Topic: Mexican Standoff (Read 2084 times)

I have to say... I'm impressed with the way you think.  Keep it up.

Let's assume for the moment that nobody uses Bitcoins to buy or sell anything other than dollars. There's no bitcoin economy to speak of; it's all exchanges.

In the past thirty days, judging by the volume and a conservative fee schedule, Mt. Gox has absorbed 69k$ in exchange fees. Now, let's assume these folks are incredibly reckless, and every month they blow 10% of their money on exchange fees. This would mean that they have at least 690k$ that they're playing around with in the market. And here's the thing: I'm pretty sure that number would be the same whether we're trading at 5$ or 5c.  It's the amount of USD they have to experiment with Bitcoin. That's inelastic - what's elastic is the number of BTC to which that amount translates.

Now, there are about 8.5 million Bitcoins in existence right now. As everyone knows, a lot of that money is hidden or lost and hasn't moved in months. But let's assume that they're all actually in circulation, all theoretically available to buy.

If that optimistic assumption about the BTC in circulation is true, along with all those incredibly pessimistic assumptions about the value being traded in BTC? Even then, we have a price of 690000/8500000 = eight cents per bitcoin. And if you add in all the other exchanges, plus all the other currencies, plus the BTC that's out of circulation, plus the commerce that's going on in BTC today, plus the fact that most people won't be blowing 10% of their profits on exchange fees... that price has nowhere to go but up.

So five cents isn't a rational price. In fact, it's a darn near impossible price.

I think this deserves a Mind (Mining) Control MEME. I am too lazy to do one right now so just consider it implied lol.

Yeah, plus ammo can be brought in - bank transfers and mining control.

I would say if the difference in ammo is zero, then we have an accurate price.  Of course, Bitcoin still being so new any "accurate" price is still highly vulnerable to new information.

Yeah you're right about tons of people selling = tons of people cashed up...but I suppose using up your ammo by selling doesn't make you join the other side. You can wait for your teammates to use their ammo and overcome what's left of the enemy....but that's exactly what's not happening. No one has any ammo left for the team they want to be on...so everyone's just staring at each other and checking their pockets.

Jump I say jump!

Bitcoins should be trading at the more rational price of $0.05.

False. When talking to a bear, the manipulator(s) is always forcing the price up, preventing rationality in the market.

Not many buys are going through at the moment. And if that's the case, why is he moving the wall lower and lower? There's hardly any place for asks to pile up for him to buy.

Someone just bought a lot of coins, all those coins are now in ask wall to prevent price rising. All the asks put in front of the wall are being bought by the person who put the wall there. IMO

If anything, the price is currently manipulated down, instead of up.

Obviously someone doesnt want the price to drop any further so keeps throwing money at it. Its no different to when the price was in the mid-$5 range but the current 'manipulator' is a smaller player.

I would say the ammo is on the buying side. After the big sell-off that brought us down to the $4 trading range there are a lot of people sitting on cash waiting to get in. The only ones who knows just how many coins are stored on the site for quick sale are gox staff.

yes that's what makes this situation so interesting. Feels a bit like a spring ready to burst one way or the other...but even if it did move so many people are split in opinion that they can't let it.

That's to say, that the difference in ammo is close to zero.

Then at the end of the day everyone ought to be long for the long term because it's infinite USDs vs. no more than 21,000,000 BTCs.

That's the million dollar question.

And who is that?

The one with the most ammo.

We are at an impasse! It seems both bears and bulls have made their decisions and are now  waiting for...the other to see the error in their ways.

In situations like these...who has the upper hand?