Quote from: Newbie1022 on July 21, 2014, 07:22:51 PM

Quote from: empowering on July 21, 2014, 07:10:03 PM

Quote from: JorgeStolfi on July 21, 2014, 07:06:25 PM

Quote from: hdbuck on July 21, 2014, 06:40:37 PM

why even respond to such comment? you seem to have a lot of time to waste for an academic attention seeker. hum.

It is school vacations here now. (And what is the point of posting in this thread only to insult Chinese traders, bankers, governments, academics, whatever?)

I woudl think that a trader who tries to understand what actualy moves the market has some advantage over one who just draws lines on charts...

I agree with that much Jorge.

Of course he is right, to a degree. Quantitative and technical analysis are useless unless integrated into a broader narrative (see S&P's models for rating mortgage backed securities back in 2006... the math wasn't wrong but it existed in a vacuum away from the broader narrative so it didn't appropriately capture the full range of contingencies). The question is, which one should lead (and is this a fixed answer)? Should you come up with a narrative and the test it against the technical analysis? Or should you use the technical analysis and charts to try to identify a trend and thereafter come up with an explanation? Or do you just entirely wing it by your balls, like most of us, and then come up with a series of post hoc rationalizations thereafter to explain why you did what you did so you can sleep at night.

P.S. -- Late August/early September should be a great time. It is possible we'll get the ETF by then (probably not, but possible), the broader economy usually starts to hit the s----er around this time (far enough away from tax return spending sprees and Christmas with no holidays coming up), and, most importantly, student loans drop. The latter, I think, would be an even bigger deal if we had a less sketchy swaps market. Imagine, if you are a student, being able to at least somewhat safely secure a fixed rate on the student loans dedicated to living expenses several months down the road (because it all hits at once) and as such being able to counteract the impact of interest accruing during your studies (for graduate students that happens). It really is too good to be true and people would find a way to get screwed, but it would be nice.

Oh yea, and actually most importantly, China's economy is starting to look terrible and their social institutions appear to be fracturing. Yea, we'll get a run.

Personally I would not be investing in, holding or buying/spending BTC , unless I believed in my view of the fundamentals - the TA side come later for me , mainly for identifiying good dips, and keeping an eye on the health of the market, and seeing how that fits in with my view of the fundamentals. Plus TA is something I do for other reasons, and so I like to apply it to BTC and test my theories and basically for kicks- I really do have fun at the weekends though.

Of course I am aware that there is at the moment a scenario whereby vendors using Bitpay et al are essentially just accepting fiat and perhaphs an unknown % of BTC too (most companies would keep this % to themselves for obvious reasons) and in most cases most likely a large percentage of fiat. I also understand that people that do not hold BTC already , but subsequently buy BTC from an exchange just to spend, and then the merchant just converts it back to USD - essentially dumping the coins - is not an ideal situation (though someone is all ways on the other side of the trade buying) also this is still only bad assuming that there is NOT the correlating adoption, also assuming people are only buying "fresh" BTC to spend on their new toy from Dell, and not another BTC or two for a rainy day or to spend the week/year after) To be honest I thought this was a done to death discussion 6 months ago... however the key words to take from that are "at the moment" Personally I am not a day trader, or even medium term trader, so the short term effects on the potential price are not key to me, and this is how I view the current situation with merchants/Bitpay.

The question of if merchants accepting Bitcoin via Bitpay are creating demand for Bitcoin or not, in my humble opinion is still far to early to answer! though I lean towards yes- but via a longer method- personally I am looking at a broader picture, in that I expect the overall market to benefit from more and more merchants accepting Bitcoin as it brings more and more publicity and exposure- it has only really just begun... when you see the BTC on websites and venues everywhere, as you do with say Visa now (which is a process that is being helped along by Bitpay et al) then yes I do personally think that Bitpay will have had an effect on the demand for BTC.. the more that the public psyche is surrounded by BTC, and learns of BTC then yes, I expect more adoption (and yes this fits in with my longer term view of the fundamentals for BTC for many other reasons) So what happens then? if more and more merchants accept BTC and more and more people see BTC, learn about BTC and end up one way or another owning BTC then, as the population of BTC holders increases this will bring an increase in trade volume, and depending on the demand and supply, and the liquidity and velocity , we could end up at a scenario down the road where the price is more stable- I imagine a vastly increased marketcap and networksize , and a higher % of BTC owning population and as BTC reaches ubiquity, then what happens- then when it becomes possible for companies that accept BTC via Bitpay, to decide to keep a higher % of BTC so they themselves can then pay other vendors/merchants/employees etc in BTC.......BUT to get to that stage we have to go through this stage first.... even though the world of BTC/cryptos moves fast, it does not time travel yet... and the short term effects of Bitpay/Merchant USD BTC USD cycle is not clear enough yet, but one thing is, and that is that it brings more attention, and validity and legitamcy, and interest and media attention to the market- especially when it is from large well known "trusted" huge multinationals.
Essentially I think that Bitpay et al, and the merchants accepting BTC are going to have a net positive effect on the market, in the LONG RUN, which is what I care about when discussing BTC. In fact I think that to not view the longerterm picture is short sighted in the extreme and frankly a trader or investor that does not consider the longerterm outlook has some disadvantage over a trader that only looks at TA or what makes the short term market move. Just my two cents though.

EDIT - the reason that Unicorns arse was the best answer is because - all of what I have written above is obvious within moments of thinking about it, and I would assume everyone on this forum to have got that much by now- hence Unicorns arse- stupid answer for a stupid(old/done to death/premature) quesiton.