Topic: 3 is the magic number, and the magic number is 3 - page 5. (Read 8120 times)

Looks like he moved what's left of it (which is lots) up 10 or 15 cents just now.  I'd only see him move it down, but suspected he may move it up which is why I took a bite this morning.

I think the guy could be dark at those volumes if he wanted to be, but I cannot remember (or never knew) if that was possible on Tradehill.  My hypothesis (probably wrong) is that this is some early adopter who just wants out with limited hassle.  It is my hope that those who are taking a decent position at these post-bubble times will be more rare, and also less likely to be shaken out.  Thus, the currency base will be undergoing a healthy re-distribution.

Ah, my misunderstanding.  It seems about time for things to settle down, and the ideal currency (in my mind) is a boring one that just works.

Hah, that's quite the wall over at tradehill, esp. given the size of that exchange.  But what I've found is that large walls are tempting targets, and tend to get chomped up wholesale, which doesn't help reduce volatility.  It's been better to place a number of smaller, staggered orders so that large buyers have to pay a premium for a big buy, and large sellers don't get the best possible price if they sell quickly.  Again, it's been all about reducing volatility.  For big orders, people should be using #bitcoin_otc anyway rather than an exchange.

And nor am I putting up $100k, I've just had a lot of turnover on small-ish trades, and have luckily caught the market a number of times on both sides in the past month, freeing me up to continue trading.  No single trade has been over 500 btc, and no bot, either - the market has been too volatile for me to trust one.

What happened to the shortterm being down? Also, what is so convincing that bitcoin will increase 100% in value in the next twelve weeks, an average of over 0.8% a day?!

You may be right that BTCUSD may hold below 4 $ for a bit more, but in the next 1-12 weeks (yes, I know it's a broad range) we will see a rise into the 6 (edit)-10 $ range.

Three is a nice number, but I would say that it is the bitcoin number.

Try trading a different currency or exchange, then you'll find that while you are trading at three, others are not.  I hardly ever trade at that number, and am doing ok.  Good that you're adding to liquidity over at Gox.

I used the term 'damage' completely figuratively and not at all pejoratively.  Just meaning that it is of a magnitude such that it could have a noticeable impact.  I'm a fairly serious speculator as well and concur that such a class of participants could end up having a positive impact on the monetary system if it survives.

I'm with here on all fronts I think (though I'm certainly not putting up 100's of grand) and appreciate your efforts.  By happenstance I did do a recent one at $3.00, but whoever has the 20k BTC on the block at Tradehill right now is calling the tune on that exchange.  I am dying of curiosity about the story behind that block, but there are losta things we will probably never know.

My base rate in residential Los Angeles is $.0702, and FYI, there are no tiers from september to may, IIRC. What it actually comes out to is more like $.155 when you factor in taxes and delivery charges (which compose the lion's share of electrical costs here).

DeathAndTaxes: there are two utility companies serving Los Angeles. If you are on LADWP, you are getting the (more) subsidized shit. If you are on Southern California Edison, you are getting raped.

http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp004844.jsp
"High Peak" hours are 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., weekdays.
"Low Peak" hours are 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., and 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., weekdays.
The "Base" hours are 8:00 p.m. – 10:00 a.m. weekdays, and all day Saturday and Sunday.

They actually just changed this so that peak was 10 rather than 8 hours of the day. It's bullshit, cause I have a work order in to get a time-of-use meter installed from six months ago.

I have about $200 in Mt Gox, none of it in Bitcoins at the moment. I'll buy if I see a panic sell, or some other opportunity, but I would only hold it for as long as the rebound.

Damage?  I'm damn sure that I've been helping the market, not hurting it.

It's funny that 'speculator' is considered a pejorative around here, but it shouldn't be, as it really depends on how the speculation is done.  I think we both agree that dumping thousands of coins to cause a panic sell, then buying back in later at a lower price, is a crap way to treat this fragile market.  I've never done that.  I leave up a number of small bids and sells up that eventually get fulfilled, and rarely put in orders that are immediately fulfilled.  Rather than being a market mover, I'm acting like friction on the price, reducing volatility, no matter which direction it's going.

I'd rather work on something more productive, too, but the bitcoin economy can't function well if there's huge amounts of hourly or daily volatility.  So, my self-selected role has been to try to reduce volatility.  So join me if you agree that reduced volatility is a good thing: put up a bid below $3, a sell above $3, and then we can all move on to the more interesting parts of building this economy.

Yeah I'm living in live/work commercial zone loft and I can get decent rate from DWPLA. I'm definitely lucky to have low rate especially in cali.

Well you may want to fix your post:
"but my electricity after tax and all the other fees at $.07"

Hell I am surprise you even have a base rate of $0.07 in CA.  I got a friend in CA who complained his peak rate (TOU) was $0.22 per kWh.  Not sure if he was exaggerating or not. 

Lets just say that .07 is just the rate. There are plenty of taxes in california on top of that and that is the lowest rate of the 3 tier system. I had to lower my mining output to remain low tier and whatnot.

How with $0.07 do you have a small margin?  Are you using the electricity to arc weld the hashes into aluminum sheets?

At 2.0MH/W & $0.07 per kWh = $1.01 electrical cost per BTC (current difficulty).  66.7% gross margins is barely profitable?
At 2.5MH/W & $0.07 per kWh = $0.80 electrical cost per BTC.

first break above 3 in a while

rabble rabble rabble

I mine and I would love to see the price to hold steady/rise while difficulty adjusts to it, but I'm afraid you are right about this as much as your weekend projection.

Unless we see a clear upward movement with high volume past at least $4 mark, we are only going to see small volume movements near $3 until we inevitably drop again like we have been. Because miners only have such small margin for profit, they are likely to sell right away if they are profitable to not go in negative teritory, or simply quit mining if they aren't profitable.  And longer we linger around same pricepoint, lower their confidence will be to hold. This slow loss of confidence by miners after first difficulty adjustment after a big dip is easily noticeable on the price charts represented by very low volume trading that continues for a week or maybe two which is followed by slowly accelerated selling starting the next wave down.


What you are pointing out is merely the cut off line for miners to be able to enter and be competitive not losing money doing it. Price can easily go down to drive away more miners as easily as price going up will entice more miners to return. If you say the "average" cost to mine btc is more than $3, it's just means those miners are better off not mining and not facing a loss and the market is offering the coins cheaper than he/she can mine them.

I can't say about average, but my electricity after tax and all the other fees at $.07 right now is still profitable by a very small margin which keeps me mining. Others aren't as lucky and have long been out of the mining game since the downtrend. The cost to mine bitcoin isn't a leading indicator to what the actualy value of bitcoin should be. I would love to see the price go up so that I won't have to sell everyday just to make sure I stay profitable. Holding and price dropping it's bottom on me will ruin the little margin I have right now. But it is what it is and I haven't been convinced that any long term trend shows a clear reversal.  

I've been doing the same thing all week, and I've noticed it's getting harder and harder to actually buy back...  I think I'm gonna quit while I'm ahead and sit on my bitcoins for a couple of weeks.

$25,000 -> $250,000?

The sad thing is that these kinds of numbers are enough to do some damage.  Bring in a few buddies and let's get this thing rolling so I can stop pumping in funds and switch to more productive endeavors.

Well, they were wrong, and I'm right - this time it's different!  

Seriously, I think the big difference is that more miners are holding rather than selling, waiting for better prices, and marginal miners have stopped mining.  Volume has been dropping, and the combination of reduced price and reduced volume is allowing speculators like myself to keep up with production.

The price was between 4 and 6 between Sept. 9th and October 9th - about a month.  It only held in the $13 range for a couple of weeks.  And it's been between 2 and 4 for about a month, too, and is still in the middle of the range, so I think it's fair to say that we're in a period of unprecedented stability since the rise over $1.

Then again, I (along with many others) push the market with our speculation, so my "prediction" of $3 is at least a partially self-fulfilling prophecy.  I'm not "The Manipulator", but I do represent, oh, >1% but <10% of mt gox volume over the past 30 days.

What percentage of your bitcoin money do you have riding on this speculation?

You could be right, but when your money is behind your statements then it means a lot more.

If it is below, I suspect it will not be by much.

My speculation/prediction and money is it will not dip much below $3 and maintain a price of $3+ for a while.

We'll see.

I guarantee you that in two weeks the price will be below $3