What would a whale do?

[Wary]

Given:

1) The current cycle pattern is amazingly similar to the previous two.
2) Everybody is aware of it and prepared to act accordingly. I.e.
          a) Go all in now.
          b) Sell in July, just before the peak.
          c) Buy at 40% of it.
          d) Sell again in a month, at the re-bounce.
          e) Buy again in 87 days after the peak, at the bottom.
3) Whales are aware of these plans and will somehow use this knowledge to transfer our coins to their pockets.

Fair enough, that's the rules of the game and it's our decision to play it. But my question is:

1) What specifically would a whale do? How exactly could he trick us?
2) Is there a way not to fall a victim to it? (apart from just holding for the whole cycle)

[GigaCoin]

It does look very similar to previous cycles, but it feels too easy to be honest i'm not sure yet what to fully make of it.

[MatTheCat]

Fair enough, that's the rules of the game and it's our decision to play it. But my question is:

1) What specifically would a whale do? How exactly could he trick us?
2) Is there a way not to fall a victim to it? (apart from just holding for the whole cycle)

Depends on the nature of the whale. Are we talking a Bitcoin to 100K believing whale or a 'I just stole me 100K BTC' (but I really want USD) whale?

Are we talking about a whale that might use his buying power to shake weak hands out the market so that he can own all their coins at a discount or are we talking about a whale who will sit and let the price rise and huge support build up so he can maximise his BTC/USD extraction from the market?

[chriswilmer]

Given:

1) The current cycle pattern is amazingly similar to the previous two.
2) Everybody is aware of it and prepared to act accordingly. I.e.
          a) Go all in now.
          b) Sell in July, just before the peak.
          c) Buy at 40% of it.
          d) Sell again in a month, at the re-bounce.
          e) Buy again in 87 days after the peak, at the bottom.
3) Whales are aware of these plans and will somehow use this knowledge to transfer our coins to their pockets.

Fair enough, that's the rules of the game and it's our decision to play it. But my question is:

1) What specifically would a whale do? How exactly could he trick us?
2) Is there a way not to fall a victim to it? (apart from just holding for the whole cycle)

I think whales are probably going to jump in very soon. I don't think they care so much about tricking anybody so much as getting in before other whales... the only thing I can imagine happening is a whale using his power to create a ton of bad press right before going all in.... so, maybe this already happened.

[knightcoin]

News like ..

Macro Energy soars 42% after Bitcoin buy March 14, 2014 09:27 AM
Shares in Macro Energy Limited (ASX:MEJ) soared yesterday after the resources-focused investment fund revealed a proposed restructure, new name and completion of a $9.1 million capital raising.

http://www.finnewsnetwork.com.au/archives/finance_news_network76198.html

[Zapffe]

Whales are hoping that new whales will come to buy the coins. They are hoping that the incident 10 days ago wasn't an isolated case. If nothing happens soon, then everyone will start to freak out and the price will drop.

http://s28.postimg.org/two8prdfh/insta.gif

[chriswilmer]

Whales are hoping that new whales will come to buy the coins. They are hoping that the incident 10 days ago wasn't an isolated case. If nothing happens soon, then everyone will start to freak out and the price will drop.

The only people who think this are people whose memory doesn't span more than a few months.

[Wary]

It does look very similar to previous cycles, but it feels too easy to be honest i'm not sure yet what to fully make of it.

Exactly my feelings. There must be a catch somewhere. But where???

Depends on the nature of the whale. Are we talking a Bitcoin to 100K believing whale or a 'I just stole me 100K BTC' (but I really want USD) whale?

Are we talking about a whale that might use his buying power to shake weak hands out the market so that he can own all their coins at a discount or are we talking about a whale who will sit and let the price rise and huge support build up so he can maximise his BTC/USD extraction from the market?

Let's talk the long-term whale, "To the Moon"-believer that wants to maximize his BTC stock and doesn't care about current BTC rate and reputation. Somebody who would DDOS and discredit BTC, if it helps him to shake some weak hands.

So what would he do? He would somehow have to trick us into selling low and buying high. Would he try to confuse bots? Or to scare humans? Would he be just doing fore-running or just the opposite - sending us false-start signals?

[Wary]

News like ..

Macro Energy soars 42% after Bitcoin buy March 14, 2014 09:27 AM

No, more like "China bans bitcoin". Maybe it's what happened last December? Some high-rank Chinese official have decided to convert his ill-gained millions to bitcoins. So "ban" > panic > cheap coins.

[MatTheCat]

Whales are hoping that new whales will come to buy the coins. They are hoping that the incident 10 days ago wasn't an isolated case. If nothing happens soon, then everyone will start to freak out and the price will drop.

What, you mean the panic buying from the 1 day when it looked as though Ukraine's economy might go under?

[chriswilmer]

Whales are hoping that new whales will come to buy the coins. They are hoping that the incident 10 days ago wasn't an isolated case. If nothing happens soon, then everyone will start to freak out and the price will drop.

What, you mean the panic buying from the 1 day when it looked as though Ukraine's economy might go under?

Are you still bearish? I mean, you were definitely bearish when it made sense to be bearish... but c'mon, it's time to be bullish now

[MatTheCat]

Are you still bearish? I mean, you were definitely bearish when it made sense to be bearish... but c'mon, it's time to be bullish now

I am neither bearish nor bullish at this point in time....just a bit bored and jaded with Bitcoin at the moment.

I have however just bought 10 BTC at $640, so I guess I think there is more upside potential in the coming weeks than downside, although not totally convinced by Bitcoin at the time being. Probably a lot of grinding and trending to be done from here, with likely lower lows than $600 range to come before bear phase can be truly shaken off.

[chriswilmer]

Are you still bearish? I mean, you were definitely bearish when it made sense to be bearish... but c'mon, it's time to be bullish now

I am neither bearish nor bullish at this point in time....just a bit bored and jaded with Bitcoin at the moment.

I have however just bought 10 BTC at $640, so I guess I think there is more upside potential in the coming weeks than downside, although not totally convinced by Bitcoin at the time being. Probably a lot of grinding and trending to be done from here, with likely lower lows than $600 range to come before bear phase can be truly shaken off.

Seems sensible!

[Peter R]

It does look very similar to previous cycles, but it feels too easy to be honest i'm not sure yet what to fully make of it.

Exactly my feelings. There must be a catch somewhere. But where???

How about this: each growth spurt the total number of participants increases by a factor of 3 - 6X.  Perhaps the market dynamics are dominated by the people who are new to bitcoin (who haven't yet learned from the past), and so we see similar cycles repeat over and over. If this is true, eventually this pattern would become exploitable (and thus disappear), but perhaps it can occur a few more times before it does.

[Zapffe]

Volume is low and it is dropping not rising. Soon people will get tired of trading with each other with no new money coming in.

[boumalo]

I was looking for a post like this,  a post with good educated guesses

My opinion is that if we have the start of a big bull market everyone will go crazy and buy and we should see new all time highs bc there is a lot more money in the market.
The start of the bull market could be an economic crisis or possibly very good news for Bitcoin

The question is will we test the lows before we rise, we may!

[sgbett]

I have however just bought 10 BTC at $640

Bears, be afraid. This is a sign, a really big one.

Good luck! (to both of us hehe)

[akujin]

Swim? 

[knightcoin]

Volume is low and it is dropping not rising. Soon people will get tired of trading with each other with no new money coming in.

LoL ... reminsds Rounders (1998)

They don't play each other, just chating/waiting for new blood  

Atlantic City Suckers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciWBzhmOC_o

[Zapffe]

Volume is low and it is dropping not rising. Soon people will get tired of trading with each other with no new money coming in.

LoL ... reminsds Rounders (1998)

They don't play each other, just chating/waiting for new blood  

Atlantic City Suckers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciWBzhmOC_o

Lol, yeah, something like that. And when new blood wouldn't come, then the players would soon start taking their chips and leave one by one