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Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 29037. (Read 26711537 times)

legendary
Activity: 2212
Merit: 1199
It's like the Devils playground at the moment.

EDIT.

Thanks Jorgi. I've only read the first 2 lines. Wall of words is much, much so.

Devils playground indeed Tongue Price at Bitstamp 666$ Tongue as other users reported Smiley
hero member
Activity: 910
Merit: 1003
I am not aware of any investment with an expected value that is positive in real terms (inflation-adjusted).

A stock that is well-supported by fundamental data should give several percent return above inflation. 

To the extent that inflation can be predicted over a certain time span, loans at a fixed interest rate can do that too.

Cattle seems to be a lucrative investment here (investor buys a calf and lets a farmer do the rest).
sr. member
Activity: 308
Merit: 250
It's like the Devils playground at the moment.

EDIT.

Thanks Jorgi. I've only read the first 2 lines. Wall of words is much, much so.
hero member
Activity: 910
Merit: 1003
Bitcoin does NOT need to win the lottery or have some exorbitant pay off in order for it to be of considerable value.  Actually, even if bitcoin maintains its value flat, it is doing a heck of a lot better than the dollar b/c the dollar is inevitably programmed to shrink in value due to dilution (too much expansion of the supply).  

Sure, cash under the mattress is definitely a bad investment.  On the other hand, the stock of a good company usually has a positive net expected value, typically around 5% of the price plus inflation.

So, you go wrong in a couple of respects regarding your bitcoin/lottery discussion, the first, as referred to above, is the anticipation that some major payoff is needed in order for bitcoin to be successful.  

When I started paying attention to bitcoin, a few months ago, one of the two main "selling" points used to convince people to invest in it was the demand/supply argment, ostensibly proving that its price would rise to six figures or more when, at some not too distant future, everybody starte using bitcoins.  (A few days ago someone posted a photo of a projected slide showing such numbers for various scenarios, ending with "investment/pension funds keep their capital as bitcoin" and some astronomical number beside that.)  And in this thread, the "hodlers" apparently still believe in that math.

There were (there are) several things wrong with that argument, the main one being the implicit assumption that cryptocoin = bitcoin.  A year ago, the salesman could jump from "cryptocoins are so nice that everybody will want to use them" to "bitcoins will be used in X% of all e-payments" without people noticing the gap.  Back then, altcoins were only a theoretical possibility, which was dismissed by claims about the "Network Effect" and "First-Movers Advantage".

Well, since then altcoins became a reality, did not fail as predicted, and some of them seem to be strong competitors to bitcoin.  One thing that bitcoiners missed is that any "Satoshi" who creates an altcoin can make a lot of money by selling his pre-mined coins at the right moment, even if the coin flops later on. Clearly the Network Effect and First Mover Advantage weren't strong enough to counter that "Copycat Advantage".  Moreover, some altcoins do have some advantages over bitcoin, such as faster processing, democratic distribution of pre-mined coins, or a lethally cute puppy face.

Anyway, now bitcoin salesmen cannot do that jump any more. They must keep saying "cryptocoin" instead of "bitcoin" all the way to the final demand/supply formula. But since the supply of cryptocoins is infinite, not 21 million, the conclusion will be that "when cryptocoins are used to their full potential, the price of a cryptocoin will be at least zero." In other words, that demand/supply argument just went poof. 

The sad fact is that now there is no argument or statistical analysis that will justify any claim about the value of a bitcoin in that ultimate future.  It definitely may be zero, even if cryptocoins succeed beyond all dreams.

The other aspect that you go wrong is to expect that any investment in BTC has to be for a predetermined number of years.  Markets have inevitably shown that investors are capable of playing their investments by ear and to go with the flow with whatever the investors perceive to be best to provide them with an acceptable return.  

That is a very different "market", namely the speculative investors who aim to make money by buying and selling as the price changes.  Indeed, because of its high volatility, bitcoin may appeal to those speculators who believe that they are smarter than their peers.  However, short-range speculation is basically a zero-sum game. In practice, it is a negative-sum game, because of trading fees and time wasted. So, the expected value for a randomly chosen speculator is negative, like that of a lottery ticket.

And, anyway, that use is not what cryptocoins were invented for.  One thing that the world does not need is another financial instrument for speculators to play with.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 1045
So I can't find any threads here about bitstamp's hiccup yesterday.

Not leaving anything in there until I do.

Go to the service subforum and the main Bistamp thread: user/hazek just answered my question about this issue. They apologize (sort of) for the glitch, he says happened while they rolled out an engine update, and he says the seller will be reimbursed. Bit monosyllabic, but in principle, the response I was hoping for when I asked yesterday and wrote about in several places.


This will mislead all these TA-ninja boys for the next 100 days Smiley

oh nose! quick!! buy! I mean short all t3n bticinso
hero member
Activity: 728
Merit: 540
So I can't find any threads here about bitstamp's hiccup yesterday.

Not leaving anything in there until I do.

Go to the service subforum and the main Bistamp thread: user/hazek just answered my question about this issue. They apologize (sort of) for the glitch, he says happened while they rolled out an engine update, and he says the seller will be reimbursed. Bit monosyllabic, but in principle, the response I was hoping for when I asked yesterday and wrote about in several places.


This will mislead all these TA-ninja boys for the next 100 days Smiley
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
Hardly ideal when your trying to buy a pizza...

I had this happen around the holidays once. I had already made quite a few purchases with no issues. Weeks later I tried to make a large purchase at Gyft and it timed out. It was kinda scary. "Did I just lose $1000?" I contacted Gyft and they replied quickly however it took a few days to get refunded. So, loss for Gyft (in that they lost my business since I didn't rebuy), loss for me (since I was trying to get Gyft's extra % discount only available for 24 hours).

It definitely made me wonder how practical it was. It certainly made me realize it couldn't be "the currency of the internet" if it had this many problems being used on the internet. I hold out hope the tools to use it will improve.

Did gyft try and help you out or did they just fob you off to bitpay? I was paying for my vpn at https://www.privateinternetaccess.com and the reply I got was simply not our problem. As I said though it rectified itself which is always a plus but very disconcerting.

On a side note the support guy tried to tell me that the issue was due to me copy pasting the address rather than scanning QR code or hiting pay with bitcoin (which opens local client) he didnt seem to understand that it was three methods of doing the same thing but was more than happy to learn.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 1045
Thanks guise. Also yeah, come on stamp, we've all seen how not to do things.....
N12
donator
Activity: 1610
Merit: 1010
Updating things live, eh? What particular business does that remind me of? Cheesy Cheesy Cheesy
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
This is the explanation from Bitstamp if you cant be bothered to head to their thread  Wink


Can anyone explain that trade that came out of the api at $633  over 3000btc below the bids?

This was a single event glitch that happened during an update being rolled out to our live trading engine. The update is now deployed and the trade engine is functioning normally.
legendary
Activity: 1470
Merit: 1007
So I can't find any threads here about bitstamp's hiccup yesterday.

Not leaving anything in there until I do.

Go to the service subforum and the main Bistamp thread: user/hazek just answered my question about this issue. They apologize (sort of) for the glitch, he says happened while they rolled out an engine update, and he says the seller will be reimbursed. Bit monosyllabic, but in principle, the response I was hoping for when I asked yesterday and wrote about in several places.
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 1014
legendary
Activity: 1680
Merit: 1045
So I can't find any threads here about bitstamp's hiccup yesterday.

Not leaving anything in there until I do.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 500
Hardly ideal when your trying to buy a pizza...

I had this happen around the holidays once. I had already made quite a few purchases with no issues. Weeks later I tried to make a large purchase at Gyft and it timed out. It was kinda scary. "Did I just lose $1000?" I contacted Gyft and they replied quickly however it took a few days to get refunded. So, loss for Gyft (in that they lost my business since I didn't rebuy), loss for me (since I was trying to get Gyft's extra % discount only available for 24 hours).

It definitely made me wonder how practical it was. It certainly made me realize it couldn't be "the currency of the internet" if it had this many problems being used on the internet. I hold out hope the tools to use it will improve.
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
I know bitpay is a positive for the community but it is far from an ideal solution.

Twice now Ive tried to pay for things with bitcoin in the last month and both those times the bitpay invoice expired before receiving the coins. So when emailing the company your trying to pay they just say you need to get in touch with bitpay. Is this not a bit ridiculous where the purden of sorting this out falls upon the customer? Surely businesses set up with bitpay should have some sort of support system deal that allows them to speak to someone at Bitpay and not have to wait around. The situation as it is however involves emailing bitpay yourself and that takes forever just to get a reply.

Hardly ideal when your trying to buy a pizza...

Yes, pay on time, not via an exchange...

The 15m window is in place to avoid the volatility risk.

I didnt pay off an exchange but it seems that things have improved since last time this happened. Although it expired I just received an email saying payment was accepted so all good I suppose. Still, its very off putting to prospective adopters if when they are trying to pay with btc if there is a problem they can't deal with the company they are paying.
sr. member
Activity: 308
Merit: 250
I know bitpay is a positive for the community but it is far from an ideal solution.

Twice now Ive tried to pay for things with bitcoin in the last month and both those times the bitpay invoice expired before receiving the coins. So when emailing the company your trying to pay they just say you need to get in touch with bitpay. Is this not a bit ridiculous where the purden of sorting this out falls upon the customer? Surely businesses set up with bitpay should have some sort of support system deal that allows them to speak to someone at Bitpay and not have to wait around. The situation as it is however involves emailing bitpay yourself and that takes forever just to get a reply.

Hardly ideal when your trying to buy a pizza...

Yes, pay on time, not via an exchange...

The 15m window is in place to avoid the volatility risk.
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
I know bitpay is a positive for the community but it is far from an ideal solution.

Twice now Ive tried to pay for things with bitcoin in the last month and both those times the bitpay invoice expired before receiving the coins. So when emailing the company your trying to pay they just say you need to get in touch with bitpay. Is this not a bit ridiculous where the purden of sorting this out falls upon the customer? Surely businesses set up with bitpay should have some sort of support system deal that allows them to speak to someone at Bitpay and not have to wait around. The situation as it is however involves emailing bitpay yourself and that takes forever just to get a reply.

Hardly ideal when your trying to buy a pizza...
hero member
Activity: 504
Merit: 500
So is there going to be a stock market crash again soon? I don't know shit about trading regular stock, but I've noticed all the stock indices are above their previous all time highs.
full member
Activity: 140
Merit: 100
banned but not broken
Bringing LTC into BTCChina showed perfectly how dead the Chinese market really is. If the same thing would of happened in December, then LTC would have probably had risen to 100$. Now it got one foolish spike up and after that it's pretty dead with showing low demand and weak attempts to rise.
hero member
Activity: 707
Merit: 500
what is more possible that we gonna retest 600$ or goin again above 700$ ?

Both are possible.. but i'd say $700 a lot more probable.
We haven't really gone below 650 (ish) recently.. apart from on spike down to 633 or so..
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