Will BTCUSD break the long term trend?

[ineededausername]

There is a bundle of super-long-term trend lines that is going steadily up.  We've already plunged through just about half of them according to my diagram... you can see for yourself by graphing BTC on a log scale.
The question is, will we see the collapse of the markets?  The inability of the markets to go up is making me nervous.

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[Minsc]

I'm tempted to go all in right now below $5 where it's at, but the problem is not the volatility but the stagnation.  It might just stagnate below $5 for a week and since a lot of people need to get their money out at the end of the month, including me, I can't wait around for the chance it will finally stop stagnating.

[ArsenShnurkov]

will we see the collapse of the markets?

Yes, absolutely. The price will go to $2, then to zero (because there are miners who will mine in the name of idea which will provide supply, and because there is no enough demand).

[wobber]

Gold, Silver and Stocks are DOWN. Why would bitcoin be different?

[ElectricMucus]

Lawl, all those bear preachers: Guess what there are hundreds with the same idea, get the price down to a ridiculously small amount and pump it back up. Before it will go anywhere near these numbers there are people who are willing to pay just a tick more than you, and so on, and on...

And so far the death of the long-term trend has been greatly exaggerated...  

[ArsenShnurkov]

Lawl, all those bull preachers.
You don't understand that it is not an attempt of manipulation. It is the reality.

Have you ever tried to convince other people to accept bitcoins as payment for a large hard work when bitcoins are fall in price ?
Have you had difficulties with finding specialists with the right skills on the thin bitcoin market?
Have you tried to setup an agreement which includes rate risks?

And the bitcoin has fundamental flaw (which is proven by the presence of namecoin):
Bitcoin doesn't track property (both physical property and intellectual property, and the rights of inheritance).
This mean in particular that enterpreneurs are unable to make startups (I already told that to the owner of GLBSE, but he ignores that idea)

[ElectricMucus]

I don't get where you pointing at by 'flaws'... Bitcoin is what it is.

But the whole issue will resolve itself pretty quick, as I interpret the chart we will have to wait at most till mid-October when the long & midterm trends meet. If the long term holds we would have to get a rise in price levels if not that means bitcoin would face a similar predicament as folding @ home.

You bears will probably say 'I told you so' while in the mean time we would approach the halved block reward which would bring a new hype cycle.
Either way I don't see 'the end of bitcoin' and will most likely buy a bunch when this forum is filled with these kind of statements

[ArsenShnurkov]

as I interpret the chart

My interpretation differs. Look at the difficulty. Earlier it rose because there was new miners.
Now it is another story - no new adepts, and the number of existing will reduce.

[tacotime]

as I interpret the chart

My interpretation differs. Look at the difficulty. Earlier it rose because there was new miners.
Now it is another story - no new adepts, and the number of existing will reduce.

Yes, this is the harsh reality of the bitcoin -- it would be a true deflationary commodity if difficulty were able to not go back down over time with relation to the number of people mining it, but since it does it is neither a deflationary nor inflationary commodity but both depending on the direction of the difficulty and the hash rate.

An ideal digital, actual deflationary digital commodity would have variable block sizes based on hash rates (to ensure that even if network hash rate went down, transactions would still go through), would start at a very high difficulty, and would increase in difficulty based on the amount of it mined but never decrease in difficulty.  As soon as someone implements this, I'll stop mining bitcoin and start mining that because I think such a currency would hold its value over time much better than bitcoin.

[Nagle]

If you like log charts, here's a realistic one.

The brown line is a 30-day trailing moving average.

On a log scale, not only is Bitcoin in a screaming dive, the dive is accelerating.

On a linear graph, the 30-day moving average has been a straight line since the bubble popped in June.

That weirdo green line graph, extrapolating a straight line through the run-up and decline phases of a speculative bubble, is just silly.

[ElectricMucus]

If you like log charts, here's a realistic one.

On a log scale, not only is Bitcoin in a screaming dive, the dive is accelerating.

how is that any more realistic?
since we are playing this shorter term trend reversal game here is another chart..
btw the lower trendline meets with the longterm trend..

[BitMagic]

Yes, this is the harsh reality of the bitcoin -- it would be a true deflationary commodity if difficulty were able to not go back down over time with relation to the number of people mining it, but since it does it is neither a deflationary nor inflationary commodity but both depending on the direction of the difficulty and the hash rate.

No. Difficulty and the number of miners has nothing to do with Bitcoin's ultimate deflation. All that matters is that there is a finite supply in the long run. Gold is ultimately deflationary for the same reason; the planet will eventually run out at some point. Turns out that we know, pretty generally, when to expect deflation in bitcoins; it's built into the algorithm. Bitcoins, like gold, experience both short term inflation and deflation as long as there is an attitude that it's still useful to sell now (and produce). As production tapers off with ramped up difficulty, the likelihood of that sentiment remaining is low.

This, assuming of course, that at least one person is left to mine Bitcoins.

[istar]

I think its possible that Bitcoins are going down, and will probably stay very low for atleast a year maybe below $2 or even $1.
People will sell many coins around christmas, and who will want to buy coins at that time? Its very likely we will get a crash at that time.

As long as Bitcoins are going down at this speed its also very hard, almost impossible to get people and business to use Bitcoins meaning less money buying new Bitcoins.

The legal issues with Bitcoins makes it impossible for any serious gambling company to use, since it will mean that they will lose their license.

However I see it as a possible very good investment longterm unless there is a better alternative but at this time its gambling.

[Nagle]

btw the lower trendline meets with the longterm trend..

Drawing lines connecting peaks or valleys for Bitcoin is pointless. Bitcoin's big excursions are mostly due to extraneous factors like thefts, rip-offs, or bugs in Mt. Gox.  This is a thinly traded market, and anybody with some cash can move it around for a day or two before they run out of money and the market reverts to the long-term downward trend.

[S3052]

The charts and trendlines work equally well for bitcoins as for other financial markets. No issue with the trading volume.

[michaelmclees]

The charts and trendlines work equally well for bitcoins as for other financial markets. No issue with the trading volume.

Then why are you unable to predict the price?

[ElectricMucus]

btw the lower trendline meets with the longterm trend..

Drawing lines connecting peaks or valleys for Bitcoin is pointless. Bitcoin's big excursions are mostly due to extraneous factors like thefts, rip-offs, or bugs in Mt. Gox.  This is a thinly traded market, and anybody with some cash can move it around for a day or two before they run out of money and the market reverts to the long-term downward trend.

Well, I think not.
How much cash would one need to seriously change the market, at 72k peak volume that would be 300k USD @ 4.18. That is just one day...
What you call long time downward trend I call mid term correction...

PS: This rhetoric reminds me of gold around 2008, there was this big push that the bull market were over, and all it did was stalling for a few months. Just wait a few weeks and we will see the same thing now, at the double price   (Just a different scale in the case of gold it were the 'big players' as with bitcoin it are people with 'some cash')
I suspect a similar development with bitcoin, while here in addition it might even make mining profitable in the long run again

[Cluster2k]

And so far the death of the long-term trend has been greatly exaggerated...  

Why does the graph start in August 2010, when hardly anyone was using bitcoins and very few people even knew about them?  Why not start the graph in March or April 2011 when things really got going and bitcoins became popular?  August 2010 is an arbitrary date designed to make the long term trend look great.  Never mind that 80% fall in the middle.

[fivebells]

Um, what are we looking at here, exactly?

(BTW, I love pylab.imshow, too.  It makes beautiful pictures.  Do you like this pretty graph I made recently?)

[ElectricMucus]

Why does the graph start in August 2010, when hardly anyone was using bitcoins and very few people even knew about them?  Why not start the graph in March or April 2011 when things really got going and bitcoins became popular?  August 2010 is an arbitrary date designed to make the long term trend look great.  Never mind that 80% fall in the middle.

Where is another graph which includes the prices in 2009?

But after which date do you think a trend is relevant?

Price, Popularity and Difficulty are of course all related in some fashion. However not trivial way, it's like those hunter/pray population graphs only with more parameters. One might say that difficulty follows prices as well as popularity while popularity affects the product of both. It's a non-linear feedback model and to get a better estimate of what we might see in the future we would need to find the right model along with the parameters.


@fivebells
This isn't my work I found this somewhere on the forums but find it quite useful:
http://sd-12155.dedibox.fr/~joel/btc/mtgox2.png

But thanks, I always wondered how this was made, it seems you have figured it out for me