Why has bear sentiment gone up again?

[ineededausername]

The fundamentals appear to be sound to me, and there hasn't been any bad news...

[fivebells]

What do you mean, the fundamentals appear sound?  The fundamentals appear awful, to me.  Where's the demand for bitcoin, at this point?

[Minsc]

When the price moves, people can say they bought at the lower point and then once it gets to the higher point, it's a good time to sell and people are happy.

But because the price has been stagnating at 5.50 for close to a week.  In the past it's done that then jumps to about 40 cents lower and just sits there twice as long.  Occasionally, it'll be worse and actually rally up several dollars and then one misses it.  Either way when it stagnates for days like this, it means to screw somebody over.

[NamelessOne]

It has only been at the 5.50 range for three days now, and that is almost a dollar higher then the previous stagnation point. And that previous stagnation point around 4.5 was the same as before the rally to $7 on Sept 11. This is the opposite of what was happen doing for two or so months. After each rally it would go down substantially lower within a couple days, but after half a month it hasn't just remained around 4.5, it has gone up. The technical analysis is looking good, at this point I'm happy. Today saw some action.

[fivebells]

May I ask why you are here if Bitcoin's fundamentals appear awful to you?

  Like I said, where's the demand?  When everyone and his dog wants bitcoins, the price will rise.  It rose at the start of the Summer in anticipation of it taking off as an alternative medium of exchange.  And that may well happen, but so far it has not, and its adoption will face severe resistance from established powers.  I want it to succeed, I am fascinated by it, but so far I have not seen a convincing use case to drive widespread demand for it and overcome the inevitable establishment resistance.

[NamelessOne]

May I ask why you are here if Bitcoin's fundamentals appear awful to you?

  Like I said, where's the demand?  When everyone and his dog wants bitcoins, the price will rise.  It rose at the start of the Summer in anticipation of it taking off as an alternative medium of exchange.  And that may well happen, but so far it has not, and its adoption will face severe resistance from established powers.  I want it to succeed, I am fascinated by it, but so far I have not seen a convincing use case to drive widespread demand for it and overcome the inevitable establishment resistance.

That didn't affect its growth for the two years before June. It had been growing by thousands of percents all that time. Speculation and people trying to make a quick buck most likely drove the rallies in the summer. There is even more progress now then there was in May/June. More people know about it, more things like Bit-Pay exist, and the summer long downtrend correction appears to have finally stopped. People are obviously cautious about that downtrend, but it is also the same thing that happen to bitcoin every couple months after each new high. It would always drop for months and BAM, rally and hit a new high. I'm not expecting a two day rally to $35, so the last four days have left me very hopeful and happy.

[fivebells]

The last two days are a blip on the screen.  Go take a look at a chart from the last two months.  And yes, there has been progress, and it is important, but in terms of price in USD, it is a tiny factor compared to the publicity bitcoin enjoyed at the start of the summer, the effects of which still have a long way to fade.

[Etlase2]

Like I said, where's the demand?  When everyone and his dog wants bitcoins, the price will rise.  It rose at the start of the Summer in anticipation of it taking off as an alternative medium of exchange.  And that may well happen, but so far it has not, and its adoption will face severe resistance from established powers.  I want it to succeed, I am fascinated by it, but so far I have not seen a convincing use case to drive widespread demand for it and overcome the inevitable establishment resistance.

Real demand won't appear until (non-bitcoin related-)businesses have a reason to start accepting bitcoins. IF that ever happens, businesses will want to immediately convert bitcoins back to cash because of the volatility and potential for cash value to be simply stolen from them in the case of an early adopter sell-off. IF they immediately convert bitcoins back to cash, there is no new real demand anyway.

See my sig for a better way.

[NamelessOne]

The fundamentals appear to be sound to me, and there hasn't been any bad news...

And in regards the the OP, I don't think bear sentiment has gone up again, so far there is nothing to indicate this anything more than a normal correction after a rally. So hopefully it shall start move up again soon. And of course that last two days are a blip,  I'm constantly looking at that charts. =) But that is really expected anyway as it certainly won't go in a constant, unending rally back up the $32 and beyond. While nothing is certain, the trend has been broken we just had a new rally that didn't drop to new lows soon after. It is a reason for renewed hope.

[Bigpiggy01]

And in regards the the OP, I don't think bear sentiment has gone up again, so far there is nothing to indicate this anything more than a normal correction after a rally. So hopefully it shall start move up again soon. And of course that last two days are a blip,  I'm constantly looking at that charts. =) But that is really expected anyway as it certainly won't go in a constant, unending rally back up the $32 and beyond. While nothing is certain, the trend has been broken we just had a new rally that didn't drop to new lows soon after. It is a reason for renewed hope.

+1 Some of us are even looking at expanding, just trying to figure out how to do it in a way that makes sense.

[Cluster2k]

What do you mean, the fundamentals appear sound?  The fundamentals appear awful, to me.  Where's the demand for bitcoin, at this point?

To each his own. A digital currency that is easy to keep secure, easy to transfer to others, hard to counterfeit, and hard to manipulate in favor of anyone who normally tends to manipulate money, is very valuable to some.

May I ask why you are here if Bitcoin's fundamentals appear awful to you? No offence intended, I'm just trying to understand why those who don't appreciate Bitcoin (which is completely reasonable, fundamentally, people value different things) would spend time on a forum about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin does all the above whether it's valued at $1 or $100 each.  Nothing changes if bitcoins are worth a lot more or a lot less.  The only thing that should make the price rise is demand from trade.  If people want to spend a million dollars a day using bitcoins but bitcoins are only worth 1c each then that obviously isn't going to work.  The price would naturally go up.  How much commerce is transacted in bitcoins today?  (bitcoin monitor watching doesn't count).  Everything else is speculation.

The problem with only bitcoin boosters and bulls spending time on a bitcoin forum is that it creates groupthink.  Everyone ends up believing bitcoin's value will shoot to the moon and beyond because nobody disagrees.  Why would anyone who disagrees spend time on a bitcoin forum?  Because it promotes a healthy ecosystem of ideas.

I appreciate bitcoin.  I just strongly disagree with the manic value people attribute to it.  Seems plenty of other people agree.  We're 80% off the bubble high.

[Technomage]

I don't think bear sentiment has gone up, in fact I think we're in a slow process of bear sentiment turning into bull sentiment. It's not going to happen just like that, it'll take time. Only after it has completely recovered can we see a major rally, I think. But it's definitely better now than it was before.

Just look at the poll here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1493.0

That poll was reset just recently and it looks like most people have bullish sentiment. Although the number of votes is very low, so please vote. Regardless, last month the situation was quite different. I think there was a 50/50 vote, which is very bearish considering that this is a Bitcoin forum.

[N12]

A more bullish sentiment does not directly indicate a bullish price forecast. In contrary, when sentiment is very bullish, most people are already invested and that’s why it can be a sign of a reversal. For example, I bet that when we made the 4.18 low with 200k+ BTC volume, almost everyone was feeling very bearish.

When I see most people here go crazy, like many did before that awesome conference (that was at a price of 11+), I begin to feel pretty bearish.

[Technomage]

That is a good point Blitzboom. But that means we're looking at the price going up, because the sentiment is not super bullish yet, it's slowly getting there.

[Edward50]

Funny post, and surprised about the comments.

Why has bear sentiment gone up?

Well lets see, bitcoins price dropped from $30 to $4 dollars, over a period of a few months of constant slow dropping.

Why the heck do you think bear sentiment has gone up?

Actually I can tell you that it has gone up huge. I remember when I was bearish when the price was in the $20's I would get flammed like there was no tomorrow. It was only very few people who came out bearish for bitcoins.

Now it seems that alot more people are bearish and for good reason. Bitcoin price has dropped a whopping 85% in a few months and can't seem to pull away from the current low.

[NamelessOne]

I don't think to OP was talking about the last four months but rather the last three or four days. I think the bearishness of the last couple months is pretty clear to people. I think the OP essentially made a 'why did the rally stop?' post. The current low is also higher than the previous low, that hasn't happened since the downtrend began, it has always gone substantially lower. That is a degree of progress.

[Bigpiggy01]

I don't think to OP was talking about the last four months but rather the last three or four days. I think the bearishness of the last couple months is pretty clear to people. I think the OP essentially made a 'why did the rally stop?' post. The current low is also higher than the previous low, that hasn't happened since the downtrend began, it has always gone substantially lower. That is a degree of progress.

+1

[Nagle]

Why has bear sentiment gone up?

Well lets see, bitcoins price dropped from $30 to $4 dollars, over a period of a few months of constant slow dropping.

Why the heck do you think bear sentiment has gone up?

Right.

The last few days may have looked like a rally to some. But the usual pattern of no more than three 'up" days before a drop persisted.

Volume in currency has been declining. Current volume levels are comparable to late April 2011, when the rise was just beginning. There are more 'bots making fast trades now, so the buys that aren't sold within minutes are probably much lower.

As Bitcoin winds down, the long, slow slide continues.

[zby]

A more bullish sentiment does not directly indicate a bullish price forecast. In contrary, when sentiment is very bullish, most people are already invested and that’s why it can be a sign of a reversal.

I think that what is important is also the change of sentiments. If before everyone was bearish - then we can assume they sold, and if now they are bullish - then it is still probable that they have not yet bought back - as this takes time even after you think it the trend switched.

[fivebells]

The fact that all we have to go on is sentiment is the core problem.