nrd525 Market Tracker

[ask]

Sold 1.4 BTC on GDAX at 2280. 

Really? Full 1.4 BTC? Peanuts...

[nrd525]

Sold 2.7 BTC on GDAX at 2260 average.  Got 10 BTC left.

[nrd525]

Sold 3 BTC at around 2320 on Gdax.  Now I'll probably try to hold the rest until they double or something crazy.

[nrd525]

ICO Bubble gains steam. ETH new ATH ($238).

http://www.coindesk.com/35-million-30-seconds-token-sale-internet-browser-brave-sells/

[Samarkand]

ICO Bubble gains steam. ETH new ATH ($238).

http://www.coindesk.com/35-million-30-seconds-token-sale-internet-browser-brave-sells/

The (first?) scientific study about ICOs based on Ethereum 

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03779.pdf

[nrd525]

Awesome paper!

They found a lot of ETH ponzi schemes, though not that many ETH were involved (40,000+) - and a lot of that was before the DAO hack/bug.

It is important to recognize how your view of about the significance of events/facts/fundamentals is colored/biased by the BTC price. For instance, if we were in a bear market - the developer drama would be more significant. As we're in a bull market, Ethereum (and other alt-coins) is seen as a vehicle of opportunities - not ponzis.

Of course ETH isn't a ponzi scheme. It's a platform for ponzi schemes (and other things).

The ICO issue is much bigger than the ponzis.

[nrd525]

US stock market is at ATH.   A bullish stock market is good for bitcoin, but a bearish stock market (which will happen eventually) is bad.

[nrd525]

We're trying to set new BTC high and go to $3000.  Will we make it?

Dogecoin is also going for new highs.
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dogecoin/#charts

Bitfinex adds ICO IOTA token. Is this the first ICO to break into a major exchange (other than Poloniex)?

I still think the bull market will burst, but we could easily see another leg up. It's all guessing!

[nrd525]

So if anyone appreciates this thread because by taking the opposite of my advice you are making lots of money, please PM me and arrange a donation

Sold another 0.2 BTC at $2830 on BFX (as their price is almost as good as other markets).  I setup stepped sell orders for a total of 2 BTC in the $2800 to $3980 range.

[nrd525]

$3000 BTC on OkCoin China and Bitfinex. Not yet on BTCe, Bitstamp or Coinbase.

No major changes in the fundamentals, right?  There are all sorts of proposals floating around and frankly I'm not seeing anything making progress - though I expect SegWit will eventually pass in the next three years.

Sold 0.2 BTC at 2980 and 0.2 BTC at 2810 on Bitfinex.

[nrd525]

$150 million for an ICO, hmm
http://www.coindesk.com/150-million-tim-draper-backed-bancor-completes-largest-ever-ico/

Bitfinex crashes 24% today.  Other exchanges are more like 15%.

[nrd525]

Another ICO.  Sells out before they even offer their token/shares.

http://www.coindesk.com/civics-ico-pre-sale-sells-out-but-crowd-to-get-second-chance/

[nrd525]

The enthusiasm gap between bitcoin and ethereum is large.  It's also fascinating how much BTC has gone up given this lack of enthusiasm.
http://www.coindesk.com/charts-enthusiasm-ethereum-hit-time-high-q1/

[ParabellumLite]

The enthusiasm gap between bitcoin and ethereum is large.  It's also fascinating how much BTC has gone up given this lack of enthusiasm.
http://www.coindesk.com/charts-enthusiasm-ethereum-hit-time-high-q1/

Bitcoin is the alt-coin trading bridge of choice. That's the most important reason Bitcoin probably went up lately, together with other factors such as good news from Australia, Japan, etc. I think we should take into account that Bitcoin's appreciation has a lot to do with its actual use as a bridge for trading altcoins, instead of it's (nearly exclusive) speculative use with regard to actual payments. In that sense, not much has still changed since 2013.

Bitcoin has appreciated by about a factor of 3, while other altcoins, among which ETH and XRP, have appreciated much more rapidly in the same 2017 timespan. Bitcoin dropped from about 85-90% market dominance to 38% today. In just a couple of months, it lost the dominance it had for years.

I think everyone should pay attention to that.

[nrd525]

I think $3000 was the peak of the bull market and we're now in a bear market for several months to two years.  Of course I earlier said "2700 is the top"   So what do I know?  I'm saying this based on the 30% decline from the peak.  Though in China the decline is much smaller.
Bifinex: 3000 to 2050 (31.7%)
Bitstamp: 2980 to 2120 (28.9%)
Coinbase: 3000 to 2100 (30%)
Okcoin: 21200 to 16761 (20.9%)

The severity of the bear market might depend on how much the ICOs and alt-coins crash, and also not just the Bitcoin developer/future/miner conflict - but the level of rhetoric around it.

The fast rise of the alt-coins points to 1) Bitcoin can be replaced (at least temporarily), and 2) that they could fall 95%.

[nrd525]

I might be very wrong about my attempting to analyze the crashes (and figure out whether the bull market is over).

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6hdrcj/bitcoin_bubble_bear_traps_yet_again/

[nrd525]

Bifinex has USD swap walls of 15 million at FRR (around 0.15%) and 20 million at 0.75%.  I think it is a BFX friendly whale that is trying to maximize profit, while not driving lending rates down too much. For instance, nobody tries to lend most of their money at 0.75% to maximize profit - you do it to ensure that the rates don't spike and that there isn't a crisis caused when swaps stop automatically renewing.

It's the Bitfinex Swap Whale that has been around for at least one year. Not as exciting as a regular Bitcoin whale, unless you have most of your money in swaps (which I now do).

Now all of this is speculation, but why else would they be doing this?  It's also possible that the whale is Bitfinex itself and they are investing their profits into swap.  Bitfinex has done $6 billion USD in volume in the past 30 days.  So I don't think they have $35 million to invest, but they should have $5-$10 million.

[nrd525]

This site has lending rates.  Note be careful where you lend!  Do your own research!
https://coinlend.de/#!History:BTC

[nrd525]

Of course hedge fund managers don't lose money when their fund goes to zero. I think they take a cut of the profits and I'm not sure what they do if they have negative returns - probably earn zero.  So for profit-maximizer, they'd want to manage the riskiest fund possible (except for the damage to their reputation).

http://www.coindesk.com/100-million-pantera-capital-ico-hedge-fund/

[nrd525]

Augur was overvalued at $8, now trading for $29.  It's also competing with Gnosis.

https://blog.coinfund.io/a-sane-model-for-pricing-augur-rep-tokens-32dbd9db5f6

I like prediction markets, but the fees might end up even lower than 1% if there is a lot of competition.  What are the current Bitcoin casino/betting fees at?  They had stabilized at 1% last time I checked a couple years ago - so maybe users aren't rational enough and prefer features over fees.  Or maybe betters are less rational than predictors.  Or maybe having market makers is more important to reduce the bid/ask spread.

If you have $1 billion in bets at 1% fee you make $10 million, which will pay back your Augur investors in 30 years.  That's an extremely long wait for a crypto currency that faces risks of hackers, regulation, competition, and more. And $1 billion in bets seems high.