I'm having some issues with my main account, so admins suggested that I could post with a temporary account, until my main account gets sorted out.

It took me a little while to read and digest the below linked article, which is a response to a request for comments submission by ARK investment regarding the bitcoin ETF.

https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-batsbzx-...630-23.pdf

In essence, ARK investment do not seem to be against a bitcoin ETF; however, they are of the opinion that at this time, a bitcoin ETF would be premature because in part, they believe that the bitcoin market is insufficiently liquid and accordingly a bitcoin ETF would likely cause way too much upwards volatility. Furthermore, they seem to be strongly suggesting that there are potential conflicts of interest with the winklvoss twins and the ETF and Gemini Exchange, which could be true, and is further commented upon in Reddit, below link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment...nvestment/

Also, the reddit link, above, shows that the ARK investors seem to have a kind of competing product... hm?

Anyhow, surely, the ARK investors are entitled to their opinion, and they seem to be a bit more knowledgeable than me in regards to the history and functions of ETFs - nonetheless, I kind of remain of the opinion that the supposed lack of maturity of the bitcoin market, the ability to manipulate bitcoin and its prices and bitcoin's inability to support an ETF is overstated, yet I can understand why regulators may act with a bit of conservativism and caution.

Regarding current state of bitcoin liquidity versus future liquidity, surely there may be some prematurity in suggesting that bitcoin remains too small - because if there is another 10x or 100x increase in prices (and market cap), which are quite possible, it becomes much more difficult to manipulate BTC prices - even though I would concede that we gotta get some more development in bitcoin regarding how various exchanges influence prices (which seems to make BTC seem even smaller with greater manipulative outcomes)

Sure, it seems pretty likely that we are not going to get any kind of exact correlations between various traditional markets (whether USD based or some other fiat), because it seems to be becoming more and more apparent that bitcoin is functioning fairly clearly as a one of a kind new asset class.   Yeah, sometimes, there is surely going to be some parallel price movements, yet in the end, it seems prudent that any person who has money to invest and who is investing in various kinds of traditional assets should take some kind of stake in bitcoin (whether that be .1% of their investment holdings, or maybe even higher percentages, such as 10% or higher could be justifiable for some folks).

This seems to be a bit of a baloney theme (myth) that Tera wants to perpetuate.

Nonsense.


There is no "good ole days" in which walls were more grand and better and blah, blah, blah.

The fact of the matter is that today there are numerous exchanges, and a wall of 170k BTC is very similar to a wall of 2,500BTC today, in terms of fiat value, and who gives a ratt's ass if we actually see those kinds of walls, because today there is no real consensus regarding which exchanges lead price movement, and today, we have a bit more back and forth and dancing between which exchange(s) lead and which follow, and likely any whale who wants to attempt to manipulate prices has to spread out such influence because s/he is going to get r3ckt if attempting to manipulate prices from only one exchange. 

Likely also, with such uncertainties pertaining to who the fuck is leading, we have a better bitcoin market today than we had in late 2012 (more liquidity and more decentralization in spite of some of the understood phony shenanigans going on in several of the CNY/BTC exchanges - including at least okcoin, huobi and btcc)

TLDR:  I am not buying this idea of better "good ole days" blah, blah, blah.  We gots the days that we gots, and currently they are seeming pretty decent and even at times, better (based on at least overall liquidity improvements  and overall improvements in decentralization) than the past nostalgia.

Yeah, but the substance of your assertion remains a kind of nonsense, even if you assert that you are attempting to battle a chinese controlling bitcoin nonsense.

Your assertions do not lend much evidence to the support that western prices are controlling... and yeah, you continue to put too much weight on the concept that "we are all being played, manipulated by a small number of hands."

In the end, we have multiple forces that are pushing BTC prices and sometimes, momentarily BTC prices are going to get stuck at various sticking points, but coincidentally getting stuck at various price points that seem to align with western numbers, rather than chinese numbers, is a kind of nonsense kind of pseudo-astrology.. that mean close to nothing.   
 

Sometimes I wonder about you Torque.

Sometimes you post some insightful shit, but then other times you post pure shit.. It's like you could be kind of smart, but you are lacking some insight because you believe in astrology or something?  Hm?

Calling me a "master troll" is a bit ridiculous.  Makes me wonder if you even understand what a troll is?  Could be that you are just making up your own definition?  You know merely because someone posts ideas that either criticize your ideas or they use concepts that you do not understand, that does not make the person either a troll or a "master troll."  Maybe you think that using the term "master" helps to emphasize your point? however, you should realize that if you exaggerate,then you are likely going to lose even more credibility.. that is if you have credibility?    

Maybe you think that using the word "master" you are suggesting that I am too assertive in my criticism or the strength of my language, but really, such assertiveness or strength of language would likely not be necessary, if you were to recognize your own level of absurdity when you seem to be hinging too much of your arguments on ridiculous kinds of frameworks including numerology, conspiracy manipulations and riddle presentation (like we are suppose to guess what you are saying because you are purposefully using irony and counter-logic)... OMG  !!  





Probably not very good thoughts and feelings... but, sure, you have rights to your own feelings... even though it seems a little counter-productive to wish someone goes away (in a quasi-public thread).





Of course, you do not have to have hard evidence in order to make assertions about facts that you do know.  I doubt that I my assertions arise to a level of claiming that you are totally pie in the sky.  It is just sometimes you seem to put too much emphasis on certain kinds of arguments and claims... -- take your stupid-ass assertion regarding $699.99999.. It is just dumb, and I don't really want to get caught up in a silly criticism of it, even though you get all caught up in making such an assertion and claiming that it has some kind of meaning - when yeah in order for the price to get from $710 down to $680 it has to pass through $699, and in order for the price to return back up from $680 to $710 it also has to pass through $699.  Yeah, right it may get stuck there for a little while, but so fucking what.. it does not mean as much as you seem to be making out of it.. and then your claims to be "correct" in your prediction also seems to be ridiculous.  I can claim that the sun is going to come up too, and I can claim that there are going to be cloudy period hovering around certain times of the day, and then claim that I am  correct when it happens but it is a bit ridiculous, and seems like a big waste of time to get caught up in such topics that have little to no meaning while you are attempting to get credit for such nonsensical predictions.





There is no reason to take any of my comments or feedback personally.  I am attempting to attack your arguments, and not you as a person...

You make no sense, but I suppose if you are merely trying to spread FUCD, you do not need to make any sense.       

The royal "we" agrees.  Sounds a bit exaggerated to me.




Sounds like you are getting a little bit defensive.  Probably would be a little better if you were referring to a specific post.  Posters here provide facts, logic and opinion, so depending on the post, I may have been providing opinion.  Otherwise, without specifics, it is a bit difficult to understand what you are talking about, besides that you are upset.



Sounds like you are just spouting off nonsense.  You are mad because I made some criticisms of your arguments, and then you start calling names and engaging in ad hominem attacks rather than substance.



You are one that I criticized, and I have been attempting to criticize your arguments, not you, but you seem to easily get on some kind of ad hominem tangent... and defensive, at that.



Sure there could be some folks that agree with your generalization, here, but I would expect that the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of varying perspectives, and even posters who have similar perspectives are going to apply their approach differently under different circumstances.  Even though I am becoming more and more established in some of my trade practices, even I am not really sure, sometimes whether I am going to tweak some of my actual application or to change my strategy a bit based on news, market conditions or even some things going on in my life.



Hey, aren't you kind of contradicting yourself here?  First you say that we all agree about the approach and that I am not adding any value, and then you say that my approach is not as good as some other approaches.  At least it sounds like you kind of have a grasp of the crux of my approach, which is like you said buying on the way down and selling on the way up.  I don't claim to have any kind of unique approach, and there are a lot of folks who subscribe to similar practices.  Furthermore there are folks who disagree and they also individualize their approach with similar and different strategies.  Part of the reason that I participate in this thread is to get feedback on my approach, and I will sometimes tweak it around a bit - even though I still consider that my approach is working pretty well for my particular circumstances, and sometimes folks let me know that they have benefitted from brainstorming with me about the good bad and ugly of my sometimes evolving approach (that has an overall tendency to buy on the way down and to sell on the way up, as you said).

 Also, with any attempt to apply any general principle or approach, there is some devils in the details, too.  So it is a bit more complicated than just buying on the way down and selling on the way up, even though that is the thrust of the matter.



Here, your conclusion does not seem to be supported by anything.  You get emotional, spout out a bunch of mostly nonsensical defensive and ad hominem attacks, and then claim that I am "r3kt."  There is little to no connection there, and furthermore, in your ranting emotion, you have a tendency to get diverted away from substantively addressing anything that I said in my previous posts. in other words, you don't address issues and you attack... That is hardly any kind of "r3kt" outcome of me, my arguments or anyone/thing else. Seems like pie in the sky wishful thinking continuing from you.   

If you assert that BTC is up 62% this calendar year, then even though accurate, isn't that a bit of an artificial abstraction - although for tax purposes, there are many folks that file based on calendar years, and accordingly they will frame their BTC activities (and other investments in such calendar year terms).

Maybe also there are some concerns regarding how to report (and what kind of accounting to do) to keep track of such investments, especially when it comes time to "realize" some or all of the profits?

Times in bitcoinlandia may have changed, and playing "balls to the walls" with your bitcoin holding, expecting a significant correction after a mere 4-5% rise may be gambling a bit too much, no?

We certainly need to make it passed likely resistance in the upper $700s and the lower $800s, and surely some folks seem to be assuming away some of the likely resistance at those levels - and sure at the same time, the momentum and even the overall underlying bitcoin dynamics, adoption in places like India (and other Local bitcoin demands), technicals and fundamentals, including various crap going on in the financial world seems to help to continue to put upwards price pressures on our lillie fiends.

I still think that selling a few in the $3k to $5k arena is not a bad idea, but even if the price were to shoot up into that $3k to $5k range, I am still projected to hold about 80% of my BTC - though of course, I have the power of discretion and free will and therefore the power to tweak my tentative plan, depending upon how fast and how far it appears we are going (that is if we get there and surely gotta get passed mid $800s before I am making any kind of semi-solid plans in the new ATH arena).

Hahahahaha.  

Funny that some of these dumbass trolls still exist, but sure investors could make decisions to take some profits.


Seems like a bit of a fantasy world to consider that this would either be a good place to short or to take too many profits .. of course, we could get dumped on at any time by some big pockets person or institution (not ruling out banks and/or governments, either), but the odds surely do seem in favor of continued upwards momentum.. to test upper $700s  and the mid $800s...

Personally, I still consider this thing to be trading on relatively mediocre volume and we have not even come close to experiencing any kind of meaningful price battle, yet.

Yeah, sure 24 hour trade volume is up a bit, and maybe even we could assert that we are entering into an upsurge in trade volume for the week, but the reality of the matter is that a BTC price battle is occurring when the trade volume increased is sustained over a considerable period of time - such as several weeks - and we are not even close to being there yet.  So whatever price movement we are currently experiencing it is based on a kind of ongoing low volume trickling up... and sure, I am continuing to look out for an "actual BTC price battle" rather than continuing price movements that appear to be preliminary in nature (rather than any kind of actual meaningful price battle).

hahahahahaha

Yeah, innovate, don't follow the herd.


When everyone else is buying, sell.

That should turn out well.   

As you may recognize, my first response was an attempt at being facetious - and in that regard, I was exaggerating a kind of nonsensical approach. 

Sure, there is some need to not follow the crowd, but in a market, to some extent we are trying to follow the crowd, and maybe even to get ahead of the crowd a bit.

But, in the end, none of us can really know for sure when a price direction is going to reverse unless we happen to be a market maker, and that is largely not the case with regular people.

Therefore, I have mostly been a fan of a kind of attempt at incrementalism rather than attempts to time the market or to try to get ahead of the market.  You don't make a killing by practicing incrementalism, but you do protect your investment and attempt to act on your overall theory in increments (rather than going balls to the wall attempting to predict, which is frequently even cause the best of predictors to be wrong).

What is your major contention here?

Are you, again, arguing for the mere sake of arguing (especially, you seem to have a kind of boner to argue with me... hahahahaha)?

Do you think that we have some abilities to predict BTC price direction and reversals in BTC price directions?

I personally think that each of us puts a set of probabilities on what we believe is going to happen, and then we attempt to invest accordingly.  Sure some folks are more in touch with attempting to synchronize their investment levels with their beliefs and other folks engage in behavior that is not very well in synch with even their own beliefs, but instead engage in kinds of gambling.  Sure some folks enjoy gambling more than others too, and some of the risk-loving folks feel that they get a bit of pleasure from the mere practice of gambling and trying to see if they can beat the odds...

Gambling is personally not my approach to the matter, even though from time to time I do get a few gambling and/or emotional whims that cause me to deviate from aspects of the logical system that I have created for myself.

Does your assessment vary from mine regarding the abilities of folks to predict and/or synchronize their predictions with trade practices and preferences?

MUCH  moar exciteeeeee when dee price b goin  upity.  


And we were so, so close to breaking through $750, too.

I don't expect to make it passed the mid $800s without a couple more corrections..... though I also would not mind being surprised to the contrary...

There just seem to be a lot more shorting tools these days as compared with previous price explosions...

Just doesn't seem like we are going to get a z-cash like 2,000x price spike any time soon... Am I be wrong?

What is your assessment of claims like these?


https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment...ce_segwit/

I know that sometimes a lot of us have posted pretty bullish scenarios with the impeding activation of seg wit, yet there remains quite a few folks betting against seg wit going live.  I kind of think that when push comes to shove miners are going to be more practical than to aim at blocking seg wit.

Seg wit should be a fairly non controversial solution, step forward and financial advancement of bitcoin.. but if it does not implement, that would probably be a bit bearish... or at least a bit less bullish.  The article describes scenarios in which it could take a year for seg wit to activate (or never activate, which seems less likely to me).

I don't mind your "elitist logic"   because I think that is a fair point about the stupidity of warriors, sometimes.

Of course, I am stating a belief about the dynamics of this situation that is somewhat different from the dynamics that cause people to fight to the death in wars... but yeah, there may be some parallels between war and this big block stance?   I am not putting all my eggs in any one basket, but I am considering that it is more possible for seg wit to get activated than not.


Sure, frequently in wars there can be some kind of self identity and even commitment to your fellow troops. Sure there could be some similar dynamics going on with miners and pools getting these kinds of feelings about wanting to win in spite of logic, but I do think that the economics are likely going to continue to be more dominant forces that are going to cause folks (miners) to peel off.... and sure I am exercising a kind of faith that economics is likely going to prevail to cause folks to not align with ideological stupidity.  

And maybe it is just a kind of question regarding who blinks first.. and my inclination is to think that there is not really enough there, there to be keep arguing over nonsensical big blocks, big blocks, big blocks... when that lost a long time ago,.... .  And, it's just dumb to be persisting with ongoing dumbness and tried and true failed logic..  Sure we got folks like Roger Ver and Gavin Andresen spouting off some of the nonsense about big blocks, but even between those two there is not really unity because Gavin seems to recognize the practicality of seg wit.  Sure, Roger talks nonsense, seems to have some pride in this battle and has a lot of BTC to throw around, but in the end, he is talking politics and not technicalities when he is spouting off about the supposed better direction of big blocks, big blocks, big blocks.

I think that bitstamp remains a very decent indicator of price direction, and even though it may seem that trade volume there is not too high, it does tend to pick up when the price battles really begin to take place.

Yet, also, my theory remains that we have not really had much of a price battle including high trade volume since about December 2015.

Even the price rise of May/June 2016 was accomplished without much of a significant and lasting trade volume - but I don't think that you can write off bitstamp, merely because it's trade volume has been down since after December 2015.  My theory is that when the next battle begins, we are going to witness trade volume on bitstamp pick up, too (though of course I will concede ahead of time that I could be wrong      )

I don't think that the wall at $751 is big; however, there seem to be forces (bull whales) who are relatively capable of taking us up and above such price points, but when they get there, they become a bit worried that they may be left alone in their push upwards, which will cause them to get dumped upon, so they are not willing to push above and beyond $751 until they see that there are a sufficient number of "other bull whales" who are ready, willing and able to join in with them.

Maybe in the end we are reaching the same conclusion, even though we are describing the phenomenon (regarding resistance at $751) in different ways?

That's a somewhat interesting and understandable way of resigning (even though the statement is a bit fraught with tension). 

More or less he is saying that this is so much the best bitcoin exchange in the world, and I don't want to be a part of it because I don't want to deal with criticisms.

I am still pondering the question, somewhat, regarding what to report to the IRS, when overall, I am in a very similar situation to you, Elwar, at least in regards to my purchasing of bitcoin continues to be greater than my selling of bitcoin (meaning each year I continue to accumulate bitcoin); however, those buying and selling BTC transactions occur over a large number of exchanges and even through private exchanges - but the net effect is that over the year, 2016 included, my quantity of BTC bought remains 1 to 2%, or even a bit more, greater than the amount sold.  I have a personal accounting accros several exchanges, and in years passed, I did not say anything - though my BTC activity has increased quite a bit over this past year.

What do other folks do?  Do you not report the transactions if the buying of BTC ends up being more than the selling?  I can see if the buying and selling is less than $10k, then maybe it may not matter as much, but what if the  buying and selling of BTC is $20k or more ?  For example, you buy $23k but you sell $20k (i know that it about 15% difference), but you could also buy $53k and sell $50k, and that would be a 6% difference but ultimately not taxable because you have bought more than you sold and therefore no realizable gain in fiat.

There are all kinds of games with walls, and questions about which exchanges are following which, and walls get put up as bluffs, too.  Some of the bigger players may have better ideas about the ability to which resistance or support is effective and sometimes testing out in one direction or another before attempting to play that direction with more conviction and to see if others are going to follow.

And, sure it can become a bit more convincing if there are simultaneous walls on several exchanges, but even those simultaneous walls could be a bit of a game, with the bigger players who likely have a better sense about the apparent effectiveness of their coins in one direction or another - even though they may not know for sure until they take the risk of dumping 1000k in coins, for example (which some may not be willing to do unless they have decent signals from others that they are likely to follow).

You are acting as if stopping trading is better for bitcoin.

There are all kinds of interpersonal strategies that people adopt for justifying trading and their trading costs... also trading costs vary quite a bit, so when you say .8% you seem to be exaggerating considerably.

Furthermore, sure it could be good for bitcoin prices to shoot from $750 to $7,500, but the reality of the matter is that people have all kinds of perspectives about bitcoin and some of them attempt to trade on their perspectives or maybe otherwise attempt to push the market in a direction that is contrary to the perspectives of others in order to profit off of their ability to attempt to manipulate the market.  Besides various arbitrage opportunities and even manipulation between on exhcnage and off exchange BTC trading or even intracryptocoin dynamics, there are also a whole hell-of-a lot more ways to short bitcoin these days, as compared with late 2013 (and earlier BTC price spiking days).

So, yeah, even if some folks think that it would be much better for everyone to ride out the bull run and to HODL, there are other folks that make a whole-hell-of-lot of profit if they can shake up some of the weaker hands by causing some unanticipated moves in the price or a delaying of the rocket to such an extent that it causes some folks to buy high and sell lower than the price that they bought or to sell with only a 10% premium rather than a 1,000% premium that may come way far into the indefinite  and maybe  future.

It seems that you are missing the thrust of my question regarding whether or not to report when there is no gain because you have purchased more during the year.  I am not suggesting or implying that buying more during the year is a loss; however, if a person is moving bitcoins around multiple exchanges, then some exchanges there may be multiple sales that are bought back on another exchange.  One exchange may think that you have realized a gain, but if you look at other exchanges and transactions, then those coins were largely bought back.

So, the question is how to report or if to report in order to clarify that no actual realized gain was experienced because those coins were bought back.

I am not sure if the section on wash in the instructions to form D adequately address the issue.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040sd.pdf

The wash section seems to suggest that if you buy back substantially similar assets within 30 days, then you can treat such buy backs as a wash, but such situation does not really seem to address record keeping very well or whether any reporting requirements exist.  In any event, it could be reasonable to just keep records of the various buy backs, and only provide information regarding such if the IRS asks, otherwise there is no need to report as long as there is no gain and you are buying back more than you are selling.

There are a variety of scenarios that could play out, and any of us could still proclaim that we were correct regarding the various resistance points and at what point we can relax because FOMO and additional upward momentum is kicking in.

Sometimes my thinking can evolve about the topic too, but it still seems that $750 is too low to get excited and also $780 is too low to get excited, so we have to break sufficiently beyond those areas in order to experience some of the contagion of upward momentum, FOMO etc - also, even though we could experience considerable upward pushes at any time by some bullwhale, any such upward push seems that it could end up being a bit premature because between the rise from lower $600s to mid $700s, we have really only experienced one significant downward correction from $740s to $670-ish, and really that is only about 10% correction on about a 25% rise (which also could be considered less than a 30% retrace of gains) . 

Sure, there is no requirement that any kind of meaningful downward correction has to take place, but I would be surprised if BTC prices get passed mid $800s without at least one more significant correction, that could occur at anytime whether that is in this $750 arena, or upper $700s or lower $800s.  We also should keep in mind that there are a lot more ways to short bitcoin, as compared with late 2013.


Sure there seems to be ongoing upwards price pressures that seems to including relatively low trade volume levels, so there has not really been any real and meaningful price battle (yet) of the upwards and onwards price movement, and it is also possible that if bearwhales wait too long to attempt to wage such battle to bring prices back down, they may lose their ability to push prices downward and to interfere with the ongoing upwards movement that pretty much has been happening for a year now. 

That's my tentative thinking, yet you won't find me complaining if I turn out to be 100% wrong and BTC prices just go shooting up without any more meaningful downwards correction attempts.

O.k.  Your assertion, more or less, that the wash section does not apply to individuals could be accurate.

But I question your attempt to further clarify this matter by apparent discounting of personal abilities to buy back in order to not realize a gain.

For example, if I were to put all of my at-issue bitcoins on coinbase (more accurately GDAX), there is no taxable event of the various trades of coins that I make; however, when I go to withdraw the coins, then there is a taxable event.  

I am suggesting that if I sell the coins on GDAX and buy them back on Gemini, then there should be no taxable event because I am buying them back.  You are suggesting that such an ability to not count that as a taxable event only applies to businesses.  This year, I am going to make some accounting in my taxes, and I doubt that I am going to account the matter in the way that you are suggesting unless the authority seems to be abundantly clear that I have to count every cashing out as a gain, even though I bought back more than I sold.  Sounds like made up nonsense to me that I would want to cause my taxes to be higher than justifiable when there seems to be a reasonable accounting that allows me to continue to count the whole matter as an investment portfolio that has been continued to be held by me throughout the year and continuing to increase in the total amount of fiat that is invested in such portfolio, even though the portfolio covers more than 10 locations (including at least 6 exchanges) in which they are held.

 

Yes, I am considering this matter under USA tax laws, and yes, based on your response and some of the other responses, including information in poolminor's responses, I may have to consider ways to change some of my accounting. 

I do have until about April 2017 before I file taxes on 2016, so I might be able to come to some resolution on the topic that I feel is reasonable and acceptable and would not necessarily trigger either an audit or some kind of IRS penalty.

You are saying something that kind of supports my inclinations,  yet on the other hand, we cannot really wish away the potential that there are actual gains "on paper" that end up being folded back into bitcoin.

Accordingly, let's say for example I bought and sold $100k of BTC over the course of the year for an average price of $500 (that is from coins more than a year old) and sold them for an average price of $700.  That would be 133.3 BTC sold and $26,666 of gain (on paper) ($200 x 133.3). 

That's also why I was suggesting, in one of my earlier posts, that if the amount of BTC traded were of a fiat value of less than $10k, then maybe it would not matter as much if you failed to report $2,666 in gains (on paper) versus $26,666 in gains (on paper)?

  Currently, my trading numbers for 2016 seem to be somewhere between these two (more than $10k but less than $100k), but if BTC prices appreciate more, we could imagine scenarios in which the gains on paper numbers become a lot larger, too.

If I traded all of those BTC on one exchange, then I would have never been considered to have realized any of the gain, but as soon as I cashed them out to my bank and then move them to another exchange, then I would have been considered to realize a gain (from the cashing out). 

On one exchange versus between exchanges kind of seems like a distinction without a difference (except maybe  it becomes more of a policing issue for the IRS to be able to verify what you are doing versus if they were to allow arbitraging).

For tax purposes, if I have "on paper" $26,666 in capital gains income, then that would be $4k in taxes for money that I never had used in any kind of way because I reinvested it within a substantially short period of time.

I doubt that one exchange is controlling anything, even if there was one exchange that lead a specific price action.

The fact of the matter remains that once Stamp dumped, others were willing to follow, rather than to just leave Stamp out there on its own.

In other words, the other exchanges were prepared for such a dump... so it did not really matter that much which of the exchanges started it out, whether it was Stamp or some other exchange, and by the time the dump began to happen, the whole market was more or less ready for such a simultaneous dump.

A question now remains about whether such dump is over or do we have more dumping coming in the coming hours, days or week?  Otherwise, we could prepare for some additional upwards movement.

Personally, I sense that, absent some fairly significant news or FUD, even if some additional dumping occurs, it's going to be quite difficult to bring BTC prices below $650 and there is likely going to be additional support in the $680 range that needs to be overcome to get us into the mid-$600s in the first place....never say never, but there is likely decent incentives for dumping to force the closing of some longs, if such forcing is possible.

"probably continue playing ping pong between 700 and 750 for the next few weeks"

I wonder what are the odds for such a scenario playing out?

We have a bit of attention to bitcoin and we have some fairly recent price action, and I would probably place the odds at less than 50% (and maybe even less than 1/3) that BTC prices are going to stay between $700 and $750 for a "few weeks." 

Even though weekly trade volume remains a bit mediocre, there is some exciting price movement in the air... and seemingly ongoing and upwards price pressures.  If bears are going to want to stifle this current upwards price pressures, they are going to need to invest a bit more into such stifling attempts, and I question if they have enough ammunition and/or balls to be willing to risk taking such a loss at these price points, especially if they consider that the less resistant path seems to be upwards (so compare the direction that is most likely to be profitable).  In other words, beginning such a battle to attempt to bring BTC prices down and to reverse the upward pressures in the $770 to $850 price range seems a bit more feasible, at least, to me, ongoing upward price pressures seems to be the current dynamics.

Finally, you are saying something that makes sense... hahahahahhaha   

I will concede to you that bitcoin will frequently perform in ways that go beyond expectations, but that does not mean that it does not follow some very basic principles in terms of trends and difficulties that may be incurred when either attempting to break support or resistance and the actual physical realities that there have to be folks (even manipulators) who have sufficient quantity of coins/fiat that are either on exchanges or easily can get to exchanges to overcome the forces of the other folks who also have coins/fiat there.

Also, sure each of us are entitled to ascribing our own probabilities to various possible outcomes and betting our investment accordingly (or whatever it is that we do to attempt to synchronize our view with our actions).

Regarding your stated view of probabilities, I find it a bit illogical and difficult to grasp when you seem to be asserting something like, a very large number of folks seem to believe that bitcoin is going to volatile into the near future, therefore, it seems more likely than not that bitcoin is not going to be as volatile as everyone else seems to be thinking.  Comes off as a bit nonsensical to me, but hey, as I already conceded, everyone is entitled to his/her own viewpoint.

Could work.  

You have a stop loss set at $744?  hahahahaha...

Good luck with that short... seems a lot safer to consider less risky and less gambling orientated accumulation methods, but to each his/her own. 

Yes, you can keep hoping all that you want, but it may be better to just take the loss at this point, and close your shorts, no?



Don't forget about calme, though I am sure calme will figure out a way to change his story when his shorts get r3ckt

Yeah.   That is be called:  Butthurt.   


There seems to be quite a bit of irony when folks come into threads like this and try to get others to either sell or to short, and certainly, I don't have any problem with taking various kinds of trading strategies, including shorting and selling or even making various arguments regarding the price direction of bitcoin.

Likely a large number of shorters and sellers did pretty well through 2014 and about half of 2015, but since about August 2015, shorters and sellers would have needed to be very strategic (and maybe even lucky) with their strategies to bet against bitcoin because the significantly more profitable strategy would have been some form of BTC holding and/or accumulation, especially when you consider that the increase in BTC prices during that period has resulted in a pretty solid 3x increase in value.  

Sure some folks are going to continue to suggest that we are in a kind of BTC price bubble, but if you really look at BTC in a broader context, including a lot of the networking effects going on that are also demonstrated in the ongoing upwards hash rate (that is contrary to what a lot of the bitcoin naysayers were asserting around the halvening), there continues to be considerable demand for actual BTC on a world-wide basis and never before seen immutable decentralized abilities to hold and transfer value.  WOHAZA!!!!!

Pee pare yourselves for continuing to get R3CKT, shorters.  

Currently, I see 2,611 BTC at $740 on bitfinex.  Will be interesting to see how long that wall lasts, and whether it gets eaten into, pulled or causes a price reversal.

Almost as soon as we commented on it,

"AND,

It's gone."  (Edit, and DaRude beat me too it...  )


Could have been a demonstration of power?

It would have been nice to have seen a decent chunk of that wall eaten into.

1) I think that I know what people mean when they talk about a btc price of $1,000, and they seem to be attempting to refer to a seemingly BIG number, but really, I believe that $1k is not a very helpful price reference point (even though it seems kind of appealing and has a certain kind of ring to it in numerology - that is moving from 3 digits to 4 digits).

2) Currently, we are not really very far away from $1k - about a 35% BTC price appreciation from the currently floating $740-ish would bring us there.

3) upwards movement in price resistance points seem likely to exist in the upper $700s and lower to mid $800s  (smooth sailing after that?  could be? maybe?)

4) previous ATH was about $1,160.  Given the past overshooting nature of bitcoin prices, doesn't seem too likely that BTC prices would get stuck very long in between $900 and $1,300 - however,  I could be very very wrong in my current thinking of the BTC price NOT sticking topic because currently as compared with late 2013, there surely are a whole hell-of-a lot more ways to short bitcoin, no?

Even the bears are turning into bulls... hahahahaha


By the way, BTC-e about ready to break through it's 2 year ATH...   $745

BTC-e seems to be keeping up a little better with a bit closer parity in recent months.

I just looked more closely into the BTC-e price matter, and now I see why BTC-E has been under $745, including currently, there is a wall of about 880 coins up for sale at that $745 price point (it may have started at around 1,000 coins), and it appears that so far the $745 wall is getting eaten away little by little (chomp, chomp, chomp).

Personally, I think that higher prices and more spread out exchanges causes smaller walls, ultimately.

Recall a few weeks ago, there were fond assertions of walls of the past.. yeah, sure if bitcoins are $10 each and there is only one main exchange, you could have frequently seen walls of 20k coins or 100k coins... 

If coins are $1k each, then we may not even see too many walls of more than 2k coins (placed by seemingly one person), especially when there seem to be more exchanges competing for those coins (but there are some fake coins in china, no?)

Shouldn't we question whenever posters describe the future in absolutes?

 Sure, it is possible that you could be correct about another downwards correction in the near-term mix, but in the past 7 weeks, we have had several moderate corrections already in our low trade volume rise up from $605.

Besides your downward prediction, I think that there are fairly decent chances that BTC prices could either continue to meander upwards into the upper $700s or into the lower to mid $800s before any additional and meaningful correction plays itself out.

I do agree with your overall conclusion about overall upward trend.. and I think that we would have to have a meaningful correction at least below $550 and maybe nearly into the $400s before it would be reasonable to call the current trend anything but upwards (since lower to mid-$200s, by the way... hahahahaha)

Likely I am not really disagreeing with anything that you are saying except when you emphasize certain concepts such as "must"   Maybe in your thinking the odds are 51% or 63% or 87% or 95%, but you really could not believe the odds are 100% for the future, unless it has already happened (and that would not be the future), could you?

I could see the end of the year potentially being a factor for tax purposes, but for commercial purposes, bitcoin likely remains much too small in that particular space for those commercial purposes to have much of an overall affect on bitcoin prices - there are too many other things going on in the world that are putting upwards pressures on price through overall adoption and just preservation of value (as compared with currency manipulations, etc)

In the end, there can be some big macro economics going on that cause seasonal dynamics and momentum, but it also seems difficult to pin down exactly on a seasonal basis in order to really bet that price is going one direction or another because of some kind of seasonal dynamic compared with other fundamentals (such as effect of halvening or effect of seg wit signaling/adoption etc).


You seem to be describing a bit of a living pay check to pay check scenario or maybe that some folks are a bit over extended in their bitcoin investment.  Sure there may be some of this going on in the margins, but really I doubt what you are describing is any kind of meaningful and or widespread market dynamic affecting bitcoin prices.


I would concede that less trading around the holidays because of closed banks, travel and family/entertainment activities could have some market effects... but sometimes it can cause whales to get active in their attempts at manipulations because they know that generally there tends to be a bit less liquidity during those kinds of times.

Hahahaha

I hate to agree with someone who is coming off as a kind of alphanumeric bot troll, but I tend to agree that picking one or two USD/BTC exchanges bitstamp, bitfinex or even GDAX tends to be a bit more representative of what is happening, as compared with Bitcoin Average.  Bitcoin average tends to move a bit more laggedly (if that is a word?), and sometimes when we are watching volatility dynamics and even attempting to predict price direction(s), we need some measurements that are more "in-touch" with on the ground dynamics - which are the exchanges themselves.  On the other hand, if you are just looking at a kind of average for the whole day.. blah blah blah, then bitcoin average is probably not a bad rough indicator.




You go girl!!!!       

I'm not sure whether it is worth the effort to give any benefit of the doubt to the genuineness of this "down" characterization?

If you are coming up with any kind of conclusion about "down" you seem to be looking too short term, and you need to zoom out a little bit and look at context.

Maybe I can help out a little bit?  More or less, here's our current BTC price context.


In May/June 2016, we had a run up from mid $400s to upper $700s, then we had a close to 20% downward correction that was exacerbated and extended in part due to the early August Bitfinex "hack".

Since early October, we have experienced a pretty steady uptrend and several relatively small corrections during attempts to break through the lower to mid $700s.  

Our current price range seems to be largely floating in the upper end of the range of an ongoing uptrend pressures, largely between $715 and $755 - Maybe it could make some sense to suggest "downwards" if we start breaking below $720 or $715, otherwise prices seem to currently be in an "up" and remain "up", even we are going to experience some near term dips into the lower $720s.

Where do we go from here remains another question that remains bit difficult to determine, whether you are looking at charts, fundamentals or FUD spreading.  

I am personally a tiny bit more inclined to think that continued upwards movement into the upper $700s to mid $800s is more likely than a break below $700, but I certainly would not bet the farm on any such suggestion when maybe the odds are maybe around 55% for up and around 45% for down or something like that.  By the way, once we get into the upper $700s or mid $800s, it would not be surprising to experience a pretty decent battle and downwards correction at that point (even though it is not absolutely needed in order to experience continued upwards movement, such as a 5 to 10x explosion)

So yeah, wake me up and start making tiny assertions of "down" if we break below $720, and you have permission to be more vocal about short to medium term "down" if "downwards price movements" begin to appear that $700 may be tested, again.  

We would only get into longer term discussions of "down" if it appeared that we were to be going below $550 or maybe lower, and with more than a $150 cushion, no one really seems to making those kinds of longer term "down" assertions, yet.

I might agree with you that the answer is not exactly clear; however, you seem to be framing the issue as if the onblock and offblock solutions are equal and competing proposals, which is truly not the case.

The case with seg wit is that it has gone through the early stages of consensus, development and testing, and therefore it is a yes or no vote about whether you agree to going forward with this version.  There is no other version that is competing for attention or approval.. so if you go for the other version, then that version needs to be vetted and to go through testing.. and any code that is currently out there as a supposed competing version is either sloppy, non supported or both.

You cannot be serious to considering that Savetherainforest could actually have any meaningful clue regarding his prediction for supposedly moderate and consistent rise in BTC, incrementalism or whatever you want to call it.  For about 6 months, he has been saying that we are going to the moon, all the way through the May/June correction, and  then continuing to say that he is all in while the lows got lower and even during the August Bitfinex correction.  I think that he moderated his prediction comments a little bit after the Bitfinex correction, so in the end,  Savetherainforest is largely in a fantasy world but sure he could be correct, even from his fantasy perspective.   

From what I can tell, that is a bit more than a 10% correction - could happen, but you may be a bit safer with some kind of incrementalism rather than expecting more than a 10% correction from our current price point.

Consider spreading the quantity of your total bet into 25%-ish increments (in 4 parts) moderately at around 3%, 6%, 9% and 12%

 


So how many coins (or what percentage of my BTC holdings) should I sell in order to protect myself from this possibility?

O.k.  Fair enough, but it seems like it could take a few months to sort this kind of thing out.. especially if there are seeming to be some attempts at coordinating and even some confusion from miners about whether or not to support seg wit.

I am with you concerning your conclusion that ultimately seg wit is going to be implemented... but yeah, it could take a bit of time to get there.

You are not "sole."  


There are plenty of trolls who hold the same view that BTC prices are going down.. These lovely troll people, bots predict "downwards", almost no matter what happens.  Therefore, you have good company.

O.k... 1 week, possibly $800...

O.k.... possibly, some kind of global economic unity in 10 years, but more likely 30-50 years.. As others have suggested, there can be a lot of different ways that "global economic unity" would play out, and 10 years seems way too soon to sort those kinds of matters out.

Regarding the "pushing 2,400", I think that is a problematic number to be "pushing."  Even though the future does not play out the same as the past, $2400 is an awkward place for BTC.

Once we get passed the mid $800's, the most likely price range would end up in the $3k to $5k territory, and then likely we would have a correction of some sort.

I doubt that we are going to get stuck at $2,400 for any significant time, unless it would be coming back after the correction, which could take a bit more than a year's time to play out.  

On the other hand, it is possible that we could experience a pump into the $3 to $5k range, and then experience a correction that takes place quickly, but causes use to get stuck in the $2,400 range and therefore "pushing" $2400.





Hahahahaha


That is pessimistic.  

Therefore, in your view, if I just HODL my current coins, the best case price appreciation scenario that I could expect with my current coins is 30x....

Oh Fucks!!!!  Seems that I am only going to be 30x more richie with my current BTC.  

It seems likely that we can see that the premise of a discussion everyone being on the same page is a bit off base, and the foundation of bitcoin's set up or governance is not really needing folks to be on the same page.. , so if they are not largely on the same page, then the status quo continues.. and if there are enough of them on the same page seg wit goes forward and if there are enough of them that believe that a blocksize limit increase is a good idea, then that goes forward.  It can take a long time to play out to get from discussion of a topic, creation of code, testing and vetting the code and then getting a considerable amount of agreement (consensus level) on it's activation.

Surely, seg wit is much further along the road towards consensus than any blocksize limit increase... and sure, there could be simultaneous proposals or seg wit could get pulled and revised if that course of action seems more likely to achieve consensus.. but at the moment seg wit is on the table, and those who are working towards blocking it don't have feasible code that has gone through the vetting process.  It is pie in the sky to work on a premise that all folks are going to substantially agree - but it is not pie in the sky to recognize that some proposals are further along in the process and have better chances to survive than others.  Even though there are a lot of naysayers regarding seg wit, seg wit seems to have really decent chances of getting activated in the year's time that it is on the table (or alternatively some close version with agreeable tweaks). 

It would not be the end of the world or even close to the end of the world if bitcoin does not achieve consensus on any of the proposed changes in the coming years.  Bitcoin is still going to serve quite well, even though getting closer and closer to activating seg wit would probably be very bullish for bitcoin's prices, because it seems to be a very good next step....

If you are summarizing what I said in ways other than what I said, then I said what I am trying to say.  On the other hand, if you are asking me to clarify or to go into more detail, then sure, I am stating my opinion based on a variety of factors, probabilities, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.   And yes, more or less what I am saying, at this time, is that there is likely to be decent BTC price momentum at the point of getting passed the mid $800s... not 100% but decent likelihood. 

I am not saying that anything is certain, but I am saying that it makes less sense, to me, when posters are asserting theories at this particular time and based on probabilities and various knowns and unknowns about BTC price sticking points that are seeming to be less logical than my own.. hahahahaha...
, especially if in our current price point, they are asserting BTC price sticking points in the $900 to $2000 range without providing some kind of explanation or context.. .. and therefore, $2,400 also makes little sense to me, if there is not some kind of context that would justify such an explanation (as I had attempted to provide in my earlier post on the topic).

So, to repeat, my view is not set in stone, and after matters unravel, they can begin to unravel in ways that cause my own theory to no longer make sense because matters may unravel in ways that change the theory and probabilities..

In other words, I have my theories, at this point, that I will revise under changing circumstances and as justified by the happening knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.. and known unknowns are more probable to take place than unknown unknowns, and unknown unknowns can throw monkey wrenches in the tentative theories.  So, yeah, seriously, there are various working ideas that help to plan - even though there is justification that all of the eggs would NOT be put into that basket.

I used as many words as I decided was adequate to respond to the issue.

I don't think so.  The more I think about it, the more I conclude that every single word that I used was completely and absolutely necessary.

You seem like you are trolling, butt hurt and/or feeling sorry for bitcoin deniers, big blockers and FUD spreaders, and my view of bitcoin's future is based on a combination hunches, probabilities, based on bitcoin's past performance of overshooting possibilities including rhyming.. and not necessarily repeating, also based on networking effects (including considerations of Metcalfe's law that could cause additional exponential growth periods) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

Mine is also a working hypothesis that I have had for a while (longer than a year, if I recall correctly), but I would be more than willing to tweak it or to give up upon it, if it appeared that any of the material bitcoin fundamentals were to change and justify such a giving up upon.        

Thank you Harrymmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm for pointing that out, because frequently some of these seg wit naysayers are putting out misinformation regarding the supposed "vettedness" of inadequate and likely dangerous competing code.

Well, if we look back at this past month, what is that called? an ascending triangle?  or would it be called the about 5th testing of resistance in the mid $700s, with each of those test a tiny bit higher than the last (or at least within a kind of range that seems to have a bit of an inclination).

Even though we are still operating with mediocre trade volumes which still continues to bolster a conclusion that any kind of meaningful price battle has not yet begun, I lean towards our situation being a bit more bullish than not, and this current situation is kind of feeling similar to the place we were in early 2016 in the mid $400s. this time feels more incline to break upwards sooner, but you can never really know in bitcoinlandia how long we could remain in a kind of holding pattern.

According to this chart:

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zig2-hourzczsg2010-02-15zeg2011-1-15ztgMzm1g10zm2g25zv

$.15 was around November 2010, and it appears that May 2010 would have been quite lower, maybe in the pennies territory and not officially trading yet.


I don't member nuttin bout bitcoin until late 2013, and better late than never..,no? especially since there are only some folks who are currently finding out about bitcoin, and they gots no stake into bitcoin, and maybe some of those just finding out folks are going to want to jump on the bitcoin train (possibly rocket) when we are on our soon upcoming journey from mid $800s into the $3k to $5k territory?

Sorry if we are repeating a fairly minute topic regarding the specifics of BTC price predictions; however, under my current working theory, I am thinking that we have quite a long way to go in order to get into the mid $800s (at least one price correction, if not more than one), so accordingly, it does not seem very likely that our upward projectile and potentially explosive journey in that direction would be able to start until the mid-$800s or possibly a tiny bit later. 

Of course, there is a possibility that I could be wrong, and the journey could possibly start earlier (surely, I would love to be wrong), but I think that the possibilities of starting our upwards projectile - potentially violently explosive journey towards northerly territories is fairly remote chances to begin from a mid $700s point (such as our current price point, right now).

Please, please, please prove me to be wrong, but to me, the odds seem quite against such a happening.   

Strong and seemingly non-substantive commentary to assert that you are pointing out some kind of non-existent "hypocrisy."

In essence, I have provided sufficient reasoning, in spite of your trolling and in spite of your selectively clipping out my rationale, and I have provided various reasoning in previous similar posts on the same topic, as well, regarding similar types of BTC price predictions that I have been making for quite a while, now.

In recent times, I have been making various attempts to avoid disclosing too many specifics regarding exactly how many coins that I hold, but surely, there is some information out there in which you could get ball park ideas.

Based on this post, and your earlier posts about your average cost per coin, here is my approximate estimate regarding the number of coins that you own.


Approximate amount invested:  4.53 x $750 = $3,400

Based on my foggy memory - estimated average cost per coin:  $150

Approximate current number of coins held:   $3400 / $150 = 22.67  ( 1/one millionth of the total BTC supply)