The next bull market + collapse of short interest bubble

[Hyena]

nice topic, OP might be on to something

[xDan]

So what I am saying is that most of this entire move is manipulated with the use of leveraged selling into the market, allowing major players to accumulate astonishing amounts of bitcoin in the recent capitulation low, probably off exchange.

Who are these "major players", I wonder? Who (that is presumably already rather rich) stands to get so much richer?

[Mellnik]

This time fo real  

[ssmc2]

So what I am saying is that most of this entire move is manipulated with the use of leveraged selling into the market, allowing major players to accumulate astonishing amounts of bitcoin in the recent capitulation low, probably off exchange.

Who are these "major players", I wonder? Who (that is presumably already rather rich) stands to get so much richer?

These people's hunger for money knows no bounds.

[Hyena]

So what I am saying is that most of this entire move is manipulated with the use of leveraged selling into the market, allowing major players to accumulate astonishing amounts of bitcoin in the recent capitulation low, probably off exchange.

Who are these "major players", I wonder? Who (that is presumably already rather rich) stands to get so much richer?

Warring Buffer is secretly filling his buckets with bitcoins while scaring other investors away by yelling "I wouldn't touch bitcoin with a stick"

[physicsdude]

Even so, do you think people are better off speculating on popular altcoins? Seems like there is a lot more potential to make big gains there.

[gog1]

The etf is an unknown quantity, it must have some effect when they buy in to the market, unless the Winklevoss twins are happy to sell up at this low price.

What's the IPO price of the ETF?

[Hyena]

Even so, do you think people are better off speculating on popular altcoins? Seems like there is a lot more potential to make big gains there.

Definitely. Perhaps it's wise to look at the charts and detect the altcoins that are not affected by bitcoin's movement so much? NuShares seems pretty independent from Bitcoin's price.

[gog1]

I think it is only fair to add that there are still over $15 million margin loan on BFX.  While this number has come down significantly - it is still a lot bigger than the amount of BTC short.

[sasha35625]

Hoping for ETF  is like hoping for Litecoin on Gox. Totally irrelevant.

[Hyena]

Hoping for ETF  is like hoping for Litecoin on Gox. Totally irrelevant.

haha, one of my friend's friend actually kept bitcoins on mt gox but had to leave the internet for several months and instructed my friend to use his account for buying heavily into ltc if ltc came to gox. I don't know if he was goxxed in the end or not, but that ltc going to gox story was fun.

anyway, is there any date announced when the etf goes live?

[gog1]

Hoping for ETF  is like hoping for Litecoin on Gox. Totally irrelevant.

the litecoin on gox rumor did cause litecoin to go up for a while.  we will see some sort of reaction when that happens

[bassclef]

Hoping for ETF  is like hoping for Litecoin on Gox. Totally irrelevant.

haha, one of my friend's friend actually kept bitcoins on mt gox but had to leave the internet for several months and instructed my friend to use his account for buying heavily into ltc if ltc came to gox. I don't know if he was goxxed in the end or not, but that ltc going to gox story was fun.

anyway, is there any date announced when the etf goes live?

I don't think the market is expecting it, nor pricing it in as SEC approval is at least a year-long process. If we don't get it, meh. If we do, watch out!

[inca]

the crash was not driven by manipulation, the run-up was.  Now the free market is correcting btc value, I still think were going down in the near term (next 6-8 months).

The latest move downwards (from below 600) is probably one of the clearer moves of direct market manipulation I have ever seen. Up there with gold moving vertically down 50 dollars when the SNB announced it would peg to the euro or when QE4EVER was announced last year by the FED.

A single glance at bfxdata shows 24,350 coins are currently borrowed in BTC swaps for shorts. This is virtually at the ATH despite a price 85% down from the actual ATH. A lot of small traders are expecting price drops. Yet those drops aren't happening and once the market begins to collectively realise we aren't going lower, there is only one way for it to go. And those coins need to be bought back. The average number of coins swapped for short contracts through most of 2014 was between 5,000 and 10,000 - mainly closer to 5,000. The change since august 2014 is quite instructive to observe. Short interest has risen 500% since then when the price was 580 ish. Short interest soared from 5,000 upwards, fell back after a major selloff, then rose even higher to where we are now.  

So what I am saying is that most of this entire move is manipulated with the use of leveraged selling into the market, allowing major players to accumulate astonishing amounts of bitcoin in the recent capitulation low, probably off exchange.

The great thing is we will find out over the coming months, won't we. Either the price will nose dive into the ground (because ..the chart..but the chart!..oh shiii) and the former CEO of Citi will have chucked away millions of dollars betting on bitcoin (today investing in coinbase) or it will rise. And if it rises, it will rise very quickly indeed - the bitcoin price is currently a football being held under the water - something that is hard to do for very long.

This is what the football surfacing might look like: https://www.tradingview.com/v/dHbn7XZ4/

I actually laughed out loud when I saw that. Brilliant antithesis to the bearish tone on this forum.

[inca]

It seems someone posted the shorts picture to r/bitcoin and it's on the front page. Whoever you are, well done!

[Bit_Happy]

The market clearly appears to be bottoming. Will we see a long, slow base-building, or a much faster transition to Bull market?

[ensurance982]

Yeah, that's basically also what I keep saying to myself. All the money going out of the market mostly just stays on the sidelines, ready to go back as soon as there's a definite uptrend recognisable! Bears will change their attitude as soon as they can profit from it.

[knight22]

Sideway for a while before slowly going up would be my bet.

[sgbett]

I'd really like to know exactly what the original chart represents. I know what everyone *thinks* it means but I think there is some assuming going on.

What I mean is, this link http://bfxdata.com/sentiment/longshort.php shows a different picture.

I used bitfinex a long time ago, and from what I recall swaps are just you saying that whatever you have on account there, you are prepared to loan out to someone else. So from this it looks like the inference here is that because BTC swaps are at a high that there is more short interest than usual.

I have 2 things that need to clear about about that:

1. What the chart isn't showing is what the USD swaps are currently. I know when I first looked at OP's chart I assumed that was the blue line, but its not - the blue line is the rate (of interest) on swaps. Which, as you would expect is slightly lower, due to the increased availability of BTC swap.

So, On its own all the chart tells me is that more BTC is being loaned out to others than before. It doesn't tell me if this is outsized compared to USD swap interest.

2. Another thing I recall, and I'm sure I'll be corrected if it doesn't work this way. Is that the leverage anyone has available to them is some dollar value based on calculated account value x some leverage factor. The account value is calculated based on total USD and total BTC at their market value in a given instant.

I also seem to recall that you can then use your available leverage to go long *or* short. The implication here being that USD swap and BTC swap are just 2 components that make up the total swap that is being utilised by everyone who is currently long or short BTC on leverage.

If that is the case - and I repeat I may have this wrong, its been a while since I used bitfinex! - then swap interest only really tells us about how active the market is, and says nothing about longs vs short interest.

Now if anyone can give me a cast iron guarantee (amidst the usual internet sea of unfounded opinions) that borrowed BTC can *only* be used to go short, and borrowed USD can *only* be used to go long then that clears up point 2.

Point 1 remains though, whats the USD swap like? are they both up? or is there some divergence - which would give us something more telling I think?

[sgbett]

ok sorry replying to my own post:

I think i found the answer to the first question...



Looks like since around 8th December USD swaps have decreased, and BTC swaps have increased. Interesting.