Topic: Warning: How many of you Bears have ever been a victim of a Short Squeeze? - page 23. (Read 43772 times)

Please send an email to [email protected] to request for stats. If you are holding more than 1,000 USD, we are glad to talk with you more.

Otherwise, since Bitcoinica is linked to Mt. Gox, it's very easy to capture our trading algorithm if we announce everything to the public. Bitcoin is a very small market and Bitcoinica has a significant portion of trades.

We have been in net long (6,000 BTC to 15,000BTC range) for the past 7days.

We will solve the problem in the next big release. You can expect some more stats from us.

give us some stats won't be a serious trouble for Zhoutong. It's a shame he didn't do this.

If there is to be a breakout from the down trend it will be via a massive short squeeze, but this will not happen as long as people remember this thread.

1. Dow futures UP monster +255
2. USD down big back into the consolidation channel and moving lower
3. oil futures up a big 3.60%
4. gold and silver UP
5. copper up 6 std deviations in price!
6. GDP prints biggest QonQ jump since Q4 2009.

did i say RISK ON?  smash the shorts.

if you really understood how money works and that we are in the depths of a fiat currency crisis you would understand that gold/silver were fundamental investment plays.  most around here do understand that except you.

i also never said i wasn't a speculator.  personally i don't care about parsing the diff categories.  i prefer to say i'm a money infuser into Bitcoin.  how's that work?

His argument is that these details will reveal too much about Bitcoinica's vulnerability, because there's literally two exchanges. Without knowing enough about how all this works, I suspect he's right. But that's giving the man a lot of credit where he's earned only some.


Oh the fucking irony. "Shhhh, no speculative behavior, here!!"

Bingo! A gradual awakening to the options that exist.

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
~Charles Mackay

It's becoming ever-easier to access the Bitcoin system, either directly with a BTC wallet or indirectly via exchanges. I'm also developing a method that will facilitate a distributed wallet so the local wallet.dat becomes a centralized backup. No more lost wallets!

I'm just going to take advantage of opportunities to demonstrate the Bitcoin is usable for interesting things.  Like yesterday when there was a relatively highly watched segment about Wikileaks, I and some other people pointed out that Bitcoin make it so I don't have to be a slave to the big financial interests.

I expect that many people will have heard vaguely of Bitcoin, and at some point something will spark their interest enough, and they will be at a point in their lives when, they will go ahead and have a look.  That is what happened to me in fact.  Being a geek with a long term interest in cryptography, I had heard of Bitcoin by at least early this year, but happened to have been busy with other stuff until around June.  And the Occupy-X protests have brought out a lot of interest in and education about in financial sector shenanigans in the last few months.

Anyway, as long as the network remains sound I would anticipate a trickle of people entering (and a trickle of people exiting for that matter.)  Because there was a run-up already, I imagine that at some point on some minor spike there could be a flurry of interest by people who don't want to be left behind again and we could be off to the races.  Or not.   Who knows.   One way or another, I accumulate because BTC is something I like to have.

theres alot of USD's lined up to buy Bitcoin and its spread across the entire bid mountain.  nothing fake about this.  where the hell are the shorts?

this is exactly right.  new money infused into the economy will help merchants as well as the price and ultimately Bitcoins success.  we have way too many Bitcoin theorists around here arguing that speculative capital and early adopter hoarding is destructive to the economy.  this is nonsense and demonstrates a lack of understanding of how markets work.

what is needed is an influx of new money whether it be from speculators, investors, or merchants start up capital.  this will improve the economy and i would argue a slowly rising price of Bitcoin would create a virtuous upward spiral of everything Bitcoin related.

As an addendum: without statistically significant capital in/outflow from external currencies, the high volatility denominated in Bitcoins means that whichever side is correct will end up with an increased percentage share in total of this economy. In other words: more highly skilled (and/or luckier) traders will accrue more Bitcoins overall than less adept traders, leading to a (likely temporary) relative concentration of Bitcoin wealth.

For an overly-simplistic example:

100 BTC holders with 1 BTC each @ USD$1/BTC
50 BTC holders sell @ USD$1/BTC
50 BTC holders now have 2 BTC each @ USD$0.50/BTC
50 BTC holders are not selling at existing prices
BTC price rises to USD$0.75/BTC (BTC holders have effectively gained 50% on their total holdings due to cost-averaging)
50 non-holders experience seller's remorse; 10 of them buy back in (1 BTC each) and the exchange rate goes to USD$0.80/BTC
15 non-holders buy back in (1 BTC each) and the exchange rate goes to USD$0.90/BTC
50 steady BTC holders out the 75 total now have average of 75% out of total BTC economy; former sellers only 25%

Over-simplistic and freely assuming price changes, but illustrative of how a transfer of wealth can occur in a closed economy. Since Bitcoin is such a small economy, but based on now-proven technology, increased participation is nearly guaranteed to produce substantive gains in existing holdings.

And the chart:



A lot of that volume can be read as Bitcoins changing hands from sellers to buyers. Without a corresponding exchange rate drop, some will experience seller's remorse and reacquire their Bitcoin holdings at higher prices.

The real determining factor now is external capital flow due to new interest from organic growth, not supply/demand within the Bitcoin economy itself... unless a BTC millionaire decides to dump it all (still a case of diminishing returns - buyers have incentive to scoop up cheap BTCs). Until external currency volume rises, any further declines are most likely to be shallow and short-lived.


Oanda is a private exchange in the same class as Bitcoinica that apparently offers quite a good amount of transparency.

It isn't required, but it'd be nice - and confer additional credibility to Bitcoinica.

you're not serious are you?  his is a private exchange accountable to no one but himself.  no stats except for him.

Where can we find the net short positions on Zhoutong's exchange?  Chicago Mercantile Exchange or something will announce such statistics

Thanks in advance.

nice, slow, and controlled pain.

Wow, one of each!  thats alot.  in fact, only 2 threads ever started on the Spec Board.  that is severe trolling.

i'm sorry they've gotten so much attention.  in great part to you.

+1

You should ask Cypherdoc. In fact, every thread of Cypherdoc is the same: attack short-sellers and Bitcoinica because it allows margin trading. Take a look.

I'm lost. Is this thread about which direction Bitcoin's exchange rate is going, or an attempt at figuring out what BitMagic's holdings are?

Where did I ever say I held both positions simultaneously? Furthermore, I believe you "ascertained" that I was overall net short. Granted, I've held larger and longer in short positions over time, but you just decided to make something up based on my overall feeling about bitcoins.

Feel free to speculate (lol) on my current position, but stop making stupid assumptions that just further showcase you have no idea what you're talking about.

you sir are a DUMBSHIT.

from the Zhoutonged thread:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=49445.msg594444#msg594444

so we have ascertained you have long and short positions at Bitcoinica and are overall net short.  why don't you just take the net position and put on the short?  the classic long/short setup usu involves 2 different assets like the Dow and Gold.  the hedger knows these usu move together and for the last 10 yrs or so Gold moves up faster when they both go up and the Dow goes down faster when they both go down.  so the setup would be to be long Gold and short the Dow.  you are long/short the exact same asset in a leveraged, illiquid environment where being Zhoutonged in either direction continuously will eat up your acct in no time.  at the very best most of your positions just offset each other but due to stupidity its much worse than that.

what an IDIOT!

The decrease in external currency flow volume is a strong indication that the current exchange rate has stabilized for now.

Granted, the continuing inflation of the Bitcoin unit base will provide substantial downward pressure for a while yet. This requires inflow from other forms of wealth to be offset, but considering the overall size of the Bitcoin economy, not much is necessary. Any excess from another wave of interest would easily drive up the exchange rate.

If BTC holders with large balances decide to sell as the price rises, that would serve to maintain stability during inflow.

Note the volume in currency (USD):



A Logarithmic representation makes it easier to see the magnitude and stages of decline, while the standard chart below (with Bitcoin volume) shows the gradual tapering of absolute price volatility.



Paying attention to the BTC volume versus the USD volume is interesting. It is apparent that there is very little flow entering or leaving the Bitcoin micro-economy. Therefore, the volume in BTC won't change the exchange rate much despite coming into a fairly steady range of almost double that from before the June spike high.

What that suggests is there is a significant amount of wealth (relative to Bitcoin, not major currencies) that has split off from other currencies and taken up residence in the Bitcoin economy. In other words, the pool (EUR, USD, etc) has been drained slightly while the cup (BTC, NMC, etc) has been filled up; June was an overflow that simply saw the excess spillover from the cup and return to the pool. As offered earlier, additional waves of interest are likely to deposit additional reserves of wealth so long as the underlying technical structure of Bitcoin (encryption, triple-entry accounting block chain, sovereign usage over persistent network domination, etc) remains intact.

There is a danger that funds stored in Bitcoin could become trapped rather quickly should a major internal component be compromised, but it certainly doesn't seem that anything in the immediate future has the capability of doing so. Could the exchange rate go lower from here? Absolutely. The Bitcoin economy is small enough that it could very easily suffer a mortal blow that would marginalize its relevance for an extended period. However, I don't see anything on a 6-month horizon that would cause such a situation.


What "stable" currencies? Both the Euro and USD have experienced tremendous volatility of ~25% over the past few months (major peak to trough ranges) after having seen ~10% overall rise/decline (respectively) in the first half of 2011. All other currencies are buffeted by action in the majors, some experiencing much greater swings.

A decline in Bitcoin to a superior alternative would not be instantaneous, but a process. It is also unlikely that a completely overwhelming competitor would arise in such a short period, especially when there are trade-offs to any design decisions. There is room to improve on Bitcoin, but it still remains an elegantly simple system. Besides, expecting Bitcoin to be replaced instead of improved upon is a blind assumption.

Perhaps your definition of "useless" could be expanded upon. Bitcoin is useless for purchasing goods and services at the vast majority of establishments, yes. It would also be difficult to use gold and silver, stock certificates, gov't bonds (held by "speculators"?) or most foreign currencies for that purpose. However, it performs exactly as it is supposed to when acting as a currency for storage and transfer of wealth. It takes up to 72 hours for most international wire transfers, sometimes longer. Bitcoin generally does this in a matter of hours at most. Gold and silver offer a great degree of individual control over the monetary unit without a centralized authority, as does Bitcoin.

The death of Bitcoin has been greatly exaggerated.


fuck...