point of maximum pain

[adpinbr]

I still think we're a few months away, but with the late February exchange of about 100K Bitcoin in the span of an hour or so, someone is still accumulating big time at these prices.

Combined with these recent high-volume drops:


Plus I'm noticing the order books are starting to level out a bit more as well. I'm not sure that's a really a bearish or bullish sign, just thought it was interesting to note.

Also, just as a last indicator. I do remember quite vividly that during the bear run of June 2011 - November 2011 there were tons of people selling GPUs on the forums. Do we have a lot of people selling ASICs, yet? If not, I think we've got a while to go.

TLDR: This time its different, a rational player would not sell an ASIC

The ASICs are a very good point, but GPUs captured part of their value in the market so it would make sense to sell them even if you mined more than your electricity costs. I dont know if the same economics apply to ASICs, lets say people panic sell ASICs and they are at a bargain price right now(1$), I would only buy if I feel that they could stay energy competitive for quite some time until the price bounces back so that I will be able to profit from a net energy POV, by the time it peaks again and mining becomes super profitable you will have much more energy efficient ASICs out there pushing the difficultly up, and you out of the market. and I think the market realizes this

[600watt]

woot!! all aboard the 1k party train!

for sure $ 1k would be a reason to party bigtime now...

[devphp]

@OP,

are we there yet?

Because I feel just greed, but this greed is painful, because I temporarily ran out of fiat to buy moar, so yeah I feel pain, but not the kind of pain you're referring to

[IIOII]

@OP,

are we there yet?

Because I feel just greed, but this greed is painful, because I temporarily ran out of fiat to buy moar, so yeah I feel pain, but not the kind of pain you're referring to

Definitely not. We're there if you have given up and would have serious doubts about buying more even if you had the funds.

More pain to come.

[ScrapOfCat]

Not planning to sell, but definitely starting to feel the "Consolation Prize" pain...

[Raize]

I dont know if the same economics apply to ASICs, lets say people panic sell ASICs and they are at a bargain price right now(1$), I would only buy if I feel that they could stay energy competitive for quite some time until the price bounces back so that I will be able to profit from a net energy POV, by the time it peaks again and mining becomes super profitable you will have much more energy efficient ASICs out there pushing the difficultly up, and you out of the market. and I think the market realizes this

Very well-put. I hadn't considered that.

Along those lines, there were some European GPU miners selling out first in 2011 (around August), mostly due to higher electricity costs. Also, there was ~1 week where I was mining at a loss technically with GPUs in 2011. I suppose it might come down to if these ASIC farms that are running and selling coin are also hoarding fiat. If so, it's possible that instead of selling when we approach the bottom, they'll do like I (and I assume others) did and instead actually spend money to buy coin.

I still think the people most fanatical about Bitcoin are the miners. They are the ones that didn't purchase coin under some crazy assumption that the price would inflate forever, instead they are very well-grounded in the financial aspects and I have to believe that as the price continues to fall, they'll eventually hoard more than they sell. Especially if second-generation ASICs are just around the corner.

Anyway, good point, I guess we'll see how it plays out.

[devphp]

Definitely not. We're there if you have given up and would have serious doubts about buying more even if you had the funds.

More pain to come.

ok, but that would be around $200. I seriously doubt we could go down there.

[adpinbr]

Definitely not. We're there if you have given up and would have serious doubts about buying more even if you had the funds.

More pain to come.

ok, but that would be around $200. I seriously doubt we could go down there.

Would you care to share an unemotional logical explanation? Tell me why Bitcoin is worth 5 rather than 3 billion dollars, and why the marke will react to one different than the other?
Not trying to be an asshole but everyone here seems to base their analysis on market cycles which is basically an aggregation of human emotion and psychology throughout that cycle, you just put a number on it...

[rudius]

Would you care to share an unemotional logical explanation? Tell me why Bitcoin is worth 5 rather than 3 billion dollars, and why the marke will react to one different than the other?
Not trying to be an asshole but everyone here seems to base their analysis on market cycles which is basically an aggregation of human emotion and psychology throughout that cycle, you just put a number on it...

I think you got it right. Bitcoin doesnt have an intrinsic value. It will be what people will lead it to be. So if nobody want it anymore, it could go as low as 1$.
You cannot elaborate a logical price to target. Adoption is what drives the price. Fear and Euphorie add some fun to the game. But overall, you have to follow the adoption rate.

[devphp]

Would you care to share an unemotional logical explanation? Tell me why Bitcoin is worth 5 rather than 3 billion dollars, and why the marke will react to one different than the other?
Not trying to be an asshole but everyone here seems to base their analysis on market cycles which is basically an aggregation of human emotion and psychology throughout that cycle, you just put a number on it...

Bitcoin is not worth 5 or even 3 billion. The market cap is irrelevant, because if all bitcoins were sold at once, it'd drop to $10 or about that and that would bring its total cap to $200 mln at most. Same logic applies to any company's stock, so market cap calculations should be taken with a grain of salt.

But with each cycle of appreciation new money pours into bitcoin and although a lot of it is just looking for quick profits and withdraws when the price drops, some of it stays. These people who stay maintain a long-term look on it. They also don't chase the market, they buy at technical mid-term and long-term bottoms. If you buy at technical bottoms and fundamentals haven't changed (and they haven't), then your future pain will not be as bad as if you chased the price at the peak. That is kinda obvious.

But I must admit, that bitcoin is overvalued versus other altcoins, so some diversification is advisable. I posted my view on diversification here if you're interested.

[anu]

But I must admit, that bitcoin is overvalued versus other altcoins,

You are aware that:

• There is no alt coin that is not a knockoff of Bitcoin? The only other design of P2P payment that exists is Ripple / Hawala. And that is a couple 1000 years old.
• Bitcoin has the network effects? People invest in Bitcoin businesses, not in Foobar-Coin businesses. Why? Because people invest in Bitcoin businesses.

There is a good chance that in the 22. century, Bitcoin will be called the most important invention of the 21st. Calling it "overvalued" seems a bit short sighted.

[devphp]

But I must admit, that bitcoin is overvalued versus other altcoins,

You are aware that:

• There is no alt coin that is not a knockoff of Bitcoin? The only other design of P2P payment that exists is Ripple / Hawala. And that is a couple 1000 years old.
• Bitcoin has the network effects? People invest in Bitcoin businesses, not in Foobar-Coin businesses. Why? Because people invest in Bitcoin businesses.

There is a good chance that in the 22. century, Bitcoin will be called the most important invention of the 21st. Calling it "overvalued" seems a bit short sighted.

I am aware that there is NXT that is written from scratch in a completely different language and has many more features than Bitcoin, so you should catch up on learning the crypto currency scene. Not meant to insult, but to raise awareness. Other alts are more or less a knockoff of bitcoin, that's true.

Network effect, I agree to some extent. But we all know how network effects on the internet is not something set in stone (netscape, myspace examples). The next 1-2 years will show who is short sighted. Keeping all eggs in one basket is never a wise idea.

[CoinRocka]

But I must admit, that bitcoin is overvalued versus other altcoins,

You are aware that:

• There is no alt coin that is not a knockoff of Bitcoin? The only other design of P2P payment that exists is Ripple / Hawala. And that is a couple 1000 years old.
• Bitcoin has the network effects? People invest in Bitcoin businesses, not in Foobar-Coin businesses. Why? Because people invest in Bitcoin businesses.

There is a good chance that in the 22. century, Bitcoin will be called the most important invention of the 21st. Calling it "overvalued" seems a bit short sighted.

I am aware that there is NXT that is written from scratch in a completely different language and has many more features than Bitcoin, so you should catch up on learning the crypto currency scene. Not meant to insult, but to raise awareness. Other alts are more or less a knockoff of bitcoin, that's true.

Network effect, I agree to some extent. But we all know how network effects on the internet is not something set in stone (netscape, myspace examples). The next 1-2 years will show who is short sighted. Keeping all eggs in one basket is never a wise idea.

NXT = USD 2.0

[devphp]

NXT = USD 2.0

No idea what you're talking about. Only please don't raise the issue of distribution, it'd be utterly stupid, as NXT has better distribution than bitcoin now. Research the latest stats.

[prophetx]

Firstly thanks for that analysis Raize, I'd be interested to hear how you felt about the general sentiment during the bubles you experienced in comparison to today?

Click that first link and read some of the comments from the first post, you'll note both theymos and evoorhees were very bearish on Bitcoin even after it had fallen as much as it had. I think the sentiment today is still far too chipper to say we're in capitulation. I think the tune of the forums will be much harsher once we're looking at double digits again. I also think it wouldn't be surprising to see people talking about having lost their entire life savings on Bitcoin regularly in the news, as well as a few reports of folks who took out loans that had to declare bankruptcy due to loans they took out to buy it during either bubble. Remember that the post one week after the $2 low Wired ran an article called The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin, it was seen as an experiment that failed. We have to see people saying the same things again in the news for me to think it's at a new low.

Lastly, when the next increases *do* happen, I suspect they will be significantly slower to ramp up into anything resuming a bubble. It might be another year (possibly two) yet before we see the ATH, and it might not happen till sometime after the next halving, even. This was a pretty epic bubble and there's a lot of cheap $100 coin from Gox, TM Gox coin, hacked coin, and the SR coin that might keep downward pressures heavy for some time as it gets sold regularly.

That said, I've been wrong before, I thought the fall from $260 was "the big one" and we were going back to $12 or so then to match that 96% decline, then more ASICs came out. That's why I put a heavy emphasis on the impact of taxes, regulations, and second-generation ASICs today. It could be that the expectations now for ASIC miners are going to get so high that easy coin is no longer achievable, and the supply ends up going into the hands of folks that hoard it.

Put simply, the less miners hoard, the more likely the price will fall, the more likely they hoard, the more likely we'll see bubbles form. I'm hoarding myself and waiting for double-digits to buy back in, but that's pretty much been my modus operandi for the last three years anyway. I want to retire and live off of my coin for the rest of my life, and I can't safely do that right now. Without taxes, I almost could.

i agree with this one.

one thing that does need to get pointed out is that during the 260 bubble one of the chinese exchanges actually traded as high as 310ish (btcchina)

[anu]

I am aware that there is NXT that is written from scratch in a completely different language

Bitcoin is not written in any particular language. Bitcoin is a protocol. The Satoshi implementation IS NOT Bitcoin. Slightly tweaking that protocol does not make it something truely new IMHO. NXT is a knockoff.

[devphp]

Bitcoin is not written in any particular language. Bitcoin is a protocol. The Satoshi implementation IS NOT Bitcoin. Slightly tweaking that protocol does not make it something truely new IMHO. NXT is a knockoff.

Well, Bitcoin protocol can't do decentralized exchange at this point, but NXT can. NXT can transfer funds just like Bitcoin + other new things that Bitcoin can't do. If you call something a knockoff just because the basic function is the same, well, then Bitcoin is a knockoff of traditional money transfer systems, and those are a knockoff of cowry shells that ancient people used to trade. But we all know that the main advantage of Bitcoin is it's decentralized (cowry shells were decentralized too by the way). Well, now you have a decentralized exchange in NXT, something that hasn't been done before and that Bitcoin doesn't have. That's far from slightly tweaking the protocol.

[anu]

Well, Bitcoin protocol can't do decentralized exchange at this point,

This is not part of the Bitcoin protocol, right. And it should not. But I am going to release a distributed exchange Fiat<->BTC within a few days:
https://github.com/zeroreserve/ZeroReserve

[devphp]

Well, Bitcoin protocol can't do decentralized exchange at this point,

This is not part of the Bitcoin protocol, right. And it should not. But I am going to release a distributed exchange Fiat<->BTC within a few days:
https://github.com/zeroreserve/ZeroReserve

Not sure why you say it should not.

Good for you, the more solutions, the better.

[ParabellumLite]

NXT = USD 2.0

No idea what you're talking about. Only please don't raise the issue of distribution, it'd be utterly stupid, as NXT has better distribution than bitcoin now. Research the latest stats.

Agreed.