I think it's a poisonous mix of their two versions, almost a Matrix style blending.

The NSA logs everything while the population gets fat & dies, pill popping to the Kardashians theme song.

(note: i haven't read upthread, hoping this refers to Orwell & Huxley's visions of the future in 84 & BNW.)

Stereotyping, yes....... but "prophesys" and "considaration" don't fill me with hope as to your trading skills.

and will, logically, drop the price further )

The Gox fiasco will have lasting effect, I think about 12 months worth. It contributed significantly to bringing on a bear market.

I think everyone is waiting for the regulations to come down. It is the elephant in the room (whether you agree with the reg concept or not).

Before that, while the stock market pushes up or the dollar does, then bitcoin will stay in a bear market.

Bitcoin needs constant publicity. Out of sight is out of mind. Although, I'd prefer if it was a bit more impartial / researched than just 'moon', 'doom' or 'interwebs money'.

As an aside, I feel there is a real push to see $200.

stamp now online with multisig.

https://www.bitstamp.net/article/bitstamp-is-open-for-business-better-than-ever/

No doubt we've had a lengthy bear market but with regards to China, I wonder how much lately is due to a diversion of funds into their stock market ( has been on a run last 6 months or so). Such a run up they're now trying to slow it down, putting the brakes on margins. Interesting.

massive dump

when you have to answer the question "What is Bitcoin?" then it becomes clearer why it isn't Angry Birds or an iPhone.

It's global, complex, effects multiple entrenched industries and disciplines, and is also a major financial paradigm shift.

I think $260ish will be the top for now and we'll head back down on a big dump. Maybe that will be it for the bear?

Denmark has been busy cutting interest rates to devalue the kroner (to keep with the peg to Euro). While they can print as much local currency as they wish, their economy & balance sheet cannot handle the expansions in the same way the EU or US can. Good chance they will have to depeg like the Swiss have done. So, in that sense bitcoin isn't doomed in Denmark, however as a convenient option, local, small app based banking products are winning the race.

I've also read we can expect 20-25% of coins back. Not great but way better than a donut.

I think this is a prescient point. Because we are in such high stakes uncharted economic territory, having a stake in bitcoin (say 1-5% of net worth) is a good idea. Global extended QE, ZIRP, NIRP and currency wars mean the risk of a SHTF moment have increased. If that moment is a sovereign default, a large de-pegging, increasing deflation or capital controls, the consequences will be wide ranging. And thats the thing with many of these events; they happen very quickly. Take the Swiss de-pegging a few weeks back knocking out large trading firms. All of a sudden, and in stark oppostion to the statements from the SCB a few days earlier, shit changed instantly.

No one knows what effect a SHTF moment will have on safe havens like gold or USD or on speculations like bitcoin, but the upside if it reflects positively is enormous.

A person dies and the conversation devolves into this.

i remember this game....

NLC, just read your interview. Well done. 135 comments per shift is some mean keyboardin'.

http://www.rferl.org/content/how-to-guide-russian-trolling-trolls/26919999.html


"There are production quotas, and for meeting your quota you get 45,000. The quota is 135 comments per 12-hour shift."

I agree but the effect on noobs happens in both directions.

The difference is that (generally) bull posts are frequently positive yet irrationally exuberant while bear posts are negative and spiteful.

Haha nice Lamby, I get an incurable disease reference AND a word often associated with pedophilia!



 

C'mon kiddo, you have a much easier bcf target in magical tux!!!

Shrem did the wrong thing, but what about PayPal?

Or Gen Petraeus v Edward Snowden

Or Google / Youtube v Kim Dotcom

Hypocrisy, or we could just talk about your ever so witty pictures & commentary about those Zortan looking folks.

If M

@VitalikButerin: BTW despite my increasing agreement with "blockchain tech cool, currency meh", reminder that I still believe this:

http://imgur.com/6E3jMpL

Not a flight to stability because bitcoin is not stable  . But if we see a large sovereign default or similar crisis the public may find it difficult to even be able to offload anything in a hurry. There should though, be a flight to considered safety, ie without counterparty risk. Derivative products, toxic MBS's, debt loads are globally connected through financial institutions. Think of Toxic MBS's in '08. Housing was the crack in the excessive risk taking / debt in the system. One asset that saw a rise was Gold, as tradition would dictate. Perhaps this time the crack will be something like Oil Junk Bonds - Oil company sells bonds to raise cash, hedging exposure @$80pb. Now if the price drops below $80pb the company is insured but who picks up the loss? Sure, the original bank who took on the risk but they've also sold part of it on down the line. It may be a Swedish pension fund, a Chinese investment company, an Italian managed fund etc, a Saudi SWF.


But it's possible that in this scenario people go only to cash, or collectibles or gold and shun bitcoin. Who knows? But Bitcoin is certainly out there, not wildly popular but on the conscious fringe of society; a global immutable, trustless, decentralised ledger "secured" by a digital token. Fair play if you want to talk down its chances, but it is at least worth having a small stake; the risk / reward ratio is high.

My point is that losses are accrued worldwide, not US centric. Sure AIG was a big player and small pension funds and local municipalities were burnt after GS threatened Armageddon if they didn't get their money back.
But, you might be a Swedish citizen but your pension fund may have allocated part of their portfolio to junk bonds and so you suffer the loss despite having no idea of the oil company or junk bonds. You probably wouldn't know what % of your money is allocated where. The poster i was replying to was dismissing that people would sell stocks, fiat or bonds to invest in bitcoin; I was saying in the event of another crisis, risk is so connected and global that assets without counterparty risk would be the safer, and maybe only, option (and if it is a sovereign default, a number of fiats - cash - could fail).

From that you're left with gold, and now bitcoin. Obviously, that's a 'big bang' scenario and Bitcoin may not yet be able to handle it. I don't see bitcoin acceptance being a trickle, I think if it is to take hold, eventually it'll be a stampede.

Perhaps if we start to see a rising bitcoin price without a) an overt trigger and b) continued poor press, then it might signal something is up? I don't know how something like that would play out if people sensed a melt down ahead. It's obviously not happening now, bitcoin is being slugged under bear pressure amongst other things, I'm not professing to have it all figured out 

But you also have to acknowledge the fluctuations brought about by currency wars. At least since 2000 the Reais has gone from 2:1 to 1:1 approx and since 2010 (when Mantega called it out) it has worsened. Point is, the US Fed's policies have effected all EM's in regards to IR's, debt to gdp, balance sheets etc; bitcoin may have it problems but you're just attempting to shoot down bitcoin on all fronts.

This is widely acknowledged by all and sundry and I don't think it's a condemnation or a validation. It's an experiment and the first time anything like this, challenging a belief, system and process, has happened. Who knows?


I agree with some of this, but would expand to anyone who believes either the bull or bear perma pitch - 'instant riches' or 'bitcoin is dead $0.00' tomorrow' - is equally foolish. But, you can see bitcoin as a hedge or not; maybe some will liquidate btc for cover in the case of a non bitcoin crisis (which would accelerate any downswing) but others many buy in to have something 'off grid' / safe from bail-ins.

We haven't really seen how bitcoin performs during a real downturn or a genuine full economic upturn. All we've seen is it operating in exceptional monetary circumstances - QE, Currency Wars, legal no-mans-land, use case 'busts', tapering, Cyprus bail-ins.

Seems like YV might be getting sidelined - see his FDR tweet and a 'new' negotiating team joining the discussions to try and get the new bailouts over the line. Reports say YV did not want to remove Syriza's 'living wage' increases and the Troika, well, not such big fans.

Still don't think they will default and BTC won't even rate a mention so this never ending decline will continue, at least until the bears and quick buck traders near destroy it. But it will be back

How funny that bitcoin trading on weekends is a different beast to weekdays because funds can't transferred on Sat / Sun.

At least we are getting to the crux of where your standpoint comes from.

Dislike of ponzi schemes (like TelexFree and which you conflate with bitcoin & early adopters)

Believe Bitcoin is ruined by libertarians / austrians / deflationists leanings.

Living through the Farias & Collor times in Brazil, wouldn't you think a bootstrapping system that attempted to wipe out theft of funds, fraud etc (own priv keys and -pre-emptively- not in Mt Gox sense). Seems like more cynicism than skepticism

Adoption will be slow until it isn't. What I mean by this is that it will continue rising slowly as the media narrative evolves. We are still increasing our adoption as major financials experiment with blockchain tech under the assumption that tech and token will be separate. Companies and people dip their toes in and get used to the system, trial it for a year / 6 months, building their strategy. Traders have a play around. A slow burn if you will.

Remember those of us sitting pretty in the West with our seemingly secure banks and social cohesion have little need for bitcoin tech apart from bank fee avoidance, curiosity and black market dealings. But as fascism-lite (Shock Doctrine style) overtakes capitalism, another batch of noobs joins in, unhappy with the scrutiny, unhappy with cash restrictions, unhappy with major data breaches. And our first world societies are the main markets while the places that need it (eg Argentina, Africa) are slowly, slowly becoming part of it.

As such it's not about bitcoin saving Greece; that's a very superficial and naive view for anyone to have, although the Greek (or Cyprus) events were catalysts for speculating & publicity. It is about bitcoin being increasingly recognised as a safe haven asset, because another panic is coming. There is basically nowhere safe from contagion and nowhere that is not more indebted or bloated than they were before 2008. Literally no one, by any metric, thinks that things are back to normal.

Greece may not be the straw that breaks the global financial systems back (but it may certainly be the death knell of the Euro project - Euroskepticism is back).

A prolonged China stock sell off may not either but it could be a sign of coming global trouble. Forgetting that China is a massive risk, the real worry is contagion; so many things are interconnected to China - from real estate (Canada, London, Australia) to commodities (Canada, Australia) to currency (US - $ will flow back at first sign of trouble, deflationary). A sharp Chinese sell off may also be a harbinger of whats to come down the line, a previous example being the sell off of Japanese stocks in 2007 prior to mortgage crisis in 2008 - big financials started to sell off overseas assets to cover increase in defaulting mortgages at home. It eventually got to a point almost a year later when it all imploded).

At the end of the day, aside from the short term P&D'ers, that is why people speculate on bitcoin. When SHTF you wanna be in.

China Shanghai stocks down 8.5%, biggest one day drop since 2007.

considering the trashing commodities and emerging market currencies have received since mid 2014, bitcoin has done a fair job in regaining and holding around the $300 mark.

In fact, after falling in step with oil, gold, EM currencies for the best part of a year, the recent bullish turnaround might be showing bitcoin distinguishing itself from these asset classes.

best thing about this rally is that those currencies in emerging markets that have devalued so heavily in the last year are now getting a little back in btc price.

I'm trying to get my head around higher price levels in the future and am thinking of it this way - Berkshire Hathaway (or google etc etc) launched at a price range that could attract general individual investors. Mom & Pop could buy a decent amount (though more than what early / insiders got it for). Then as it started to rise many individuals stopped being able to buy a big chunk of shares and could maybe get a handful. Eventually, with continued success and over time, it became part of fund managers portfolios and then part of institutional buying.

By no means a perfect analogy, but when I read back to 2011 the similarities are there. We're still at Mom & Pop stage with a lot more traders in the mix.

The US gets hyperinflation only if the market loses confidence in the government. According to people like Armstrong, the excessive printing would be a symptom not the reason for going hyper. Whilst the USD is the (slowly losing grip) reserve dollar, I think you're right, we'll see deflation. Everything points to it: rising rates, overseas economies declining, debt bombs everywhere, taxes on foreign investment withdrawn. If a good ol' recession arrives on the back of King Dollar, we'll see a range of cutting measures: either more 'forward guidance' ( aka "patience") or outright QE4, maybe even helicopter money. This will probably be late 2016 which bodes well for bitcoin - post halving, weakening dollar, hopefully block debate settled and an economic crisis in the making.

So the question is what happens after that? I also have no clue but I guess that it may be when the post 2008 game is up, everybody realizes that there is no recovery and the debt chickens come home to roost. Governments will tax everything that moves & people get the hell out of anything government, piling into everything private (stocks, gold, bitcoin, real estate). Of course we might also go full japanese and muddle along for 30 years.

Hopefully not totally f*cked. Maybe it will be the right amount of eustress needed to kick change / compromise into gear (ie when EVERYBODY'S investment is threatened). And if you think bitcoin is still small enough to survive that scenario then it may be an opportunity to pick up a decent amount of coin while there is the blood of the protocol in the streets. Fingers crossed.

Great screen name firstly.

Too much debt is basically the reason for all forms of crisis. Debt can be beneficial when assets for which you go into debt are rising or while your servicing costs are easily met, but when the tide turns.....

Now if I owe you money you may not kill me, but, lets say this debt is comparatively high, I will also not have the ability to spend my income into the economy. The is deflationary and on a society wide scale, not so good. Unless of course the asset to which I am in debt is rising

If I am a company and I have high debt, I need to be relying on cheap access to credit or a high income stream. In this case if my income stream declines (Hello energy sector) and I cannot roll over my obligations, then I cannot pay my debts and i am bankrupt.

If I am a systemically important financial institution and I leverage up my positions and the market moves against me (2008) then without sufficient liquidity or ability to call in lines of credit, I am insolvent (Hello Lehman, Hello Bear). If I am a better placed big financial institution then I may be assisted by the government and forced to de-lever / sell off over time in order to make myself less levered with assets which, if marked to market (does not exist anymore) would also render me insolvent. I may be able to pass off all my bad debts to the government, a transfer of private sector debt to the public sector (taxpayer, ultimately).

Now if I am a government and I have lots of debt it depends which government I am. If I can print my own currency and my dollar is a gloabl reserve, I can run up my debts very very high. But if I am a country that needs to access capital from foreign markets in order to function, a high debt level will make the price at which I can borrow higher as I am more of a risk. Further if i am a country that cannot print my own currency (Greece, Portugal, Spain, italy) then I am in a difficult situation indeed.

The most likely option to bail out a government is the IMF, via the SDR

I think it is all about surviving for now.

The longer bitcoin does so the better.

Once we get to the inevitable faltering of the debt system it will be off to the races.

In a true crisis situation, with the amount of debt and leverage in the system, there will only be a few asset classes that money will flock to. I believe bitcoin will be one of them.

Due to the 21m limit they are scarce

Due to the so far limited adoption, I hope bitcoin will bypass the downside that comes with 'sell whatever you can' that typifies a panic (this assumes that a lot of the current movements are attributed to traders ramping up / down magnifying 'news').

It'll outdo that steady increase, either to the upside or downside.

My own view is that it will go big whenever the next crisis hits.

Until then, as we watch currencies spike, crash and burn before our eyes, bitcoin has been a fucking remarkable hedge.

Trampled by a bull run?

Always good to do some research just incase we go 10x or better. Doesn't hurt to know your options.

we've got such good momentum at the minute, imagine the "peace rally" we would have should segwit be activated & the two sides nut out a compromise.

it validates bitcoin so will only strengthen bitcoins credibility in the eyes of business, general public. ie 'if the banks are using this tech it must be trustworthy'

spain just reported that its social security will be unfunded within a year, 2 billion in deficit. This is after having a 65bn surplus in 2011.

I also don't expect to have retirement money there when I retire.

For me bitcoin is a store of value outside of govt control. Not that much invested but enough to do well if it does well.

a correction with consolidation for a while would be healthy imo

I share the sentiment. Gox'd, Cryptsy'd, all the rest. Told friends to buy @$100 and got laughed at. Then got laughed at during The Great Bear of 14-15. A ponzi, a scam. Will be regulated out of existence. Still told friends the base case hasn't changed. Buy @$300. Now, crickets.

Agree.

Whether China or someone else, eventually bitcoin will have to face this attack. Hopefully by that time it is big enough, bad enough, and resilient enough to fend it off.

Kenneth Rogoff recently said that bitcoin will be regulated / stopped at some stage. This is the guy who advocates banning cash, who held the top post at the World bank (iirc) and has the ear of the global policy elites.

Not to say it is going to happen now or that it will be effective - I believe it won't ( I think the next panic = run to bitcoin), but it is a near certainty that at some point in the future a forceful effort will be made to try and derail bitcoin by these people. Just watch what happens next time we hit a crisis; with the amount of debt in the world, the lack of liquidity in the Eurodollar market (that has not returned since 2008) and the inability of monetary policy to affect change, a cash ban / neg rates and demonizing of every avenue out of the clutches of the banks (gold, bitcoin etc).

Haven't read much of the FOFOA stuff but some links in with what Rickards talked about in The Death of Money; if we can believe that the big players are co-operating behind the scenes to deal with the eventual monetary reset then that explains the big players buying up gold while it gets trashed in the press. Working theory being that once they all have a similar gold to gdp % ratio then an orderly reset can begin. If the reset happens outside of their control before then, so be it, but its coming.

Stronger dollar = weaker emerging market currencies (& most other currencies) = generally increasing bitcoin price (especially as Yuan weakens further).

As bitcoins price has really diverged recently from Yuan devaluation line, maybe a bigger deval is coming?

I'm not sure if you are agreeing here or not. It's early here.

Are you saying bitcoin stagnated briefly because the dollar strengthened 2-3% vs other currencies?

I see it differently. The stronger dollar trend gives anyone holding another currency incentive to move out of their domestic currency and into something that holds value, appreciates as their currency devalues. This has been in play for a while and has contributed to bitcoins bull run. In saying that bitcoin price increases led by China usually precede a devaluation so maybe that is what you are getting at?

there it is.

Yeah. Continuing devaluation and rumors of capital controls.

It's not really the "money printing", its the loss of purchasing power (symptom of this though; devaluation and strengthening USD), and fear of being locked in to a devaluing currency. It's part of a bigger trend. Bitcoin is just a protocol and conduit.

Don't just blame "money printing" for the devaluing yuan. It is part of the currency wars & geopolitics. The rising USD puts pressure on the Chinese peg vs competitors like Vietnam, Sth Korea etc. (It isn't a fixed exchange rate but a pegged one. It is set daily.)

The Chinese also have a huge amount of debt in their economy. When demand for credit dries up or GDP declines, they just lower their reserve ratio requirements (amounts banks need to keep in reserve) when it wants the banks to lend more / extend credit. Again, probably not a good thing.

As I said, it isn't exactly the money printing but the loss of purchasing power and expectation of continued devaluation that are symptoms of this.

But you bring up an important point. A country can't have a pegged exchange rate, an open capital account and an independent monetary policy operating at the same time. This is called the 'impossible trinity'. It was this combo that 'broke the bank of england' (George Soros famous sterling short). In this situation, something has to give. China is trying to manage this & take the pressure of its economy by devaluing the Yuan, but as it does Chinese are incentivized to move their assets out of the country. This could lead to capital controls. The PBOC might also use FX reserves to defend their currency.

Good article on who is behind India's demonetization

"A Well Kept Open Secret"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/a-well-kept-open-secret-washington-is-behind-indias-brutal-demonetization-project/5566167

Damned thing hasn't even been approved yet. Fingers crossed, but it isnt a certainty by any means.

damn, just keeps falling.

speaking of falling, might see faaallllling back at this rate.

Man, if we go 10x from here..... there are going to be some happy & retired relaxed people

Hodling is hard work. The sentiment of the market gets to everyone. I can imagine the regret of those who survived the $2-$32 bubble and then sold before the next spike amidst the doom. The threat of failure is always there but as you pass through the boom/bust phases your downside becomes less and less. Im always trying to reinforce the train of thought that the amount of people who have heard of Bitcoin is still relatively small and further those that know more than they hear on the news is even smaller.

While I disagree with Trump, when you look at this latest move through the prism of his theme of protectionism, it shouldn't be unexpected.

Walls, trade tariffs, visa bans all point towards protectionism ie, 'we're looking after ourselves first & screw the rest of you (especially those we've bombed to buggery for a decade).'

If you wanna get right down to it go check out deepcapture.com and read up on the story. Fascinating reading about power, media corruption and all the rest. Explains his war against naked shorting and wall st corruption; part of the reason why he is so pro bitcoin

Yes, such a common story and why the people who see things early get the most benefit.

We get set in our ways and our understanding of how things work / "should" be.

The majority of us get our new information (news) from the same sources: msm tv / radio / web. A much smaller percentage get it from more niche websites like Wired etc. Almost all media surrounding bitcoin has been overwhelmingly negative, pushing the status quo agenda; even the positive 'price going up' reports come with that air of disdain & mocking that often accompanies new things that people don't understand. It just has to seep into consciousness over a period of time.

For the regular person to get an understanding of bitcoin means they have to invest their own time and learn concepts foreign to them. Not a quick process. But humans are good at adapting quickly at that pivotal moment of stress - that moment they realize their currency is being tanked or inflation is eating them alive. That's when you learn shit real quick. You hear about it and see it as a solution. You talk about it with friends, research it and dive in. That's why I think bitcoin comes into its own as the system crumbles.

If the Winkle ETF gets turned down, I'll be buying. Aside from ETF's, it is only one string in the bitcoin bow. There are many global trends that bode well for bitcoin, with China's dwindling FX reserves / capital controls / devaluations being a biggie. A visit back to the 800's would be great.

Its done 10x a couple times

The x's may get smaller as Bitcoin grows, however demand spikes for a deflationary currency lead to.....

im guessing no meaningful dumps until okcoin etc users can get their coin off the exchanges. if i were a *trader* with coin on there, id be working to keep price up

We're about to push through the ATH across all exchanges and Yahoo publishes this:

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/the-biggest-bitcoin-crashes-in-the-last-10-years-120942554.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw


Not only is typical of financial media but what really irks me is this paragraph heading

"Bitcoin value is volatile"

Note of course instead the volatility compared to upside risk. As written by Reggie Middleton regarding Credit Suisse bitcoin v oil analysis:

"volatility is not the enemy. The enemy is downside risk. When you strip out upside movements, which is what we all really want, Bitcoin only has .15x more downside risk than oil. Wait! I'm not finished yet. Remember, we need to look at both sides of the risk/reward equation. When comparing the upside, BTC has 203x the average excess return of WTI crude oil. To be clear, .15x more downside risk, and 203x more upside."

But in the end, this ignorance and inability to present something honestly is the reason bitcoin flies under the radar and we are all a part of it.

Latest incarnation from Bloomberg was 'price rise on back of Trump trade uncertainty'.

So everybody remember, now it is Trump controlling the BTC market.

I start to worry when that meme gets repeated airings.

shows how far we've come in a few short years - back in 2013/2014 the comments would have been largely skeptical of Bitcoin. Now, its unanimously pro btc. We're still not mainstream yet, but taking this kind of thing as a signal, it won't be too much longer.

Next target - Gox solvency

But then, in a twist of fate only possible in Bitcoinland, Karpeles gets the ultimate revenge as the price taps solvency and then collapses.

Gox 2, Bitcoin 0.