How do I get in and out of BTC more easily?

I have doubled my BTC stash in making reasonable trades, but now i am finding i can't get in and out of my position very easily.

Is it just because the volumes are so low or is there a better strategy to sell all my BTC or buy (other than buying at market).

Right now i use Gox, primarily because it was the first exchange I used. I have no interest in getting my cash out, so the withdraw problems do not bother me and frankly i consider them temporary. Can Gox shut down and take my money, yes, but I could say the same for any exchange.

In the future the withdraw problems will sort themselves out, or it wont matter because i can survive with bitcoin alone and getting BTC out of Gox is a snap.

I am completely in Fiat on Gox as I am sure a lot of people are. Everyone wants more coins and this current point in BTC history seems to be an opportunity to wait and get back in with more coins then when I got out.

BTW, I use several other exchanges but none for USD. Whether it makes a difference or not I feel better knowing Gox is higher for USD. Certainly, my fiat balance is quite a bit higher in Gox than it would be elsewhere, my hope is that the dips when I buy back will have a smaller spread than other exchanges when I pull the trigger.

That is how i am playing it.

We are nowhere close to mass adoption, not by a long shot. I just spent dinner with my extended family where there were five middle aged wealthy men attending (not overly wealthy, just have nice jobs, equity in their homes,  investments, et cetera). Not a single one of them knew anything more than Bitcoin by name. NONE of them were interested at all in investing in Bitcoin, too risky, too strange, to difficult to even understand for them.

I spent 15 minutes discussing Bitcoin with the most open minded of the bunch. He wanted to know what he would do to even buy a single coin. Holy crap, what method was I going to suggest to this guy who can barely get Skype to work correctly. I chose a paper wallet and Local Bitcoins. He thought it was reasonable, however, i could tell by the look in his eyes there was no way in Hell he was going to invest a single dollar any time soon.

The masses ARE NOT early adopters, they will not do research, take a chance, learn about digital wallets, trust some web site exchange or anything of the sort. If it isn't offered by their broker, or banker, or something they can buy at the local Gold dealer, then they are not interested. BITCOIN right now seems a world away from this mass adoption. A WORLD AWAY.

We are still in speculative, niche phase that has a long way to go to play out. It is the biggest reason Bitcoin can fail because if another Crypto steps in and solves these access problems look out. Guys like those in my family DO NOT care about the virtues of Bitcoin's distributed, non-regulated, anti-govt protocol. They will invest in the first thing that is 1) accessible 2) available to them through standard channels 3) endorsed by things they trust: banks, govts, large companies.

That said the price may go to $2000 in the next month , or $200....

First, everyone in the USA has heard of TRowePrice. The level of trust for them is 1000 times greater than Coinbase, which I guarantee you nobody outside of Bitcoin world has ever heard of.

Second, the mass market of investors out there do not EVER log onto any site and do any trading, they call their trusted broker and ask him advice. Why do you think these investment companies spend millions on ads that investing is about trust, nothing more. Its because that is what most people want to do. Trust a big company and a familiar face.

I may be wrong on this but i think that if you buy and sell stocks and bonds yourself, then you don't represent the bulk of investors in the world.

You can wish trust upon the Bitcoin ecosystem but I assure you it is not there yet. Trust takes time OR requires names people already know.

I didn't recommend Coinbase because frankly I don't trust it or any exchange enough to recommend them as a safe haven for any of their investment dollars. Not a single exchange approaches the level of trust that you get by using a Federally backed entity that they are familiar with. I put my own money in these exchanges because I am built to not care, it is who I am-- I like rolling the dice. I am the outlier, not the masses.

Using a paper wallet was the only recommendation I felt safe enough and easy enough to offer to my family, maybe you would be different, this was my experience.

You are right though, if TRowePrice offered a Bitcoin fund, there would be a lot of takers.

can someone comment on why Huobi open book orders are so small but their volume is so outrageous?

Does anyone have any inside knowledge on what is actually going on at Gox. I am not sure I have ever seen a market leader with millions/billions at stake flub it up so bad, for so long, and STILL be at the top for as long as Gox has managed this year.

If Gox could get it together..... I am still waiting for my wire transfer to show up

How can I get a subjective ranking of the alternatives...

Here are my top 3 concerns

1. Trust
2. Trust
3. Trust

Will the announcement be so big I am guaranteed to see it, or do i need to be on an email list?

Uhhh just reading your post convinces me otherwise.

Since when do the most powerful groups in any organization not take advantage of their power every now and then, even the most "incorruptible"

I have far less belief in human decision making than you do I am afraid.

+1, things have to settle down from the fresh round of millionaires bitcoin just minted, going from 100 - 1000 i think came so fast and has put expectations enormously high. Going from 1000 - 10000 will require many, many, many more BILLIONS flowing into actual bitcoin purchases, not just speculative millions from a facebook millionaire or two.

On the bull side, if a tulip sold for a years salary hundreds of years ago, why not a bitcoin today....

My biggest concern is that everyone that would have wanted to sell large amounts of coin has already done so. Nobody that bought at 900-1200 is gonna realize a loss with so much potential at stake.

So who can possibly sell enough to create a crash?? We have seen large market dumps on mt gox and nobody cares.

Whether justified or not all the holders are holding and more buyers show up every day. I have been praying for a drop to 500s but things are not looking good for any hope of that happening.

OP has some fantastic points all based in a fantasy world somewhere either in New York, San Francisco, Denmark, Belgium, or Norway. This wonderful world has an altruistic world view and no greed, I cannot wait to move there so that I can become a pawn of the State.

BTW, I hoard DOGE so DOGE is doomed.

Don't get too excited volume is like $5k, nobody is getting rich off this blip in the pump-of-the-day manipulation.

Moon coin, Doge Coin? to which are you referring?

This is not a pump, it is Gox trading capitulation. All coins are leaving GOX in a Bitcoin run on the Gox Bank.

Nobody wants to be left holding FIAT with no bitcoins to buy and no way to get the cash out.

those thousand BTC buys in no way represent someone betting on BTC going north soon, it is a desperate attempt to get what they can out of GOX before it is too late.

Now I am starting to wonder whats up.....

Is watching Bitcoin exchanges more exciting that election night, or the olympics. I am going to say yes.

1021 on gox........ why am i not a believer

wtf ....

Greed is a powerful thing. I think many like myself are waiting for China to drop the India-government-approach-to-bitcoin shoe. They jailed the biggest bitcoin broker in India. China can not only jail the guy but decapitate him in public next week.

Talk about a chilling effect......

Gox gets north of 1095.... i am calling quintuple top....

Bitcoin will be the cause of world war III

super exponential says it has to break 900 today. So I am going with up!

counter argument, total ask for btc has stayed steady around 5000 btc for last two months.....

If there were less btc to be had, then less would be offered for sale...

+1!

One eye on Bicoin, the other eye on that sneaky DOGE, gonna neak up on you and get ya!

Oh the volume! so many people trading with their play bitcoins, how does this all play out!!!?

awesome haha!

This basically sums up my sentiment. The general public has nothing but bitcoin bad taste in their mouth.

A lot of time has to pass for some amnesia to set in and start to bring in new blood.

While I do not equate bitcoin to a ponzi scheme in any technical way, I do think it likely follows typical trends for MLM and networking companies in general. You have waves of people that buy in, then periods of retraction until a new wave of buyers follows. I think we are in retraction now, eventually we will turn up again but not yet, we are still headed down.

The great difference between MLMs, ponzis, and bitcoin is that bitcoin is eternal and free flowing in its membership. If you lose your belief system, then you can get out at any time you want. Bitcoins will still be around in a year and in 10 years, they are not going to disappear (at least not all of them). We are seeing people lose faith and leave the blockchain, this will continue down, down, down, until the speculative opportunity is much higher than the risk of holding them. I pick the absolute bottom at around Gox's bottom. I am picking the bottom I will be able to identify and buy during a regular business day around 250.

can someone chart the largest bitcoin transactions in Dollar value every day for the past three years.

I believe the slope of this graph will match the slope of Bitcoin market cap.

there are simply too many average joe's that are 100% certain we are going way up in the next few months. Markets are not kind to good ol boy investors that have it all figured out.

We are going down until most average joe's have had enough, it is at that moment they will sell and bitcoin will sky rocket and burn them all.

But we aren't there yet, why? because i am an average joe and i have no intention of selling right now. If I ever get an inkling of losing patience and wanting to sell, then buy every bitcoin you can afford. But i am not there yet.

charts work until they don't

if we have a bubble it will be another event that drives it, cyprus, china, something similar but would have to be bigger.

I just don't see anything that big on the horizon for the next 18 months. Need a catalyst if you want your bubble trends to keep on keeping on.

we will likely know the price if it is high, we will not know the price if it is low unless it is leaked.

and being so confident about a bull run because it is over is not the best position to be in IMHO

The courts will sell the other 100k+ coins eventually and we do this all over again. We are in the dark ages of Bitcoin right now. We haven't hit the age of enlightenment yet. I think it is q3 next year before we see serious positive developments.

I am only holding though

I disagree, lines work great when you are looking into the past

I do think that all this eminent bubble BS is turning me more and more bearish. We could be hanging around 8 billion market cap for a long long time.

Does anyone actually believe that FUD on the Wall Observer thread can actually impact the market? 

Bitcoin is not diving because of Alibaba, it is diving because we are above the true transaction value of Bitcoin, we will go down until we are at or close to the transactional value of bitcoin, then up when speculation drives the price again.

watching... but why is this wedge so critical, btc will be around this time next year guaranteed

The more I hear Buffett talk about Bitcoin the more certain I am that Bitcoin will succeed. What happens when rich people start to actually understand Bitcoin, it obviously hasn't happened yet.... holy shit

Anyone else sensing gap up coming?

Gap down is usually a tightening feeling in my anus.

Gap up is something like a hot flash in my crotch.

I got some hot flashes last night thinking about Bitcoin..... something besides me is going up I think

Price has to get so comfortable above 300 or at some consolidation point that nobody is waiting anymore for a drop, not sure when that is going to happen.

To many people still have memories of $60 coins, those memories have to fade into oblivion.

Can we go as low as 275 again, maybe, but i feel that is most certainly the floor, anyone that is bullish at all will buy all they can at that price including myself.

I disagree with this. Just don't think this is the beginning of the next bubble. Maybe I am too jaded watching Bitcoin languish for a year, but I don't see the fuel at this point and time, just steady pressure up, which isn't enough for a bubble push just yet.

can someone comment on what happens to shorts with Bitcoin? Is there a call on their short position? how does that all work?

Certainly someone that shorted at 350 can't sit on that position forever..... what are the limits in the bitcoin world and how do they get called??

Thanks

Another way to look at this is how small "other" actually is. I think the fact that other markets have shrunk is not a good sign for bitcoin.

There is no way that almost all bitcoins being traded are on 5 exchanges and that is supposed to be a good thing.

Are we marching towards a cliff or a rocketship?

I feel the price is like the steady beating of a drum 370 -375 - 370 - 375 - 370 - 375

I check BTC price every day, but there is simply not enough mass adoption yet to push price higher. Speculators are not jumping in mass because they see future weakness in the price.

The day is coming though, when adoption starts to put price pressure on bitcoin and investors will sense an opportunity. I think it is September 2015, then we don't stop until 25k.

Until then i try and figure out ways to buy more.

pumpers.... yep pumpers

my sentiments exactly

Bitcoin usage only will justify a price of $25-50. Current remittances and the rare purchases in bitcoin are just not high enough yet.

We will likely approach $100 before rebounding. Speculators will come again but not for another year.

500

We are 18 months from halving, when will we start to see the halving bubble start to build???

I am thinking it is a year out.... languish around 300 for another 12 months....

Exactly when you are 100% certain that every gap up is a pump and dump, exactly that moment is when the train will leave you at the station.

It is just a guarantee... you all know it is true.

Going all in, should take us to... 253.80...

I am never surprised that it continues to go down as nobody I know has ANY interest in Bitcoin as an asset. So the value of bitcoin is really just whatever is used in dark markets, porn, and remittance. My guess is that its bottom, bottom, bottom utilization value price is 50 million because I think that price is probably the world transaction value right now. HOWEVER, there is always a premium on top of that price that speculators will add to the value. So I would probably quadruple that price based on pure speculators alone. So maybe 200 million is the bottom. We are at 3 billion now. We could drop to $25 bucks before the next bubble..... that is my worst case bottom.

I think we are going lower. Crytpo is complete dead right now..... all crypto is a sewer of scammers and thieves. Price of everything is being completely destroyed. Start of 2014 market cap for all cryptos was 10 times what it is now and just getting worse......

I am thinking of liquidating, just feels like we are 10 years away.

Does anyone have a trend line of posts per day on bitcointalk.org. I think we may be there...

I am going all in with my second mortgage today

Can someone explain to me GBTC owns X number of BTC, they provide X shares of BTC which trade at 2X btc price.

How does GBTC impact in any way the market price of BTC, they don't buy more BTC, do they have plans to add to their BTC holdings?

I get that over a 20 year period GBTC would be nice from a tax perspective, but other than that who cares......? why is GBTC even interesting for broader BTC world?

going lower......

I want to see a gap up move of more than $5 before i start believing the bull is in charge

Inevitable.... everyone knows next move up is coming. Greece, halving, China, Euro, fallacy of fiat, QE, on and on and on. Buying pressure will ALWAYS grow while supply will ALWAYS contract.

Bitcoin going up is the most inevitable man made force ever created. Just hope to God you don't die in a car accident while it happens.

This will happen and be big news probably many times over. In 25 years, wallets with satoshis left in them will be the modern day treasure hunts.

I think we are gapping up up this weekend.....

Reward has to halve. We might see a spike before then, but not much. Big move will be 6-12 months AFTER the halving, when all weak hands are gone, and any new investment will have to pry coins from the death grip of long time HODLERS.

wake me up in 2020, bitcoin sleeps until then

Bitcoin's killer app is whenever bank lets you create a savings account in bitcoin and you don't have to worry about ever losing your keys.

In other words, Bitcoin itself sucks for the average person, it won't be until trusted financial institutions offer it as an investment and insulate people from bitcoins horrid private key management problems that bitcoin will ever get to 100 billion.

Funny the way to bitcoin moving forward is through trust, too funny.

As is yours. Making the assumption that bitcoin was never intended to be a transaction system is probably the biggest assumption of them all.

Why would I want to use Bitcoin for transactions? 1) I don't have to go to the bank to get a cashiers check or a deal with questions to withdraw cash for my son's college car. 2) As a business owner I loathed paying fees to credit card companies, so I help other businesses as much as possible by using cash, I use bitcoin when they support it because I know the business will take in more money.  

Bitcoin has ALWAYS been a system for transactions, that has never changed, suggesting otherwise is ignoring history and inventing a new future for Bitcoin.

Frankly, I am not really caring where this blocksize debate lands, but being dishonest about Bitcoin and its history with transactions is absurd.

I agree that the fact Satoshi does not separate and account for node vs miner right now appears to be significant. Satoshi failing to account for the difference IS an error if not doing so jeopardize the whole model. So time will tell if he got this wrong.

#1 smoking gun problem with Bitcoin, not enough distinct miners make up 75% of hashing power. It is making me want to no longer be a HODLER as I think about it.

see above

Technology changes, systems change. Today you are right, nobody (I know) ever buys bitcoin for purchases because of simplicity or tangible rewards. However, that may not always be the case.

What bothers me about this debate is you have two sides, but only one side wants to declare now what Bitcoin's future should be, the other treats bitcoin more like infrastructure and is willing to support ANY future or features that may come on top of that infrastructure.

I forgot about bitcoin for a few days, it was really nice

Here would be something difficult to explain..... Let's say over the next 20 years Bitcoin never fluctuates more than 10% in a given year up or down but grows at a rate of 8% a year.... becoming the most predictable asset you can possibly buy. How would anyone ever explain it, maybe there is something inherently stable about Bitcoin and an asset like this that nobody has ever really contemplated before. Maybe it just took BTC stabilizing around 3 billion to discover this odd inexplicable stability.....

I am waiting 4 days now for my USD deposit to finalize. The key for Winkel twins is if they have a cost structure to carry them for a couple of years while volume catches up. I think the exchange will operate in the red for a long time, but they are positioned very early in this game and if they can keep the lights on they will win in the end.

explain....

If this is indeed a parallel universe we are living in then we aren't jumping to 10k, top to top last bubble was only 400%, so top of the next one would be $4800

I think the biggest problem with valuations over 10k is that it is one thing to say yes it is possible based on past performance, but in reality look how much governments have reacted to its tiny 4 billion cap today.

$100k bitcoin would bring the wrath of 1000 governments reigning down on our heads... just won't even make it that far unless there is a cook-the-frog strategy in place, like a 100 year cook-the-frog strategy.....

I am still not convinced this rally has legs. May push us above $300 for a while, but i am skeptical about anything more than $320 Until 2016.

Still a little too early for the halving panic buying, which i think only pushes us to $600.

Jan 2016 $320
May $600
Dec $650
Jan 2020 $4000
Jan 2024 $40000

I just think we are too early for major rally.... go ahead and prove me wrong satoshi

My Shanghai elite connected friend says:

1. Chinese govt officials are involved in buying bitcoin and backing mining companies
2. Some rumors among the super elite is that a small faction of govt officials have been asked to hedge purchase bitcoin over the next five years in the case that bitcoin dominates financial markets in the future

Very risky game people are playing, some beheadings may be coming if these officials are corrupt.

It is coming, probably very soon, when we correct from $3000, down to $2100. My guess is in the next two months.

picking an exit and hopeful retrace.... good luck to you sir

More holders in China than traders. Price pressure. Rich chinese old folks sit on their assets for decades, dead coins once they get in their hands. Going up....!

my connected chinese associate says that a faction in the govt is pushing to hedge purchase 50% of all bitcoins next couple years to be ahead of the world in case bitcoin takes hold.

this is confirmed by multiple sources and IS HAPPENING now

spread just seems to grow every 30 minutes.....

loading up,,,,, damn, can't refi my house fast enough....

Could this be Bitcoin's last gasp?

If Bitcoin surges to say 100 billion due to chines capital controls, and then China starts beheading bitcoin holders.... wouldn't that be the end of bitcoin at least in our lifetimes?

Excellent point Fatman, excellent piont..... damn you are right!

goooo longgggg

Dear God keep me humble as I watch this relentless train bring me all the wealth and power I have ever dreamed of....

Why does BTC-E not care....

It just occured to me that there is a completely real possibility that all exchanges simply run out of coins that people are willing to sell.

What happens when there are 50 exchanges but a buyer simply cannot find any coins for sale? Will the world end? Or does my world just become super F'ing awesome......

i think china breaks $400 in 30 minutes.

FTFY

To get to new highs BTC has to make short work of 400-1000, everyone knows what happened two years ago, $1000 is complete expected for all buyers right now....I have no idea who is dumb enough to sell a single coin with this trend

government stupidity like this won't last long, what are they going to do arrest everyone

I just heard official news from a trusted source.... tomorrow everyone has agreed NOT to sell their coins, I mean everyone...... this is it

i am thinking 2017

What does this mean no coins left on stamp. Its order book is still bigger than Huobi.

as for BFX, are there really 22 million dollars in short sales on BFX? is there a chart for that you can link for me?

where is the thread that shows the trend plotted against a logarithmic growth?

his decision will send him out a 40th story window if he doesn't buy back soon. someone took his coins and isn't giving them back cheap

this is not hyperbole, eventually what has to happen with these bubbles is that people just aren't going to sell which creates more price increase, more speculation more buys and more holders. bitcoin is the ultimate bubble machine, repeat every 6-24 months guaranteed

Best guess right now is maybe 2017 or later

Too many ways to get cash into the market compared to 2013..... watch greed take over 3....2....1........ everyone expects return to 1200 very quickly.....everyone

My question is do you have the balls to hold if it hits 3k, everyone holding now expects 1200, been down that path before.....

thought he sold it already....

bubbles are self fulfilling. the more excitement the more momentum, the more momentum the higher the price and the more excitement.

if we only could see two months ahead, we all might wet ourselves

btc-e $60 behind Huobi, does that exchange blow or what

+1 so sick of their shit

this cycle is potentially drastically different, vastly more ways for speculative dollars to enter the market, by an order of magnitude more.. I worry about not being even close at guessing the top....

Not an insult, gay high suicide rate is well known

https://www.afsp.org/research/research-connection/understanding-suicide-attempts-in-lgbt-teens

I don't think so, jump from 325-600 last time only took a few days as I remember.

Is BTC-E dead?? oh my hell gap just keeps growing $70 now

That was fantastic, trader orgasmssss

But why wouldn't any human just move their BTC to any other exchange and sell there??!!!!! makes zero sense, should be zero coins for sale on BTC-E, completely dead exchange IMHO, i think this spells the end for them, they may not Gox but nobody will trade their again....

So we need a $1000 single day run to match that trend or at least be close, could argue we need $2100 single day run to be on par

primary incentive to sell is to pay bills, higher the price goes the less they need to sell to pay electricity and employees. So a bull run will automatically reduce the coins sold by mining companies.

WTF

Beaches and women are waiting for you

you make that decision, nobody else

FTFY

+1 ohhh yeahhhhh

You are using logic that you will forever regret.... just when exactly do all the indicators tell all the smart people that now is the time to buy to get 1000% returns. IT DOESN'T HAPPEN LIKE THAT. This ship will sale and leave everyone standing on the shore wonder what dafuq just happened.

FOMOs be like, please God just drop 10% so I don't hate myself forever

Huobi ---> pushes to new high, pulls back a bit, rinse .... repeat

explain do the chinese love 5s

We might get a flash crash here.... Maybe we get full capitulation with all weak hands holding on since 2013 that finally sell and give up. They made it to a bubble, and now they aren't rich so taste for bitcoin goes sour.....

I think they just did, and they hit the sell button

Huobi now leading the way down.... funny BTC-E is highest dollar value now....

That Huobi cliff we are falling off.... holy hell

Makes the bitcoin economy seem like a few dicks in a box

is this post from 2009?

this insanity sure makes bitcoin look like a shitcoin

Look at the drop after the Nov 2013 bubble, roughly the same dimensions as this one, so not sure what you are talking about...

I get the feeling we are going up for a bit............ maybe bounce to 320 again.....?

I am in the same boat, i am doing ok from an investment point of view but this shit is insane and it feels like JPMOrgan is somehow jerking me around.... fuckers

In all my years trading I have won some and lost a lot, but I never won when I waited for everyone to agree on when to buy and sell. If you are doing what everyone else is doing you are probably screwed.

market seems to think below $300 is too good to pass up.... true floor?

depends on what happens in the next 24 hours.... but seriously if the price and volume inch above 300 for more than a week or two that is very bullish. This mini bubble has brought a lot of eyes into BTC, plenty of people that missed out on last week's bubble because their money wasn't into an exchange, now they are sitting waiting for something to tell them the dump is over.

I would like to see a solid two weeks of stability with a slow move to 340.... 

Wait... we broke that amazing two day trend line?

All in

Well join the club the only reason i am in the black is because of complete and utter luck.

I do feel like ignoring Stamps charts though. I think Huobi is in charge. Granted it might all be pyramid scheming, big mining warlocks that are kicking the price around, but Huobi took us to $500 and frankly it is China that will take us beyond $500 again.

Worst thing that will happen is that the halfening does absolutely nothing. I am starting to think that miners selling coins have nothing to do with bitcoin price, it is just completely manipulated.

Seems like an insane coincidence that this happened the very moment the auction closed..... why is this the least likely explanation?

Why was the Euro EVER worth so much....?

What magic is going on that allows the Reserve to deposit trillions into bank accounts but there is no inflation?

So, not sure what you are implying... dollars are simply the best of the worst place to preserve your net worth?

If the dollar stays as it is, it seems there is no end to this ponzi. A ponzi never dies, ever, as long as you have a never ending line of people to join and you can print money for free. Ponzi schemes collapse when nobody joins.

WTF!!!

So to summarize... so the ponzi started to collapse, banks couldn't make payments on their ponzi promises, so the ponzi regulator the govt, and their operator in crime the fed essentially conjured up money to cover the bad debt promises made by banks, but paid the banks to not use that money.

So the banks can stay solvent on the books, but are incented to not spend the money that is in their reserves.....

So as long as that reserve grows and is not spent by the lords of banking our inflation stays under control.

This doesn't seem like it will end well....

I think you are inventing fear and using it to either slay your own dreams or those of others. WE can imagine disasters all day the bottom line is I can pay a large mining fee of a whole dollar and my transfer moves instantly....

what is your real point

Transactions mean absolutely nothing, nobody transacts in Gold EVER. Bitcoin is asset protection and remittance above all else. Transactions day to day are at least 10 years away, and i am pretty sure will be nothing like what they are now, probably not even in this blockchain.

I love your second point though it is exactly right.

Bitcoin transaction volume is a complete red herring, the worst distraction argument of ALL time. Today daily transactions mean absolutely NOTHING to today's bitcoin value. NOBODY transacts in Bitcoin absolutely not one single person besides myself have I met in day to day life (not bitcoin community friends) wants or would want to transact in bitcoin.

There are probably only a fraction of important transactions that happen in bitcoin every day compared to the real volume, those are deposits of BTC into exchanges and real remittance services. Both of which are a fraction of the transaction noise that is going on and both of which the sender will always send a higher fee for the value of that transaction.

I agree with you in most ways, however, I think security methods, uses of bitcoin, storage methods, multi sig are minimally interesting. Primary reason we are going higher is that entry points for mainstream USA speculators are 1000 times better, faster, safer, than in 2013 (coinbase, gemini).

What should make everyone click the buy button is that long term Holders rarely divest completely. That long term holding base regardless of how small anyone thinks it is just grows, grows and grows, and the number of coins available drops and drops. With absolute certainty there will be a day of reckoning when long term holders are far greater in number and have far more purchasing power than bitcoin dumpers can possibly counterbalance.

5 and 20 year prospects of owning large amounts of existing assets.

Evaluating the soundness of investing $100k for the purposes of preservation of wealth.

The categories that are important to anyone thinking of purchasing an asset are: liquidity (LQ), cost of ownership (CO), security (SC), and preservation of purchasing power (PP), anything else? Rank 1-10, 10 being the highest possible score.

Liquidity means you can divest your entire asset (100k) immediately without impacting the overall market and convert it to fiat of your choice
Cost of ownership is the burden on a human to own the asset (maintenance fees, manager services, storage, et cetera)
Security is the chance that via standard ownership conditions you may have the asset stolen from you in that time period
Preservation of Purchasing power means that if you score a 10 you have 100% chance of getting all of your purchasing power back at the end of the term. An 8 would mean you risk losing 20% of your purchasing power.

5 Year

Fiat Currency Dollar - LQ 10, CO 7, SC 10, PP 8
Fiat non dollar -         LQ 10, CO 7, SC 10, PP 7
Stocks -                    LQ   9, CO 8, SC 9, PP 9
US Bonds -               LQ   9, CO 8, SC 9, PP 8
Real Estate -             LQ   3, CO 3, SC 9, PP 8
Gold -                       LQ   5, CO 6, SC 4, PP 8
Bitcoin -                    LQ   8, CO 9, SC 7, PP 5+

20 Year

Fiat Currency Dollar - LQ 10, CO 7, SC 10, PP 2
Fiat non dollar -         LQ 10, CO 7, SC 10, PP 1
Stocks -                    LQ   9, CO 8, SC 9, PP ?
US Bonds -               LQ   9, CO 8, SC 9, PP 2
Real Estate -             LQ   3, CO 3, SC 9, PP 7
Gold -                       LQ   5, CO 6, SC 4, PP 7
Bitcoin -                    LQ   10, CO 10, SC 10, PP 10

Over 20 years most any reasonable person would understand that Bitcoin will become more and more liquid, cost of ownership will be lower than any other asset, security will be higher than any other asset, and purchasing power in 20 years will be vastly more than your original investment (assuming bitcoin is not worth zero)

So the trend for bitcoin is that it will be the safest haven for all investors. While all other asset classes can only diminish in the eyes of the ever improving bitcoin. Eventually the wealthy will come to terms with this inevitability and start to buy bitcoin to preserve what wealth they have as Bitcoin will become the obvious choice to everyone.

Does anyone have a legitimate argument that bitcoin will be worth less.... halving, easier entry into markets.... those two things alone.. nobody is selling and only more people will be buying and only so many seats at the table


just hope you aren't left holding your pecker

Lets be real clear here sheeple. Today Nov 13th, 2013....

You can buy bitcoin for the same price they were for sale TWO YEARS AGO.

You may never say those words again until 2023....

Some of you are dicking with yourself thinking your will be so excited to buy coins below $300 soon. Get over it, that is like a whole stupid 10% holy shit, don't be left holding your dicks when you wake up each morning and the price is at $600, then $1200.

This thing will gap up multiple times, then you will be standing there some date in the not-too-distant future thinking you were sooo stupid on Nov 13th, 2015 thinking bitcoin was overvalued.......

all major exchanges have the most insane charts the last 30 minutes...... WTF

In no way in hell do speculative whales sit on their piles of speculative cash only choosing to bet on Rousey and the Royals.

The halving is coming, speculators are speculating, and as sure as the tide is rising, the sun is setting, and I am getting laid on Thursday night....

whales will not be denied their large positions of bitcoin.

WTF is this?

I am starting to think that a growing economy of any sort is nothing more than a pyramid scheme where the players happen to be everyone. The only difference between a growing economy and a contracting one is that the players spend and invest more into the pyramid scheme every day. Once people stop spending into the system, then you have contraction. There is fundamentally no reason that a service economy like the USA has so much more wealth than a poor country like Costa Rica. The only difference is that the USA has more consumers that never stop spending and the government pumps money into the system trusting that Americans will spend it right back into the system.

all because we know who Satoshi is now and we have some clarity on the status of his coins?

why bitfinex leading the way???

Thought it has been Huobi last few runs....

I woke up one day and looked in my wallet. I couldn't find what i was looking for... the passphrase was nonsensical to me any more. I chose to remove it because the thought of it was eating into my brain like a slow acid drop on a loaf of dry crusty bread. I had enough. Things had to change. I needed confidence, assurance, vision, and most of all I need clarity of thought. Enough with the promises, the false narratives, the false flags and worst of all the straight-up, in-your-face deception. I am no longer waiting, i am not going to sit here and wait for my fate to be handed to me in one small violation of my security after another. With this one declaration.... I am no longer waiting..., I feel that sense of liberation, it is upon me, I will step forward to accept my place in history. Join me planet earth, let us do this together, step into the future without shame or guile.... just pure, transparent, open ambition. Let's go.

No you won't

we are not mooning yet..... good chance we don't launch for another five months. then the top of that pump may not be what we think.... only post halving will true supply and demand reveal itself......

Nope been trying....

explain to me what you are talking about

You can't, so what we need is a open policy, no pool can exceed 5%. Then we need policemen to enforce that policy, how, DDOS attacks. Wild west baby, comply or get killed.

I love P2P pool, yes that is a great plan, but manufacturers are too greedy and want all of the profits. However, we should be DDOS every large miner constantly making it hell to scale as one entity. Make the cost of doing business as a large miner not worth it.... better to sell your miners to people and try and make money that way.

solidarity? what planet are you living on.... this is wild west, war zone, chaos rule, dystopia we are in and will be in for ever.

WTF is this about.... you are insane.... we just need to numerate transactions by a uBTC.... get real

This ecosystem is so complex and constantly evolving that there is no consensus on rationality.

I have far less faith in humans than you do I am afraid.

I think there is so much truth found in this drop.... the true bottom for bitcoin is where remittance utility and payment utility create an equilibrium on the exchanges..... My guess is that true bitcoin utility is 10% of where we are today.... the rest all FUD, and PUMP, and DUMP

We are heading towards a hard fork and two coins. China BTC and everyone else on Classic.

Nobody is buying coins mined by two mining companies in China..... that only trade on chinese exchanges.... just saying...

Also, this is going to sound nuts but classic should road map a change to POW in 12 months. The future hard forks have to be much easier, more miners is the only way to make this happen.

This is a single view that is frankly bizarre, only recently have statements like these become commonplace. Bitcoin was always going to record every transaction.

i think bitcoin has become the boring cryptocurrency, bored to death

this idea of voting for how bitcoin evolves is insane.... bitcoin's biggest problem is we don't have a legit leader replacement for satoshi..... we need a galvanizing visionary that can lead devs and the community alike.

Will the real satoshi please stand up.

My gut says sub $200 is possible......

sell the news... huge pump preceded it already

I went to a psychic today, based on what the cards said on Bitcoin here is a summary:

Core will increase the block size because they will lose control if they don't.
Block size increase will bump the price only slightly, maybe 20%
Halving pump already happened.
Next big run up won't happen until capitulation from the last pump.. I think we will see BTC-E flash crash in September to $209.
Then we rise up to above $500 to stay.
Next big wave isn't for another two years... we will get back over $1k eventually but all of you holders will likely be shaken out before we do.

The facts:

1. Bitcoin would NOT have failed if Satoshi had chosen a 2MB limit rather than 1MB, to say otherwise exposes you for the complete idiot you would be. Therefore, any FUD about 2MB is laid bare as completely propaganda.
2. Adding 2MB now means nothing as far as the technology, network and platform is concerned.., refusing to do so is simply because you do not want to establish a precedent that you can increase the block size to address scalability issues. Why? because the necessity of a sidechain solution for scaling moves further down the road.

There is nothing else to talk about.

1. Bitcoin would have been just fine wtih a 2MB limit rather than 1MB. I think you missed that part.
2. Scalability is a red herring, a distraction, it is something for you to argue about but has nothing to do with the decision not to raise the limit, but you didn't read my last sentence......

anyone else completely bored and tired of hearing about block size, blockstream, and scalability?

i wish this thread moderator would simply announce a ban on the topics. For the record though, corruption is everywhere Bitcoin is no different, regardless of which side you are on.

Things are going exactly as planned.......

Anyone else still think we are not mooning quite yet?.....

I feel like there is too much halving expectation out there, when everyone thinks we are launching, we simply won't.

I expect small increases in the next few weeks, maybe above $500 even, then a drop (could be a huge flash crash actually) right before or after the halving because expectations are simply too high...

what is your first?

ATH was phony GOX price point. Probably would never have made it half that far with a real market. As for current 789 top. You are in a healthy correction in a perpetually growing valuation.

Right now with the halving Bitcoin is in new price discovery mode. I wouldn't be surprised that this current triangle resolves down instead of up. Probably needs to go sub $600 to kick off next big leg up.

Block size is not a concern for BTC because BTC is not a transaction type of currency, it is a store of value currency. Nobody cares if it takes 10 minutes to transact in bitcoin because that has been how long it has taken for confirmation since inception. And nobody that is waiting 10 minutes is buying a cup of coffee.

What is a concern is competition. I think there is a 50% chance that Bitcoin is replaced within a year with a higher valuation currency. Bitcoin is currently one alt-bubble away from being lapped... once that happens chaos will ensue because there will be just too many choices competing for crytpo dollars.

when this thread dies you know bitcoin will be close to exploding....

Sorry, but you are pretending like human greed is just not going to apply "this time." You cannot prevent another moon shot, like you cannot prevent the tide from rising every day. It will happen as sure as the sun sets. Humans and greed know no bounds. When an opportunity to double your money over night presents itself, then people will poor their money into bitcoin and there will not be enough coins to go around. Bitcoin's next stop will be a trillion market cap, i am just upset i didn't get more coins while I could....

Bitcoin will bubble to 15k in the next 1-20 months and then everyone will have to wait for 10 years for 45k.

seems relative trade volume (stamp, btce) for this rally compared to Nov 2013 is only a fraction.... anyone care to elaborate?

for posterity quickest fail of all time.

I chuckle every time this happens.... i hope nobody is jumping out of a high rise, it is only money....

I think 690 is possible.

This pump and dump is an exact pattern from the last two years, every six months like clockwork bitcoin spikes and then tanks. Forget the Gox-inflated, fake bubble. Bitcoin is probably the most remarkably consistent and predictable investment you can make.

Price will find a floor, price will be volatile, then go sideways, then spike. You have a window of opportunity now to prepare for the next run. If you got burned this time, take a deep breath and realize that your mistake was that you forgot you were going to just buy and HODL

No, bitcoin does not need fungibility to have value. Bearer bonds, titanium, real estate, all are not close to being cash-fungible. Bitcoin only needs the ability transfer irrefutable ownership paired with critical-mass awareness, which Bitcoin achieved long ago, and which Bitcoin will never cease to have.

Bitcoin's path was set in stone 3 years ago, we are marching towards the inevitable. There are obviously going to be trivially small variations in that path, and there will be competitors, but Bitcoin as a global store of value has already happened. That value will only increase from a fast-growth perspective for 15-20 years, then increase only as the global economy increases.  

Well the reason you are wrong is because you falsely conclude that ANY of bitcoins value today is because it "might" be as fungible as money in the future.

It 100% IS NOT as fungible as money today and never has been in the past.

I can assure you that bitcoin is not going to lose value on fungibility issues because it has always been as fungible as it has ever needed to be.

Lost my faith in EW long ago... always traders trying their hardest to force wave counts to match history, never predictive of anything.

Bitcoin is already as fungible as it needs to be.... and Bitcoin doesn't have to be money, ever. Yes there are already other coins we use for money, buy those too.

Fungible while in a given moment (exchanging your money for goods at the moment of purchase) is boolean, Fungibility from a global perspective is not Boolean and never has been. Your "money" has varying degrees of global fungibility depending on the "money" you are using. I cannot buy a car in the USA with money from Venezuala or with Bitcoin. So your overall position about boolean fungibility is completely wrong. All money on this planet and in the universe (see that Republic dataries have no value to Watto) has varying degrees of fungibility.

Bitcoin may likely today be the second MOST fungible money on the planet next to the American Dollar. That is today right now, yes.

People do not buy Bitcoin because it is the future of money. They buy bitcoin because it is digital money that has no equal and everyone is excited about it. It is fungible and people learn very quickly just how much. Nobody buys bitcoin because they are going to stop using their dollars, or rupies or whatever.

Needed to buy a vehicle on Sunday this weekend, I live in hugely populated section of USA and offered him Bitcoin. He freaked and thought i was nigerian scammer or something said i have to bring cash and only after it is verified at bank with the teller will he sell me the vehicle.

Bitcoin is such a fringe tech.... nobody gives a shit and it is $1000 a bitcoin.... if anyone ever actually gives a fuck it will be worth $1 million a coin.

Might I refer you to..... THE LAST 8 YEARS......

Organizations are typically consistent. For example, rejections probably happen immediately before the deadline or they happen much sooner in the process? Are there any patterns with regard to rejections from the SEC. The closer we get is it more likely it will be either approved or approved by default?

How do you buy bitcoin in Aleppo, solar powered, satellite smartphone?

My good friend is Pete McMillan and he works as a clerk for the SEC. He sent me a screenshot yesterday of his laptop. On it was the press release for next Wednesday on the Bitcoin Winklevii ETF... So the decision has already been made folks.

I thought this bit of information would silence the debate that has been raging the past few hours. Remember to only invest more than you can afford and never take the advice of anyone that is prepared to give it. Also, remember that no shoes were made for a cobbler's feet before they are first made for his children.

GBTC spiked today... institutional money betting on approval..... ?

Place your bets.... I think we will witness chaos either way.

I am not leveraged but i am way overweight on btc ownership... i am deciding whether to liquidate into dollars for the next week or so....

speculation like this makes me want to for sure sell.... how many of you have rolled the dice with bitcoin price and won?

Yes, well apparently nobody read my entire post because I also said you need to invest "more" than you can afford to lose... details people, details

Except this guy, nice job PoolMinor, nice job! However, the cobbler quote is bassackwards too.....

fear hasn't even set in yet... i would wait

Completely agree, this is people panicking that etf isn't going to be approved after a run where people were speculating it was... I can't wait for tomorrow and Friday. if it starts to tank it might just implode several hundred dollars all at once.

How does this ETF work? I thought there are fixed shares backed by fixed coins so there is no pressure on the overall bitcoin market, just a way to own coins via a third party.

I am starting to think the decision hasn't been made, that is the only reason to delay. If the SEC wanted to impact the market as little as possible, they would have announced a couple of weeks ago. Pushing it to the very last moment is strange and makes me think the SEC doesn't really care about this market at all. No respect for the market does not bode well for me, that means they won't care if they tank the price with a last minute rejection....

I think it has to come out today, or else the ETF is automatically approved that is my interpretation of the dates and timing of the filings and extensions. My guess it comes after markets close and they will let the weekend sort out the market price for two days before COIN is for sale.

who is buying or selling the news? I think a lot of people... so expect delays if it is your plan.

Dash will tank but only probably 30%, ETH is just getting started and everything else is pretty stable. In 10 years this won't be remembered just as the age of bitcoin. It will be the birth of several coins that will have multiple billion market caps. Each with uniquely different reasons to own each. Bitcoin is clearly positioning itself very narrowly. ETH incredibly broadly. Dash and XMR as fungible anonymous money. I own them all except Dash... i am a dash hater not sure why.

MLN the new DAO? no thanks

Do you mean bitfinex?? not polo?

I have been saying this same thing for four years, but I would take it a step further. Easiest and best way to secure your Bitcoin is printing your address and putting two copies in different safe deposit boxes. Then return 10 years later a millionaire.

Software wallets for even moderately competent tech people are complete jokes: passwords, veracrypt?, home partition encrypted, multiple backups, air gapped storage, military grade cement vaults, across continents, different governing body, multi sig, documented access protocol, protocol encrypted, protocol stored in multiple backup locations......OMFG

do you really believe this nonsense?

Are the days of Bitcoin doubling in price in a few hours or days a thing of the past. Are we destined for 6% gains a pop now that the market cap is so large....?

Would love to see a 50% price hop... can you imagine the frenzy, dear God.

I hope all of you have realized that most everyone in the bitcoin community is completely wrong about this scaling nonsense. This six month bull run in the face of a scaling nightmare only proves how meaningless scalability is to Bitcoin. Anyone that says that the lost percentage of crypto market cap proves Bitcoin is hurt is making something up out of thin air. Look at Bitcoin's chart for the last two years and tell me how it could possibly be any MORE bullish. Bitcoin is on every trend line for 7 years and is just chugging along to $30k without even caring about scalability...

so the question is why.

The reason is because bitcoin is simply the world's premier store of value and silly little transaction fees mean nothing to people diversifying their portfolio. I bought $15k in Amazon stock last year and paid a stupid high broker fee to do it. I didn't even blink an eye.

I have been in your mindset for 18 months. I am starting to think that people that refuse to buy into ETH just are choosing to be blind to what is going on and that includes myself.

I think that ETH is overvalued but then I look at all crypto assets on coinmarketcap.com and maybe it is undervalued.

http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/views/all/

Look how many are built on ETH vs bitcoin. It isn't even close and every one of those coins has an army of devs and a community of supporters.

I actually wish I had heard about ETH before Bitcoin at this point, it isn't that I haven't made good money on Bitcoin, but had I been behind ETH from day one I would be retired today.

I think that people that see what is going on without the bias of Bitcoin's shiny name would say that the crypto game was over a year ago, ETH was only stopped by the hack. I thought the hack killed it, but I was blind.

The other advantage ETH has is the psychological advance of price. When people buy something they are not looking at market cap, they say hey ETH is $300 and bitcoin is $3000, I am buying ETH because it is going to be worth $3000 soon. It is not logical but it is the reason stock splits are common, people like to buy 10 of something that is $100 rather than 1 of something that is $1000.

The only thing that can possibly stop ETH in my opinion is another hack worse than the first. I think it is more likely that in 10 years ETH will be king and we will all look back and the reasons will be obvious as to why.

Bitcoin is not really digital money. It tried to be for a while, but Dell dropped Bitcoin recently, Egghead and Overstock haven't seen any benefits. Bitcoin is primarily a store of value more than anything else. For example, with a $15 transfer fee nobody is buying a t-shirt with Bitcoin. But will someone put $100k into bitcoin as a safe haven and pay a $15 fee, sure you bet they will.

Bitcoin has value today because it is trusted as a safe place to guard your welath, safer than anything else. People have extreme confidence in Bitcoin itself, vastly more so than Ethereum.

Ethereum's use case is the platform of the new Money 2.0 economy. Bitcoin introduced the concept, but without any doubt whatsoever nearly EVERY significant money 2.0 project is built on Ethereum not Bitcoin. The asset list on coinmarketcap proves Ethereum's use case. Ethereum is doing exactly what Vitalik set out for it to do. Bitcoin digital asset projects are garbage in comparison.

I can only see Bitcoin going down if trust is broken somehow with the coming potential fork. Yes there will be corrections, but bitcoin is I believe a permanent diversification asset in the minds of the entire planet. That won't go away just because of a competitor. In fact, I would argue that Ethereum is NOT competing for the same dollars entirely that goes into Bitcoin.

This is entirely true but a collapse does not happen over night, and for just one company can take years, in ETH case you have 50 startups all with their own dreams of world domination.

Also, The difference between a ponzi scheme and a legit business model is not as bright and clear of a line as everyone would like to believe. A company can survive for a decade on selling just its vision. Even longer if you have a strong enough visionary model. Just look at Amazon, Uber, and even Facebook the first few years. All of them initially huge money losers but their vision of the future was so strong that investment dollars came in for a decade. That is happening now to crypto companies.

I have always contended that these ICO assets are simply a modern security. I actually think much, much better at passing the good fortune of a company's success on to early investors than a stupid Stock. If the economy of the company is driven by the asset, then anyone that owns the asset will reap a reward as that company's economy grows. It is the future of securities in my opinion and makes owning stock feel stupid in comparison.

That said the part you are missing is that 1) it takes years for phony business models to crash, we are in year 1 of ICO insanity, this could go on for five more years and that is if they ALL failed 2) not all of these will fail, some will succeed dramatically, validating the model and supporting the platform (ETH), 3) the only real risk to ETHs platform is regulation, however, that only slows the model and doesn't destroy it in my opinion.

So crashes will happen, but unless a flaw in ETH exposes an across-the-board ownership weakness this train is not stopping and each crashed coin will be replaced by 10 new startups.

I think you are right on with your thinking, you own both for different reasons.

If bitcoin corrects to 1800ish, there is no safe haven because all coins are over priced by 50% minimum, in some cases 90%. Cash is the only safe haven until the pathway is clear.

Anyone else feel that Bitcoin would be a world dominator already if it wasn't for human greed, stupidity, and corruption?

Human nature is clearly Bitcoin's biggest weakness..... what satoshi should have done is embed consensus protocol rules into how the code was managed and released. No debate, just information and observation.

People hedging that the issue is going to be resolved end of July and that we are moving quickly towards a non-fork solution. Optimism and pessimism tugging at bitcoin. Optimists have more control because FOMO strength is very strong last 6 months and getting stronger. Bitcoin showing power of its brand and strength of its non-technical user base.

I have been there so many times, stay the course, have a system, save what you can

I don't understand the continual optimism on the price in the near term. Bitcoin can go all the way down to 1300 and still be following its bull run from Mid 2015. Price near term means very little and frankly the charts are complete garbage if you are hoping Bitcoin goes up from here. I think you need to be long on Bitcoin another 3 years before selling and you should only be hoping that it continues to correct so you can buy more bitcoin for your dollar.

Randomly decided that 6-8k and 12-15k is not likely, strange. What i care about is what the bottom of this correction will be. I think it drops below 2k for a short while. You might see some bitcoin traded at 1500 before this correction is done.

Bitstamp bullish AF. That wall kept Stamp from dropping and now is fueling this run up to 2300... feels too contrived though as the rest of the market sits and watches.

Stamp going bonkers, is this just manipulation or are there real whispers of bypassing the fork in the wind?

Bitcoin has been undervalued, it is only time and awareness that bitcoin is fighting. As time passes and awareness grows there is plenty of capital in the world to push it past the largest corporation valuation in the world. It is a bit laughable that there are companies more valuable than bitcoin because in the grand scheme of things a single company means nothing compared to what bitcoin will become.

I think we will have ups and downs, but no serious pause (>35% drop) until a valuation is a trillion. It will take a huge psychological number like a trillion market cap to make the market pause and ask what is next. A trillion is 10X from where we are so $55k. I think bitcoin will return to its 80% dominance in the interim as well. Alt coins are a massive bubble still. There will be exceptions but in general altcoins will return to their shitcoin status in the next 9 months, bitcoin is just suffocating right now.

Bitcoin has not had a constant three year march from $200 to $8200 simply because wall street just happens to be pumping bitcoin for the big dump.

Each of the six or so dips in the last three years has been nothing more than an attempt to take your coins from your weak hands. The march continues relentlessly because bitcoin is the immortal hedge against EVERYTHING.

As edgy as other coins are the masses cannot comprehend the differences and will ALWAYS choose Bitcoin over all others, always.

Does anyone believe that Bitcoin is going to correct 75% without having its typical end-of-rally blow off exponential top. This has not happened in three years. Just look at the log chart. Bitcoin is still waiting for a 4 week blow off spike that is 3-6X above where we are now.

In a Jupiter or Neptune scenario there will be a traditional market correction and a bitcoin spike maybe 20-100X from where we are, and bitcoin will over night become the global store of value you have only imagined in your craziest of dreams. There is currently global access like there has never been before. Big money will always move towards capital preservation, always. HODL. NEVER sell all of your bitcoin, ever.

I think the only legit hedges against bitcoin are the anon coins: XMR, ZCash, Dash, et cetera. I also like the more efficient bitcoins LTC, Doge, et cetera. Platform coins to me feel like MySpace and will be a footnote in history.

controlling a billion dollar market by yourself deserves an award not prosecution