We are spending a considerable amount of time around $1k and even really above $1k, which could suggest that $1k could become a new price floor. Seeming a bit too early to determine, though.

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-forming-...loor-1000/

Also, those coins that were bought below $940 - even a month ago when BTC pricesn continued to go down into the upper $700s are currently looking like a pretty decent bargain.

Here's a decent discussion about why bitcoin is better than gold. Of course, not everyone agrees, but my claim would be that some of those folks who assert gold is better than bitcoin do not understand bitcoin too well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment...tter_than/

Some of these kinds of market cap charts can be good to attempt to put matters in perspective.


https://twitter.com/BambouClub/status/83...2883401728

Currently, Apple is about 45x the market cap of Bitcoin, and facebook is about 20x the market cap of bitcoin.

It seems that I have not attempted to discuss this topic of the Japanese bitcoin exchange Bitflyer.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/japanese...-exchange/

It seems that Japan is becoming a fairly big deal in the bitcoin space. The above article is discussing the fact that three of Japan's largest banks are investing in Bitflyer.

It seems that Bitflyer is a legit and regulated exchange, but the article discusses, the BTC trade volumes on there as 5x to 10x the trade volumes of other major exchanges.

There have been some theories thrown out there about Japan taking over Chinese fake volume, but I don't think that there is actual evidence that the Japanese exchange volume is actually fake... I think that the fact of the matter is that Japan is creating a kind of regulated but friendly atmosphere for bitcoin.. at least currently.

My initial and layman's reading of this overview article of the Lumino project seems like a good alternative to seg wit that would allow scaling (seemingly more than 30x increasing number on chain transactions).


https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-upgrade...alability/

(02-19-2017 06:29 AM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  It seems that I have not attempted to discuss this topic of the Japanese bitcoin exchange Bitflyer.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/japanese...-exchange/

It seems that Japan is becoming a fairly big deal in the bitcoin space. The above article is discussing the fact that three of Japan's largest banks are investing in Bitflyer.

It seems that Bitflyer is a legit and regulated exchange, but the article discusses, the BTC trade volumes on there as 5x to 10x the trade volumes of other major exchanges.

There have been some theories thrown out there about Japan taking over Chinese fake volume, but I don't think that there is actual evidence that the Japanese exchange volume is actually fake... I think that the fact of the matter is that Japan is creating a kind of regulated but friendly atmosphere for bitcoin.. at least currently.

If the topic of my above post is considered to be that Japan is a bitcoin friendly jurisdiction, then the below-linked article regarding Nigeria is of a similar theme. In essence Nigeria is contemplating ways to take a somewhat bitcoin friendly approach.

https://themerkle.com/nigerian-bankers-c...e-bitcoin/


Also, linked within the article is a month-old article about Japan's then bitcoin situation.


http://themerkle.com/bitcoin-trading-vol...icking-up/

Overall global trade volumes on Local bitcoins appears to be up.


https://coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins



Also, an unrelated topic is this reddit thread that shows a list of BU contributors as compared with Seg Wit contributors.

The list is interesting, but the discussion is all over the place in term of attempting to attribute significance to such list and involvement.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment...ore_vs_bu/

(02-16-2017 08:47 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(02-16-2017 08:31 PM)Armogan Wrote:  Anyone have experience using cash back or high-reward credit cards to buy coin on Coinbase or other exchanges? Do these cards consider the purchases a cash advance? Any stories of the bank closing your account, etc. because of "high-risk purchases"?

I believe that any purchases with credit cards are considered cash advances. i accidentally made such a transaction on circle (and I think that it is the same on Coinbase).

I think that a lot of those companies have (anti-money laudering) AML KYC (know your customer) requirements, and those practices have become more and more stringent, so yeah, your transactions could become flagged if you do them directly from your Coinbase account.

i would suggest sending to another location first, such as another exchange that does not have AML KYC and then sending to another wallet that you might control. A couple layers is better than direct, but even if you send directly to a wallet before doing the subsequent "questionable" transaction, you may create enough layers that your account will not be flagged. Sometimes the transaction is questionable based on the amount and other times it is questionable based on some other factor. Circle used to ask me where I was sending money in order that they would have it on record concerning my answer. i think that coinbase may do the same thing, and the better answers are either that you are sending it to another exchange or you are sending it to a address that you control. otherwise you are faced with telling them that it is for ___ purpose, which may not be in your interest to do.

When it got flagged as a cash advance, can you avoid the interest fees if you pay it off immediately? I've never made a cash advance so don't know how the fees are assessed.

I bring up flagging the transaction, as I already have 4 credit cards with one of the big companies. If I open a new card with 0% apr or cash back, I don't want them to flag it then automatically close all my other accounts. Extreme example.

The SEC decision on the winklevoss ETf is March 11. I believe the chance of them approving this etf is under 10%. SEC is meant to protect investors and the winklevoss twins haven't made a good case on what they would do if there was a hack, or some other adverse event. Really no upside for SEC approving it, only downside.

So two scenarios: (1) it gets approved and 100-400m in funds hit the market making the price skyrocket. (2) it gets denied and experiences a dip anywhere from 10-30%. I think this could be a unwarranted negative reaction, and the price rebounds over the coming months. Key alts could experience a big increase as a result of this too.

I think this is a good opportunity to exploit the outcome. Would be a perfect opportunity to do a straddle option strategy. Haven't looked into whether calls and puts are traded though.

Any thoughts?

(02-20-2017 01:35 PM)Armogan Wrote:  

(02-16-2017 08:47 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(02-16-2017 08:31 PM)Armogan Wrote:  Anyone have experience using cash back or high-reward credit cards to buy coin on Coinbase or other exchanges? Do these cards consider the purchases a cash advance? Any stories of the bank closing your account, etc. because of "high-risk purchases"?

I believe that any purchases with credit cards are considered cash advances. i accidentally made such a transaction on circle (and I think that it is the same on Coinbase).

I think that a lot of those companies have (anti-money laudering) AML KYC (know your customer) requirements, and those practices have become more and more stringent, so yeah, your transactions could become flagged if you do them directly from your Coinbase account.

i would suggest sending to another location first, such as another exchange that does not have AML KYC and then sending to another wallet that you might control. A couple layers is better than direct, but even if you send directly to a wallet before doing the subsequent "questionable" transaction, you may create enough layers that your account will not be flagged. Sometimes the transaction is questionable based on the amount and other times it is questionable based on some other factor. Circle used to ask me where I was sending money in order that they would have it on record concerning my answer. i think that coinbase may do the same thing, and the better answers are either that you are sending it to another exchange or you are sending it to a address that you control. otherwise you are faced with telling them that it is for ___ purpose, which may not be in your interest to do.

When it got flagged as a cash advance, can you avoid the interest fees if you pay it off immediately? I've never made a cash advance so don't know how the fees are assessed.

Actually, I don't usually make cash advances either, and in my more than 20 years using credit cards, I have only done it a couple of times, and I think each time was a mistake.

In my particular situation, maybe a bit over a year ago, I went to make a regular purchase of a small amount of bitcoin. And, previously, the default mechanism on Circle was the debit card, and for some reason on that transaction, the default had converted to credit card, and I had not noticed when I made the transaction of around $100.

Therefore, as soon as I noticed the mistake, I contacted Circle and I tried to blame them. They reversed whatever fees that they could from their end, but they said that they could not do anything about the credit card fees. Therefore, I called the credit card company and I explained the situation to them, too, and they said that they would not reverse the fees. There were several fees, and they may have reversed one of the fees but not all of them, and the whole incident still ended up costing me around to $17.. or around 17%.. something like that.

In any event, I tried several ways to get the matter reversed and even played on my transaction history (and my credit in that regard) to attempt to get them to be charitable in a one time decision to reverse fees (and they really would not budge too much.. but I recall that they did budge a tiny bit, just to preserve some goodwill, I suppose).

(02-20-2017 01:35 PM)Armogan Wrote:  I bring up flagging the transaction, as I already have 4 credit cards with one of the big companies.

You are bringing up the term "flag" in two separate ways. First, flagging as a cash advance is just a way for them to charge extra fees, and that kind of flagging does not necessarily cause the transaction to be a "suspicious" transaction.

Flagging in terms of "suspicious activities" is another category.

Merely purchasing bitcoins would not necessarily cause a transaction to be suspicious, but I don't know all of the details of your credit cards and their various terms (which could possibly differ from card to card).

I think that the kind of activity that has gotten a lot of attention over the past couple of years are some services like Coinbase, Circle and some others creating terms of service that prohibit the use of their account in connection with local bitcoins activities or even direct buying and selling of bitcoins. I doubt that they are going to flag your activities as suspicious if the amounts are relatively small (like less than $1000 or so) or that they are not adding up to large amounts in short periods of time (such as $5k in a week). I don't think that the guidelines are actually strict, so it may depend on your account and if you have evidence of "other income," then it may take larger thresholds before your account gets "flagged."

(02-20-2017 01:35 PM)Armogan Wrote:  If I open a new card with 0% apr or cash back, I don't want them to flag it then automatically close all my other accounts. Extreme example.

Again, I am a little bit confused about the scenario that you are presenting because it seems that you are kind of conflating the ways that accounts could become flagged, and other factors that might involve the terms of 0% APR offers. For example, 0% APR usually does not apply to cash advances, and if you do "cash advances" then you are likely going to screw up some of the 0% aspects of that promotion.. causing you fees and other bullshit charges that cause the card to be costing you much more than 0%.

I think that if you already did a one-time transaction that screwed up your 0% promotion on one card, then that would be up to the credit card whether they would accept your sob story to somehow convert that transaction to something else or to not charge you fees forever on the stupid thing until it is paid off. You know credit card companies can be a bit scummy in that regard, and they engage in all kinds of activities to trap people into paying various fees (that is one of the ways that they make money - even if in some circles that kind of conduct might be considered as usury).

One solution would be to attempt to keep your 0% credit card away from bitcoin purchases in order to preserve the 0% during the term of the offer. If you already did it, then it may be too late.. and you are just on the mercy of the credit card company, which is not too likely to be merciful - those greedy bastards.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  The SEC decision on the winklevoss ETf is March 11. I believe the chance of them approving this etf is under 10%.

I think that you are putting too low of a probability on the approval outcome. And, there is nothing wrong with having different opinions regarding these kinds of matters (actually it should be expected that guys are going to have differing opinions regarding probable outcomes of various events). Sure, I agree with you that it is a relatively low probability event for approval, but I would place approval in the 35%-ish territory, rather than 10%-ish.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  SEC is meant to protect investors and the winklevoss twins haven't made a good case on what they would do if there was a hack, or some other adverse event. Really no upside for SEC approving it, only downside.

Maybe I don't understand what you are saying here? I do agree that the Winklevoss have outlined a variety of scenarios that attempt to assess risks and to account for what they would do in regards to the playing out of various future risk scenarios.

I don't really understand what you mean by "no upside for SEC approving it, only downside." It seems that if that statement were actually true, the SEC would have already denied it by now, no? You believe that the SEC is just going through the motions and they are not actually contemplating ways in which they could actually approve it? Or there are certain "deal breaker" aspects of the ETF that are very unlikely to overcome and the SEC is actually considering whether the "deal breaker" aspects of the ETF could be overcome?

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  So two scenarios: (1) it gets approved and 100-400m in funds hit the market making the price skyrocket.

Yeah, fair enough. It does seem fairly likely that quite a bit of money would go into bitcoin if such an ETF approval were to occur.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  (2) it gets denied and experiences a dip anywhere from 10-30%.

That is probably a "fair enough" assessment too. I think that sometimes folks like to take advantage of various news events to attempt to push prices in whatever direction that is affiliated with the news event. But, in the longer run, it is not only the news event that is driving the price but the context in which such news event takes place.

So, in the current scenario, we do have a continued and ongoing price appreciation, which makes it more easy for some new event to drive a correction, which may just mean that the market was due for a correction - and the news event just happened to be there to help it along.

On the other hand, if we already experienced some FUD event or some exchange implosion or some other dramatic event, then the news of the ETF denial occurring at the same time might not have much if any effect, because the market had already largely corrected from some other event.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  I think this could be a unwarranted negative reaction, and the price rebounds over the coming months.

I largely agree, but again we cannot really count too many cards before they are even played, so it seems too early to call the subsequent "recovery period" because we have to see first if the correction is large or small and what else is going on at the same time. In any event, it surely does not hurt to speculate and hypothesize about various possible scenarios in order to attempt to prepare for various ways that the scenarios could play out... and how much weight to give to each development, as it occurs.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  Key alts could experience a big increase as a result of this too.

"key" Alts are all over the place. Sometimes they correlate with bitcoin and other times they do the opposite. Some of them, also, have their own pump and dump facts going on, which makes specifics and generalizations hard to call regarding all of them when sometimes the events of one or two "key" alts could have an impact on what is happening with other alts, separate and apart from the BTC ETF question.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  I think this is a good opportunity to exploit the outcome. Would be a perfect opportunity to do a straddle option strategy.

I agree that there can be various ways to attempt to play this and to hedge for different possible outcomes.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  Haven't looked into whether calls and puts are traded though.

Any thoughts?

In late 2013, there were only a few BTC exchanges (less than 10), and mostly they only provided the ability to buy or sell BTC. Now there are close to 150 BTC exchanges, and a few of them offer more sophisticated products, and those products are going to vary from one exchange to another... So, there may be a need for a bit of experimenting or even just a need to set up varying accounts, if you think that one exchange or another offers some service that you think would be helpful to you.. and then you also have to figure out whether you trust them and whether you are sending fiat to them or bitcoins and it could take one or two weeks just to get some of this set up and to feel comfortable with how to employ the services of that particular exchange.

Furthermore, if you are a USA citizen, Armogan, then some exchanges are reluctant to offer some of their services to USA citizens because in part, they seem to want to lessen their exposure to possible USA gov scrutiny or attempts at involvement in their business.

Here is an interesting article that just came out that is updating us regarding some transition of the chinese bitcoiners into the local bitcoins framework.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/localbit...volume-5x/


Also, this article seems to speculate that some of the chinese are moving their coins to Japanese exchanges, and there could be some truth to that.


https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-p...m-alliance

Likely several chinese folks are becoming quite skeptical about having too much exposure to chinese exchanges when some chinese folks experienced a 30 day freeze... and yeah, there may be some non-chinese folks on those chinese exchanges too who also became victims of the bitcoin withdrawal freeze.

(02-20-2017 04:08 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  The SEC decision on the winklevoss ETf is March 11. I believe the chance of them approving this etf is under 10%.

I think that you are putting too low of a probability on the approval outcome. And, there is nothing wrong with having different opinions regarding these kinds of matters (actually it should be expected that guys are going to have differing opinions regarding probable outcomes of various events). Sure, I agree with you that it is a relatively low probability event for approval, but I would place approval in the 35%-ish territory, rather than 10%-ish.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  SEC is meant to protect investors and the winklevoss twins haven't made a good case on what they would do if there was a hack, or some other adverse event. Really no upside for SEC approving it, only downside.

Maybe I don't understand what you are saying here? I do agree that the Winklevoss have outlined a variety of scenarios that attempt to assess risks and to account for what they would do in regards to the playing out of various future risk scenarios.

I don't really understand what you mean by "no upside for SEC approving it, only downside." It seems that if that statement were actually true, the SEC would have already denied it by now, no? You believe that the SEC is just going through the motions and they are not actually contemplating ways in which they could actually approve it? Or there are certain "deal breaker" aspects of the ETF that are very unlikely to overcome and the SEC is actually considering whether the "deal breaker" aspects of the ETF could be overcome?

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  So two scenarios: (1) it gets approved and 100-400m in funds hit the market making the price skyrocket.

Yeah, fair enough. It does seem fairly likely that quite a bit of money would go into bitcoin if such an ETF approval were to occur.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  (2) it gets denied and experiences a dip anywhere from 10-30%.

That is probably a "fair enough" assessment too. I think that sometimes folks like to take advantage of various news events to attempt to push prices in whatever direction that is affiliated with the news event. But, in the longer run, it is not only the news event that is driving the price but the context in which such news event takes place.

So, in the current scenario, we do have a continued and ongoing price appreciation, which makes it more easy for some new event to drive a correction, which may just mean that the market was due for a correction - and the news event just happened to be there to help it along.

On the other hand, if we already experienced some FUD event or some exchange implosion or some other dramatic event, then the news of the ETF denial occurring at the same time might not have much if any effect, because the market had already largely corrected from some other event.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  I think this could be a unwarranted negative reaction, and the price rebounds over the coming months.

I largely agree, but again we cannot really count too many cards before they are even played, so it seems too early to call the subsequent "recovery period" because we have to see first if the correction is large or small and what else is going on at the same time. In any event, it surely does not hurt to speculate and hypothesize about various possible scenarios in order to attempt to prepare for various ways that the scenarios could play out... and how much weight to give to each development, as it occurs.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  Key alts could experience a big increase as a result of this too.

"key" Alts are all over the place. Sometimes they correlate with bitcoin and other times they do the opposite. Some of them, also, have their own pump and dump facts going on, which makes specifics and generalizations hard to call regarding all of them when sometimes the events of one or two "key" alts could have an impact on what is happening with other alts, separate and apart from the BTC ETF question.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  I think this is a good opportunity to exploit the outcome. Would be a perfect opportunity to do a straddle option strategy.

I agree that there can be various ways to attempt to play this and to hedge for different possible outcomes.

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  Haven't looked into whether calls and puts are traded though.

Any thoughts?

In late 2013, there were only a few BTC exchanges (less than 10), and mostly they only provided the ability to buy or sell BTC. Now there are close to 150 BTC exchanges, and a few of them offer more sophisticated products, and those products are going to vary from one exchange to another... So, there may be a need for a bit of experimenting or even just a need to set up varying accounts, if you think that one exchange or another offers some service that you think would be helpful to you.. and then you also have to figure out whether you trust them and whether you are sending fiat to them or bitcoins and it could take one or two weeks just to get some of this set up and to feel comfortable with how to employ the services of that particular exchange.

Furthermore, if you are a USA citizen, Armogan, then some exchanges are reluctant to offer some of their services to USA citizens because in part, they seem to want to lessen their exposure to possible USA gov scrutiny or attempts at involvement in their business.

I will consider my providing this below linked article as a supplement to my earlier post, which also predicts (using prediction markets) that the ETF will not be approved.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/the-bitc...n-markets/

Here's another article referring to legislation that is bitcoin friendly (namely in the EU).

http://www.coindesk.com/eu-lawmakers-pro...ncy-users/

I read somewhere that when it his the previous high there's going to be sell off like crazy then recoveries. I'm thinking about riding this wave.

Thoughts?

Also I bought a new (to me) car w bitcoins last week.

(02-21-2017 01:31 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  I read somewhere that when it his the previous high there's going to be sell off like crazy then recoveries. I'm thinking about riding this wave.

Thoughts?

You're probably thinking about this:

https:[email protected]/speculati....g1keavrv9

Here's a YouTube video that explains it:





Folks don't seem to think that the SEC will approve the pending bitcoin ETF on March 11th, but if they do that could be the trigger that sets off a new wave of speculative fervor.

(02-21-2017 01:31 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  I read somewhere that when it his the previous high there's going to be sell off like crazy then recoveries. I'm thinking about riding this wave.

Thoughts?

Also I bought a new (to me) car w bitcoins last week.

Regarding the "sell off" situation, people have been saying these kinds of things since the 1st time that we returned to $1k in early January (and also you know that they have also been saying this since bitcoin rose above $300, take Satoshi for example). Anyhow, by the time we got to $1k in early January, we just shot right past it to $1139.. and yeah, that time around of almost reaching the ATH, we were likely a bit overheated.... so therefore, we got ourselves a decent correction of nearly 35% down to mid$700s and currently returning back up, a bit slower this time.

It doesn't hurt to sell a few coins here and there on the way up in order to hedge and to feel comfortable, just in case we get a decent correction (at some unexpected time).. but the reality of the matter is that when we likely shoot past previous ATH.. and with this kind of slower progress over several weeks, it seems fairly likely that we could get a good 10% or 15% or more BTC price momentum from such hype event (and going past such previous ATH resistance points).

So, yeah, sell a few coins on the way up if it makes you feel more comfortable.. but really, the more likely outcome seems to be a certain amount of shooting past in an upwards direction (and yeah, nothing is for sure in bitcoinlandia)...

Edit: By the way, also remember that even if we are preparing for possibilities of down, we also need to prepare ourselves for possibilities of up. Therefore, any RVF guys who already know about bitcoin are certainly in a better position than a lot of lay folks that are likely going to be newly coming into the bitcoin space in the coming years.

(02-21-2017 01:38 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(02-21-2017 01:31 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  I read somewhere that when it his the previous high there's going to be sell off like crazy then recoveries. I'm thinking about riding this wave.

Thoughts?

You're probably thinking about this:

https:[email protected]/speculati....g1keavrv9

Here's a YouTube video that explains it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZe1pl66vGg&spfreload=5[/video]

Folks don't seem to think that the SEC will approve the pending bitcoin ETF on March 11th, but if they do that could be the trigger that sets off a new wave of speculative fervor.

That is a great video, Isaac. I don't recall seeing that one. Do you happen to know the approximate date of that presentation? Was it like two months ago?

Regarding El Mech's point. I doubt that he was referring to the content of either the article link that you provided or the video link.

El Mech seemed to have been referring to a much more bearish scenario and giving much more weight to that possible bearish scenario - the one that suggests that there is likely to be considerable selling occurring around the previous ATH levels.. which really logically makes little sense.. What I am trying to say is that when we reach previous ATH levels, we are likely to experience both buying and selling, but in this case we are going up to the previous ATH a bit more slowly than we had gone up their previously.. therefore, the odds for breaking upwards become greater... yet I agree that the break could go in either direction... and that is why it is not logically obvious that we would have a break downwards when (and if) we reach the previous ATH.

(02-21-2017 02:41 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  That is a great video, Isaac. I don't recall seeing that one. Do you happen to know the approximate date of that presentation? Was it like two months ago?

Less than two weeks ago, actually.

While I thought we were ramping up for another bubble back at the end of December (I happened to find that article right as we blew through the $800s), the author himself mentioned that by his estimates (at the time of writing) we were still a few months away, with another possible plateau around $900-1000. The market may need time to consolidate around $1k, and to start thinking of that less in terms of a previous ATH and more as a new baseline, before a new wave of speculation takes over. I'm cautiously optimistic that the new ETF could be the spark that sets off the next bubble.

Quote:Regarding El Mech's point. I doubt that he was referring to the content of either the article link that you provided or the video link.

El Mech seemed to have been referring to a much more bearish scenario and giving much more weight to that possible bearish scenario - the one that suggests that there is likely to be considerable selling occurring around the previous ATH levels..

Yeah, looks like I misread what he was referring to. I do think the market will dip slightly if the SEC doesn't approve the ETF, but I doubt it will be anything substantial or long-lasting. There are too many solid fundamental use cases (store of value and remittances being the two largest, currently) driving growth and adoption right now. I would be very surprised if bitcoin didn't recover quickly from any dips, as it has with the recent reactions to the various Chinese announcements.

(02-21-2017 04:33 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

(02-21-2017 02:41 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  That is a great video, Isaac. I don't recall seeing that one. Do you happen to know the approximate date of that presentation? Was it like two months ago?

Less than two weeks ago, actually.

While I thought we were ramping up for another bubble back at the end of December (I happened to find that article right as we blew through the $800s), the author himself mentioned that by his estimates (at the time of writing) we were still a few months away, with another possible plateau around $900-1000. The market may need time to consolidate around $1k, and to start thinking of that less in terms of a previous ATH and more as a new baseline, before a new wave of speculation takes over.

I can appreciate some of your contextualizing BTC price predictions in terms of what was happening at a specific time because as we know the reality of the matter is that our subsequent expectations and predictions are going to be affected by both longer term market movements and trends and shorter term events.

For example, as I type, it is becoming pretty apparent and a pretty high level of likelihood that within either the coming hours or the coming days, there is going to be a test of the resistance at the previous ATH.

If you would have asked me yesterday, I would have proclaimed that we have to see whether we get to $1,100 first and if we get to $1,100, we have to see how many coins and how much time it takes to get past $1,100 (if that is the case?). But now we are pretty decently above and beyond $1,100.

Furthermore, if you would have asked me over the weekend, I would have proclaimed that the price could go either way and we have to see if there is another test of support at $1,000.. but now, we seem to be quite a bit past that, too.

(02-21-2017 04:33 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  I'm cautiously optimistic that the new ETF could be the spark that sets off the next bubble.

Are you placing the odds of a new ETF at more probable than not? Most folks are predicting less likely than not, and several have pretty low expectations in regards to the approval of the Winklevoss ETF in March. I'm still in the about 35% territory in regards to that ETF being approved.

(02-21-2017 04:33 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  

Quote:Regarding El Mech's point. I doubt that he was referring to the content of either the article link that you provided or the video link.

El Mech seemed to have been referring to a much more bearish scenario and giving much more weight to that possible bearish scenario - the one that suggests that there is likely to be considerable selling occurring around the previous ATH levels..

Yeah, looks like I misread what he was referring to. I do think the market will dip slightly if the SEC doesn't approve the ETF, but I doubt it will be anything substantial or long-lasting.

I largely agree here, and I am partly thinking that a disapproval is kind of (but not completely) priced into our current place.

(02-21-2017 04:33 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  There are too many solid fundamental use cases (store of value and remittances being the two largest, currently) driving growth and adoption right now.

Those do seem like the largest two at the moment... and just with that there is so much upside potential. Frequently folks get on this hangup regarding payment processing, etc (and I think that they are just attempting to make up shitty excuses to attempt to denigrate various fundamental bitcoin value propositions).. unless they are blind to exactly what you said.. storage of value and remittances.. which are BIG.

(02-21-2017 04:33 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  I would be very surprised if bitcoin didn't recover quickly from any dips, as it has with the recent reactions to the various Chinese announcements.

Yep, and those views pretty much means that we should be continuing to buy on dips and to accumulate to the extent feasible - even though there could still be some overshooting, manipulation or even surprise bad news that could cause significant and quasi-unexpected price corrections.

We have just touched $1142.20 on Stamp, which breaks the three year high.

I don't say these kinds of things too often, but the ATH of $1163 is also a "done deal" even though it has not happened yet..

And likely pretty much $1200 is a "done deal" too.

I would be quite surprised and even "shocked" if the surpassing of $1163 and $1200 do not play out in the coming hours.. days at most.

(02-21-2017 07:19 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  If you would have asked me yesterday, I would have proclaimed that we have to see whether we get to $1,100 first and if we get to $1,100, we have to see how many coins and how much time it takes to get past $1,100 (if that is the case?). But now we are pretty decently above and beyond $1,100.

Furthermore, if you would have asked me over the weekend, I would have proclaimed that the price could go either way and we have to see if there is another test of support at $1,000.. but now, we seem to be quite a bit past that, too.

Amazing how quickly we've blown through the overhead supply of all the people who may have bought on the way up back at the end of December/early January. Hard to tell if they're all willing to hang on for the long(ish) term, or if the demand is just so great that it makes up for all the folks selling. Either way, I'm surprised as well to see how quickly the price has recovered, after both of the big dips following PBOC announcements this year.

Quote:Are you placing the odds of a new ETF at more probable than not? Most folks are predicting less likely than not, and several have pretty low expectations in regards to the approval of the Winklevoss ETF in March. I'm still in the about 35% territory in regards to that ETF being approved.

I'm honestly not sure about the ETF odds. I don't have any special sources or information that would qualify me to share an opinion on the matter.

What does interest me about the ETF though is the likely asymmetric outcome of the decision.

No = status quo, probably not much of a change (possibility of a short-lived dip).
Yes = hundreds of millions of dollars pour into Bitcoin PLUS speculation probably picks up as well.

Situations with limited downside but vast upside potential are always ones you want to be a part of.

(02-21-2017 04:33 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  There are too many solid fundamental use cases (store of value and remittances being the two largest, currently) driving growth and adoption right now.

Quote:Those do seem like the largest two at the moment... and just with that there is so much upside potential. Frequently folks get on this hangup regarding payment processing, etc (and I think that they are just attempting to make up shitty excuses to attempt to denigrate various fundamental bitcoin value propositions).. unless they are blind to exactly what you said.. storage of value and remittances.. which are BIG.

Most people I attempt to introduce to Bitcoin (typically wealthy, college-educated white collar folks living here in the States) view it through the lens of their personal experience, and discount it as essentially another Paypal or Venmo.

What they don't realize - because they've grown up with a first-tier banking system that provides cheap credit, convenient storage methods like checking/savings accounts, and a fairly stable currency in the USD - is that the VAST majority of the world lacks access to these things. Suburban soccer moms don't need bitcoin the same way Chinese farmers, Mexican laborers, Venezuelan shop owners, or Nigerian peasants need bitcoin.

So unlike the internet of communication, which started in first-world research labs and universities, the internet of money is going to get its big initial boost from second- and third-world countries, whose demand will spur the increase in price/value that funds the startups and entrepreneurs who will create the applications that first-world citizens will finally start using years from now.

(02-22-2017 02:55 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  What does interest me about the ETF though is the likely asymmetric outcome of the decision.

No = status quo, probably not much of a change (possibility of a short-lived dip).
Yes = hundreds of millions of dollars pour into Bitcoin PLUS speculation probably picks up as well.

Situations with limited downside but vast upside potential are always ones you want to be a part of.

I'm not so sure the above fully encapsulates the downside of a "no" vote on the ETF. MSM loves to pounce on anything juicy to get views and they've already done a thorough job of portraying BTC as the domain of thieves and criminals. Possible headlines of "Bitcoin fails to achieve legitimacy through ETF" and "Bitcoin ETF deemed unsafe" might shake out a lot of weak hands and keep fearful those people who only have cursory knowledge of cryptocurrency. If anything, I'd welcome a big dip down as I've mostly resigned myself to holding with a $485/BTC average cost but would strongly consider adding more if it really tanked down into the 500's.

I'm totally with you though on piles of money coming through if the ETF gets approval. Also with your sentiment on how fortunate we are in the first world given our access to high end banking. Even in the US, I see my employees getting bled dry by 3% check cashing fees and $15 Western Union transfers on $300 back to their home countries.

(02-22-2017 05:38 PM)booshala Wrote:  

(02-22-2017 02:55 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  What does interest me about the ETF though is the likely asymmetric outcome of the decision.

No = status quo, probably not much of a change (possibility of a short-lived dip).
Yes = hundreds of millions of dollars pour into Bitcoin PLUS speculation probably picks up as well.

Situations with limited downside but vast upside potential are always ones you want to be a part of.

I'm not so sure the above fully encapsulates the downside of a "no" vote on the ETF. MSM loves to pounce on anything juicy to get views and they've already done a thorough job of portraying BTC as the domain of thieves and criminals. Possible headlines of "Bitcoin fails to achieve legitimacy through ETF" and "Bitcoin ETF deemed unsafe" might shake out a lot of weak hands and keep fearful those people who only have cursory knowledge of cryptocurrency. If anything, I'd welcome a big dip down as I've mostly resigned myself to holding with a $485/BTC average cost but would strongly consider adding more if it really tanked down into the 500's.

I'm totally with you though on piles of money coming through if the ETF gets approval. Also with your sentiment on how fortunate we are in the first world given our access to high end banking. Even in the US, I see my employees getting bled dry by 3% check cashing fees and $15 Western Union transfers on $300 back to their home countries.

I think that your expectations are a bit high, if you are considering that bitcoin prices may go down into the $500s for any reason.

Of course, anything is possible in bitcoinlandia, yet I would expect a ETF non approval is largely priced in already, and may case a 10% dip, at most.

There are other events that could cause larger dips, maybe even dips approaching 40% - but it is going to have to be pretty big for such a dip.. especially since we are probably heading up, whether there is an ETF or not... hahahahaha

By the way, when the BIG correction to mid $700s occurred in early January, at that point, I could have seen further correction into the $500s... but times have changed a little bit.. and there is likely a lot of support and various layers of support all the way down.. so yep.. gonna take something fairly BIG or a combination of BIG to break through some of those areas of support in the downward direction.

(02-20-2017 04:08 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  I think that you are putting too low of a probability on the approval outcome. And, there is nothing wrong with having different opinions regarding these kinds of matters (actually it should be expected that guys are going to have differing opinions regarding probable outcomes of various events). Sure, I agree with you that it is a relatively low probability event for approval, but I would place approval in the 35%-ish territory, rather than 10%-ish.

The probability doesn't matter, I think we can both agree it is not likely to be approved. That's all that is important.

(02-20-2017 04:08 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  SEC is meant to protect investors and the winklevoss twins haven't made a good case on what they would do if there was a hack, or some other adverse event. Really no upside for SEC approving it, only downside.

Maybe I don't understand what you are saying here? I do agree that the Winklevoss have outlined a variety of scenarios that attempt to assess risks and to account for what they would do in regards to the playing out of various future risk scenarios.

I don't really understand what you mean by "no upside for SEC approving it, only downside." It seems that if that statement were actually true, the SEC would have already denied it by now, no? You believe that the SEC is just going through the motions and they are not actually contemplating ways in which they could actually approve it? Or there are certain "deal breaker" aspects of the ETF that are very unlikely to overcome and the SEC is actually considering whether the "deal breaker" aspects of the ETF could be overcome?

The SEC has no financial incentive to approve this. They get no commission, no bonus, etc. But if investors lose a lot of money through a hack or some adverse event, the SEC didn't do their job and the people that approved this will likely get fired or have experienced a tarnished reputation. Zero upside, big downside.

I think they pushed the can down the road for so long as they wanted to give the Winklevoss twins the benefit of the doubt, and give a good explanation on what they would do if investor funds got lost through a hack. They haven't provided a strong case. I think, speculation of course, that this decision has been made just not formally announced yet.

(02-20-2017 04:08 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  That is probably a "fair enough" assessment too. I think that sometimes folks like to take advantage of various news events to attempt to push prices in whatever direction that is affiliated with the news event. But, in the longer run, it is not only the news event that is driving the price but the context in which such news event takes place.

I think this is exactly what we are seeing happen with this crazy price appreciation this week. Big whales bought a lot of BTC, this moved the needle. They knew if they moved the needle they could trigger a FOMO reaction from the laymen. This moves the price up even more. My analysis of what's going on is a classic pump and dump. These big whales are purposely triggering a FOMO reaction to extract the highest appreciation possible. They likely think, like I do, that the ETF will not get approved and the price will crash. That's when they cash out. Of course this goes out the window if the ETF is approved, but either way the price goes way up and they profit.

(02-20-2017 04:08 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(02-20-2017 01:49 PM)Armogan Wrote:  Key alts could experience a big increase as a result of this too.

"key" Alts are all over the place. Sometimes they correlate with bitcoin and other times they do the opposite. Some of them, also, have their own pump and dump facts going on, which makes specifics and generalizations hard to call regarding all of them when sometimes the events of one or two "key" alts could have an impact on what is happening with other alts, separate and apart from the BTC ETF question.

I disagree as we saw earlier this week. Big money came out of alts and into BTC. The price impact of what's happening with alts I believe is related to the ETF question, especially in this very volatile period. Money is going out of alts and into BTC, this could all reverse very quickly.

I still haven't made a reasonable conclusion on what will happen to these alts if the ETF gets rejected, they could drop as well or appreciate not sure.