After the recent 30% increase, followed by only a 5-10% decrease: I'm tempted to short Litecoin (versus the USD). This would generally increase my risk, but already having a long position in BTC would partially negate that.
I'm surprised LTC hasn't fallen to $1.6 (or lower).
Topic: nrd525 Market Tracker - page 55. (Read 82714 times)
We are hopefully at the end of the mining "crash" (it is a crash relative to the 10-30% growth rates per period that we saw earlier). It looks like the hash rate has stopped growing. Is any company developing new miners? KNCMiner has promises of a new line of 16 nm miners, but I've also read that they are facing a class action suit for taking too long to deliver and/or not delivering on past pre-orders. Several months ago (or more?) the founder of ASICMiner, one of the most successful miners, disappeared with investors money.
Up through 2013, bitcoin mining was extremely positive for the price - as it was a key part of the economy and very profitable. However, with ASICs it became "hit or miss" depending on when and whether your miner got delivered. Now with late ASICs, a bearish BTC, and cloud mining scams, mining has become a drain on the bitcoin economy (I'd love to see statistics to back this up - have bitcoin miners and mining corporations both lost money, or have the companies gained at the expense of miners or vice-versa?)
So the slowdown to zero mining growth is actually a positive for the BTC price.
In the future, mining might have a small role to play if it again becomes profitable due to an increase in BTC price.
Up through 2013, bitcoin mining was extremely positive for the price - as it was a key part of the economy and very profitable. However, with ASICs it became "hit or miss" depending on when and whether your miner got delivered. Now with late ASICs, a bearish BTC, and cloud mining scams, mining has become a drain on the bitcoin economy (I'd love to see statistics to back this up - have bitcoin miners and mining corporations both lost money, or have the companies gained at the expense of miners or vice-versa?)
So the slowdown to zero mining growth is actually a positive for the BTC price.
In the future, mining might have a small role to play if it again becomes profitable due to an increase in BTC price.
I canceled my bid orders. Put the money back into USD swap.
Very strange market. BTC-e's premium is back to near zero, after being 1% higher than Bitfinex and being very volatile. Over the past couple days the Coinbase premium (over Bitfinex) was as low as 30-35 cents. Now it is back to $1.
News: there is a bid for 5000 bitcoins at $350 each from the Bitcoin Investment Trust, which is going to launch soonish.
http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GBTC/quote
I'm not sure if this bid is serious or will be withdrawn before it executes. Apparently some types of investors (possibly tax-shielded retirement accounts?) cannot invest directly in bitcoin, but can invest in GBTC. However they'd have to be fairly stupid to pay a $110 premium. They might just be trying to make a name for themselves or pump the price.
German bond yields are back up and the 5 year bonds now have a positive yield. This is great because negative yields are crazy (and possibly an indicator of deflation and a massive recession). It's bad enough earning only 0.1% interest, but if you are a mutual fund with fees - you are still getting a negative return. On the other hand, long term bond owners are sitting on nice profits from the past four years.
http://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/germany-5-year-bond-yield
Very strange market. BTC-e's premium is back to near zero, after being 1% higher than Bitfinex and being very volatile. Over the past couple days the Coinbase premium (over Bitfinex) was as low as 30-35 cents. Now it is back to $1.
News: there is a bid for 5000 bitcoins at $350 each from the Bitcoin Investment Trust, which is going to launch soonish.
http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/GBTC/quote
I'm not sure if this bid is serious or will be withdrawn before it executes. Apparently some types of investors (possibly tax-shielded retirement accounts?) cannot invest directly in bitcoin, but can invest in GBTC. However they'd have to be fairly stupid to pay a $110 premium. They might just be trying to make a name for themselves or pump the price.
German bond yields are back up and the 5 year bonds now have a positive yield. This is great because negative yields are crazy (and possibly an indicator of deflation and a massive recession). It's bad enough earning only 0.1% interest, but if you are a mutual fund with fees - you are still getting a negative return. On the other hand, long term bond owners are sitting on nice profits from the past four years.
http://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/germany-5-year-bond-yield
I placed bid orders:
218 - 5 BTC
216 - 5 BTC
170 - 3 BTC
(Just in case of a flash crash - If it really goes to 170, I plan to buy more)
218 - 5 BTC
216 - 5 BTC
170 - 3 BTC
(Just in case of a flash crash - If it really goes to 170, I plan to buy more)
Is this choppy directionless price for BTC a sign that we're establishing the bottom and an indicator of the end of the long bear trend?
If so, we might enter a bull market or stay flat (with lots of chop) for a long time.
---
A note on "mining costs". If you ever see someone referring to the "mining cost" of bitcoin - they are speculating. The largest problem with this term is that it fails to distinguish between the fixed cost of buying mining hardware, and the variable cost of running it. Miners will continue to run their equipment so long as the cost of electricity (and any other costs - like rent and wear on hardware) are less than the mining value.
In this case, the miners may be losing money on their overall investment. But once they've bought the hardware, they have the only choice of mining or not mining. (They could sell the hardware, but they shouldn't be able to make more money by doing that - unless they sell it to someone irrational).
For the overall "mining cost" and the decision about whether it is profitable to buy new mining hardware, nobody knows what it is because nobody can predict the network difficulty. You could predict that the BTC price will be flat (in practice it is a gamble - the price is likely to go up or down 20-100%). But you have no idea about the network difficulty. It has recently switched from having average increases of 7-10% each period, to 0%. But who knows whether that trend will hold. You can try to predict the difficulty by looking at betting sites like BitBet - but they lack the volume to be good indicators.
If so, we might enter a bull market or stay flat (with lots of chop) for a long time.
---
A note on "mining costs". If you ever see someone referring to the "mining cost" of bitcoin - they are speculating. The largest problem with this term is that it fails to distinguish between the fixed cost of buying mining hardware, and the variable cost of running it. Miners will continue to run their equipment so long as the cost of electricity (and any other costs - like rent and wear on hardware) are less than the mining value.
In this case, the miners may be losing money on their overall investment. But once they've bought the hardware, they have the only choice of mining or not mining. (They could sell the hardware, but they shouldn't be able to make more money by doing that - unless they sell it to someone irrational).
For the overall "mining cost" and the decision about whether it is profitable to buy new mining hardware, nobody knows what it is because nobody can predict the network difficulty. You could predict that the BTC price will be flat (in practice it is a gamble - the price is likely to go up or down 20-100%). But you have no idea about the network difficulty. It has recently switched from having average increases of 7-10% each period, to 0%. But who knows whether that trend will hold. You can try to predict the difficulty by looking at betting sites like BitBet - but they lack the volume to be good indicators.
The global economy, with its record low interest rates (German 10 year bonds are yielding 0.1%, and some shorter term Euro bonds have negative yields) risks creating bubbles. Spain 10 year bonds yielded as much as 7% in 2011, now only yield 1.5%.
While gold, oil, food, and other commodity prices are falling - we might be seeing bubbles in some property markets, and some stock markets.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-22/as-china-stocks-outrun-the-2007-bubble-ubs-braces-for-clampdown
The bursting of these bubbles could be a nasty affair that creates recessions and possibly a worldwide one.
If we manage to slowly burst the bubbles, and global monetary policy is still loose - we could see a move from the bubbling assets to non-bubbling ones (like Bitcoin). What chance is there that this could benefit bitcoin? And how often do crazy bubbles burst slowly? These two conditions might be a long shot.
Greece two year bond yield (indicator of Greek default risk):
http://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/greece-2-year-bond-yield
...
Around three hours ago, someone started trading around 200 Bitcoins every minute at approximately the 40th second of the minute on Bitfinex. They took a break and then have stopped/started a couple times, often skipping a couple minutes. If you look at the Bitfinex one-minute chart there are a lot of minutes with volume around 200-250 (maybe 35 in the past three hours).
The price has moved down, but not as much as if someone was selling all the time. So maybe there is both a buyer and a seller, a hidden buy wall, multiple actors, or some bots who just want to have fun.
While gold, oil, food, and other commodity prices are falling - we might be seeing bubbles in some property markets, and some stock markets.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-22/as-china-stocks-outrun-the-2007-bubble-ubs-braces-for-clampdown
The bursting of these bubbles could be a nasty affair that creates recessions and possibly a worldwide one.
If we manage to slowly burst the bubbles, and global monetary policy is still loose - we could see a move from the bubbling assets to non-bubbling ones (like Bitcoin). What chance is there that this could benefit bitcoin? And how often do crazy bubbles burst slowly? These two conditions might be a long shot.
Greece two year bond yield (indicator of Greek default risk):
http://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/greece-2-year-bond-yield
...
Around three hours ago, someone started trading around 200 Bitcoins every minute at approximately the 40th second of the minute on Bitfinex. They took a break and then have stopped/started a couple times, often skipping a couple minutes. If you look at the Bitfinex one-minute chart there are a lot of minutes with volume around 200-250 (maybe 35 in the past three hours).
The price has moved down, but not as much as if someone was selling all the time. So maybe there is both a buyer and a seller, a hidden buy wall, multiple actors, or some bots who just want to have fun.
The Mt Gox bankruptcy has started a claims process. This is good news as getting some money back is better than nothing.
http://www.coindesk.com/trustee-opens-formal-claims-process-for-mt-gox-customers/
It's pretty crazy that Mark Karpeles owes $136 million for a loan that he took from MtGox.
http://www.coindesk.com/trustee-opens-formal-claims-process-for-mt-gox-customers/
It's pretty crazy that Mark Karpeles owes $136 million for a loan that he took from MtGox.
Obesity don't come cheap, especially in Tokyo.
The Mt Gox bankruptcy has started a claims process. This is good news as getting some money back is better than nothing.
http://www.coindesk.com/trustee-opens-formal-claims-process-for-mt-gox-customers/
It's pretty crazy that Mark Karpeles owes $136 million for a loan that he took from MtGox.
http://www.coindesk.com/trustee-opens-formal-claims-process-for-mt-gox-customers/
It's pretty crazy that Mark Karpeles owes $136 million for a loan that he took from MtGox.
Saw these big buy walls for BTC since Friday. It's like someone with a crap load of cash doesn't know what to do with it. Just moving it around trying to get sold into.
BFX BTC Swaps are down to 29000. Around 11 hours ago, someone closed a 1500 BTC short position on Bitfinex causing the price to spike to 227.
BTC swap rates are going to spike really high (like 0.2% to 0.7%/day) if the trend continues. But I'm more interested in what people are thinking and whether this a useful indicator of anything.
BTC swaps now at 30500.
I recall BFX USD swaps peaking AFTER the BTC price peaked (once at the $1150 peak, and at least once more when the price recovered in early 2014) - so it could be a lagging indicator due to trend following traders who fail to recognize when the trend is reversing. If so, it is more evidence that we're in a (weak) bullish market with $165/$155 bottom as the lowest we'll see for two years or more (outside of crashes due to exchanges getting hacked or runaway margin calls).
BTC swaps now at 30500.
I recall BFX USD swaps peaking AFTER the BTC price peaked (once at the $1150 peak, and at least once more when the price recovered in early 2014) - so it could be a lagging indicator due to trend following traders who fail to recognize when the trend is reversing. If so, it is more evidence that we're in a (weak) bullish market with $165/$155 bottom as the lowest we'll see for two years or more (outside of crashes due to exchanges getting hacked or runaway margin calls).
Shorting is very popular lately. Shorts are climbing fast while the price is somewhat stable. That's why I'm avoiding shorting now 
Bitfinex BTC swaps at 30,025.
People are lucky to even get above .04% for their swaps these days when you could easily get north of .06 at the beginning of the month.
Bitfinex BTC swaps at 30,025.
Bitfinex BTC swaps up to 28,050 (1000 unused).
For the past five days or so I feel like we've been hanging out on a possible cliff.
Whale Club (vaughn.tv) trader sentiment has been pretty negative as well.
I'm more used to Bitcoin establishing bottoms with a flash crash and high volume. Can it also do it on lower volume over the course of several days just by hanging around a price? If so, the price keeps reverting to 222 - and around 215 is a level of support.
For the past five days or so I feel like we've been hanging out on a possible cliff.
Whale Club (vaughn.tv) trader sentiment has been pretty negative as well.
I'm more used to Bitcoin establishing bottoms with a flash crash and high volume. Can it also do it on lower volume over the course of several days just by hanging around a price? If so, the price keeps reverting to 222 - and around 215 is a level of support.
BFX BTC swaps at another all-time-high.
27,200 BTC
https://bfxdata.com/swaphistory/btc
Though for the past several hours BFX data hasn't been able to monitor this number.
Recently it looks like BFX changed their stats page so they now show both the outstanding swaps AND the total amount that is used in margin positions. Currently 1100 BTC of swaps aren't in use (4%), whereas only $80,000 of US swaps aren't in use (0.33%).
27,200 BTC
https://bfxdata.com/swaphistory/btc
Though for the past several hours BFX data hasn't been able to monitor this number.
Recently it looks like BFX changed their stats page so they now show both the outstanding swaps AND the total amount that is used in margin positions. Currently 1100 BTC of swaps aren't in use (4%), whereas only $80,000 of US swaps aren't in use (0.33%).
Slow and steady declines are not good. Though I'm also tempted to buy 10-20 for a short-term long as the price seems low.
We're crazy oversold on a lot of timeframes. It is tempting, but I think it would be more tempting if it pushes down lower. I feel like I'm second guessing myself and the market right now.
Is it just me or does this decline feel methodical rather than panic driven as in the last severe sell off?
Slow and steady declines are not good. Though I'm also tempted to buy 10-20 for a short-term long as the price seems low.
US bitcoiners might be getting some tax refunds due to capital losses. Though the most you can deduct from your income is $3000 (the rest of the losses have to be used against gains in the same year, or future years).
US bitcoiners might be getting some tax refunds due to capital losses. Though the most you can deduct from your income is $3000 (the rest of the losses have to be used against gains in the same year, or future years).
http://www.pillsburylaw.com/publications/five-things-you-should-know-about-nj-taxation-of-virtual-currency
They also tweeted that NJ sales in bitcoin are not subject to double sales taxation.
https://twitter.com/msantoriesq/status/587735450795802624
Meanwhile: $220.
They also tweeted that NJ sales in bitcoin are not subject to double sales taxation.
https://twitter.com/msantoriesq/status/587735450795802624
Meanwhile: $220.
Hmm. Shorts (after just reaching another all-time-high on BFX) are winning. BTC down as low as $231, but bounced back to $236. They might be going for $215-$220. On the other hand, if we bounce off $231 as the bottom - we should go back to around $265.
Fundamentals: news story about NJ wanting to impose sales tax twice on bitcoins is disturbing. Once to buy the bitcoins (as they are treated as property) and secondly for the sales tax on the actual good.
Fundamentals: news story about NJ wanting to impose sales tax twice on bitcoins is disturbing. Once to buy the bitcoins (as they are treated as property) and secondly for the sales tax on the actual good.
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