(01-11-2017 11:10 PM)Alche Wrote:  1 more post and you match your join date lol.

It's hard to say, there are positive things for bitcoin this year, there are also big names like KimDotCom trying to push the popularity. I believe he is releasing MegaUpload 2 with Bitcoin somehow integrated into it. But bitcoin will always be unstable and fairly unpredictable. High risk, high reward!

What the hell, I'll post now to match my join date

That's why I didn't sell all my coins at the peak. I did siphon a bit of profits to fund my rent and travels for January... ahhh, the perks of being location independent. I do have high hopes for bitcoin in the next 5-10 years, and right now I'm hoping it dips even further so I can dollar cost average my way through expanding my bitcoin collection.

I have question for members here who own bitcoin. Do you also own silver and gold bullion and/or precious metals mining shares? I think bitcoin has the potential to have a major role in the future as currencies around the world become devalued. However, I think since bitcoin and other types of digital currencies are new I would only feel comfortable owning a small percentage of bitcoin ( I think 10%) relative to my gold and silver + mining shares holdings. I am curious what other posters are allocating for gold and silver relative to their bitcoin holdings?

(01-12-2017 01:15 AM)bacon Wrote:  I have question for members here who own bitcoin. Do you also own silver and gold bullion and/or precious metals mining shares? I think bitcoin has the potential to have a major role in the future as currencies around the world become devalued. However, I think since bitcoin and other types of digital currencies are new I would only feel comfortable owning a small percentage of bitcoin ( I think 10%) relative to my gold and silver + mining shares holdings. I am curious what other posters are allocating for gold and silver relative to their bitcoin holdings?

I hold gold/silver in actual bullion or bars as it's my understanding that a lot of the PM ETF's don't really have physical stores of the market cap the securities represent. Obviously, I have to pay a premium above spot for the actual items, but it's pretty nice being able to touch/feel it. Also, I see PM's mostly as a "if shit hits the fan" hedge or some drinking money if we get another $45/oz silver rally rather than an actual viable investment strategy. I have a decent position in BHP Billiton, but that's not exclusively a gold miner.

My BTC holdings and my PM holdings are roughly equal right now, but they're a very small portion of my stock/bond portfolio, both around 2-3%. I'll probably buy a few more gold coins in the future and maybe additional 100 oz silver bars, but I'm probably done buying BTC unless it gets significantly lower than my avg buy cost of $485. Have several friends who are dollar cost averaging a few grand monthly into BTC, but again I see it as more of a lottery ticket than comprising a viable trading system for me.

(01-11-2017 10:55 PM)Alche Wrote:  Glad I sold mine last week at over $1k.. but actually surprised it has fallen this much. Considering getting back on the bandwagon. Waiting to see if it enters the $500's

Yeah...

I see and recall your post from earlier, and seems like you are getting a bit lucky to be trading 100% of your holdings like that, but I suppose if it works for you, then what can a guy say?

To me, it just seems to difficult to attempt to trade 100% of holdings at once and to time it very well. I am having these kinds of discussions with my GF all the time, and even that is a bit difficult to figure out.

Sometimes, she trades 100% and then she ends up screwed, and then I try to get her to be a bit more incremental and systematic about it and she tends to attempt to time and she does some variation of what I do, but she tends to sell way too many BTC too early and then she tends to buy too little on the way down attempt to wait too long for the price to come down, and I'm thinking that maybe it is just personality differences, because I would be too stressed trying to figure out those kinds of tops and bottoms... and I consider it better to keep higher portions in BTC all of the time.. jus to have it there just in case because I already have a lot of other investments in dollar related assets.

(01-11-2017 11:06 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:  Maybe the much touted run-up has already happened and we're entering a new "low" for bitcoin until it plateaus out. The peak just happened to be 1160 and not 3k. Thoughts?

I think that it is really difficult to know what is going to happen, and too early to know. There seem to be a lot of resources put into this particular price battle, and it seems to have just begun. Recall pretty much that the prices rose from $600 to mid $1100s without a lot of trade volume. Trade volume only began to kind of pick up in the final two weeks of the rise, and then went a bit astronomical on the dump.

To me it seems that our last high trade volume price battle took place in late 2015 for about 20 weeks between mid $200s to $500 and then to settle in the $350 to $450 price territory at the end of that battle... The price performance after late 2015 had not been including prolonged and intensive increase in trade volume that lasted more than a couple of weeks.

This time seems to be intensifying into a price battle with very decent volume that so far has only lasted three weeks, and it could take up to 20 weeks to resolve, possibly... Currently, the bears do seem to be throwing quite a few coins and quite a few resources at keeping the price down, and I am not sure if it is possible for the bears to run out of coins or if they are willing to conduct this battle at a loss or they have some other techniques up their sleeves to be able to continue to push downwards and maybe also to get others to decide to sell their coins.

So, yeah, it is possible that prices, during this period could go below $600, but I don't see any kind of certainty in making those kinds of predictions... and that is why I continue to buy on the way down, because I cannot be sure at what point we are at the bottom of this particular price correction.

I recall that you said in an earlier post that you sold some and then bought back.... so you increased your holdings, but then I am not clear if you bought back 100% of what you had sold. Thereafter, the price continued to drop after that, so are you in another kind of plan or are you considering some different kind of plan from before or are you continuing to buy BTC as the price drops? Or, on the other hand, some folks sell because they believe that the price is going to drop more.. (that seems to be the most common practice, but also difficult to time exactly, in my thinking)

(01-12-2017 12:07 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

(01-11-2017 11:10 PM)Alche Wrote:  1 more post and you match your join date lol.

It's hard to say, there are positive things for bitcoin this year, there are also big names like KimDotCom trying to push the popularity. I believe he is releasing MegaUpload 2 with Bitcoin somehow integrated into it. But bitcoin will always be unstable and fairly unpredictable. High risk, high reward!

What the hell, I'll post now to match my join date

That's why I didn't sell all my coins at the peak. I did siphon a bit of profits to fund my rent and travels for January... ahhh, the perks of being location independent. I do have high hopes for bitcoin in the next 5-10 years, and right now I'm hoping it dips even further so I can dollar cost average my way through expanding my bitcoin collection.

This response does seem to kind of answer my previous questions, but feel free to supplement. I understand that sometimes it can feel a bit stressful when the price is dropping like this with no real end in sight... and dollar cost averaging does seem to be one way to kind of offset some of the volatility and uncertainty, so long as the long term trajectory of the price of bitcoin is up (which does still seem to be a reasonable conclusion in regards to bitcoin).

(01-12-2017 01:44 AM)booshala Wrote:  

(01-12-2017 01:15 AM)bacon Wrote:  I have question for members here who own bitcoin. Do you also own silver and gold bullion and/or precious metals mining shares? I think bitcoin has the potential to have a major role in the future as currencies around the world become devalued. However, I think since bitcoin and other types of digital currencies are new I would only feel comfortable owning a small percentage of bitcoin ( I think 10%) relative to my gold and silver + mining shares holdings. I am curious what other posters are allocating for gold and silver relative to their bitcoin holdings?

I hold gold/silver in actual bullion or bars as it's my understanding that a lot of the PM ETF's don't really have physical stores of the market cap the securities represent. Obviously, I have to pay a premium above spot for the actual items, but it's pretty nice being able to touch/feel it. Also, I see PM's mostly as a "if shit hits the fan" hedge or some drinking money if we get another $45/oz silver rally rather than an actual viable investment strategy. I have a decent position in BHP Billiton, but that's not exclusively a gold miner.

My BTC holdings and my PM holdings are roughly equal right now, but they're a very small portion of my stock/bond portfolio, both around 2-3%. I'll probably buy a few more gold coins in the future and maybe additional 100 oz silver bars, but I'm probably done buying BTC unless it gets significantly lower than my avg buy cost of $485. Have several friends who are dollar cost averaging a few grand monthly into BTC, but again I see it as more of a lottery ticket than comprising a viable trading system for me.

Actually, I consider Booshla's response and position in this regard to be quite reasonable, and demonstrates that RVF guys can maintain considerably differing perspectives about how to allocate their holdings in BTC and what percentages to take in each kind of holding category. I think that Booshla's perspective may also be good for his own situation, and he seems to have considered the various risks and his finances and his familiarity with each of the categories and allocated accordingly.

Personally, I do not consider bitcoin as a kind of lottery ticket, as he suggests, because in my thinking gold and silver has its own problems and issues with price manipulation, and even if he is holding the physical asset, he is not removing himself from some of the risks and burdens of holding and even the manipulation in those markets regarding price.

At this time, I do not hold any gold, silver or other precious metals in physical form or paper form, because I feel that bitcoin kind of serves that same hedging purpose for me. I do hold quite a few variety of dollar based investments, and I consider my bitcoin holdings to hedging those (in a similar way that gold or pms might do).

Regarding bitcoin, guys are going to come to varying conclusions regarding how much to hold, and how to invest into it in order to take an initial stake and/or to combine that with dollar cost averaging.

I personally started in bitcoin in late 2013 with a kind of highbred dollar cost averaging that caused me to plan out in a couple of 6 month timelines to acquire my initial stake in bitcoin (which I felt that I established by the end of 2014). My initial goal was to invest in such a way that my quasi-liquid investment assets would be about 10% bitcoin which I achieved by the end of 2014. Thereafter, I have just dollar cost averaged as a kind of maintenance, but then that ongoing investment has been causing my investment allocation in BTC to go up from 10% to close to 20%.. and maybe that is just some of the slipper slope aspect of feeling that BTC is a good investment (since I seem to be apportioning more of my new available money to BTC rather than other investments) and then I began to trade BTC in late 2015 as a way to attempt to offset some of its volatility... which I understand that trading may be too time consuming for quite a few guys who would prefer to have their investment (whatever it is) in a more passive kind of way.

By the way, my investment allocation has kind of trickled towards a 20% territory; however, since BTC price has been greatly appreciating in the past 18 months, my stake in BTC has kind of gone from nearly 20% of my quasi-liquid investment assets to become more than 30% and even approaching 40% (but seems to be back down in the around 30% arena with prices dropping so much in recent weeks).

For normal mortals, I would recommend that folks dollar cost average into BTC and find a level that is comfortable. I do think that allocating 1% should be safe for everyone, but surely guys are going to have varying levels of comfort with their allocations. Also, whether you should invest in PMs may be another question regarding what you believe that you are achieving with that kind of hedge and whether you believe bitcoin could serve a similar role for you in that regard.

In times like these when BTC prices are seemingly so downward correction volatile, there is a bit of insecurity about it, but we still need to consider that over it's so far 8 years bitcoin has appreciated greatly as an asset, and even over the past few years, if you dollar cost average into it, you would still be in a positive territory at this time.


Edit: So ultimately you could take anywhere between a 1% and 10% level of investment into bitcoin with your quasi-liquid investment assets and still be totally reasonable... sure some RVF guys may think that a bit less or a bit more of an investment would be prudent - though I think bitcoin can be really good and preferable for RVF guys who may be traveling or inclined for travel, since there is decent portability aspects for bitcoin that are far superior to gold or pms if you are trying to tap into your wealth from a variety of locations... and there are some bitcoin wallets that you can transfer from one to another or even carry in a portable format (or just access with an internet connection), but really have global access to whatever is stored in your portable bitcoin addresses.

(01-11-2017 06:28 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I understand that after the dumping we have been experiencing, it has been a little bit depressing times to post bullish perspectives,

but we try our best

(01-12-2017 10:10 PM)Satoshi Wrote:  

(01-11-2017 06:28 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I understand that after the dumping we have been experiencing, it has been a little bit depressing times to post bullish perspectives,

but we try our best

I try not to use the royal "we" when referring to my own actions.

You can make a lot of money or get slaughtered when BTC prices are moving around a lot, so it is good to continue to understand that some RVF guys may be experiencing some stress about what to do with their BTC holdings, and in my opinion, it is also good for guys to have a plan in order that they do not become too impulsive and potentially pull the trigger in the wrong direction.. .or a direction that they may otherwise regret, based on the drama of the moment.. .. and guys can also attempt to hedge a bit in either direction for various possible outcomes.

The underlying principles still exist, even while when prices are moving around a lot sometimes the current perspective may become a bit jaded and shocked.

I expect that you don't even have enough balls to enter another short, along with your words to denigrate bitcoin and to denigrate any attempts to share meaningful bitcoin relate information in this thread, since you got burnt pretty badly the last time that you attempted such shorting of BTC at $550 and thereafter the price moved up to $1,100...

Yes, we all have difficulties in determining price direction and volatility can be stressful in either direction.

Here's an article to help to cheer up some people regarding bitcoin, and seems to be suggesting that currently is a good time to buy yourself some bitcoins.


http://bitcoinist.com/three-reasons-bitc...-right-now


Even though some folks have blamed various chinese recent interventions in some of their exchanges as contributing to the latest series of corrections that brought BTC prices down from mid $1100s to mid $700s and now bouncing around in the lower $800s, actually, there could also be some room for optimism.

Sure, few people in bitcoin really welcome governmental regulation or oversight; however in the case of some of the chinese exchanges, for several years, many folks investing in Bitcoin have considered the high and fake trade volume of the chinese exchanges to be a potential risk factor in bitcoin - not only questions regarding whether the exchanges may be engaging in fractional reserves, but also they have actually admitted some aspects of their fake volume - whether that fake volume is achieved merely by low fees or actual fractional reserve practices.

The below article discusses some possible benefits regarding china government oversight of the chinese bitcoin exchanges...


http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/01/12/action...olatility/


Ultimately, I agree that the news is not necessarily bearish, and I was kind of inclined to believe that the BTC market was due for a correction anyhow, whether or not the news of the chinese exchanges may have helped to push the correction a bit further and faster than what otherwise might have taken place in the absence of such recent news.

Don't miss this chance guys! Buy some $800+ bitcoins.

On the US front:

http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-fight-i...ns-filing/

Quote:An attempt by the IRS to obtain user records from digital currency exchange Coinbase just got more complicated.

Court documents filed in the District Court for the Northern District of California this week show that lawyers for the California-based startup have filed to officially intervene in the case.

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) launched its case in late November, seeking court approval for a subpoena that would allow it to obtain information on US users (and, in its eyes, potential tax cheats) who used the service between 2013 and 2015. A month later, Coinbase customer Jeffrey Berns moved to block the IRS, an effort the tax agency asked the court to invalidate.

Both Coinbase and Berns have said the tax agency is overreaching, though the startup hadn’t officially responded in court until now. When the case first emerged in November, representatives for the firm said they intended to protest the summons in court.

Coinbase lawyers wrote in the documents that, amidst the filings and counter-filings, the startup deserves to be heard in light of "an extraordinarily broad 'John Doe' summons". The startup is seeking both the chance to have say in the effort led by Berns as well as the IRS summons itself.

The company said:

"The motion to intervene is made on the grounds that Coinbase has an interest in the subject matter of this proceeding, and that disposition of the action may, as a practical matter, impair or impede Coinbase’s ability to protect that interest. Coinbase’s interest is not adequately represented by the existing parties."

In addition to seeking official entry into the case, Coinbase asked that a hearing on the motion filed by Berns be delayed until 30th March at the earliest. The reason: according to the startup, the outcome of the case could have ramifications for the company and its customer base, as well as the wider digital currency space.

"Accordingly, Coinbase would like the opportunity to be heard, at an appropriate time, on the substantive issues that Mr. Berns has raised to the IRS summons at issue," the company said.

When reached for comment, a representative for Coinbase told CoinDesk:

"Both the IRS and Mr. Burns have engaged in briefing both the procedural questions of Mr. Bern’s standing to intervene and also the substantive merits of the IRS’s subpoena. To ensure the court does not rule on the substantive merits of the IRS’s subpoena before they have heard from Coinbase and other companies in the industry, we have filed a motion to intervene and have asked the court to delay hearing on the substantive aspects of Mr. Bern’s motions for 75 days."

(01-14-2017 03:07 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  Don't miss this chance guys! Buy some $800+ bitcoins.

Whether a guy buys or sells bitcoin at these kinds of prices would likely depend upon where the guy is at in terms of having any kind of stake in bitcoin.

In recent months, when BTC prices went from $600 to well over $1,100, my allocation of my bitcoin investment holdings went from about 96% bitcoin to about 91% bitcoin (meaning that I was selling off bitcoins and holding more dollars when the price was high), and then now after the price correction back down to mid $700s, I was back to a bit over 95%, but then after the price went up again to the lower $800s, I am a little under 95% allocated towards bitcoin..

However, with this current correction, my total quantity of bitcoins had increased by about 6%, even though it remains a little bit unclear regarding how many I will have at certain price points, because if prices go back up to mid $1,100s again, then I will sell some of those off along the way (currently I am selling between about 1% to 2% of my holdings for every $100 price increase), and also, I was feeling a little bit over leveraged onto the bitcoin side with about 1% more bitcoins than I had wanted (I would have preferred closer to 93.5% bitcoins at current prices), but if prices float around (they call that consolidation) between $720 and $920, then I will likely become more apportioned to my preferred allocation during that time - even though some folks are currently talking about $780 to $820 as being the new BTC price floor, which doesn't seem like a bad working theory.

Anyhow, if guys do not have any kind of stake in bitcoin at all, then $800 to $900 would probably be decent range to take a stake and to develop some kind of long term buying plan that may include taking decent stakes in these price arenas, but surely guys have to consider their own circumstances, so if a guy needs money for rent or food, then that kind of consideration might be more pressing - rather than taking a stake in bitcoins.

Actually, since you are sounding a bit cocky, Satoshi, are you considering shorting bitcoin at this price?

I think that actions and writing about personal actions and contemplations in a contemporary manner, while giving reasons why you are taking such actions, are a lot more convincing practices than what appears to be arm chair quarterbacking and not having any kind of stake in the game (besides continuing to demonstrate signs and symptoms of butt hurtness stake). On the other hand, if you really think about our current situation and various BTC fundamentals (including recent price performance), this may not be a very good price range to short bitcoin, right?

JJG and Satoshi, both of you need to chill. Your exchanges were cute before, but this is dragging out way too long and it's not funny anymore. Enough is enough.

I'm chill though.

It's hard to get unbiased information on BTC from someone so heavily invested in it. A large part of JJG's personal fortune depends on other people believing in BTC for the price to keep going up. When you're highly invested in something, you have a lot to lose and it's a constant source of worry. Continual posting about BTC will not make the price go up. And for those of us not invested in BTC but looking at it as a potential asset, it's very difficult for people new to this thread to get new, unbiased information when the main recent source on this thread has such a significant % of his assets in BTC. JJG I think maybe taking a break from worrying about the BTC price might be helpful to you.

As for Satoshi I don't know what he is doing in this thread. If you're not particularly interested in BTC and are cool about it, why all the replies to JJG? If you have some knowledge about BTC and experience in it, it would be better to provide helpful information for laymen like me rather than quick rebuttals to whatever JJG said. The BTC thread should be one where everyone can come in and discuss it, right now it seems like a back and forth between two posters with not much wider participation.

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but what's everyone's take on ethereum. Seems like BTC had a big breakthrough in 2012-2014 timeframe and sure if may go to 3k, but who knows.

If your not in the BTC game might be better to buy the lotto ticket and throw 30k at ethereum. Just based on BTCs rise and the fact that ethereum jumped from $1 to $10 in the last year. I'd say much likelihood you double your money on ethereum at this point. ETH $100 by next year, is that so hard to believe?

(01-14-2017 06:31 PM)Armogan Wrote:  I'm sure this has been discussed before, but what's everyone's take on ethereum. Seems like BTC had a big breakthrough in 2012-2014 timeframe and sure if may go to 3k, but who knows.

If your not in the BTC game might be better to buy the lotto ticket and throw 30k at ethereum. Just based on BTCs rise and the fact that ethereum jumped from $1 to $10 in the last year. I'd say much likelihood you double your money on ethereum at this point. ETH $100 by next year, is that so hard to believe?

The subject of Ethereum and other alts come up frequently in this thread, but any details of alts is more appropriately discussed in the alt crypto thread:

https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-32992.html

Sure there are some guys who are bullish on ethereum and other alts, and believe that it could be a way to hedge crypto bets...

I personally have less than 1% of my total crypto investments in any other alts because the vast majority of them are pump and dumps and have liquidation and centralization issues, including ethereum.

I personally would recommend that you consider some kind of crypto investment project that would be no more than 20% in alts, and no more than 5% in ethereum.. but yeah, of course other guys have other views on the topic, and so that is ultimately for you to decide, and you gotta pay more attention to other alt coins because you may miss the pump or dump either way and not be either able to get in or out in order to really profit.

Regarding bitcoin, sure it has had a stupendous run so far with considerable price appreciation through it's history, and pretty much gains every year except for 2014.

Some folks characterize bitcoin's growth in terms of multiple 10x runs, which may or may not happen again... There are certainly more ways to bet against bitcoin these days, too.. but there continues to be upside potential (along with risk of the opposite).

(01-14-2017 04:45 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  JJG and Satoshi, both of you need to chill. Your exchanges were cute before, but this is dragging out way too long and it's not funny anymore. Enough is enough.

It seems that you are making a false equivalency assertion here. My posts are more than 95% substantive, and every once in a while, I have been throwing in little quips at Satoshi, so guys can choose to read those quip portions or not.....

(01-14-2017 05:05 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  It's hard to get unbiased information on BTC from someone so heavily invested in it. A large part of JJG's personal fortune depends on other people believing in BTC for the price to keep going up. When you're highly invested in something, you have a lot to lose and it's a constant source of worry. Continual posting about BTC will not make the price go up. And for those of us not invested in BTC but looking at it as a potential asset, it's very difficult for people new to this thread to get new, unbiased information when the main recent source on this thread has such a significant % of his assets in BTC. JJG I think maybe taking a break from worrying about the BTC price might be helpful to you.

As for Satoshi I don't know what he is doing in this thread. If you're not particularly interested in BTC and are cool about it, why all the replies to JJG? If you have some knowledge about BTC and experience in it, it would be better to provide helpful information for laymen like me rather than quick rebuttals to whatever JJG said. The BTC thread should be one where everyone can come in and discuss it, right now it seems like a back and forth between two posters with not much wider participation.

Skank, you are more than welcome to post any questions or comments or concerns that you have in regards to bitcoin whether they are beginner level or not and whether they agree with others or not.

I attempt to respond to most guys who make substantive posts in this thread, if I have questions about their posts or if I want to provide some of my perspective about something that they have posted, at whatever level.

I do think that you are coming to a fairly wrong conclusion if you believe that merely if someone happens to be informed and invested in a product (which you are asserting about me) that he would be unduly biased in regards to that product. If you read through my posts, you will find that I frequently attempt to take both sides, even though frequently, I remain fairly bullish about bitcoin, in a way that i believe is more due to facts rather than giving a shit about attempting to increase the value of my BTC holdings through content that I post in this thread (and other bitcoin forums in which I actively participate).

In any event, you can take any information that I present with whatever grain of salt that you believe that my posts deserve, and I am more than willing to respond to any actual contextual concerns that you may have concerning some substantive post that I may make or even if you disagree with some of my assertions.

So, yeah, RVF guys should feel free to post whatever they want regarding bitcoin, and I may choose not to respond if a guy posts in this thread and specifically asks for a response from "anyone but JJG" hahahaha.

(01-14-2017 11:10 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  My posts are more than 95% substantive

NOT

I was gonna sell and buy back a week later, but it dropped on me. I have to hook this up on my phone.

'baller

(01-15-2017 01:44 PM)lowbudgetballer Wrote:  I was gonna sell and buy back a week later, but it dropped on me. I have to hook this up on my phone.

'baller

What were you considering in terms of selling points and rebuy points?

Are you referring to any particular app to put on your phone?

Bitcoin ticker is a pretty good app, and it allows for setting price alarms too - though sometimes there may some better ways to monitor BTC price changes, like just looking at the price periodically (maybe daily or every few days) and having some price points in mind regarding if you are going to buy and sell.

As we all may have noticed from last week, BTC prices had gone up about 30% over 3 weeks, but then dropped by the same amount in increments in a few days (or at least the price drop seemed to be a hell of a lot faster.. even though both events occurred pretty quickly, relatively speaking)...

So far, we seem to have come into some recovery from the down portion of that, and seemingly decent price support in the lower $800s, at the moment, anyhow.

That's OK JJG, I'm not rejecting all your posts, it's just that there are so many sources out there with interests in certain assets talking about those very assets, it's hard to trust sometimes. I also thought taking a break from BTC might be helpful to you to focus on other things in life I guess.

Where I am slightly skeptical about BTC is the whole "if it could go from $1 to $1000, then it can go easily to $10,000 or even $100,000 or even $1,000,000". People say "moon" a lot (not as much as the Dogecoin fans admittedly) but if we use that analogy it is far, far easier to launch a rocket with a payload weighing 1Kg than it is to launch a payload weighing 1000Kg out of the earth's gravitational pull and towards to moon (or Mars or wherever, you get my point). Similarly in stocks: yes most penny stocks fail but for the successful penny stocks they can go from $0.1 to $10 or $100, however going from $100 to $1000 and definitely $10000 is extremely hard in comparison.

When BTC hit the ATH again recently, it was years in the making and in percentage terms the price wasn't changing in the extremes as it has done in the previous spikes, but it still took a lot of "work" to push it up. A market cap of over $15 billion (or thereabouts) is a lot harder to turn into $150 billion. I see BTC as less of a "penny stock" nowadays and although it's still volatile as the price gets higher the % changes (especially to the upside) I think will have to decrease and stabilize. This is compared to altcoins which seem to be the "penny stocks" of cryptocurrencies. For every one that increases many multiples like ethereum, there are many others which are just pump and dump. Call me ignorant but I just couldn't see the point in ethereum so I didn't put any money in it early on, then it went and did huge % increases.

I don't know how LTC offers anything truly new compared to BTC but it has been a stable fixture of cryptocurrency for many years now, a lot of this seems to derive from what is popular with the chinese. Even Dogecoin in its current slump trading flat in USD terms stands a decent chance of surviving because the chinese like it and volume on it is decent. I think these two have the potential to make big % changes compared to BTC simply because they are lower price.

That said, it's possible for BTC to go to $10,000, who knows, but I think it will take a hell of a lot of buying volume to get it up to that level, and at that point, we would be talking about a huge market cap. I might buy my first BTC soon but am hoping for some lower prices as it corrects. If it could beat the ATH maybe $2-3k is possible this year, but if it goes through a complex, extended correction it could be relatively boring and involve a much bigger wait.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  That's OK JJG, I'm not rejecting all your posts, it's just that there are so many sources out there with interests in certain assets talking about those very assets, it's hard to trust sometimes.

I don't think that I am asking anyone to trust my posts.. sure over time, you may come to trust my opinion or analysis.. but I am not trying to persuade anyone to invest in bitcoin, and you are likely coming to a misreading if you believe that to be any goal of mine in my posts.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  I also thought taking a break from BTC might be helpful to you to focus on other things in life I guess.

This makes little sense, exceot your coming to a judging conclusion that I am spending too much time in bitcoin activities based on your own assessment of what may be good or not for me, and I doubt that you have enough information to conclude that...

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  Where I am slightly skeptical about BTC is the whole "if it could go from $1 to $1000, then it can go easily to $10,000 or even $100,000 or even $1,000,000". People say "moon" a lot (not as much as the Dogecoin fans admittedly) but if we use that analogy it is far, far easier to launch a rocket with a payload weighing 1Kg than it is to launch a payload weighing 1000Kg out of the earth's gravitational pull and towards to moon (or Mars or wherever, you get my point).

People say all kinds of shit, in terms of predictions, and some predictions are more probable than others.

These kinds of threads should provide opportunities to interact and to suss out which predictions might be more plausible, yet guys need to ultimately come to their own conclusions regarding which predictions they find more plausible than others.

Let's say for example, a guy asserts that within the next year bitcoin has a 20% chance to go to $400 and a 50% chance to go to $1200 and a 3% chance to go to $10k, all of those predictions are consistent and could be held by one person without his coming off as preposterous.

On the other hand, if someone says that there is 90% chance that bitcoin is going to $10k in the next year or even a 90% chance that bitcoin is going to $2k in the next year, I would take those predictions with a considerable grain of salt because they seem quite too confident, and I would request more information regarding how anyone is making such a confident prediction.

So yeah people can say all kinds of shit, but a thread like this should allow sussing out of evidence whether that is facts, logic or pure speculation that is causing a guy to make such predictions.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  Similarly in stocks: yes most penny stocks fail but for the successful penny stocks they can go from $0.1 to $10 or $100, however going from $100 to $1000 and definitely $10000 is extremely hard in comparison.

Yeah, hopefully we do not merely conclude whether something has high potential or not only based on its unit price. There are a lot of other factors including market capitalization, various fundamentals including network effects and also liquidation avenues.... but this thread, hopefully is primarily looking at bitcoin, rather than comparing various crypto investment opportunities, because there is another RVF for alt currencies.. or a guy could make his own thread if he thinks that a new thread might better cover a new crypto comparison topic that he has in mind.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  When BTC hit the ATH again recently, it was years in the making and in percentage terms the price wasn't changing in the extremes as it has done in the previous spikes, but it still took a lot of "work" to push it up. A market cap of over $15 billion (or thereabouts) is a lot harder to turn into $150 billion.

You can see it here.

http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/

Bitcoin went to nearly $14 billion market cap in 2013 and then sunk back down to less than $3 billion and then recently up to nearly $18biillion, and now floating in a lower to mid $13billion territory.

Yes, I get your point that it takes a lot more capital to pump up market cap when starting with a higher market cap, but we don't only look at market cap, we look at other fundamentals including building of various networks that would be much stronger today in bitcoin than it was in 2013.. but also there are a lot more ways to short bitcoin today than there were in 2013. There are a variety of factors to predict price and guys are going to come to different conclusions regarding which factors they find to be more convincing in making their various assessments and choosing their level of investment (or not) into bitcoin.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  I see BTC as less of a "penny stock" nowadays and although it's still volatile as the price gets higher the % changes (especially to the upside) I think will have to decrease and stabilize. This is compared to altcoins which seem to be the "penny stocks" of cryptocurrencies. For every one that increases many multiples like ethereum, there are many others which are just pump and dump. Call me ignorant but I just couldn't see the point in ethereum so I didn't put any money in it early on, then it went and did huge % increases.

I agree with most of what you are saying here, and sometimes there can be other factors besides fundamentals that cause coins to be pumped or dumped, and yeah it is easier to pump and dump coins with smaller market caps, as you seem to be suggesting.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  I don't know how LTC offers anything truly new compared to BTC but it has been a stable fixture of cryptocurrency for many years now, a lot of this seems to derive from what is popular with the chinese. Even Dogecoin in its current slump trading flat in USD terms stands a decent chance of surviving because the chinese like it and volume on it is decent. I think these two have the potential to make big % changes compared to BTC simply because they are lower price.

You could be correct and chose to invest money in one or another alt coin that has greater upside potential, but I think that you run a pretty decent potential to get misled if you are attempting to merely look at unit price and market cap of various other coins to attempt to put your money somewhere with a "greater potential" for upside... but yeah, you could get lucky and chose one or two or more alts that end up appreciating at a higher percentage than BTC.

I personally believe that bitcoin is a tough enough investment to attempt to keep track of it's volatility, and attempting to juggle too many alt investments seems way too much effort. I do hold a tiny bit of a couple of other alts, but I really have a bit of a hard time being bothered with them, and find bitcoin to be sufficiently entertaining for me and sufficient to achieve my various hedging objectives, which is one of the main reasons that I got into bitcoin in the first place. One of my main objectives was to hedge against my various dollar investments, and I did not really aim to get rich quick or anything like that (even though my BTC investment has performed in such a way that has caused very decent appreciation, mostly beyond what I considered as necessary so in my thinking a lot of my bitcoin profits is just icing on the cake above and beyond (and also gives me a greater cushion, even if BTC prices were to sink back to $500 or possibly lower)

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  That said, it's possible for BTC to go to $10,000, who knows, but I think it will take a hell of a lot of buying volume to get it up to that level, and at that point, we would be talking about a huge market cap.

I doubt that it is as difficult as you are making it out to be for bitcoin to appreciate to $10k, but even though I seem to be considering a $10k scenario to be more easily achieved than you are making it out to be, I consider all of that (if it were to occur) to be icing on the cake for my own personal investment and i certainly am not banking on it... and I am even content with bitcoin prices bouncing below $1k for sometime, if that ends up being what happens.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  I might buy my first BTC soon but am hoping for some lower prices as it corrects.

I personally think that guys such as you can make some attempts to assess your own personal finances, risk profile and views of bitcoin and engage in some kind of combination of dollar cost average investing and buying on dips, but yeah of course you have to assess a plan that works for you, and sure you can run some ideas by this thread for guys to chime in if they want. Surely guys here have opinions that differ from mine.

(01-15-2017 10:44 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  If it could beat the ATH maybe $2-3k is possible this year, but if it goes through a complex, extended correction it could be relatively boring and involve a much bigger wait.

It is almost as if you are sounding more bullish about bitcoin than me. hahahahaha..

Sure $2k, $3k or beyond is possible for this year.. One thing is talking about what is possible, but another thing is making an investment plan that works for you and also accounts for a variety of scenarios and you have a kind of plan for no matter what is the scenario. That way you are investing with a plan, rather than gambling and hoping.

Hopefully, you will share some of your ideas in this thread as you work them out, and maybe some other guys want to suggest that my ideas are fucked in the head and give you some suggestions that are more compatible with your financial situation and your thinking about bitcoin as compared with other coins... and I personally think that if we get too much into a discussion about other coins, then maybe that could go in the alt coin thread or maybe another thread... .. but yeah if it is still including bitcoin discussions then it still may fit fairly well here, too.

For the academically oriented guys... here's an article listing and describing five university courses related to bitcoin.


http://themerkle.com/top-5-university-bitcoin-courses/

I get what you're saying about discussing altcoins; the only reason I mentioned them was to compare market caps, and potential for appreciation relative to BTC, the point being that BTC must surely find it harder to appreciate in % terms compared to when it was priced at, say $1 or $30.

As for price potential, my basis for the $2-3k suggestion or extended correction this year is based on Elliot Wave theory. It's a bit of an inexact science and wave counts often only reveal themselves after the fact, and those who use it with 100% trust are definitely naive, but it can prove useful. There's also a lot of room for subjectivity in it. I quickly did a wave count of my own and found it matched that of some random trader that posted his own, which suggests our wave counts are reasonable. What I found was a complex (multiple wave and sub wave) correction could be possible, with price likely going as low as 500-600 range, before beginning the next wave up beyond the ATH.

There was another scenario where the double top on the chart would be the AB of a "flat" ABC correction, so the C wave would require price to go as low as the approx. $150 low it reached on the last correction from the ATH. That is a possibility and would lead to a lot of fear and panic (headlines "Bitcoin is dying" etc.) but I don't see that as the most likely wave count at all, because of this theoretical ABC, all waves have to be corrective rather than impulsive in form. A is corrective, while the B wave (the latest pattern to the all time high) is a clear 5 wave impulsive pattern rather than a 3 wave corrective pattern (simple or complex). So that is why I rejected that count.

Without getting into too much detail on the most likely wave count, the current 5 wave pattern from the lows since $150 would represent a "wave 1" of a 5 wave pattern of a larger degree. Wave 1 has completed, we are now in wave 2 (corrective), and it is unknown whether this wave 2 will be complex and therefore extended in both time and shape (i.e. consisting of subwaves of waves within itself). Typically, wave 1 patterns are heavily retraced, Fib levels of 32% already reached are shallow compared to the 68% or even more often observed. That is a 400-600 range. I guess that would be the bad news. The good news being that while wave 2 corrections are usually deep, wave 3 (if/when it starts) is commonly the greatest impulsive wave in terms of both speed and amount of price movement. The bad news about that is wave 1 is already split into subwaves, so wave 3 is less likely to be split into subwaves and therefore less likely to be longer than wave 1, but there is the possibility of a simple wave that "explodes" past the ATH and goes to say $2000. $3000 or something ridiculous like $10000 could happen as they have happened before with BTC, but as I said it is a lot more difficult now that price is $800 vs when it was $2 or $30 or $100 going to $1000. After wave 3 another correction, followed by a final push upwards. If wave 2 correction is not deeper than to $800 currently, then the wave 4 correction is likely to be the deep one.

That's my "reasoning" behind it but caveat emptor: EW as I said is an inexact science. I find it to be more useful in keeping me from losing money in stocks rather than making tons of money from them, but if you're an independent investor/trader and your account is at 0 net loss so far, you're already ahead of most who lose their shirts in these crazy markets. And that's just stocks, BTC is a very volatile beast in comparison. They call the GBP/JPY currency pair "the red dragon" due to its dangerous volatility, but BTC, 35% drops in one day? Something else.