Quote from: kurious on December 18, 2013, 05:23:59 PM

ref: rpietila / others who 'knew'

Did they just have 'better' information than us in terms of an early 'nod' on the news?

Maybe this has been raised in the last few pages - I confess I haven't got time to look back - but is it not possible someone knew someone, who knew what was about to happen?

To accurately say 'it will go down to 500' is pretty good.

Was it a timed assault of a wave of selling and the timing was lucky - or was it timed FOR the news once it was obvious it was coming (if you had the right information).

Questions, questions.....

I knew in a general way that there will be forces acting against bitcoin now. Bitcoin was overvalued, in a downtrend, and above the long term trendline. Shorting it was a no-brainer. I did not even know that it would happen so quickly. Anyway I was positioned and made a nice 10% gain for my whole portfolio off of this crash. The last crash I made about the same. It's a yearly gain of 20% in bitcoins, so it is a lot.

Quote from: rpietila on December 15, 2013, 03:25:47 PM

Guys + girls,

The Episode II of my diary is nearing its end. I started it in 3.11.2013, in anticipation of a rally in bitcoin. About the same time I had a very intense Facebook campaign. The price started moving immediately, and so quickly that I issued my initial bearish call in 19.-20.11. That proved to be premature - the price still went up and crossed the important $1 threshold in the following days. It soon became apparent that it was overextended from the trendline however, and therefore exceedingly difficult to keep its uptrend. From the dead cat bounce (10.12.) following the double top (30.11.&4.12.), I have been selling more coins. I have devoted my last 2 weeks to researching about the price, whether I want to enter into such a trade. So far it is working well, selling more into rallies and buying some back at dips. I expect that the downtrend takes us to somewhere between $0.3 and $0.5 in the following months.

When the price was still rising, I had the mood and time to conduct Bitcoin Economics research. There is a list of the threads in the OP. I feel that in the short time quite many important topics have been presented and discussed. These threads will not become obsolete because of short-term events or swings in price.

There are some important matters that I must move on to. Perhaps some still remember the Supernode Network (still no better name Wink

), which I promised will be started at $1.4/mBTC. As I now see it, reaching that figure is not happening any time soon, so I will have the opportunity to take the time off, and let the bubble-bust cycle run its natural course. If Wall Observer is any guide, we are now strongly in the "denial" phase (consult the well-known chart for details).

If you are heavy in bitcoin, and especially if this is your first bubble, I would ask you to consider if you still feel good if the price goes to $0.3 or $0.4. Otherwise it might be a time to sell a fraction of the holdings now at the record prices.

For those new in bitcoin, this is a very good time to enter with experimental/speculative funds, and buy more when the price goes down.

I do not suggest daytrading bitcoin to anyone: like all speculative markets, it is heavily manipulated, you pay fees, waste valuable time playing a zero-sum game and generally end up on the losing side of the trade. Optimally you only accumulate bitcoin until you have enough (never sell), and once you have enough, you gradually start to sell/buy things with it (and never buy back coins). This minimizes the problems outlined above.

Thank you for all the wonderful community and contributors!