Topic: Smart Money has left the building… Have you? (Read 7556 times)

byebye

EDIT:

Why are you reviving relic threads? Trying to make a point that forum sentiment is overly dramatic?

I concede, you guys were right all along. I'm out! see the rest of you suckers later

The problem with picking tops is: you can't reliably do it, so: good luck

I hope that you can bring up BTC up to 10 USD as well as I wish to sell all of my BTC when the highest price (I'm hoping $60 or more) is reached then get on with my life again as I can confidently add to any future successes that I made a ton of money on BTC.

Yes, there's an interesting dynamic there. Ripple provides a credit system, so it and Bitcoin would certainly be complementary. It doesn't work the way a contemporary currency does, though - the mechanism is different and there's no discrete Ripple 'unit'. It acts like a container for quantifiable currencies. That also means they solve somewhat separate problems, and there are different scalability factors.

There is still room left for other variants, including an inflatable system that can maintain stable prices indefinitely. For example, I think that if Bitcoin doesn't implement P2SH this year (the concern over BIP 12/16/17), another system might arise to do so.

I look as Bitcoins as "internet cash"; Gold/Silver have become stores of value, a hedge against inflation. (back in the olden days, the PMs were embedded in the currency itself, never relinquishing the value of the currency itself. Sure miss those Denariums... and the Standing Liberties too.)

Don't know if this is relevant here, but maybe that "alternative system that acts as a counterpart" could somehow be ripple?

Demurrage is a great concept for traditional fiat-like currencies, but not a Bitcoin-style system: it attempts to ameliorate the issues inherent with human management. Since there is no human component directly involved in management of the money supply of Bitcoin, demurrage is redundant.

Eventually, Triffin's dilemma overcomes demurrage anyway. The divergence between the need for a savings vehicle that is being eroded and the need for price stability which slides further out along a parabolic curve causes too much strain over time, and no amount of effort can prevent a collapse then.

Bitcoin technically solves the dilemma by allowing for theoretically unlimited decimal expansion of the unit, similar to going from ounces of gold to grams. Instead of forcing either perpetually inflation or adamantly static supply, Bitcoin allows for what is effectively an periodic, incremental inflation; these resets are somewhat jarring, but should be mediated so long as market forces can function freely.

Prices would be relatively stable within a range and yet the same unit of savings still exists and remains fully intact, the same as if gold were infinitely divisible and we were able to actually make use of it an atom at a time. Anyone who had a single ounce would be immensely wealthy if a single gold atom were used as a $1 bill is today.

Obviously we can't use individual gold atoms as money in any known practical manner. Likewise, the difficulty that arises with Bitcoin is getting a protocol change that allows for further decimal expansion to actually take hold. A potential solution may be an alternative system that acts as a counterpart by removing the block generation limit, allowing for indefinite expansion. That would work the same as gold and fiat today, only there would again be no direct human management of the unit supply.

If all the gold in the world were hoarded away indefinitely, an alternative would eventually be adopted over a period of time due to gold's disuse. The accounting period could be anything - hours, days, years, etc. Theoretical with gold, neither realistic nor likely.

It's still a potential for Bitcoin, but that's a rapidly shrinking possibility for the monetary aspect of the system. Also, the general structure of Bitcoin is immensely valuable, making the argument impractical outside of academia.

As for the stored value concept, traditional definitions do not satisfactorily encompass Bitcoin. Can value be removed from gold? Why or why not?

you might want to get some FreiCoin if you like demurrage.

Not if hoarding is assumed to produce deflation in the long-term by making BTCs hard to come by.

No argument here, if we stick with "use as a currency" as premise.

So what are the "accounting periods", blocks maybe?  Why does that mean value decays?

When it comes to BTC, there's no such thing as a stored value.

BTC has a "carry forward" value, which decays when hoarded. But that's something I will discuss at some future date.

Right now, I just want me some real honey... Where are the real honey bees at?! I can already smell that $4.00 hive... If only it was up on the trees.

Where's the expiration date that erodes the stored value?

What mechanics does it ignore?

Are you trying to point out that an exchange rate can be used to speculate on the future value of a currency? Because I don't discount that.

My main point about BTC is that it's no gold — it's perishable gold (it's value decays when it is being hoarded).

I know I've created one of this bearish threads myself - but the saturation of this forum by them now reached the point where they are starting to be a good contrarian indicator.

An exchange rate is merely an expression of one currency's value relative to that of other currencies.

But when it comes to BTC-denominated commercial transactions, BTC's value is still nonexistent (or near zero).

Ive been pessimistic.  BTC trading services suck.

i think we are ...sslipping into pessimisssm...

or are we still in denial that our own rampant speculation caused the volatility?

bear market ahead, folks

When it comes to currencies, don't the exchange rates follow the value?
Without the latter, it's about BZZZZ, BZZZZ, BZZZZ... GOLD, GOLD, GOLD!!!

yay

YAY

Don't have the scratch, but if I did, it'd be a no-brainer. There's enough ask depth for me to turn around and sell it all on Mt. Gox, and make a tidy profit when I do it!

I wasn't referring to the exchange rate.

I don't know what it is about bees, but after you annihilate their hive in search of that sweet honey, some of them still linger around for hours/days as if it will magically reappear.

OK, bees, who dares to buy couple Ks, say at $4.99/BTC? (It's a steal, if you ask me.)

It’s never about the faith in bitcoin, because as a currency, BTC can rock, big time!
It’s all about the mechanics of bitcoin; and your idea of BTC value just doesn’t fit the bill.

Hang in there..you may see it sooner rather than later...

I'm pretty much out of cash from all the affirming of my convictions in the past.

OMG, OMG, bitcoin is used!

Seriously? I don't care how many people use bitcoin. I just care for the few dozen people that know WHAT is Bitcoin, have LOTS of money at their disposal, and CAN MOVE the market.

Let's have a look at this chart:

http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions

Bitcoin is being used. Look at the increasing users at ogrr.com. People are starting to use Bitcoin.

Supply and demand for bitcoins does not give BTC its value.
But supply and demand for goods/services denominated in BTC does.

P.S. Don't make me pull out the wizard hat again... Your honey is fake!

Oh, look... the wizard hat!

It's perfect for catching some of these bees.

BZZZZZ, BZZZZZ, BZZZZZ... GOLD, GOLD, GOLD!!!

i am prepared to buy at 2.5 again... not buying before 3

Assuming there is one big player; then the little people getting screwed tire quickly and the big player gains nothing.  Profit is not maximised.

But.. the big player's manipulation offers an opportunity for profit for another big player.  When bigguy1 swings the market; bigguy2 catches it and gets all bigguy1's coins cheap.

The point of maximising profit is that everyone is trying to do the same; and in the end the best way to profit is not by thieving, it is by providing something someone else wants.


To be honest; I don't see what the problem with any of those things is.  I don't want to derail to a discussion about politics, but I do think if governments had stayed out of it (playing with someone else's money is a recipe for disaster) all of the above would either not have happened, or resulted in an opportunity for someone else to profit.  e.g. when RBS went crash in the UK; the supermarket chain Tesco might have decided to grab themselves a bargain where it not for the fact that government bailed RBS out.


I was only speculating; but rather I'm assuming that a mass of small players will always outweigh any large player.


It's difficult to say what is the "right" amount of speculation.  FOREX is $1.04 quadrillion a year.  World GDP is $60 trillion a year.  Who knows what the division of speculative to economic activity is?  We should expect volumes on the exchanges to be considerably larger than bitcoin GDP.

I'm not sure it's true to say that more cash needs to flow in; that assumes a zero sum game.  Economies aren't zero-sum.  If a real economy starts up using bitcoin then the price can increase without needing new fiat to prop it up.

(Edited: FOREX is $1.04 quadrillion a year; not $40 trillion -- don't know where I got $40 trillion from)

No, but the problem can be framed in another way.


There is a limit to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand': if everyone uses bitcoin to maximise their own profit while screwing everyone else over as hard as they can, eventually the players may tire of the game.  In some games the only way to win is not to play the game.  Human nature is pretty stubborn and downright stupid however, as evidenced by packed casinos around the world.  Maybe the players will never tire of the game.

Wild swings in price may result in many players losing the game, with a few large winners.  The large winners need more players in the game otherwise they'll be left with interesting electronic tokens that few want to buy.

If good comes automatically from players maximising their own profit, then I don't see what all the fuss is about with CFDs, Goldman Sachs, flash crashes and holding stocks for seconds before selling them.  Good does come automatically, naturally.


That's assuming the large players are losing the game, not the small players.


Bitcoin is just as useful as a means of transaction at $0.10 as it is at $10.  The problem is many people are not using it as a means of transaction: they're using it as a speculative vehicle for extracting profit.  New players need to enter the game or old losing players need to stump up more cash or the game ends.  Recent price activity is testing the conviction of the true believers.

Can't I believe in bitcoin and want to profit?  So far I haven't, but I'd like to.

If I sell at $7 and buy back at $5; then am I damaging bitcoin in some way?

I think it's dangerous to put ideology into a currency.  If everyone uses bitcoin to maximise their own profit, then good will emerge automatically (Adam Smith told us this 200 years ago).

Those people bouncing the price around, with presumably large amounts (to us) of cash will one day find that bitcoin has started to take hold on a massive scale and they will lose money on a bounce.  Then on the next bounce, and again, and again.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are already losing money every bounce.

I don't think they're doing any harm to bitcoin long term anyway.  Seriously, while the bitcoin economy is still small, it makes very little difference whether the price is $4 or $8.  If it becomes mainstream, then the price will need to be in the hundreds of dollars (FOREX does $4 trillion a day); and that will happen all on its own.

+1
That dirty, dirty fiat money, you don't want it, let me rub it all over myself, ummmmm...

I think the reality is that there are very few true believers in bitcoin who have a lot of cash or bitcoins at MtGox.  I would be shocked to learn that the biggest players were in this for anything more than fiat profit, and with few exceptions it's the biggest players who move this market around.

The true believers in bitcoin should be buying up all the bitcoins they can while they're this cheap.  There is no asterisk on Bitconica's buy side, and anyway, true believers would use their own cash to reaffirm their convictions.

ineedausername:

Dude, no matter whether it's from Elliott or summoning your ancestors, this kind of slope on logscale, with a length like the bubble, starting at 4? If I apply the bubble rally, which seems to be what the image does, we would end up around 250 USD/BTC on a time-scale of weeks.

Reality check: enable!

No, Im a believer but the manipulation I've saw lately is just ridiculous..

this game is rigged so long as everything trickles down to mtgox..

Wait what, you're long term bearish too?!  What is the world coming to?

Or did you just see $4 and go "oh noes?"

Dude, I think I caught the proudhon..   

Disclaimer: this is an Elliott wave post.  You might not really believe in them, in which case it's completely meaningless.



Wave 2 right now... next stop $4

Gotta love the bee-ptimism.

I go out of my way to point out the obvious details behind the latest 2 month-long rally, yet the oblivious buzzing continues – GOLD, GOLD, GOLD… BUY, BUY, BUY!!!

Conclusion: the bees are not your average bulls.

Now, that's a spirit!

See you at $2USD/BTC or less.

Use honey to lure out the bears so the bulls can take their coins cheaper?

The only thing that will get squeezed for the next few months is a honeycomb.

What’s with the hate? I merely provide the insight on perishable gold.

I had never heard of the good wife before either but it does have a large following. Mainly housewives. I asked someone at work about it and his mom is a regular viewer.

Does anyone actually watch these shows?  I never heard of The Good Wife until these forums.


The Good Wife was not even in the top 20 for network shows...

For now it is the same nerds and geeks using Bitcoin as before.

when have markets ever been rational? 

I don't get it. So because Fox Business did a piece on Bitcoin it means we are going down in price? I don't buy into fox anything but that twitter post and this thread just appear to be a manipulation of the market.

smart money got smarter, err richer

Old clip is old.
Self-referential post is self-referential.

 

I was waiting for the threads that have no content other than them being sad manipulation attempts. I don't really care, but I hope that one of these days one of the bigger players executes a hard counter to these exploitation squeezes followed by manipulation and sheep behaviour.

This situation could be one of those because it seems that many are expecting a drop to $5 or lower, which means that many are probably going short right now.

A massive short squeeze would make not just my day but possibly my whole year. It would be literally priceless.

Edit: Not sure if anyone can actually execute that squeeze with all the issues Bitcoinica is having, that's too bad

I'm still in the building

uber smart money stays in the building, bitch

Where's da bees at!!!

Don't make me shake this hive again.

+1

No, there's no secret message here... Just a successful attempt to use the media to further one's cause -- a bump and dump scheme.

If only I knew that FOXBUSINESS and The Good Wife were planning on discussing bitcoin, I would help rally the BTC to at least 10USD, for good measure.

I think he just counts on the readers to invent interpretations.

So is that few month old video some sort of secret message telling CBS and FOX insiders to invest in bitcoin? Or am I missing something? It seems you are making unsubstantiated statements in regards to the last two months of trading and it being caused by CBS and FOX.

But yes we are going down, down, down where we stop nobody knows.

Exactly. Going doooown! At least for at least 5.1

Why would the smart money leave the building when they could put on their surfing shorts and ride the wave down?

Exciting times!

The cat (smart money) is out of the bag, ladies and gentlemen!
http://twitter.com/BTConomist/status/162219197269680128

Don’t forget to buckle up! You’re on the steepest roller coaster in town.
http://twitter.com/BTConomist/status/162220967425343488