Unfortunately there are no plain vanilla options on cryptos at the moment.

Perhaps you can find a partner for this deal without an exchange.

Post more info here. E.g. how many bitcoins would you like to secure?
What is the premium you're willing to offer the contract writer?
You need to find someone with enough bitcoins to write a covered call option and the seller will probably be less bullish than you on the price of BTC/USD on Jan 2015.


I'm not sure but I think Mastercoin mentioned they could enable such contracts on their platform but I havent seen any concrete evidence for that.

interesting concept! I willl go over the source code on the weekend and review it.

@oda.krell - I'm never sure myself if I'm serious...


@Einewton - Some people seem to disregard this simple truth and jump straight to a discussion without framing their point of view, thus entering pointless arguments with others looking at the same instrument, BTCUSD on the same exchange and at the same time.

Piramida: any recommendation for a good robot?

How does the robot trade volatility? I can't wrap my head around the concept. Is it a transparent algorithm where you understand the logic or is it a black box where you have to trust the developer?

Does it have any parameters you can tweak?

Some say bitcoin is downtrending and I'm fine with that (even though I have bitcoins in my paper wallet)
Others say it is going up.

Some say the news from China are bad and cause a major downtrend and others say this is good news, once people understand how china is not the main influencer it will be stronger than ever.

I wish I could use options on BTCUSD, I don't mean binary options, that's not it.
Plain vanilla options like stock options are what I use to make nice profits in the short term. I only invest in Bitcoins for the long term (5 years)

If there were options on BTCUSD, it would open up a whole world of possibilities, you could profit when the market moves without the need to predict the direction, or profit from expected volatility changes... its a whole new world, but that's in the distant future I guess.

Back to the present: Up or Down, which way is it?

Just for fun, here are two charts from a few minutes ago, in one bitcoin is trending up and in the other it is trending down!
http://chartly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/btc-dn.png

http://chartly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/btc-up.png

PenAndPaper: You are not wrong in what you said, Technical analysis is tricky and doesn't always work. I really believe in the double top + MACD-Histogram divergence. I use it to trade options on stocks with high success rates. It is not the double top alone, but a specific set up with more constraints. The MACD-Histogram divergence is very significant and makes this double top a rare thing and that's why I posted it. I don't like to post a lot even though I'm not so new here as you might think from the number of posts I have.
Please note that I posted this chart before the news and before a "proper" double top has formed. A "proper" double top is only confirmed when the right side of the down trend happened and this is shown on the second image I posted here.
Regarding the cause of the downtrend, I believe the news from China is just an excuse or a small trigger. I believe mass behavior is better predicted than individual people's behavior and you can see changes in the general mood in the charts. People were euphoric when I posted the chart and most threads here discussed the exact timing of bitcoin reaching $2000.
Technical analysis is not an exact science, you can not make controlled experiments and you certainly can not repeat them. These are inherent limitations in the social world we live in and trading is a social activity.

oda.krell: I appreciate your support, thank you. On a personal note, even when I see the chart turning bearish I sold only a small part of my account since I still have fiat coming in every month from my business and in the long run I'm extremely bullish about bitcoin. I buy bitcoin on a regular schedule every month and maybe I will increase next month's wire transfer.

I try to stay focused on the large picture and not be caught up in the minute by minute or even hour by hour fluctuations. That is why I look at long term charts. They are the easiest to apply technical analysis to.

MikeyVeez: I took a screenshot of bitcoinwisdom.com and manipulated it to remove all the noise and emphasize what I wanted with some drawings.

Keep up the nice discussion my friends,
Ami

jamesc760: Ha ha, they say - "Don't feed the trolls"...

oda.krell - I did sell, but a small portion of my holdings, the majority is in a paper wallet and I plan to keep it in paper for a few years. I will buy back soon. I add fiat on a monthly basis and I won't rush my schedule because of this crash. It might not go up too fast.

Usually I spot these events in high volume / high quality stocks but on weekly candlesticks. The pace of events in BTC is faster, that's why I look at daily candles. I know many look at 1 minute candles but that's too myopic for my taste.

So, I waited enough...

It's nice that sometimes technical analysis works 
I wrote an update, click the image to read it.

http://chartly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/btcusd-dbltop-success.png

Just went down to $900, will any more weak hands shake out their bitcoin even further down to $800? 

So, another day passed, it came close to $1242 which is the all time high from 7 days ago.
Today it was at $1240.

Down or up?

Volume is very low, this could mean that it will go up soon. very soon.
The original thesis here is that it will go down to maybe $800 for a short time at a high volume before going further up, much further up.

oda.krell: Nice observation!

I did had that prediction and it failed.
Lucky for me, I didn't sell at all at the time. I only delayed my next buy.

There is a pretty large gap between these technical predictions of a down movement possibility and the actual account movement.
My main lookout is bullish and I will be very happy if the price goes up to $2000 and only then does the correction dance.

I guess we'll see one way or the other in a few days.

CoinCidental: I know there is a lot of buying pressure. I only wanted to post this at a public place because I've seen this pattern in many different tradable instruments, from S&P futures on 1 minute candlesticks to Single stocks on weekly candlesticks!

adamstgBit: It might not behave "right" as it is in an early growth phase, I agree with you. But technical analysis can work in this situation too. We'll see how this evolves pretty soon.

If the $1200 level is broken at a heavy volume, consider this analysis as failed. I only used a small part of my holdings for this.

Bitcoin has gone up fast in November 2013 and now in early December it might give you an opportunity to buy at lower prices again.

The daily candlestick chart of bitcoin vs. the USD on Mt.Gox looked very familiar to me and convinced me to sell some bitcoins, if and when the value drops a bit, I will buy back more bitcoins.

http://chartly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Screenshot-from-2013-12-04-155041.png

The high of $1242 from 6 days ago is tested again today. If you look at the MACD-Histogram, you will see that it is not matching the pattern of the price movement, it is steadily declining.
Don’t take me wrong, I sold only a small part of my bitcoin holdings as an amusement ride. Most of my position is a long bitcoin one.This is a classical divergence and could be a sign that the bitcoin price is about to drop sharply to $800 or maybe even lower, this is the level of the lowest price 4 days ago.

I will be amused if the drop in price will trigger a media frenzy where they will call it an unstable asset, not suitable as a currency and too risky to use in any way. This may actually help the down movement I anticipate here.
rough a rapid up trend similar to November 2013 to the next level.Later on, the media will neglect bitcoin and it will stabilize around a new level, at the neighborhood of $1000 for a year or less, then it will go through a more quiet phase.

What do you think will happen to the price in the coming days and weeks?

http://chartly.com/bitcoin-ready-for-a-correction/

Give it a few days, newcomers need to wire transfer their FIAT to buy some BTC and they also need to digest the news that they didn't even hear or read about in the paper based news paper

Remember what happened in April when it crossed a nice round number? $100 it was a press party all the was up to $265 and then it fell sharply to $70.

After that it took many weeks to gradually reach where we are today.
Patience!

near term, I believe if when 1 BTC = $1600 I will sell a small amount and wait some more.
I'm talking about days since now that it passed a round number it will be major news on TV and news papers around the world.

So it might reach $2500 soon, like it did in April when it crossed $100 and went all the way to $265.

I plan on rebuying when it drops below $1000 and it might after the excitement subsides in a few weeks or months.

What's your oppinion?

Nice!
I'm so glad I convinced my brother to buy some bitcoins in the past few days.
Still trying to explain others in my family and friends circles that this is a rare opportunity.

Soon people will talk more and more about mBTC, it's like a stock split but a major one, 1000:1
If it reaches $1500 soon, I will start selling some in the hopes of buying back when it crashes back down to below $1000.

Interesting times ahead!

Hi Balthazar,

I sent you a private message.
Also, the server stopped responding a few hours ago.

Thank you Balthazar for the updates with the json formatted files.
Keep up the good work.
I don't mind the front end being so simple, as long as you're working on the payment algorithm and fair sharing of pool mining.

antyGMO - Thank you for your point of view, it keeps the cryptocurrency ecosystem growth in check. You remind us all that even if most of us get it, it will take several more years for the value to be obvious to a significant part of the population of this planet. I'm sure you understand that behind those letters you see on screen are real people and most of them react as real people do to these forum messages in a similar way to how they react to face to face meetings.

Just pretend you're saying what you want to Balthazar in person and rephrase your message.



In one post you say you don't care about the money you lost and in another you say all you want is the money you lost back. Just make up your mind already! You hate people who lie? I hate people who are inconsistent.

Your communication skills match your financial management skills.

Ami Heines
Israel - just in case you want to share your view of this part of the world with the forum, and remember there are many different people in each single country.

Balthazar,

Don't use your reserve to pay us if it will make running the pool too risky for you. I vote for increasing the % even to 5%. I increased the donation to 100% when I found out about the issue and want this pool to succeed.

I'm sure many will stay with your pool as you are honest and transparent with problems and this builds trust.

Take your time with this issue, don't rush to make a decision. Remember there are some people who will complain and others will be silent. Personally, I really like the idea that we are all pioneers and I want to have a computer that supports the cryptocurrency network.

Thanks!
Ami Heines