(03-08-2016 02:00 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  Interesting that Blockchain tech is very hot now especially in the financial services realms:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3039234...in-it.html

Blockchain engineer

You won’t find a lot of job openings with this title yet. But startups are recruiting engineers and developers who are familiar with the technologies behind bitcoin and have deep experience in cryptography, distributed systems, hash algorithms, and more.

Bitcoin’s core technology, the blockchain, is proving the most intriguing to could-be employers. More than 200 companies and open source projects are seeking to apply blockchain technology to applications such as trading platforms, secure identification cards, self-executing contracts, and many applications in financial services.

Peter Kirby, CEO of Factom, a startup working to monetize the technology developed by Factom.org, an open source project, says it’s easier to get eight-figure infusions of capital from VCs than it is to find qualified blockchain engineers. “It begins with understanding how decentralized architecture works and the intersection of software architect and cryptography expert,” he says.

The technology is not that difficult to comprehend, he says, but it is new and in some ways more like advanced math than programming.

Interested? Check out this job posted on Dice.com by CyberCoders, an IT recruiting company promising a salary of $150,000 to $170,000 for an engineer with experience in Python, bitcoins, and distributed systems.

Likely the best way to make real money with Bitcoin moving forward...

FYI Jobs keywords on Dice:

Sorry! That job has been removed. Here are similar
Sr. Python Engineer - CryptoCurrency/Blockchain/Bitcoin$ jobs
1 - 30 of 4372 positions

As you seem to suggest, there are not a lot of people with the various skill sets in order to come off as a blockchain expert, but when there is a demand there are likely going to be a lot of quasi-skilled people coming into that "blockchain expert" space.

There may be some guys in this forum that are o.k. to develop those skills or to somehow incorporate "blockchain expertise" into their resume; nonetheless, contrary to your assertion, I doubt that "blockchain expert" is the "best way to make real money" if a guy does not have an interest in going down such path.

Furthermore, this seeking of "blockchain experts" is a current fad. Surely it may last for years and years and years; however, if a guy is not kind of up and running in IT related skills, it could take him more years to train than persists the current fad.

I appreciate the overall points of your post, and likely I am merely quibbling a bit with your assertion of "best."

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-...watershed/


At the moment, I am slightly more inclined towards predicting upwards 5% rather than downwards 5%.... but even 5% ($23-ish) seems big these days.. and breaking upwards through $425 seems more formidable than breaking downwards through $400.

For anyone who cares about the current status of bitcoin and some of the governance debate and some of the internal players... in terms of where bitcoin is going in it's non-governed state.

Here's a link to a lot of decent points that describe some of the current movers and shakers in bitcoin core, mining and software development.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/btc...1458061357

I don't think bitcoin will go over $1000 or under $100 for many years.

(03-18-2016 12:43 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  I don't think bitcoin will go over $1000 or under $100 for many years.

...because?

(03-18-2016 01:38 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 12:43 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  I don't think bitcoin will go over $1000 or under $100 for many years.

...because?

Because he sold all of his remaining bitcoins in about the mid $250s and he wants to be correct when he was buying into a lot of the alt coin POS hype..., including Ethereum, Maidsafe, et al.

Accordingly, for some reason, Satoshi is become a bit more and more disgruntled and feels that he wants to be right in his decision to get out of bitcoin completely....

We already know that there is potential to make a lot of money off of a lot of different alts, but the alts are still lacking various networking effects that bitcoin has, and they frequently suffer from a bit of hidden centralization .. and want to get their little digs in at bitcoin.. because they wished that they could make it rich in bitcoin... blah blah blah.. but feel that they have missed the train (which is a forum of fallacious thinking).

To bad that Satoshi couldn't change his forum name to something non-bitcoin related because really he was a bit too sporadic and emotional when he adopted such a name for himself.

Anyhow, there are quite a few of various persons who are down on bitcoin for a variety of reasons, and there is a lot of ammunition that they can throw at bitcoin. It does not mean that they are correct, but instead want to vent, rather than just getting on with their lives in other areas and to live with their decision to leave bitcoin.

May not be healthy to feed the tolls, either.....


Edit: Also, bitcoin can still be a very good investment, even if it does not go above $1,000 for "many years." It seems like it is going to take a whole hell-of-a lot of FUD in order for bitcoin to return to sub $300 prices any time soon... maybe even below $350 may be quite difficult (though we are in striking distance of $350).

Surely, as I type we have some downward BTC price pressures, and I continue to buy in $5 to $10 increments as the price goes down, even though I surely would not want to buy BTC if I believe that the price is still going down and not reversing directions.

On the other hand, even though price trend directions can take a few days to play out and then reverse, we can also experience sudden changes and then upward price pressures... which generally will come with high volume, if the trend changes directions.

Based on previous BTC price resistance points of the past few months, if we are going to witness upward price movement, we gotta break $425, then $450, then $467, then $650.............

We gotta get passed three barriers (which are probably not insignificant) before we experience a mini explosion in upward price (between $467 and $650)...

We only get passed $1,000, if we first get passed resistance points in $800 to $850 territory, and if BTC prices get passed $850, the momentum would likely carry us passed previous ATH of $1,200... there is no lingering in the $850 to $1,200 price territory because BTC overshoots, when it finally does begin to shoot...

It is possible, like Satoshi suggests, to take years to get there, but his point of "many years" seems to be quite an exaggeration and outside of the realm of likelihood. In other words, he has made a statement suggesting a low probability and expressed it as a high probability.

Chances are pretty decent that another ATH will come in less than 2 years (maybe even less than 18 months).

Yesterday, it seemed that we were well on our our way to testing the $425 price point; however, for the moment, it appears that the price trend has changed and we are hovering in the lower $400s and likely to test $400 in the next 24 hours... even now, the chances of breaking below $400 may be around 50/50, but who knows? If prices break $400 in the next 24 hours, then there will likely be another test of $382 in the next 72 hours....

Better hypotheses?

(03-18-2016 01:38 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 12:43 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  I don't think bitcoin will go over $1000 or under $100 for many years.

...because?

Because I don't think many people would buy a bitcoin for more than $1000, in the same way I don't many of the current holders would sell for less than $100. Perhaps JJG could give some arguments to why bitcoin would go over $1000 today.

(03-18-2016 03:29 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  We already know that there is potential to make a lot of money off of a lot of different alts, but the alts are still lacking various networking effects that bitcoin has, and they frequently suffer from a bit of hidden centralization .. and want to get their little digs in at bitcoin.. because they wished that they could make it rich in bitcoin... blah blah blah.. but feel that they have missed the train (which is a forum of fallacious thinking).

This network effect of bitcoin you are talking about is just a lot of energy being wasted everyday and even though all that power is wasted, transactions still takes forever to clear.

(03-18-2016 03:29 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  To bad that Satoshi couldn't change his forum name to something non-bitcoin related because really he was a bit too sporadic and emotional when he adopted such a name for himself.

Yes this name should've been reserved for you Sir. We all know you made big money in bitcoin already.

(03-18-2016 03:29 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Edit: Also, bitcoin can still be a very good investment, even if it does not go above $1,000 for "many years." It seems like it is going to take a whole hell-of-a lot of FUD in order for bitcoin to return to sub $300 prices any time soon... maybe even below $350 may be quite difficult (though we are in striking distance of $350).

It seems like it is going to take a whole hell-of-a lot of hype for bitcoin to return over $720. Actually this is probably never going to happen. Unless you JJG can explain why anyone today would pay that price for a bitcoin? What's the value of holding bitcoins today? It's outdated. Everything has changed since 2012 when I bought my first bitcoin. In the same way the mobile phone I bought in 2012 is also outdated.

(03-18-2016 04:00 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Chances are pretty decent that another ATH will come in less than 2 years (maybe even less than 18 months).

Why would that happen? Please enlighten us. Chances are pretty poor to be honest.

(03-19-2016 02:48 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 01:38 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 12:43 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  I don't think bitcoin will go over $1000 or under $100 for many years.

...because?

Because I don't think many people would buy a bitcoin for more than $1000, in the same way I don't many of the current holders would sell for less than $100. Perhaps JJG could give some arguments to why bitcoin would go over $1000 today.

Your earlier proclamation that bitcoin will not go below $100 or above $1000 for “many years” is a bit much. None of us really know, and possibly, I am just reacting to the apparent certainty of your proclamation rather than the fact that it is within the realm of possibilities (and maybe even has a greater than 50% chance of being true, depending on viewpoint).

You are correct that, no one is going to buy a bitcoin today for above $1,000 if prices are currently floating around $400.

I also asserted in my previous post that I believe that the price of bitcoin has to get passed several price points before $1,000 is even in the cards…… which could take several years, or with momentum it could take place in 1 or 2 months. I personally, think that it is not too likely to occur in less than 4 months from now, but I believe that there is a decent chance of I occurring within the next 18 months and even better the longer the time frame.. within 2 years for example or within 5 years, for example..

Since, there are no certainties, each of us invest accordingly and need to come to our own conclusions regarding how we choose to invest. Apparently, you continue to be 0% in bitcoin ever since you sold whatever remaining bitcoin that you had in the $250s and proclaimed bitcoin dead at that time.

(03-19-2016 02:48 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 03:29 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  We already know that there is potential to make a lot of money off of a lot of different alts, but the alts are still lacking various networking effects that bitcoin has, and they frequently suffer from a bit of hidden centralization .. and want to get their little digs in at bitcoin.. because they wished that they could make it rich in bitcoin... blah blah blah.. but feel that they have missed the train (which is a forum of fallacious thinking).

This network effect of bitcoin you are talking about is just a lot of energy being wasted everyday and even though all that power is wasted, transactions still takes forever to clear.

That sounds like an Ethereum talking point. I don’t know all the various arguments to rebutt your statement, but a dedication of computing power to secure value is not a bad thing. Yeah, there are arguments that it is wasteful, but this is monetary value that we are securing, and currently, bitcoin’s market cap is over $6 billion, yet we can have a pretty decent level of confidence with existing computing power, bitcoin’s network could fairly easily secure a 10x or a 100x increase in value with current computing power invested in bitcoin’s network of computers.
In the future there is going to continue to be a lot of investment into computing and into a lot of continued waste in a lot of areas, besides bitcoin, and individuals chose whether to invest into computing power based on their speculation regarding whether the investment will pay off for them on a personal level. That alleged computing power/energy “waste” is just a cost of doing business in the future and remains amongst the best of the current proposals regarding how to secure value.

(03-19-2016 02:48 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 03:29 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  To bad that Satoshi couldn't change his forum name to something non-bitcoin related because really he was a bit too sporadic and emotional when he adopted such a name for himself.

Yes this name should've been reserved for you Sir. We all know you made big money in bitcoin already.

In retrospect, your choice of the name Satoshi seems to have been a kind of emotional spur of the moment, rather than serious, because you surely did not last too long in your bitcoin investment. As long as things are going well, you are with it, but apparently, you became enlightened, or was it just a matter of you buying into the fud, and selling near the bottom?

My personal investment into bitcoin is going fine, so I don’t understand how that is relevant to your above point.

I am way too coin agnostic to get wed to any coin or to making my user name into something related to bitcoin. That’s just my personality. My user name is kind of a play off of some words and ideas in my activities, including my now about 14 year hobby of dance. Anyhow, so far, I don’t really identify with bitcoin in any kind of fashion to suggest that it is the one and only because if there appears to be a better crypto investment that works for my own situation, then I will begin to diversify my investment into that one or those ones.

(03-19-2016 02:48 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 03:29 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Edit: Also, bitcoin can still be a very good investment, even if it does not go above $1,000 for "many years." It seems like it is going to take a whole hell-of-a lot of FUD in order for bitcoin to return to sub $300 prices any time soon... maybe even below $350 may be quite difficult (though we are in striking distance of $350).

It seems like it is going to take a whole hell-of-a lot of hype for bitcoin to return over $720. Actually this is probably never going to happen. Unless you JJG can explain why anyone today would pay that price for a bitcoin? What's the value of holding bitcoins today? It's outdated. Everything has changed since 2012 when I bought my first bitcoin. In the same way the mobile phone I bought in 2012 is also outdated.

In the first part of your above comment, you aren’t really saying anything different than me. I had already said that bitcoin has to get beyond a few resistant points. I listed $425, 450, $467 and $650 for starts. So $720 could be another resistant point between $650 and $850, but once prices are beyond $850, it is very likely that prices are going to shoot passed the previous ATH and into the $3k to $5k territory.

When you say, probably “never” going to return above $720, “never” is a long fucking time, and yes probably we have different views of probabilities and views of bitcoin’s potential competition. I think that it is more likely that not that prices will go above $720 in less than 2 years, and you are asserting “probably never.” There is a pretty good sized different in those two views; however, I don’t play balls to the walls with this stuff, and I don’t get too emotionally attached to my investments. Therefore, I am not even banking on some kind of certainty that bitcoin has to rise above $500 in order for me to profit from my bitcoin investment. Yes, it would be icing on the cake to have bitcoin prices, go up, but it is not absolutely necessary for the reasons that I am in bitcoin and the security and soundness of my personal investment strategy.

O.k. surely times have changed since 2012 when you got into bitcoin, and even you have admitted various times that you were considerably surprised when bitcoin 10x a couple of times, and you had the potential of getting 100x profits… even though you did not cash out at the top. No one is faulting anyone for not timing the bottoms or the tops, but it remains a bit phoney and pretentious for anyone to attempt to suggest that they are really smart in bitcoin because they got in early. You had a use case for bitcoin in 2012 and you put some extra into bitcoin and you got lucky with, possibly, a bit of insight.. but not necessarily much.


Your suggestion that times have changed since 2012 is correct, but in no way is bitcoin “outdated” merely because there remain some pump and dump alts out there.

In fact, bitcoin is doing quite well and bitcoin continues to enjoy a lot of networking effect advantages over a lot of other supposedly “superior” alt coins.

(03-19-2016 02:48 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 04:00 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Chances are pretty decent that another ATH will come in less than 2 years (maybe even less than 18 months).

Why would that happen? Please enlighten us. Chances are pretty poor to be honest.

Yes, we have a different view of probabilities, there is no need for me to repeat various arguments that I made above and in a large number of areas in this thread in earlier posts. And, really in the end, it doesn’t really matter too much what I think because I am just one person who, through this thread, is attempting to share information pertaining to bitcoin. I’m not trying to convert anyone, and guys here can make their own choices whether and how much to invest into bitcoin.

Bitcoin silence???

Here, I discuss recent BTC price consolidations in the lower $400s, and regarding shrinking BTC trade volume.


We can look at weekly or 3 day trade volume charts..... (and Bitstamp is a good trade volume reference point because it does not engage in margin / leverage trading).

in the summer of 2015, we had a bit of a false start regarding BTC price movement because BTC trade volume picked up and then dried up, again. If you recall that was the price move from $230s to $317 and then back down to the $230s.

Then in late 2015 starting from mid-August, we had a decent pick up in BTC trade volume that lasted more than 4 months until late December 2015... (the move from $230s to $502 and back down to lower $300s and back up to $360 to $460 range).

Since about the beginning of 2016 there has been some drying up of BTC’s trade volume... and quite a bit of ongoing contentiousness in the bitcoin community regarding blocksize limit, governance and hardforking.

Further, the last three weeks seem to have demonstrated additional drying up of BTC trade volume and some temporary acceptance of this lower $400s price range... maybe there's some widespread and contagious "let's wait and see thinking" going on at the moment? I have my doubts regarding whether price stagnation is completely attributable to contentiousness in the bitcoin space, though there's no doubt that public sentiment remains a component in price dynamics of any asset, commodity or whatever the fuck is bitcoin.

I would not be surprised for a price break out in either direction or just a continuation of the relatively low trade volume for a couple more months....

I don't think that the current drying up of BTC trade volume means too much, except that there is some continued price consolidation going on in this lower $400s price range... and no one really wants to (or is able to) fight the direction of BTC prices too much. The big players are likely to continue attempt at testing price here or there in order to attempt to verify if they can get prices to move in one direction or another or to get others to jump on-board... but in the end, when we are stuck in a kind of consolidation, even big players can't really be successful in getting BTC prices to move too much or to get others to jump onboard when attempting to signal in one direction or another.

I think that at this time, we cannot really read too much into the low BTC trade volume.. except maybe relax and accumulate BTC if you happen to be bullish and relax and dump BTC if you happen to be bearish (that is if you have any BTC to dump)...

Sometimes I will attempt to trade BTC on less than $5 price increments but only if the price happens to be hitting my price points... and in this most recent $410 to $419 range of the past five days, I did not really catch BTC price points very well.

In other words, there has been pretty low trade volume from me, too. About 5 days ago, when BTC prices moved above $410, I sold some in the $412s, $415s and in the $417s, and then bought back some in the $414s... and now I feel kind of stuck with my next sell point above $418 and my next buy point below $412... Even though I may feel stuck at the moment, I have found that as time passes, I tend to narrow my consolidation of buy and sell points to bring them closer together when there seems to be long periods of prices being stuck in a range and I have not been buying or selling for such a long time...

Here's a variety of decent and colorful bitcoin graphs that attempt to depict periods of bitcoin price stability and period of bitcoin explosive growth... suggesting that bitcoin is coming due for another period of explosive growth... ??? could be? I don't really know, but it is interesting to look at some of these kinds of price theories.


https://azopstability.com/

Here's a very decent and interesting interview with Trace Mayer.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments...ing_price/

Surely Trace is widely invested in bitcoin, and his bullishness may in part be attributable to his investments, yet he still does engage in some very convincing talking points regarding ongoing developments and expansions of the bitcoin space.

(03-30-2016 04:30 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Here's a very decent and interesting interview with Trace Mayer.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments...ing_price/

Surely Trace is widely invested in bitcoin, and his bullishness may in part be attributable to his investments, yet he still does engage in some very convincing talking points regarding ongoing developments and expansions of the bitcoin space.

Great video/podcast. And that's coming from someone who rarely has the patience for long podcasts.

I enjoyed his description of the "whiny ragequitters" that have been railing against BTC (reminds me a lot of this guy). "Ragequitter" might be my new favorite word since "cuck" was introduced a while back.

The way we keep seeing these negative statements pop up seems similar to the way you only ever hear about airplane crashes-a flight making it safely from one place to another isn't news. Sort of the same way it's much more likely for someone to leave a negative product review than a good one; you won't draw much attention to an article saying "Bitcoin is chugging along just fine folks, nothing to see here."

...

JayJuanGee, what are your thoughts on Bitcoin's likely price reaction to the block reward halving?

It seems we have two competing ideas: either the understanding/expectation of the change is "priced in" to the market and the halving will have little-to-no effect, or the decrease in supply will trigger a price increase (whether this would take place immediately or over the following weeks/months is up for debate).

My guess is that while the former is more likely true than the latter, the media will hype up the reward change in some fashion:

-If they claim the halving will benefit the network/send prices higher, we may see demand build up just prior to the event, and then when the expected rise in price fails to occur (or occur to the extent the media hype has claimed) we'll see a sharp drop due to the popping of inflated expectations. Could be an opportune time to buy.

-If they claim the halving will have a negative effect, we could see a sell-off similar to the Heard scare, with a rebound after the halving once folks realize the sky is not in fact falling. In this case, the smart move would be to buy just before the change as the fair-weather fans sell off their coins.

I suppose I'll keep my ear to the ground and wait to see what the general community milieu feels like in a month or two before deciding if/when to buy.

It's funny how the below negative article about bitcoin's energy use could be spun into a positive/bullish indicator.


http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/22566...on-the-way


Yes, bitcoin is using a lot of computing power, yet in the end, there seems to be quite a bit of decentralized decision-making and investment going into bitcoin, that signifies that individuals (and small companies, and maybe even governments) will be continuing to invest in bitcoin's computing power and into securing the blockchain (as well as attempting to control some of the mining process).

Good ole competition may well cause a computing power arms race in respects to bitcoin. Even if it appears to be wasteful, it surely shows anticipated ongoing interest.

So there is a lot of talk in economics about interest rates being at 0% for way too long marking an oncoming depression the likes of which we have yet to experience.

Regarding Bitcoins role in this I see a lot of mixed remarks regarding this scenario via a basic Google search. I would like to gather opinions on what you think would happen to the value of bitcoin when the eventual depression hits the economy and the banks potentially go bust?

Basically how good an investment into bitcoin is it to protect your assets in the event of an economic collapse? Not really interested in making money off this so much as protecting my ass during the soon to come hard times, any input from people more familiar with BTC would be appreciated.

(03-31-2016 09:44 AM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(03-30-2016 04:30 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Here's a very decent and interesting interview with Trace Mayer.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments...ing_price/

Surely Trace is widely invested in bitcoin, and his bullishness may in part be attributable to his investments, yet he still does engage in some very convincing talking points regarding ongoing developments and expansions of the bitcoin space.

Great video/podcast. And that's coming from someone who rarely has the patience for long podcasts.

Yeah. Trace Mayer hits on some fairly solid points. In recent years, I have incorporated a variety of podcasts into my staying in touch with news (whether that is bitcoin, politics, current events or other interests that I have).. rather than radio or TV… sometimes it takes a while to sort out which podcasts have more credibility, value and/or bang for the buck (meaning worth the time spent).

(03-31-2016 09:44 AM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  I enjoyed his description of the "whiny ragequitters" that have been railing against BTC (reminds me a lot of this guy). "Ragequitter" might be my new favorite word since "cuck" was introduced a while back.

Without necessarily getting into politics regarding who are potential rage quitters, in recent times, we have been witnessing a lot of ragequitters in the bitcoin space.

Some of the ragequitters actually seem to have quit and kind of gone away (like Mike Hearn), and others merely threaten to quit and go away, over and over and over again – yet they do not go away, and instead just continue to whine about it. Some of them are genuine and believe in bitcoin. They may be confused or mislead though. Some of them could be hired shills or otherwise attention seekers.

The media definitely likes to latch onto this kind of sensationalism regarding rage quitting or other bitcoin drama, and to assert either that bitcoin has died (again) or that bitcoin is broken. Frequently, there is going to be some truth in the myth that is presented (and problematic facts that the media latches onto), otherwise people may not believe the myths. And, surely moving public sentiment does have some significance in terms of the extent to which one asset or another can be pumped or dumped… whether the asset is bitcoin, ethereum, some other alt coin, precious metals or various kinds of traditional stock/fiat investments.

(03-31-2016 09:44 AM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  The way we keep seeing these negative statements pop up seems similar to the way you only ever hear about airplane crashes-a flight making it safely from one place to another isn't news. Sort of the same way it's much more likely for someone to leave a negative product review than a good one; you won't draw much attention to an article saying "Bitcoin is chugging along just fine folks, nothing to see here."

...

Sure, sensationalism and drama will draw a lot more attention than talking about positive bitcoin developments, yet there is likely also a dynamic that main stream media is not exactly neutral in this fight. There likely is not exactly a party line in the mainstream because bitcoin remains kind of small in the whole scheme of things, and some of the personalities in the media may end up being able to get away with true, thoughtful and objective analysis regarding bitcoin, from time to time. In that regard, there can be some contradictions in terms of how much media attention that it does get, even though it remains kind of small in the whole scheme of things.

(03-31-2016 09:44 AM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  JayJuanGee, what are your thoughts on Bitcoin's likely price reaction to the block reward halving?

It seems we have two competing ideas: either the understanding/expectation of the change is "priced in" to the market and the halving will have little-to-no effect, or the decrease in supply will trigger a price increase (whether this would take place immediately or over the following weeks/months is up for debate).

My guess is that while the former is more likely true than the latter, the media will hype up the reward change in some fashion:

-If they claim the halving will benefit the network/send prices higher, we may see demand build up just prior to the event, and then when the expected rise in price fails to occur (or occur to the extent the media hype has claimed) we'll see a sharp drop due to the popping of inflated expectations. Could be an opportune time to buy.

-If they claim the halving will have a negative effect, we could see a sell-off similar to the Heard scare, with a rebound after the halving once folks realize the sky is not in fact falling. In this case, the smart move would be to buy just before the change as the fair-weather fans sell off their coins.

I suppose I'll keep my ear to the ground and wait to see what the general community milieu feels like in a month or two before deciding if/when to buy.

Really, it seems likely that the halving is just one dynamic of many that are at work to push prices in one direction or another, and of course, the halving creates upward BTC price pressures that are to some extent already priced in - because a lot of people know about this upcoming halving and talk about this upcoming halving.

Nonetheless, the fact of the upcoming halving continues to play off a variety of other news pressures and uncertainties regarding how seg wit and the scaling debate matters and bitcoin’s governance matters are going to play out. Some themes and misinformation can be repeated over and over again, and they are somewhat effective to affect prices and to take away from the bullish aspect of the halving; however, sometimes when BTC prices begin to move and momentum falls into place, frequently people will forget about some of the earlier “problems,” and they will jump on board.

I personally am not much for attempting to make short term price predictions, and I continue to attempt to prepare for either direction, even though I consider halving to be bullish.. whether the actual upward price movement occurs before the halving or after the halving.


In my view, each of us should try to remain prepared for BTC prices to go in either direction, yet it still seems reasonable to consider that 2016 will remain a good year for bitcoin’s overall price performance, and probably we should be more bullish than we are bearish – but I leave that for each guy to decide for himself.

It’s really difficult to know for sure, especially short term movements, because even with all the great developments in bitcoin including the upcoming halving, there are people (and institutions) out there who wouldn’t mind losing a whole hell-of-a lot of money in the short-term in order to keep bitcoin’s prices suppressed, even for another year or longer if possible.

In that regard, I think that we always need to play a little bit conservative in our own holdings to protect ourselves for potential and ongoing downward price manipulations and to consider upward BTC price movements including a 2x or a 5x or a 10x price increase to be icing on the cake that we cannot really rely upon happening (even though we continue to consider those kinds of potential price upsurges to have a fairly decent probabilities of occurring in the near upcoming future).

Thanks for your post Newmeta. I think that you have framed a very interesting topic in regards to the role of bitcoin in leveraging against fiat systems, and guys are going to have varying perspectives regarding the topic. From time to time, variations of that topic have come up in this thread, and with changing times, perspectives can change too. I am going to respond to your various points, yet I would be interested to hear the responses of others, too.

(03-31-2016 03:04 PM)NewMeta Wrote:  So there is a lot of talk in economics about interest rates being at 0% for way too long marking an oncoming depression the likes of which we have yet to experience.

Yeah. And there’s some bullshit about negative interest rates, too.. maybe that is taking place in Europe, but still.. it’s bullshit.

I find it quite amazing how times have changed over recent years and the level of irresponsibility that has been allowed with banks – whether we blame that on banks, governments or some combination...

I don’t want to lead too much into politics regarding arguing causes, but surely, we are facing a dynamic in which banks have been using our money for free and paying us less and less for such use of our money and also failing/refusing to provide loans to regular people.

Rather than making money in traditional ways by lending it out and paying us interest, they seem to like the idea of receiving interest free money from the governments, making more money from either free government handouts, engaging in risky speculative activities and even failing to loan out money and getting bailed out at the tax payers’ expense.

In the end, as individuals we have to attempt to engage in various protections regarding these kinds of dynamics.

(03-31-2016 03:04 PM)NewMeta Wrote:  Regarding Bitcoins role in this I see a lot of mixed remarks regarding this scenario via a basic Google search. I would like to gather opinions on what you think would happen to the value of bitcoin when the eventual depression hits the economy and the banks potentially go bust?

Well, sure, you are going to get a lot of mixed results in regards to bitcoin by doing blanket google searches because information about bitcoin is all over the place.. in part because it is not easy to understand, disruptive and there are incentives to propagate misinformation regarding various aspect of bitcoin.

Therefore, it will not really be not easy to understand the extent to which the future performance of any asset such as bitcoin may be tied to the performance of traditional institutional investments, and surely bitcoin is one of those investments that sometimes could correlate with other investments and sometimes go in the opposite direction.

Personally, I believe that in the long term that bitcoin is going to go up and have performance that goes in the opposite of some of the fiat related investments, and therefore bitcoin remains as a decent way to leverage against traditional investments, but surely if there is some kind of catastrophic failures, then in the short term, bitcoin prices may well crash along with some of the institutional mainstream assets.

(03-31-2016 03:04 PM)NewMeta Wrote:  Basically how good an investment into bitcoin is it to protect your assets in the event of an economic collapse? Not really interested in making money off this so much as protecting my ass during the soon to come hard times, any input from people more familiar with BTC would be appreciated.

Let me just start out by saying that I agree that there is some potential doomsday scenarios; however, frequently those doomsday scenarios are given much more likelihood than they are in reality. There are a lot of people who prepare for doomsday scenarios as if they were 80% likely, when in fact they may be less than 5% (depending on the scenario and the timeline). And, many times, it is likely that banks and the dollar and other fiats systems are not going to collapse in some sudden doomsday scenario but instead have various scattered failures and are likely going to be able to survive quite a bit longer than many of us may give them credit for.

In the end, each of us needs to choose for himself the level to which he wants to diversify his asset holdings away from traditional investments (and what percentage a guy can tolerate), and bitcoin remains volatile and manipulated and potentially upwardly (or downwardly) explosive.

Beginning in late 2013, I personally chose to invest in bitcoin in order to leverage against my various dollar investments. I think that my initial aim was to invest about 10% of my total quasi-liquid assets into bitcoin, and when the price of bitcoin went down (over 80% over the next 14 months – and then stayed down), I continued to invest during the down period, but really, even averaging my investment, I was below 50% in the hole during the down period. Accordingly, several times, I needed to reconsider my plan and approach several times in order to personalize my objectives and the extent to which I wanted to include bitcoin into those plans. I think personally, based on the continued downward price of bitcoin during 2014, I ended up investing about 15% to 20% more fiat into bitcoin than I had originally intended, and that can surely be risky when the asset is already down.

Surely, in the meantime, I have taken a variety of additional counter-measures (including beginning to trade bitcoins in October 2015) and adjusted some of my approach and thinking. Nonetheless, I still consider my bitcoin investment to serve largely as a leverage of my dollar related investments and based on bitcoin’s prices going down and then up, I am maybe a bit higher in my bitcoin allocation than my original target allocation, but at the same time, I had considered that if bitcoin prices were to appreciate, I would potentially allow the appreciation to absorb a higher percentage of my overall allocation and thereafter consider the extent to which I may need to diversify out of bitcoin.

Accordingly, when you are looking at your own personal investment situation, and how bitcoin may serve your own needs and leveraging purposes, you have to consider a variety of factors including but not limited to your age (timeline), risk tolerance, view of bitcoin’s future performance relative to other potentially safer assets, your cash flow, your current investments (whether liquid or not) and their allocation.

I personally believe that every single living and breathing person should attempt to allocate at least 1% of their quasi-liquid assets into bitcoin, but that may seem to be both a bit of a self-serving statement because of my own investment and because of a bit of my bullish perspective about bitcoin.

Surely, if you choose to put some money into bitcoin, you do not have to invest everything at once. You can engage in some kind of dollar cost averaging approach in order to build up your bitcoin allocation towards whatever goal level that you prefer.

You can also look at some posts of Isaac Jordan from January to see some of the outline of his plans in this thread. https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-21537...pid1199978

One of the advantages of engaging in a form of dollar cost average investing into bitcoin is that you can take less risk and reassess your investment plan and study up more about bitcoin while you are getting some skin in the game.

(03-31-2016 06:44 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  You can also look at some posts of Isaac Jordan from January to see some of the outline of his plans in this thread. https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-21537...pid1199978

By the way Isaac... are you able to give any status update regarding the extent that you may have been able to follow through with some of your original BTC investment plans?

I think that you may have mentioned doing some kind of two part approach that involves 1) steady investing on a periodic basis, and 2) employing some strategic attempts at investing more when BTC priceS dip

In the end, these can be a bit difficult to carry out, and the first one tends to be easier to carry out than the second one.

(03-31-2016 06:49 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(03-31-2016 06:44 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  You can also look at some posts of Isaac Jordan from January to see some of the outline of his plans in this thread. https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-21537...pid1199978

By the way Isaac... are you able to give any status update regarding the extent that you may have been able to follow through with some of your original BTC investment plans?

I think that you may have mentioned doing some kind of two part approach that involves 1) steady investing on a periodic basis, and 2) employing some strategic attempts at investing more when BTC priceS dip

In the end, these can be a bit difficult to carry out, and the first one tends to be easier to carry out than the second one.

Thanks for bringing that up.

After being given a fantastic book on Bitcoin as a Christmas gift last December, I decided to allocate 10% of my cash savings (roughly $5,000) to it.

My initial goal was to simply dollar-cost-average my way in, $50/day, which would have taken me about three months. I wanted to get into the market sooner rather than later, as I'm quite bullish on BTC long-term (as evidenced here), and I figured waiting would only see a higher price-besides, I was already frustrated at having just missed two- and three-hundred dollar prices a few months beforehand, and didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

So I opened a Circle account and started buying on the first of the year, when prices were in the $430s. I was consistent in my daily purchasing until the Hearn letter, when prices dropped nearly 20% over the course of a day. At that point I had only been using Circle for a few weeks and was still limited to I think $100/day, so I quickly opened a Coinbase account ($3,000/day starting limit) and bought a couple coins while the price was in the $360s. I bought a few more later in February while prices were still around $380, and with my last dollar spent I ended up averaging $375/coin.

For those curious, it took five weeks for Circle to raise my purchasing limits. Coinbase took about a month, and then they raised them again another month after that.

I've been satisfied with my position since I wrapped up my purchasing, but if the price drops below my current average I may buy another couple of coins. The more I read about Bitcoin the more I'm convinced it's really going places.

(03-31-2016 09:02 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(03-31-2016 06:49 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(03-31-2016 06:44 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  You can also look at some posts of Isaac Jordan from January to see some of the outline of his plans in this thread. https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-21537...pid1199978

By the way Isaac... are you able to give any status update regarding the extent that you may have been able to follow through with some of your original BTC investment plans?

I think that you may have mentioned doing some kind of two part approach that involves 1) steady investing on a periodic basis, and 2) employing some strategic attempts at investing more when BTC priceS dip

In the end, these can be a bit difficult to carry out, and the first one tends to be easier to carry out than the second one.

Thanks for bringing that up.

After being given a fantastic book on Bitcoin as a Christmas gift last December, I decided to allocate 10% of my cash savings (roughly $5,000) to it.

My initial goal was to simply dollar-cost-average my way in, $50/day, which would have taken me about three months. I wanted to get into the market sooner rather than later, as I'm quite bullish on BTC long-term (as evidenced here), and I figured waiting would only see a higher price-besides, I was already frustrated at having just missed two- and three-hundred dollar prices a few months beforehand, and didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

So I opened a Circle account and started buying on the first of the year, when prices were in the $430s. I was consistent in my daily purchasing until the Hearn letter, when prices dropped nearly 20% over the course of a day. At that point I had only been using Circle for a few weeks and was still limited to I think $100/day, so I quickly opened a Coinbase account ($3,000/day starting limit) and bought a couple coins while the price was in the $360s. I bought a few more later in February while prices were still around $380, and with my last dollar spent I ended up averaging $375/coin.

For those curious, it took five weeks for Circle to raise my purchasing limits. Coinbase took about a month, and then they raised them again another month after that.

I've been satisfied with my position since I wrapped up my purchasing, but if the price drops below my current average I may buy another couple of coins. The more I read about Bitcoin the more I'm convinced it's really going places.

Thanks for that update.

Sounds as if you have done pretty good so far, in terms of average price per BTC.


Besides buying BTC on dips below $375-ish, what's your other plans going forward?

Actually, I told my GF that she needs to stop getting caught up on buying below her average price per BTC, because when you buy, the main thing that matters is that you sell higher than you buy, rather than whether buying causes your average price per BTC to go up.

Regarding prices going up, and a plan.. you should consider some kind of plan... at least have some kind of an outline of a plan.

Previously, I had linked this thread to show some of what had influenced my earlier thinking on the point of having a plan on the way up.

What if prices go to $600?

$800?

$4,000?

In real life, I have talked with quite a few people about buying bitcoins, but only a very few have actually followed through with buying coins. Therefore, in real life, I tend to harp on real people, who have actually invested in BTC regarding their plan(s) in the event that BTC prices go up.

I tend to be kind of a planner; however, I have found that with real people in the real world, there tends to be some reluctance to really outline a plan (and to express it)... and there seems to be a bit of a tendency to assert that they (the BTC investors) will decide what to do, as the situation unravels.... and it depends.. etc etc etc.

I am kind of like that too, to keep things kind of vague and flexible, but I also have outlined various selling points for myself at various price points along the way.

In essence, I trade BTC between 30% and 100% of the profitable portions of my BTC holdings as the price is going up (and higher percentages are triggered at higher price points). So, in this regard, if I hold 100 BTC, I am authorized to sell up to $100 for every dollar that BTC prices go up, and I have various other rules that limits me from catching up or selling if I had failed to sell earlier (even though I may lump together and sell $1,000, for example, if the price went up $10)...

Anyhow, even though I am selling, I am also replacing, and essentially, I am not really planning (so far) to cash out completely of my BTC trading portfolio while BTC is under $2,000. It may sound like pie in the sky price point, but my mom thought that I was talking pie in the sky prices when I was talking about $400 prices while the price was floating, seemingly forever, in the lower $200s.... She is a bit more receptive of some of my higher price speculations in recent times... even though there remains some healthy skepticisms.... hahahahahaha

(03-31-2016 09:34 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Besides buying BTC on dips below $375-ish, what's your other plans going forward?

As boring as it sounds, I'm very much planning to hold for the long term. I've got a good number of other projects I'm working on, and as much as I enjoy reading about and following bitcoin, trading it would take too much time/energy.

(04-01-2016 09:01 AM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(03-31-2016 09:34 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Besides buying BTC on dips below $375-ish, what's your other plans going forward?

As boring as it sounds, I'm very much planning to hold for the long term. I've got a good number of other projects I'm working on, and as much as I enjoy reading about and following bitcoin, trading it would take too much time/energy.

I agree that trading is a more involved activity.


I seem to recall that you continue to have some kind of fiat (dollar I think) income, and accordingly, I hope that your bitcoin investment is not completely stagnant at $5k... and in that regard, dollar cost averaging remains a good ongoing practice.. especially since you have already set up various accounts (on Circle and Coinbase). Accordingly, it would likely be a good idea to pick a days of the week or month and an amount and then just dollar cost average to continue to accumulate (especially since you seem to view bitcoin as bullish).

Accordingly, you could pick, $10 per week on every Saturday or some other reasonable amount and time that works with your budget and scheduling (which could be every two weeks or whenever you get paid from income source z).

On the other hand, if you feel overinvested in BTC, and you do not want to trade or sell any (as you indicated), then you would just hold your investment like you are doing... and wait until such a point that you no longer feel over invested.

Look at the below website, and we see ETH price predictions.



https://www.tradingview.com/chart/ETHBTC...l-Edition/

Surely, there are some ETH/BTC relationships with price speculators.

In recent months (4 months approximately), we had movement in ETH prices from $1.50 to $14 and currently back down to $7.50, as I type.. which is around .019 BTC/ETH.

Some are predicting .01 BTC/ETH as the target buy price.

Yeah.. sure... of course some people are trading ETH to BTC, and I've seen several of these kinds of discussions.

At some point, ETH's performance may become pegged to BTC in a variety of ways; however, to me, discussion of ETH's value in terms of dollars seems much more relevant to me. In that regard, ETH needs to continue to develop and come of its own in terms of its dollar market cap.

Likely, ETH will not take as many years as BTC in order to establish various independent networking effects (speculation, liquidation, consumer uses) because it can bounce off of the coat tails of BTC in order to take less time... Nonetheless, I would consider that ETH has several more years of speculation and value creation.. and if ETH can make it through some of the likely upcoming up and down volatility (probably mostly down in the coming months). and come up with some kind of value proposition (that will not be absorbed into BTC), then maybe they may be able to return to glory days of $14 or even $100 at some point? ... but for the time being, $5 seems to be a generous valuation of ETH, and likely below $2 would be more realistic and reasonable.

BTC, on the other hand, if we can get into the next price upsurge - that is getting above $470 which will likely shoot us to $600+ (maybe 40-50% chance in the next 4 months) we could be hovering between $450 and $550 for some time before possibly moving into an upsurge to $800 that brings us back to $550 to $650 (and maybe even an attempt at pushing down to sub $400s) - and subsequently exploding into the $3 to $5k bubble territory (maybe even thereafter returning to a $1.5k to $2k territory for some time before bouncing into $10k plus?) 2-3 years? maybe maybe not that long..?

The BTC security infrastructure is already ready for $10k plus... that's fairly certain.. .but the user-friendliness of BTC's various apps, seems to be more in the sub $1k price territory, at the moment... hahahahahhaha


Possibly, BTC's user-friendliness will come with a bit more of a BTC price push? If we get to the $3k to $5k price territory, surely some companies (or individuals) are going to become inspired to make and to market some of those user-friendly "killer" BTC apps, no?

If it is true or not, the below article is pretty interesting in the crypto / innovation space regarding airbnb..




http://qz.com/657246/airbnb-just-acquire...n-experts/

Hopped on the bitcoin bandwagon with 1k usd to start with. Using Coinbase.

Question - what's the difference between BTC Wallet and BTC Vault?