Normally I would mention here that the price action of bitcoin is interesting in light of the fairly light volume.
But I think we are seeing something different this time (tm).
We have used the large retail exchanges as price oracles for the entire lifespan of Bitcoin, and still do. But is this where the actual volume is happening now?
I would say not.
That divergence is very interesting to think about. I have speculated in the past about scenarios based on this new paradigm, for example: If I were a big money player I would be buying BTC over the counter, and dumping a little bit of it on the low volume exchanges to depress the retail price as I buy. But who knows what is actually happening?
I wonder if the high price is causing unit bias to suppress Joe Sixpack from buying?
I can;t quite figure out what is happening exactly, but it is exciting me... that much I know.
I understand you, cAPSLOCK, to be saying that it seems different this time, and then you list some amorphous things that may or may not be happening to cause you to conclude that something may well be happening this particular time that is different.. but you just cannot put your finger on it... ... which in essence seems to lend a decent amount of credibility to claims that this time is almost fucking the exact same (it just happens to be different), but we are so much on schedule and within the dominant BTC price prediction models (in my thinkenings) that the whole situation is almost like the wettest of wet dreams that anyone could actually be living through such a fantasy that is not actually a fantasy but "is happening" right in front of our very eyes, and "on schedule" at that.
Who would-a thunk? Truly, way too good to be true, so something must be up.I am not sure what I am meaning to say is I expect the price action to be different, or not. I don't know that I understand how to calculate that considering we are 1 or 2 orders of magnitude away price wise from the past cycles. What is interesting to me is that the way things are proceeding has some major fundamental differences, and I can be specific.
1. Institutional, and other big money is starting to bite... kinda hard.
2. Most of the accumulation is happening away from retail exchanges.
3. Institutional investors are by and large currently ONLY interested in BTC.
4. The above investors seem to actually UNDERSTAND bitcoin. This is also new. They understand the decentralization part, the scaling issues etc.
5. Retail exchange volume is still barely warm, in my opinion.
Because of the above the idea of a "super cycle" has more weight than I would have imagined was possible. Though I still think it is likely a minority scenario, it has a REAL chance.
In some ways the super-cycle, if it were to happen (and to define it: it is big money (and small) frontrunning the rest of this cycle and lighting a rocket we have not yet seen) will in retrospect appear inevitable.
That is the "this time it might be different" I am talking about. There are lots of models... Rainbows, S2F, that other S2F with real estate in it, etc... What I am wondering is if maybe that latter S2F model ends up being more correct, or this time we break them all?
Will it? I dunno.
Thanks for the further explanation.. and I think that part of the points that I was making earlier is 1) all the time when we are in the midst of anything related to bitcoin there is going to be a certain amount of uncertainties - even when we have a variety of models and theories to help us to attempt to appreciate our potential location a bit better and 2) Of course to a considerable extent the players and the whole hype has to be different (and greater) because it takes more capital to push the BTC price up when the unit value is $3k versus when the unit value is $57k and perhaps 3) we cannot really be generalizing too much even though you are likely correct that some BIGGER players are likely engaging in a considerable amount of front running of retail - and that dynamic is not exactly too far outside of what of what could have been reasonably speculated to be a pretty decent expectation.. rich people are going to try to front run and even to set up disadvantages.. .
and bitcoin allows that kind of free range competition for coins or real estate on the blockchain or whatever... so even though it seems strange or even too good to be true, it is not really outside of expectations of what any of us longer term HODLers might have speculated about what could happen.. so yeah it is nice to see such things happening and us longer term HODLers and BTC advocates become kind of vindicated.. even though nothing is guaranteed.. the stars do surely all seem to be aligning in way better ways than our more mediocre expectations.. .... but even having had said all that.. fuck the super-cycle theory.. too pie in the sky to be realistic.. we are more likely to have outrageous exuberance to the upside and overshooting that is going to cause a correction that just is inevitable from the outrageous exuberance rather than going into a super-cycle (even though I agree that the super-cylce is a non-zero probability scenario.. just like going to zero is a non-zero probability.