But the volume doesn't matter, in my opinion. The shares did change hands at those prices. That's what matters.
The traders on the actual bitcoin exchanges have little reason to care. Someone could sell 50000 GBTC at $35 and buy 5000 BTC below $350 on bitcoin exchanges, but that seems to be where GBTC's ability to affect the prices ends at the moment. 
Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 21799. (Read 26608391 times)
May 05, 2015, 11:01:24 AM
May 05, 2015, 10:59:24 AM
As for the mining centralization worries, I think that it will be decentralized but not because big companies are not getting into the game. It will get a decentralization after the next block halving.
Why would that happen? The halving means that there will be only 1800 BTC per day to be mined rather than 3600. Many miners will have to stop mining, starting with those with smaller efficiency (hashes per dollar of electricty and other recurrent costs). It is not clear whether these miners will be small or large. My guess is that mining will become more centralized, and more China-based.
I have seen a proposal by an Israeli mathematician to change the way miners get their blocks from pools, that he claims willo reduce the risk of centralization by letting individual miners choose which transactions to include in a block. Perhaps.
There is that "21" company that apparently intends to put mining chips inside domestic equipment. Let's see...
May 05, 2015, 10:58:02 AM
Are these the capital controls that's supposed to make greeks look at Bitcoin?
Well, its not like the greeks really have heard of Bitcoin anyway.
Except in finance minister Yanis Varoufakis' april fools joke. Irony is a bitch!
Well, there's a Greek saying that goes like this:
"Among the funny things, pretty serious things are spoken"
Except you don't believe in "conspiracy theories"... Here's a nice one for you then.
If you ask me, yes; I believe that Greece should be the 1st one to incorporate BTC as a second currency. This way Gresham's law will take over and the debt will be eliminated (BTC=Non inflationary, EUR=inflationary). One after another the other -in debt- countries will follow... EU will be the 1st continent to test the new digital currency as it was the 1st one to test the EURO.
Too crazy to be real?
Remember: Fantasy has limits; Reality has not.
May 05, 2015, 10:57:57 AM
May 05, 2015, 10:52:41 AM
The shares I sold at $133.7 were shares I bought within my self-directed Ameritrade Roth IRA.
You do not have to be an accredited investor to buy or sell shares of this stock, whose value is backed by the number of bitcoins it holds.
You do not have to be an accredited investor to buy or sell shares of this stock, whose value is backed by the number of bitcoins it holds.
This GBTC thing is such a joke. It's obvious that each of these long-announced big-things-turned-fiascoes leave a BTC in worse state then before, because of broken expectations that some serious funds can get hold of BTC without sending money to unregulated exchanges. Please, please, never again announce "Big money in BTC" before there is a real mechanism for it to reach there, you make more harm then good even if you are thinking that being positive can't do any damage. Well, it actually can when many expectations get broken again and again.
Explain to me if you are in charge of an institutional fund (e.g. endowment, pension) why on earth you would wire 20$million to bitstamp/finex/coinbase and buy bitcoins?
Have you read what I've written? That's exactly what I've said: They would never, ever, send money to unregulated exchanges. It's simply against their basic policies. Institutional money has no mechanism of acquiring significant amount of BTC, except for the FBI auctions which is not usual way how they do business. Even if they want to buy BTC they can't, putting aside question whether they want to do that or not. That's why I've said any "good-intended" announcement of big money entering BTC which ends up being false, leaves much more damage then idiot who announced it imagined.
Fortress Investment Group LLC(NYSE: FIG) Withdrawn 20$ million to MTgox and bought over 28K bitcoins.
No more bad excuses please! it's just that simple that no institutional fund wants this shitcoin any more.
They already know bitcoin is just a dying pyramid scheme, they will only build service to earn fees from this dying scam until it hit $0! they won't buy this shitcoin! so don't fool yourself with "wall st just hasn't found the way to get in".
Shame on you liars!
In its 2013 annual report, the 10-K filing it sends to the SEC, Fortress noted that it purchased $20 million worth of “Digital currency (Bitcoin)” in 2013. Its holdings at the end of 2013 were $16.3 million, and it recorded an unrealized loss of $3.7 million.
I hate those liars too!
May 05, 2015, 10:52:31 AM
Does anyone know how long it take to receive the cash after you sell your matured shares ?
Probably your standard T+3
So if anyone is trying to arbitrage this price we would see him buying it back only by the end of the week.
Good thinking! I also find the idea pretty plausible that there could be more people getting into Bitcoin because they saw the ETF trade at such a premium. They may opt to just go and buy the underlying asset directly!
May 05, 2015, 10:47:43 AM
Are these the capital controls that's supposed to make greeks look at Bitcoin?
Well, its not like the greeks really have heard of Bitcoin anyway.
Except in finance minister Yanis Varoufakis' april fools joke. Irony is a bitch!
Edit: This is brewing to be The Perfect Storm!
May 05, 2015, 10:45:33 AM
I mean, what's going on with GBTC... $550/BTC? Seriously? How come it's not moon time, already. This only leaves on conclusion in my opinion: Wall Street money just doesn't want to do anything with the current exchanges we have (Coinbase, Finex, Kraken, Stamp,...). They want something "official", secure, insured, whatever. Preferably an investment vehicle they're familiar with... An ETF, you know?
Why do people find this so hard to figure out? Todays GBTC trading volume has been 300 shares. That's roughly 30 bitcoins. Try going to Bitfinex and market buy 30 bitcoins. Does the moon time begin?Sure, the volume is pretty low. I wouldn't have expected it any other way. I actually was kind of surprised there were trades, at all! But the volume doesn't matter, in my opinion. The shares did change hands at those prices. That's what matters.
May 05, 2015, 10:41:34 AM
This is disturbing news for the greeks. (But not for the geeks).
May 05, 2015, 10:38:30 AM
Does anyone know how long it take to receive the cash after you sell your matured shares ?
Probably your standard T+3
So if anyone is trying to arbitrage this price we would see him buying it back only by the end of the week.
May 05, 2015, 10:37:17 AM
Does anyone know how long it take to receive the cash after you sell your matured shares ?
Probably your standard T+3
May 05, 2015, 10:36:31 AM
Good luck with that. The most of the capital is out of the country for about 4-5 years now.
May 05, 2015, 10:35:26 AM
Does anyone know how long it take to receive the cash after you sell your matured shares ?
May 05, 2015, 10:32:20 AM
May 05, 2015, 10:23:26 AM
I mean, what's going on with GBTC... $550/BTC? Seriously? How come it's not moon time, already. This only leaves on conclusion in my opinion: Wall Street money just doesn't want to do anything with the current exchanges we have (Coinbase, Finex, Kraken, Stamp,...). They want something "official", secure, insured, whatever. Preferably an investment vehicle they're familiar with... An ETF, you know?
No news on the Winklevoss COIN ETF.
Still dragging their feet.
I don't think the SEC can stall this much longer. Because Nasdaq Stockholm is launching a bitcoin investment vehicle in 13 days.
- No maturity requirements on the bitcoin shares (or notes, as they are called. Its an ETN).
- Instant refill of these notes, means direct demand of bitcoin from the market.
- Bitcoin to create notes can be bought directly in the same country (Sweden) from the exchange Safello.
- The worlds biggest investment funds are allready registered at Nasdaq Stockholm.
I don't think New York or London will let Stockholm become Wall Street 2.0, lol
May 05, 2015, 10:12:59 AM
... Using the traditional fiat system there are delays involved moving money and arranging purchasing new shares which might leave you behind. The above tactic almost guarantees profit if someone buys now as long as GBTC trading stays above $25 (allowing for fees) ...
I agree with that. Still, there could be very good arbitrage opportunity for mature GBTC holders
Agreed..... within a very short window of a week or two
May 05, 2015, 10:11:56 AM
I mean, what's going on with GBTC... $550/BTC? Seriously? How come it's not moon time, already. This only leaves on conclusion in my opinion: Wall Street money just doesn't want to do anything with the current exchanges we have (Coinbase, Finex, Kraken, Stamp,...). They want something "official", secure, insured, whatever. Preferably an investment vehicle they're familiar with... An ETF, you know?
It could also be said that these shares are worth more because as used in someone's pension fund they could be redeemed for $$ tax free.
The maths doesn't work out at this level though and people are financially better off buying BTC directly.
There will be other reasons why these shares are worth more (as you have said) and these will level out eventually.
The GBTC price should drop and the BTC price should rise to meet it but the GBTC shares are likely to always be selling for more than raw BTC.
May 05, 2015, 10:09:27 AM
... Using the traditional fiat system there are delays involved moving money and arranging purchasing new shares which might leave you behind. The above tactic almost guarantees profit if someone buys now as long as GBTC trading stays above $25 (allowing for fees) ...
I agree with that. Still, there could be very good arbitrage opportunity for mature GBTC holders
May 05, 2015, 10:06:19 AM
However consider that BIT is limited to "high net worth" investors and if I was someone with a long term interest in holding who already has 10,000 matured shares as a small % over my portfolio I would be tempted to :
1) Buy 10,000 new shares at the current market rate (1,000 BTC x $235 = $235,000)
2) Sell 10,000 matured shares at the best GBTC rate I can get (say avg. 10,000 shares x $40 = $400,000)
3) Bank Profit ($165,000)
4) Hold the 10,000 new shares for 1 year (again)
This assumes anyone investing has money in the bank they can spend immediately and they don't need to wait to sell their existing shares before they buy new shares.
1) Buy 10,000 new shares at the current market rate (1,000 BTC x $235 = $235,000)
2) Sell 10,000 matured shares at the best GBTC rate I can get (say avg. 10,000 shares x $40 = $400,000)
3) Bank Profit ($165,000)
4) Hold the 10,000 new shares for 1 year (again)
This assumes anyone investing has money in the bank they can spend immediately and they don't need to wait to sell their existing shares before they buy new shares.
Edited for wording
May 05, 2015, 10:05:41 AM
I mean, what's going on with GBTC... $550/BTC? Seriously? How come it's not moon time, already. This only leaves on conclusion in my opinion: Wall Street money just doesn't want to do anything with the current exchanges we have (Coinbase, Finex, Kraken, Stamp,...). They want something "official", secure, insured, whatever. Preferably an investment vehicle they're familiar with... An ETF, you know?
Why do people find this so hard to figure out? Todays GBTC trading volume has been 300 shares. That's roughly 30 bitcoins. Try going to Bitfinex and market buy 30 bitcoins. Does the moon time begin? Jump to: