Topic: nrd525 Market Tracker - page 26. (Read 83024 times)

Lightning network would be good for traders who like to move their funds around between their wallet, several exchanges, and a couple websites where they might actually spend them (like purse).

With $30+ transaction fees a lot of people will be motivated to use it - even if they only do a couple transactions per year.

That said - the exchanges might not care and focus on improving their servers and acquiring new customers.

...

I sold 0.1 BTC at 15150.

I actually agree with most of what you say there Samarkand. Just one point on Segwit adoption, the holdup here is that Core hasn't released a Segwit capable wallet yet and that is what most large services use. I'm told 0.16.0 including full Segwit will be out very soon and I'd expect the % Segwit transaction to pick up significantly after that.

When I said first-half 2018 I'm meaning that for a working product to be generally available, the network effect of adoption will take a lot longer. I may be proved to be overly optimistic but I think there is a fair chance.

I have 4-5 different reasons why I´m sceptical of the Lightning Network, but my main reasons are the following:

1. Development time
We have heard claims that the LN is right around the corner for a long time. Yet
I´m sceptical that we will indeed see a launch in the first half of 2018. The developers are (correctly)
prioritizing security above anything else and ensuring this takes much more work than putting up
a few youtube videos or making first tests with live implementations. They can´t mess this up and
they know it. Besides, in software development, especially with a complex project like the LN
there are always unforeseen problems that can postpone a launch.

2. Adoption among existing BTC owners
Segwit was a great improvement and yet adoption is not particularly high, because even
some of the biggest businesses haven´t implemented it due to incompetence or
political reasons.

http://segwit.party/charts/
(it is actually decreasing in the last days)

What makes you think that LN adoption will be different? A big majority of current BTC holders
are in it for speculative purposes or trading. They will not jump at the opportunity to buy some
stuff using the Lightning network. It is entirely possible that Lightning usage will be disappointing
- at least in the first few months after the launch.

3. Adoption among outside users
I see similar issues with adoption among outside users. Paypal, e-wallets and credit card
work just fine for the online payments of many people. They don´t exactly need a solution
like the Lightning network.

Generally, I think using 2nd layer solutions for scaling is the right way and much better
than the Bitcoin Cash approach (especially, because low value transactions are going
to get priced out of the main layer - exactly the development that we are witnessing right now).
However, I think the Lightning Network is overhyped and
won´t have the impact that people think it will have.

I think that we will see a prolonged bear market and even the release of the Lightning network
won´t change that.

It's a lot closer than many seem to think. There are actual live implementations being used on the mainnet right now but as invitation-only beta programs. There is a little work to do on user-friendly front ends and security testing then they will be ready to launch. I would hazard a guess that it will be in the first half of 2018. The main hurdle is getting to the point when enough people have adopted it to achieve a network effect where users have an incentive to use it because other people are using it.

Ripple is up 90% today and 800% mostly in the past three weeks.  Are banks actually using it?  I'd love to see some transaction use numbers.

Samarkand - how long do you think Lightning Network is going to take?  What hurdles and potential issues with the concept do they face?

If it doesn't happen within the year, $100-$500+ transaction fees could definitely set off a bear market.

2020 will be a bull market anyway due to the block reward halving.
Only 6.25 BTC per block from the next halving onwards.

Nevertheless, I agree that we will likely enter a prolonged bear market before that.
Additionally, I´m still sceptical of the impact of the Lightning network and especially
of their development timeline.

I think the fundamentals follow price but with a major lag. So the 2011 bullmarket created the interest/projects/community that led to the 2013 bull market, and the 2013 led to the 2016-2017.

As such, fundamentals lag price.  So we are still waiting for things like the Lightning Network and exchanges are constantly improving to catch up with their support and technology.

I think some Bitcoin developments are becoming harder. For instance, it was a lot easier to make insecure exchanges in 2011-2013 than to fix them, professionalize, and secure them from hacking.  Similarly, logical moves like implementing Segwit have become cumbersome and slow.  If this is true, we might expect the lag time to increase between bull markets.

However, on the other hand there are also now hundreds of billions of dollars at stake and this will speed up some projects and decrase the lag.

While it is possible that we'd just skip the bear market, it is more likely that we'll go bear, wait a couple years and then go bull. If so, it will be the excitement and projects that started in 2017 that set the stage for the 2020(ish) bull market.

Looks like my LLC plan is running into a big hurdle.   The new program sounds interesting, but I'm wondering if they'll limit it to larger users?  I'm not even sure if Bitfinex is registering non-US users - as the exchanges are all overloaded with requests.

This is in response to my email inquiring how to register as a US LLC.


From Bitfinex:
Thanks for your message.
We had been discontinued service for US customer, it means the verifying US customer had discontinued too.

We are currently working on a new program whereby existing users will be able to invite a limited group of new users to sign-up or the Bitfinex platform. Once this has been finalized we will then notify existing users who qualify with details regarding this program.
At this time , and until such a time as the new program is operational we will not be accepting new users to the platform.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

In my experience lending on Poloniex is only possible with small amounts of BTC. The rates are too unattractive
now, but even when the rates are more attractive you can´t lend out any serious amount of BTC.

The only exception to this observation was ahead of the Bitcoin Cash fork where you could get really
good rates for large volume if you were willing to lend BTC. This obviously had the downside
of not getting any BCH.

GDAX/Bitfinex premium down to $100.  Probably $350 million of available funding on BFX (though only 260 million showing on the order books), enough to go long on 20,000 btc.

Flash crashes regularly drive crypto prices to zero. Of course they generally reverse the trades.  I don't think it will fall to 1k-2k right away, it could take 1 month to 3 years.  I'm just not doing anything else with my money until I get my LLC registered at BFX.  I'm waiting to hear back about how I should list a BFX username on the KYC form - given that as a US resident I'm not meant to have an account.  I also need to write up board meeting minutes for a one person board meeting, and draft various other documents. 

If anyone else has a LLC on Bitfinex, I'd love to get a copy of your documents that I could copy.  Might pay a small bit for it too =)

In the 2014-2015 bear market, I had bid orders down to $167 that hit.  To quote my Jan 2015 post:


"I've been buying on the way down. This is not as fun as buying on the way up, but hopefully more profitable in the long run.

The crash to $152 (Bitstamp), $166 (Bitfinex), $145-$150 (China hit 900-930 Yuan) or $168 (Btc-e: acting weird as historically they've been the lowest priced USD exchange) is the type of desperate fast crash that happens at the absolute bottom of the bear market.    Though it was easier to say this when the price has recovered to $200.  Now that we're sitting at $186 (Bitfinex) or $180 (Bitstamp), and Bitfinex BTC swaps are still high - the recovery is still looking a bit shaky.

Anyways, I've been buying lots of bitcoins on BFX:
1 BTC at $226
1 BTC at $216
2 BTC at $206
1 BTC at $197
2 BTC at $192
2 BTC at $187
2 BTC at $182
2 BTC at $177
2 BTC at $172
1 BTC at $167

$167 was the lowest bid that I had on the order book and it got filled!
An advantage of having bid orders already issued is that I didn't have to madly place any bids at the bottom when the price was fluctuating by as much as 5% in a single minute.

Over the past several days, I've doubled my number of BTC to around 40.  Time will tell whether this was a good move."

...

Also this median price forecast of $35k for 95 people is of course very high.  Of course we're in a bull market, so most people assume the price is going up.  The question is how does this bullish sentiment compare to other bubbles?  For instance, if you compare it to the BitConnect ponzi users - I'm sure they expect to make 1000%+ during the next year.  Of course that isn't a good comparison as that is a ponzi that must collapse, whereas Bitcoin could level off or reduce its exponential growth to a more sustainable rate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/7lwb8k/reddits_consensus_price_forecast_for_btc_35000_in/

I'm not sure whether to call you an optimist or a pessimist. The odds of it going that low are minuscule.

Just realized if I'm using FIFO, I can lend BTC at Poloniex without messing up my cost-basis.  And it looks like the rates are 0.39%/day?  That makes the risk worth it.  Probably won't last, but getting 1% is pretty good (minus the large transaction fees).

On second thought, I thought I saw high rates - but now I see low ones (0.005%).  Not sure if there was a rate spike or if I misread it.

https://cryptolend.net/rates.html

I wonder is there any data on what percent of the bitcoins are held by new people vs older bitcoiners?    To wipe out the oldtimers we might need a faster and larger crash (in percentage terms) than the 2013-2014 one, whereas the newcomers are more likely to scare easily.

There are so many additional factors since 2014.  More exchanges.  Market cap 20x.  Alt-coins. ICOs (and the coming SEC crackdown).  Mainstream media. Tether.  MtGox liquidation in (very slow) process.  Likely ETFs, hedge funds, CME/CBOE futures.  BitConnect $100m-$1b ponzi.  $20+ transaction fees.

I've placed major bid orders from 1k to 2k.

We might be in for a long (1-2 year?) bear market.  BTC crashed from almost 20k down to 10.5k, and has bounced to around 13k.  Or maybe a faster bear market with more aggressive shorting as there are more margin trading options than in 2014.

Charlie Lee's tweet that he was selling all his LTC might actually have triggered other oldtimers (possibly developers) to sell Bitcoin.  Of course we've been due for a bear market for a long time.

I'm thinking I want to buy in the 1-2k range.  But very hard to predict the bottom.  Might be a lot safer to start buying in at 3k.

I would have sold 2 btc at 19k, but was holding on for January for taxes.  Should have sold!

BFX USD margin funding down from 1 billion to 650 million.

Bcash added to Coinbase.  Uh oh.

BFX USD swaps are up a lot since the US users pulled out.  Swaps were only $280 million on November 11.  And now they are $994 million.  Unused funding is $20 million - so doesn't look like rate manipulation (which we've seen in the past).  Though if there was a lender whale it might make sense for them to restrict supply and get the high rates, especially if they think the gravy train (bull market) is going to end soon.  Of course there is no sign of there being a restriction of supply, other than the rate increase, as total swaps continues to grow exponentially.


Altcoins are continuing to go bullish.  Bitcoin market share down to 50%.  Past 24 hours: Bcash up 20%, ETH up 10%. 

I have been puzzled over this as well. Do you think it might be related to US customers pulling their funds out? Are there proportionally more big lenders than borrowers based in the US?