momentum and increase my profit" than "bitcoins are worthless! let me do the intelligent thing and, huh, buy 10k$ of them at $4 instead of $5"

I mean, c'mon, for every bitcoin sold there's a bitcoin bought, and I'm sure a bunch of them are from speculators that do swing trading, but again, to do swing trading you don't just buy bitcoins, you need to sell them, someone else has to buy them

[smoothie]

I keep repeating myself, I know, but I still didn't get an answer that "computes"...

People sell, panic abounds, prices are going down, people sell even more, price goes even further down, all of that is fine but... who is buying? Are we really that convinced that hitting almost 1M$ in volume on mtgox alone, it's just people SELLING? c'mon, if it was a panic driven bank run, all the buyers of have removed their bids, and that is far far away from the truth.

Bid walls go back, but that sounds more like "I can use the panic sales momentum and increase my profit" than "bitcoins are worthless! let me do the intelligent thing and, huh, buy 10k$ of them at $4 instead of $5"

I mean, c'mon, for every bitcoin sold there's a bitcoin bought, and I'm sure a bunch of them are from speculators that do swing trading, but again, to do swing trading you don't just buy bitcoins, you need to sell them, someone else has to buy them

Thanks for the crash course into day trading.

[nelisky]

Thanks for the crash course into day trading.

Do I sense a little irony there?

I didn't mean to give you an 101 introduction to anything, I'm a coder not a trader and I just don't understand why the buying side of the trades keep getting ignored on these panic stricken posts all over the place. I HONESTLY need someone to explain that to me, and you're not the one with your reply, I'm afraid.

Keep sending postcards, though, you may win someday!

[molecular]

that makes no difference. when it isn't profitable, people leave, difficulty adjusts. when it is profitable, people join, difficulty adjusts. sunk costs, changes in price of electricity, CPU vs GPU vs ASIC vs botnet, etc etc etc all may effect which miners are mining, but difficulty is simply an indicator of price+technology, it does not drive price.

I never understood this logic myself. The only way I can think of how mining cost could influence price is if miners would just refuse to sell below a certain price (their mining cost times x). Or put differently: The supply lessens if price goes lower. While this is probably true, I still don't see how mining cost could drive the price up. If power cost suddenly doubled, bitcoin markets couldn't care less. Miners don't usually buy bitcoins, they mine and sell or mine and hold.

[hugolp]

A lot of people tend to believe miners need about $5-5.50 to make it worth their time, but i feel that KWH leechers or FPGA users will bring the price under that $5-5.50 equilibrium.

just my 2 cents.  sure glad i sold at $11 :-)

No. The difficulty adjustment will ensure that some miners can make a profit at nearly any price. Lower prices drive miners out, difficulty ramps down, mining becomes profitable for miners remaining, more miners jump in, difficulty rises, mining becomes unprofitable, miners leave. It's a balancing feedback loop that is always in play, it makes no difference what the price is. I have no frigging clue why after a year of this we still have people insisting that the "cost of mining" somehow affects the price of bitcoins.

True. But it might have a psicological effect. For example, there are some miners that will sell at any price as soon as they get some bitcoins, but seing that now it does not even cover their electricity bill they might decide to hold or at least set a minimum price at which they will sell.

[molecular]

No. The difficulty adjustment will ensure that some miners can make a profit at nearly any price. Lower prices drive miners out, difficulty ramps down, mining becomes profitable for miners remaining, more miners jump in, difficulty rises, mining becomes unprofitable, miners leave. It's a balancing feedback loop that is always in play, it makes no difference what the price is. I have no frigging clue why after a year of this we still have people insisting that the "cost of mining" somehow affects the price of bitcoins.

Yeah it may not be profitable at the moment, but assuming the price rebounds I will have mined during these "off-periods" and will end up with more BTC in my wallet when their value goes back up. "Fair-weather" miners will shut down their systems because BTC is not profitable RIGHT NOW and will have less BTC to show for it.

That logic is flawed. If power cost is higher than the value of the BTC produced, it's simply more profitable to just buy BTC instead of mining them.

[Dargo]

It's not "panic" selling at all. People have large amounts of BTC in them and want to get rid of it before the price drops further... That seems pretty rational to me?

This is only rational to the extent that it's rational to think prices will keep falling. When the vast majority of traders believe they have to get out *now* because prices will just keep falling, or because they just can't take the pain of their losses anymore, usually this is when some kind of bottom is put in (but it may only be a short term bottom). Given how much the price has already fallen, it's getting less rational to believe that it will keep falling. Even if bitcoin is doomed to fail, the price isn't going step down linearly to zero.

[kwukduck]

Glad i cashed out at 14, i'll buy back at 0.00001 cents

[nelisky]

That logic is flawed. If power cost is higher than the value of the BTC produced, it's simply more profitable to just buy BTC instead of mining them.

I agree with molecular, but that's not the whole picture; I have a two month billing cycle, so I mine now and pay up to 60 days from now. Lots of time to convert to cash at the best rates (when the market isn't plummeting) and even do a little speculation of my own. No new 'out of pocket' money unless I'm mining at really large loss, bitcoins pay for it all, all the time.

Of course if I'm mining at a loss then the 60 day buffer with get me and I'll end up with 60 days of used electricity I don't have the bitcoins to pay, because I used the ones produced in the last cycle to pay the previous one...

[molecular]

That logic is flawed. If power cost is higher than the value of the BTC produced, it's simply more profitable to just buy BTC instead of mining them.

I agree with molecular, but that's not the whole picture; I have a two month billing cycle, so I mine now and pay up to 60 days from now. Lots of time to convert to cash at the best rates (when the market isn't plummeting) and even do a little speculation of my own. No new 'out of pocket' money unless I'm mining at really large loss, bitcoins pay for it all, all the time.

Of course if I'm mining at a loss then the 60 day buffer with get me and I'll end up with 60 days of used electricity I don't have the bitcoins to pay, because I used the ones produced in the last cycle to pay the previous one...

Uuuuh. You're living on the edge there. It's probably an arrogant thing to say, but one should always have some buffers of liquidity ready for such cases. If you had that, you could make more money or in a safer way or both, right?

[nelisky]

Uuuuh. You're living on the edge there. It's probably an arrogant thing to say, but one should always have some buffers of liquidity ready for such cases. If you had that, you could make more money or in a safer way or both, right?

Ahm, I was role playing there, just making my point But thanks for the concern, though, glad to see a positive advice coming from that instead of the more usual immediate bashing and public humiliation approach we see on the forum these days. Cookie points to you

[molecular]

Uuuuh. You're living on the edge there. It's probably an arrogant thing to say, but one should always have some buffers of liquidity ready for such cases. If you had that, you could make more money or in a safer way or both, right?

Ahm, I was role playing there, just making my point But thanks for the concern, though, glad to see a positive advice coming from that instead of the more usual immediate bashing and public humiliation approach we see on the forum these days. Cookie points to you

Did I just got told nicely that I fell for a troll? *munches his cookie in shame*

[smoothie]

Thanks for the crash course into day trading.

Do I sense a little irony there?

I didn't mean to give you an 101 introduction to anything, I'm a coder not a trader and I just don't understand why the buying side of the trades keep getting ignored on these panic stricken posts all over the place. I HONESTLY need someone to explain that to me, and you're not the one with your reply, I'm afraid.

Keep sending postcards, though, you may win someday!

Who ever said I needed to get your approval to explain anything.

Keep telling yourself those things.

[smoothie]

I blame this funny video for all the panic selling:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjV3wdXDHDk&feature=player_embedded

The best part of this is the "BOOOOM" part.