Topic: I'm either deaf or the volume isn't high enough (Read 1324 times)

People are also waiting for what will happen on the 2nd of August.
Since a downrating of the US could have a huge positive effect on the btc price.

You guys aren't kidding.

Like Leonard Cohed said "It's as dead as heaven on a Saturday night!"

I think the dwolla debacle may be bigger than I thought.

Exactly what I was thinking.  At this point I think we may truly be witnessing the signs of how desperately Bitcoin infrastructure needs to grow.  I just checked out www.bitmunchies.com and loved what I saw.  The ability to buy everyday, household products and perishables is exactly what Bitcoin needs.  Here's how I see it.  I'm mining coins, making several $ USD a day.  Why go to the store (gas is expensive + time considerations) when I can just take my mined BTC and do my errands online in a few minutes?  I have no good reason to sell my bitcoins and also no good reason to buy more with the markets as they are.  But I do have a good reason to buy household supplies and food.  If this is the case, we don't need high exchange volume because of the high volume outside of the exchange.  The problem to me is that it seems like there aren't enough competing merchant sites outside of the gambling and precious metals arenas.  We need 100 bitmunchies.coms, 100 BTC-accepting clothing apparel sites, etc.  BTC is supposed to be a more convenient method of exchange, and if I can buy the same things that I would with USD at the same price more conveniently, then my demand for BTC will certainly increase.  This is ESPECIALLY true if I can purchase things with BTC at a discount (i.e. a slightly lower price than USD) since this would give me a reason to buy BTC at an exchange explicitly for product purchases.  All this precious metals crap is great (seriously, who wouldn't want a 1 oz. troy silver Bitcoin to give you the warm fuzzies?), but it's NOT more convenient when I could buy silver cheaper without BTC.  Less focus on novelty, more focus on what's practical!

I think you're right about the end of free trading reducing the trading volume.  Day-trading bitcoins is fun, but if there's no movement, and you're paying to trade, it's a lot less fun.  Also, Fridays are usually quiet since the weekend is ahead, which makes everyone bearish since there's no incoming transfers until Monday.

But I think there's a bitcoin fundamentals issue here, too: it doesn't take a genius to see that if Mt. Gox's total trading volume is 6000 bitcoins, and 7200 new coins are minted a day, miners have to hoard almost all of their bitcoins in order for bitcoins to not drop like a stone.  How long will miners hoard before they want or need to start cashing out?  Anyone that can afford mining rigs can probably afford to pay the electric bills for a few months without cashing out their mined coins, but will bitcoins see a significant increase in usage and demand before miners need to sell to cover the bills?  That's the million dollar question, in my mind.

I'll speculate that bitcoins are slowly headed back down to the $10-12 range over the next couple of months due to low demand.  I still want to support bitcoin, even if I don't want to invest right now, so I've placed buy orders on Mt. Gox in the $10-$12 range.  If miners ever do want to cash out, they can see that someone's willing to take those coins off their hands, just not for the (what I think are) unjustifiably high prices currently being asked.

Yeah dude...

On the other hand, it's kind of cool to see volumes at Mt. Gox and Tradehill so close at the moment.  I want in at $13.2 on TH.  I'll pump my useless $100 into the fun.

It definitely feels quiet. I was actually kind of surprised no one had posted about it yet.

Less free trades? + uncertainty?

I have my btc's and a couple hundred bucks on tradehill.  I'm thinking about buying some btc's with my remaining cash, just so I dont have to deal with the cash problem.  I actually feel safer being in BTC's at the moment for some reason.  Dealing with cash is such a pain.

EDIT: dam i just looked at the charts and something is wierd. 

Mt gox just 29 btc's in 4 hours? Tradehill with 400? hmm

http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/

(bitcoin charts resets at 8pm eastern time US)

What's with the super-low volume?  I mean, I get Dwolla deposits are down, but that shouldn't affect people with $ or BTC already in their accounts.  Is this related to the reinstatement of Mt. Gox trading commissions?  Current volume (according to Bitcoinwatch) at Mt. Gox is below 6,000 and at one point Tradehill's 24hr volume was below 500 earlier in the day.  It wasn't even #2 in volume at that point.  And yet, the price isn't fluctuating significantly.

Is everyone bearish at the moment?  I know I am (I'm passive by nature ).