It's quiet... *too* quiet!

[zhoutong]

Going back to the theme of it's too quiet, I have noticed the BTC price chart for the last week where everything seems quite steady.

There are no precipitous drops, a good point of resistance in the $2.20 range, gradual 5% to 10% increase over a few days, a bit of a gradual sell off, and then it repeats.

I know this can change any time, especially with manipulator intervention, but isn't this nice, for now??

SJ

If the price is $100 then it's really nice to have such stability. But for now, the potential instability is still terrible for commerce.

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[StewartJ]

If the price is $100 then it's really nice to have such stability. But for now, the potential instability is still terrible for commerce.

We are at nearly $2.00 as we have been gradually declining so that BTC is finding it's true value.

Maybe it will go down to $1.50 and even further down to $1.00. Who knows where it will reset itself.

Is this not stability? I would think $100 would be way too volatile.

[PatrickHarnett]

Merchants usually don't like to receive $10 for their sale... make that $9.50 a minute later.  No, $8.50 5 minutes later. 

Zimbabwe super hyper inflation - and you're right, they didn't like it.

[netrin]

Inflation != volatility. Bitcoin never technically hyperinflated (>50% monthly depreciation) but it was still a bit annoying trading physical goods.

[proudhon]

Who else has the sense that another largish drop is on the horizon?

[PatrickHarnett]

Inflation != volatility. Bitcoin never technically hyperinflated (>50% monthly depreciation) but it was still a bit annoying trading physical goods.

I agree, it tends to be one direction only.

Maybe you should try playing electricity spot trading - more volatile than almost anything else I know.  $100 one hour and $20,000 the next, or $0.01.  Hard to tell.

[bb113]

I meant, that people should be working on technologies and business models that allow merchants to function in a society with volatile markets. The most obvious example of this is a service that allows the immediate conversion of bitcoins to a more stable currency or commodity (USD). Since that already exists, what about high frequency pricing? Allow merchants to update prices on the fly based on the prices of competitors and prices upstream in their supply lines. I'm just thinking out loud here.

[ElectricMucus]

Who else has the sense that another largish drop is on the horizon?

Yes but I don't think that will be today. The 'rally' hasn't spiked yet and the buyer side don't look particular inviting to short into.
But a week from now I think we will finally go under 2.

[zby]

It's interesting time indeed - the bid walls never have been bigger, but on the other hand it seems that the rallies are smaller and smaller even though bouncing back from the huge support.  The conference is on the horizon - but on the other hand the EURo fiasco has started another wave of getting rid of all risky investments.

[proudhon]

It's interesting time indeed - the bid walls never have been bigger, but on the other hand it seems that the rallies are smaller and smaller even though bouncing back from the huge support.  The conference is on the horizon - but on the other hand the EURo fiasco has started another wave of getting rid of all risky investments.

The question for buyers, I think, is what the owner of those bid walls is up to.  We recently saw a very similar situation where what appeared to happen was that a giant bid wall was place, people's confidence went up and they therefore placed bids ahead of the bid wall, and when the bids in front of the bid wall was high enough somebody sold into exactly everything in front of the wall and then the wall was taken down and the price fell far below the wall.  I think because of that there's some hesitancy, for good reason, to buy up very far.  There's a good chance the same strategy is being played right now and the seller is just waiting for enough depth before he sells off another large chunk.

[ElectricMucus]

It's interesting time indeed - the bid walls never have been bigger, but on the other hand it seems that the rallies are smaller and smaller even though bouncing back from the huge support.  The conference is on the horizon - but on the other hand the EURo fiasco has started another wave of getting rid of all risky investments.

The question for buyers, I think, is what the owner of those bid walls is up to.  We recently saw a very similar situation where what appeared to happen was that a giant bid wall was place, people's confidence went up and they therefore placed bids ahead of the bid wall, and when the bids in front of the bid wall was high enough somebody sold into exactly everything in front of the wall and then the wall was taken down and the price fell far below the wall.  I think because of that there's some hesitancy, for good reason, to buy up very far.  There's a good chance the same strategy is being played right now and the seller is just waiting for enough depth before he sells off another large chunk.

That's also my suspicion, add to this that everytime a larger sale is up front it is quickly gobbled up, it seems that is a very profitable trading strategy.

To make it sour for him we must just be faster