4 years later. All 5-digit numbers mentioned in this thread have been hit, and still without that crazy monthly candle. I'm not about to post a new chart showing a 400% candle from here, but I will make mention of some of the low ball valuations posted here were long...LONG overshot... and in half the time. 
Keep on keeping on!

So, does anyone still play this?
Should we reset the scores for a new season?

So much pussy footing in here.
Yes, your wins are at someone else's expense. Easiest case, if you buy the lowest point of a bear market, someone sold those coins to you and is missing out on the profits from the subsequent rise (Losing). That means, whether they were in profit or not when they sold, they still missed out on further wins. Now, if you sell the absolute top before the bear comes back, obviously he who bought your coins loses.
All this talk about "if you wait long enough..." No! Not how this works at all. I don't care who you sold to, even at the top, even if they wait for profit on the next rise, PLENTY have lost to pay for your win. Trading is zero sum, period. Just the way it is. It do dat.

Lets do a little thought experiment.

Player A, player B and player C all buy in at $1 with $100 of capital. Price rises to $10 where player A sells to new player D for $1000. Price keeps rising to $15. Now the score is A=$1000, B=$1500, C=$1500 and D=$1500. Player A's missed profits of $500 went to player D and player D's initial investment of $1000 is where the profits for B and C come from. $1500 in profit total since $10 price.
Should player A buy back in at $15, he now has 50% less coins and 33% less value had he not sold early. So lets say players B and C each sold 30 and 20 coins respectively to player A and then the price tanks to $7.50. The new score is Player A=$375 or 50 coins, B=$525 or 70 coins (AND $450 cash), C=$600 or 80 coins (AND $300 cash) and D=$750 or 100 coins. losses for this round are A=-$625, B=-$525, C=-$600, D=-$750, and new total valuation is A=$375, B=$975, C=$900, D=$750.

Now think of the situation where Bitcoin is found to have a fatal flaw. The first few people get out with something, the rest are left holding a bag of useless 1's and 0's as the fiat evaporates from the market. <-This is also why "Market cap" is the absolute worst thing to derive the value of Bitcoin. There is no way everyone would ever get out for anything above $1.00. All the bid depths combined would only allow one or two large holders to exit fully.

Fuck off with your market Cap metric. It is an illusion and falsely represents some bullshit value that is meaningless. BTW it was never at $800B.



It wouldn't necessarily require $350B to move the price to the 2017 high, either.

The thing you are missing is WHAT makes them think it's time to buy or sell. If the price is rising and TA doesn't tell you anything, then why does it tell us? Why doesn't price just keep rising?...since apparently, by your belief, there is endless demand no matter the price. In actuality, we see weakening trends because indicators are directly tied to rate of change/strength/momentum...etc. We see that buyers are running out for the time being and we take profit. Likewise, we see sellers hitting a price level that they just aren't willing to continue selling at or below so we buy. Besides 5 up and 3 down, there are other factors. What makes it "Psuedoscience" is akin to medicine. It will never be a perfect science, and neither will a doctor say medicine is a perfect science, but like science, we make our hypothesis based on the information we have on hand.

@OP
There is already a masterluc analysis thread, so go there to worship.

So lemme get this straight. That 9 days in mid-November is the same degree 4 to the two year bear market that was 2?


In blue... 

My mother-in-law contacted me after seeing an ad about crypto in her Gmail inbox saying to buy any and all crypto for the sake of crypto. Now she wants to invest everything she has. I said a very stern "NO"! I will will not be part of a self defeating dumb idea like that. This is a woman who has known for 7 years that I have been involved in this, but only now decides to get in.

It's still a bubble, dude! Some of my holdings are up 8000x in 6 years and of that, 7500x in the last year.

I use Log scale most of the time. Only very short time frames would I ever use linear and at those resolutions, it doesn't even matter which you use.

Here! You would be paying me to take your coins if sha2 was broken

Very similar.
For about 6 years, I averaged 3-5 hours per night, and it would start at 2-4 am. The last year, has been to a more normal 6 hours or so per night since real world business has consumed my time like charting and trading used to.

edit, what does this have to do with speculation?

The protocol itself cannot be hacked. If a hacker infiltrates a single or even a group of bitcoin clients and changes the protocol on those computers, it would be seen by the network as a fork and not accepted by the rest of the network.
Wallets on the other hand, can be hacked, or at least brute forced "collisions" can happen. No need to get someone's passwords or physical wallet.dat. You can simply type in any acceptable combination of chars and gain access to any coins in the address (if any exist) that corresponds to that private key. Now, on that note, the likelihood of someone randomly guessing yours or anyone else's private key, is so astronomically low that it is virtually a non-issue. It would take a lot of time and computer resources to even find a private key that contains coins.

This is a good discussion on this.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@orionsbelt/how-many-bitcoin-addresses-are-there


edit, yes, if this became trivial to process, then Bitcoin ded. D. E. D. dead

OP is telling people to buy when the price is going down. How is that FUD??
It dipped almost 10% in absolute terms. I would call that a dip. Not that OP said anything about selling, but if you sold 10BTC near the top, you would have an extra Bitcoin at the bottom. I wouldn't bitch about an 18k profit, plus it's up almost $1000 right now. How is that FUD? You nutters throw that phrase around too much. Just stop already

Huh...
I thought the silk road was closed!?
do you not realize what thread you're in? I'm too lazy to look closer, but I think OP said the complete opposite of what you are saying they said.

Log scale (or better said, lack thereof) is only an issue when using trendlines during parabolic trends. Or just the visual appearance can be enough to scare you out of a long when you look at this



On short time frames, there is virtually no difference in the appearance. MA's, fibo, indicators are unaffected by log vs linear

50k is very possible in the very near future. Could come in the next couple of weeks

The difference here is it may not be done with the parabolic move. Think about how much slower the market moves now. The individual waves I mean, not the absolute price change. So this is just a longer corrective move within the larger parabola. I'd say don't beat yourself up over it, on breakout, buy back and ride it up to the next level. You are right in saying a move like this will end in bear market. It definitely will, but where the vertical rise ends is anyone's guess. I am expecting something closer to 60k before we get actual sustained bear market for a period of time. But that still isn't the end of the larger impulse, imo.

Now, if we hang out here long enough, then that 60k figure rises. This consolidation only strengthens the longer term trend

1 month, 2 months and 3 months from now

I'm pretty sure that $700 spike was due to futures opening and spiking up to 18k while stamp was at 15k. Then someone who apparently thinks Bitcoin might follow decided to buy it up in a single 5 minute candle. Manipulation aside, There is no reason the futures market should pull Bitcoin to it in either direction.

http://cfe.cboe.com/cfe-products/xbt-cboe-bitcoin-futures/contract-specifications

This is the one that opened today. It has extended hours, but those sessions aren't available to everyone. Normal hours are 8:30am-3:15PM Monday-Friday.
It might be marginally safer than I first expected but then again, I'm pretty sure I heard they allow 20x. If that is the case, it is definitely too high for a lot of traders to handle, hence why places like BFX only has 2.5x. Still a lot can happen during the times they are closed and I wouldn't put it past those that can, gaming it from both sides. It'll still be interesting to see how things go until it matures.

LOL, futures will get raped by pure Bitcoin markets. While they are closed for the night/weekend/giftmas... Bitcoin exchanges truck on, and when it moves 10 or 20% during that time, futures will open with gaps and those on the wrong side will be ruined with losses and possibly owing above their account values. This will be great

For the most part, they themselves have already forced most if not all of their US customer base out. No margin, no bank transfers for US traders, so it becomes pointless to use them now. I traded there since they were brand new and after the hack, everything changed, so I left.