You can go here and look at the one year charts. Some have run up too fast and are now in a correction.

https://bitcoinira.com/resourc..._medium=PPC&cID=3542

When Hive started to go parabolic, they released more shares to tame it down.

Missed the boat on BC. I recall sitting down a couple of years ago talking about it but not doing anything. I could be very well-off today had I acted upon it.

Also, know some very big market investors who know nothing about BC and have no interest in knowing about it. They don’t even know how to buy in or get out of it. The guys who have jumped in are computer gurus. Guys who write code and programs but have little knowledge of stock market. Having actually studied economics in school I find bitcoin a bit scary.

Hey you can jump on XRP. .20c a coin and Ripples technology is backed by several major banks (not the coin tho). Already broke the 1c barrier.

This all just reminds me of penny stocks. Not that you cant make money. But its risky.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Let me gently suggest that some of you invest some of your stash in a book, “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” by Charles Mackay.

That is a great book! Re-read it this past Spring.

Another look at how emotion and human brain wiring interact with decision-making and market making is "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Arielly.

The one thing (maybe more than one thing) that separates these manufactured objects from actual currency is the 'legal tender' status enjoyed by actual currency. One source of demand that actual currency enjoys is that billions of people accept it in exchange for actual stuff and the tax man accepts it for tax payments. Currency/coinage may occasionally (if collectible, e.g.) become worth more than face but it is always worth face value*. There is zero face value for the manufactured stuff.

* RE: 'always worth face value.' One can quibble about that. But if you want to go into scenarios where actual currency (say, the dollar) isn't accepted for face value, understand the scenarios that trash the dollar would also affect the value of the manufactured stuff, and not in a good way. Inflation is a concern with paper currency as the issuer (Fed/USG) can always print more, but the manufactured stuff increases supply as well (minting bitcoins, e.g.) so that is a question of degree.

Speculators sometimes make money. There is a market price for everything, and it fluctuates. But be intellectually honest about being a speculator and don't overinvest in speculation. One could make a killing on, say, sorghum futures...but you could lose one, too. Not to say sorghum doesn't have value, and aficionados singing its praises ... but it is what it is. The same with totally secure, independent-of-the-government currency-of-the-day, backed by nothing, having zero intrinsic value, and accepted by the trendy.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Let me gently suggest that some of you invest some of your stash in a book, “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” by Charles Mackay.

That is a great book! Re-read it this past Spring.

Another look at how emotion and human brain wiring interact with decision-making and market making is "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Arielly.

The one thing (maybe more than one thing) that separates these manufactured objects from actual currency is the 'legal tender' status enjoyed by actual currency. One source of demand that actual currency enjoys is that billions of people accept it in exchange for actual stuff and the tax man accepts it for tax payments. Currency/coinage may occasionally (if collectible, e.g.) become worth more than face but it is always worth face value*. There is zero face value for the manufactured stuff.

* RE: 'always worth face value.' One can quibble about that. But if you want to go into scenarios where actual currency (say, the dollar) isn't accepted for face value, understand the scenarios that trash the dollar would also affect the value of the manufactured stuff, and not in a good way. Inflation is a concern with paper currency as the issuer (Fed/USG) can always print more, but the manufactured stuff increases supply as well (minting bitcoins, e.g.) so that is a question of degree.

Speculators sometimes make money. There is a market price for everything, and it fluctuates. But be intellectually honest about being a speculator and don't overinvest in speculation. One could make a killing on, say, sorghum futures...but you could lose one, too. Not to say sorghum doesn't have value, and aficionados singing its praises ... but it is what it is. The same with totally secure, independent-of-the-government currency-of-the-day, backed by nothing, having zero intrinsic value, and accepted by the trendy.

The currency is always worth face, but the amount of face value currency you need to buy stuff may fluctuate.

The dollar has a face value of $1, but instead of ~$1800 of them to buy a brand new Mustang, it takes more than 10 times that now, 50 years later.

I previously described Bitcoin as I understood it in 2010. There are now actually two competing Bitcoins using different software. A "fork" occurred last August. Now there is the original Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BTH). BTH has surged pass Ethereum to become the second most valuable cryptocurrency: https://www.coindesk.com/confu...ash-30-billion-2000/

(A "fork" analogy would be when one business is split into two businesses. An example would be when Carl Icahn was successful in spinning off PayPal from eBay. They are now separate businesses with two different stock symbols.)

rh: Bitcoin Cash (BCH, not BTH) was hyped up to be the replacement of Bitcoin and it was extremely well executed. Key point: it was extremely well executed hype to make the conspirators wealthy. N. America, specifically Americans with Coinbase/GDAX don't have access to BCH and buzz starting last night about blog posts and open letters from miners written months ago explaining why they're switching to BCH before the hard fork were brought to light causing fear, uncertainty and doubt. Moreover, this assault was planned under the cover of two hard forks and executed inbetween the cancellation of one and the effective date of the other. Enough miners (of which the majority resides in China, India and other Asian countries) switched over as if they were leaving Bitcoin behind and the hashrate volume flipped in favor of BCH. But not before calculated sell bots with massive financial backing drove prices down as low as 5500 while harvesting those who were trying to build resistance because they couldn’t compete with that much sell volume, especially on a primarily American exchange when most of us were sleeping. Lastly, the influx of capital into BCH doubled its value causing panic and selling for those who wanted to "switch teams" because they believed the hype that BCH was going to replace Bitcoin.

A couple things here: No one outside of S. Korea is using BCH and prior to this stunt it wasn’t even close to the market cap of Bitcoin or Ethereum. There’s a lot of reasons why BCH will never overtake Bitcoin but from the “miner flip” perspective it’s a smokescreen. Miners are called miners because by processing transactions and solving the algorithms they might discover or “mine” a Bitcoin of which there are 50 released every 10 minutes by the programming design. When there are no more Bitcoins to mine (21 million limit reached) or if transactions overload the block in any 10 minute interval, a percentage fee can be paid on transactions that require priority in processing those transactions. The rest will sit in queue until traffic returns to normal, however long that may take. Knowing this, what mining pool (a bunch of miners who split their mined Bitcoins among each other) wants to permanently switch to a currency that has hardly any use or following when all their equipment and software works specifically for Bitcoin (or Bitcoin-forked) blockchains? Moreover, miners like Bitcoin’s “small” block size because the chance of mining any of the 50 Bitcoins every 10 minutes doesn’t come close to covering the cost of operation and they are planning on transaction fees to make their operations worthwhile, particularly on the eve of CME and other institutional money coming in.

I could go on but in short this was a bluff and those who blinked probably lost 5-70% selling Bitcoin, buying BCH or in the 70% cases, selling Bitcoin at bargin prices to buy overpriced BCH (which dropped 50% in value in less than 3 hours after it’s peak). Want to know who is just fine? Those who bought Bitcoin and held because they didn’t lose anything and CME / intuitional money is going to decrease the supply of Bitcoin (not to mention there's only going to be $21 million created) and higher demand = higher prices. I said it earlier in this thread: Bitcoin has been threated by other currencies, governments, market manipulators and it’s still resilient and reigning supreme. CME / Institutional money = government regulation and that means a large explosion of growth, less volatility and protection of an asset class that they’re now expecting to make money off of. And that is one of many reasons why Bitcoin isn’t a bubble and isn’t going anywhere.

BCH, on the other hand has made itself known and one day could be a viable payment system for small everyday purchases. But for right now it'll come back from this morning's lows until it forks and then I'd expect people to dump it again and return to Bitcoin/alts for the foreseeable future.

quote:

Originally posted by Dead_Eye:
Miners are called miners because by processing transactions and solving the algorithms they might discover or “mine” a Bitcoin of which there are 50 released every 10 minutes by the programming design.

You are missing some really big-picture details.

1. The rate of Bitcoin production drops over time. It has halved twice. The reward amount is now 12.5 BTC.

2. The frequency isn't every 10 minutes, it's every time a new block is created, which happens to be approximately 10 minutes, because the computational difficulty of creating a block is updated over time to make it average about 10 minutes.

3. Miners don't just randomly maybe find a Bitcoin. Transaction records propagate through the network and all the miners are constantly trying to take the newest transactions and make a block out of them, meaning to create a cryptographically secure record of those transactions (by design, there isn't a good algorithm for this, it's essentially rolling a die with a hell of a lot of sides). When a miner creates a block, they get the entire block reward (now 12.5 BTC) plus any transaction fees associated with the transactions in the new block. The miner sends the new block out to the network, and everyone starts over trying to create the next new block.

Essentially, right now, approximately but not exactly every 10 minutes, exactly one Bitcoin miner somewhere in the world makes $75,000 (12.5 x 6,000), and their chance of "winning" is proportional to how much of the total Bitcoin network's processing power they have.

WSJ
November 13, 2017

The booming bull market for bitcoin has hit another speed bump.

Bitcoin slumped more than 25% in recent days, falling below $6,000 after touching a record high just shy of $7,900 last week. A canceled software upgrade, concerns about the coming launch of bitcoin futures and fears of an asset bubble weighed on the cryptocurrency, which is known for sharp swings.

Even with the decline, bitcoin is still up more than 500% this year and has a market capitalization of about $100 billion. The latest drop marked the fifth time this year that bitcoin has fallen more than 20% from a recent high, according to research site CoinDesk. Bitcoin recently traded about $6,250.

The recent decline came after the suspension, last week, of plans that would have split the digital currency. A group proposing to launch a new version of the currency that would allow for faster trading put off those plans after they were bitterly opposed by a group of bitcoin’s main software developers. The software change would have roughly doubled the network’s processing capacity, or the number of bitcoin transactions the network can handle.

Traders have also been jittery about the impending introduction of bitcoin futures. Exchange operators CME Group Inc. and CBOE Global Markets Inc. have announced plans to offer such contracts, which would give Wall Street traders an avenue to bet on bitcoin prices and hedge against volatility, a crucial step in bitcoin’s move into institutional and retail markets.

Those plans come with risks. Over the weekend, Thomas Peterffy, one of the world’s most successful derivatives traders, said he was concerned bitcoin derivatives would introduce extraordinary volatility that would be difficult to contain.

“For the first time, I am extremely scared,” Mr. Peterffy, founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers Group, told Barron’s, citing concerns about the stability of Wall Street’s smaller clearing firms.

Bitcoin’s value has surged this year despite industry setbacks. In September, bitcoin fell more than 30% after Chinese regulators banned initial coin offerings and ordered the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges to wind down. Prices rebounded soon after, with bitcoin topping $7,000 this month for the first time.

Investors who have stuck with bitcoin have been rewarded handsomely. Three years ago the digital currency was at $300, and six years ago it was at $2.

The sharp rise has sparked concerns that the digital currency is mired in one of the biggest financial bubbles of all time. Bitcoin is the “very definition of a bubble,” Credit Suisse Group AG Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam said at a conference earlier this month.


Bitcoin was created nearly a decade ago as a decentralized, autonomous network that isn’t controlled by any individual, company or government. Its use has grown over the past few years, as have its fees per transaction. Other cryptocurrencies have taken advantage by lowering transaction costs, swiping market share from bitcoin.

One alternative version of the digital currency, called Bitcoin Cash, has quickly grown in popularity. Launched in August and created as a split from the original bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash uses a technology that can process more transactions at a given time, translating to lower fees for users. The currency, which is also quoted in dollars and recently traded at $1,150, has already attracted a flood of money, enabling it to quadruple in four days before recently retreating. At about $21 billion, it is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market value, according to industry site Coinmarketcap.com.

Bitcoin’s backers are still fighting along the lines of the initial schism. Some want bitcoin to have low costs and fast transaction times. Others want to keep the current configuration, which is driving up transaction fees and bottlenecking payments. This slower network works better if bitcoin is being used as a store of value.

Digital currencies like bitcoin are generally open-source software projects, sustained by developers who work on a volunteer basis. That also means any other group is welcome to take the software and create their own version of it. Bitcoin Cash is a copy of bitcoin that is faithful to the original in all but a few respects.


There was an initial bout of relief last week, which helped push bitcoin higher, after the plans for a version of bitcoin that would have somewhat increased capacity were withdrawn. But it just opened the door for Bitcoin Cash’s backers to make a push for it as the new bitcoin.

The first important marker of this will be a measurement of activity from the so-called miners. These are businesses that process transactions on the network and get paid in newly created coins. A measure of their combined computing power, called the hash rate, has been rising on Bitcoin Cash and falling for bitcoin.

Still, the reality is that the original bitcoin has been in use for about nine years, and has a community of businesses, developers, and miners around it. Bitcoin Cash has existed for a few months, and, despite its positioning for payments, has few—if any—retail outlets that accept it for that. It isn’t clear whether Bitcoin Cash can create the kind of network effects that bitcoin itself has over the years.

Write to Steven Russolillo at steven.russolillo@wsj.com and Paul Vigna at paul.vigna@wsj.com

Lnk

Nvidia, Goldman Are Among 5 Bitcoin Stocks To Watch As Cryptocurrency Soars

BILL PETERS
7:21 AM ET

Depending on who you ask, Bitcoin is a bubble, a fraud, a money-laundering vehicle, a volatile mess or a crucial, necessary phase in monetary evolution.

OffStill, the currency, down sharply on Friday and over the weekend before a partial rebound Monday morning, has skyrocketed in value this year. Until it incinerates everybody's cash or transcends central banks as we know them, a whole bunch of Bitcoin-related plays — Nvidia (NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Goldman Sachs (GS) CME Group (CME) and CBOE (CBOE) — remain stocks to watch.

Nvidia, AMD

Graphics processors from Nvidia and AMD are used to vet and clear cryptocurrency transactions. By clearing Bitcoin transactions, "miners" create more of the crypto coins. Nvidia is 24% extended past a 174.66 entry. It's often a good time to take profits after a 20%-25% advance.

"Typically, growth stocks tend to advance 20% to 25% after breaking out of a proper base, then decline and set up new bases, and in some cases resume their advances," according to IBD's advice on profit-taking.

IBD'S TAKE: Nvidia is currently ranked No. 7 on the IBD 50 list of top-performing growth stocks.

Shares of Nvidia jumped 5.3% to 216.14 on the stock market Friday, after the chipmaker late Thursday delivered strong third-quarter earnings and guidance.

"We've been bearish for most of this year, anticipating that a slowdown in gaming would drive sharp revenue deceleration in 2017," Nomura-Instinet analyst Romit Shah said in a research note on Friday. "However, Nvidia demonstrated good diversity in gaming with Nintendo Switch and cryptocurrency, offsetting weakness in core gaming earlier in the year."

Third-quarter sales for Nvidia's cryptocurrency-related products dropped 53%.

"We remain nimble in our approach to the cryptocurrency market," management said on Nvidia's earnings call. "It is volatile, does not and will not distract us from focusing on our core gaming market."

AMD, which plans to join forces with Intel to compete against Nvidia in laptop gaming chips rose 1.3% to 11.26 on Friday. In October, AMD, on its third-quarter earnings call, said it was forecasting "some leveling-off of some of the cryptocurrency demand."
Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs is currently near a 247.17 buy point in a cup-with-handle base. Shares eased 0.3% to 240.15 on Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Goldman is considering developing a cryptocurrency trading operation. Contrary to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, who has said the cryptocurrency is doomed, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein appears to have hedged on the digital currency.

He told CNBC this week that "maybe Bitcoin is a kind of a bubble." And he said "it hasn't crossed my desk to set up a Bitcoin trading desk, but I wouldn't preclude it."

He added that he had a much more open mind about things like Bitcoin and that he had been wrong about other innovations taking off in the past. But he then said Bitcoin is "something that I'm not comfortable with; I'm kind of an old dog to be absorbing that kind of a new trick."

Last month, Blankfein tweeted that he had not made up his mind about Bitcoin.

CME Group

CME Group late last month said it would launch Bitcoin futures before year-end. The decision came amid "increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets," the derivatives marketplace said in a statement announcing the launch.

CME's preannouncement helped push Bitcoin higher.

Shares dipped 0.1% to end the week at 137.88. The stock is extended from the 128.06 buy point and from a pullback to its 50-day line in October.
CBOE

The Chicago Board of Options Exchange has also said it plans to launch Bitcoin futures in Q4 or early 2018.

CBOE shares rose 0.3% to 114.45 and are far extended from a 81.46 entry of a base-on-base pattern cleared in April.

https://www.investors.com/news...565974%3Anull%3Anull

bitcoin is back to 7800

quote:

Originally posted by Deqlyn:
bitcoin is back to 7800

7800 what?

Dollars? The irony!

Yes, $7,800 a Bitcoin. ($7,970 currently - it trades 24/7)

And Goldmoney (XAU.TO) has bounced back after a "personnel error" negatively affected their latest earnings report. I am not planning on buying cryptocurrencies again myself, I'd rather be invested in a "middleman" which is preparing to be listed on the NYSE. (That's a stock tip.)

quote:

Originally posted by rh:
Yes, $7,800 a Bitcoin. ($7,970 currently - it trades 24/7)

And Goldmoney (XAU.TO) has bounced back after a "personnel error" negatively affected their latest earnings report. I am not planning on buying cryptocurrencies again myself, I'd rather be invested in a "middleman" which is preparing to be listed on the NYSE. (That's a stock tip.)

What are you talkin aboot.

quote:

Originally posted by Deqlyn:

quote:

Originally posted by rh:
Yes, $7,800 a Bitcoin. ($7,970 currently - it trades 24/7)

And Goldmoney (XAU.TO) has bounced back after a "personnel error" negatively affected their latest earnings report. I am not planning on buying cryptocurrencies again myself, I'd rather be invested in a "middleman" which is preparing to be listed on the NYSE. (That's a stock tip.)

What are you talkin aboot.

Not to pick on them like "South Park" does, but besides being informative, those Canadian earnings conferences can be fun and interesting to listen to.

Back to the Bitcoins and cryptocurrencies, if someone is interested in transparently investing in precious metals, crypto, or fiat currencies (i.e., no money laundering, drug transactions, taxes must be paid, etc.), Goldmoney is a very reputable company to do business with. Their history is a bit convoluted and more appropriate for another topic, but I've been a customer since the early 2000s. I vouch for Goldmoney as being legitimate.

As for my stock tip, when Canadian equities begin trading on a US exchange, US fund managers are eligible to buy them, and they usually go up.

This Tweet seems more appropriate for this topic rather than the latest Bitcoin topic:

https://twitter.com/stoolpresi...s/936032829154004993

quote:

Originally posted by rh:
This Tweet seems more appropriate for this topic rather than the latest Bitcoin topic:

https://twitter.com/stoolpresi...s/936032829154004993

Thank you for this common sense explanation of how bitcoin works. Much appreciated.

It's from Bloomberg, but Bitcoin Futures Start With a Bang as 25% Rally Triggers Halts. Watching through the AVs, "Bitcoin is uncorrelated alpha. This is the holy grail of investing." is my favorite quote.

I can't find @XBT in my IB account to watch it go up, but Interactive Brokers Allows Long-Only Bitcoin Futures Trading (At 50% Margin)


And here's an Onion article from last Friday Bitcoin Plunge Reveals Possible Vulnerabilities In Crazy Imaginary Internet Money

boy the coins are a soarin