http://buswk.co/1di4qLq

If only I could fart bitcoin out my unicorn ass!

Awesome background story on it...

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-09/bitcoin-dreams-bloomberg-businessweeks-cover-with-unicorn

You can now buy ethical diamond rings with Bitcoin:

Do Amore Rings
http://www.doamore.com


Interesting business model for this startup... a portion of their profits fund clean water projects in developing countries providing clean water for two for life.

On the checkout screen, you can pay with Bitcoin. Nice surprise, not at all advertised up front. Ethical startups like this need all the help they can get!

So get out there and pop the question! 

Come on everybody, time for some celebratory Haiku...

Oh joyous teacup
May your handle be short-lived!
Willy is so proud

ATH Nov 25.

$5000 is a high bar to hit, it may take some time. Black Friday might put people in the mood and with US stock exchanges closed, might be time for another crypto rally, mirroring 2013.

As Bitcoin matures, seeing these corrections is like watching an over-tired child cry.  Just gotta let it all out, spasm after spasm, the sooner and harder the better.

Strangely relaxing to watch. Because we all know how we feel after a good cry.

Euphoric.

The last 10 floor to floor Bitcoin doublings since Nov 2012.

Average doubling time: 6 months
Shortest doubling time: 1 month ($20 to $40)
Longest doubling time: 18 months ($80 to $160)

The Mt Gox bubble is clearly disruptive to trend. Since recovery, doubling times have only accelerated. This kind of hyperbolic growth is typical of a technological singularity. Think color tv, mobile phones, or the Internet.

At this scale, it's really hard to see the recent hardfork or China FUD having much of an impact at all.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2203360.0

Let's project! If we assume an average doubling rate of 6 months, then the price floor should remain above:

$5120: Jan 2018
$10,240: July 2018
$20,480: Jan 2019
$40,960: July 2019
$81,920: Jan 2020

We may touch $10,000 in 3 or 4 months as an ATH, but it may take another couple months to form a new floor. I wouldn't be surprised if doubling rates slowed down to maybe a year+ after $10,000, though. It's mind-boggling and eye-watering to conceive it's even possible. But this long-term doubling trend has so far survived all kinds of FUD, hacks, and Bitcoin obituaries and only appears to be gaining resilience as adoption increases.

LOL, how can it be "wrong" when it hasn't happened yet? ATH won't count by the way, it has to be a bonafide floor. (No dips!) That might take months to confirm.

That said, I would happily (sooner) be wrong. 

Usually about 15 minutes of patience. 

Some time back, I bought my wife an Instant Pot (fancy pressure cooker) with Bitcoin at a 25% discount via Amazon/Purse.io. Told her by using Bitcoin (which was already way up for me), it was the cheapest Instant Pot money could buy.   

Then Bitcoin quintupled.

Now she looks at the Instant Pot and says, "Most expensive fucking Instant Pot money could buy."     And sits there scheming over all the things she could have bought HODLing instead.

So yes. HODL is a paradox. Yes indeed.

Nevermind I bought all the dips on the way up. Nevermind I can retire early now. That fucking Instant Pot will always be my HODL reminder.

"Yes honey, it's a lovely house, but we could have bought a fucking castle, you idiot!"

Don't get me wrong - I don't have any regrets! Your Bitcoin ain't worth a thing if you don't spend it!

Just try explaining this concept to me wifey wife.    I don't know about yours, but mine expects perfect prescience. 

"You knew it was going to quintuple and you spent it anyway??" 

LOL, or cooking it.

I like the way you think. MOAR Bitcoin! My Precious...

Bitcoin ATH Theme Song of the Day

https://youtu.be/KFPI9b9N6CQ

Happy Halloween!

Well any time, any place, anywhere that I go
All the people seem to stop and stare
They say "why are you dressed like it's Halloween?
You look so absurd, you look so obscene"

Oh, why can't I live a life for me?
Why should I take the abuse that's served?
Why can't they see they're just like me
It's the same, it's the same in the whole wide world

Well I let their teeny minds think
That they're dealing with someone who is over the brink
And I dress this way just to keep them at bay
'Cause Halloween is everyday
It's everyday

Yes. You're basically trading your stash in for an annuity or similar. You can draw a yearly income off of it, but that income itself is still taxable (maybe not so much as an expat?). You're just avoiding cap gains, which might not be as bad as you think. Plus the trust has to be carefully managed to keep the IRS happy.

If you trust in Bitcoin's longevity, you maintain far more control keeping it in Bitcoin, and if Bitcoin cap gains are your only source of income, the first $37.5K are tax free, $75k if you're married, and after that it's only 15%. So say you're married and draw off $150k in pure gains (plus some amount of principle, which might be negligible at this point). The effective tax would only be 7.5%. That's like sale's tax, big f-ing deal.

Gifting Bitcoin also bypasses cap gains. The giftee's cost basis steps up to the date of the gift. Gift every member of your extended family and have them pay for the bulk of your needs. You can gift around $14k per year per person.

The best reason I can see for a charitable remainder trust is if you've totally lost faith in Bitcoin and want to ditch your whole stash pronto for lambos, property, securities, or fiat. Maybe it makes sense to do it for just the part you want to convert, but keep the bulk in Bitcoin until needed. Really depends on your circumstances and faith in Bitcoin.

https://www.estateplanning.com/Understanding-Charitable-Remainder-Trusts/
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/12/11/long-term-capital-gains-tax-rates-in-2017.aspx

Bitcoin has been above $6000 a total of 17 days.

Above $7000 only 9 days.

This looks like a healthy correction establishing a new floor around $6500. Maybe even retest $6000.

I still think $10,000 by Jan 2018.

Hear! Hear! Always bet on winners. Might just have to wait a bit longer, but even those who bought and held at the Mt Gox top quintupled their value.

True that but that goes for ANY exchange.

You don't own Bitcoin if you don't own your private keys.

That's a dick if I've ever seen one. That just blew its load. Initial bump is the scrags. Nicely done.

Now if only Coinbase would follow suit come January...

Proudhon. The ironic Colbert of Bitcoin.

The power of exponential rise:

If a bacteria doubles its surface area every day and completely covers a Petri dish in 30 days, on what day is the Petri dish half covered?



Answer:

Day 29

But Bitcoin has gone parabolic! Exponentially exponential.

This puppy will reach $25,000 sooner than most can believe.

Easy out.

Confirmed

Another ATH in 6 hours?

What an awesome test of resistance at $9000.

We spent a total of only 8 days in the $8000-$9000 range, and only 5 days above $9000 and here it is bouncing off $9000 like a frucking trampoline. I fully expected a further test of $8000, maybe it's yet to come...

I'm not much of one for TA, but looks like we might be halfway through an inverse head and shoulders. Bullish!

I think $10,000 will be the new floor by the end of this month (maybe even week?) or end Jan at the latest.

\/\/\/
$9000

Boing boing boing...

Shit, it's not even December yet? 

You have to irrevocably renounce your citizenship. With the caveat:


https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal-considerations/us-citizenship-laws-policies/renunciation-of-citizenship.html

So I'm guessing if you haven't realized any gains until after renouncing, you're safe?


Ha!

Where is the source for "moving coins out of Coinbase" as a taxable event?

Would this mean if the coins were bought at, say, $1000 and then moved out immediately at $1000, then the gains are effectively zero? Or that I could even claim a loss if the price dropped?

Would this also mean that the further gains to $10,000 are effectively tax free, because, double taxation and all?

Possession of a Guggenheim printing press might have cost you your life at some points in history.
Distillation is widely illegal on an individual basis. Absinthe suffered a worldwide ban post-WW2. Hell, even alcohol itself was illegal in the US for a good time during Prohibition.
Equipment used for counterfeiting currency is illegal
Torrenting DRM material is illegal
Anti-DRM technology is illegal
Owning gold as currency was illegal in the US during wartime
Certain drugs and technology to produce them, both natural and synthetic are largely illegal.
Weapons of mass destruction are illegal (as mentioned)
Firearms are illegal in many countries
Hell, the Internet is even illegal in some countries. Certain social media is illegal behind China's great firewall.
There is even talk of making some types of encryption illegal

Basically, any technologies involved in the spread of information or ideas or substances that affect thinking or could cause harm or disruption to society have, at some point or another, been banned or attempted to be banned by some government. Governments and those in power will do anything to maintain the status quo.

I agree however that most technologies cannot be stopped. Won't stop them from trying, though.

Confirmed? Looks like we just completed the right shoulder... Oort cloud here we come!

Anyone here ever read the old Gateway series with the giant food factories harvesting the Oort cloud?

Might not help for Mt Gox transactions, but I've found this tool pretty useful for importing trade histories elsewhere:

https://bitcoin.tax/

Congratulations. Some of us are not far behind...

IF $10,000 holds (and that's a big if, but I'm feeling optimistic), then we've achieved the 12th Bitcoin doubling floor since $2.50.

This puts the latest doubling floor at only 50 days, beating the previous run of 77 days. The record still belongs to the $20-$40 runup, which took only 39 days to "permanently" double.

Anyhow, at this rate, we might have a brand new $20k floor by mid January! 

How long have you been waiting? Are your coins onsite or will they accept offsite wallet proof?

Proudhon rubbing off on Torque?!

Not to pop your bubble, but my modest $100,000 increase took three months. After several customer service requests.  

Anyone know offhand how Genesis Gemini withdrawal limitations compare?

Mind melting week... Memories of 2013 rise. And 2014-15 slog through the desert. Boy was this payoff worth the wait.



Bitcoin says Hello World.

Check out that $6000 GDAX daily candle.



Respect.

Those 2010 early adopters accepted much more risk than the 2013 adopters and beyond.  I doubt very many of them sunk much more than a few hundred or a few grand into it before they made 1000x gains, unless they were already wealthy to begin with, or mining and forced to sell to break even. Order books couldn't hardly support large fiat influxes either.

Whereas from 2013 on, plunking down 10 grand or even a cool $100,000 or a few million like our favorite twins required much less risk albeit less return to achieve a much more pronounced effect. 1000 times gains on $1000 is only $1MM.  100 times gains on 100 thousand? Now we're talkin'.

Are you confusing the staircase price with percent adoption?

Price is dictated by supply and demand. I remember when cellular phones were super expensive suitcases and then super cheap bricks and now super expensive smart phones.  Price increases have fluctuated by thousands of percent. Ditto for black and white to color to flat screen to OLED 4k TVs and now 4K projectors. Prices fluctuate wildly with new technologies as adoption creeps forward. Supply and demand. But it is not just pure trading speculation. There is bona-fide underlying value. A solution to a problem. A trustless peer-to-peer network of digital currency exchange. A store of value that is not easily manipulated by federal reserves and the like. etc etc. And yes, more than a touch of speculation, justifiable so. This is exciting stuff.

As long as it's not eroded, yep.

Awesome series. Seconded.

What an adorable correction...



I wonder if mama bear is around?

Maybe I'm naive, but with all these noobs and old-timers alike whining about transaction fees, I worked out some back of the envelope calculations:

The Bitcoin network is consuming about 100 million kWh to process nearly 400,000 transactions per day. That works out to about 250 kWh per transaction, or about a week of modest home consumption, or enough to power 8 typical US households for a day.

The average cost of electricity in the US is 12 cents per kWh which works out to $30 per transaction or 0.0015 BTC at $20k. This is the break-even transaction fee in terms of energy usage. Any less, you're getting a deal and should be happy to wait for confirmation, any more and hopefully your premium speeds things up.

I personally think $30 is a fair price to securely move any amount of BTC to anyone in the world in typically less than an hour, until either electricity costs come down or the network becomes more energy efficient as demand and use dictate. It's way cheaper and more convenient than a wire. And wires are never intended for small amounts. They're for heavy lifting and high priority transfers. Just try and think about trying to send someone several kilos of gold for $30. For better or for worse, BTC has or will become the favored child of savvy millionaires, governments, and institutions to store (HODL!1) and transmit increasingly vast sums of wealth, sans regulation or too much oversight for the time being.

Besides, there already exists a cheaper and more energy efficient way to send crypto: it’s called Litecoin, et al. You want a cheaper transaction fee, switch to a cheaper coin. It’s less than 50 cents to send Litecoin and your transaction is confirmed way faster. Save your BTC transaction fees for heavy lifting.  All these arguments about trying to achieve Visa's daily transaction capacity - why? We already have Visa. Do people really need to securely and irrevocably purchase coffee on the world's first and most desirous blockchain? BTC serves a way different purpose than Visa, and I'm happy having both for the time being. Soon enough there will be Xapo, Revolut, and Square charge card options that will work out a cheap way to transact off-chain and settle on-chain once a month or year or whatever floats your boat.

To me, the analogy between to gold, silver, copper seems apt for various crypto. The abundance, demand, difficulty and cost of extraction and delivery costs get factored into each crypto's price. But BTC still has some tricks up its sleeve, like LN and atomic swaps and other inevitable network improvements clever people will eventually figure out. The future crypto ecosystem looks bright to me. And hopefully the carbon footprint will improve as energy sources and blockchain efficiencies shift into the future.

Your energy assumption is only 22.6 million kWh per day. That is only 1/4th estimated by this source, at nearly 100 million kWh:

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

I am curious, what is your source?

I agree, spamming is a problem and I don't know if anything clever can be done to abate in the near term.


I don't know that Charlie would promote Litecoin as a direct competitor but rather occupying a different market niche. Besides, in every other industry, competition is what keeps entities honest and efficient, no? Once users realize they can save on time and fees on another crypto network, transaction demand and fees on the Bitcoin network should drop. But again, I don't know how to handle spamming transaction fee inflation. How do we keep transactions honest?

Looks like we are completing the third inverse head and shoulders of the month on the 1 hour and 30 min charts. Every 10 days, like clockwork. Bullish.

Today or tomorrow may be the day we break out above $20k.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/inverseheadandshoulders.asp

I've got a different dilemma. I started out all BTC. Then I added 10% LTC which promptly fell to less than 1% during the 2014-2016 drought. So pitiful I couldn't even be bothered to sell. Then holy shit the chikun arose and now miraculously makes up 20% of my stash!

Meanwhile, during the clone wars, airdrops and forks started appearing left and right... Lumens, Byteball, Bitcore, BeeeeeCash, BitGold, popping up like arcade games bonuses, pew pew! I ditched all the shitforks, but the shitalts I diversified just for giggles, representing less than 1% of my stash.

But now these shitalts are worth like 5% of my stash and growing. Together with LTC, we're talking 25% of my stash!

Every time I think, ok NOW is the time to convert to BTC, the pile of shit keeps just keeps growing! I've got total decision paralysis over this. Sell the shit, keep the shit, sell the shit, keep the shit?!? Meanwhile, the pile of shit has become sentient and starting to talk back to me and has even possessed Brian Kelly, who's screaming buy the shit, buy the shit!!! Holy mother, who's next, Jim Cramer? Booyah!

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

My coins were released already.

Strange, I can buy but I cannot sell BCash from the Coinbase interface yet. There is no trade history on GDAX yet but the books are starting to fill.

I only kept a small transactional amount on Coinbase. All my cold wallet BCash is long gone.

Haha who sold at $14,001 on GDAX?

And whoever bought... hat tip to you, sir.

Look, they scrawled their names on the floor...

Imagine if Steve Jobs sold his iPhone to prove he didn't have any conflict of interest with it's future development.

He already profited from it's rise and now has no vested interest in its future. If it fails, he can shrug while his cult bears the financial bruising.

What kind of leader says, "Do as I say, not as I do."

What a dolt to cause such damage to his own product.

Bitcoin is up 90% this month and 1800% this year. That help?

NICE. Instant classic:

https://youtu.be/UG7zLhEWanc

Remy - Bitcoin Billionaire

"Opposing forks like a Chinese restaurant" haha

All this to wind up on the wrong side of history. My my.

Only one of these is achieving their "vision" through ASIC exploits, mining cartels, spamalot, insider trading, and downright petty tyranny.

"BCash, BCash, Beeecash"

Putin!

No, wait,  that's Vitalik...

Some perspective, Rosewater:

Bitcoin has remained above $10,000 for only 20 days now, and above $15,000 for 10 days. (Bitstamp)

It has traded above $18,000 a whopping 4 days, only 1 of which it remained above $18,000 all day.

Bitcoin IS up, and remains bullish AF. You just need to zoom out on the charts. Start looking at 1 day candles, instead of 1 min. Go for a walk. Try and forget about Bitcoin for a week. A month. A year if you can. Go on vacation. It'll still be here when you return.

FTFY


Your dreamboat:



taken from:
https://twitter.com/AwashInEchoes/status/943921356525260801

Mortgage the goat.

I really want to see one final total panic sell, all the way down to $10,000 in a matter of minutes, all out hysteria, just like the old days. Enough of this tortuous creeping down and half-assed attempts at recovery. This shit is barely showing up on the weekly candles. Just be done with it, so we can resume our journey out of the solar system as we hitch a ride with Voyager to the next one.

Even more than this, I really want to see BeeCrash explode on the launchpad and slam into the ground; for the love of God and all that is holy, I'm not a religious person by any means, but I'll become one if that's what it takes to please let it drop below $1000. Tonight. Please. Pray with me brethren. And if there might just be a whale-brother who might still be holding it, dump it like a load of bad spicy Mexican food, full eye-watering evacuation. Don't even bother flushing. Just leave it for the next guy to share in mutual disgust.

Amen.

No. I meant $1000. BCH. Not to buy. To Die.

You forgot 1163 to 152. 384 if you want to be generous.

19/1/18 please

NOW we're talking!

We've fallen below last week's candle, but still have a little ways to go before touching bottom of the fortnight before. One more weekly candle to breach and we'll start to seriously flirt with $10,000 again. Yes that was only a couple weeks ago, peeps.

Bitcoin is still gearing up for mass adoption and this was but a taste of the public's hunger for it. Everybody on the inside knows Bitcoin isn't ready for primetime yet, but it will be. Oh yes, it will be. Honey badger just found a whole nest of larvae and ate her fill but even she needs time to digest. She just popped a squat to make room before returning for more tasty defenseless larvae. Yum yum.

I'm so happy to see BeeCrash below $2000. Only a little more to go before it breaches $1000.  Oh WTF, before I can even post this, my observation has not aged well! BURN BCH BURN!!

10401/19892 = 0.52 Coinbase

We only need to break 15600 on stamp to finish off the day with a green candle. 

Not so easy or simple, unfortunately. Have you heard of the Exit Tax? Capital gains are realized for high net worth individuals upon renouncing.

You still owe cap gains if you don't renounce and just expat. Unless you plan on just hiding and never setting foot in US again nor using any international banks cooperating with FinCen rules.

Puerto Rico offers tax free cap gains for residents, but you still owe on any gains realized up to the date you become a resident.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2017/02/27/renounce-u-s-heres-how-irs-computes-exit-tax/#45c8627287d4

Agreed. However, I'm suspecting you're not married or have many close family relations in the US? The moment I brought up renouncing to my wife, and that she would need to apply for visas to visit family, friends, etc., well... you can imagine the response. Although she's warming up to it proportionally to crypto value.

Which begs the question, how much is US citizenship worth? A US passport gets you in a lot of places without visas or trouble. Attaining citizenship in another country takes time and often a good deal of (traceable, taxable) fiat. Although being stateless is an option, it's not recommended for long. You have no rights, anywhere.

If long term cap gains are your only income, then the first $70k (married) is 0%, the next half a million is 15%, anything over half a million is 20%.  The effect tax rate on half a million is only 12%.  On a modest $150k realized per year, the effective tax rate is 8%. That's like sales tax, dude.

Agreed that the country is a hot mess. After years of expating, I just returned. Poor timing.

Friends I talked to years ago about Bitcoin and completely given up any hope on taking action have finally decided these last few days to jump in. Timid sideliners are just starting to pull the trigger, precisely because of MSM news coverage of the correction. Bitcoin's on sale! I thought I would have to put a gun to their head to finally make a move. Turns out WuVer's BEECrash did it for me. Go figure.

Really? You mean besides WuVer? I can't help but think these are recent bag holders dumping, not HODLers!

Early adopters don't dump on the exchanges. They call Bobby Cho at Cumberland Mining and sell direct to institutions or high net worth peeps. Min transaction $100,000. Million dollar transactions preferred.

Hahaha. Have you tried depositing/withdrawing $1,000,000 from Coinbase? Or Gemini? Or Bitstamp? In one day? Sure you can exchange it with perhaps minimal slippage if you're not panic selling, but good luck getting it out!!!

No thank you sir, I prefer to close on a fatty fat wire direct to my account, same day.

Bitcoin was a $5-10 billion market at most in late 2013, concentrated on a handful of exchanges, most infamously Mt Gox, which was manipulated by Karpeles' Willie bot followed by the catastrophic loss of Bitcoin and collapse of the whole exchange and fragile ecosystem. You know this, Tera.

Bitcoin is now at least a $200B market cap by itself and has established itself as the trading foundation of an overall crypto market of half a trillion and is even legal tender in Japan of all places, in spite of Mt Gox. There are hundreds of exchanges in dozens of countries and massive infrastructure and overhead now invested in Bitcoin's future. Sure there are many who want to see it fail, mainly governments, regulators and old-school investors, but there are now far too many devoted to seeing it succeed.

I understand the importance of chronic unease and cautious optimism in such a volatile investment. But now it just seems you are just trying to incite doom and gloom, you are trying to instill fear, uncertainty and doubt, you are searching for patterns to corroborate your... hope, is it?? Hope that Bitcoin will continue to fall?  Because it doesn't just seem like fear driving your prognostications. It actually seems like you seriously hoping Bitcoin will stumble and fall into a multi-year bear market and retest old lows. Is this all stemming from regret? Regret that you didn't buy enough to exit this whole game by now and the hope that you can scoop up some more cheap coin?

Rough patches remain ahead, no doubt, but the days of $300 or $3000 coin are Christmas past.

Your gains prior to moving to PR are still taxed, only future gains are zero. 183 days of residency are required and you cannot have a taxable home (or supported children) living in the mainland anymore. FEMA emergencies do not count against residency for a maximum of two weeks I think.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p570.pdf

How is this TA?

You can recover your Trezor/Ledger seeds in Electrum, too. First thing I tested when I got mine. Offline of course.

The ledger nano s only lets you keep three or so wallet 'apps' at a time. But deleting a wallet app does not 'remove' the associated coins: as soon as you load the wallet app again with your pin, you can access your 'stored' coins again. It's apparently a security measure to minimize the amount of hackable storage. The ledger blue has more storage.

I also like the fact that hardware wallets are compatible with Electrum and maybe other wallet apps or browser apps, too. So you don't have you use the packaged wallets if you don't want to.

Hahaha...

Agreed. I would even say we are still at Take off. Institutional Investors are only now just thinking about jumping in; very few actually have. The Public is only now becoming Aware--the vast majority have not inhaled.

For us long time HODLers looks like we'll finish off the year with Bitcoin up only 1200% instead of 1800% from the ATH, and Litecoin up only 4600% instead of 8000%. Sigh. Better luck next year? 

For any bag-HODLers who bought at the ATH, don't despair. You're not a true HODLer until you've been branded by the valley of -50% returns at least once. 

Yep. 29 days since the last $10k doubling floor was established, if we don't breach it. From $5k to $10k was only 50 days, floor to floor. We still have until mid January for the $20k floor to be on pace with the previous doubling. I wouldn't complain if it took 70 or 90 days instead. Still looks healthy to me.

Ok you get a special brand. Which cheek do you prefer? 

Then ‘They Tax You’, rather.

Tribal rejuvenation! Only this time round, we have access to all the other tribes best practices. Systems are evolving faster than bureaucracies and regulators can possibly cope. Centralized knowledge with decentralized power. The world has never seen this before.

Altcoins Shitcoins be like:

My sentiments exactly... Nice volume spike... Can't stop staring at the 1 min chart drama playing out.

Bull flag coming to a close? Hope it holds!

Before Chinese New Year even!

Alrighty, this baby breakout is making me brave enough to call $10,000 our new floor. Time for a doubling floor update!

$10k marks the 12th doubling since Bitcoin was $2.50 in 2012.

From $2.5k to $5k took 77 days.
From $5k to $10k has taken 100 days, if $10k holds.

The shortest doubling floor was from $20 to $40 in 39 days.
The longest doubling floor was from $80 to $160 in 546 days during the Mt Gox era.

I'm guesstimating from trend ~90 days from now we might establish $20,000 as a new floor, sometime in April?

As a HODLer, I prefer charting floors vs all-time highs. Traders prefer ATHs, I suppose. Too transient and susceptible to FUD for me.

Hopefully this is the last time we see quadruple digits!

Well a quick slice and dice aligned by calendar year might reveal some trends. But I doubt calendar numerology will get you too far.

With the exception of 2014, every year ended higher than it started. The lowest prices of the year were in Jan/Feb and highest in Dec, but this has already been pointed out.

2014 is the only year that ended lower than it started. This was following 2013 which achieved three doubling floors prior to Mt Gox rise and fall.

2017 achieved four doublings floors if $10k holds... Let's hope 2018 doesn't follow 2014's trend!

So how worried should we really be about this imminent Tether implosion?

https://mashable.com/2018/01/29/bitcoin-tether-stablecoin-alleged-scam/

Anyone taking measures?

Tether is not intended to be speculative. There's supposed to be $2.3B actual fiat backing it.

vs crypto "market cap", which is hugely speculative. It's not an actual valuation, it's simply supply x price.

So yes, the collapse of Tether could have a hugely disproportionate effect on the whole crypto market if it's backed by little to nothing.

$10,000 is a pretty entertaining psychological barrier.

There are the stubborn buyers who refuse to buy 5 digit Bitcorn, but snatch it up the moment it drops a mere 0.1% into "paltry" $9k territory.

And then there the stubborn sellers who refuse to part with 4 digit Bitcorn, quickly selling it the moment it rises a mere 0.1% into "lofty" $10k territory.

Up and down we go, like a see-saw.

Or like a fisherman at the $10k waters edge, trying to reel in $9k fish. While the fish are leaping out of the water determined to catch juicy $10k bugs.

The indecision in today's market is boringly maddening. Looks like we'll close on a doji.

Feb 16 is also Chinese New Year

Do it again. I've never been so happy to see the price rise $100.

This is not the sharp-bottomed high-volume turnaround I'm expecting. It needs to be louder. More to come?

Panic hasn't quite set in yet... this still looks like a very well-measured capitulation, with a very polite exchange of hands between bag-holders and reloaders.

Still only half the volume of the previous two big drops since ATH.

I'm guessing we need to be a bit closer to Chinese New Year for full panic mode to hit, although I really wish we would just get this Brazilian wax job over with and be done with it.

Yeah, that was barely even a pinprick!

Welp, I think I see the floor...

Below all the muck, piss, and tears and BobLawblaw's beer shits and

--ope!-- there goes Tera sacrificially tossed over the edge, sorry buddy, we should have all listened to you more...

Take r0ach with you please, though... And kwukduck, too.

My wife brought home a giant vase of tulips this week.  Been watching them bloom in concert with this correction.

She has no idea the significance.

Ah well...

What's better than roses on a piano?

Tulips on an organ! 

More importantly, who's not buying at these prices and why?

I'm getting real close to panic buying. Last time that happened was the drop from $3k to $1.8k.

Edit: If it drops to $5k I might sell the house. 

This whole price discovery process reminds me of that Fight Club scene:

"I felt like destroying something beautiful."

We all know how the central banks fared at the end of that movie.

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

7000! Where's our memes?

Get the 8000 memes ready. And most especially $10k.

All those late-to the-party pansy whiners who were wishing, praying for a correction to load up on, here it is. Load up!

The magical Bitcoin time machine only comes around once, twice, three times at most...

Dear Mom,

Today marks the 5th night in a row we’ve been holed up below the 200EMA. Although the bears stopped their relentless selling a couple days ago, most of us HODLers are still sell-shocked. For some, millions in fiat have been wiped from their balance sheets. We still don’t know what happened to the permabulls, no one expected they were going to abandon us at the 100EMA. Charlie spotted a couple longhorns making some short runs in the last couple days; we can only pray they’re enough to pull us out of our 200EMA foxhole. Rumor is some institutional wannabe cowboys were bringing a tractor-trailer full of steers, but you know how rumors go. Last I heard they’re still rallying behind their chief-of-the-moment Giancarlo, building up liquid courage.

There is ray of hope: For the first time in 11 days, we might close over the 7EMA today or maybe tomorrow, fleeting though it might be. The soothing rain it brings might cool this scorched earth and let us breathe a little more freely.

Some of the guys are most worried about crossing no man’s land between the 200EMA and 100EMA. One step at a time, I told them: first let’s lumber over the 200EMA. On our way, if we’re lucky, in a week or less we might gain some air support from the 30EMA. If things are calm enough, we’ll make a break straight for the relative safety of the 100EMA wall. Here’s hoping none of us will be mauled to death on the way.

Over that 100EMA wall are hot showers and satellite phones to our families and food, REAL food. It’s disgusting, I hate to admit, but I’ve seen some of the guys eating shitcoins to survive. I heard Bitconnect killed a whole platoon, while Ripple made half our unit sick to their stomach. The guys fueling up on Monero won’t tell us how they feel and honestly I just can’t read them. Litecoin has sustained many with just mild indigestion, but ever since Charlie traded his whole stash for some secret deal with an unknown rancher, a lot of the guys just don’t trust it anymore.  No one wants to talk about BeeCrash since, you know, the Big Betrayal. And Ethereum. I don’t even want to talk about Ethereum. What little stomach contents I have just surged into my mouth a little.

Once we’re out, we pray to Karhu we won’t have to make a mad dash back to our 200EMA foxhole. If the bears bring even more leverage we might have to dig even deeper.

If the coast is clear we’ll make a mad dash to the 100EMA. I’ll call you then, Mom, I promise. If we get some long-awaited shore-leave far above the 100EMA, I’ll come visit straight away. Meanwhile, I’ll try and write again soon.

Love,


P.S. Send more of those lightning-nodes. They were tasty, but not nearly enough to sustain me.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2905720.new#new

Dear Son,

I know you think this is war, but this ain't nothing compared to being GOXXED! Every time I see that prison-reformed formerly-bubble-butted Karpeles it makes my skin crawl wondering where the hell he hid all his excess skin. It boils my blood to know even he, that SOB, has profited massively from the worst bear mauling the cryptosphere had ever seen!

So listen hear sonny-boy, while the gettin's good and cheap, you milk that correction cow, you milk her for everything she got!! And I promise you, sooner or later, she will deliver you the newborn bull run you've only ever dreamed of! I'm thinking $30k, $40k, hell even $100k if you still believe in the all-mighty-but-often-fallible Master Lucifer!

I heard from the news the 7EMA has arrived at your location. Hopefully it's helped quench the fire, shit, and brimstone you've been holed up in. It's amazing what a little break in the weather can do. If it lasts through the night, maybe you and the boys can find yourself a little glade for a little R&R with some local cowgirls. Never underestimate the potential of shithole locals to pull you out of a rough spot! After all, each and every one of us was delivered unto this world a mere fart's breath from a shithole whether we like it or not, and if we don't win this war against centralized finance, I guarantee you each and every one of us will end up right back in shithole status!



So HODL the 7EMA line! Keep your eye on the 200EMA; two or three more days and by all reports, you should be over the hump. But it ain't over yet, no-sir-sonny-boy-bob-ee, it over yet... You make your way for that 100EMA as fast as your gangrene legs can take you! Ditch every one of your soon-to-be-worthless shitcoins along the way, vault over the 30EMA without pause, and become the hyperbolic son I've always known you can be!

Your loving father,


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2905720.0

It seems like the cryptosphere is holding its breath until Chinese New Year (Feb 16) is over. I suspect the second half of Feb into March we'll see a thaw. Esp as Korean exchanges and account holders fall into regulatory order.

edit:

I agree this feel more technical but sometimes people need a bit more reason to act on technicals, even if it's only psychological or numerology-based. TA is numerology though...

Inverse head and shoulders breaking out on the 1 hr. Choo choo!

Nice symmetry on the shoulders.

Translation: BTFD

Let's assume (for the third or fourth time, I know) that this is the last time we see quad-digits. Dangerous, I know, but I get impatient.

Since my last update, this means Da Bears only managed to erode into a single doubling floor, extending the $5k to $10k floor by 21 more days, for a total of 121 days since we last saw $5k.

For reference, the Mt Gox correction eroded three presumed doubling floors ($640, $320, $160), taking over three years to reestablish these support levels.

Projecting from trend, I'm thinking another 90 days until we establish $20k as a new floor, maybe around mid-May.

$10k marks the 12th Bitcoin doubling floor since $2.50 in 2012.
The shortest doubling floor was 39 days from $20 to $40.
The longest doubling floor was 546 days from $80 to $160 post-Mt Gox.

As a HODLer, I prefer charting floors vs all-time highs. ATHs are too transient and susceptible to FUD, making them more suitable for rektees traders. 

Go Bitcoin Go!



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2834180.msg29061043

Let's project.  

If we assume the average doubling floor time of 6 months over the last 5 years (including the 2014-2015 bear market):

$20k Aug 2018
$40k Feb 2019
$80k Aug 2019
$160k Feb 2020
$320k Aug 2020
$640k Feb 2021
$1.28MM Aug 2021

Three and a half more years.

If the doubling time persists at 3 months (the approx. average of the last three doublings), then just under two years. Mid 2020.

Wow.

edit: skipped a year

Dear Papa,

There was resistance as expected at the 100EMA, but we made our way across no man's land from the 200EMA as quickly as I'd hoped in my last letter to mama. For three days, our unit made daily raids over the wall, only to retreat and regroup by night. If we can HODL the line today, it will mark the first full day in 35 days we've spent north of the 100EMA wall.

I can smell fear in the bears' musk. They are nervous and anxious. Some of the shorter units are getting squeezed out by our long lines. It won't be long before they fully retreat. Reinforcements are preparing to swoop in behind us and shore up the wall, so hopefully this is the last time we retreat this deeply. We are winning over the hearts and minds of institutions and citizens alike. Soon, no tyrannical government will be able to resist us. We answer to a higher calling.

Tell Mama it won't be long before I'm home to celebrate another ATH. Perhaps when the spring tulips are in full bloom again.

Your battle-hardened son,


The Full Saga:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2905720.new#new

The symmetry of this beast is astonishing...

So far.


4H candles

Really? Ok, maybe my mammalian brain is just pattern-seeking...


4H candles (Jan - Present)

As soul-crushing as it feels for the price to capriciously fluctuate $2-3,000 from one day to the next:

I am still incredulous the price hasn't tested below $5,000 even ONCE since we sliced through it like butter five months ago.

The daily 200MA is still RISING and currently sits at ~$9,000.  Hell, the 100MA is only now flattening out just over $12,000!

The market has more or less ABSORBED all these Mt Gox mega-dookies, like a thirsty sponge, averaging +/-$10,000 for much of the time.

At least this time, once we finally pass $10,000 for the last time and eventually hit a new ATH, HODLers will feel like they frucking EARNED it.

 

This is still my favorite TeraBeara chart from a year ago. According to her long-term prognostications, we should be around $800 right now. Hey, only 1 order of magnitude off!

Accordingly, if Tera believes we'll hit $3,000 this year, maybe we'll hit $30,000 instead! 

I mean no ill-will, Tera. We've needed a few PermaBears to round out all the PermaBulls, and I've appreciated you reining in the troops' lofty expectations at times.

But life can't be all doom and gloom. We need hope, too, and I hope you find yours.

This should be huge news, if it weren't drowning in a sea of speculation FUD.

Once we tag bottom, hopefully fundamentals and technical improvements such as these will once again take center stage and carry us to the next ATH.

As painful as this correction has been, it really is helping to purge all the blind speculation, ICOs, useless forks and other scams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbYWhdLO43Q

For every turd of FUD out there, there's some unicorn sherbet just waiting to be dispensed...

TURD: US Congressional Hearings: "Bitcoin is a Crock for Men in Pajamas!"
SHERBERT:
 - Congress is actually talking about us? Who cares about the actual verbal diarrhea coming out their congressional gobholes... By merely talking about us, they further legitimize crypto.
 - As an aside, does Sherman really believe that men in pajamas don't also fruckin trade stocks, options, real estate, derivatives and precious metals while telling their wives they'll be millionaires one day? What an idiot.

TURD: Mt Gox Trustee market sells BTC and BCH
SHERBERT:
 - Goxees are actually receiving settlements?! Wowee. How much of that will come right back into crypto? Kobayashi may be an idiot, and a short-lived one at that, but the fact that Bitcoin has appreciated so frucking much that the trustee only needed to liquidate 15% of the recovered stash to pay back ALL the creditors' claims is a miracle in and of itself. That's not exactly how the story ended with Bernie Madoff's clients. This fact is being WAY under-reported. I can't believe the market is focused so much more on slippage instead of Bitcoin's incredible asset appreciation since then. The real idiots in this story are the judge and creditors who insisted on being paid back in fiat-equivalent at the time of Gox's collapse instead of Bitcoin, just because the price of BTC continued to collapse post-Mt Gox. Oh ye of little faith, careful what you ask for and now eat your frucking cake!
 - BTC dominance 42% and rising!
 - BCH $600 hahaha

TURD: Google and Facebook ban crypto ads
SHERBET:
 - Fruck the ICOs, Shitecoins, Exchanges, and Scammers!!!!
 - Bitcoin dominance 42% and rising!

TURD: Bitcoin searches trending down
SHERBERT:
 - Dude, who really needs to search for Bitcoin now that it's being reported daily on CNBC, NPR, WSJ, Twitter, newsfeeds, etc etc? Everyone who's anyone with any interest or the means to delve into Bitcoin at this point in the adoption curve has already done so. They don't need to search for it anymore. They're already in it. To me, the fact that search trends spike and then fall off means that action has already been taken. When was the last time you googled "how to buy Bitcoin"?

TURD: Regulation Fears Driving Bitcoin Down
SHERBERT:
 - By choosing to regulate Bitcoin, governments further recognize its legitimacy and are forced to shine light on the benefits to society. Nobody sane wants Bitcoin, fiat, gold or anything else to fund terrorism or money-laundering, and the more Bitcoin is associated with the shadowy underworld, the more negative attention and regulation it will bring upon us. Bitcoin may have started on the backs of drug-dealers, but the crypto lot must also prove it can clean up well and be presentable at their parents' holiday dinner.

TURD: Bitcoin is no longer profitable for miners
SHERBERT:
 - HAHAHAHA.

I'm sure we all have a little sherbert to dispense...

Once. I did it once when I was 12 years old. This was pre-internet days; a dial-up BBS meet-up in the 80s.

Wow was that awkward. These guys were NOTHING like I imagined from their online personas. Granted, I was pretty fucking naive.

Some things are just better left imagined.

Previous Bitcoin corrections have largely been driven by amateur speculation. Any whales that existed were early adopters, merchants or exchanges: Lucky, unsavory, or entrepreneurial sons of bitches, more or less.

2017 marked the beginning of true institutional interest and speculation. Prior to this, the market cap was so low, institutions were basically barred entry due to a lack of serious value/supply, regulation, infrastructure and legitimacy. And here we are now in 2018 with futures markets, MSM coverage, regulations on the horizon, congressional hearings, even exchanges on the cusp of appearing legitimate, and much more on the way. Analysts predict the crypto market cap to breach a trillion soon enough in the years to come.

However, this Mt Gox bankruptcy case illustrates the issues institutions face when trying to enter or exit this relatively small crypto market. A $400MM to $2B court-ordered liquidation is no small beans to be sure, but it's a mere drop in the global commodities bucket, especially considering full liquidation will take place over months to years. If Bitcoin really wants to be taken seriously by the big boys, dozens of Mt Goxes need to be able to enter and exit the market at any given time, without the whole market melting down, psychologically or otherwise.

And so 2018 marks a pivot point. Amateur speculators are spooked beyond belief and exiting the market in droves. But I think institutions are just starting to lick their chops and down-right salivate over the opportunity being handed to them. A global commodity that can and will be fiat-regulated, with a deflationary supply that cannot be artificially modified, an immutable public ledger, and unbreakable security if done right, barring any quantum leaps. We all know the technological benefits of Bitcoin are a dream come true for institutions, much more so than for the average Joe Public. Amateur speculators have been dreaming for this moment, the day when institutions take their little pet project seriously.

So what I don't understand is why everyone is suddenly running away, quitting the race, and basically just handing over the reins to the big boys for what is gearing up to be only 15% of December's price?

Because of one Mt Gox? Because of fear of regulation? Because of a crackdown on scammers? Because of fucking Google advertisements?

What gives, people? Isn't this what we were all waiting for?

I'm seeing a lot of talk of a protracted crypto winter like we saw in 2014. Do we honestly think the big boys are going to wait that long?

That's like leaving a massive, meaty pachyderm carcass on the savannah, expecting the lions and vultures will just leave it alone for you through the winter.

Prepare to recycle the $9000 memes.

 
Admittedly crude shits and giggles:



If we stay above the trend line unbroken since BTC's origin in 2010, BTC will be no lower than $13.5k by year's end.

If we stay above the trend line unbroken since BTC's first bubble correction in 2011, BTC will be no lower than $7.5k by year's end.

If, however, we stay on the trend line unbroken since the 2017 bull run, BTC will be no lower than $43k by year's end.

Which will break? Which will hold?

Who will HODL? Who will SODL?

History rhymes, it never repeats.

Which time best rhymes with now?

Vote here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3174299.0

Pure Energy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRyHZccoAsk

Assnostication:

Dump in progress.

$7500, if it doesn't break the trendline formed by the two previous dips.

The optimist in me says this looks like a mighty fine bull goose pennant.

Death cross be damned: This goose will just lay a golden cross.


1D: 7/50/200 SMA

It's only a trend line until it's not. One of these lines will be broken soon enough. Or even both.

We're now on month three of higher lows and lower highs. Not much foot or head room to keep playing this game, two or three weeks tops before one or the other trend line breaks.

Anyone pay attention to ALFAquote's Fair Price Index? The market certainly doesn't seem to. Too bad something like this doesn't make it on MSM finance reporting, to help with price discovery, futures, sentiment, etc.



Are there other published indices like these? Stocks and equity markets have all kinds of economic indicators to guide fair value. Methinks this is sorely needed in the crypto world, too, and tying it to spot mining costs is probably about as good it can get.

How low is low enough for bulls to realize these are already bargain bin prices? For any remaining butt-hurt bears on the fence to finally GTFO and leave us to our rockets, trains and violins?

...let's hope for a double goosing!



edit: rotated optimistically

KEEP CALM AND HODL ON
Fundstrat's Tom Lee Interview
https://twitter.com/CNBCFastMoney/status/979112471037345792

"BTC gains driven by just 9 days per year on average"


Institutions are just salivating over the current prices. Average Joe speculators are just handing over the reins, quaking in fear.

Isn't it ironic that the very systems Bitcoin was created to circumvent will be Bitcoin's apparent savior for the next bull run?

Institutional bulltards are gonna plow right through this quivering mass of amateur instabears.

Pathetic, really.

Here's a hint: look at the dates in his chart. It ain't March.

CALLING ALL WEAK HANDS!!

Now's the time to dump!

Give us the volume spike we need to lay down a new track!

Don't let the caboose hit you on the way out!

CCMF

Already old news? 3 hrs ago

https://twitter.com/whalepool/status/979535185321570304
Looks like @OKEx_ will be rolling back balance data to Hong Kong 5:00, March 30
They will settle all the open interest and issue new contract and resume by 15:30 Hong Kong time
This is the proper decision. Total deviation occurred at this point. Fair outcome.

We totally need t-shirts made to sport at the next halvening:

I SURVIVED THE REKTONING
(of 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2018...)

LOVE IN THE TIME OF GOX

KEEP CALM AND HODL ON

I SODL AT THE BOTTOM

OKGO? OKEX'D OKREPEAT

Daily volume needs to double or triple before the end of the day to turn this into a legitimate support bounce.

Might need to breach $6000 again to do it.

Still an unbelievable amount of wishy-washiness going on:

Anyone who bought in at less than $1000, this is still too expensive to buy MOAR.

Anyone who bought in from $1000 to $5000 has trigger fingers hovering over the sell button.

Anyone who bought in from $5000 to $10,000 is probably paralyzed with indecision. Should I buy or should I sell now?

Anyone who bought in from $10,000 to $20,000 is spinning on the floor blowing snot bubbles out their nose from tears of disbelief while their girlfriends/sig others/parents are trying to figure out how to panic sell for them.

Anyone who bought in at less than $100 is probably sipping on a cocktail, contemplating either the lambo or the speedboat this weekend.

Shitcoiners, who got us into this mess, have every reason to be desperate. Go check out their forums.

Bitcoiner OGs, the Bogdanoff bros got our back, yo.

UK Royal Family Secretly Buying Huge Quantities of Bitcoin

“Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth wishes to express her joy that His Royal Highness The Prince Of Wales has, at long last, found a way to make some filthy lucre.”



"After three centuries as banker to Britain’s rich and famous, from Charles Dickens to Queen Elizabeth II, Coutts, one of the world’s oldest banks, is trying to modernize. They are allegedly employing a team of agents to buy bitcoins from localbitcoin sellers around the globe. Often paying with sacks of cash, or trucks filled with gold bars."

 

Fascinating. I've always wondered how seasteads were launched.

 

It would be nice to see some actual volume accompany this rise.

When FOMO?

edit:

We're up 16% in the last couple days. How's that comparing with Wall St?

Congratulations, Ladies and Gents:

We have achieved PEAK MISERY! We're talking UNPARALLELED MISERY, not seen since Sept 2011. People actually had a valid reasons to be miserable then. Their Bitcorn only worth two dollar.

Now, we're just a bunch of whiny instabears worried about such terribly frightening issues as futures, taxation, regulation, hacks, bankruptcy settlements, and for fuck's sake, the tanking stock market?

Seriously people, if you can't see these issues are all GOOD NEWS for Bitcoin going forward, then GTFO. Sell your coins to someone worthy of sweetly CODLing them, for years to come if they have to. (OTC or P2P, of course. Don't you dare touch the Cartel's manipulated exchanges.)

This is the moment of truth. This is when baby lambonaires are born.

The last four of Bitcoin's MOST MISERABLE MOMENTS showed positive returns after 1, 3, 6, and 12 months. Even Sept 2011's bag-holders showed 20% returns after one year!

I know none of us have any capital left. But think of all your easily manipulated grandmamas, parents, teachers, aunts and uncles! You've likely already hacked into their accounts anyway, so get in there and BTFD on their behalf so that they, too, can share in this glorious MISERY!





The Bitcoin Misery Index, BMI, Is Flashing A Buy Signal

Sorry, Rosey, I know the misery bubbling from your well runs deep.

But look at the bright side: it can't possibly drop another $12,000! 

Exactly this. We sliced through $5000 like a hot knife through butter and never tested again. Every other psychological barrier we've tested numerous times. I've been waiting for it ever since.


If this doesn't get the flailing newpaper media drooling, I don't know what will. The promise of easy, cheap, fast microtransactions is major game changer for newspapers, gamers, musicians, bloggers, digital artists... basically THIS is the promise that propelled Bitcoin in the early days, starting with two pizzas but somehow ending up with futures markets and gold parity.

With microtransactions, you can lease software applications by the minute, pay only for the streaming content you like, circumvent advertisers; the possibilities are limitless.

With microtransactions, you can effectively vote with your dollars and cents.

Once this goes mainstream, it's THIS that will propel the next bull cycle forward.

All you content providers, get chopping.

Where were you on Feb 5?

Certainly not ALL three months, but definitely some:


Taxes. Taxes are good reasons. $25 Billion owed for 2017 in just the USA.

Cryptocurrencies Could Be 20% of Capital Gains Tax Payments This Year

The IRS has upped its ante with its Coinbase aggression. Misleading or ignoring the IRS is a whole hornet's nest of trouble. Bitcoin's history is rife with prosecutions and asset seizures for those who did not pay their taxes. Often, taxes gets them in more trouble than the illegal goods and services they might have been trading in the first place.

Anyone who thought BCash was just free money? Well, guess what, taxes. Every fork claimed in 2017 is taxable income, whether you sold it or not. If it was worth more than $1000, you need to pay taxes in the quarter you claimed it. Otherwise, guess what? Even more penalties and interest owed on top of your taxes.

Already spent your windfall during Christmas/New Year? Well time to unspend it.

So what we have here is a bunch of people owing taxes and back taxes and penalties/interest on taxes owed for maybe more than just 2017 and a whole bunch more people just waiting for them to further liquidate to pay their taxes. So the price will continue to drop, and all the smart traders and whales and investors and institutions are just twiddling their thumbs, waiting, accumulating on the dips, waiting.

Patiently.

Just like every Q1.

Do not underestimate the power of a sovereign nation to duly collect their taxes and to instill enough fear into motivating people to pay their taxes.

The very foundations of sovereignty rests upon the ability of a nation to collect taxes. And inflict punishment on those who do not.

The IRS relies on self reporting for the most part. But large fiat withdrawals and deposits will likely get reported to IRS, triggering a possible audit.

There is no statute of limitations for false returns, evasion, or failing to file. If you knowingly do not report and the IRS happens to get smarter in the future with regard to crypto (remember, the Blockchain is immutable), then you're just postponing the pain and fear and penalty.

The penalties are not simply civil. We're talking criminal prosecution, prison time and asset seizure, depending on the scale.

So pay your taxes, people. Bitcoin was not born in a vacuum; society contributed and taxes benefit society, like it or not.

Bitcorn price Q1:



Bitcoin price Q2+:

Touche.

However, does this justify removing one's nose to spite the face?

Just because I find war abhorrent, doesn't mean I also find diplomacy, education, research, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. abhorrent.

I vote my conscience and try to inform others on issues important to me. Society is ultimately responsible for who we allow to lead, whether that is who directs our wars or who regulates our financial systems.

Bitcoin will not succeed without society's backing. That means paying your taxes fairly and avoiding criminality. For some, this might require renouncing citizenship and moving to a more tolerable jurisdiction. So be it.

Sadly, it’s hard to argue with this. This is what has drawn so many of us to Bitcoin in the first place and why I HODL for the most part, giving directly to charities and family to reduce the tax bill.

But for all y’all weak-handed speculators who drove the price down in the first place, pay your fucking taxes or they may even take Bitcoin from us.

Our day will come.

May 13, 2018 please  

thanks mic

Right now, the price seems more determined by news and perceived deadlines, like tax filing dates and Mt Gox liquidations.

The volume is so low, a single whale could probable write his mama's name on the price charts. TA feels rather useless at the moment.

Haha, love that movie. Instant classic. Propelled ramen to new heights for me.

Don’t watch it hungry.

It's almost impossible to predict where people's demon's might take them. I watched a guy leap through a (closed) window, and then proceed to gnaw a guy's thumb off who was trying to help him. Dude was an experienced psychonaut too, but ayahuasca delves deeper than most.

At the same time, my spinal column lit like a rocket and propelled me straight into god's eye. A few millennia and hundreds of death/rebirth cycles later, I woke up. Like WOKE woke.

Bitcorn was a no-brainer "risk" after that! What's the worst that can happen? 

Analysts, institutions, and developers remain incredibly bullish.

Noob speculators, butt-hurt weak hands, and overextended taxpayers who dove head first into the kiddie pool are hemorrhaging bearishness.

OG HODLers won't sell but won't buy either.

Who will make the first move?

Soros: Bitcoin is a bubble, no wait...BTFD, yo:
George Soros Prepares to Trade Cryptocurrencies

Rockefellers extend middle finger to Soros:
First Soros, Now Rockefellers Move into Cryptocurrency

Futures markets hungry for MOAR:
Cboe urges U.S. regulators to move forward with bitcoin ETFs

Japanese Firm paying salaries in crypto (+10% bonus):
Are Bitcoin Salaries the Future? This Japanese Internet Company Thinks So

Established, Regulated Online Brokerage buys exchange:
Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Coincheck Accepts Monex Takeover Bid

Mobile Payment Firm buys exchange:
Circle CEO Allaire on Bitcoin, Blockchain & the Bank of the Future

Twitter CEO: Bitcoin will be the world's sole currency:
Lightning Labs just raised millions from Jack Dorsey and others to supercharge blockchain transactions

Elizabeth Stark: It's about Bitcoin, Stupid:
Lightning Labs CEO: We are back to a 'bitcoin, not blockchain' world

Fundstrat Analyst Tom Lee: BTFD:
The Bitcoin Misery Index, BMI, Is Flashing A Buy Signal

Analyst Ronnie Moas 2018 Target: $28,000
Ronnie Moas Thinks $300,000 Is a Realistic Bitcoin Price Target

Analyst Trace Mayer 2018 Target: $115,000
TRACE MAYER: BITCOIN MAY HIT ‘SIGNIFICANTLY OVERVALUED’ $115K IN 2018

Analyst Max Keiser: Bitcoin to $100,000:
'Bitcoin is a gift from God to help humanity sort out mess it has made with its money'

Web Bot Founder: New apps and fresh adopters to propel Bitcoin to $60,000 in 2018:
Clif High and John McAfee drop Bitcoin Price Predictions that may shock you

John McAfee: BTFD or I'll eat a dick!:
$1mn by 2020: John McAfee will still ‘eat his own d*ck’ if he’s wrong about Bitcoin

Meanwhile, on Bitcointalk Speculation Forums:
fud Fud FUD Fud fud
DOOM doom doom doom DOOM DOOM DOOM


Bitcoin Price Action:

Bulls shot first. Bears shooting back.

HODLers still standing.

Bitcoin. The drama never ends.

These last couple weeks, I took a gamble.

My wife and I started gifting small amounts of bitcoin to a large number of friends and family. Rainy day fund, college fund, shits and giggles fund, whatever they wanted to call it. Only stipulation was not to sell until after mid 2021, a year after the halvening.

I'm watching the network effect in action. Days like today certainly got their attention. How many will end up adding to their positions, I wonder?

Adoption doesn't just happen. Some people need a little nudge.

Luckily, my gamble paid off in the correct direction. So far. 

The psychological barrier at 10k/200EMA is causing the popular alt ratios to stretch...

When that resistance is broken, will they rebound and propel Bitcoin even higher?

HODL on to your feathers!

This, coming from a company profiting off of sugar water and car accidents.

Although prior years never had the futures markets grab 'em by the mee-ow...

Why bitcoin could rally more than 70% in the coming week, Fundstrat’s Lee says:

Looking at the weeklies going all the way back to 2013, seeing 5 consecutive green candles outside of a bull run is pretty rare.

In fact, they are non-existent during the 2014 bear market (if you don't count consecutive dojis).



It was only during the 2015 recovery/accumulation phase, when price and volume finally bottomed out, that 5-week greens reappeared.
Volatility spiked +/-30% in waves. Volume remained low. In hindsight, this proved to be an extremely lucrative accumulation period.

It took 7 months after the Mid 2014 Bubble top before the start of a 5 week rise again.
It took 14 months after the Late 2014 Bubble top, before the start of a 5 week rise again.
It was with the third 5-week rise, accompanied by a sharp rise in volume, that the great Bull Run of 2015-2017 began.

It has only been 4-5 months since the 2017 Bubble pop before the start of our first 5 week rise.

Methinks this is bullish AF.

During times like these, it helps to take the long view.

Let's play the matching game...



Weekly candles, 50/200 Daily MA
Volume, RSI, MACD

Sure, as long as it's not Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or CNBC. Or Roger Ver. Or...

Do you suppose these are the rats Buffet was referring to?

For every one of these idiots selling, someone is buying. At higher and higher lows.

Buy the Fucking Dip

Bears aren't trying very hard.

Can't even call this a proper triple bottom with the price still more than $1300 above first spike and $840 above second spike.

Even the volume is pathetic compared to the last and especially first spike down.

Baseline trend still climbing.

Bears are running out of steam.

Small time retail bulls are sidelined, waiting for a clear bull run for re-entry. (Pump up the volume, yo.)

Idiots are spooked and distracted by the cloud and stink of short-lived shitcoins buzzing around honey-badger's napping bunghole.

Meanwhile, OTC is going nuts. Big boys are slurping up everything they can. Institutions are on the verge of testing the waters. Established and regulated global exchanges are just starting to set up crypto shop. Custody solutions are popping up left and right.  

Remember, custody was the primary restraint/complaint from the SEC regarding ETFs. There is less and less for them to whine about every day.

Most of the action is taking place behind the scenes right now. The usual retail exchanges are becoming less and less relevant. Even Binance and Bitstamp may become the Netscapes and Yahoos of the future. Poloniex, Monex, BitTrade have already been acquired.

Brace yourselves. The herd is coming.

Goldman Crypto Trading Desk Opening End June (Derivatives)

Brazil largest investment company opening OTC Bitcoin exchange (XDEX)

Canadian OTC Trading is Spiking, India next?

BitGo offering Custody solution

BitGo granted NY BitLicense

Coinbase +50% with Institutional Custody Products?

Remember the good ol' days when this was the place to find out wtf was happening with the price?

Me likes the way this guy thinks...



Here’s to not burning in hell...

check out this mesmerizing but sickening animated crypto market evolution, too large to post in its entirety here...


https://t.me/CryptoAquariumChannel/1585

Bitmex cooking its own books again...
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/8aymhw/how_and_why_exchanges_are_manipulating_the_price/

Bitmex CEO just shy of admitting it...
https://youtu.be/2BRsq9hlBOQ

In many cases the market manipulators may be the OTC brokers themselves when they realize they have a whale at the end of their harpoon. Whale gets an OTC quote to sell, broker blows his load to drive market price down, whale executes, broker buys back in driving price up again when the next whale comes to buy, profits on his 1-3% margin. Bart pattern complete.

The 6 Costliest Mistakes People Make When Trading Bitcoin OTC

Exactly, Hashrate looks to be a lagging indicator due to equipment production time, with miners banking on future increases in price since they've already missed the last run up.

I would argue that Google trends is also a lagging indicator, albeit on a much shorter time frame. Price has to increase first before interest is stoked enough to spur newcomers to search for bitcoin. There is less need for already indoctrinated bitcoiners to search, they already know where they want to go to buy/research/etc.

I would further argue that price is a lagging indicator of fundamental analysis and good news. Whereas FUD is a nearly instantaneous indicator of price decreases, good news takes a while to build enough confidence to trigger buying much less FOMO.

Going back to google trends, the more people already know about bitcoin, the less impact it will have on search engines. MSM has replaced a lot of the need to google, now that CNBC etc have a price ticker and reporting.

You don't see the stock markets responding that much to google trends even in times of wild volatility. Bitcoin still drawing more searches than key stock market terms.

In fact, stock market search spikes on google trends seem inversely correlated to price - they represent major sell offs! Careful what you wish for.



edit:

Meanwhile, on Wall St:
‘Beware’: Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett Double Down as Bitcoin Critics

Classic.

Jamie "Do What I Say Not What I Do" Dimon, as JP Morgan continues to formulate crypto strategies.
Warren "I only invest in what I understand" Buffet, who quite possibly just learned about Apple and maybe even the Internet sometime last year.

Interesting little niche market but I just can’t help thinking how many more coins will be lost forever.

I don’t like how the lifetime of the private key flash chip is “somewhere between 25 and 100 years.”

Really?  

Paper please.

Similar oldie but goodie maintained over at moonmath...


https://www.moonmath.win/

Sure it can...

Exponentially up, exponentially down, exponentially up, exponentially down...

 

At what point will you be kicking your ass for not reinvesting the millions you already cashed out back into Bitcoin?

Do you have that much more faith in fiat and your managed stock portfolio over Bitcoin these next few years?

Are trade wars and nationalism getting you harder than choo-choos and rocket ships ever did?

 

Bitcoin hashrate still climbing.

Bitcoin price still up +150% from 1 year ago.

SEC still being hammered with Bitcoin ETF applications.

Fidelity, Goldman, JP Morgan still proceeding with Bitcoin trading options.

The Commissioner of the US CFTC still calling Bitcoin an unstoppable technological revolution and modern miracle.

Bitcoin is dead. Long live Bitcoin!

That’s the “Where should we bury our fiat? Should we dig a little deeper?” pattern.

Nope, no growth here. Gonna have to try harder fan boys:

Bitcoin vs Dow Jones Return on Investment (%)

Bitcoin DOWN 55% YTD
But STILL UP
155% at 1 YR
790% at 2 YR  
6,175% at 5 YR  
174,853% at 7 YR  

No job growth either:

Startup Jobs Site AngelList Reports Doubling Of Crypto Jobs Since New Year

No MSM, institutional, or regulatory interest from the "big boys" this year either:
Bitcoin Sees Wall Street Warm to Trading Virtual Currency May 7, NY Times
Bitcoin is Seeing Unprecedented Institutional Interest for First Time in History May 8, News BTC
LedgerX Launches First CFTC-Regulated Bitcoin Savings Accounts May 15, Forbes
U.S. Regulator Demands Trading Data From Bitcoin Exchanges in Manipulation Probe June 8, Wall Street Journal
CFTC COMMISSIONER: BITCOIN, CRYPTOCURRENCIES ARE NOT GOING AWAY June 10, Bitcoinist
Institutional Hedge Fund Survey FundStrat, April 23

Similar Ponzi schemes factoring in user base and shareholder distribution:


Bitcoin currently ramping up in the first few percentiles

Netflix (78% Institutional Investors, 5% Individual Stakeholders)


Apple (63% Institutional Investors, 1% Individual Stakeholders)


Amazon (60% Institutional Investors, 17% Individual Stakeholders)


Berkshire Hathaway (70% Institutional investors, 6% Individual Stakeholders)


Log scales

For a little Straight Outta My Ass Non-TA:

If you ignore the obviously manipulated Bart action (anything near-vertical on a 4 hr chart) the majority of background action appears surprisingly and overwhelmingly bullish. It's punctuated by relatively brief and steep bearish intervals.

To me, the Bart action stinks to high heaven of whales still trying to cash out gracefully via OTC but being absolutely played by their OTC brokers. At the moment, whales are selling faster than the OTC market can absorb, leading to an overall downtrend, or at least sideways equilibrium. At some point, whalebears will run out of ammunition and the background uptrend will once again dominate.

I suspect it's Wall St and institutions slurping up most of the whale poop. Several regulated brokers (Fidelity, Goldman, JP Morgan, etc) are on the brink of offering their own Bitcoin exchanges, and are probably in bed with the OTC brokers, accumulating, accumulating, accumulating. Of course, they're getting played by their OTC intermediaries, too, resulting in reverse Bart action and uptrends. I wouldn't be surprised if it's these Wall St guys crying foul in the first place and putting pressure on the CFTC to investigate unregulated OTC/futures manipulation and level the playing field before the flood gates open. This is causing further whale and OTC broker panic to hurry up and unload before regulators shine a light and scatter the roaches in their corner, too.

Why OTC in the first place? Besides avoiding thinly traded exchange slippage, OTC brokers don't typically report anything to the IRS or other tax authorities. I suspect KYC/AML is much more lax as well, as long as you got the coin to play. Privacy comes at a price, though, and it's name is manipulation.

Meanwhile, small fry retail guys are quietly accumulating, driving the bullish background action we see on the charts.

Straight Outta My Ass

4 hr candles

Well, so far as I know, the Winklevii are still holding.

At least we've got that.  

Whales have to weigh tax implications, too. If they've been holding a while and they are truly a whale, that's a 23.8% profit cut right off the top for US citizens. That means they have to weigh whether it will fall at least 23.8% to make it worth their while to buy back in with a lesser amount, or instead gamble on their intact hodlings growing even bigger at the next halvening. If they are smart about cashing in and offsetting a bit at a time, they can massively minimize tax obligations.

Best laid plans, and all...

Kim Jong Un selling the last of his stash?



Buh-bye Kim, we'll miss you! 

This is seriously pathetic volume compared to the last two times we approached these levels. I don't think the bears have a 4th bottom in them. We're still a few dollars short of the previous bottom, too.

I'm imagining a thirsty fucking bear desperately trying to drink from the pool of liquidity below $6k. Someone push him in, so he can get properly rekt.

P.S. Every single person who has bought at these levels since November of last year has profited shortly after.

Only this time it's different, right?

Right.

These prices are such a gift, noobs just don't even know. It's prices like these that will fuel the next bull run with a whole fresh crop of speculators.

Back during the last bear market when we bottomed out around $200 from a high of $1200, who would have guessed people would next be whining about $6000 lows?

Boo fucking hoo. $6k coins.

BTFD, DCA, HODL. These terms haven't become cliche for no reason, fools.

$6000 seems to be established as a fair bargain basement price by both bulls and bears and even miners apparently. We have achieved equilibrium price discovery, not just once, but like 5 times since October of last year, give or take $500.

Anything below the bears generally agree is too greedy and the bulls consider a steal.

But there is some serious Grade A manipulation going on. FUD is being slung around like monkey poop fresh outta Bill Gates and Warren Buffett's decrepit simian asses. Sometimes it sticks, sending Korean tourists, YouTuber potato heads, and Tweaking Twitterites screaming for the exits.

The most damage this FUD has done since (dare I say it?) the "capitulation" on Feb 5 is 5-10% intraday trading. Around $500-600 intraday swings at most.

Prior to Feb 5, we were seeing intraday swings as high as 30%. We're talking like $4500 in one day! Many days were well over 10%, equating to at least $1000 at the time. It's a freaking snooze fest in comparison.

So far, the FUDsters have tried squirting manipulation FUD, sharting Tether FUD, and are currently honking for clearance while constipated with a big ol' meal of regulation FUD. Mt Gox has been hotboxing us with silent but deadly FUD for months now, but most of our olfactory bulbs have long since burned out. Hacked exchange FUD is the most regular of all, sustained by a healthy diet of shyster/ignoranus FUDfiber(tm).

As much as everyone is watching, waiting, hoping for a clear sign from Satoshi himself "THIS IS THE BOTTOM", the truth is the FUDsters have run out of effective FUD. Even Roger Ver himself, the king of bullshit, a giant walking colon, can only shit so much, right?

What more can the bears possibly fling at us? Am I missing some super potent 10x epic hangover evacuate the building and whatever you do don't light that match FUD? Something that would truly shake hodlers to their very core that we haven't already seen a dozen times?

It's a fucking zoo out there this summer, peeps. Watch out for the monkey poop.

Up another $160 and we'll close the week in green. Or at least a doji.

Target: $6782 by Sunday.

Old news but nice interviews concerning latest ETF attempt:

VanEck, SolidX Team Up On Bitcoin ETF


Hyland: 1st Bitcoin ETF Closer To Reality

The gaussian adoption curve.



We've a ways to go...

The main problem I have with all these 2013-2015 comparisons is that they provide the perfect bear food; they become self-fulfilling prophecy, opium for the masses, for no other reason than they half-assed sorta-kinda match a trend we saw years ago, under completely different circumstances.

I'm as guilty as anyone for seeking patterns in the knucklebones and chicken guts; however, shorters and manipulators are using this to great advantage, because every little dump they prescribe has all the sheeples and lemmings running after them with sky-is-falling syndrome, pointing to the holy charts as evidence that Satoshi has indeed forsaken them, exactly as written in 2013-2015 scripture.

By mid 2015, nothing historical could any longer predict the future, until finally the great 2015-2017 bull run took off on its own fundamental and speculative merits, charting brand new territory, all the way from $200 to $20,000.

Not until we break free of the soothsaying charters comparing the future to the past, will present-day fundamental analysis and actual technical development once again take control of the market.

Whether it takes a dump to $4k or a break for $8k to finally shake free of these medieval shackles is anybody's guess, but charters and manipulators definitely seem to be winning the holy war at the moment.

It really boggles the mind that even the monumental Mt Gox civil rehabilitation announcement, the SEC declaring Bitcoin as not a security, and lightning network mainnet achievements are having nary an effect on this bear market.

We are truly a superstitious lot, despite all evidence to the contrary.

That link is to read submitted comments.

To actually submit comments is a bit more convoluted.

First, go here and scroll to or search for release "34-83520":

https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/cboebzx.htm

Then click the javascript 'Submit Comments' link:



Or, if you prefer to click through from the comments page:
>How to Submit Online Comments:
 >Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) filings:
  >Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc. (CboeBZX)
   >SR-CboeBZX-2018-040 (Release 34-83520)

Or, you can email comments to rule-comments@sec.gov.
 
The subject line of your message must include the File Number SR-CboeBZX-2018-040

See if you can't do a better job than these yahoos:
SEC comments about a proposed bitcoin ETF are 'liiiiiiiiiit'

To help nervous noobs and even some old timers out, I made a handy-dandy BTC Price Action Decoder (TM).

Print it out. Put it in your pocket. Show it to your friends. Quiz yourself.

It's a bit chicken and egg, no? Is the SEC is waiting for Bitcoin markets to miraculously come under global regulation, while regulated market players patiently wait for the SEC to approve something they can offer on their exchanges?

I think targeting accredited investors first and offering custody and insurance solutions as Cboe is attempting is as good a way as any to start this ball rolling. It's retail investors I imagine the SEC is most concerned with, people mortgaging their grandma's house, etc. Who cares if accredited investors lose a few million? Pure speculation vs lifetime savings. Start there.

The SEC's job is to protect US investors. They can't be the global police but they can try and make the US a safer place to invest first rather than last. As regulated markets continue to spring up in the US and other countries, volumes will shift away from unregulated markets and the manipulators will have fewer places to turn.

The SEC can't protect US investors if they don't approve regulated products in the first place, though. People will still invest, regulated or not.

So which will be first, the chicken or the egg?

Agreed this is the most likely reality. Frustrating that the SEC will likely do little to nothing to actually protect and legitimize Bitcoin investors, choosing instead to just cover their own sweaty little asses.

The daily 200 MA is falling pretty steeply these days. At this rate, it won't be much longer until it encounters the 50 MA for a golden cross.

Assuming the 50 MA flattens out around current prices, this would bring us to mid-September-ish. This is how it played out the last time we had a golden cross in 2015: the 200 MA fell to meet a flat 50 MA.

Following a more aggressive 50 MA trend from the recent bottom, it could even happen as early as mid-August-ish.

1 to 2 months. Right around when we expect some ETF news. Who wants to guess the date?

Straight Outta My Ass (tm) TA


Daily 50/200 MA

Comments on Cboe BZX (BTC ETF) Rulemaking

The Lord hath spoken:


The comments are piling up, but there is a several day lag before they are actually posted. A (very slow) human must be reviewing. I suspect a tsunami of comments is building up.

While the vast majority support the ETF, I managed to find a couple negative nancies:

News or FOMO?

Up 25% off bottom.

Not a bad couple of weeks return.

Only 75% off bottom before we hit $10k. 1/3 of the way there.

100% off bottom and I dare say Bitcoin is going up again rather than merely sideways.  Anything less is still sideways.

Haha, tell that to all the leveraged shorts @bitmexrekt.

On point.

https://twitter.com/PeterLBrandt/

Given Peter's historical venom towards BTC:

Bears: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Bulls: Heeheehahahoohoo. Ahem. 

More time to build up anticipation = good news, regardless of outcome.

~Jan 21 is the final (final) final decision date.

Besides, the SEC might be crazy to make any ETF decisions before midterm elections in Nov.

Plus this gives the SEC and CFTC more time to issue anticipated ICO regulation/guidance to nip any future ETF proposals in the bud. Once the floodgates are open, they're open.

Non-trivial piece of news.

Some might even classify as a BFD.

Institutional Investors Swap Bitcoin Futures for Physical BTC in Wall Street First

Update on the latest ETF attempt:


Over 1150 comments posted so far and they're only caught up to Aug 1.
Compare this to less than 70 submitted for the Winklevii ETF.
Only 3 comments were submitted for the Direxion Bitcoin ETFs.

Couple interesting comments:
PRO: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/srcboebzx2018040-4131562-171827.htm
CON: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/srcboebzx2018040-172023.htm

The SEC has also posted slides from a recent Cboe/SolidX/SEC meeting. Worth a read, arguing their case in light of prior ETF rejections.

Aug 1, 2018 Memorandum from the Division of Trading and Markets regarding a July 31, 2018, meeting with representatives of Van Eck Securities Corporation, SolidX Management LLC, and Cboe BZX Exchange, Inc.
https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/srcboebzx2018040-4152607-172036.pdf

Crikey, if this mini dump is due to ETF postponement, this was totally expected, and frankly good news: It wasn't flat out denied.

March 4, 2019 is the final (final) SEC deadline; the SEC has up to three decision extensions.

Any reactions before then are just farts in the wind: totally wasted effort.

Remember kiddos, for maximum effect, save your farts for the elevator or lambo passenger seat.

Welp, still going sideways. 6 months and counting.

Not until we're safely over $10k is Bitcoin trending up again.

It would have to fall below $5k before we're trending down again.

Long-term HODLers view, YMMV.

CBOE RESPONDS: After Delay Is Announced, Sources Confirm Continued Bitcoin ETF Confidence
https://theicojournal.com/cboe-responds-after-delay-is-announced-sources-confirm-continued-bitcoin-etf-confidence/




If you knew an approval were imminent, and you had the means, wouldn't you strive to drive the price down as much as possible in the months preceding?

What effect might an ETF approval have on Bitcoin dominance? Legitimize the entire asset class or single out Bitcoin?

One coin to rule them all, one coin to find them,
One coin to bring them all and in the darkness bind them?

It's a shame this arcane ETF approval process has basically throttled speculation, but it has done wonders for separating innovation from chaff.

What might a post-ETF world look like?

Yawn. Still sideways.

Meanwhile, a new batch of public comments to the SEC have been posted regarding Cboe et al ETF.
https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/cboebzx2018040.htm

The Negative Nancies are starting to appear:



This anti-ETF guy included supposed manipulation charts:
https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/srcboebzx2018040-4190297-172697.pdf

This pro-ETF lady cries foul on SEC claims of price manipulation:
https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-cboebzx-2018-040/srcboebzx2018040-4185567-172649.pdf

Back to hibernation.

Golden Cross Update

With the daily 200 MA @$8025 continuing to drop ~$45 a day and the 50 MA having bottomed out @$6720, simple extrapolation would the two crossing in another month or so, maybe mid to late Sept. No change from last month's forecast.

Maybe we'll get a false start and a mini set of crossings like we did in 2015 before it takes off again.

After that last golden cross in 2015, they didn't cross again for 2.5 years!

Nice read on the current state of the SEC commissioners:

The Elad Effect: How the SEC’s New Commissioner Changes Things for Bitcoin ETFs
https://medium.com/@JohnGaltBPM/the-elad-effect-how-the-secs-new-commissioner-changes-things-for-bitcoin-etfs-f4bb29e95bd6

We've got a pulse on the EKG!

Hey, let's attempt to crowdsource a bitcointalk response to the SEC's request for further comments on the recently postponed Cboe/SolidX/VanEck ETF proposal. Collectively, I bet we've got an entire cogent brain amongst the likes of us.

Whatever useful comments make it to this thread, I'd say is fair game for anyone to beg, borrow, steal, quote, or plagiarize for their own personal responses to the SEC.

I'll parse out the SEC's 18 wordier-than-even-wordy-man's question topics below. Feel strongly about any of them? Spit it out.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5034689.0

Would someone please chip in a few bucks for the cause and bring us over $6500, please? Thank you.

At $6500, we are ~13% off bottom (@$5775) and ~13% from crossing the daily 200 MA (@$7375).

Purgatory.

We may have crossed the 200 EMA but we have not crossed the 200 MA since March. EMAs put too much emphasis on recent data IMO and are agreed of less worth.

In each of the last three cases, if we had reached the previous "higher low", we would have breached the 200 MA. The band is getting narrower and narrower.

Once we do breach, might send a pretty bullish signal.

ps. $6500! Thanks for whoever chipped in.

Hit the nail on the head:

Institutional Investors Are Using Back Door for Crypto Buys (1 Oct 2018)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-01/institutional-investors-are-using-back-door-for-crypto-purchases

Big Institutional Investors are Buying Large Amounts of Bitcoin in OTC Market (3 Oct 2018)
https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/10/03/big-institutional-investors-are-buying-large-amounts-of-bitcoin-in-otc-market/

Bitcoin is now a rich man's game.

2018 marks the transition from small-time retail hype to the beginning of savvy institutional/money-bags hype.

Exchanges are becoming less and less relevant as larger transactions are moving off-exchange at a premium to current exchange prices.

When the next big bull run does happen, small time retail buyers may be shut out due to a lack of supply or basic transaction access.
What little may be available on-exchange during a bull-run will likely fetch a hefty premium.
The next generation of HODLers will be laughing all the way to the exchange OTC.

IMHO, we are in the midst of large-scale coordinated institutional manipulation leading up the next halving/ETF/choose your own hype spark:

1. First rule of Institutional Bitcoin: you don't talk about Institutional Bitcoin.
2. Quietly buy up all the mining supply via OTC back channels or in-house Bitcoin brokers.
[Optional: Fund bogus studies, ban ads, ban credit card & retail bank sales, and fling FUD near and wide to throw your competition off scent. JP Morgan, Chase, Juniper Research, Google, Twitter, etc.]
3. HODL and wait for the next hype-fueled bull run.
4. SHORT futures like mad and then SODL at the peak.
5. Rinse and repeat.

At least today, Bitcoin held up admirably as an non-correlated asset. A unicorn amidst the carnage. A virgin in the whorehouse.

Maybe tomorrow, investors will notice.

Who needs a stinking ETF once the big boys come to town?

Can you imagine if this announcement had come a year ago? The bull run might never have stopped.

Fidelity has been visionary in the crypto space since early on; it's been more than a year since linked Coinbase balances starting showing up in Fidelity accounts.

As it is, news like this is hardly a fart in the wind these days.

It's amazing how institutionally mainstream Bitcoin is becoming right below our noses, and yet the masses still sleep, butt-hurt as ever for perhaps buying the peak and selling too soon (probably to the very institutions they distrusted in the first place).

Fidelity is a privately held company. They don't answer to no stinkin' shareholders or quarterly reports. They are out to conquer Millennial investors, and embracing crypto may launch them well past their competitors into the future.

This is who you have to thank, boys: Abby Johnson, chair and CEO of Fidelity. Bitcoin may largely be a man's world, but we owe a lot of respect to the Abby Johnsons, Elizabeth Starks, and Hester Peirces of the world. They actually get shit done when and where it matters. Fuck you, Jamie Dimon.



One-on-one with Abby Johnson, Fidelity's ultra-private president
http://fortune.com/2014/06/02/one-on-one-with-fidelitys-ultra-private-president/

Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson says the company is mining cryptocurrencies (1 year ago)
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/28/fidelity-ceo-abigail-johnson-says-the-company-is-mining-cryptocurrencies/

Fidelity CEO Talks 'Love' For Bitcoin, Why Blockchain Will 'Change' Markets (1.5 years ago)
https://www.coindesk.com/fidelity-ceo-talks-love-bitcoin-blockchain-will-change-markets/

Nice! Awesome job, thanks Homes!




For those who don't catch the reference, here are the best 10 minutes you will ever waste on your life:

Rejected
https://youtu.be/MuOvqeABHvQ

Basically mirrors all the ludicrous activity on Wall Observer.

Including the hats.

Haha, did you want a bad trip?

Try watching Baraka on acid, oh lord. I could only make it through 15 mins.

Decided to edumakate myself with a little weekend research on Bakkt and promptly fell into a rabbit hole.

Bakkt could certainly have a far larger near-term impact than Cboe or any others' ETF, as they are targeting both consumers and institutions in the same go. Having Starbucks as a partner could be a real game changer, the epitome of retail transaction exposure.

Also good to see some of the more disillusioned Wall Street veterans changing teams to root for crypto, and putting pressure on the SEC/CFTC to not fuck it all up.

Overall, I'm feeling more medium-to-long term bullish with Bakkt coming, although I think the year end price will end up as a wash. Hard to compete with the US midterm elections and other geopolitical turmoil, news wise. A rather inopportune time for Bakkt's release or a crypto bull run.

New Bakkt Venture Could Make Bitcoin As Mainstream As Starbucks
https://www.forbes.com/sites/norbertmichel/2018/08/13/new-bakkt-venture-could-make-bitcoin-as-mainstream-as-starbucks/#57b98c7436c8

Bitcoin Experts Pin Price Hopes On Early November -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/09/04/bitcoin-experts-pin-price-hopes-on-early-november-heres-why/#599997702256

Bitcoin Core Developer Joins Forces With Former Morgan Stanley Exec To Warn SEC
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2018/09/21/bitcoin-core-developer-joins-forces-with-former-morgan-stanley-exec-to-warn-sec/#7dd9ce435baf


More articles from Caitlin Long:

ICE Creating New Cryptocurrency Market: A Double-Edged Sword
https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2018/08/03/ice-creating-new-cryptocurrency-market-a-double-edged-sword/#5f0b5ebb1015


Two Wall Street Terms Every Bitcoin Trader Needs To Learn Now
https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2018/08/13/the-r-and-c-words-enter-the-vocabulary-of-bitcoin-enthusiasts/#2ac0677a68f3


Three part series exploring building rivalry between cryptocurrencies and Wall St by same author, pretty enlightening perspectives:

ICOs Were 45% Of IPOs In Q2 2018, As Cryptos Disrupt Investment Banks
https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2018/07/22/icos-were-45-of-ipos-in-q2-2018-as-cryptos-disrupt-investment-banks/#63cd8619794c


Is Financialization A Double-Edged Sword For Bitcoin And Cryptocurrencies?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2018/07/31/is-financialization-a-double-edged-sword-for-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrencies/#79a299402a20


Racing To Fix Wall Street: ICE, Cryptocurrencies And Enterprise Blockchain
https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinlong/2018/08/07/racing-to-fix-wall-street-ice-cryptocurrencies-and-enterprise-blockchain/#3f2e9033215e


The Bakkt Blog, CEO Kelly Loeffler
https://medium.com/bakkt-blog


Moo(n).

Does this mean they got CFTC approval?

I propose we tokenize our digital hatsets, and trade them as scarce commodities.

Former Fed Chair Janet Yellen Is Now a Bitcoin Owner
https://www.coindesk.com/former-fed-chair-janet-yellen-is-now-a-bitcoin-owner/



Gifted, but it's a start...

Lordy it's quiet in here. Time for a news injection.

Fresh fiat or wallet consolidation?
New whales are here: Somebody bought 133k bitcoins in the last 4 weeks
https://captainaltcoin.com/new-whales-are-here-somebody-bought-133k-bitcoins-in-the-last-4-weeks/

Goldman Sachs is Signing up Customers for its Bitcoin Trading Product: Report
https://www.ccn.com/goldman-sachs-is-signing-up-customers-for-its-bitcoin-trading-product-report/

Only 1 in 4 Bitcoins Moved Between Addresses in Past Six Months
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-31/only-1-in-4-bitcoins-moved-between-addresses-in-past-six-months?utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=crypto


Bitcoin's transaction rate has been increasing steadily over the last few months, yet there is literally no strain on the network.
Lightening & SegWit are doing the trick. Scalability is clearly being achieved by the world's first & best #Cryptocurrency.
#HappyBirthdayBitcoin


https://twitter.com/MatiGreenspan/status/1057588906575757315

Chocolate Bitcoin handed out for Halloween!

https://twitter.com/danyork/status/1057800952181415937


https://twitter.com/WhalePanda/status/1057545238263279616

This current fiasco is certainly underlining what a rich man’s game BTC has become.

Retail exchange volume has been dying all year:

Perhaps in part to the psychological barrier of a perceived high entry cost. Small time traders once willing to buy when bitcoin when it was a couple hundred bucks now seem to be balking at $5000, and that’s on sale! Maybe fractions of a Bitcoin just aren’t sexy enough.

Certainly this is also due in part to the shitastic quality of retail exchanges, from frustratingly inept (Coinbase) to down right shady (take your pick).

Meanwhile, institutions have been “scrambling” in typical slow-motion fashion to jump on board, either as service/product providers or investors. We know a great deal of Bitcoin has been exchanging hands OTC, for lack of a single decent institutional exchange. I suspect OTC volumes in 2018 have dwarfed exchange liquidity. But come 2019, this may be changing. Fidelity, Bakkt, perhaps an ETF or two may be entering the scene. Too little too late or just in time, it’s hard to say, but some sort of credible institutional exchange should be well positioned before the next halvening in 2020.

Which makes this current fiasco feel like one of the last gasp attempts for these JihanVerWright dickwads to have much of an influence on BTC price at all. Just imagine all the current retail and OTC volume combined with hopefully even more mainstream institutional investors jumping on board for the first time in large mega-exchanges the likes of Fidelity or Bakkt. How could they possibly compete?

A year from now or less, these wannabe tyrants and their petty forkery and overt (illegal, even?) price manipulation will be irrelevant.

But then again, so may be all interest in crypto, for all the negative attention these shenanigans are bringing.

Went off the grid a few weeks only to find bitcorn totally crapped the bed while I was lounging in ignorant bliss.
It's taken me days just to catch up on WO, much less clean the sheets and the walls and the ceiling and--Jesus, bitcorn, even my teddy bear?
You couldn't even spare soiling my one item of solace?

If we're to believe money's on the sidelines just waiting to jump in, well then at what price?
Or rather, how far off "bottom" do we need to rise again to get this FOMO party started?
At $4200, we're a good 20% off bottom; that not good enough? 50% do it? 100%?

I see a few problems at the moment.
1) It's STILL not cheap enough for 2+ year OGs to take more than a nibble. So ok OGs, what's your price or indicator before you're all in again? Is it really going to take $1k?
2) Baghodlers. My oh my do we have a lot of baghodlers. Everyone who has bought and hedl bitcorn since Sept of 2017 is now officially a baghodler.
What proportion of hodlers do you suppose this is? 80%? 90%? And what proportion of them have already contributed to the capitulation shitstorm on my bed?
Nothing like a room full of stank butthurt to keep a market down.
3) Gurd-durned speculators.
4) It goes without saying fork-you.

On with the news...

Haven't seen much made of this report yet.
CoinShares report: Renewable energy accounts for 77.6% of total Bitcoin’s energy usage
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/11/30/coinshares-report-renewable-energy-accounts-for-77-6-of-total-bitcoins-energy-usage/
The Bitcoin Mining Network - Trends, Marginal Creation Cost, Electricity Consumption & Sources
https://coinshares.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Mining-Whitepaper-Final.pdf

Well this was rather depressing.
The biggest myths in cryptocurrency investing today and what would cause a new all time high
https://blog.goodaudience.com/the-biggest-myths-in-cryptocurrency-investing-today-and-what-would-cause-a-new-all-time-high-d6010657f01d

New life for GPUs? What the hell is a quantum dot? Is this sanitized hashing for noobs? No mention whatsoever of crypto on official site. What do you suppose the rake is?
No playing around: Your Asus graphics card can now mine crypto when you’re not gaming
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/tiny/no-playing-around-your-asus-graphics-card-can-now-mine-crypto-when-youre-not-gaming/
https://www.quantumcloudai.com/

Neat-o?
Announcing the Casa Lightning Node. The easiest way to use Lightning available today.
https://medium.com/casa/announcing-the-casa-lightning-node-596df7a7427
First impressions of the Casa Bitcoin Node
https://medium.com/swlh/casa-node-91aab9c1c2ef

Even a fool knows you can't reach for the stars. Doesn't keep the wise man from trying! Do what it takes to BTFD!

Talking heads, so many talking heads.

More optimism than I expected from the peanut gallery.

Time To Buy Bitcoin?
Cointelegraph talks to Tom Lee, Mati Greenspan, Naeem Aslam and Ronnie Moas about why it makes sense to buy Bitcoin when everyone else is panic selling it. 
https://youtu.be/rKKMVBX7rYg
Decent round robin.

If you can stomach CNBC anchors, a few gems slip out when their guests can get a word in edgewise:

I am still a long-term bitcoin believer, says the Crypto King
Bitcoin gets slammed as the crypto carnage rages on. But Bart Smith, Susquehanna Digital Asset Head, says he's still a believer.
https://youtu.be/OMV1xXEoD8g
High net worth investors are not going to send photo id scans and money to random crypto website. Interest is piqued, but they are waiting for Fidelity, etc.

Tom Lee cuts bitcoin year-end target to $15,000
Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the bitcoin fallout and where he sees it going next. 
https://youtu.be/Y-pX6GbRbwc
Bitcoin clearing 3X more on daily basis than PayPal, market caps about the same.
Bitcoin is a currency, no it's a commodity, no it's a store of value, no it's an emerging asset class.

Bitcoin won't have bottomed until 3K flat level, says Genesis Trading's Moro
Michael Moro of Genesis Trading and Genesis Capital joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the price drop in bitcoin. 
https://youtu.be/L5FbbVT98Zw
Are crypto alts/forks disrupting perceived scarcity?
Bitcoin was anti-correlated, but is now correlating to broader markets as institutional funds seep in.
Fire that CNBC idiot and just let the guest talk for crying out loud.
 
Bitcoin is at the end of a distress cycle, says BlockTower
Michael Bucella, BlockTower Capital Partners
https://youtu.be/QUbtkMr7QBo
Bottom most volatile but also shortest period.
Professional management may reduce volatility. (Ha!)

I'm really tempted to sell all my bitcoin just so I can buy bitcoin at these prices.

Bitcoin, putting the 'numb' in numbers since 2009.  

Key takeaway for Institutions, Bitmain, Forkers, etc:

Bitcoin cannot be owned. Bitcoin will own you before you own Bitcoin.

I'm referring to Bitcoin with a capital B. The protocol and network. Not bitcoin the currency. Of course you own your private keys.

Nice "State of Bitcoin" report.

Full Report
https://www.delphidigital.io/bitcoin

Highlights
https://twitter.com/Delphi_Digital/status/1072248572433915909

Agreed it's prudent to watch our hopium intake, Hairy, but 2020 seems awfully long for a return to $6k. Granted, we had a nearly 2-year downturn after Mt Gox from 2014-5 with little to no good news, but as far as fundamentals go, 2019 seems ripe for recovery.

What are your assumptions on big ticket items? To name a few expected in the first half of 2019:

Van Eck/CBOE ETF (admittedly low chances)
Bakkt
Fidelity Digital Assets
Nasdaq Futures

Are you thinking these things won't happen or rather they simply won't make much of a speculative difference? Are you weighing your prediction primarily on prior halving cycles? Are you correlating with global stock market expectations?

I worry that speculative interest is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of chart analysis and pattern matching. The 2014 overlay to 2018 is eerily similar, yes, but is this simply a case of humans seeking solace in pattern matching?

Meanwhile, the lightning network is exponentially expanding, BCash is conveniently self-immolating, blockchain investment and employment numbers are steadily increasing, etc etc.

Sure, miners seem SOL, nothing new there; but I suspect new miners will find new places to slurp up cheap/stranded power, further decentralizing the network.

2014-15 -> 2018-19 Copy/Paste?

I think we just capitulated in the wrong direction. 

We might close on a 10%+ green dildo today

& 20% LTC

1m charts have become fun again.

Nice timing, NYT.

Published this morning

Amid Bitcoin Uncertainty, ‘the Smart Money Knows That Crypto Is Not Ready’
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/02/technology/cryptocurrency-bust-wall-street.html

Been a while since I've updated this. Bitcoin has established 11 doubling floors since 2012 at a starting price of $2.50. This time period probably captures most of the crowd still hanging around WO. Anyone here still hodling pre-$2.50 corn?

As a permahodler (vs trader), stable price floors are more interesting to me than ATHs. This last doubling floor, from $2.5k to $5k has taken 639 days, a new record, assuming $5k actually holds this time. Been a long time coming, similar to the doubling floor from $80 to $160, which captured an ATH of $1200 and the subsequent Mt. Gox collapse along the way before finally carrying on. From $160 to $320 took another 315 days. It took a full three doubling floor cycles and solid 3+ years before we finally smashed through that late 2013 ATH with a new $1280 floor in mid 2017.

How many days until we are permanently above $10k? And then $20k? The coveted $100k?

Hard to predict with the long lookback time required. How many of us thought $5k was safe in the bag at the start of 2018? We've since had a solid 6 months of sub-$5k prices.

Hodl on!

A true veteran. Takes some real cajones to hodl through all the ups and downs since then! Sounds like you're just enjoying the ride now.

Thanks, Mic. Funny thing happened. I semi-retired and instead of more time on my hands, I'm spread thinner than ever. Not a bad problem to have when you're enjoying what you're doing.

https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/

Take a wild guess:

Number of times "Bitcoin" is referenced in the Libra whitepaper?

Zero

Number of times "blockchain" is mentioned?

65

That's some real chutzpah there, folks. Mentioning blockchain 65 times without a single mention of Bitcoin. As if they're trying to rewrite or at the very least obfuscate blockchain's origins. Brace yourselves for some grade A gaslighting. Make no mistake, their aim is not to complement Bitcoin, but replace it.


Ha!

Tales from the Crypt

Last couple years, instead of cash, my wife has been gifting BTC for friends and family kids’ birthdays. Small amounts labeled as “college fund”. Every once in a while, she pings the parents: how’s that college fund doing? Some of the returns are approaching 2-3x. Still, few if any of the parents are buying on their own.

Got an Ozzie mate I tried and tried again to convince investing in BTC well before the 2017 run up. He finally caught the fever near the ATH. Fearing he was too late for BTC, he started buying XRP and a host of other shitcoins. Had to have a serious sit down. Might have involved some bitch-slapping. He managed to DCA himself into BTC over the past couple years and calls me up this week: “I’m back in the black!! Wish I bought more at the start of the year!” I suspect we've got a hodler for life.

Know a Chinese gal recently married to a Yankee expat who caught shitcoin fever like only the Chinese can. Unbeknownst to her hubbie, she started dumping massive amounts of her yuan savings into the 2017 hype. When she was down 20% last year, my wife and I spent hours trying to convince her to cut her shitcoin losses. She had no exit plan and remained convinced they would all bounce back. She’s since lost enough she confided in my wife she has been contemplating suicide. Intervention time.

Know a recently retired couple in their 60s, an old boss actually, who came to town in Feb to visit their newlywed daughter. I’ve never spoken a word to them about Bitcoin. One morning they point blank ask, do I own any Bitcoin? Is now a good time to buy? Why yes, now is the perfect time to buy. They’d be sitting on 2-3x returns if they actually pulled the trigger back then. I’m thinking they didn’t though and probably mistakenly think they’ve already missed the boat. Time will tell.

It’s a fine line advocating at the same time impressing upon others the importance of dyor, dca, hodl, don’t overextend, think years not weeks/months. For every success story lurks a potential tragedy, and that’s an albatross no one wants hanging around their neck.

True that, but the bottom for some of us was $152 or even lower. $3k or even $1k? Pfft. Think years, halving cycles even, not months. Don't trade. Don't get caught up in the exuberance of short-lived ATHs as much as possible and keep your eyes on the solid floors. DCA, of course, is your friend.

Bitcoin has only closed above $10k 80 days or so. As long as you bought sometime in the last 10 years minus those 80 days, you are in the green. The asymmetry of this bet is rididulous and has been for much of Bitcoin's existence.

Life savings? No, the most I'd ever suggest is 5% of retirement savings.

Shitastic! 

Was that a single market order sell of 8 or 9 hundred btc on Coinbase?

$1500 1 min candle!

I'll be nice and quote the noob for effort. 

Proudhon is the best contrarian indicator WO has.

When Proudhon's around, we're in good hands.

Proudhon is the Colbert of Bitcoin.

Satire at its finest.

Confirmed.

Probably like this.

https://movieweb.com/exclusive-video-new-dirty-jobs-sheep-castrator-clip/

Not for squeamish, haha. Dirty job but someone's gotta do it!

Hold on for dear life
Do not doji the weekly
Buy the fucking dip!

Sunday Panic Haiku

Ok gentlemen boys, enquiring minds want to know, and it took some digging but somebody needed to take one for the team...

The source of this gif is the "Best Ass of Holland Competition".

As the Sunday weekly/monthly/quarterly comes to a close and sadly my haiku doji is being realized, find some solace in your google-fu abilities to examine this classic video first-hand to try and catch a front-side glimpse.

Personally, the assistant with the jiggle stopwatch just off camera in the gif is HAF.

Less than an hour to go, let's at least try and keep this doji GREEN!