All posts made by mestar in Bitcointalk.org's Wall Observer thread
1.
Post 3624153 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
hey its "virtual gold"
Bitcoin is not like gold at all, in the aspect that gold does not have price check built in the same way Bitcoin has. Bitcoin network uses electrical power, and this power has cost. At 600, around 2 million usd daily, can pass trough exchanges pushing the price down. So, we need 2 million daily just to keep the Bitcoin price at the same level. So, 2 million of fresh sucker money daily.
2.
Post 3624277 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
You do realize there is this thing going on that is called "gold mining"?
If all gold mining in the world stopped, gold would still be useful, so it can function with "zero cost". Not so with Bitcoin, Bitcoin will always have costs to keep it running, and this cost is an almost direct function of its price on the exchanges.
3.
Post 3624315 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
It is completely like gold but better.
Gold does not have a price point at which all the electrical power generated in the world is used by gold. Bitcoin has such a price point.
4.
Post 3624389 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
But as noted by 600 watt, gold storage and transportation costs money too.
Yes, but this cost of gold will not be passing trough the exchanges (on the sell side as well) and push the price down, like the cost of Bitcoin will.
As long as miners have costs that can't be paid in Bitcoins, a sizable chunk of that daily $2 million must pass trough exchanges, pushing the price down. If you can't see this effect on the price today, that does not mean that the effect is not there.
And this effect, this downward pressure on the price is directly connected to the price of Bitcoin. The higher the Bitcoin price, the stronger the downward pressure on the Bitcoin price.
5.
Post 3624453 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
Dude electricity is irrelevant.
Dude, electricity is relevant. It's the limiting factor once you have mining hardware in your hands.
6.
Post 3624496 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
Bitcoin would never get to such a price point (and the electrical power would get more expensive).
Exactly.
This, however, makes some statements about Bitcoin look idiotic. In a link in this thread a couple of days ago, a guy on TV said
"Bitcoin price could go to million dollars"
Well, it could, as long as you are prepared to have up to 3 billion USD daily usage of electrical power to run such a network.
7.
Post 3624557 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
Are you going somewhere with these arguments? What is the point?
I guess the point is that the price of 600 is simply unsustainable for Bitcoin, and not a lot of people understand this.
Or, 600 is sustainable as long as you have 2 million dollars daily of new investments in Bitcoin.
8.
Post 3624584 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
new mining hardware puts out lot´s of coins, tons of dollars and about 1% cost for electricity. completely irrelevant. i know a miner who made
300 000 400 000 dollars (shit the price rises faster then i can type) with his miners. he sold them after 6 weeks. electricity cost ?
You are thinking way way too short term.
Mining is very, very profitable at this point. This will not be for long.
9.
Post 3624739 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
I'm just trying to wrap my head around where these daily electrical power usage numbers are coming from...are you implying that 100,000,000 more people will start mining and the price of electricity will quadruple?
Its quite a simple argument. New miners will join as long as it is profitable to do so (and nobody can stop them from joining). And you keep your equipment running as long as your running costs are lower than the bitcoins generated. This two facts together ensure that in a long term situation, a large percentage of new bitcoins generated goes to pay for the running costs. So, just multiply 3600 (25 each 10 minutes) by Bitcoin price, and then take some portion (perhaps 50%) of that as an estimate of the total electricity usage.
Right now we are in a transitory state, with all the preorder troubles, non-deliveries of hardware, and the change of ASIC generations. You have to think about the steady state.
10.
Post 3624904 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
So, right now goxbux playmoney is worth about 80% of real $. What's the endgame? Bitcoins on Mtgox going for infinity, while being 500 elsewhere?
11.
Post 3627520 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
Do we know how much money per day we had the last 3 weeks? 2m$ per day doesn't seem too much with this rapid increase. Many walls were eaten and if we consider that not all mined coins will sell the same day then it's a lot less.
You are using bubble time statistics to predict the future. That always worked out just fine in the past, I'm sure.
12.
Post 3627579 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
Why are you comparing regular models with Bitcoin? Why is this a bubble and not a mass adoption somewhere on Earth? What are the differences? How do you know now there are just people rushing in and not wider bitcoin usage?
Because obvious things are obvious.
13.
Post 3627610 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.24h):
It seems that the most of the traffic comes from China. I bet you don't know anything about China and why are they using Bitcoin right now. Until you find out you can't emit any statement because you just don't know. There can be several reasons. Maybe the communist party doesn't allow people to have more than X amount of cash on their possesion, maybe it's hard to move money there, maybe maybe maybe.
Edit: made a quick google search and found this "China employs strict currency regulations that are designed to prevent large amounts of currency moving out of the country" So there is a real use there if that's still the case. I bet there can be many more that for us maybe are useless.
Cool story.
99% of China exchange volume is speculation.
14.
Post 4515271 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.55h):
What else do you think might cause such a change in market sentiment at this stage?
When the mining hardware finally catches up with the demand, we will see the selling pressure from miners that have to cover their running costs. This selling pressure is proportional to the Bitcoin price. With the current price, this can be an amount up to $3.6 million daily, and this will surely be your factor that can change the current up trend.
Speculators may come and go, but this selling pressure will always be there. Or at least in the next 3 years, and then half the amount in the next 4 years. Brace yourself, bear market is coming.
15.
Post 4633710 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.57h):
Strange pattern at Gox, in the last 6 hours price hit 975 about 40 times already.
16.
Post 4655696 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.57h):
Willy is dead.
17.
Post 4655752 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.57h):
Willy died, and at the same time, I got 502 Bad Gateway from bitcointalk. So, the only possible conclusion is: Willy is run by bitcointalk.org.
18.
Post 4691466 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
It'll be interesting when OS's suppliers also start accepting BTC and they won't need to cash out. For every $100,000/day get's trapped in the bitcoin system with no cashout, it supports a price increase of $27/BTC.
I almost didn't see that /day clause.
What is so special about Operating System suppliers?
19.
Post 4691510 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
Overstock
It'll be interesting when OS's suppliers also start accepting BTC and they won't need to cash out. For every $100,000/day get's trapped in the bitcoin system with no cashout, it supports a price increase of $27/BTC.
I almost didn't see that /day clause.
What is so special about Operating System suppliers?
overstock
Operating System suppliers are special because overstock?
20.
Post 4698787 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
LOL
no.
OS = overstock
Ah, it makes sense now. Yes, that's what we need in Bitcoin world, and not just suppliers, salaries and everything else also.
21.
Post 4698844 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
If I understand bitcointity.org correctly, it is now down to 1400 in last 24 hours. End of mtgox?
22.
Post 4698912 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
Maybe I misunderstood something, but do people really still believe there is going to be a China crash now?
Maybe we get another financial melt-up. Everyone scrambles for an exit, and in those scenarios BTC becomes the most liquid asset.
23.
Post 4698936 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
With less than four hours to go on bitcoincharts, This will be the first time since early September of last year that we have four red-candle days consecutively. Considering the low volume, I read this as bullish,
Do you even know what bullish means?
24.
Post 4699121 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
Anyone know if Gox reply to support requests at all.
Made two transfers 2 days back, second arrived, first didn't - in my history on the site, just never arrived.
Gone?!
Really pissed off - 'ticket not allocated" (being, thus far, ignored)
I have no coin left there, but they have failed to transfer it, and yet debited my account.
Anyone else fill me in on whether they even bother to look into issues like this, I have lost BTC.
Grrr...!
if its in the history thats cool.
they should be able to clear that up
maybe their send bitcoin monkey was having an off day.
Thanks Adam.... Hope so!
They were both to my own wallet - pretty straightforward transaction, but no sign of arrival.
Did it in two goes to be safe and lost half - fingers crossed!
I still have gox bux left there waiting to buy back in and pull that out too.
are you sure your wallet is 100% insync with the network?
in your history it says it send XBTC to 1xxxxxxxxxxx bitcoin address and you looked up this address on the blockchain?
mtgox might be slow at answering your ticket because this isnt a simple matter of telling you to be patient, they actully have to look at logs and stuff.
good luck.
keep us updated
Amazing that they still have that bug, Bitcoin withdrawals dissapearing with something like 50% probability. Contact support, they usually come trough after 2-3 days.
25.
Post 4699223 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
No new money flows into BTC, alts taking the spotlight.
26.
Post 4699293 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
Then why are you here?
For the fireworks.
27.
Post 4701377 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_11.58h):
Look at all the trapped dollars at Gox.
Also, I love how Bitstamp gets a big box, and MtGox gets a small one.
28.
Post 4838312 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.01h):
But in the next 24-36 months, bitcoin is somewhere between 10k-50k. It simply has to be. The scale at which the entities getting involved now operate scale wise, bitcoin will be forced there. And 17 year olds that mined this useless Internet money will have their minds blown.
Ah, the forced $50,000 per Bitcoin in 2017. Let's see what this means.
If miners decide to sell all their mined Bitcoins, (or 50%), this is how much daily fresh money is needed on the exchanges for the price to be stable:
2014-2016 : $180 million ($90 million daily if 50% sold)
2017-2020: $90 million ($45 million daily) <--- look here
2021-2024: $45 million ($22 million daily)
etc.
Don't forget that they have to sell to cover their electricity costs. So, if Bitcoin is $50,000 in 2017, good luck in finding that daily fifty million dollars.
29.
Post 4839014 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.01h):
But in the next 24-36 months, bitcoin is somewhere between 10k-50k. It simply has to be. The scale at which the entities getting involved now operate scale wise, bitcoin will be forced there. And 17 year olds that mined this useless Internet money will have their minds blown.
Ah, the forced $50,000 per Bitcoin in 2017. Let's see what this means.
If miners decide to sell all their mined Bitcoins, (or 50%), this is how much daily fresh money is needed on the exchanges for the price to be stable:
2014-2016 : $180 million ($90 million daily if 50% sold)
2017-2020: $90 million ($45 million daily) <--- look here
2021-2024: $45 million ($22 million daily)
etc.
Don't forget that they have to sell to cover their electricity costs. So, if Bitcoin is $50,000 in 2017, good luck in finding that daily fifty million dollars.
It's an interesting point.
But then, at 50,000 a coin, with around 15,000,000 coins in distribution (for the sake of argument), that gives a market cap roughly equivalent to the annual GDP of Benin or Moldova.
IF (and that's a big IF) Bitcoin does start really taking off
worldwide, then 50m p/d is nothing. Forex sees around $5 trillion traded a day - around 0.2% of the daily Bitcoin USD trading volume in mid-Jan.
I know, I know. These numbers aren't direct comparisons, but it helps to put these big numbers in perspective now and again.
More meaningless numbers for comparison: US from China imports around 1000 millions $ worth of stuff per day. 50 million is 5% of that.
30.
Post 4852088 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.01h):
Breaking that 790-820 range feels impossible now
Do you mean that the price could not go up, or could not go down? Or can't break out of that range?
I really have no idea, all 3 meanings fit your statement.
31.
Post 4908845 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.02h):
Bitcoin miners are at the point now if they just got their machines within the past month that they won't even see a ROI.
I see you are assuming that difficulty will grow forever. Nothing growing exponentially can grow forever, or even for a long period of time.
If we assume $15 to $100 in electricity costs per Bitcoin, and if difficulty doubles each month, we are talking 3 to 7 months until the difficulty stops going up.
And when it stops (and stop it must), all the miners that still didn't shut off will be making some money, and that means there is a period (perhaps a couple of years?) where they do make what they invested in their mining hardware.
In other words, there will always be some miners that are making money.
Off course, this all supposes that the price will be stable. If it goes up or crashes, it will just slow down or speed up this process.
Also, when difficulty stops growing, it will mean that at least some miners are at 90% cost to price ratio, and those will have to sell their BTC to cover their monthly running costs. Thus we can expect a steady 1000-2000 of BTC daily to hit the exchanges, and this amount of dollars will be needed just to keep the price at the same level, otherwise it will go down. Perhaps this is already the reason why we see this inability of BTC price to grow these days?
32.
Post 4908907 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.02h):
then the supply goes down, as current miners are already hoarding, then the huge price spike occurs.
If you divide bitcoiners into roughly two groups, miners and speculators, miners are much less likely to hoard. This is simply because they have running costs, which they must pay each month, while speculators do not have that costs.
Probably the reason you don't see much hodl posts in the mining sections.
33.
Post 4909271 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.02h):
Electricity isn't so relevant anymore with ASICs. It the capital cost.
Electricity is always relevant.
Difficulty is growing, doubling each month. If now you have 1% cost in electricity to price, that means that in 7 months you have 100% (actually more, but irrelevant) cost to price ration. Long term, electricity always counts.
Why do people think that electricity doesn't matter? Because of the preordering business. Basically using money from preorders for R&D costs, and slow deliveries meaning the difficulty did not go up as fast as it could.
Funny stuff, money printing machines hardware business.
34.
Post 4909414 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.02h):
miners are much less likely to hoard. This is simply because they have running costs
Most miners today bought equipment when everyone was telling them it would never ROI, and they would be better off buying and holding. I don't think they need to sell bitcoins to cover costs. They spend fiat to make bitcoins because they despise fiat and like bitcoins. Spending fiat on power bills is just one more way to burn the fiat.
So, what you are saying is that miners are hodlers, too? Sure, some are. But you think that this guy
http://hongwrong.com/hong-kong-bitcoin/ is not selling some of his BTC each month to cover costs?
35.
Post 4986840 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.03h):
stamp 750, gox 775, so difference is down to 3%, from 25% a week ago.
36.
Post 4993487 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.04h):
It may be that the banks re-opened after the New Year's holiday week, and money withdrawals became possible again; so that investors who were disappointed with Bitcoin's performance over the holidays immediately started dumping and taking the cash out.
And as we all know, you need to have a bank open to request a withdrawal from a web site.
37.
Post 4993712 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.04h):
Miners have not mined a block for over an hour. Means all the coins moving to the exchange to sell have been stuck in queue. Now released.
But that would just bring one short block worth of transactions. You need to wait 3 or more confirmations when all the transactions in that one hour window become available.
38.
Post 4993796 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.04h):
so what do all the people do with the GOX $ now?
I'm guessing withdrawals to Yen are still working.
39.
Post 4993816 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.04h):
Who would send BTC to Gox?
40.
Post 4993877 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.04h):
That is one thing I don't understand. Say you mine some maxcoins, and you are the first miner to start selling, how do you price it?
Carefully and with a huge spread.
41.
Post 5063597 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.06h):
Can somebody explain this bears and bulls talk?
There are no bulls or bears, there are only hodlers and sodlers. When a hodler says "look at that wall at 660", it means the price is currently at 640. If a sodler says it, it means the price is 680.
42.
Post 5100074 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.07h):
Guess Bitcoin is not mainstream enough yet
On a completely unrelated note, I have not one but two great names for new alts:
evernote
instapaper
43.
Post 5119162 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.07h):
suddenly everyone is holding fiat and the only way out is BTC
You are aware that by trading, no amount of fiat on the gox is lost or gained. Only the fees are taken out. So, if there was 100 million when withdrawals are stopped, there is still 100 million there.
"Everyone holding fiat" is not a possible option.
44.
Post 5137544 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.09h):
3 minutes ago - 200 BTC market buy order on BFX
Uhh, thats.. totally insignificant.
There was a 5k market sell order on mtgox a little while ago. 5000 (5k) [5 thousand] {FIVE THOUSAND}
Yes, but 200 is much more important. It proves that we are right. 5000 sell means nothing, probably just a typing error, he meant to buy for $5000 or something.
45.
Post 5139478 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.09h):
The foundation serves as a figure head for the Bitcoin foundation,
Yo dawg.
46.
Post 5169059 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.10h):
Would he need to download the software and/or create a private wallet in order to open an account at Huobi?
No offense intended but you seem to have a very tenuous grasp on how Bitcoin works. Before you start making grand predictions about it's future maybe you should spend some more time educating yourself about its inner workings.
Are you claiming people need to install the client in order to buy Bitcoins on Huobi and keep them there? Since when?
47.
Post 5169211 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.10h):
Would he need to download the software and/or create a private wallet in order to open an account at Huobi?
No offense intended but you seem to have a very tenuous grasp on how Bitcoin works. Before you start making grand predictions about it's future maybe you should spend some more time educating yourself about its inner workings.
Are you claiming people need to install the client in order to buy Bitcoins on Huobi and keep them there? Since when?
No, Jorge was questioning if that was the case... which we all know it isn't.
His question was a rhetorical one.
48.
Post 5178841 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.11h):
Where exactly is the upside of holding btc now, except for if your btc is stuck on gox?
If you're on bitstamp and haven't sold yet I'm not sure what's going through your head
So, by extension, since it takes one hour to deposit BTC, your statement is equivalent to:
If you're [holding bitcoin] and haven't sold yet I'm not sure what's going through your head.
49.
Post 5178892 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.11h):
not a very clever thought, at that. it would be very expensive to sell bitcoins at half off the market price. instead, they would be buying coins, not too quickly, but continuously, at these levels, and selling them on other exchanges. this would have the effect of pushing down the prices on other exchanges. or if they were really clever, they'd just be buying them cheaply on gox, and freezing them until summer.
Buy now and then sell in the summer for $100? That wouldn't be too clever if indeed the price goes down to $100.
50.
Post 5256784 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.13h):
If you google "bitstamp", the exchange site is no longer the first link returned. In fact, bitstamp home page is not even in the first three pages. Before, it was the first result. Any ideas why would google algorithms remove it from the first page?
51.
Post 5256997 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.13h):
I've been wrong before, many times.
But if gox DOES allow with drawals, what do you think will happen to all these coins being picked up at 150 gox bux?
I think Bitstamp is going to experience a DELUGE of coins IMHO - instant 400-500$ profit? lmao it will be a question of who can get there first.
If they go under, how can bitstamp price go up.
Let see the logic:
-if Mtgox announces "no withdrawals yet", price on bitstamp goes down.
-if Mtgox announces "withdrawals now", price on bitstamp goes down.
Why the fck doesn't the price on bitstamp fall right now?
52.
Post 5257024 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.13h):
If you google "bitstamp", the exchange site is no longer the first link returned. In fact, bitstamp home page is not even in the first three pages. Before, it was the first result. Any ideas why would google algorithms remove it from the first page?
my first result is
https://www.bitstamp.net/api/My first result is wikipedia page on Bitstamp.
53.
Post 5260015 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.14h):
What's freaky as hell is the fact that 142 is slapping around on gox, and their thursday announcement that we've all been waiting for doesn't include the simple statement of
WE HAVE THE BTC SAFE - PLEASE DO NOT BE CONCERNED
What is wrong with them!!
"Your money is safe" is usually a song of those that do not have your money. Like Full Tilt.
54.
Post 5350850 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.18h):
Gox still relying on blockchain for that temp fix (whatever it was they did)? Cause blockchain is currently down for maintenance. Would explain the stoppage on gox.
How the fuck...
:-O
...can the blockchain be down?
55.
Post 5351827 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_12.18h):
Gox still relying on blockchain for that temp fix (whatever it was they did)? Cause blockchain is currently down for maintenance. Would explain the stoppage on gox.
How the fuck...
:-O
...can the blockchain be down?
blockchain.info
the site not the actual blockchain
I guess it would be funny if there is an actual Picard picture.
56.
Post 10036440 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.43h):
Sure. That must be the reason we went from 1200 to 290 over the last 12 months. Just a few people who need to pay their bills. Nothing to see here.
And we call them miners.
57.
Post 10316710 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
namely Bitcoin miners who, below $400, likely operate at a loss.
[ ] operate at a loss
[ X ] do not operate
58.
Post 10324068 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
I have noticed too. In fact, nothing in the real world seems to be relevant to bitcoin price.
You hit the nail on the head.
Bitcoin is all about mining and speculation. The equilibrium is reached when when the amount of fresh cash for speculation equals the amount paid for the electricity by miners.
59.
Post 10324152 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
Noob question. Is there a way for one to somehow value this instrument for market vs intrinsic value..
If you value it by expected future cash flow, you get an easy answer: zero.
So, Bitcoin is in a same situation as all the other fiats in the world.
And it's a little bit worse. If Bitcoin was a currency of a small country, all the inflation would be happening outside of the country, and it would be guaranteed to hit the exchanges and influence the exchange rate, pushing it down.
We know this because miners must pay running costs in other currencies, so all those costs must go trough the exchanges. In this model, exports from Bitcoin country would be speculative buying, or buying to use Bitcoins. The size of influence of this "inflation as imports" model depends on the depths of orderbooks on bitcoin to fiat exchanges.
So, once the speculative buying stops, Bitcoin has nowhere to go but down, as all the existing bids on the exchanges are eaten and ultimately converted into excess heat.
60.
Post 10324182 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
Absolutely not. There is no intrinsic value at all, that is, no use value, or, you can not consume a bitcoin leading to its destruction, and at the same time gain something useful. *)
Said otherwise, bitcoin has only money value, and in this regard it is the same as paper money.It is at the same time pure money, and sound money. This has never existed before in history.
The money value is by definition speculative, all actors at all times have to decide for themselves what value (real world, use value) it is possible to exchange the bitcoins for in the future, far or near.
*) I know, you can prove that you have destroyed bitcoins to prove something...
And how do you think that would be compatible with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_moneyIf the network proper is used to transfer a certain total value (measured in USD) over a certain time span, then given the money supply (total bitcoins in circulation, in this case) that transaction usage will provide a lower bound for the USD valuation per coin (assuming transactions are not instantaneous - which they aren't, even if the pure protocol part of it almost is, but there's slow humans involved as well
)
I'd call that a pretty good candidate for "fundamental" valuation (even if the exact value of it is up for debate)
Cool. So, how much is it?
Assume all daily bitcoin volume are usefull transactions, this will give us an upper bound.
61.
Post 10324209 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
... velocity of money ...
What's interesting about money velocity is it's range. Average time bitcoin is held can vary from 10 minutes (confirmation time) to 20 years (retirement money), that is in million times. That is if bitcoin perception in user's mind changes from "hot potato" to "gold", it price will increase
million-fold.
Once you decide to hodl, you do not influence the price of bitcoins. The price is decided by those that trade on the exchanges.
Currently, those are speculative buyers, speculative sellers, buying to 'transact', selling to close the 'transact' loop, and daily $700,000 (or less) that miners have to sell to pay for running costs.
Third and fourth on that list should be equal. So, once the first and second items on that list become equal, (and there is no reason why speculative buying would have to be higher that speculative selling), the only way the price of bitcoin will go is down. Miners do have real bills to pay.
62.
Post 10324223 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
I guess we could always lower the difficulty (again)?
And it would be the third time that that happened.
63.
Post 10324304 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
... velocity of money ...
What's interesting about money velocity is it's range. Average time bitcoin is held can vary from 10 minutes (confirmation time) to 20 years (retirement money), that is in million times. That is if bitcoin perception in user's mind changes from "hot potato" to "gold", it price will increase
million-fold.
Once you decide to hodl, you do not influence the price of bitcoins. The price is decided by those that trade on the exchanges.
Currently, those are speculative buyers, speculative sellers, buying to 'transact', selling to close the 'transact' loop, and daily $700,000 (or less) that miners have to sell to pay for running costs.
Third and fourth on that list should be equal. So, once the first and second items on that list become equal, (and there is no reason why speculative buying would have to be higher that speculative selling), the only way the price of bitcoin will go is down. Miners do have real bills to pay.
You forget that there are alt coins that are being used in order to lower BTC/USD lower so that they can sell those alts for higher USD value then they normally would fetch bassed on operating expenses.
Those would easily fit in the 'speculative buying and selling' categories.
64.
Post 10326254 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
... velocity of money ...
What's interesting about money velocity is it's range. Average time bitcoin is held can vary from 10 minutes (confirmation time) to 20 years (retirement money), that is in million times. That is if bitcoin perception in user's mind changes from "hot potato" to "gold", it price will increase
million-fold.
Once you decide to hodl, you do not influence the price of bitcoins. The price is decided by those that trade on the exchanges.
Currently, those are speculative buyers, speculative sellers, buying to 'transact', selling to close the 'transact' loop, and daily $700,000 (or less) that miners have to sell to pay for running costs.
Third and fourth on that list should be equal. So, once the first and second items on that list become equal, (and there is no reason why speculative buying would have to be higher that speculative selling), the only way the price of bitcoin will go is down. Miners do have real bills to pay.
Also, not every miner has to sell to "pay the bills" (you assume miners has btc as the only and exclusive revenue.). I do not. I mine, i did not sell a fraction of my BTC so far. Just because i mine BTC does not mean that is the only revenue i have, so i balance my other revenue costs to me to pay electric bill vs future possible profit from mining bitcoin.
By not selling bitcoins to pay the electricity, you are moving yourself into 'speculative buyer' category, in this simple 5 categories model.
It still holds that some fresh cash is needed, and in this case you provided this fresh cash yourself.
65.
Post 10326307 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
... velocity of money ...
What's interesting about money velocity is it's range. Average time bitcoin is held can vary from 10 minutes (confirmation time) to 20 years (retirement money), that is in million times. That is if bitcoin perception in user's mind changes from "hot potato" to "gold", it price will increase
million-fold.
Once you decide to hodl, you do not influence the price of bitcoins. The price is decided by those that trade on the exchanges.
Currently, those are speculative buyers, speculative sellers, buying to 'transact', selling to close the 'transact' loop, and daily $700,000 (or less) that miners have to sell to pay for running costs.
Third and fourth on that list should be equal. So, once the first and second items on that list become equal, (and there is no reason why speculative buying would have to be higher that speculative selling), the only way the price of bitcoin will go is down. Miners do have real bills to pay.
Holders do affect price! Just imagine a scenario, where everyone who bought a bitcoin would hold. Price would skyrocket. The only way a new buyer could get bitcoin is to find the first holder who partakes his btc at a given highest bidding price (that is market essentially). Every holder is a potential seller, there is no economic theory to exclude holders from the "seller" position.
Until your orders, either bids or asks, hit an exchange, you are not influencing the bitcoin price.
If you allow your indirect price influence, then every person in the world is responsible for bitcoin price not being higher by doing nothing. I personaly hold Markus Persson responsible for low bitcoin price, because he did not spend at least one Billion dollars on bitcoins.
If everyone who bought bitcoins is holding, sure the price would skyrocket, yet, the price would still be decided only by those that decided to sell.
66.
Post 10326332 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
... velocity of money ...
What's interesting about money velocity is it's range. Average time bitcoin is held can vary from 10 minutes (confirmation time) to 20 years (retirement money), that is in million times. That is if bitcoin perception in user's mind changes from "hot potato" to "gold", it price will increase
million-fold.
Once you decide to hodl, you do not influence the price of bitcoins. The price is decided by those that trade on the exchanges.
Currently, those are speculative buyers, speculative sellers, buying to 'transact', selling to close the 'transact' loop, and daily $700,000 (or less) that miners have to sell to pay for running costs.
Third and fourth on that list should be equal. So, once the first and second items on that list become equal, (and there is no reason why speculative buying would have to be higher that speculative selling), the only way the price of bitcoin will go is down. Miners do have real bills to pay.
Mining cost has nothing to do with btc price. It is the other way around, if at all. If you exclude the failing cloud mining services, you will see that all the other miners are still mining (hash/sec ain't dropping significantly). From genesis block, btc had no price at all for months, even though mining still had costs.
Sure, you could say that price follows the mining costs, but you would be wrong.
The price of bitcoins determines how much will be spent on electricity. Sure, there are lags in this process, and sometimes difficulty changes for other reasons, but, ultimately, if bitcoin price goes up, more energy will be spent on mining.
67.
Post 10326417 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.55h):
Assume all daily bitcoin volume are usefull transactions, this will give us an upper bound [to bitcoin's value as currency].
A good fraction of the transaction volume in the blockchain is definitely not payment for goods and services. Much of it is coins moving between addresses that belong to the same person, such as hotwallet/coldwallet flow. Add to that tumbling, deposit and withdrawal to exchanges, etc. Here is
a summary of partial analyses that identify various non-commercial components of the traffic.
Bitpay processes about 1000-2000 BTC/day, but almost all of that seems to be miners paying bills and/or equipment. Let's say that the real use for e-comemrce through BitPay it is 500 BTC/day. Multiply by 20 (wild guess) to estimate the world total by all processors and by direct bitcoin payments. We get 10 kBTC/day of e-commerce. That is still only 5% of the ~200 kBTC/day
blockchain transaction volume (even after excluding apparent change-backs from the latter).
At current prices, that would be about 2 million USD/day. If there were no speculation, each of the 13 million BTC in existence would be unavailable only between being bought by a customer and being sold by the merchant to another customer. If that time is at most 30 days, then the 13 million coins would be storing at most 60 million USD. That gives about 5 USD/BTC. If half the coins were locked up by long-term speculators, the price would still be ~10 USD/BTC.
Thanks.
$5 per Bitcoin would give us 2.5% trade, 97.5% speculation ratio. And even 0.1%-99.9% would not be a surprising result.
68.
Post 10412809 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_13.57h):
Realistically like another poster said above we'll hover around 200-250 until something really positive or negative shoots us in either direction.
Mode one: bitcoin is in a bubble going up, mode two: bitcoin slowly creeps down. Currently, we are in the number two.
69.
Post 20501510 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.15h):
"If Bitstamp chooses to list BCC, we would decide at our own discretion on what course of action to take with balances deriving from the hard fork."
The rest of the email doesn't mention anything about what happens when they choose to not list the BCC.
So, this looks that Bitstamp will just keep all the new BCC for themselves. How many BTC does Bitstamp hold?
70.
Post 20542465 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.15h):
BTC price still high, tons of drama...What's not to love?
I want my BCH now so that I can do my offering to the Bitcoin gods.
I am wondering... if most people do the same and trade BCH for BTC.... wouldn't Bitcoin price rise significantly?
Well, yes, if you display the price of BTC in BCH.
If you mean, the price of BTC in dollars, then no.
71.
Post 20567503 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
When half of BTC holders will have exchanged their BTC for BCH, then it will be a 50/50 split. Until then, you need fresh money to add value to the new chain. I think this is quite intuitive from a macroscopic, detached point of view.
Sounds like you are saying that there is currently something other than the 50/50 split.
Can you elaborate more on "half of BTC holders will have exchanged their BTC for BCH"?
72.
Post 20567846 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
"Please, tidy up the kitchen, will you?" (Abide by my rules and I'll take your blocks for good.)
"No, I'm going to do the bedroom. The kitches is a remnant from an era when people used to cook for themselves. Now it's catering all over. Bedroom." (I make the rules, I'm the miner.)
Sounds like you are saying that users (other than the miners) have any say in what blocks get accepted, and what blocks get rejected.
73.
Post 20567947 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
When I say 50/50, I mean value wise. So I actually meant "half of the BTCs have been traded for BCH".
At the moment, the number of extant BTC=BCH.
So, you are not aware that in any BTC/BCH trade, the number of both BTC and BCH stays exactly the same?
So, there is no such a thing as "half of the BTCs are traded for BCH".
74.
Post 20568184 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
Sounds like you are saying that users (other than the miners) have any say in what blocks get accepted, and what blocks get rejected.
Nodes do. Financially heavy nodes, more so.
Your node (financially heavy? Say what?) can reject blocks and transactions however it wants, and this will have zero effect on what blocks miners create.
75.
Post 20568547 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
You are right. I expressed my thought sloppily.
"Half of the BTC value at the time of the split has been traded..."
Ultimately implying that the mere existence of a new chain does not mean there is actual value stored in it.
Lets say that 10 million BCH have been traded in the next week, and price ends up at $5. At this point the selling pressure will stop, and it could be a good moment to buy. After all, all those 10 million did find somebody interested in buying them.
As for actual value, there is no other value other than somebody willing to buy them from you, and this is true for both BTC and BCH.
76.
Post 20568771 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
That's a good explanation. But what happens if 51% of hashpower want bigger blocks but Core Developers refuse?
Then 51% can go to war and hope to get lucky to create the longest chain, and this is one of the basic Bitcoin facts, longest chain wins.
This is almost exactly what is going on right now, but with 10% of hashrate instead of 51%.
77.
Post 20569091 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
That's a good explanation. But what happens if 51% of hashpower want bigger blocks but Core Developers refuse?
Miners can then just recompile with one constant changed. In practice, they would have a hard time organizing, and finding someone trustful enough to create a new version and compile it for them, so, "current state" always has a huge advantage.
But now that this has been done, it would be really interesting to see what would happen if majority of miners switched, even if for no other reason but because they are all Chinese.
78.
Post 20569536 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
Exchanges, on the other hand...
Lets say there is a miner underground movement to recompile the client with 8MB block limit. They can do it, and they don't even have to tell anyone. However, the first ones to do it are risking it, because their big blocks will probably not end up in the longest chain.
However, if more than 50% do it, we get a hard fork, and small block miners are forced to switch.
And, believe me, exchanges would be first ones to switch, as they have most to lose.
79.
Post 20569681 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
It currently stands at $460 BCH / 2700 BTC at Kraken, and $720 BCH /2700 BTC at Bitterx. Such a high price is definitely unexpected.
80.
Post 20572363 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
Well the price wait for until u sell as long as u hold until u sell.
When I sell, sometimes there is a gap between my hodling and selling, and sometimes when I sell, I still hold for a little bit after I sell.
81.
Post 20580822 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
Are you retarded Ibian? You think that merely because 51% of mining power supports something then bitcoin should just change because of that?
Yes, that is "da law".
Maybe you should think about how unstable such a rule would cause bitcoin to become?
It's been like that since the beginning. What exactly do you think was unstable?
Where 51% goes, the other 49% follows.
82.
Post 20606815 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
Bcash cost of production (difficulty) is now being slashed by 20% per block for the next 6 blocks. Expect miners to follow cost of production slavishly. Forking guys have no idea what they have unleashed ... it will become apparent soon now.
Yes, the existence BCC will destabilize BCT mining.
Everyone knows that at equilibrium, if BCC has 1/10th the value of BTC, that the hash power mining BCC will be 1/10th that mining BTC.
What is less obvious what happens when the system is not in equilibrium. Imagine that the market reprices BCC 100% higher and BTC 10% lower. What is the expected distribution of hash power now assuming short-term profit-maximizing miners?
The answer is "most of it will be mining BCC." Because the difficulty adjusts only very slowly (every 2016 blocks) BCC becomes twice as profitable to mine as BTC. Hash-per-hash miners would earn double by mining BCC. This continues until the difficulty reset comes when BCC would go "limit up" (4X), when most miners would leave BCC back for BTC. BCC's difficulty would slowly ratchet back down due to its fast difficulty adjustment and the process would later repeat.
What this suggest is that at times when BCC is more profitable to mine and the hash rate migrates to BCC, the average block time for BTC will increase significantly and BTC's already slow and expensive transactions will become much more so.
Excellent analysis. You have just proven that with maximally exploitative mining strategy, you can't have two parallel coins that would work smoothly. Since 100% of miners would switch to the more profitable one, the other would be paused.
It would not be the slow adjusting difficulty, but the more frequently updated exchange prices that would govern this process.
83.
Post 20606854 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
What this suggest is that at times when BCC is more profitable to mine and the hash rate migrates to BCC, the average block time for BTC will increase significantly and BTC's already slow and expensive transactions will become much more so.
"Profitable to mine" means you have to have buyers. If you haven't noticed, everyone is trying to dump their BCC (BCH? whatever) at any price and trade for more BTC.
Having a price on an exchange implies there is somebody willing to buy. Your argument is invalid, nice try.
84.
Post 20606958 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.16h):
Bcash cost of production (difficulty) is now being slashed by 20% per block for the next 6 blocks. Expect miners to follow cost of production slavishly. Forking guys have no idea what they have unleashed ... it will become apparent soon now.
Yes, the existence BCC will destabilize BCT mining.
Everyone knows that at equilibrium, if BCC has 1/10th the value of BTC, that the hash power mining BCC will be 1/10th that mining BTC.
What is less obvious what happens when the system is not in equilibrium. Imagine that the market reprices BCC 100% higher and BTC 10% lower. What is the expected distribution of hash power now assuming short-term profit-maximizing miners?
The answer is "most of it will be mining BCC." Because the difficulty adjusts only very slowly (every 2016 blocks) BCC becomes twice as profitable to mine as BTC. Hash-per-hash
miners would earn double by mining BCC. This continues until the difficulty reset comes when BCC would go "limit up" (4X), when most miners would leave BCC back for BTC. BCC's difficulty would slowly ratchet back down due to its fast difficulty adjustment and the process would later repeat.
What this suggest is that at times when BCC is more profitable to mine and the hash rate migrates to BCC, the average block time for BTC will increase significantly and BTC's already slow and expensive transactions will become much more so.
Umm..what?
How is 25 BCC (at 10% the value of BTC) mined per day more profitable than 300 BTC per day?
So, you are incapable of imagining: "Imagine that the market reprices BCC 100% higher and BTC 10% lower. What is the expected distribution of hash power now assuming short-term profit-maximizing miners?"
85.
Post 25599304 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.30h):
Looking at the 30 minutes chart on bitcoinwisdom, for Bitstamp and Bitfinex, if you look at the volume bars, they are very similar. Aren't they supposed to be two separate exchanges? There is never a volume spike in one that is also not present in the other. What is gong on?
86.
Post 25599704 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.30h):
+114 mil tethers during the last 3 days , 20k until jan ?
It’s extraordinary. People wire USD to Bitfinex. Bitifinex gives them Tethers for their USD. They spend the Tether on Bitcoin. The price of Bitcoin goes up. It’s incredibly suspicious how people buying Bitcoin makes the price go up and brings more Tethers into circulation. You just can’t explain that. It has to be a conspiracy.
Given that in history, nobody could resist the temptation of giving himself free money when having the power to do so, I think we have finally found somebody worthy enough. Thus, printing USDT is totally legit.
87.
Post 25710960 (copy this link) (by mestar) (scraped on 2020-04-04_Sat_15.30h):
I’m a harder bull than many in this thread. I have a 5 year price forecast of US$150 - 500k. The reason is because I believe that Bitcoin has been mischaracterised as an asset when it is really a financial instrument. In the period 2000 - 2007 the global value of CDOs rose from $69 billion to $1.7 trillion. Bitcoin could easily do the same except it is starting from a higher base and has the potential for much greater capital inflows and higher market cap because it is also traded by retail investors. So I put the market cap at $2 trillion to $5 trillion after 5 years. This is without any disruption of the existing market system - ie the value of the US dollar remains much the same. I have assumed for these purposes that the number of generated, non-lost, non-dust Bitcoins is somewhere less than 12 million.
I come off as a bear sometimes as I am a big fan of Nicholas Taleb in the book The Black Swan. Looking for black swans is a bit of a hobby.
In any event, come what may, I enjoy the company of everyone on this thread as we share this historic journey.
Are you aware of the feedback loop that exists between bitcoin price and how much it spends on electricity?
