Has this just been the "Silk Road drop" of 2014's bubble?

[minerpumpkin]

Just before the real buildup to 2013's second bubble started, there was a sharp drop, due to the seizure of the Silk Road marketplace. Everyone was worried that it might be the end of Bitcoin. Luckily the price recovered pretty quickly, and didn't stop there. It continued to climb, and climb, and climb, and bubble.



Have we just witnessed a similar incident for the alleged 2014 bubble? Discuss!

[Wandererfromthenorth]

The Silk Road drop was a moment of pure panic driven by the unexpected Silk Road seizure. It was a sudden, very sharp and news driven crash. In the end, for various reasons, SR and BTC going mainstream on news had a positive effect on the price, which was probably bound to rise anyway.

This drop is slow, on low volume and not driven by major news. Yeah, there was the gold dump (but last time gold dumped bitcoin was rising pretty fast) and Ecuador "banning" bitcoin, but they seem more like "excuses" for a drop, rather than actual reasons for what happened.

We were approaching a "moment of truth" breakout with very important long term trend lines as support, but we breached them because some chinese on Okcoin and Huobi started the dumping.

For these reasons, sadly, I don't see how this downtrend that we have right now could be seen as the "Silk Road pre-bubble crash" or a bullish signal whatsoever  

[4mherewego]

The silkroad-rushup was artificial with Willy buying tons of bitcoins with stolen money...

[shockinglyugly]

The Silk Road drop was a moment of pure panic driven by the unexpected Silk Road seizure. It was a sudden, very sharp and news driven crash. In the end, for various reasons, SR and BTC going mainstream on news had a positive effect on the price, which was probably bound to rise anyway.

This drop is slow, on low volume is not driven by major news. Yeah, there was the gold dump (but last time gold dumped bitcoin was rising pretty fast) and Ecuador "banning" bitcoin, but they seem more like "excuses" for a drop, rather than actual reasons for what happened.

We were approaching a "moment of truth" breakout with very important long term trend lines as support, but we breached them because some chinese on Okcoin and Huobi started the dumping.

For these reasons, sadly, I don't see how this downtrend that we have right now could be seen as the "Silk Road pre-bubble crash" or a bullish signal whatsoever  

I agree, I think the SR seizure caused more of the public to become aware of bitcoin and more people to start using bitcoin.

[Wandererfromthenorth]

The silkroad-rushup was artificial with Willy buying tons of bitcoins with stolen money...

This whole Willy theory doesn't make any sense honestly.  

First of all, some have suggested that Willy was a bot/API for rich customers (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/26is61/the_simplest_explanation_is_usually_the_right_one/) and not a conspiracy by Karpeles.
But most importantly, Mt. Gox was becoming less and less influential compared to say Bitstamp of BTC China at the time. With 2-3 major exchanges with more/similar volume, a single bot cannot just "command" the price of BTC and be the main reason for a massive bubble of that magnitude. Especially considering the role the chinese had in the last bitcoin madness.
Willy bot, if really a "conspiracy", might have accelerated and facilitated things and maybe made them a little more dramatic, but not more.

[adamstgBit]

SR users sold me some coins in a panic.
SR2.0 users bought my coins in a panic.

a hole group left and came back, this is a very unique event and probably won't happen again.

but thats not to say a good drop can't snap back and go higher for other reasons.

and i do not believe this is what cause the bubble, they gave is a good kick start is all.

the bubble happened when it was becoming more clear the US gov wasn't going to try to kill it.

[Benjig]

But a drop from 600 to 550 its nothing compared to silk road crash (almost 35%) ... so it should be there a crash to at least 400 to "compare" both scenarios.

[peter378]

This seems different, the price keeps going down slowly in little steps, not in a sudden massive drop.

[minerpumpkin]

This seems different, the price keeps going down slowly in little steps, not in a sudden massive drop.

But it may have been just a small shatter or kick to get the train started!! Interesting answers so far, I concur with most assessments!

[ensurance982]

The silkroad-rushup was artificial with Willy buying tons of bitcoins with stolen money...

This whole Willy theory doesn't make any sense honestly.  

First of all, some have suggested that the bot was an bot/API for rich customers (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/26is61/the_simplest_explanation_is_usually_the_right_one/) and not a conspiracy by Karpeles.
But most importantly, Mt. Gox was becoming less and less influential compared to say Bitstamp of BTC China at the time. With 2-3 major exchanges with more/similar volume, a single bot cannot just "command" the price of BTC and be the main reason for a massive bubble of that magnitude. Especially considering the role the chinese had in the last bitcoin madness.
Willy bot, if really a "conspiracy", might have accelerated and facilitated things and maybe made them a little more dramatic, but not more.

That's an important way to view the whole situation! Many people still claim that it was Willy's fault or good deed to the bitcoin community! But what if it really wasn't... I guess though, that many people are afraid because Willy isn't around anymore

[Brewins]

Past performance is not warranty of future gains.

I see no big exposure of bitcoin on media, so no reason to a recover beyond the last short term max of 630.

[giveBTCpls]

Past performance is not warranty of future gains.

I see no big exposure of bitcoin on media, so no reason to a recover beyond the last short term max of 630.

This is good news for us. Anything that makes this stage of low price longer means cheaper BTC for us. Sooner or later the mainstream will have to admit the realities of life. When BTC gets in ebay it will be impossible to ignore for the media.

[minerpumpkin]

Past performance is not warranty of future gains.

I see no big exposure of bitcoin on media, so no reason to a recover beyond the last short term max of 630.

This is good news for us. Anything that makes this stage of low price longer means cheaper BTC for us. Sooner or later the mainstream will have to admit the realities of life. When BTC gets in ebay it will be impossible to ignore for the media.

If it gets in eBay. Nothing's for sure here. So your plan is to keep on piling up BTC as long as the price is at its current levels? Could work out.

[Dalmar]

According to the Trend Intensity Index this one is structurally significantly more bearish:

[minerpumpkin]

According to the Trend Intensity Index this one is structurally significantly more bearish:

Wow, that's interesting. Care to elaborate on that indicator? Do you think this means we're practically condemned and awaiting the big fall?

[AceWallen]

SR crash was a deep flash crash. all we've seen is a slow grind down (like the post-March rally bear, except even slower). i hope we dont see a SR crash from here.... that would be painful to hold through.

[AceWallen]

According to the Trend Intensity Index this one is structurally significantly more bearish:

Wow, that's interesting. Care to elaborate on that indicator? Do you think this means we're practically condemned and awaiting the big fall?

i wouldn't pay too much mind to that without significant back-testing. it's hard to pull much from these sporadic data points.

[DjPxH]

Indicate this.

Indicate that.

Jesus Christ, I've gotta crap.

Hey, it's the Speculation forum after all If we're not playing around with our nice little indicators, what would we be doing all day long?

[Chicowash]

Recent drop is not compared to that big one with silk road. Actually there is no bad news now.

[Anduck]

Recent drop is not compared to that big one with silk road. Actually there is no bad news now.

Recent drop may been caused by Bitfinex long positions shutting (selling bitcoins and paying borrowed USD back and taking losses.) I also think that Coinbase and Bitpay give decent selling pressure to the markets.. And of course we have thousands of coins mined everyday.