Bitcoins are officially donkdown

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Originally Posted by sonatine

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Originally Posted by MumblesBadly

I just saw this 2013 article that, IMO, puts into focus what development would crush the appeal of Bitcoin: If the Chinese government could materially restrict access to Bitcoin exchanges. And based on this article, this isn't likely to happen until China manhandles Hong Kong to the point of shutting down their Bitcoin exchanges.

http://qz.com/154420/chinas-ban-on-b...anned-already/

And that would be a very controversial move by the CCP, because it has to be careful about not killing the golden goose of Hong Kong's symbol as an autonomous region with a LOT of freedom relative to the mainland that is treated lightly by the CCP. So the CCP needs to way the cost of that heavy handedness versus the benefit they perceive from materially stifling Yuan-to-Bitcoin conversion.

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I mean, I knew a long time ago that you shouldnt be taken seriously ever but just wow.

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Tine, San, SSB,

I realize that that particular story is old, and around the time of top of the bubble. But Bitcoin is still ridiculously overpriced per your perspectives, given that you assign relatively little value to the black market utility of Bitcoin. And that belief reminds me of something I learned when I was formally studying and researching financial market phenomena:

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"When people are overconfident, they set overly narrow confidence bands. They set their high guess too low (and their low guess too high). Hence, they get surprised more frequently than they anticipated."

Shefrin (2000) page 18-19

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You can find this passage here:
http://overconfidence.behaviouralfinance.net

Why do I mention this? Because I believe that you guys are overconfident about the narrowness of the range of the black market utility of Bitcoin. The $20 figure seems "fair" to you, but none of you are living in China sitting on new found wealth, and facing the risk of the government turning an eye towards your fortune. So it is hubristic to assume that what seems "fair" to you, a Westerner who takes strong government protection of property rights for granted, is "fair" for those Chinese facing that risk.

My point is that I believe you guys overconfidently believe that Bitcoin price is about 95% due to irrational "gambly". And that seems way too high a proportion giving that Bitcoin seems to just keep plugging along after several crashes. And that isn't consistent with other asset pricing bubbles, like tulips, railroad stocks, silver, Internet stocks, etc. And none of those bubbly assets had "black market utility".

Mind you, I am not saying that "Laundering" accounts for most of Bitcoin's price, but that it likely is a much greater factor on the price than you guys assume, but varies considerably over time and is indistinguishable from "gambly" trading to outsiders like us here in the West.

Alternately, if you guys are correct, and "gambly" accounts for most of Bitcoin's price, how soon should we confidently expect Bitcoin to be regularly trading below, say, twice your "fair" price? Six months? A year? Two?

Or how about under 5x? By when will Bitcoin fall below $100, and in Druff's words, "stabilize" under there? Six months? A year? Two? Five? Ten?

Seriously. Each of you -- Tine, San, and SSB -- separately PM me a time frame for when you are confident that Bitcoin price will fall and remain below $100 for one month. I will wait until all three of you have done so -- or at most a week -- before sharing in a post, as I would like each of you to independently submit one.

Thank you in advance.

Didnt read a fucking word of that mess.

There is no way of knowing what a "fair price" for bitcoin is, because of so many factors. It is a waste of time speculating about this

All I know is until we start seeing some practical use in the real world, the overall vision will remain a pipe dream.

They say the price will go up due to the halving due next year, so I am just hoping the price drops before then due to some negative headline hitting the news before then, because I do buy in to the technology and the potential it has for changing the financial world.

By the way, Argentina's new president is an advocate of bitcoin, and there is a lot of innovative activity going on in that country due to the economical history it has- this can only speak well for the currency's future.

I'm thinking of buying in before someone gets their act together and starts designing some apps for practical day-to-day use of this thing, it's a matter of time.

Aside from black market purposes and gambling, the biggest benefit I see to BTC can be found in the speed and cost of the transactions: it's hard to beat transferring a really large sum of money around the world for a cost of around 1 or 2 pence at a time. Compare that to services like PayPal!

On the other hand I consider the whole anonymity aspect pretty much void at this stage.

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Originally Posted by Starbucks Spunk Bucket

There is no way of knowing what a "fair price" for bitcoin is, because of so many factors. It is a waste of time speculating about this

I agree that the "fair" price of Bitcoin in the sense we've discussed here is *very* noisy, and that is what I have been trying to tease out from our discussions. And I agree with the notion that the current trading price can't be relied upon as a indicator of tha "fair" price with any material precision. I would just hate to see anyone here bet actual money on Bitcoin's demise based on a $20 "fair" price and lose their shirt given the many factors that could be driving trading activity

All I know is until we start seeing some practical use in the real world, the overall vision will remain a pipe dream.

I don't put much value in the libertarian-utopia "vision" among folks living countries with relatively free and capital and currency markets, but China stands out as a major economy with an iron grip on traditional capital and currency market transactions, and even blockchain tech-issued stocks won't be able to breach that financial Chinese wall (because China would likely slap sanctions on Western financial institutions that allowed Chinese mainlanders to buy those issues).

They say the price will go up due to the halving due next year, so I am just hoping the price drops before then due to some negative headline hitting the news before then, because I do buy in to the technology and the potential it has for changing the financial world.

How will the price of Bitcoin affect the blockchain tech innovations coming to the financial world? They are two completely different matters now. Bitcoin could fade to the value of beanie babies and blockchain tech will still be useful for issuing and ledger-keeping of standard financial instruments.

By the way, Argentina's new president is an advocate of bitcoin, and there is a lot of innovative activity going on in that country due to the economical history it has- this can only speak well for the currency's future.

Interesting, but take with a bag of salt. Argentina's political system is horrible for managing economic stability. It could express commitment for Bitcoin for awhile, then dump it on a dime when unexpected hidden costs grow too high to be able to hide from the public/outside world. Like what happened in the 1990's when it bailed on pegging its currency to the USD.

I'm thinking of buying in before someone gets their act together and starts designing some apps for practical day-to-day use of this thing, it's a matter of time.

The folks who almost risklessly got rich in the California gold rush were the folks who sold supplies to the prospectors!!!

Aside from black market purposes and gambling, the biggest benefit I see to BTC can be found in the speed and cost of the transactions: it's hard to beat transferring a really large sum of money around the world for a cost of around 1 or 2 pence at a time. Compare that to services like PayPal!

It's important to remember that the total cost of using a market transaction is the sum of the explicit cost (fees and/or commission) *plus* the sum of the implicit cost of the bid-ask spreads for the two trades (converting money to Bitcoin, and then Bitcoin to money). With the relatively thin Bitcoin trading volume, as well as the highly volatile price, the expected percentage of the latter is still very substantial.

On the other hand I consider the whole anonymity aspect pretty much void at this stage.

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Thank you for your thought-provoking comments!

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Originally Posted by sonatine

Didnt read a fucking word of that mess.

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Tine, you don't need to read it. Just PM me with a date that you feel confident that Bitcoin will fall below $100 for at least one month.

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Originally Posted by Starbucks Spunk Bucket

By the way, Argentina's new president is an advocate of bitcoin, and there is a lot of innovative activity going on in that country due to the economical history it has- this can only speak well for the currency's future.

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Uh yeah this is like the fourth failing nation to say "HMMM BITCOINS MIGHT SOLVE SOME SHIT" then they actually read up on it and find out that it would solve approximately nothing.

Uh oh fatotine is gonna have to pay for his chimichurri sauce with nerd money

San,

Are you aware of this source for historical Bitcoin data?

https://www.quandl.com/browse?filter...exchange-rates

It was the source for this research paper on how financial freedoms affect Bitcoin price using data across a number of countries:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...act_id=2666243

The PDF file of the working paper version is here:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Data_In...m?abid=2666243

Interesting article claiming that BTC will rise in 2016 based on mining becoming twice as hard, in so many words:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gl...0U60GM20151223

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Originally Posted by sonatine

Interesting article claiming that BTC will rise in 2016 based on mining becoming twice as hard, in so many words:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gl...0U60GM20151223

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The article is a decent example of telling a lie by using almost truths.

The basis is in this almost truth that's fairly easy to accept if you don't know too much about the subject...

"But taken in isolation, the halving of the mining reward will increase the price of bitcoin by around 50 percent from where it is now, Masters reckons."

...or if your BS radar never picked up this "Daniel Masters, co-founder of Jersey-based Global Advisors' multi-million dollar bitcoin hedge fund".

The price of Btc is only mildly correlated to mining at this point. The mining part has always been the price at the end (that is now getting halved) and difficulty in getting there that has been fucktonfolded since the inception of Btc. The mining difficulty part is not mentioned in the article for a reason.

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Originally Posted by gimmick

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Originally Posted by sonatine

Interesting article claiming that BTC will rise in 2016 based on mining becoming twice as hard, in so many words:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gl...0U60GM20151223

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The article is a decent example of telling a lie by using almost truths.

The basis is in this almost truth that's fairly easy to accept if you don't know too much about the subject...

"But taken in isolation, the halving of the mining reward will increase the price of bitcoin by around 50 percent from where it is now, Masters reckons."

...or if your BS radar never picked up this "Daniel Masters, co-founder of Jersey-based Global Advisors' multi-million dollar bitcoin hedge fund".

The price of Btc is only mildly correlated to mining at this point. The mining part has always been the price at the end (that is now getting halved) and difficulty in getting there that has been fucktonfolded since the inception of Btc. The mining difficulty part is not mentioned in the article for a reason.

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Agreed that this is vapor analysis.

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Originally Posted by sonatine

Interesting article claiming that BTC will rise in 2016 based on mining becoming twice as hard, in so many words:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gl...0U60GM20151223

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Meant to include this in previous comment:

People already know this mining cost change will occur next year. And because it's a simple event to analyze (mining cost per Bitcoin will double) any effect on supply due to an expected mining costs should already be impounded into the price given that investors are free to buy and sell Bitcoin from each other, and Bitcoin are durable assets.

Btc mining is kinda weird compared to most things in that the cost of it doesn't actually lower the amount of new Btc. It self corrects itself at some point when the whole network gets weaker by lowering the difficulty of solves. Weaker network is a slower network where if you want your transactions to come through faster you are incentivized to pay a fee to miners which might make mining more cost effective, introduce new miners because of that and once again strengthen the network.

In the transition in 2016 miners are still fucked though. To make the same that they made in 2015 half of them need to quit or fees need to go up and increase in frequency really fast or the mining rigs need to get a lot better in some aspects (solving power to electricity consumption ratio needs to change etc.).

Still though increase in the amount of Btc lowers the price (if all else is equal). If the amount of new Btc is halved the impact it has on lowering the price is lessened but it never increases the price. You need some assumption of constant increase in demand to make the price go up by just halving the amount of new coins.

I think we're going from 15 mil coins to 17,5 mil in a 4 year span and the impact of new coins keeps getting smaller every year.

I can see a bright future where one buys a bot network with Btc to mine Btc because actually using your own hardware and paying for electricity just isn't cost effective. And the circle of life is complete.

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Originally Posted by gimmick

Btc mining is kinda weird compared to most things in that the cost of it doesn't actually lower the amount of new Btc. It self corrects itself at some point when the whole network gets weaker by lowering the difficulty of solves. Weaker network is a slower network where if you want your transactions to come through faster you are incentivized to pay a fee to miners which might make mining more cost effective, introduce new miners because of that and once again strengthen the network.

In the transition in 2016 miners are still fucked though. To make the same that they made in 2015 half of them need to quit or fees need to go up and increase in frequency really fast or the mining rigs need to get a lot better in some aspects (solving power to electricity consumption ratio needs to change etc.).

Still though increase in the amount of Btc lowers the price (if all else is equal). If the amount of new Btc is halved the impact it has on lowering the price is lessened but it never increases the price. You need some assumption of constant increase in demand to make the price go up by just halving the amount of new coins.

I think we're going from 15 mil coins to 17,5 mil in a 4 year span and the impact of new coins keeps getting smaller every year.

I can see a bright future where one buys a bot network with Btc to mine Btc because actually using your own hardware and paying for electricity just isn't cost effective. And the circle of life is complete.

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People have taken that one step further and designed bitcoin mining malware which has been installed on botnets etc.

Down over 9% to $412 today.

Low: 401.157 USD
High: 451.5 USD

^ five hour dive.

Well fellow cryptonerds...Merry Xmas

Why the reason for the price drop this time?

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Originally Posted by Starbucks Spunk Bucket

Well fellow cryptonerds...Merry Xmas

Why the reason for the price drop this time?

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Because the vast majority of people who got BTC for Xmas arent simpletons so they dumped them as fast as their keyboards would allow.

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Originally Posted by sonatine

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Originally Posted by Starbucks Spunk Bucket

Well fellow cryptonerds...Merry Xmas

Why the reason for the price drop this time?

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Because the vast majority of people who got BTC for Xmas arent simpletons so they dumped them as fast as their keyboards would allow.

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Lol at all these simpletons. I read this forum for the poker scamming stuff and I read this thread to hear everyone's stupid as fuck opinion.

One will be hard pressed to find a place with so many seemingly experts who know almost next to nothing.

One thing in this thread is right about mining halving - the halving has nothing to do with the end consumer except that the downward price pressure/inflation will be halved.

BTC does one thing and one thing sorta well and that is take the control of money out of the hands of organizations. (And I say "sorta well" because it is dependent on uncensored internet infrastrucure) Most people don't begin to comprehend how capital control can be used to fuck you.

BTW, I gave some investment advice a year+ ago. It was easy to turn $30 into $600-$1k depending on your timing. I hope at least someone out there listened. (Granted, it would take a little work to do it.. I only got a couple dozen investments in at $30-$40)

Cheers! and Happy Holidays!

i liked it when we called them shitcoins. not because i have anything against the currency, I enjoy bitcoins very much, I just think its a funny moniker.

Shitcoins.

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Originally Posted by Crowe Diddly

i liked it when we called them shitcoins. not because i have anything against the currency, I enjoy bitcoins very much, I just think its a funny moniker.

Shitcoins.

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Shitcoins was/is used to refer to the numerous alt-currencies like the one I told yall to invest in... it was a grand scam.. I don't keep up with that one anymore, too many warning signs of it being a not legitimate project ... but boy what a hustle it was. Was very easy to make money with that one. I told everyone to get in BTC if it hit $50, sell the house at $20... I think it hit $55, so my suggestion was too conservative to be of value.

Lots of dreamers in this world, myself included. This comp-sci area of distributed and open ledgers has a lot of utility, from voting, to value exchange, to a lot of interesting applications. It sort of transcends what people expect from software. Some projects are legitimate and the rest are shitcoins.

BTC is the grandfather of them all and has the most trust. Technically speaking it sucks, but people aren't here for the technicals. They want to trust in something. I will be some time before it is ever overtaken as an exchange of value that is also decentralized. So it was a pretty fucking safe bet if you get it. $6 billion market cap is nothing in the scheme of the world. I've quit selling BTC for some time, demanding payment back in BTC.

I'd love to pick through the sage's advice on here and quote em with some laughing guy pic.

The thing is, even if it does fail, if you'd ever bought when I was pumping it at $50-$200 ... you can easily realize a profit in fiat and be well well ahead of almost any other investment.

Don't hate because for some freakish reason Micon had the sense to get into BTC way back in the day.

Honestly, it is a bit of an embarrassment because I thought it was a stupid idea at first too. Then it started to make sense. I think I was like "Micon is a known idiot. How can this be a legitimate thing?"

Yall realize that it is the ultimate currency for drug dealing? No, not even dark markets. You could sell drugs locally on CL with BTC utilizing dead drops and completely eliminate a huge amount of risk. I have no interest in doing such a thing because I have plenty of opportunities having job skills etc, but thats out there in the wild. It allows all sorts of anti-government acts. Now some of you guys might be lovers of big government, but I'm not. The technology goes from decentralized store of value to prediction markets/AI markets/smart contract stuff. There are many applications we'll see when it settles down and those blockchains of real utility stick around.

As far as BTC the real question is when and where will it end / die off due to censorship/laws ? lol. No clue ... but it isn't anytime soon.

And there yall go for a real education.

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Originally Posted by donkdowndonedied

Honestly, it is a bit of an embarrassment because I thought it was a stupid idea at first too. Then it started to make sense. I think I was like "Micon is a known idiot. How can this be a legitimate thing?"

Yall realize that it is the ultimate currency for drug dealing? No, not even dark markets. You could sell drugs locally on CL with BTC utilizing dead drops and completely eliminate a huge amount of risk. I have no interest in doing such a thing because I have plenty of opportunities having job skills etc, but thats out there in the wild. It allows all sorts of anti-government acts. Now some of you guys might be lovers of big government, but I'm not. The technology goes from decentralized store of value to prediction markets/AI markets/smart contract stuff. There are many applications we'll see when it settles down and those blockchains of real utility stick around.

As far as BTC the real question is when and where will it end / die off due to censorship/laws ? lol. No clue ... but it isn't anytime soon.

And there yall go for a real education.

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Welcome to the thread, you must be very, very, very, *very* new here.

http://i.imgur.com/ojs09tx.png

lol seems legit

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Originally Posted by donkdowndonedied

blah blah blah No clue blah blah blah

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FTFY.

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Originally Posted by sonatine

http://i.imgur.com/ojs09tx.png

lol seems legit

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Happy New Years!

So what exactly is your point of concern?

Please articulate because I know you are blessed in such abilities.

Thank you.

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Originally Posted by sonatine

the markets are taking a beeeeeating today so im assuming these are chinese investors panic-stashing. maybe? maybe not?

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Has this correlation been decoupled? You inferred back then it was a move to safety, lol. Your post was just another attempt at clever phrasing imo. I choose to think it was just a switch to a funner gamble. Whatever, same outcome.

Chinese closed equity markets early after a 7% loss. Great stuff. Next session should be sweet.

Bitcoin needs a fresh reason to live. Kinda interesting what next move might be, or no move at all.

first thing i did after i read about the 7% implosion and trade halt was check BTC prices and low and behold, nice smooth organic rise.

wonder when the sharps are going to dump tho.

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Originally Posted by sonatine

first thing i did after i read about the 7% implosion and trade halt was check BTC prices and low and behold, nice smooth organic rise.

wonder when the sharps are going to dump tho.

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What organic rise you looking at Willis? Chinese market closed this morning and BTC are dead flat.

Surprising to me are the talking heads cautioning against bargain shopping US equities cause China needs to finish.

Your normal reaction is to fade the media and the dumb money NY investment banks. Fight the urge, And go with the flow

Glorious times.

Bitcoin stabilizing

Remember how I was saying that certain wealthy Chinese probably were concerned about getting pinched by the authorities due to the anti-corruption campaign in China? Check this out:

A Chinese Billionaire Has Gone Missing, And He's Hardly The First
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2016/0...n_8940146.html

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The billionaire founder of a famous Chinese clothing company has disappeared amid an anti-corruption campaign in the country.

Zhou Chengjian has been missing since at least Thursday, when clothing company Metersbonwe issued a statement saying it would temporarily stop shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange while searching for the company's chairman, according to Business Insider. Also missing is the company's secretary of the board, Tu Ke.
Chengjian joins a growing list of top executives in China who are either currently missing or have gone missing in the past. From January to September of last year, at least 34 companies in China reported that senior executives had seemingly disappeared, Bloomberg reported.

The disappearances have come as the Chinese Communist Party continues its anti-corruption push, according to CNBC. Just last month, billionaire Guo Guangchang went missing for several days before it was discovered he was helping government authorities in an unspecified investigation, according to The Telegraph.
In Metersbonwe's statement, the company said it was looking into reports that Chengjian was picked up by police.

Media reports in the country linking the continued disappearances of executives to the government's anti-corruption campaign remain unconfirmed, according to the BBC.

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The coin moved a bit the past day and is now down to $407.

When are we going to edit the title to "Bitcoins officially donkdown, turns into sonatine officially donkdown on page 114."

Just touched 400

I wonder if it is going to bounce back like it often does when it hits a milestone # like that.

Bitcoin is forked.

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Mike Hearn, devoted long-time Bitcoin enthusiast who eventually quit a job at Google to work on Bitcoin’s technology full-time, wrote a long blog post on Medium on Wednesday outline why he’s lost faith in it.

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New York Times & Fortune each posted articles within past 12 hours. Kind of a cool read. Never really understood the debate before.

Both NYT & Fortune link to the guy's exit blog.

Coincidentally, China's Shanghai composite has some cool volatility which should appeal to Chinese gamblers. (down 3% right now). There may be funner gambles for them now.

Remember, Bitcoin trading is a Chinese thing. Bitstamp is the tail being wagged.

Here is more about the Hearn situation holy fuck is all I can say

http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/15/m...quits-bitcoin/

I've been a BTC devotee for 3 years. Our drony friend is more or less how I ended up here.

There has always been a consistent sky-is-falling wishful schadenfreude from media and critics over the years but this story truly shakes my confidence. A cabal of 3 petty tyrants controlling the source code and the majority of hashing power concentrated into one entity is pretty much the dire opposite of Bitcoin's founding vision.

Fuck.

Honestly, this wasn't how I expected it all to crash down, but it also isn't that surprising if you think about it.

I see that there are still some believers keeping it held in the 390 range, but another crash is likely at this point. And this next crash could possibly be the big one.