I'm 5% BTC 95% Fiat. I feel quite certain that the price will drop more and the general downtrend will end sometimes in the start or middle of january. Then we will probably see couple of months of relative stability between 300 and 400, before it will start going up again.

Do you guys understand that even if the market volumes are all bogus and made up to simulate buys to give an illusion of rising value, and then the exchanges would get cought doing this, then no actual laws would be broken and noone would actually be held responsible?
The way that the market has acted for the past week is funny at best. No actual reasons of price change directions and no logical trends. Just a big chaos of market manipulation. It feels like the BTC market has been hijacked by people who have no actual belief in the future of BTC, so they don't care about the BTC market reputation. And to be honest, BTC does deserve it, because the dev and the community is just ignoring the way that the market is ruined more and more everyday. Bitcoin.org still guides people to MtGox as the first recommended exhange, when there are credible evidence that MtGox owners are actually manipulating the market to support their own investment directions.

Trust in bitcoin software security isn't everything. There also has to be trust in the market that actually gives value to bitcoin. And I think that the unregulated nature of the bitcoin market will be end of bitcoin. Most people are too busy being oblivious and watching if the price is rising or falling again without any reason, so they could buy low and sell high. The bitcoin community has changed from idealistic technophiles into greedy and simple-minded folks who can't see beyond the rises and falls that bitcoinwisdom presents them.

Hardly doubt that the final big crash will come today. I think it will take about 1-2 weeks, when everyone feels safe and cozy, and then, it will hit in waves that last for about 24h-48h. The waves will be full of fun little bulltraps that are run by bots who make their decisions based on all activated orders that are over 1000$. When this is over, then we will see a lot of despair from people who used to cheer that BTC will never stop rising to da m00n. When 2 weeks have passed and value hasn't risen over 400$ and places like coindesk and cryptonews are publishing news "ALL IS DOOMED!", then we will see a new wave of despair from the same cheerleading folks who now say that BTC is a scam and they lost their life savings... Then there will be a slow downfall for about 3-6 weeks when miracles will happen and new "news" will be published that all is well and BTC will soon be the currency for the entire universe and then the price will rise again to about 3000-4000$.

At least that is my speculation on this manipulated market of cheers and despair

The unicorn went to Eskimo Nebula with the Leprechaun and the Alien, after they all assured me that BTC will be the world currency, because it is of the people, by the people and for the people, unlike fiat of course.
I think that big moves are different, and one big move isn't the same as another. Chinese govt changed their subtle stance on BTC quite suddenly, from "BTC is one of the answers against dollar domination" to "BTC is a threat to our people". I think that the reason was that they found out that BTC is actually run by the same people who get their best profits from dollar domination.
Now, you can't actually hide the fact that BTCChina is crippled by regulations. These regulations are public and viewable to the most novice of the information scouts. But you can hide the fact that BTC value is hardly crippled by the loss of BTCChina, by just pumping more money into BTC and keeping the price up just by financial strenght. With this method, you can make the coming dump much more profitable then it would have been at first. And the method is quite effective with BTC market also, because most don't care about the reality of real value that comes from usability of the coin, most are just following graphs and make their decisions on what everyone else seems to be doing.
I agree that BTC market is mostly luck because you can't use predictions of trends to speculate the choices of a small communicative group. BTC markets would be predictable if wealth would be spread out to larger groups of people, whose actions therefor become predictable. I exited 100% BTC to fiat in the beginning of december when I thought I saw what will come soon. From this day, I have used about 10% maximum of these funds to entertain myself with short-term trades. I have started to think that I won't return my money to BTC and I will just wait for another crypto that has a more matured market system, with some regulations to make the value more solid and wealth not being concentrated so much. I think I'll only return my money for a month or so in spring/summer if new news will surface about BTC being unstoppable again, because new unforeseen circumstances surfaced about potential übersuccess. Then it is more predictable that there will come a solid pump, just like when there were news about China govt. being pro-bitcoin. But to invest in the current market, that has no logical trends or directions, is just gambling to me and I not very fond of gambling.

Well, common logic about trends don't apply on manipulated markets that have highly concentrated wealth distribution and a lot of people who make their decisions based solely on where the price seems to be currently going.
This is gambling, not speculation.

I have the impression that bitcoin is already in the market from the year 2009, and that rising of value from the speculation of future demand is not exactly a mystery. But what do I know.. keep cheering.. to da moon.. choo choo!
Buy quick, because everyone seem to be buying and thats a clear indicator of an good investment

Don't be surprised if it turns out that the market data on most of the exchanges is false. It wouldn't exactly be illegal to manipulate unregulated markets like that. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that there were only about 20 million dollars of gambling money circling around the markets and creating illusions of demand.
Bitcoin is an intresting piece of software, but the markets seem to take the color of regular scam platforms more and more every day. Small communicative groups own most of the coins and they do whatever they want with the markets. It's fun to see people try to predict the price by market trends.

First half was correct.. let's wait for the other half

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGstHASo1t4 - start of the bitcoin bubble in China.

That big dump in stamp gave me two thoughts:
1) An old miner/investor saw that the price isn't going anywhere, but he was in profit anyway so he just dumped, without caring much about the loss of an sudden dump.
2) The current stability is is an illusion created to keep the price high so "the right people" can get their money out with better profits. When small buy walls come up to 800, then they will get eaten. Maybe there just was enough buys near 800 and it seemed profitable for one dump and then nudge the price back to 800, then wait and repeat the process. It currently seems that because of low volume, it's not very hard to keep the price where you want it.

Well we are not seeing big buys that are eating the nearby sell walls. We are seeing big sales that are eating  buy walls. So, if an illusion is created then it's surely not because they want to buy low.

I think it makes more sense to be a bear right now. I sold at the start of December and only came back couple of days ago when I bought in... seeing the low volume I went back to fiat. Now if there will be a rise then the rise won't be nearly as quick and big then the drop will be. Always be what the market is.. be a bull in a bullish market and be a bear in a bearish market.. It's foolish to try and fight it. You have to adopt.

Bear traps are built in a way that are scary and create panic among the regular folks. So, the sales during bear traps are constant and steady for tens of minutes, so everyone will get their time to panic.
When there are big dumps with proper intervals, then someone with a lot of coins wants out and he wants it quickly with "good enough" profits.

800 held with the choo choo folks building their buy walls near that sum that eventually got eaten by big sales. With this small volume you didn't have to buy a lot to drag the price back to 800, and then wait till new buy walls were built, and then another big dump. Now we are dropping below 800 because the number is losing the faith of the choo choo folks.
But I don't think that the drops in coming days will be very dramatic... we will probably see a new number at 780, and the dance will continue for some time like with 800.. we will probably see 760, 740.. and until even the regular folks see the pattern, and then there will be a sudden drop.

I think that people are blind to hope that BTC will still rise, even with important markets closing. People are so religious about this subject that BTCCHina's "Well, we opened our bank deposits and we hope that we aren't doing anything illegal" statements actually seem like good news to them, not acts of desperation.

Open new markets with high volume in new geographical locations and I'm back being bullish! But this whimpering with building weak hope around China's dying market is kind of pathetic...

SPOILER ALERT


Plot twist:


Ending:

Stop blaming Apple for the shortcomings of the bitcoin market!
Apple just wants to earn some $ and sell shiny telephones. Apple approves of Bitcoin in heart, because Apple also has a lot of support from cultish behavior and Apple has no problem with that.
Apple is just sad that if Apple won't remove blockchain.info app, then Ivan and Li Wei could threaten legal actions against their sales of shiny telephones. Apple is sorry, but Ivan and Li Wei bring Apple more $ then the ones that are loyal to bitcoin. Apple needs their $ to build even shinier telephones! Apple still hopes that they can be friends with bitcoin and is sorry that everything had to end like this.

When people can't see bitcoinwisdom, then most can't see how the new rise has weak support with weak volume. They can only see that the price is rising and they will buy in with less fear.. and then there can be more big dumps. Bitstamp is currently at 790, while there is decent buy support only at 772. But I bet the religious zealots are already buying in because it seems to be going to da m00n.
Like I told yesterday, this dance will last a long time, until all the "right whales" have sold their coins to the choo choo folks for the right price.

Hmm, the coming of the ZipZap service makes sense why someone should want to see an stable price. You can't exactly promote this bitcoin service as a good cash transfer platform, when there is a lot of volatility. No one would like to send his money through a service, where half of your money can just disappear in the market.
This gives opportunities on manipulation though, because if someone needs the price to be stable, then that someone is vulnerable to all kinds of mauling.
I think that the cash transfer market is the maximum potential that bitcoin can reach. Let's see if it succeeds or the greed inside the market will kill this project.

I think that they chose the wrong tactic with trying to create stability. It would have been easier to pump the market and create a new steady rise. They could of even created an illusion that a lot of people are buying bitcoins through this new service and most would believe that the rise is real. If the price is slowly rising then the cash transfer service will get good reputation, because your sum can actually rise during the transfer.
Rises can be more easily controlled and are more stable. This artificial stability makes the market nervous and can cause a big enough dump, that is too strong to control.

Tell me about these different (f)actors and motivations then.
Telling me that "your theory could be wrong, because there could be other answers" isn't very constructive.

This link doesn't load the graphs either. Tried different browsers and even different operation systems, still nothing. I think that location must be a factor.
Europe, Estonia here..

Well, yes. It's not very hard to answer the first question "Why is someone doing it?" with an answer "Someone wants to make money."
But now we can ask another question "Why would someone benefit on the price being stable?". Because the price was kept stable artificially, with releasing upwards or downwards pressure as soon as the price started to move away from 800. Someone thought that it is beneficial to keep the price at this nice round number. Considering the amount of liquidity needed to power control the market price like this, we can see that this someone is no lightweight. Now another question comes up "Why a heavyweight player needs the price to be a nice round number". Well there is this option that someone is dumping and is keeping the price up artificially to get a better price. But why the nice round number? Why not just go over it to stimulate even more buys? It doesn't make much sense that a dumper would be motivated to do so.
That someone needs to promote bitcoin as an stable currency that can be used to hold or transfer money with minimum risk of loss. Now, I haven't heard that there are new well funded services out there that promote bitcoin as an Store of Value option, but as we can see, ZipZap does want to use bitcoin to start an cash transfer service. Considering the potential and the amount invested, then it's logical that there should be enough liquidity left to keep the price stable for the starting period, to show that there is no risk in using this service. Imagine if ZipZap starts it's new service and within days there are drops and their first clients actually lose a big amount of that sum that they wanted to transfer? It would be an disaster and the only clients they would get, are the ones who like the cash anonymity option to buy drugs. Without assurance that there is no risk, the cash transfer part won't ever pick up.

So, with this reasoning, I'm pretty certain in saying that this stability was created to boost the cash transfer potential of bitcoin. And if this potential is relized then we could actually see 1BTC=10 000$+. I think this is the only way that bitcoin can develop further and become something more then an innovative gambling platform.
I myself am not very sure that they will succeed though, because they have chosen an very hard task. Stability is the main factor that is needed with going to the cash transfer market. But bitcoin wasn't created to be stable, it was created for it's value to be in an constant rise. But this deflative nature of it, creates a lot of instability caused by speculation. So, if someone wants to use bitcoin to use as an intermediate tool for cash transfers, then that someone has to make bitcoin stable. But the only way to do that, is to control enough bitcoins that you can basicly be the "central bank", with regulating the inflow of new coins according to the market situation.
I think that this will be too hard and this project will fail. It will probably pick up again with new cryptos that have more favorable properties for keeping the price stable.

Feeling like this?

I had 320$ buy order, but on stamp

Reality is attacking the current market price with furious anger.
The price should have gone down around the end of December/start of January, as it got clear that by closing the Chinese exchanges, there will be a big drop in demand.
It should of gone down and then have a nice recovery with opening new exchanges at new locations. But because the market was stupid, it went into denial and tried to push the price up with force of desperation. Now this force is ending and there isn't enough of it to drive the price up. But with bitcoin, if the price won't be going up, it will mostly go down to the level of previous bubble height (right now 200$) and stay there for some time until recovery.
This is the trend of bitcoin. Now the cycle will only take more time, because the market tried to break the trend by trying to keep the price up.
200$ BTC is not a disaster or nothing to be afraid of. It's normal for bitcoin. Just let it happen already and we can continue this natural form of development.
Keeping the price up in this artificial manner is the reason for all this confusion and FUD. People can sense it that the price isn't normal and therefor there will be more doubt on everything.

Your post deserved an explanation that there is no great conspiracy, there are just illusions that are breaking.
Good luck to you.

Reality is attacking the exchanges would be a more suitable phrase.

The entire market wasted around two months on building illusions around the Chinese market.
When it was clear that soon there won't be much of Chinese market left, then religious zealots kept repeating otherwise. That created a lot of confusion on what will happen in the future and actually slowed down progress in the long run. The uptrend that started in January was fueled by pure stupidity.
The right thing would have been to drop the price and then plan another rise with opening new exchanges in new geographical locations. It would have been the normal life-cycle of bitcoin and the market would already be starting another uptrend. But with all these illusions and false hopes, we will probably see this downtrend last a lot longer then it should have been. The "get-rich-quick Choo Choo" people here have no vision or strategic thinking whatsoever.
And new payment options like overstock mean nothing to the price of bitcoin. If anyone buys bitcoin to buy from overstock, then it will be converted back to fiat right away. New payment options like this will more probably have an negative effect on the price, since more bitcoins will be converted to $ by older adopters.
New opening markets with the coming of new of gamblers are the only positive news that people should take into account when considering the price.

I owned bitcoins till the start of December. After it got clear that there is no future in China, I sold. I bought back in about two weeks ago, partially because I was intoxicated and bored behind the computer. Luckly sold couple of hours later with 803$.
Right now, I don't see myself buying back anytime soon. When I'll buy back in, then It will probably be buying some altcoin, not bitcoin.
Right now the only thing that keeps the bitcoin price from an ugly collapse are the thousands of miners who have invested thousands of dollars in their ASIC equipment. They are the ones who are holding and keeping the supply tight, because selling with this price means no ROI. But they can only hold the price for so long, because the electric bills are piling and their wives or girlfriends are yelling at them on why aren't the noisy machines producing any money like promised.

My faith in bitcoin is in a downtrend while my faith in cryptos and privatized monetary systems in general keeps steady.

Yeah, you can't control the stupidity of the market. The nature of the market will determine the probable percentage of stupid people involved. Bitcoin has been very attractive as an get-rich-quick scheme, so I agree that it is little naive to expect something else. You can only observe the stupidity and imagine scenarios on how things would have went if...

I didn't say that the price should be controlled, I told that the marker should have been smarter. There is a difference.



How can you see that? Because I don't own any bitcoin while bitcoin is in a stage on being an useless investment opportunity? Oh, please, tell me more....

I guess I should just buy in without any thinking and start chanting Choo Choo! Then I would really have a clue about bitcoin!
Stupid f**ks like you are making this market a financial joke and I really wanted for bitcoin to be more then a joke.

I bought in around 200$, so it's profit.
I'm negative because this market needs some realistic negativity. The positivity that is supported by false hopes and illusions is the thing that is messing up the environment. There is enough Choo-Chooing and I truly see that I contribute more with negativity by bringing some balance.

TOP holders are playing the long term game, since they can take the risk. While most of the mining equipment are owned by people who actually used their savings to buy those machines. There is only a small amount of bitcoins in existance that will be sold at markets, and the biggest part of those coins have been created by miners in the near past.

Slowest people should sell at the bottom, like always. It will also be like this right now, but the process will take a lot longer then needed.
I think that it is healthy to tell the market about their mistakes and how they were stupid. As I said, this market needs some criticism to bring people back to reality.

Superior crypto would need a better system for creating new coins, since proof-of-work is not a smart way to create coins. The increase of miners should increase the security of network, and therefor give more value to BTC, but because the miners are pooled together, there is no increase in security. So resources are spent without any new gain. I think that Proof-of-Stake is more advanced, but I don't know any proof-of-stake coin that can hold on it's own. But I do bet that there will be a new wave of better quality coins. What we would need is an software company with experience and financial backing to create a coin. As long as coins are created by students or hobbyists, we won't see any serious competition to BTC.

Of course, money is always based on trust. Trust that you can use money to trade value without any unnecessary loss.
I think that bitcoin won't lose it's trust because of the flaws in software code, but it will lose faith because of the flawed market system. When there are no consequences to create a "scam exchange" that can play the competent exchange role for a year, just to gain trust, and then to run away with their customers money, then the market system is far from being secure. Most bitcoin enthusiasts are religious on the subject, and they actually believe that the market will be fine, since everyone has faith in the future of bitcoin and won't start "scam exchanges" because they can get more profit with legal methods.
But there are people out there who can see Bitcoin just as an temporary phenomenon and those people are motivated to build an exchange just to run away with their customers money. And they can actually do this without "running away", because they can just blame it on being a victim of hacking, lost database or whatever, and they won't see any jailtime.

When visiting miner forums, then it's full of desperation. Remember that the mining network brings in about 3600 BTC per 24h. The question if most of these coins will go for sale, or for keeping, will decide a very big part of the market trend.
I do believe that BTC has some juice still left in it and it will probably go over 2000$ before it's final death, since those who have invested big into BTC, will invest more into marketing to build new demand. But still I believe that BTC will live for around 2 years, because it lacks the properties to become anything more then an innovative gambling platform. Without price stability, it won't ever be useful as an currency. And the increase in market cap. won't create stability, but it will only attract players with deeper pockets and better knowledge on how to play the market. So, there will always be volatility that will stop bitcoin in becoming a quality currency.
My only hope is that the end of bitcoin won't be the end of crypto, but the end will be with value flowing from bitcoin to some other crypto.

When resources are spent without any new gain, then there is something wrong. The arms race in bitcoin mining doesn't make any sense. Electricity and hardware wasted for something that won't actually be useful to the bitcoin network. If increase of miners would increase the security of the network or speed of transactions, only then would the proof-of-work method make any sense.
Satoshis logic was to simulate gold mining, but in my idea it doesn't work anymore because gold does have practical value not just speculative value. If miners could be used for practical work as well, then it would be another thing. Proof-of-Work would only work if mining would be done without pools, and with CPU or at least GPU, that would have other application besides mining bitcoins. Pools and ASICs ruined the entire original concept.

I don't get this panic.. it's a part of bitcoins normal cycle when the price drops as low as 200$.
The crash of the bubble has always went down to the top of the previous bubble, then some time of stability and then a new bubble.
It seems that people are confused because the current bubble didn't burst in a day, but it took 2 months for it to burst. That is why I was telling that the stupidity that drove the uptrend during January, actually slowed down progress in the long run.

I wonder.. if there is a connection between hodling and masochism..?

It would definitely be the first time when people who count on gox to follow through, will eventually get goxxed..

Someone who would definitely be a hodler right now:

Coins were probably stolen from the same people that created that market, or I wouldn't be surprised if the hackers were from Los Zetas cyber-intelligence division or a similar group. So, I'm not so sure how constructive that tracking them down will be.
As I have said before. The bitcoin world is a heaven for all kinds of foul play because there are no regulations or any other consequences. It would be a miracle if high profile criminal groups wouldn't be interested to play around in this environment.
I haven't ordered anything through tor, so those markets don't worry me. But what worries me is that there is no way to tell if the bigger exchanges have also been created with similar goals. Just play nice for a year or two to build confidence, and when the time is right...then...

A fun fact:

In a new interview with Black Book, director Mary Harron dryly shares the revelation that Christian Bale‘s inspiration for his pretty-damn-legendary performance in her American Psycho was none other than Tom Cruise. What’s more, there is previous online precedent to connect Cruise’s go-getter, ’80s attitude and famous physical regimen with Patrick Bateman‘s yuppie, psychopathic shell. After the jump, we have Harron’s very candid remark, as well as the actor who so embodies this strange, pop culture duality…

Some may recall that in author Bret Easton Ellis‘s novel of the same name from 1991, Bateman resides in the same high-status apartment building as Cruise and actually runs into him on an elevator. This detail is not mentioned in Harron’s chat, however…

    How did you and Christian Bale develop his character in American Psycho?

    Mary Harron: It was definitely a process. [Bale and I] talked a lot, but he was in L.A. and I was in New York. We didn’t actually meet in person a lot, just talked on the phone. We talked about how Martian-like Patrick Bateman was, how he was looking at the world like somebody from another planet, watching what people did and trying to work out the right way to behave. And then one day he called me and he had been watching Tom Cruise on David Letterman, and he just had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes, and he was really taken with this energy.

Chin up guys! when everything goes to hell, then you can always work for money!
I'm starting to feel bad for the guys who are holding coins. They have showed great determination, but sadly with this situation, it won't pay off.
Just remember, when the price goes around 200$ then do not sell. There are 1-2 bubbles left in the bitcoin life-cylce, so this won't be the end of the journey.

Guys who are determined to hold,
Don't do this to yourself! Sell your coins or move away from the computer, you shouldn't watch this..

Remember, that you still have your health!

How come you don't need my advice when you have millions in fiat? Don't you need any advice or just mine? When only mine, then why do I get treated differently?

If I were you, then I would of just ignored the advice. But you chose to reply to it with mentioning your net worth..
It is what it is..
But let's just ignore that this ever happened. I haven't got anything against people who have millions in fiat and who like to mention it from time to time. I think that everyone are good at heart and when someone can come off as a little douchey, then it's not because he is bad person, but only because he can feel a little insecure.
So, it's all good.

I feel a little bad about myself that I made you upset like that, so you think you had to prove yourself in this manner. It's all good, you are an wealthy person, so there's no reason to feel insecure.
I have to be honest, that lying and misleading can irritate me. But in here, most of the people don't even realize that they are lying to themselves and to others.

Most people in here make money by lying to me? :| That's messed up, man...
I can understand the other part. Like I have said before, the ones that are selling right now will win over those who are slow and sell around 400$.

When bulls make fun of bears, then it's all good. But when bears start making fun of bulls, then everyone will get touchy and offended real quick.
Bulls seem to be really sensitive.

I don't want to fight you. Calm down, everything is fine.

To lighten some tension..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrNnNQLGH4k

FUD based on truth, not on humor, is always more effective..

Price at stamp got inflated by manipulators in hope that people will start buying coins to withdraw. If you are still holding then this is a nice peak to sell on.

Seems like everyone aren't buying coins to withdraw from stamp.. a failed pump or will our determined manipulators pump some more money in to attract fools? we'll see.. we'll see...

And after this sudden spike upwards, there will be another slow and boring downfall, with everyone who bought are holding, while hoping that the next wave will start another upwards trend...



...and then they won't even notice that while waiting, the price has dropped 200$

Seems like math told manipulators that pumping further wouldn't bring any profit... so, back to the slow downfall...

This is like yelling at the roulette table that you called red and won..

Just look at the 2h chart from 800$ and then there is no explanation needed. Only thing that differed was that he price reached a little higher then with previous pumps.
This slow downfall needs constant pumps to give people hope, so they keep holding and keeping their buy orders up. Only this way can the big players move out with solid profit. Big flash crashes aren't profitable if you really want to move out.

Ol' Gil is not worried, even if he bought in at 700$.
Ol' Gil sees that the price is going down very slowly, so it's not dangerous at all! Soon there will be an upwards wave and Ol' Gil will finally catch his big break with bitcoin investments!

I drank about 0,5 liters of vodka, and bought 0,22BTC for transferring to BTC-E, to visit the trollbox :|
I'm thinking of drinking the other 0,5l and I hope that there are some more intoxicated people here, so I don't bring shame upon myself alone

The thing that bugs me the most is that I will probably lose about 25 bucks in this trollbox investment. That's like half a liter of quality vodka in Estonia.. and thats wasteful
But still... trollbox is a nice place to be while drunk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0q8Oho_RjM

yeah...

Bulls, I love you..
I wasn't born as a bear.. When I visited the bitcoin market I was as bullish as one can be...! it's always more comfortable to be a person with a more positive outlook on things!
But.. guys, I'll be back on being a bull, just as soon you will finish this bearish market that needs to be finished... just end it at the price around 200$ and we can all recover and prosper!

Guys, when there are people among you, who are as cool or cooler then me...
... then you should know this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-hSgL1R74

I was like this at the start of December and no one would listen!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp5ekMlQvi4

Guys, I think that this is it for today.. I'll transfer my 0,22 BTC back to stamp to accept my calculated loss.. I have drank all of the vodka and it was all good!

I'll leave you with this great song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgefTK4OLMw
.. and hope that you wont be all offended and bitter if the price will drop down to 200$ in the coming weeks.

Power to the people!

With these volumes the current "uptrend" won't last very long.
Like I said before, a crash is needed to stimulate trade. Stop being greedy and make the coins cheaper, so they would look attractive to other people as well. This shit's chess, it ain't checkers.
Stop being a . Or you will be back in your cave, all alone, playing with your precious.. Sell your coins to save bitcoin!

Sold my coins couple of weeks ago, but I want to see BTC as an good investment again!

2 things would attract me to buy back in:
a) Opening of new markets with solid volume in new geographical locations.
b) Sudden price drop to an more secure level.

As I can see, then no development has been done to market bitcoin in south- or central-America. Regions where it could truly flourish. So, my realistic hope, in coming back into the game, is that the price drops to a more secure level. Desperation of fanatics doesn't feel secure at all.

Yes, that's the point. Investing into BTC is only attractive if there is a reason for the high price or the price would be low enough. When the price is high without a reason, other then desperation of fanatics, then it's not a good investment.
News I care about are:
a) Opening/Closing of markets
b) Changes in legislation
c) BTC code

Rest of the news don't mean much to me when speculating the price. During the previous period a,b and c have only been negative. So, to me, there is no rational reason for the price to be much over then it was before the China boom. It's not the first time when markets are not rational and hold the price up by fanatics or manipulators. And this kind of irrational market, that is held up by pillars that are on a verge of breaking, is a big no-no as an investment opportunity.
The price has to rest on a more solid base then on "will of the HODLERS", or it has to create real increase in demand. Either one has to happen to shock this 2 month old dead cat to life. It could of already have been in a slow and stable uptrend if the market would have been more rational and finished the "loss of China" crash without denial.
It's stupid because it only wastes time..

Where do you see that the market is flooding with new users?
What I see is that there is only volume after during and after another drop in price. After that there will be a slow downwards slope with decreasing volume, until another drop. And that is the slow downward trend that Bitcoin has been in the past 2 months.
Some people are saying that NOW is the time when the downwards trend switched upwards, but based on what?! Based on "I have a feeling that it is going upwards"? There hasn't been a single development that would make bitcoin more attractive to speculators. If you want to invest in a shoe store company, then you want to see it open more stores and sell more shoes. With bitcoin, the market system is actually breaking apart more then growing. Growing of the market system is the real thing that will great speculative demand and that is the real thing that sets the price.

Please don't make these long and boring speeches on how strong you think that the market is. I can see how "strong" the market is by looking at how "well" it preforms. Only time when the price has any momentum to go upwards is right after an major fall. I don't work in a way that "encouraging words about the strength of bitcoin will keep my faith". I can see that the only reason why bitcoin price hasn't plummeted yet is because of "the cult of hodling" and the ASIC market. I see that the main reason is that miners payed good money for their ASICs, that won't bring in any ROI with these prices. So, this is a desperate hold and it can't last like that forever. Over time, miners are cutting their losses and selling their mining equipment and coins cheap. This will eventually trigger the hodlers to sell also, and that is the final end of this stupid and overly stretched dead cat bounce.

(correlation is not causation) - There is no reason see that bitcoin has increased it's speculative demand.
(historically incorrect) - No, it's not historically incorrect. You can look at the 1d chart from oct. Only momentum that is left, is from the last China boom. It hasn't picked up because it doesn't have a reason to pick up. It just tries to hold while the force left from China boom is depleting. In my book, this is desperation.
(personal and historically unsubstantiated opinion). - The miner circle has the most amount of active coins. Miners didn't buy miners for passive long-term collection, or they would of bought coins in the first place. Like it or not, but miners do have a very big say on supply. It's very important if the stable flow of 3600 new coins per 24h goes to holding or for sale. Especially when demand is very low.
Also, your entire reply was an unsubstantiated opinion of my opinion. So this was a an out-of-place remark anyway.

I don't think that the stock market looks very healthy at the moment. There are also many uncertainties, and that's not considered healthy. Healthy is the market where there is little chance of bad surprises.
It makes me laugh that "experts" here are actually saying that this is an permanent upwards trend, even if it's not still sure if MtGox can return it's customers $ and BTC. It's hard to imagine how someone could be this stupid, so I bet they are just manipulating the market and motivating the sheep to buy, so they can sell themselves.

If you look at the entire history of bitcoin bubble-cycle, then the next bubble will always drop to the point where the previous bubble reached. And with this quarterly timescale, you can see that the risen demand in China made the price go up, and now this demand is gone without a substitute. So, no mater what period I observe, I see that the right place should be around 200-300$.
MtGox is not Bitcoin, but MtGox IS A BIG PART OF THE BITCOIN MARKET! How can this be so hard to understand? If people are saying that the market is turning up, without knowing the outcome with MtGox, then they are either stupid or they are lying.
When it turns out that MtGox is insolvent, then the press won't cover how people lost their money trusting MtGox. MtGox is not the hot subject here, the press will talk how people lost their money investing in bitcoin. How bitcoin is just a play money, manipulated by guys who run places like MtGox. And that will scare away any new investor with a half a brain, because he can see that there are actually no regulations that would keep his money safe, when trusting the bitcoin market system. That he would just have to invest in blind faith, and only fools do that.

It's because that's what most have been waiting for. A solid reason to call bitcoin an Ponzi scheme. If Gox goes bad, then it will be played out like bitcoin is actually just a tool for people like Karpeles to prey on their victims.

(personal and historically unsubstantiated angry opinion)

I bought at 200$, when bitcoin was actually covered by an famous news program in China that is known for representing the Chinese government stance. I sold at around the start of December, when there were no volume to support the price going up and it got clear that China won't have any legal potential with bitcoin. I only bought back once around 800, for couple of hours after I sold again. The last reason was only because I was intoxicated and bored.
So, you religious/lying sack of excrement, don't tell me about having no vision. Pricks like you have been telling me 2 month, that NOW it seems like the price is picking up again, making up childish reasons like "China doesn't even matter!". And for all those two months I held my own decision with only winning by doing this. The slow downfall just continues and continues and it's not difficult to see why.
Delusional pricks like you make me feel shame of my interest in bitcoin, because you do make this place look like a cult or a gang of crooks.

For the whole 10 days?

It doesn't mater how new I am. Before 2013 bitcoin was just play money for buying drugs and the entire market system revolved around that utility. Right now bitcoin is at the doorstep in becoming a legal financial tool. This moment is crucial, if it succeeds it will rise much higher, but if it fails, then it won't get another chance. So, I don't really care about your bitcoin experience pre-2013. I just care if bitcoin will get past that doorstep or not. And currently it seems like it is slowly falling back.
And based on what, do you see that the price is actually rising not just preparing another deeper drop?
All I can see is relatively strong bottom resistance and very little lift. But without lift the bottom resistance is weakening and we can see this through most of January. There won't be a rise just because there is strong support at the bottom, there also has to be strong support for lift, but it aint there. Without lift the bottom will only weaken and weaken until it breaks.

But speculators who chant Choo Choo and are delusional about the future contribute more?
For instance how do you contribute to bitcoin? or how does windjc?

If you buy bitcoins to store value, then you probably don't know much about money.
Bitcoin value is only held up by speculation, so trusting bitcoin to hold your wealth is giving your money to the bitcoin hodlers and trust that they won't cash out. That is naive as an investment and a naive way to deal with wealth.
If you want to store value, then buy resources like rare-earth metals, that are in constant demand together with technological advancements and their supply is constantly getting tighter. Bitcoin is not rare, it's only decided by a group of people that it is rare. And you are also trusting a group of unknown people that it will stay rare.

The more long-term you predict bitcoin, the more you gamble. There are so many real factors that rise probability, that in the coming years, bitcoin will die. Only thing special about bitcoin is that it was the first popular outlet of an very good idea. It's like believing in the 80s that Apple will always dominate the personal computer market, because it was the first to succeed with Macintosh. You can't hold onto this idea alone. Other can better that idea or just market that idea better with their products.

Sadly it is. Bitcoin has very little economic value, the idea has a lot of potential for value, but bitcoin itself is an economic gimmick. Mainly because of the overly simplified proof-of-work system to introduce new coins. Because of that, bitcoin will never be a stand-alone currency and it needs fiat to give it value.
Right now, with adopting bitcoin payments at your shop has no value in financial efficiency. You will only gain the trouble in converting your money. Only reason why some companies decide to accept bitcoin payment, is for marketing reasons. Starting to accept bitcoin will get you lot's of free press and it will also get you some new loyar customers among those who are loyal to bitcoin. It will make your financial dealings less efficent, not more.

With Rare-earth metals, it's not hard to find geographical places from where to extract the ore, but it will be difficult to find places that let mining and processing with this environmental impact to happen on their soil. And also to consider the growing demand, I think that picking the right element is the best store of value investment that one can currently do.

There are about 12,37mil bitcoins in circulation. Can you tell me the names of the known people who own 6mil bitcoins together? or even 2mil? or 1mil?
Last time I remember that some big bitcoin holder came into public with his coins was when Winklevosses declared that they have about 1% of total bitcoin circulation. Can you please give me other names that have declared how big their stake is in bitcoin, so I can see on who are these people who I am supposed to trust then?

I didn't invest before, because bitcoin didn't mater then. I knew about it and I even visited your little forum, but I had no interesting in being involved in an gambling platform that is supported only by drug trade.
Can you argue against it, like it had any other utility then buying drugs online? Do you argue against it that the tor drug market was the only thing that gave value to bitcoin then?
Bitcoin only became interesting to me when I saw a chance that it could also be more. During the last period the chances of this happening are getting smaller.

I also see the simple truth that bitcoin won't be able to create any price stability with this overly simplified proof-of-work mining system for creating new coins. That will be the final stop where bitcoin won't be able to go further.
People with basic financial knowledge can see that bitcoin isn't the answer, but it just propagated the idea that will lead to an answer. I just hope that bitcoin still has couple of years of hype left in it, so there will be better cryptos, that would make financial sense, and that could possibly develop into a stand-alone currency. Then the end of bitcoin won't be the end of this idea of privatized monetary systems, but value will flow from bitcoin into another.

Only lazy and uneducated hodlers believe that they can just buy, wait some years and become millionaires by just buying early. World doesn't work like that.
It's funny how these people present themselves like fighters for liberty and how they promote bitcoin because it's the right thing to do. What they are really doing is hoping that there will be an re-distribution of wealth and they can be the new ruling class in economy, all while doing no work and having no practical skills or education to contribute to society.

I will say this again: screw you, you delusional prick!
When i'm saying that bitcoin isn't the answer because it's too simplistic, then it doesn't mean that I don't believe in the fundamentals of technology. I just understand macroeconomics and finance better then you, that bitcoin won't be able to offer price stability and without price stability it won't ever be a quality currency.

I believe that this idea that bitcoin created will soon bring forward a new wave of information technology based currencies, that already have an integrated market regulation system and a more proper system for creating new units.
When someone said that Macintosh won't conquer the world as a personal use computer, that there will be competition that will better the idea, then it doesn't mean that he doesn't believe in fundamentals of technology!

Oh, interesting! Explain me then, what is the true value of bitcoin.

The technology of what? Cryptography? Python? Personal computers? The Internet?
Bitcoin source code doesn't bring anything new to the table, it only combines existing technologies in one innovative idea. So, there is no complex "technology" in bitcoin to be valued, the idea is what is valuable and the idea can be made better by others with their own innovations.

Services like Bitpay will only maximize it's utility with using it as an intermediate payment tool to compete with credit card companies. Currently using bitcoin is more expensive, time consuming and difficult then using a credit cards. Right now it's a gimmick even in this intermediate payment field. It only could be more then a gimmick if it would be a stand-alone currency without fiat to support it.

Yes, I know. But I have no reason to remain civil with someone who repeatedly tells me that I have no vision or how I don't believe in fundamentals of technology. I find windjc to be arrogant and ignorant at the same time and personally I would have already prefer corporal punishment on him, but I have to settle with what I can.
I will speak to everyone in the language they understand best. I'll only remain civil to people who deserve it. Most of the people who oppose my ideas here deserve it, while windjc is currently the only one here that I think deserves a good ass-kicking instead.


Don't know where I will find it, because it hasn't been created yet.
Increase in market cap. will only attract players with deeper pockets and better knowledge on how to play an unregulated market. If market cap. will get bigger then the previous whales won't be as important, but there will be new whales who will be more capable in manipulating the market for their personal gain.
That is the sad final outcome of an deflative currency with an unregulated market system. Money can never be attractive as an investment opportunity or it will ruin the entire idea why money should be. Money is no value by itself, but only an intermediate tool to trade value. If you try to make money as an valuable investment, then you will actually screw up the economy.

It's a gimmick in finance, but it's pretty practical in gambling.

You're not even competent enough to spell my name..

Even if the bitcoin code could be considered as an established network protocol, it wouldn't mean that bitcoin units will have any value in the future. It would only mean that the same protocol will be used in the future to create new currencies with new units.
But I hardly believe that future developers will use the bitcoin code. Using bitcoin code to create altcoins will stay in time when only hobbyists and students created new coins for fun. If cryptos will be an serious financial tool, then the bitcoin code will be history.

Looking at your posts that were directed at me.. I only have to say that I suppose so.

Edit: Sadly I think that the main faults are in the core of bitcoin and can't be fixed. Faults like deflation and how it promotes increasing use of hardware, while not actually offering practical use for it. If the bitcoin network would be faster or more secure with increased amount of miners, then I would already be more optimistic about bitcoin survival.

That's a good point!
There are many people here who have the same level of emotional attachment to bitcoin then to an newborn baby.

To them, it seems righteous and just. To me it looks like cult behavior revolving around a materialistic product.

I think this is it for me for today also. The priests of the choo choo cult have arrived to fill your minds with beautiful dreams.
I think that I'll do something easier tomorrow, like go to an Christianity forum and post a question if Jesus was in fact the son of god.

Fiat structure is supported by modern economics that have been developed by academics throughout hundreds of years.
This "banksterism" that you see, is another animal altogether. This has been caused by the growing corruption of the public sector. This has been the cause why the banking sector is over-privileged, and that is why all the anger towards banks from the working class.
Public sector should control banks and see to it, that they fall under basic capitalism rules like fair competition. But when societies leaders are a pack of unethical and weak spirited "felines", then banking leaders don't have to practice responsibility.

People with little knowledge about finance tend to blame modern economics when thinking of the latest financial problems. But it's not the economics, but it's the rape of economics by certain people who have a lot of power and very little responsibility.
And who is the best supporter of this "banksterism" ?
Probably you.. or your neighbor, or members of your family. By always taking the public sector for granted and voting for someone "because I see him a lot on TV". People don't actually learn in depth the skills, experience, plans and visions of the electee that he/she votes for.
And that is how incompetent and weak spirited politicians come to be the leaders of the public sector, and that is why banking hasn't been balanced.

Apathy is a defect that has affected a large part of the population. I don't know if it's the speed of our environmental changes or hormonal problems, but people seem to be affected by it with increasing rate. For instance, in this forum, I only found couple of people who were willing to act and do something to root out the corruption in the bitcoin market system. Most even got angry at me for trying to do something. Most seemed to hope that if everyone does nothing, then things will get fixed by itself.
This part is not much different between "banksterism" and "bitcoiners". Both want to be rich and powerful without having any responsibility, or if possible, without doing anything other then enjoying luxury.

So, don't blame the modern economics and don't try to act like bitcoin economics would actually be better. The proof-of-work fixed coin creation system is a joke compared to modern finance. We are living in a globalized world and it would be absurd that this world could run trade with this simplistic system.
But there can be a system that is as complex or more as modern finance, and that would be mainly automated and transparent. That system will be the "coin" that I'm really interested in!
I like bitcoin because it brought forward a big step in moving towards this idea. I have always dis-liked religious fanatics though and I tend to fall into conflict with them.

All those investments into the ecosystem has went to the idea of bitcoin, not bitcoin itself. All the support services can just jump coins and they are ready to do that. Their investments are not tied down to bitcoin, so the "eco-system" doesn't have to keep bitcoin alive. So no point in telling that bitcoin is secured by that ecosystem.
Well, the faults of bitcoin aren't very well hidden, so I know that people have seen the same flaws before. But I haven't found the solutions to those long known problems either. Solutions to those problems are still unanswered and everyone are just trying to ignore the problems.
Before the current development phase, these problems were the problems of the future, but now they are  problems of now, so you can't just ignore the problems any longer.

Yeah, this "Let's just give everyone money and everyone can be rich!" doesn't work in real life. Money doesn't always equal wealth, you know..

Actually it is production that creates wealth and production is stimulated by consumption.
When world currency would be deflationary then consumption will slow because everyone will be motivated to hold onto their money, not to use it on consumption. That in turn means that production will slow down and that actually means less wealth to everyone.

Now, if the globe would be in one peaceful society, then maybe it could fly. Less consumption would mean less destroying our natural enviroment and all. But because evolution dictates the survival of the fittest, this laziness propagating economic way won't work. People who work more and better will always rule over those who just want to sit on their ass.

Please stop comparing bitcoin to html, e-mail or tcp/ip. These protocols didn't have the baggage of unit cost on their back.
If HTML would be like bitcoin, then new HTML adopters would have to pay monetary tribute to the earlier adopters of HTML to start using it.
Then HTML wouldn't have developed very far and people would have been motivated to create alternative options, without the baggage of those early adopters, who just want to earn on your expense, without doing anything themselves.

At first, the network of ASICs, that are built to hash fixed results, is not exactly a supercomputer network. SHA256 bitcoin ASICs can do nothing else then to hash bitcoins or heat your home.

AND the increase in network power doesn't increase the security of the network because most of the network is pooled together. When you only have to compromise 2 pools, then it doesn't matter how powerful of an hashrate they are processing. So, miners aren't actually contributing to the security of the network unless they are solo-mining. That is what makes bitcoin mining a fools game. Future coins needs to have a system where payments are distributed without intermediate services and with more constructive goals in mind.

Well, someone will always buy something. Just less people buy something.
When inflation motivates people to consume more, then you can be sure that deflation will motivate people to consume less. Of course there won't be radical outcomes that no money will be spent, but a country that runs on deflationary currency, will fall behind in economic development compared to countries with inflationary currency.

It's like with communism or just plain old socialism, where everyone will work less and work is less important in society in general, but everyone are also poor because the lack of quality production.
I have lived in Soviet Union, so I know how childish economic dreams can create deficit in even the most regular goods.

Nah, I will stick around and observe the development of this community as well. Maybe even say some things again to bring people closer to earth.
Like I said, I'm quite intrigued by the idea that bitcoin brought forward. I'll probably also invest some money into it when the price isn't held up only by desperation. I truly believe that bitcoin still has about 1-2 years of life and 1-2 bubbles left in it, before the hype finally settles.

I don't have hatred against poor people. I also believe that one can be better off without wealth but with a healthy spirit.
But I do dis-like poor people who blame their situation on others. People who say that rich people are to blame that they didn't decide to get good grades, that they didn't decide to go to college, that they didn't make the right career choices etc.

Bitcoin wouldn't change social dynamics, it would only make everyone poorer, both the rich and the poor. The ratio will be the same and there will still be rich people who have gotten rich by either work or by exploitation of others. Trade will just be more ineffective and people would be motivated to sit on their ass more. Not just blue-collared workers, but also the CEOs and managers.
I think that an country could actually adopt bitcoin if it doesn't care about it's economic strength. There are also countries like that. Not a lot tho..
It would be absurd that major powers couldn't overcome bitcoin though. Take a team of good 100 python coders and give them a year and there would be a coin that would surpass bitcoin in every quality aspect. Right now only students and hobbyists are coding bitcoin source based altcoins, because the big boys are still planning their entrance strategy.

You are contradicting yourself there. Because saving up in cash has been made impossible, as you say, you save less and buy more. The point is that people should save wealth in production, not in money.

Well, you can brute force your way into innovation in the IT field, and Android is one of the latest examples of it. They took a well known and innovative idea about an efficent and mobile OS and they perfected it on their own platform. Just as iOS took it over after Symbian.
Yes, 1 computer scientist can be more productive then 1000, but it doesn't matter if you can buy that 1 just as well as you could buy the 1000.
Small teams.are more effective in every fields, but some projects are just so work intensive that you cant settle with a small team.


Im logging off for today, will reply tomorrow when needed.

In the interest of saving forum space, I'll fit all the replies in one post.


I can see that the the level of intelligence of the poster is in perfect correlation with the ability to spell my name..

1) Hyperinflation is as bad as hyperdeflation. Both are unstable forms of financial planning that will mess up the economy. While most of the communism countries suffered from hyperinflation, then hyperdeflation is the inevitable outcome of bitcoin.

2) Where the hell do you get this stuff?
Post-Revolutionary USA had economic growth first because of the success of cotton plantations and slavery, and after that, the industrial war nature of the civil war stimulated urbanization and building of railroads, all of this gave a boost to the economy.
Finance was a big mess in 1800s USA with series of failed banking acts and attempts to create a solid currency.

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It doesn't work like that. Consumption creates production and not vice versa.
When Jack feels hunger, then Jack has to work before Jack can consume the food to satisfy his hunger.

Need for consumption always dictates the need of production. There is no need of production without the need of consumption.
So one does have more weigh then another.

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Well, thats life that everyone won't have an equal chance. The same thing is already set by nature, with some born weaker, shorter or with less intellectual potential. Life isn't fair and it sucks.
Communism actually had a goal to make things fair to everyone. It failed because it was unnatural and only created more problems then it solved.

I'm not inventing the wheel here with saying that inflation is more effective in aspect of economic strength. Academics who are a lot smarter on the subject then me and you have disputed the same subject and still the answer has emerged that controlled and stable inflation is the best way to go when considering economic strength.
But remember, with bitcoin we are not talking about controlled and stable deflation. We are talking about uncontrollable hyperdeflation.


When you'll find holes in my scenario then point them out and I'm happy to dispute or to agree with you.
My speculation about what are the "big boys" doing is far fetched I agree. It's solely based on assumption on what I would do if I were in their shoes. Assumptions like this have mostly served me right.

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Nah, it's not free. Service companies similar to bitpay, who take care of the conversion, have to pay the early adoptors for the privilege to use the "protocol". Everyone who has to hold their value in bitcoin have to pay tribute to the early adopters.
This is the pyramid scheme part that attracts those big herds of people who wish to get rich quick without doing any work. This hyperdeflation part is good for attracting simple minded folks with promises of easy riches, but it makes bitcoin useless as an serious financial tool.
The enthusiasts make it sound like they are all about financial liberty, while actually they are just hoping for wealth redistribution. They don't want to change the world in a way that there won't be a class of wealthy elite people who only enjoy luxury without doing much work. They even want to increase this mentality and only change the people who are at the top, so they themselves can be there.


It's too hard to lie to myself and pretend that all is fine. I'm not very good at comforting myself with false hopes made out of pretty illusions. I would be happy and calm if I would truly see that this will work. But I can't, no matter how much I try, I still see the ugly truth.

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First mover advantage is the only thing that bitcoin has. The only reason why it's more expensive then the tens of other altcoins that have been created from the same source.
Rest doesn't mean much tho, because the development in bitcoin source is very slow and it's actually crippled by core properties like work-of-proof mining and 10 minute transaction times. You can only better the GUI and fix some bugs while you can't develop the core properties that actually need development the most.

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And you can freely save up by buying necessary goods that hold value. Inflation doesn't stop you for doing that. Inflation only pushes you towards using your money on something, not just sitting on money.
Production isn't forced, but it's favored because it does increase it's countries economic strength. And economic strength is the thing that decides the survival of the fittest in the modern world.
Controlled and stable deflation system could also be used like the an stable and controlled inflation system. But the first country will always have less production then the last one.
But with bitcoin we are not talking about controlled and stable deflation, we are talking about inevitable uncontrollable hyperdeflation. And hyperdeflation is just as bad as hyperinflation, because the instability creates a lot of problems that will slow down the economy.

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Broken window fallacy isn't exactly an outcome of an strong and growing economy, but it is caused by the corrupt public sector that I talked about.
When world leaders decide to wage wars to stimulate the economy, then the economy is not to be blamed here. You could also start huge scientific projects with goals to colonize other planets or discover new ways to extract energy. This would stimulate the economy just as well as starting wars.
But people are to blame here who elect weak and corrupt politicians who act on the orders of warmongers, not on recommendations of top scientists. To make it short, broken window fallacy is cased by the lack of proper vision.

---

I hope I didn't miss anyone..

"The securing of network" part went away after coming of pools. With pools, the general network hash rate doesn't mean anything in terms of security of bitcoin. Only thing that matters now is the number of pools and the security of pools.
Bitcoin security was created in a way that network isn't concentrated anywhere, and everyone can do their fair part in handling the network. You can tell that bitcoin was never designed to be this big, because it's distribution system only could handle solo mining to a certain level. That was the level to what bitcoin was designed to evolve.
Pools were abominations of the entire system, because the system intended for no centralization whatsoever. The proper crypto for this level of active users should not need any pools and everyone will get paid directly from the network. Only then, the increasing user base will also increase the security of the network. Otherwise it's just a bad joke..
The other problem came with the coming of ASICs, when another wave of useless wasting began. Bitcoin network used to be supported by hardware, that had other use for it. Now people are building hardware that's only purpose is to mine bitcoins. But the increasing hash rate doesn't improve security, or anything for that matter, so the building of ASICs is also actually doing empty work that doesn't actually improve anything. It's all just for trying to crab a bite of this cake of hype.

The future is in new cryptos, because bitcoin code is becoming more and more obsolete...

It feels like it's set in stone, because there are no development or even open discussions on important aspects, like the one I brought forward in my previous post. It's ignored and everyone are just enjoying getting rich with abusing the hype. Litecoin and other altcoins also use the "bitcoin protocol", and because of that, they are suffering from the same problems.
If there were some responsible people around, then someone would say: "Hey, stop this wasteful nonsense! let's figure it out how to build a network that actually makes sense!".

I think that wasteful mining is a fundamental flaw and an expensive mistake to make. I would accept the energy wasted by home cpu's, but when people are building large cloud mining facilities, then this madness has gone out of control. Projects with this magnitude shouldn't be done just to chase your own tail, even if someone pays you money for it.


I agree that the alternatives are young and have to wait till their security is proven. That is why I think that bitcoin still has about 1-2 years of life left in it. That is the period that can be supported by pure hype, while ignoring the fact that the code actually is obsolete.

I think that nxt is interesting but very raw at this stage. What makes it interesting is that it's not been build on bitcoin source, so it won't be affected with all these boundaries and dogmas, that come with "The Cult of Satoshi".
I can't speculate how it will develop, but the start is interesting.

Dude called the lowest price point of 5 days, and now he is all confident and brave in expressing his perverted nature. That's messed up..

Traditional market trends don't mostly apply with cryptocurrencies. Remember, that bitcoin trading is done on unregulated exchanges, meaning that there is no regulation to stop an exchange owner from doing insider trading. Meaning that the price is probably set buy guys, who know the plans and routines of everyone else. The best way to speculate the future is to see, what is the most profitable way for the market owners. Trying to use traditional trends will only get you trapped more, then it will give you success.

. o O ( George W. Bush endorses bitcoin, because it brings freedomz and democracy to the people. )

Hmm, interesting at stamp with the 8k sell wall. Usually only altcoins get these outrageous visible sell/buy walls, that will magically get eaten in an hour with a volume that equals the entire previous week.

Don't be surprised if soon, it seems like everyone suddenly will start "buying" that wall, and then, after the wall has been "bought", no rise will come, only a slow downfall

.. visible sell walls like that are bought back by the same people who post them. This is to stimulate demand and to demonstrate how high the buying pressure is.
You will buy into this wall, because it seems that everyone are buying into it and as soon as the wall breaks, it will go to da moon!
But really you are just helping one guy/group to get rid of his/its coins with a fixed price.
With an unregulated market system, it's not hard to be a 0% fee trader.

This is routine method in the BTC-E/LTC market. Rarely see this with STAMP/BTC though. Means that someone is desperate I think that's nice..

Look, everyone are buying that big wall. Go and buy those "cheap coins" quickly!
Doesn't mater that this buying pressure just came out of thin air and no one was interested in buying 580$ coins before that big wall ;-)

Smart traders want profit. There are no smart buyers with bitcoin. If someone buys bitcoins without the intention to trade, then that one sadly can't be smart.

It's not just for bots. There are plenty of people who are actually manually buying into this wall, because it seems that everyone else are doing it also. Some people are not very different from bots, when it comes to trading. Just look at this topic, and the people it involves.

Fiat, bitcoin, gold, seashells... doesn't matter. What matters, is what currently holds wealth.

To me, it seems common sense, that bitcoin will be obsolete after new developments in coming years, and with that, the units will lose value.
So, I consider someone a fool, if one doesn't think that one has to sell their coins. To me it seems the same, as if people would have told that "Spacewar!" will be the computer game that will be played by everyone for several decades.
I'm quite certain that bitcoin has a relatively short lifespan, but it does introduce the idea of open sourced monetary systems, and this will be placed high in history books.

Yeah, exactly! That is why it's not so necessary to hodl. I also believe in this idea that bitcoin brought forward, but I just don't believe that bitcoin has a very long life left in it.
I'm not telling here that bitcoin investors deserve nothing. I'll only say that eventually those will get nothing, who will go over the top with their hodling.
Trading is the smart and profitable way to go. You only have to understand that the big fish are after the little fish.

No, I wasn't even born then.

Edit: No, I haven't played the one at the museum either.

I honor your life experience, and I think that:
a) Bitcoin code will be worth in the monetary just about as much as 'Space Invaders' code is worth in todays gaming industry.
b) I agree
c) I also agree, but I don't see the developments happening with BTC, but with new cryptocoins, or virtual coins of any type. It's natural development that the monetary world will evolve with the information network.

I think that the hype can hold BTC up for couple of more volatile years and then we'll have much better code to handle wealth and transactions.
BTC is a nice technological innovation, but it doesn't cover the the basic truths of modern global economy and finance. It was never designed to be this big.
And there is no development towards improving important properties. Most are affected by this "Cult of Satoshi" phenomenon, and think that the proof-of-work 10min method is actually perfect and needs no changing. There are practically 0 hopes for development in that field.
So, I agree, that bitcoin could develop into something more. But when considering the past development and the overall mood of the community, then in my book, it's not smart to bet on that bitcoin will get it's sh*t together. It's more likely that bitcoin will develop into Litecoin/Peercoin, that uses the same code, but just with more developed package. But sadly, I think that the original bitcoin source, won't have much practical value in the future, and it will only hold historical value.

I'm sorry, but if you had any clue about the nature of this market, then you would know that you could expect absolutely anything from  this current period. So, any price predictions made from graphs are currently a joke. Too many things in the air that could destroy bitcoin if enough bad things fall together. The most knowledgeable way to trade right now is not to trade, because you can't know the needed variables if you aren't an insider.

Well, you are "a true believer".. what can I say. There is no point in converting someones religion.
What I see, is that the majority already has doubts that bitcoin is an pyramid/ponzi scheme. When it turns out that people lost their money on gox, then the media won't care if mtgox is to blame. The story that will get published is that people lost their money who invested in bitcoin, because this is the hot subject. Bitcoin will be known as a tool for crooks like Karpeles for scamming people. Bitcoin enthusiasts will be ridiculed as cultists or just as simple-minded victims. Companies together with serious investors will want to distance themselves as much as possible.
I believe that bitcoin won't entirely die by this, because there will be loads of religious people left behind who won't give up their beliefs. But it will regress into the play money status that can be used to buy drugs. Basically the same it was 2-3 years ago.

Just see what happens when sh*t actually hits the fan. What will sell in the media are the sad looking fathers of 3+ who are telling their stories how bitcoin promised them riches but instead took everything. There will be conspiracy theories how the banking indistry is behind these media reports, but actually what matters is what sells the most.
This is if MtGox does turn out insolvent. I'm not so certain that they are insolvent and this could be a more complex scheme of market manipulation.
Anyway, a smart trader won't trade during these periods of uncertainty. A risk happy trader will, but I think that "gambling" is the better word for it. So, I find it funny that some people are actually making serious predictions and are flattering themselves if they get anything right.

I also think that when I'll invest back, then I'll probably start fresh with a new crypto. What I don't like about the Litecoin market, is the single entity (or as I like to call him "The Litecoin Butcher") with it's constant 2mil.$+ buy and sell walls at BTC-E LTC market.
Considering the fact that BTC-E owners are unknown, then I seriously doubt that someone will trust this amount of money to them, if that someone isn't an insider. It doesn't make the market very attractive if you know that you are at the mercy of an single entity

The media may be a joke in an intellectual aspect, but it does have influence among the majority. Bitcoiners tend to forget how important is this halo of freedom and liberty that glows around bitcoin. Bitcoin is mostly sold by arguments that by investing in bitcoin, you are investing against global banking and you are pro-freedom. Most of bitcoin success has been caused by the failures of global banking and the increasing unpopularity that comes with it. If it turns out that bitcoin is no different, and you still have to trust fraudalent people for it to hold value, then it's very hard to sell bitcoin.

Well, you can always hope. You also hoped that 530 was the bottom that marked the start of an uptrend. Let's see where these hopes will get you.
I only find it amusing that you present your personal hopes as solid speculations. If it's your goal to amuse people with this entertainment, then no problem.

What you don't get is that the bitcoin code is not special as an invention, but it is special as an innovation. Meaning that it can be copied and improved easily. Meaning it's just a matter of time when it will get replaced.
Only reason why it hasn't been replaced yet is that there are no serious teams with experience and financial backing. Most altcoins are made by students and hobbyists, just for the fun of it. So, it's not hard to understand why there isn't any serious competition yet.
But the time will come, because this idea is an important step in the evolution of finance. To create an transparent open sourced monetary system that is supported by the internet. Bitcoin is too simplistic and childish to fill the shoes of that idea. If bitcoin would have faster development, then I would believe that bitcoin could evolve enough to fit the spot. But to me, it's more probable, that a more capable team will pick up this idea and make something that is better and developing faster.

Yeah, I agree. The future should be more decentralized. What has to go are pools and privately owned and unregulated exchanges. Something autonomously run has to be created. Hard to see how, but I have a feeling that it can be done.

So, you see that good old "it's too big to fail" will hold up bitcoin.
You clearly have no clue that by building support services, then you are not dependent on bitcoin and you can jump cryptos with relatively easy reconfiguration. It's smart, because this idea has potential and they don't have to worry if bitcoin fails. There will always be a better coin, that can be pumped and marketed.
Creating a new coin has a lot of marketing value. If google would create a free open sourced coin, then it would profit enough from everyone calling it as "googlecoin". Open sourced project could be funded for advertisement perks.
I think that Bitcoins pride and joy is Armory, that makes bitcoin different from other alts. Armory is the program that let's you store your coins with cold wallet security and relative comfort at the same time. For instance, if someone would adopt Armory to an altcoin, then that altcoin would probably go to da m00n.
If someone can create a secure system with even better speed, usability and stability, for another coin. Then that coin would probably overtake bitcoin soon.
Currently the market is raw and stupid, and the price is 95% made up from hype. But in the future the quality of code will decide the winner coin.
This idea is important, so bitcoin will be facing some though competition.

It doesn't matter that they are building bitcoin infrastucture, because if "googlecoin" would be created, and it would be of better code quality, then they can easily just take in "googlecoin" aswell.
What I am telling you is that the support services are not dependent on bitcoin. So, it does not mean that the funds invested into the industry will guarantee the success of bitcoin.

Bitcoin is like the worlds first computer game. The entire industry won't concentrate in developing this single game. The industry will build many games with increasing levels of complexity and depth. The industry is not dependent of this one first game.

I agree that it means something, but if you want to develop into the range of 100bil.$+ market cap, then it's very little something.
It would be great if bitcoin could get it's act together and would speed up code development and the development of the market system.

Bitcoin is different from protocols because it does have a very specific unit price.
Imagine if e-mail would have been created in a way that later adopters have to fill the pockets of early adopters, so they can also send an e-mail. People wouldn't accept this and would create an alternative where everyone has a fair chance with using this protocol.
So, in my idea, bitcoin is not neutral enough to be called an protocol. Gaming suits better to it, especially with the amount of gambling that's happening at the markets.

You just can't comprehend, that the money isn't flowing into bitcoin, but into the development of handling cryptos in general?

It's funny how people think that this was the bottom again, while the issues causing the downfall haven't been solved and have even escalated.

Picture of that manor in a less modified state:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Malla_m%C3%B5isa_peahoone_2012.jpg
It's funny that rpietila actually deleted this link from his thread.
If he is able enough to restore that manor, then my respects. Always good to see historical manors restored in my country.
I don't consider bad photoshopping as proper restoration though.

It's funny how Karpeles sees the bitcoin community as a mindless flock of emus. You can take their money and use it for your personal risky investments, and then, all you have to do is create a new exchange and say sorry and promise to pay everything back when you can. And.. everything goes smoothly, because emus tend to hide their heads in the sand and hope that no action needs to be taken and the free market will eventually sort everything out.
I think that bitcoin is heaven for those who lack ethics or morals.

I think that it could actually be a nice idea that rpietila is going for. Sadly I think that his personality will get in the way of that idea.

If he is selling out, then this means that some rich bitcoin investors actually took responsibility and bailed out that exchange. I was calling for capable people to do that a couple of weeks ago. Got angry replies by most of the forum users for it, but it would be great if someone financially capable enough actually had the same vision.
I hope that they know that this acquisition doesn't mean anything if there won't be market regulations. They may have saved the bitcoin market system with saving gox, but without regulations there will be an increasing number of new goxes. All you have to do is build trust towards your exchange for a year, and then you will have enough loot to split with. Easiest profitable confidence trick of the modern times.

But anyway, I'm still skeptical about this acquisition rumor. History has shown that with MtGox, you can't be sure of anything.

Freedom? Freedom to change the current banksters with the sharks and geeks of the bitcoin community?
With bitcoins wealth distribution, it's a joke to talk how bitcoin is about freedom. It's just about wealth redistribution and I'm not so sure that uneducated geeks are actually better then educated banksters. Both lack ethics and moral, but one at least knows what he's doing.

Regulations don't have to come from state. The bitcoin market system can be self-regulatory when it would just get off it's ass and act. Nice to see that this idea isn't getting so much numb-minded "regulation is eeevil! eeevil I tell you! the free market will sort out everything!" as it got couple of weeks ago.

You can check out this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=458364.msg5055548#msg5055548

Bitcoin isn't a ponzi scheme, because it's just a neutral piece of software. What it is however, is a very good platform to grow ponzi schemes (goxes) on.

My money goes to a slow downfall for a couple of days, with couple of bulltraps incl.
I still think that bitcoin won't be an attractive investment until it goes to 200-300$ region.

People here have been telling me this all the way down from 1000$.
What I have learned is that most people here have no clue what they're talking about. So, I think that I can manage without your advice.
Without the coming of new markets with proper volume, in new geographical locations, everything above 300 is too fragile for my taste. And I don't care if I miss out some temporal rises, because buying and selling those is not trading but gambling.

Before the situation with gox, I was more certain that bitcoin has about 1-2 years still left in it. Right now I am not sure, because gox can hurt the integrity of the entire market sysem in a way that there won't be anymore rising at all.
I think that the market is too fragile to even invest 25%-50%. It makes more sense to me to wait until there is some certainty and then act. I don't like to invest on pure hype alone.

As I see it, going to 200-300$ is the continuation of the long term trend. Every bubble has dropped to the level around the peak of the previous bubble.
I actually don't use the charts much with cryptos to make decisions in trading. This market is unregulated and the wealth highly concentrated, so the price doesn't move in a way that would make sense in regular commodity markets. What interests me the most are the proper reasons that give potential to the rise of demand. If there are new reasons for people to buy and hold, then I'm back being bullish. During the past months there have been only reasons why people should drop bitcoin. I see that only hype and stupidity has postponed this drop.
To me "look! everyone seems to be buying!" is no reason to buy. I need better reasons about the success of the commodity itself, not just another wave of hype.

If gox will be taken over by a team of people who have proper financial backing and experience, then I'll probably go bullish for the coming period, until the volumes hold up. If an exchange is run by people capable enough, then it's probable that bitcoin will me marketed in new ways and in new places. But that is a if. I am very skeptical on any information involving gox, because to me it seems more likely that Mark Karpeles isn't this innocent fool that just tends to screw up, but he is actually a rather obnoxious confidence man.
I agree that there is always some gambling with the crypto market. For instance, I am gambling with the fiat that I'm holding in Bitstamp, because there is no guarantee that I can trust them. Only thing I can do is to cut down the gambling part as much as I can.
If the bitcoin market system will get it's sh*t together, then I think that the hype can live around 1-2 years and there can be around 1-2 more bubbles/crashes. I see that bitcoin won't have a very long lifespan, because it's simplistic financial properties will stop it's development at around 100b$+ market cap. It my vision, bitcoin won't ever be a serious financial tool, but it can be a large gambling platform.

Sadly I don't see many news that can make the bitcoin price turn upwards. To me -
bitcoin based businesses - Not bitcoin based businesses, but crypto based businesses. They can ditch bitcoin and just jump to another crypto with relative ease. So, they are not dependent on bitcoin and their existence isn't supporting the success of bitcoin. Those investments wouldn't been made if they were dependent on bitcoin.
apps - I haven't seen a lot of new good apps for bitcoin. I think that the most important piece of software that gives value to bitcoin is Armory. And the development of Armory is rather slow.
big companies accepting bitcoin as payment - Big companies accept bitcoin for marketing reasons, not for financial benefits. Implementing bitcoin payment will actually cost you more money and work hours then it is gained by any transaction efficiencies. Companies are accepting bitcoin because it can create free press + new loyal customers, that are loyal to bitcoin. And if someone buys something with bitcoin, then he will only hold bitcoin temporarily or he will waste the bitcoins that he held before. The company that receives the bitcoins, will convert it to $ right away, because bitcoin doesn't enable liquidity. So, if new companies are adopting payment, then I can see that it will more probably have a negative effect on the price, not positive.
ATMs - I think that the atms are a gimmick. If someone wants to buy bitcoins then it's cheaper to buy them online. I think that ATMs were meant to catch the regular folks who find buying bitcoins online too difficult. I think that this idea failed because those regular folks distrust those ATMs even more. I think that zipzap cash for coins was a better idea.
general public consciousness of bitcoin - during the past months it hasn't been exactly a good thing. People are more sure that bitcoin is just a pyramid scheme and they ridicule people who are involved.
I think that EU/USA market is saturated. Almost everyone knows about bitcoin and they have made up their decision if they want in or not, and it's very hard to turn those decisions around. People tend to be rather radical when deciding their stance on bitcoin. They either love it or hate it and there is a low chance in turning it around.

I see that the only choice is to enter those markets that haven't been touched yet. Then you can create actual demand and then you can be certain that the price will go up.

I think that it's simple. You just take the coins and choose one answer from the list above, and you will not be responsible in the eyes of the law. There is this threat that the creditors may hunt you down and do things to you. But you can pay the more capable kind and let everyone else whine about their bad luck in their forums. Change your identity and sell those coins back to the market through different channels.
If the coins are "lost", then mr. Karpeles didn't do anything new here. There have been many cases of "lost" coins before. People who are able to code working bitcoin web exchanges, but who are somehow stupid enough not to create enough backups for the most important database.
And if you like, then you can also blame unknown hackers and no one could prove otherwise in court.

There are still a lot of coins out there whose owners are determined to sell. It didn't stop at 400 yesterday because sellers ran out of coins, but because the price got too cheap. They will let the price rise, if they see that there are buyers enough. But if they see that the price isn't moving up, then they will continue dumping.

No one knows what happened to MtGox, or what happened to the coins and fiat on MtGox, and everyone are cheering "good news" and are buying in.
This market is beyond stupid imo.

You seem to be forgetting that there were also a lot of fiat afloat at mtgox that was meant for BTC. BTC will lose that fiat, and probably any new fiat that would of came from those who owned it.

It's fun to see how everyone are trying to downplay the gox situation and are trying to make this look good.

I don't like to play these unstable rises that are made up of stupidity and hype. To me, it's the same as passing the roulette table and cursing at yourself "If I should have called red at the right moment, then I could have won big". Sure it would have been great to win money, but I'm not planning to earn with playing like this.

You seem to have trouble understanding the point I was making.

There are always opportunities to invest your money in. Many people here may see that bitcoin is the only investment opportunity given to them next to their daily routine jobs and I think this will also make them take stupid risks. They are just too dependent on bitcoin and they have become emotionally attached. I'm ok with not investing into bitcoin at all if it wont become attractive enough. There are always good investment opportunities around.

Yeah right. One of the biggest exchanges just shut it's doors, without announcing any proper explanations or plans of action. Only information you have on it are all kinds of rumors.
And you are telling me that this rise isn't fueled by stupidity and hype but by "real world market influencing events and conditions".
Well, I think that we should agree to disagree here.

The main difference is that I need more certainty then "look! everyone are buying! you should also buy!". I need some real developments regarding the commodity or the integrity of the entire market system. Thats just the way I roll and it's no use to try to convert me.

I agree that the market system will be of better quality without gox. But the market system hasn't restarted itself yet. The problem with gox is still without answers and solutions.

It was funny to me how many people translated gox just shutting it's doors as the solution and how everything is fixed now.

It's the steep deflationary nature of bitcoin that turns most people off. It does make bitcoin look like a pyramid scheme and the number of followers who are exhibiting cult behavior aren't exactly helping either.

You are comparing the demise of an tor drug market to the demise of one of the biggest exchanges with the biggest holdings?

No it isn't. Not even in that perspective, because the sums that are involved with gox are much bigger.
But the more important aspect is the confidence.
Bitcoin is no longer just play money that is run by drug dealers. Currently it is pushed by legal financing. If some drug market goes bust, then it means nothing in the legal field. Investors with legal interests are even happy to see that bitcoin is distancing itself from drug trade.

But when a big exchange goes bust, that is the intermediate link between BTC and $, then the entire system will be questioned. If gox can get away with "sorry, but the money seems to be gone", then people will question what stops the other exchanges from doing the same. After all, there are no repercussions.  
Not to mention that drug dealers/buyers won't be seen talking on TV, how they lost their drug money. But we will see fathers of 3, who will tell their stories, how bitcoin promised them riches, but instead wiped them dry.

I think "the pundits here" mostly have no clue what they are talking about or they are just plain out lying. Most of the things I say here get shouted down. For instance, if you currently say that MtGox demise is important, then you will probably get shouted down by the majority


It's really hard to understand your point. You are telling me, that because of the people here didn't see the SR demise as unimportant, then MtGox demise is also unimportant? Well, I just don't see the logic in that.


Questions that pop into my head: (1) Are the other exchanges honest or will they repeat the history of gox? (2) How can I know which exchange is honest and which is just building confidence for final strike (3) Could bitcoin be just a tool for those exchange owners to scam the general public?

These are serios questions that will be left unanswered and therefor will create distrust and uncertainty. For instance, I myself, am not as comfortable holding fiat in stamp as I was couple of months ago.
The demise of SR only hurt the BTC drug market, while the demise of MtGox will hurt the integrity of the entire bitcoin market system.

Easier to agree with you here. The important question is not yet answered, how will the fall of gox be played out. Will there be a bail-out where gox will be bought and the customers will get what they're owed, or will it just be a bankruptcy with all the money magically disappeared.
The first option isn't easy. It would be a noble act if someone invested so much, just to save the integrity of the market, but it does have it's risks. For instance, what stops another exchange from repeating what gox did and by that nullifying previous attempts to save the integrity of the market? Only solution that I can see, is some kind of an self-regulatory system that will separate trustworthy exchanges from the shadowy ones.
I agree, that right now you can't speculate the future, because there is no solid information to speculate the future on. Fall of gox could be a good way to show integrity and responsibility around bitcoin, but it could also make it lose all of it's existing positive halo.

I think that the Step 1 you offered is a really good idea.
Only option that I have came up with to keep things honest around fiat is a self-regulatory information based system. The exchanges have to pass quarterly audits to show that all the fiat is there and it isn't being used for anything else that it is meant to. These audits will be voluntary of course, but those exchanges who refuse cooperation will be flagged untrustworthy in the wider field of information around bitcoin. This will cause a problem of neutrality, but I think that this can be overcome with proper methods.
I think that using information to promote some exchanges and warn people about other exchanges is the only realistic regulatory system that doesn't have to involve the state. And the good thing is that it also works globally, while state enforced regulations only work locally.

The supply of new coins will slow down and become more expensive, while the user count is increasing. That deflationary part is good to attract investors with promises "buy now, and you will be 10000x richer soon", but it does stop bitcoin from becoming a practical currency. What a quality currency needs is price stability, that is just not possible with bitcoin.
Stable deflation rate, that would make a currency work, would be around 1% a year. Bitcoin is far from it.

It's hard to believe that the usercount will stop and stay stable. In my idea, it will more probably either increase or decrease.
But what remains the same is that the inflow of new coins will slow down and get more expensive.
All of it combined will keep bitcoin far away from stability.

Yeah, exactly! Most of the people are here because they are interested in buying low and selling high, so they can make a easy buck. People aren't here because bitcoin is a practical currency for everyday use. It's all good fun, but bitcoin can't become a serious financial tool because of that.
But, I think that the idea of open sourced and transparent monetary system, that is supported by the internet, is very important and it is the future. Bitcoin is just financially too simplistic to do the job. Something more complex has to be made to create a practical currency, that follows the same open source rules of transparency.

I don't see it like that.
The nature of bitcoin itself keeps any stability from forming when taking into account the price and the amount of users. The main thing (almost the only thing) that attracts people to bitcoin, are promises, that if they buy now, then they can sell later with a lot higher price. That creates this situation where stability is impossible because as soon as the situation becomes stable, then people won't get what they came for and they will start selling/leaving.
Bitcoin has to be either on a rise or dropping, there is no stable middle ground.
The fundamental flaw here is that a currency shouldn't be attractive as an speculative investment. It ruins the stability, and stability is the main quality of an good currency. A currency should be unattractive as an investment, so it will only be used to transfer wealth and not be considered as a source of wealth by itself.

Bitcoin is an investment that is surrounded by cult behavior, would be my answer to that question.

Well, what was true in 2012 is true now. Not much has changed in bitcoin structure that would make this argument obsolete.
Yes, markets need buyers, sellers etc. It's hard to understand what you're trying to say with that. It certainly isn't a counter-argument to currency needing stability and bitcoin being unable to offer it.

Can't you understand that trading currencies with one another is different from A currency being a good investment?
It would also be ok, if people are buying bitcoin to trade with other cryptos and to make money with trade. But people buying bitcoins are buying to hold and to wait for as long as possible to sell. It would be like someone on forex buys USD or CNY to hold and become rich by holding.
Don't try to confuse two totally different things with one another please.

I agree that increasing number of participants create some stability, but wealth will still be highly concentrated and most of the market movements are cause by a relatively few people. Because of that, the stability won't increase much. I don't remember that during last year couple of hundred coins made a much bigger splash.

I can go with agreeing to disagree here, because with speculation there are no facts. There are only different point of views, and only thing that I want here is to express my point of view
 

Ok, I'll try to explain with more clarity. Maybe there is a language barrier that confuses you.

Currencies at forex = attractive for trading
BTC = Attractive for investment

Fiat currencies are unattractive as investments because they are inflationary and there is a good logic behind it. People are not making money on forex by investing into a currency, but they are making money by trading currencies with one another and make profit by value fluctuation.
People at forex are not investing, but they are trading.

I tried to be as clear as possible.

I wouldn't be surprised that the senator actually invested in bitcoin and held his money at gox.
There will be a lot of hate towards bitcoin from people who got scammed by gox.
And they won't care that mtgox is not bitcoin. They will tell that they were invited to buy bitcoins with promises of great wealth. And they know that they did everything right, since they googled bitcoin, found the main trustworthy hub to be bitcoin.org, that directed them straight to gox.
People here underestimate how much will bitcoin be blamed if people will lose their money.

I think that the man is trying to say that a small number of people, will get rich at the expense of others, if bitcoin spreads. I think that this isn't an wrong concern, because this is the logical outcome if bitcoin spreads.
I wouldn't worry much though. Evolution will do it's thing and bitcoin will just become obsolete by a digital currency that offers better wealth distribution. Technological evolution has made it harder for people to leech on other people.

It would be funny if it would turn out that Mark Karpeles is in fact Satoshi and he did create bitcoin just as a simple scheme. 1) Create crypto 2) Create exhange 3) Start buying your own crypto and wait when someone sees that someone is buying and will also join in. Soon more will join.
But the scam just got too big and really out of hand.

Reading this text I imagined an rebellious teenager who is trying to insult his teacher, who in turn is actually trying to help him.
All those personal insults towards Jorges alleged status and personal life. Just like from an hollywood teen move..

Define irony:

I also see that some people have trouble burying their head in sand. It's weird, because usually everyone are doing it so well.
I think that someone should post a detailed guide how to do it, so we could all just deny that mtgox ever existed and continue to chant choo choo without interruptions.

In all seriousness, the situation with gox is far from over. Questions like "why did mtgox shut it's door?" and "what will happen with their customers funds?" are still unanswered. And these are the important questions. Gox just stopping trading and taking down their website meant very little. People weren't patient enough to wait for clarity about this entire situation and jumped the gun here, so in my view this rise is fragile at best. True recovery will only come if the entire bitcoin market system integrity is no longer under threat.
If it will be concluded as a fact, that mtgox customers lost their money, then there will be a shitstorm that BTC has never seen before.
To me, it's rather amusing how people try to downplay the entire situation.

What I'm waiting to hear is how much of the money is actually lost and will there be a bail-out. If gox goes away without people losing their money, then this will have an positive effect. But if gox customers funds have dissipated, then we will hear from A LOT of very angry people. And a big part of this anger will be towards bitcoin, not mtgox. The link how bitcoin.org recommended mtgox as the main exchange will be discussed a lot and there will be lots of talks how bitcoin is actually a scam orchestrated by the exchange owners. This will inturn will activate every captain hindsight that will start yelling that they knew all along that bitcoin is a ponzi.
In conculsion, bitcoin will lose all of it's positive halo and it will be very hard to sell bitcoin after this.

At first there has to be an answer how did the funds from gox disappear. Were they stolen over years and sold at the market? Are the private keys lost?
But I think that if mtgox will fall, then the scarcity will have very little weight compared to the trust issues that emerge towards the entire market system. Most people they don't care how rare bitcoin is, they just care that their money is safe.

"Bitcoin will succeed! I don't know how, but it must!"
This mentality is the reason why people tend to see bitcoin as an cult. Too much forced belief in dogmas.

The bitcoin market system is the thing that gives bitcoin value. Otherwise it would just be play money that can be used for fun. If the market system can't be trusted to transfer value between $ and BTC, then no new value will come to BTC and the existing value will slowly start to flow out.
Sure your bitcoins will be safe in your cold wallet, but they don't have much $ value without a decent market system.

If someone is storing value in a commodity that's value is purely supported by speculation and that has high volatility, then that someone should stay away from handling money.
And how do you send value through bitcoin without exchanges? If bitcoin isn't the 1 global currency, then all the value transfer is still going through the exchanges.

If you are comparing a drug market with the bitcoin market now, then I don't think that we should discuss any further.

Try saying things that are different from comparing marijuana to bitcoin..

You want hard evidence of future speculation? Having some trouble with understanding the concept of future speculation?
I'm not interested in converting you and I believe that everyone can believe whatever they want. I'm just here to to read others thoughts and to speak my mind.

Oh god... you are actually trying to defend the argument that marijuana is similar to bitcoin..

Ok then, when you'll take away all the centralized exchanges and leave localbitcoins to handle exchange, then what do you think will be the volume of trade and the price of bitcoin? Do you really think that any serious investor will buy their coins from craigslist?
Without an centralized exchange system, then bitcoin will be valued as much as bitcoin was valued when it didn't have a centralized exchange system.

In my idea bitcoin will just become obsolete with coing of better digital currencies. I see it as inevitable because of the childish nature of bitcoins financial properties and the lack of consensus among the community that these properties should evolve.

No, actually I'm trying to find the opposite. Only without success.
Wouldn't it just be great if bitcoin will just expand and expand, and the coins will just get more expensive and expensive, with me getting richer and richer, and all while doing absolutely no work? It would be awesome! Like winning the lottery!
Sadly in my experience, the world doesn't work like that.

I agree with your every word. That's exactly why I'm here! I really believe in the future of transparent monetary systems that are based on open source development and supported by the internet. Bitcoin is just too flawed and simplistic to fill the shoes of that idea. There has to be something a lot more complex to be considered as an serious currency that can offer price stability.
Some say that bitcoin can develop into something more complex, but I just can't see that. There are too many flaws in the very core that won't be changed. A total remake is a more probable option to me.

Please don't put words into my mouth. I have never said that bitcoin is not for me. I have earned quite a buck with investing in bitcoin. The disagreement comes where I don't see that bitcoin has a very long future infront of it. I see about a year or maybe two.
And I have been telling if the problems with the current market threat is resolved, then the price can go up.

It seems that if you don't agree with the constant shouts of "now this is the bottom and it will go up!" or arguments like "bitcoin will be used for decades to come!" then people here will actually start to demonize you, with acting like you are saying things that you have never actually said.

I agree that it will be easy to jump coins. The only thing is that most of the people who are showing strong cult behavior won't notice the opportunity and they will be forever hodling. I think that bitcoin will forever hold some value for it's historical importance. It just won't ever become an serious financial tool.
Most of the people here seem to think that bitcoin is the end game. I will always fall under a series of furious attacks when I say that bitcoin will probably only have couple of years max left in it. Just look how this discussion started and how so many people felt a sudden urge to direct their posts towards me.

In my vision what stops bitcoin from going much further: a) Speed of increasing wealth concentration b) Deflationary system that prohibits price stability c) Inefficiency of mining where new resources are spent while the network doesn't gain in speed or security.
I find these properties to be core properties that are also highly flawed and beyond fixing.

I agree that this is an general concept that you can more easily increase wealth when you have wealth. But with the nature of bitcoin it's a lot worse.
Whether you call it price discovery or deflation, the general idea is the same. Bitcoin is called a currency, with it's main value should be in transferring value. But the speed of deflation is just too high to build any stability. It was built so it would be attractive as an investment. It was built so people would buy in hopes of selling higher. This system was never meant to find stability, but to find increasing amount of users. That is the reason why bitcoin is compared to an pyramid scheme, because it's in a constant hunger of needing new adopters.

The increasing market cap won't help with stability much. It will only attract players with deeper pockets and more knowledge on how to play the unregulated market for personal gain.
Only thing that would create stability would be if bitcoin would be unattractive as an investment, but then all the get-rich-quick part of the community would walk. Most of the people aren't here because they find bitcoin to be useful in transfer of value. They are here because they want to invest into bitcoin so that their wealth will increase.
And that is the fundamental flaw in bitcoin. Money should never be attractive as an investment. It could work with 1% a year deflation, but with bitcoin the deflation rate is and will be ridiculous with its future plan with inflow of new coins.



Proof-of-Stake is already better and could be implemented but there is no interest in doing that because even the very small decrease in deflation that is created, will put most people off. Most here want as much deflation as possible.
When looking at the past developments and the current discussions on possible developments, then I don't see any hope for important changes.

I myself find it funny that bitcoin is called as a protocol to some. Protocol needs to be something neutral without increasing unit price. You don't see e-mail being created in a way where the new adopters have to fill the pockets of the old adopters to join the game. If e-mail would have been created in this way, then people would have found a workaround to create an alternative where everyone can get a fair chance in using this protocol.
These are the wet dreams of bitcoin adopters, that everyone will start using bitcoin and will start filling their pockets in the process. But the world doesn't work like that. There are smart enough people to create alternatives, so people don't have to feed the leeches to use a piece of technology.

Anyway, I like your post because you explained yourself in a calm and constructive manner. I still can't see how bitcoin could survive very long though.

That is the reason why bitcoin isn't obsolete yet, and it will take time till new trustworthy digital currencies emerge. It took couple of years for bitcoin to proove it's secure enough. I expect new currencies to prove themselves quicker because of the increased amount of attention that the entire subject is getting


And here we can see the difference. The bitcoin source code could be defined as an protocol. A neutral piece of software that you can use to build different applications on. But bitcoin(tm) itself is a speficic brand of service, that is only based on the protocol. When unit price is involved then it doesn't resemble anything else that has been called a protocol in the field of information technology.
It's like someone creating the IMAP protocol, and at the same time creating an IMAP using e-mail service and calling the service itself "the IMAP protocol"

I agree that there is no way that you can make a system that is 100% fair. But you can either have increased of decreased amount of fairness. The main thing to decrease the amount of fairness in the bitcoin system is the same old devil: too fast deflation . This is what makes a very wide cap between adopters who have entered at different times. Most of the altcoins suffer the same problem. They also want to sell their coins and therefor they try to make them attractive to buyers. And the main option to use is a promise of increasing deflation and riches that come with that.  What we would need is an currency that is attracting people by it's utility, not by it's speculative investment value.

You are the first person I consider putting on ignore here. I must congratulate you because it's no easy feat to successfully troll me. You have talent for compiling insulting posts, that have absolutely nothing to do with the ongoing subject. I must confess that it is quite irritating.
But I think that I won't put you on ignore. My curiosity gets the best of me and its interesting to see, if you are able to really get to me, enough that I wish to do terrible things on you.

Calm down son, you will give yourself a stroke.
In the middle of all of these desperate attempts to insult, I also found something interesting "we were building this".
Tell me, what were you building exactly?

That is no lie, but it is the ugly truth of bitcoin, that most people involved with bitcoin aren't here because they are idealistic, moral and ethical. They are here because they are promised an easy way to get rich. The talks of freedom and liberty are just marketing techniques to sell bitcoins to those who know less.
Bitcoin kind of reminds me the communism movement. On the outside, it looked like idealistic people want to give more freedom and liberty to the people, but really they were just interested in redistributing power to their favor, while actually concentrating power even more then before.

I tend to think that The digital currency hasn't been created yet. I'm still waiting for a team with proper funding and experience to enter this field. The potential is too big for single hobbyists.

I base my argument on experience how people here express themselves and react on different arguments.
It's different from investing into Apple or Google, because people actually built things that matter with these investments. With bitcoin the investments mostly go to mining. In other words to build machines that in the general perspective don't contribute to anything. The problem with bitcoin is that it causes arms race in mining, while the increasing size of the network doesn't actually improve anything. It doesn't improve the speed nor security. Just empty work done and resources wasted for something that could be done with a lot less.
The system did make sense in a time where there were only CPU/GPU mining and no pools, but now it's only a fools game with unnecessary wasting.

Remember how fast bitcoin did it. And with less attention to the entire subject. Bitcoin has paved the way and now people take the entire idea more seriously.

The chart seems to be in a desperate hold again. No one is buying and the hodlers are waiting for something to happen so the price starts rising. Soon someone will get tired of waiting and will sell, that will in turn trigger more sells and we will probably see another drop that goes lower then 400.

Bitcoin was already trusted in around 2011. Mainly in a drug community, but still.
The new currency needs security and a more user-friendly usability. The attention will come quickly because there is already a lot of attention on the subject. Bitcoin had to catch the attention on the entire subject itself. If a crypto emerges with better qualities, then people will start jumping cryptos fast. It's the nature of products that are supported mostly by hype. Support from hype is a fragile thing because people will get amazed by new alternatives very quickly. I think that doggecoin perfectly showed the nature of bitcoin. You don't even need a better quality product and simplistic lowbrow hype was all it needed to become quite popular.

I didn't express myself quite right here. Yes, people on the outside mostly saw communism as it is, but people on the inside were the ones who thought that they are idealistic good-doers and they believed it looked like that on the outside. Same here with bitcoin, where most of the majority sees bitcoin as a shady pyramid scheme while those on the inside think that they are actually doing good and people just don't understand them.
Denial is a powerful thing

It could happen. Some whale could be desperate enough. I don't find it very probable tho, because it would stupid to start pumping with these volumes. In best case scenario, no one will start dumping while you're pumping.

People at the bitcoin market are weird.
The situation with gox would be like HSBC would shut it's doors and freeze all of it's customers funds, without giving any explanation. And people will react to it "Good! Now the stock market is going up! Let's all buy!"

Yes, that is mostly the case.

The internet actually helps you to see the general stance of things and you can reflect things on the large number of your friends and aquaintances with different social positions. And most do see bitcoin as a shady pyramid scheme, with most of the coins owned by unknown few and while investing into bitcoin, you are filling the pockets of those unknown few.

I agree that there is little use in trying to convert me. I studied this entire subject in depth before I made my decision on what bitcoin is. So it is very hard to bring forward some new information that could change my mind.

I find the stock market to be the better analogy here, but your analogy is not bad either. During that time, I wouldn't hold my wealth in any financial institutions that are connected to the global banking network.

The newbie recruits who are easy to impress are waiting at south- and central-america. I'm waiting for bitcoin to enter those untouched markets. I would go back bullish for this new bubble and maybe I'll sing the same song with people here how bitcoin will save the world and how every time you buy a bitcoin, then you save a kitten.

I'm e-mailing you my fiat, because the fall of gox made me really want to trust my money in the hands of unknown people, so I feel extremely bullish and in the need of bitcoin.

Doge showed me perfectly that even with a product, that has no edge in quality whatsoever, can become an popular alternative even with lowbrow hype. Now imagine a coin that has better qualities and a professional marketing team behind it.
Coding has never been my thing, but what I have understood is that bitcoin isn't a good invention, but it's a good innovation. Meaning that the code in bitcoin isn't very complex but the way that the code is used and combined to serve this particular idea is the impressive part. And the thing with innovations is that they can easily be replicated and bettered. So, I think that when building will be picked up by anyone else then just some young students who do it out of boredom, then it can actually be made more refined quite quickly.

I would value bitcoins headstart more if the development of code would be faster. But it is very very slow and changes that need to be done in my eyes are not even adressed as future plans. So I picture bitcoin to be about the same as it is now in 2 years time and other people will have probably released better quality alternatives.

All bitcoin needs over there is some well funded marketing, and the "investments" can begin The boom in China was triggered by just one piece in the national China news program. Now we only have to pay off some public figure over there to start promoting bitcoin as the solution to everything!
I know it's not nice to earn money at the expense of stupidity of other people, but if you do, then at least don't lie to yourself.

Africa would be the best place to promote bitcoin, because a lot of people there even get impressed by seeing heavy machinery. But sadly there is not a lot of internet in Africa..

Seems very bullish... a strong recovery for sure... better wire some money to gox to buy more coins.. oh wait, did something happen with gox?

Yes, bitcoin could easily implement new features, but the history, present and future plans don't show any signs that they will. I think that the "cult of Satoshi" is to blame here, where followers take Satoshis vision with dogmatic belief and actually start attacking people who question it.
Innovation has been done already with bitcoin. Now the innovation only needs technical perfection. New creators don't have to be innovative, but they have to be more complex with their work.

I have told about the needed features countless times already, but I'll repeat myself again, what I see that needs fixing but isn't adressed with bitcoin: a) Speed of increasing wealth concentration b) Deflationary system that prohibits price stability c) Inefficiency of mining where new resources are spent while the network doesn't gain in speed or security.

I have given BTC about 1-2 years left in it, so you can see that it is a rough estimate. I don't know yet exactly when will "The coin" emerge but I bet that you will see it without the need of me pointing it out. Just don't be religious about bitcoin and you will see the right exit point with ease.

It is known fact that having money, makes it easier to earn money. But with bitcoin system the money itself is generating new wealth. it's not just about having better investment opportunities with your money with bitcoin, and that is why wealth will be more concentrated with bitcoin then with fiat.


The price is deflationary, and exactly because the supply of bitcoins is inflating while the wealth of the world is increasing. I agree that you could run a currency with a stable 1% a year deflationary rate, but with bitcoin the rate is ridiculous. Everyone who knows anything about finance knows that a currency has to "punish savers" to work. Saving wealth in money is not good, because money should not be used in saving wealth but used for transacting wealth. If money will be taken as a source of wealth by itself, then it will mess up every chance of financial stability because people are actually considering something valuable that really has very little value. And that will cause unprogressive investments. Money should be something that accounts value, so trade can take place. Taking money as value is stupid and wrong.
The coin that succeeds is the coin that attracts people by it's utility and use, not because it seems attractive as an speculative investment oportunity.


It is harmful on bitcoin itself because the entire system is supported by a network that is wasting resources without any gain. That means if an competitor comes, that can run the network with more constructive use of resources, then it will have a strong edge over bitcoin.
If bitcoin would become big, then it means that A LOT of worlds resources are spent on running a network that could be very well run by the network that is 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% the size. And that is the vision that would have fitted perfectly in the movie "idiocracy". The future where things didn't make any sense anymore and resources were just wasted without any vision or gain.

I would really like to meet this person who goes "Hey! Look! People who invested in bitcoin lost money because the exchange service turned out to be fraudulent. Wife, give me my wallet, I'll better transfer some money to a bitcoin exchange quickly to buy those bitcoins"

Like I said before, there won't be a recovery until the threat on the integrity of the entire market system is resolved. I only see two options for that, either gox suddenly finds all the btc and fiat or someone will bail gox out.
It was funny to me how people yelled "this is the bottom! now to recovery!" while the most important questions were still unanswered. People were so anxious and blinded that they jumped the gun and are still not able to realize what they did.
I was speculating that BTC will drop to around 200-300$ where it will find it's true solid base, where it will rest for some time. But with all this stupidity and denial flying around, I'm starting to think more about double digits.

*Offers some tasty Chedder for all that whine*

You can always put me on ignore and instead stand in front of a mirror, while repeating all kinds of self-assuring positive phrases to yourself. Maybe this will calm your nerves.

Ok, I'll reply and tell you that I think that it's cute, how you think that your observation is sharp.

Please stop comparing bitcoin to stocks. It is kind of annoying how people like to describe bitcoin by whatever suits the particular argument. In general it's a currency, but when an argument arises that it is a currency of low quality, then it suddenly becomes a stock. And If I explain that if bitcoin is a stock, then you are buying stock from a company that actually uses it's resources without any gain, then I'l bet it becomes a commodity. Imagine a company that digs a hole, then covers it up again, then digs it again and repeats the process to eternity. But the company is saying that this use of resources is very constructive, and some fools believe it. This would be the case if bitcoin would be anywhere near in being a stock. But, bitcoin is not a stock and it's nowhere close to being a stock. It's a commodity at best.

I agree with you here, that this is a matter of different world views. One view says that we have to conserve our resources, because if they end then there will be nothing left to consume. The other view tells that we have to consume resources to discover new resources to use on our benefit. I tend to fall on the second view.

Now, this got interesting! Tell me how is it false knowledge and tell me when has history proven that it is false knowledge.

If an country would adopt this "feature" in it's currency then it will soon fall behind competitiveness, because it hurts both trade and production. That is why countries are not using this model. The bitcoin community isn't a pack of tortured geniuses who knows the answer how to prosper, while the rest of the world is just so dumb, that they wont understand the enlightened truth. This is the work of the cult mentality that I've been talking about.

Speculative investment is not store of wealth. If someone sees a commodity, that's value is purely based on speculation as a good store of wealth, then that someone shouldn't handle money. Speculative value is a fragile thing that can appear and disappear very very fast.

This last line is a little hard to understand what point you are actually trying to make. Is it "if you don't like work that has no gain or vision, then you are a soviet central planner or an evil banker". If I'll buy myself a 1mil.$ supercomputer to play Doom 2, then will I become Of the People and For the People, like the bitcoin community is? Or will I just be really smart for my thorough and constructive investment and use of resources?

While I agree, that blockchain is the part that could be classified as an invention the most. Then I still have to say that I see it more as an innovation, because it is built on already created inventions in cryptography. I think that blockchain is a great innovation, but I also think that it will be as great of an innovation in the future as iPhone1 is right now.

I seem to have trouble finding the answer to my questions through that link. Could you please summarize the answer for me here.

It's a long and boring way down with this speed...

Sadly that link didn't answer my questions and concentrated on the personality of Keynes and on problems that have very little to do with my original claim.

I think that healthy criticism is what this community around bitcoin currently needs. Cult behavior among the surrounding community is actually driving away a lot of potential investors. People need to come down to earth a little more, or else bitcoin will look more and more like a joke.

Fiat money and sound money aren't opposites. There are fiat that are soft and there are fiat that are hard. People are whining that money isn't directly connected to gold anymore and they don't even bother to study why. Instead of gold, today we have the petrodollar, where the actual thing that gives value to the dollar is oil that has better practical value and less speculative value.

How come can the government, or more specifically an politician, steal more in case there is a steady inflation rate?



Problems with suboptimal production and capital consumption come from places that lacks education, tradition and culture. I think you are right on that, there is a connection there on how more developed societies can handle themselves better under more intensive investment pressure. There could be a rule that less developed countries need stable deflation rate instead. But.. in this subject we are talking about bitcoin, that has no stable deflation rate. It is volatile and with a never-ending rise. It's a beautiful piece of art, but it has no place in serious finance because of that.
It's job is to introduce the entire subject, so it needed to be attractive to the regular folks who believe financial fairytales. Through regular people, the subject can also reach more influential people, who can start implementing the realistic parts of that idea to everyday finance.

There is no use trying to convince me that bitcoin can survive more then couple of years, before it will get eaten by competition. To me it sounds like, when someone is the first to struck oil, and then no one else on earth will drill for oil any longer, because someone else already did it. Creating the perfect digital currency will soon be the holy grail to everyone who consider them to be geniuses at software engineering.

Someone is spending a lot of money to keep bitcoin afloat. Let's see where it goes..

Even I bought back in with someone being in such a hurry to buy coins. It seems that there is a certain number that needs to be filled tho. So, I have my finger on the sell trigger as soon as it seems that this number is filled. Until then, it's an easy gamble.

Nah, it's a single entity that triggered this.
Either an investment group that decided to buy in after reading about Fortress investment and Buffet giving bitcoin 10-20 years, or it's some exchange/old investor forcing the bitcoin price not to collapse. Before this single entity, the volume was non-existant.

Well, this was a nice quick profit. Not a very safe game tho, because someone is DDoSing bitstamp in key moments. It's easy to get trapped in seconds.

These numbers are out of reach for people like rpietila. It was probably just effects of cocaine.

Yes, burn the witch! Healthy criticism is the work of the devil!

Probably an outsider investment group or an oligarch. It was the way that the coins were bought. In a simplistic and careless manner. It has to be someone/some group who doesn't care much about how cheap will they get the coins. 600-700 was enough and the plan just needed to be filled and moved on to see if this investment will bring any fruit in a year or so.

Seems like "the entity" has slowed down it's trading. I think that there is a certain number that the price has to reach so "the entity" will start buying again. The number is probably around the start of 600.
I think that we will see one or two more pumps that go quickly from 600-700. But then back to the good old bear market with low volume

What makes me uneasy, is that stamp seems to get DDoSed. Wouldn't be fun to be a bagholder with the price plummeting 100$ in a minute.

I hope he/they will come back. If there would be more pumps like this, then I would return to be bullish, with leaving money in BTC during sleep and maybe even post a train picture. Sadly, I think that this was just a fluke. Someone with access to more serious money that got interested after hearing about Fortress investment and Buffet speculating a 10-20year lifetime to bitcoin.

This buy in would have been more profitable if it would be spread out in a week or two. Whoever did/is doing this buying, doesn't care much. It seems that a certain number was agreed upon and now the plan just needs some quick filling. There were several pumps like these during the China boom. Without these pumps, BTC is no fun..

While I agree that it is nonsense that bitcoin can live up to 10-20 years, I still see a boring flat line with low volume when looking at yesterday. There could be different people putting up walls with different goals.

I thought the same thing myself at first, that maybe someone is just trying to stimulate the market and to raise the price to demonstrate that MtGox hasn't damaged BTC and all is well. But a slower rise would have made a lot more sense when you want to promote the strength of bitcoin. Quick rises like that are unstable and raise suspicion on market manipulation, so that wouldn't be a good PR trick. There is a chance that this "PR trick" was orchestrated by one of the "bitcoin millionaires" who isn't very smart in the general sense. But I'm leaning more towards some outside investor group doing a little gambling with copying Fortress.

Karpeles is bathing in champagne and accepting gifts and bows from members of the bitcoin cult. Apparently, him creating an fraudulent exchange and losing peoples BTC and $, caused a miraculous shift from downtrend to an uprend. Before Karpeles came along, bitcoin was in a slow and painful downfall that was the effect of dropping demand from China. Now all the cult members are worshiping Karpales as a god, who can solve problems that mortals can't comprehend

At least that's what many of us have heard...

In the future, when people start to question who owns most of the existing bitcoins, then better hope that there is another popular coin out there so you don't have to just withdraw fiat and game over. When people start to look into the amount of drug trade that went on with bitcoin in the past, and the amount of coins that have been reported stolen, then they will realize an important question: How to know if the criminal world isn't owning most of the coins in existence? People will question if investing new money into bitcoin isn't just filling the pockets of criminals who sold drugs and stole from others in the past. And then there will be one answer, that it's safer to start all over on a new platform that is not that suitable to the criminal element.

Well, but cash isn't like bitcoin isn't it. Cash wasn't introduced with decreasing supply, where drug trade was the main market engine, while half of the coins came out in couple of years, with the rest coming in a period that is over hundred years
Bitcoin was designed mainly to reward early adopters and have a strong starting momentum by this. Most of the early adopters with bitcoin are in all probability different kinds of criminals. That is probably the reason why there are so few "whales" who like publicity.

I wouldn't stop there.. maybe the world realized that bitcoin is divine and the code was sent down directly by god. Now there will be a 120 year long age of peace and enlightenment, while the entire world is mining for the same amount of coins, that a small group of people mined in 5 years.

About 80% of the time I'm using Linux Mint. I hope this eases some tension...

P.S. let's not tell others that religion is actually the work of the devil. Let's pretend and keep the price from dropping. I wish I had a powerful hologram, so I could project Satoshi in the sky, so it will be final proof that Satoshi and god are the holy duality. There is also an option to present Satoshi as an alien, I bet the alien story would sell well among the followers.

No!

No, it was a miracle! Miracles like this only happen with divine intervention. Science, reason and common sense have no place with bitcoin. So, don't try to poison the purity of our faith with your so called "pheromones".

Who wouldn't be jealous on people who got rich without needing to do any work or even have a decent enough education? I think that everyone agrees that it would be awesome to win the lottery.
But my previous post wasn't about my personal jealousy, but about the absurdity of bitcoins coin supply.

I also would like to buy some LTC, but sadly I did the mistake in using BTC-E. 13 confirms and counting. I hope that BTC won't drop back to 500 meanwhile
I guess that there has to be a delay on BTC deposits, so that "the right people" can all buy in, before all the deposits arrive at the same time creating a sudden surge upwards. One of the reason I left BTC-E, was because it reeked of insider trading with someone constantly playing with 2mil.$+ LTC buy/sell walls.
Any recommendation on what is the most trustworthy place that also trades alts like LTC and PPC?

I don't think that this is an honest mistake. The timing is too convenient and BTC-E LTC market has a history full of insider manipulation.
Somehow I have the feeling that everyones coins arrive when the price is around 25$, with the arrival rising it to 30$+ in one big spike.. and then one big sudden dump..

Confirmations should show under Finance-BTC Deposit, but they aren't showing. Blockchain shows 15 confirms tho..

To tell that buying BTC in 2010-2011 is mindwork is funny at best. You can also say that picking the right lottery number is mindwork.
Yeah, it's not over. I think that BTC has about 1-2 bubbles still left in it before the final demise. So, I'll probably still make some money from it
But that doesn't mean that I have to join the cult of bitcoin and start lying to myself what bitcoin is and what it isn't. Bitcoin is mainly a scheme where you can earn on the stupidity of others. Bitcoins coin supply was designed in a certain way, so it would give a strong starting momentum by attracting people with promises of over the top high rewards. There is a downside on that also. When people start to see that the starting momentum is over, then they will lose interest. Currently there is still hype left in it with attracting fools who actually think that bitcoin is the solution to the problems in world banking. Until that hype lasts, you can still earn. I know it's not nice to earn at the expense of others stupidity, but when you do it, then at least don't lie to yourself.

Thanks for the tip guys.
I'm beginning to have doubts on that LTC rally though. The convenient timing with deposit problems means that they are probably scheming a big dump after the sudden surge that is created by all coins arriving at once. The worst thing about LTC is that BTC-E has the biggest market share, otherwise it's a better quality coin then BTC imo.

For an digital currency that is used for drug trade to get into the field of legal finance is a lottery. Most of the people here have absolutely no idea about finance and maybe that's the reason why it doesn't seem like a lottery to them.
I'm not blaming anyone here, I was just making fun of the absurdity of bitcoins coin supply and you seemed to take offense. Don't be so touchy if you want to look confident about this subject.

I must say that it's a little hard to combine thoughts from the words that you wrote... are you drunk or something?

Yes, it's such a BS. It isn't absurd at all that half of the coins will come out in 5 years and the rest in the next 120 years or so. It genius! Divine even! If all the monetary systems in the world would work like this, then we would have freedom and liberty from these damn evil banksters! There wouldn't be problems with unfair wealth distribution and incompetent leadership if bitcoin ruled!!

If it won't turn out that BTC-E goxed my coins, then it seems that they actually did me a favor for stopping me from buying LTC

but..but..but bitcoin is sent by god! and it solves all the financial problems and defeats all the evil banksters that have been (probably) sent by Lucifer himself. All the bitcoin enthusiasts are not interested in getting rich at the expense of others! all the people in the bitcoin comunity are highly educated benevolent economistz who bring freedomz to da people.

Yeah, coins finally arrived at BTC-E.. now to wait for the pre-pump that happens before the news, so I can sell before everyone discovers that the "important news" is just to endorse their own service. LTC pumps seem weak and a slow drop is currently more probable.
It's scary to hold fiat at BTC-E tho.. have to wait for an quiet night to sneak back to stamp.

Money thats value is held up mostly by a group of unknown people, who are in all probability former drug dealers, crackers or confidence men. The value is held up by those people and their decisions whether to dump their coins on the market or not.
This is the definition of sound money in the cult of bitcoin

I must confess that I am quite unethical when earning with bitcoin. I'll try to balance my lack of ethics with general honesty
As I have understood then Jorge is actually ethical and he is not earning any money with bitcoin. Can't say the same thing about me tho..

Oh no, the announcement was insignificant. Who would have known.

I think that Jorge is actually one of the few that makes sense here. The bitcoin community mostly consists of morons who have no idea on what they are involved in. There are also clever people that get rich at the expense of the morons, so they keep their mouths shut.
I like to see myself as the one who earns at the expense of the morons, while not keeping my mouth shut.

It is like this at first, but when the night falls, then everyone will hold you down while the unicorn starts to violate you..

rpietila lying and trying to manipulate the market?
No way! Just look at that honest face



But still, I don't think that yesterdays up was his doing. I find it more probable to be a legit purchase. Probably some investment group wanted to copy Fortress and make a high risk bet.

't

Are you telling me that one of the biggest exchanges losing their customers money didn't cause a reversal from a downtrend that was caused by the loss of demand in China? How can this be? :O This is impossible!

I'm not actually surprised that all you understood was "Wah wah wah wah".

So, it's confirmed..

Yes, you are absolutely right. I'm angry because there won't be any volatility any longer in the crypto scene to make money at the expense of fools. So I just invented this so called "demand in China" and how it's loss caused a boring 2 month long dead cat bounce.
But I'll try to correct my ways and listen to the TA wizards here who have skillz of drawing linez.

It was game over for bitcoin in China when it was announced that there is no future for legal business supported by bitcoin. It ment that no serious investors who want to keep solid relations with the government won't touch bitcoin. The market that is left is basically walking on a thin line, only waiting for getting shut down and possibly prosecuted. Only thing that created the long dead cat bounce was denial, desperation and stupidity. If you have been looking at the charts then you know that overall demand has constantly been dropping, with only thing holding the price up is that there aren't many people who are willing to sell cheap. But this in turn is causing a decrease in volume and only way to stimulate the market is lowering the price little by litle...this will reach a critical point when the "will of the hodlers" will break and there will be a nice fall.
Anyway, I'm not arguing about this anymore, I have found that sarcasm is more suitable for this place. I'm tired of the "line drawers" calling for new and new bottoms for these past 2 months. You do whatever you wish and believe whatever you believe.

And you really believe that bitcoin is the best legal loophole in China to evade capital controls? Or even just a good way? Or that bitcoin is the most secure way to hedge against inflation? That a business owner actually buys bitcoins while saying "ha! now my wealth is safe in this stable and secure currency!".

Just move your wealth through  shell companies. If you want to move money out of China illegally, then you don't want to leave a trail of you buying bitcoins that is famous for this particular illegal activity. What you want to do is deal through companies that attract little attention.

Because it's profitable to earn money at the expense of people who don't know any better.

People don't usually build their own shell companies but they use services of professionals. It's not very hard to find one with recommendations if you are a somebody. I think that it's possible the Chinese govt hasn't shut down the exchanges just yet, because it's a good honeypot to flag the people and companies that are doing bank deposits to buy bitcoins.
Transferring money out with bitcoins would only be suitable to people who do business without any paper trail and with cash, in another words illegal activities like drugs. It can create some trade but not enough to be interesting.

Bringing LTC into BTCChina showed perfectly how dead the Chinese market really is. If the same thing would of happened in December, then LTC would have probably had risen to 100$. Now it got one foolish spike up and after that it's pretty dead with showing low demand and weak attempts to rise.

The thing to consider with LTC is that it is even more concentrated and therefor more manipulated then BTC. When the previous bullrun happened, then there was this first pre-pump, followed by couple of days forcing the price back down and building strong upwards pressure, and then releasing it, creating a very fast surge upwards. It could be the same case here, but hard to tell yet. I'm not very certain about the entire crypto market in China. How much of the market data is faked or how much of the market is actually played by westerners. I think that right now it's best to wait and see if the pumps will be activated or not. If history repeats itself, then there will be this nice opportunity to earn a quick buck. Keeping my fiat in BTC-E for the time being.

I grew up in Estonia during the time it was occupied by USSR and that was basically a battleground for different propaganda coming from the west and from the east. Back then, USSR was the one that created these ridiculous lies that no one except themselves believed and western propaganda was built with appreciably better quality. Now I see that the western side is actually saying things that are very hard to believe if you have half a brain and east is actually making more sense. Funny how things change..
What worries me is that currently I see a lot of organized incitement at the Estonian forums and news commentaries. Someone really wants that the Estonians and Russians, that both live here, wouldn't get along with each other.. There have been previous attempts to create larger conflicts that have failed, because people have kept a cool head. I sure hope that we don't see another Ukraine here, where foreign funded groups and billionaire bankers take over the government to get busy signing contracts for extraction of shale gas. I would like that out tap water doesn't burn in the future

It seems that the line drawers have ran out of fiat and money isn't coming in from other channels. So.. now it's up to the will of the hodlers to keep the price from dropping.
I wonder how long does it take

So.. hodlers, share your feelings. Getting nervous?

I'm a little excited because it seems that there will be a nice drop soon. I'm anxious to see how deep will it go...

Low volume and low buying interest. Only thing that keeps the price from dropping is that everyone are holding their breath and waiting for a whale to come and start buying. People can hold their breath for only so long and it's not very likely that there will be a whale brave/stupid enough to buy with this price and volume. Everything is possible, but some things are unlikely to happen.

Right now it's more likely that good things will happen with LTC, not BTC.

Nah, I think it's like zillions thrown at startups every hour! It's divine money, coming directly from god. The most important thing that makes Bitcoin special (Armory) got a whole 600 000$ !

No! You are wrong! It's zillions! The numbers that were presented at coindesk were put there by Satoshi only to test your faith.

You can summarize this long rant into "I'm right, even if I'm not right". Religious nuts like these create more harm then good to bitcoin imo.