I also switched positions and went all-in, a few hours back. I laid out my thinking behind it in this thread, if anyone is interested:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181037.0

Once I found a theory in which all the pieces fit, I felt I had no choice but to shift to all-in being my default position.

I'm thinking things are about to get reaaaaal fun 

The lack-of-crash from the Gox fiasco, alongside Peter Thiel, WebMoney, and the Bitcoin Conference lead me to think the answer is yes.

I thought the same thing at first too, bobdude.  But the piece that didn't fit was the remarkable lack of volume or volatility after Gox came back up.  
That's what evolved my thinking to a 'perfect storm' scenario:
-We're finally concluding the price discovery following the $266-to-50 crash
-Rather than resuming an upward rally or beginning a downtrend, we entered a trading range.  The spring coils tighter.
-Potential for good news is on the horizon - no one wants to sell.
-While information is sparse, the risk of Gox going away becomes a reality. Then a several hour likely orchestrated DDoS.

...and nothing happens.  Big money cannot buy silence. The market - each and every investor, just failed to act - buy or sell, when Gox came back online.
That's what led me to my conclusions here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181037.20 (Page 2, 6th post down).
The short version - I think it's going up  Guess we'll find out soon enough!

I think I understand what you proposed: Because market participants see large volume on each side supporting price, they are less apt to trade.
Assuming that's what you meant...I completely agree. But the order book profile would have to fit. To make the extreme case - it would be a 100k bid wall at 116.80 and a 100k ask wall at 116.81.

When you looked closely at the order book, I thought it was unique - the order book was more heavily loaded, farther away from the current price point.  I interpreted this as a preparation for an explosive breakout from the price channel, when it occurred, in either direction.  People were preparing on both sides.  I know I was.

So to go back to your question - yes I think it is possible, but in this case, I don't think the bid/ask volumes were what prevented price movement. There was a pretty standard <1000 bitcoins needed to move the price a dollar in either direction. (Except for a brief period with a 3.5k ask wall)  The price could have moved, about as easily as pre-crash. It just didn't.

When ChartBuddy starts getting in on the god conversation, that's when I'll get concerned.

...that's exactly what makes it profitable, and a great example of what will cause the exponential price increase, once the risk/reward balance gets high enough.

An investor makes a bet, then moves the market to make their trade succeed.
This works beautifully until a second, contrarian investor gets the same idea.

...except once someone with that much money gets to this point in the thought process, they're not making that bet.
Quite simply, they're too exposed.  Smart money looks for its hedge.

I think far more likely, anyone making high-dollar contract-for-difference bets will also have bitcoins on a market, in order to move into/out of fiat alongside such positions.

This theory would fit the volume and price movement.
It would also accurately reflect my mentality, when I intentionally throw logic out the window and try to observe what I feel/think as a purely emotion-driven investor.

Full disclosure, I've been positioned for downturn for over a week. But today's actions are causing me to move my rebuy targets lower.

I'll second that. Rampion and Frozenlock, your speculation over the past few weeks heavily influenced my positions. I'm glad you were right :-)

I always thought it would be a neat statement to set my ask a few bucks above the spot price of gold.  If enough people got behind such a movement, there'd be this bizarre, giant wall waaaaay out there.

People couldn't help but think about that future price.  "How long til it gets there?"  Planting those psychological seeds, for a more appropriate price point!

Then, go out to W1 and compare 6/1/2011 to 3/27/2013.
Extrapolate for 3/27/2013 to present day.
Change pants.
Grab popcorn.
Play Bitcoin Rally Song 

Agreed.  When we were 'bubbling' (rising in price at a long-term-unsustainable rate), I was slowly and incrementally phasing out my position, fully anticipating a rather violent correction.

Seeing a several-days consolidation is exactly what the market needed to reduce volatility and let the rally proceed on a longer, slower pace.

There's never certainty until we have the benefit of hindsight, but I was confident enough about the last few days of activity restoring health to the rally that I've unwound my BTC sells at a small loss, in anticipation of larger gains in the coming weeks.

I should probably go bump the Rally Song thread for good measure ;-)

How about the spread of whoever is the current top 3 in volume, i.e.

198 - 212.

Finally!

This means the market perception of Gox's failure likelihood has now reduced from 5-10% down to 0%, right? 

That's the advantage of using a percentage-based withdrawal, with whatever level of conservative/aggression your tastes demand.

Because we've recently gone parabolic, I've personally started using this format, but putting rebuys, proportional to each sell, below each normally finalized sale.

As an example:
You sell 10 Bitcoins at $100.
Rebuy 4 Bitcoins at $90
Rebuy 3 Bitcoins at $80
Rebuy 2 Bitcoins at $50
Rebuy 1 Bitcoin at $33

This way, without knowing how far up the parabolic rise will go before the inevitable correction, consolidation, and finding of new equilibrium.
You'll never have sold more than you were willing to ultimately part with.
All your rebuys will be for a net gain of Bitcoins.
The weakness is that you'll leave money on the table - there is virtually no chance such a system will maximize profits...but that is not the goal.

The advantage? When the instigating event - whatever it may be - causes the crash to occur...all your rebuys will be in place, and according to a pre-planned, controlled method.  You will not be hostage to the inability to change your order book for hours at a time - something that occurred both in the April crash, and most recently, for a few hours on our good friend Gox.

Nah, I was just being self-congratulatory to those of us holding on for dear life as we remain in parabolic mode 

I think there is a reason that each parabolic price move has lasted longer than the previous.  Each time, more existing coins get transferred from weak hands to strong hands.

We've now seen an insane run-up, yet the ask side across all markets remains bone thin.  More Bitcoin holders of today, as a relative percentage, appreciate that today's price still represents the very beginning.

As long as it's not a countdown to the number of business days until Bitcoin reaches $180 

Page 2500.
You know, if Bitcoin keeps up logarithmic growth, at some point it will exceed the page count of this thread.
What named parity would that be?

More notable than the individual (or ten) owner(s) that elected to support it, is the fact that Subway's Twitter account elected to highlight it. It's on their radar at the corporate level.

Superficially, the argument is: is logarithmic growth sustainable in the long run? In the long run, no it is not, unless you can always create more of the good (i.e. fiat money). So that rules out Bitcoin.  But we've absolutely seen such growth over the span of several years.

The next layer was - well, new platforms, paradigms - they are capable of this logarithmic growth for many, many years (TV, telephone, internet).  Bitcoin, should it succeed, will fall into this category.

Now granted, the answer to this question won't matter for at least a few more years - we still have so much adoption to do...but at some point, the shape of the end of that curve will become very, very important.

Logarithmic growth can't be the long term fit.  Sqrt(x) seems like it would never have the rate-of-increase-is-increasing quality, which we are currently seeing.

Only recently (from BitchicksHusband?) did I see someone mention a sigmoid curve...which seems to be a proper fit, both in terms of the rapid rate of acceleration on the early end, and the eventual, necessary levelling.

Wish I knew for sure. Right now, the answer doesn't change my plan - buckle up and hold on :-)

This is exactly the sort of conversation and counterpoints I was hoping to see.  This isn't my expertise.

I think any attempt to compare Bitcoin to electricity, TV, etc must take the position that we are still very, very early in the adoption cycle.

What's interesting is the notion that there are at least two competing curves at work at once. I saw someone put an overlay of a sigmoid curve with another graph shape yesterday, but didn't see post-analysis or discussion of what that would be, or why it would be that way.  Maybe I just missed it.

Thanks very much for pointing me in the right direction, dasein - I'll read up on that.

Now 700...

We're currently printing Bitcoin's favorite pattern - Double Honey Badger.

Nnnnnnnnnnnope.  I don't see any trendline.

I will do my part to establish this as a weekend trading tradition.

What about this:
A triple double top, in the same shape that's been printing on a smaller time scale over and over again.

In May, I speculated that if PayPal didn't provide this service, someone else would.  Seven months later, this doesn't look like a niche a small group of motivated Bitcoiners could move into. But PayPal still could.  They remain the most natural fit.  Now that Bitcoin seems to have graduated to the big-enough tier of adoption, I would expect this niche to be filled within the next few months.

It definitely remains a land-grab.  (And for what it's worth, I see adding a functional use-of-money layer on top, a la Mastercoin, as the better option. But he who gets there first often beats out the superior option.)

However it plays out, it'll be insanely bullish for Bitcoin. As in, adding another zero or two to the price :-)

When did hell freeze over???

This happened to me as well.
I had a substantial buy set for months at 505 - it did not get filled when we touched 500.

orymh just posted a new song:
Mt Gox Erupts

Definitely worth a listen/lyrics read (posted at thread).

(Trading-wise, I think we bottom at 656 and head upwards.)

Exquisitely stated.

It's only 8 pages away. I hope you all have your images ready...



And here I'd held out hope I'd get to use it for spot price before page count 

I think we're gonna close the gap, touch $259 in the next few days, then finally, the rally can begin.

Oh yeah.  It's rally time.

I was intrigued, I set up the same chart. There is a lower touch point. Connect the $2.22 on the logarithmic weekly.
Connect the bottom at 5/27/12.
This allows for the logarithmic bottom, today, to be around $149 without the trendline being broken.

We're testing the bottom of the trendline established at the $152 bottom.  It'll be interesting to see whether we fall through, test on volume, or continue rising just enough to avoid the heavy volume test.

I am guessing it will be the final option, as we seem to currently be stuck in indecision while digesting everything that has (and hasn't) happened over the past few days.

That is a very smart guess. A way that a large amount of funding could accelerate adoption.

This.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P2FB9Mg_YI

Fyrstikken just did voice for a pretty hilarious new Bitcoin song. 

$283.05 looks like the first support level. It would fit the volume profile.

Something tells me that this test of $285 is not the long term bottom we are setting in before a rocket launch. It hasn't yet been tested.

Any chance for a poll update:
What day will GBTC trade openly on the NYSE?
-Monday
-Tuesday
-Wednesday
-Thursday
-Friday
-Next week or later.

I know I'll have my trading window up at market open tomorrow.

My understanding was, shareholders will first be able to sell sometime this week.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102549768

To the moon!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d5maly_KVc

Could be a lot of things. Perhaps Kraken moving funds in preparation for the MtGox proceedings.

I went back and checked some of the other historical spikes in BDD. They tended to correlate to spikes upwards, not downwards.
(Dec 13, Mar-Apr 14).

I hope we learn more details around this.

 With GB TC deposit instructions being given to shareholders this Friday, I just can't bring myself to short.
 Tough when all the technicals are pointing down.

I now hold Bitcoin in my Roth IRA, purchased from Ameritrade.
No different than buying any other stock. (OK, pink sheets, so you must use limit orders, but you get the idea.)

I've waited years for this day! Can't wait to see what happens next.
I miiiiight have a bit of a bullish bias here ;-)

That's kind of funny.
It inspired me to put my shares up at $133.7
http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GBTC/quote
On the infinitesimal chance it sold, we'd be breaking our ATH.
That's about the only way I could see myself selling these prior to 2k+ prices.

I have three data points to support this now, but I am still not certain.

I bought 1 share of GBTC at $46. That is not represented on the price chart (Ameritrade).
I then bought 100 at $42. That appears as the ATH.

A few minutes ago, I sold 1 share at $69.
I also sold 7 more at $133.7

I was so excited, sure it would now appear on the chart.
I received the cash - the transaction is done - and I believe it is the ATH ever set in a market.
But it does not show on the price chart. The GBTC listing still shows 100 for sale, even though my order is now for 93 shares (7 sold).

I think there is something about 100 share limits (maybe somewhere in between 1 and 100) causing them to not get pushed through or updated, or some minimum order filter for charts.

I'm surprised BTCS (the only other Bitcoin stock) has not really moved in either direction yet.

To my knowledge, that is correct. (Consult your own accountant, blahblahblah disclaimer).

It is why I have been waiting for this day for years.
Anyone with retirement funds can now buy Bitcoin.

The faucet JUST opened, and the supply is not yet even a dribble.

It is simply unbelievable that $133.7 could be used to set an all time high.
I so badly wish it was represented on the charts.

There's a weird chicken-and-egg thing here. Could be wrong, buuuut:

a) Assessed market value without publicly tradable funds: $238.82.
b) Assessed market value WITH publicly tradable funds: $420.00 ($42 sale price of GBTC x 10 shares = 1 BTC)

As soon as the orders placed COULD become filled, the market shifted from a) to b), revaluating it.

That is the most optimistic explanation.

We're in one of those rare instances where supply or demand is severely pinched. Most actors don't know how to respond...until a trend emerges.
Success is far from guaranteed here, but this day ACTUALLY coming can't hurt the bullish scenario in my view.

They own a certain number of shares.
Market participants can buy or sell the stock, knowing that they have X amount of underlying bitcoins as value.

When the stock price goes up such that the value exceeds 0.1 times the market value of Bitcoin per share, BIT can purchase additional shares.

The net value of the fund would then change. But it does not remain in perfect lockstep with the ratio. So it is approximate.

The listings are still wonky.
When my 100 GBTC sale sold 7 at the all time high ($133.7 each), the funds transferred, yet the full 100 showed as for sale.
When 10 more sold, the listing disappeared.
Yet there are still 84 GBTC for sale at $133.7.
I don't even see my orders showing in Level II data, yet it appears within my trading account as a posted Ask.

Some on ToF have speculated that some of the chart data is not yet refreshed.
I'm hopeful such an update occurs. I believe this is the most likely explanation. Because when I initially bought, 100 shares were at $42, but I also bought one at $46. Yet the trading accounts still show $42 as the high for the day.

Maybe we'll find out tomorrow.

That was my first guess, as my sale of 1 GBTC at $133.7 did not appear, but the 100 did.

However, other entrants have Asks of 1 GBTC and are appearing.

I even set up small sales using each of the various Limit options in case there was some quirky other criterion.
So far, I've not been able to decide how the 100 Share limit could apply and yet let 1 GBTC listings appear.

The best explanation I have so far is quirks and bugs in the display, filtering, and refreshing/updating of information, such that the same actions on my part a week or two from now would display all this data.
Not sure.

Thanks for the Bloomberg feed. It's good to know the orders my exchange shows as listed actually...are.

Gotta love Day 1 of a new toy in Bitcoinland :-)

Hell yeah! Usually test rides are very expensive. This was one of those rare instances where it was profitable.
Hopefully the problems are all feed/filter/cache-related, and will be cleared up soon.

You can't 'sell your BTC there'.
You have to buy or sell shares of GBTC which you own.
(IF you are an accredited investor and own coins within the trust, then yes, you have other options available to you.)

The shares I sold at $133.7 were shares I bought within my self-directed Ameritrade Roth IRA.
You do not have to be an accredited investor to buy or sell shares of this stock, whose value is backed by the number of bitcoins it holds.

Shares are initially release by shareholders that have held for 12+ months.
Shares once released are freely market traded.

The unreliable listing of orders < 100 shares remains true for this OTC market. I put a number of Asks up, yet only one appeared.
I also confirmed that low volume orders are filtered. I sold 1 share at $50 this morning, yet the charts still show a 'today's price' of $0 and 0 volume.

Remember that there can be Bids or Asks we do not see. The only source I've heard of to date that catches the entire dataset is the Bloomberg data feed.

First the spread has to narrow.
Many Bids and Asks don't appear on that list.

We are now down to the range of 55.10 - 71, with the $55.10 sale having just come in.
Volume is 152 shares, 34 minutes in. We had 762 total volume yesterday.

My best explanation or theory - Yes the opportunity exists, but it comes with an opportunity cost. You get to do this trick once per 12 month holding period.
Looked at from a 260% premium perspective, it looks extremely tempting.
Looked at from a gain/loss perspective, not so much. 12 month holders will be selling at a loss at these prices, and in general, purchased them with intentions to sell at higher prices.

I do expect temptation to win the battle, it is just a question of how high the Bids must get before that occurs, and whether once that equilibrium is reached we enter a dead zone, or begin finding equilibrium between the disparate pricing between GBTC and the rest of the markets.

Nah - adamstgBit is Satoshi 

Zoom in.

I SS'ed the $95 sale.
If they are mathematically outliers or volume is low enough they may not appear in price history, because OTC.

I can absolutely confirm we did not fill any Asks at or above $133.7 today  

Volume was at least 152. The OTC reporting rools paired with microscopic liquidity makes it real tough to get an accurate read of the prices throughout the day.

The 60 shares I sold at $65 today were not reflected in the historical data based on their size.

Interesting that, at market close, there are no GBTC quotes visible on the Bid or Ask side, except for $24 and $299.95.

If Maxim really keeps their Bid pulled, I fear we will find equilibrium lower.

I'm rather surprised that days 2 and 3 both failed to pull a new seller out of the woodwork at 250%+ premiums.

The GBTC book updated, and all the orders present throughout the day remain. Must have been (another) data glitch as the day's data crossed over or synchronized.

http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GBTC/quote

I am pleased that at end of day, it properly reflects the $65 sales which executed.

There is a thread in reddit with multiple reports of Bitfinex users watching a malfunction occur, with massive long and short orders which they did not issue, and far exceeding the size of their account. It is being rapidly downvoted, and reddit is lagged.
http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/353yu8/bitfinex_having_serious_lag_issues_be_very/

If confirmed, I think there will be a bit of a holding pattern in the market until Bitfinex announces how they are going to clean up the mess.

I believe the Bitfinex owner occasionally appears on the Whaleclub Teamspeak channel.
(They moved addresses, don't have the link anymore.)

It's possible the folks over there have a clearer picture of what is going on.

The bloomberg feed seems to display the complete dataset. I don't have access to this, but saw a screenshot in this thread a few days back which showed the various, small Asks I had set which were not visible elsewhere.

I sold 60 shares today at $65. Depending on which view you look at, that is either displayed or not.

This will all be moot when <100-share orders become noise.
It is unfortunate that in the bootstrap phase, over-generalized outlier rules remove much-needed visibility into whatever market activity does exist.

The most notable two events, in my mind, for the day were the utter lack of volume (no new BIT sellers), and a significant increase in the volume of Bids at $65. The amount increased as the day went on.

That said, in 3 days we have _not_ exploded upwards. It would take a single 1000 share seller to put the 50000 share Maxim order at $35 to the top of the list.

I played it safe, took the 50% gain with most of my remaining stake, and called it a day.

Continuing to watch with interest.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/353yu8/bitfinex_having_serious_lag_issues_be_very/

zanetackett has posted from Bitfinex:
"Hey everyone,

The issue has been fixed. We're looking into exactly what happened now and I'll be sure to post a detailed explanation in the future. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me with any problems that this may have caused you and I'll try to get it fixed asap. Sorry for the inconvenience."

.......
"We know what the problem was; while integrating Alphapoint our margin check system was disabled for a period of time. Now we need to get the exact details of why this happened."

They would be more prone to going bankrupt from the error than a larger holder.

It appears that the BTC and USD streams crossed.

If I hold 5,000 BTC, my position will be affected less if my 0.23 BTC buy for $234.99 changes to a 234.99 BTC buy at $0.23.

The large stakeholders would not be bankrupted, but would serve as 'go fully long/short at current prices'.
They'd know an issue occurred, and be able to have it cleaned up without it totally stopping their trading in the interim.
Small stakeholders may have gone from a 0.4 BTC account, to owing $17,000.

Their wheel will squeak more.

They should have done better testing.
This is purely speculating based on my time as a Software Engineer, and the kinds of problems that typically happen in these scenarios.

We know they have been integrating behind the scenes with the more scalable alphapoint engine.
They have communicated in the past that they were going to use both streams for awhile as an audit of sorts, and then cross over to the new platform.

Along with scalability, another listed reason was the robustness, quality of the replaced code.

But you still need to port a legacy system to a new one.
That requires new, translation code.

I am guessing an easily-overlooked copy error occurred, nested within a conditional statement only triggered by whatever obscure market event initiated it.

Or, they had just completed an incomplete set of tests, threw new code to live, and chaos immediately ensued because their test set did not include the case that the market data had.

Most of the time in retrospective (when it IS this kind of error), the culprit is one of two things:
-Failing to plan for an impossible event that is very, very possible.
-Penny-wise-pound-foolish lazy variable naming in 'temporary' or 'boilerplate' code.  i.e. you need to copy btc (a) and usd (b) values from stream1 to stream2.
So someone writes the 'temporary' code
s1.a = s2.a
s1.b = s2.b
and above they assigned A and B correctly (but poorly named) for one stream, and the opposite for the other, not caught by our first little conscious filter, because with names like A and B the cognitive dissonance never occurs when writing the assignment.

TL;DR - I'm hopeful this is an unfortunate but necessary risk that is occasionally realized when migrating legacy systems to new and improved systems.  Improved validation and testing practices will hopefully be applied and communicated outwardly as a result of this error.

If not directly affected by the error, I expect the trades will stand.

There is no concept of a 'rollback' anymore. The markets are interconnected with bots employing multiple strategies.

The instant the error occurred, fallout reverberated through the entire trading market.

An implicit requirement of trading on any exchange is that one is vulnerable to all factors which may affect its price, whether real, imagined, localized, or systemic.

This kind of bug is exactly why Bitfinex needed to be upgrading their system, in my opinion. It is unfortunate they didn't make it through the migration without causing a confidence-damaging event.  Amidst that, it's encouraging that they have upped their public communication efforts and made things right, swiftly, to those investors directly affected.

I expect the first NYDFS approval would not occur until their finalized path forward for BitLicense, whatever it may be, is clear. With a first exchange approved, subsequent ones should be less of an issue.

I'd love to see COIN get its big announcement in the next few weeks.
Coinbase will also have some 'splainin' to do if they are not able to get NYDFS approval in short order.

Bad trader - thanks for this. I copied this over to the $GBTC Speculation thread. Let me know if you'd like me to remove attribution.

One of the most surreal moments in my bitcoin experience was when Gox's order book started displaying a loop of the last 10-15 minutes of trades. Then the 'bug' would clear, and all the trades on the order book would resolve. The price might have showed $250 and the next instant you filled for $220 or $300.

The same cycle happened two or three times in one night.  It was even more surreal when you started including in your analysis the possibility of being in a time loop.

Growing evidence shows that only blockchain.info shows this transaction. The community is fast - I love it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3frn1d/satoshis_coins_have_not_moved_blockchaininfo_is/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7TuFy0fcuw

 

This feels very similar. High volume, thin order book. Main difference is that the exchanges are keeping up this time around, and I won't be watching for DDOSes as warning signs of flash crashes.

The 1m chart currently spans the price range of $420 - $510. Insane!

Coincident to-the-minute with the 405 bottom for BTC.
I learned this painful lesson the hard way - the liquidity of the Litecoin market on Bitfinex is too shallow to take large positions.
When you need agility to take advantage of a short-lasting bottom, the slippage on the LTC side is too much to bear.

Fear Of Missing Out

What's going on?

"...until computers are built from something other than matter..."

We can get semantically cute and argue both sides, but in my book a quantum computer passes this definition.

Armchair scientist here, but - the differentiating criterion of a quantum computer is the existence of these chained qbits.
A problem with 2^8 possibilities has 256 solutions. Our normal computers take that O(n^2) problem and solves it by traversing all n^2 solutions.
Computer science demonstrates we can solve big-O problems in less than the brute force number of times. However, we cannot reduce Big-O-COMPLEX problems into a problem set that is small enough for a regular computer to solve.

A quantum computer would look at this problem and say, okay, I need 8 qbits. One to store each of the two possible outcomes for each of the 8 possibilities.
Having those, the solution is O(1) - it is already solved. Each qbit holds BOTH states, so a 2^8 problem requires 8 qbits. A 2^512 problem requires 512 qbits and it is solved. A standard computer could never solve it.

The writer of that quote understood that notion. He understood that a fundamentally different process must occur than the one we use today to make the next evolutionary leap in processing.

I would argue that since the 'core' of the machine relies not on a measurement that is physical, but on the underpinnings of quantum theory which rather fly in the face of matter...that the quote is quite correct.

Pfft, a rookie dragon move. This dragon apparently accumulates both without moving price, nor increasing market volume.

Sometimes, if it looks too bearish, it's actually bullish

If you zoom way in, you can see it is in fact a shibe.  It took a few years, but curiosity killed the Doge.

Happy halving, all.

That guy better not ever falter from an honest path, or he could seriously harm someone.

...half a dozen 'writeoffs' indicating he is a fool having no effect. I think we underestimate him.

I vehemently disagree with nearly all of Stolfi's conclusions, but I disagree his actions have been ineffectual.  He already has had an effect. The newest publication by the SEC, its language and questions were steered by his submission - along with the others.

He has spent a few years building credibility as a 'professional Bitcoin opponent'. But why? Everyone has motives for their actions. I always to try find the simplest explanation (which considers ALL available data).  Increasingly, it appears his was visibility and exposure, so that when the time came for a surgical strike, i.e. SEC commenting, his comments would not be waved off as the ravings of a lunatic.  This is a long term investment, with past efforts now coming to fruition and hurting Bitcoin.

It is easy to write that off as the efforts of an obsessed curmudgeon or luddite.  I've long wondered whether he has ever received compensation for his efforts.

The good news is, very few people fall into his camp.  Conversely, there are a large number of well-known, articulate Bitcoin advocates.
My hope is that his publication serves as a clarion call to proponents.  It matters not whether that call is heard by both sides, as respected proponents outweigh respected opponents.

Best case, this most recent comment request will address each SEC-generated question multiple-times-over by proponents, in order for them to fairly weigh both the advantages and disadvantages of many of their legitimately-raised concerns.

Trouble here as well.

I predict the peak will be $8,888, but my timerange is less precise; 2-8 months.

Thanks ImI - had to be done ;-)

I'll be interested to watch the daily Gemini (Winklevoss) auctions these days.

https://geminiauctionhistory.bitballoon.com/

Ditto - probably closer to 4, depending on how you count 

Bitcoin loves self-similar patterns to prolong the inevitable, so

1.5

 All trading strategies have a threshold where they stop being profitable. The rebuy approach works best when ranging. It works worst when on a uptrend with no corrections.
 Even if there is retracing, that retracing must match your thresholds. In the worst-case event the corrections can fall just short of your rebuy levels.

 I built a spreadsheet to play around with formalizing these parameters a few years back.
EDIT - Old version:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jv97ERhahE7pP5xAVIXtHEE89Ew4CHiz7imtwsYw8zg/edit#gid=4 (Make a private copy before entering your own values.)

New version:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JDYALoV4KR_pvX5vuQww99t4hwqqmuHuAI9CZWhFgt0/edit#gid=0

In the end you are given a list of several points based on math. The variables you control:

 Net worth outside of bit coin, net worth in bitcoin, desired percentage of assets to hold in bit coin,  granularity of sell targets,  percent of funds to use for repurchases, percent correction rebuy target.

 As an example:  John Doe holds 10 bit coins, as a value of $5000 outside of bit coin, wishes to have 66% of his value in bit coin. Sells occur each 20% increase.  Revise occur when each cell target has dropped in value by half.

 This plan would start out balanced as $10,000 in bitcoin value, 5000 outside, matches the 66% balance. As bitch queen goes up you will be forced to sell more to stay to that balance level. Let's say we jump up to $10,000. At that point you would sell your $10,000 target. Now  in the future, that specific cell will only ever be repurchased if you hit $5000 or lower.

This is the key to the rebuy principle. You don't know how deep the corrections will go.
 If it ever only corrected to 6000, you would never revise anything. If it would have corrected to 2500, you could have three but twice as many. You can't to know in advance. So you have to guess on depth.

 Now, the depth of corrections varies in a rally based on how overextended it is.
So I played around with a "heat index " that let the amount that you sold at price targets increase as you deviate farther from moving averages. This lets you sell more when you believe you are overextended, but again there are no guarantees.

 It's a little cryptic to use with no explanation, and it did not have a ton of interest back in the day. I can find a link to the thread that describes it if anyone is interested now.

 Regardless, it is an important topic, and one that is good to have a good plan for, before prices go crazy and emotions can take over. Also crucial is the tax considerations of your buys and sells, long versus short term capital gains, but I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant so that stuff and all formal recommendations are each individual's responsibility.

Not to be cryptic, but that depends on the height of the rally.
The greater the drift from the long term moving averages, the more overbought we are, and the greater potential for depth-of-correction.

If you look at the 2013 rally, we had a highest price over $1000, and a lowest price nearly a year later on one exchange of $100 (and $166 across all).
So even conservatively, we had a $1000 --> $166 = 6x depreciation of the highest prices.

But remember, in a phased sell, you sold coins at 500, 600, 720, etc along the way. So let's say you had your rebuy set at 50% for the 2013 rally.
Any sells you made at 166*2 = $332 would get rebought.
The sells you made below $332 would never be repurchased.

So following the sheet patiently over the 3 year correction would have allowed for a very large profit.
If we instead had stayed flatter, or the bottom held at $500, then the ability for rebuy would have been too 'greedy' in this case, and would have done better with a rebuy at 75% of original value.
Conversely, if we had corrected down to $10 instead of $100, then a rebuy of 25% of original value would have been greater.

There's no way to know the future, so I set those variables based on game theory principles - at what values will I be okay, agnostic of the path Bitcoin takes?

There was a case study of mis-gauging this burning an individual from our most recent rally. IIRC, masterluc got burned during the rally to $500 in 2015. In short, it got 'overextended' too much so he sold ABOVE the planned amount. As soon as you do that, your choices go away. If price keeps going up, you cannot benefit. So we had already been a few standard deviations above expected maximum price...and kept going.

For me, that's the biggest benefit to the spreadsheet. I can be greedy by deferring some sales to later price points, but I never sell more than the limits set BY those price points.

...my best speculation is that in the long term, this rally peaks at $8,888, and corrects back to between $500 and $1000.

EDIT: Old version of sheet:
I linked to it in the first post, a few messages back. Here's that link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jv97ERhahE7pP5xAVIXtHEE89Ew4CHiz7imtwsYw8zg/edit#gid=4

New version:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JDYALoV4KR_pvX5vuQww99t4hwqqmuHuAI9CZWhFgt0/edit#gid=0

And here is the original thread for discussion around its usage (also linked from profile signature):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=326308.60

I just made a public copy of my most recent version.
The old one I had linked still used a few more awkward data entries, the new one linked to is as described above, I like it a bit better.
Both exist, so you could use either.
I'll update some of the other links to the new one so you can play with whatever works best.

The new version: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JDYALoV4KR_pvX5vuQww99t4hwqqmuHuAI9CZWhFgt0/edit#gid=0

It's hard to be the bear when everyone else is bullish - thanks for your analysis.

Trying to figure out if we break at this China ATH test, consider:

We have been in a relative long-term ascending wedge - it began 12/20 and we have held within it since.
Typically, ascending wedges break to the downside.
This 2 week pattern broke to the upside last night, against convention.
Last time there was a ~2 week pattern, it was an ascending wedge, and Bitcoin 'broke convention' and broke to the upside.



During rallies, Bitcoin likes to flip into anti-pattern mode for resolution.
It's a cost-benefit thing.
To use a simple anecdote we share, I watched Dissi go from 1st to middle-of-the-pack in bit-sim.trade by making the wrong call about a top, earlier.  I did the same.

When I put the pieces together from a technical standpoint, they tell me we should go down.
When I consider the historical precedent of Bitcoin in similar position in the past...it has chosen exactly these scenarios to defy expectations.

Good luck!

EDIT: I note in the 1m chart that the wedge has since served as a support line (1060.6, 'Finex).

Thanks! We'll see, I guess 

Gold - $1168.
In yuan - 8115.

I think we've topped for now.

I don't think I've ever been refuted faster!!! 8257 on OKCoin, good god...

Still trying to get my head around everything that happened.
Most of it makes sense, to the degree that the movements have all fit within the medium- and long-term trends.
The one remaining question I have is - what's up with Huobi and BTCChina? OKCoin is up, and US exchanges are at parity with its price.

I took a stab at putting the pieces together to come up with a go-forward plan.
You know what they say - plans are worthless, planning is priceless.

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@chainsaw/bitcoin-technical-analysis-1-5-17-crashing-from-1166-to-851

If Satoshi
  Then Smote Bitcoin

Does not seem like a realistic use case to worry about.  I know few creators that would destroy their own creations to spite their critics.

Long term support for the bottom:



Descending wedge in the shorter term:



Descending wedges are typically reversal patterns, and we would have to break a strong support line to defy expectations upon pattern resolution. The support line will force the shorter term descending wedge to terminate before its forced termination at convergence. The two trends converge by 1/18 14:00.

I am expecting one more leg downwards, constrained by both the wedge and support.
If these hold, then the lowest low would be $686.

One thing I like about it is, the top of that wedge hasn't really been defined on-volume yet. So one way it could invalidate the short term trend would be to reshape itself into a downward channel, rather than wedge.

...and then we have transitioned into the cup and handle pattern :-)

Aw c'mon mastertzup - you were willing to throw out $660 when we were at $1100 and many called you crazy!

I'd love to know whether the past few days market activity has shifted your number up, down, or unchanged.

 The spread between US and Chinese prices has narrowed not increased today. I had hoped the market would overreact bearishly to this, but I take the narrowing spread as a sign that we may already be moving to consolidating price discovery.
...I wish I like the bottom we have set in better.

Nearing the top of the descending wedge.
I'm expecting more down. If wrong, I'd expect a breakout of the trendline to be both violent and large.

I threw the above chart together too quickly, and failed to switch to logarithmic view. It affects the top by a few dollars.
It's a descending line so the price goes down over time, but on the 15m chart right now, I got $840.47, Bitfinex.

When we were tossing ideas around yesterday, one (bullish) possibility is that the upper trendline is 'ignored', and a new top is defined on volume. Best case, that would happen to reshape the descending wedge (which is already a bullish reversal) into a descending channel. That would complete the multi-year cup and handle pattern in a more textbook manner.

So overall I think it's a relatively bullish period:
-If we break up, current price is higher and it improves prospects.
-If resistance holds, it reaffirms the pattern and makes a subsequent retest of the low more likely to hold.

Within this descending wedge, we've taken one run at resistance, and are about to take a second.
The first time, we hit it with a symmetric triangle (Continuation pattern) from the $816 low to the resistance line. When we hit it, we dropped.
This time, we are coming at it with a symmetric triangle from the $735.25 low to the resistance line.
Those two converge around 4am CST at $816...so I'm guessing sideways/slight drift down for the next 12 hours, then down hard.

Having broken on low volume, with no real follow through, this is looking increasingly likely. The case would strengthen greatly if we get a rally which stops on the yet-to-be-defined, resistance line parallel to support.  This is one of those rare scenarios where my short term expected position is bearish, but for exactly those reasons the medium term outlook is bullish.

Keep in mind that this pattern will hold so long as our bottom rests anywhere between $789.78 (Finex) and the previous bottom, at $504, changing only the slope.  The cup-and-handle scenario does not violate this scenario, and is extremely bullish.

I'd still love to see fear trigger a bit more of an overreaction to the downside. Rather than cause technical damage, I see short-term down as the fastest path to rally resumption.  

A Chinese New Year's formal announcement by the PBOC, assuaging go-forward fears...that's my dream scenario. I figure if we get some sort of sudden, positive external event like that, we are more likely to resume the rally in the short term. Conversely, if we simply exhaust, the (stronger) consolidative base would rise more slowly over the coming months.

I just realized there's a new, interesting dynamic in play.

With China losing their leverage, Bitfinex has regained a large attractor.

All other things being equal, I take their chances of reclaiming the role of price leader as net positive.  I wonder how the competing interests of reduced-faith in Bitfinex from the recent hack will fare against the increased greed/strength of leverage.  (Incidentally, I think it'd be a really smart move for them to publicly pay down some of their remaining debt.)

Smarter traders than me keep track of things like available money for loans, short vs long interest, borrowing rates.  Whatever those (leading?) indicators mean, I'd bet they become increasingly valuable.

Perfect timing for a much-needed correction! I expect this range to hold on the downside until breakout.  I'm unsure what kind of ratio of time-in-handle exists, relative to time-in-cup. 

Possibly a well-timed, internal move to pay down debt with profits.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/grayscale-investments-llc-ceases-private-140000550.html

I'm not sure I'm clear on the meaning of this.
Are they suggesting that GBTC will use a different mechanism for purchasing shares going forward, or that they will no longer be maintaining the 10:1 ratio and instead letting the investment center around the number of coins currently held by the trust?

Tell someone 5 years ago their young children will never need to learn to drive a car, most say you're crazy.
Make the same statement today, most will agree.

Today if we claim we will be able to mine an asteroid 100 years from now, and increase the supply of gold on Earth multiple-fold, most say you're crazy.

...Even without considering alchemical solutions, we are nearing the tipping point where the feasibility of asteroid mining will be demonstrated. I believe it is already an eventuality, and merely a question of timing. I think within 5 years, we will have a similar tipping point for the technology required for asteroid mining.

The difference here is that precious metals have no way of transforming their way out of this problem.
Bitcoin's equivalent problem - quadratic computing - does have a solution, through evolution.

Downturns tend to be more protracted than we think they'll be - I'd go with your first call, personally :-)

I've been thinking about the same thing. Not sure if it's right, but this is what I came to.  I think we've got two key drivers:
1. The percent chance the market believes funds will be made wholly available no later than March 15th. (depressive force)
2. The opportunity cost of not having access to one's coins for this span of time. (depressive force)

This first point is one that isn't a factor...until it is.  As long as there is faith/trust that things will open on time, this factor will be close to zero. If/once is becomes non-zero, it could grow quickly.
We watched this play out on Gox.  While elsewhere coins had a market value of $413, IIRC...we watched the price gap between GoxBux and other coins spread...$20, $30..$50 spread.  As fear gripped the market in the final hours, price plummeted to just above $100 - over a 75% discount of 'real' coins.

To the second, this won't affect the long term HODLers. But those looking for the short term profits, I suspect, will become increasingly pressured to sell 'while the price is still good'. Those most afraid this 1000+ price point is temporary will feel increasing pressure to sell out of fear.

In the end, it always comes down to fear and greed.

If internationally, we saw prices diverging, and going up...then I think greed would take over, and risk-tolerant investors would inject cash into the chinese exchanges in order to buy 'cheap coins', knowing they will be inaccessible for up to a month, and knowing they run a risk of not getting what they put in.  The extent we see this will be visible by buying volume on exchanges, and would counteract both of the above, depressive forces.



...however, with the ETF decision looming, I don't think we'll see such price divergence, but rather sideways action until the decision.

Rose to face the sun
The sun was now behind me
Welcome to the moon

Are you sure Elwar didn't post your price prediction? 

The reason you believe it will be the 11th is the same reason I believe it will be the 13th.

I thought that too, til I saw this:

https://news.bitcoin.com/secs-first-bitcoin-etf-deadline-is-actually-march-13-not-march-11/

"The last day of the period so computed [March 11] shall be included unless it is a Saturday, Sunday, or Federal legal holiday (as defined in Rule 104), in which event the period runs until the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday, or Federal legal holiday."

Agreed - the value I find in that chart is in recognizing the multi-year line of support has had price vary from 1x its value to ~50x its value.

...we currently sit close to the 1x value.

...1MB + 280 bytes.

This market. Relentless.

I like the $9588 target...but $8888 seems like it would be too hard to resist as a spike target.

Same. They never buy until the rallies start. The majority of people need empirical evidence - logic, reason, probabilities, or risk/reward scenarios do not suffice.

The intensity and strength of the bull market to date has me favoring a multi-month+ bull scenario from here.
somethingsomething next few weeks are critical ;-)

Probably working on adding zeros to the Wiley coyote 280, 380, 480 GIF

Thanks for picking up the mantle, infofront.
Glad to be back.

Oh man, can I guess November 5th or did I just miss it?

Oops. 12 months, not 8.