Silk Road forums

Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: sofish89 on March 28, 2013, 10:26 pm

Title: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: sofish89 on March 28, 2013, 10:26 pm
Just a month ago I remember it was $24, a week or 2 ago it shot up to the 40s and today it almost hit $100 a bitcoin. the past couple hours its been dropping real fast and now its in the mid 70s.
Is this at all related to SR or is there a much bigger bitcoin world out there that deals with bitcoins?
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: ruby123 on March 28, 2013, 10:33 pm
Global markets are in turmoil..Go read the financial news for a few weeks.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: connoisseur on March 29, 2013, 09:42 am
It is a paradigm shift and BTC get a lot of worldwide publicity.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: CocaColaClassic on March 30, 2013, 03:05 pm
BTC has become a complete Ponzi scheme.  People are holding seeing the increases, causing less supply, and folks using the coin to buy (mostly SR) need to pay the market price so it is fueling demand.  Once the tide of “horders” begin to cash in…..it will be a blood bath.  There will be no speculators (non SR) coming in to support demand.  Only the SR buyers will be there.  That demand will be insignificant to the sellers supply.  I bet it is below $5 by May 1 2013. 

I have no skin in the game.  I only buy the coins and turn them in a purchase within hrs.  So it does not matter if it is $100 or 10 cents.  Simple math.  I just do not want to see great sellers get stuck holding the bag and give up on selling on SR.  I know most sellers are “hedged”, but once they receive coin, it takes time to convert.  They will get caught up in the Ponzi from non SR speculators.

Just my 2 cents….we’ll see.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: sofish89 on March 30, 2013, 03:20 pm
Hmm sounds very interesting, I remember seeing a Forbes article awhile back saying why bitcoins are a good investment, and I'm pretty sure SR does not make up a majority of the bitcoin trade but ya never know since I doubt SR would publish any financial statements or reports of how much is spent here..
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: theupsman1 on March 30, 2013, 05:01 pm
BTC has become a complete Ponzi scheme.  People are holding seeing the increases, causing less supply, and folks using the coin to buy (mostly SR) need to pay the market price so it is fueling demand.  Once the tide of “horders” begin to cash in…..it will be a blood bath.  There will be no speculators (non SR) coming in to support demand.  Only the SR buyers will be there.  That demand will be insignificant to the sellers supply.  I bet it is below $5 by May 1 2013. 

I have no skin in the game.  I only buy the coins and turn them in a purchase within hrs.  So it does not matter if it is $100 or 10 cents.  Simple math.  I just do not want to see great sellers get stuck holding the bag and give up on selling on SR.  I know most sellers are “hedged”, but once they receive coin, it takes time to convert.  They will get caught up in the Ponzi from non SR speculators.

Just my 2 cents….we’ll see.

I agree with you its become a kind of ponzi scheme. In my opinion increase in price is due to the following factors:
- increased popularity of btc and SR
- speculators playing the market hard
- people are hoarding coins and sitting on them. Simply asking for higher prices and refusing to sell for less.

Greed has sunk in like it does in any society, people with lots of coins are using there power to control the economy, just like the banks do. Only difference here is its a lot more volatile. A crash will eventually come. I think it has become hyper inflated.  I dont blame the speculators there making money because they can which is fair enough, its a bit annoying trying to buy stuff tho because by the time you get your coins together and get them into SR you've paid commission several times and then get hit by a volatile rate and potentially lose money although at the moment its more likely you will make money between purchasing.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: Ben on March 31, 2013, 01:51 am
There are a few factors at play at the moment. The reason for the high price is basically a shortage of mining equipment. You can mine bitcoin on US grid power for a price lower than their current market price. Getting the mining rig is another matter though, the most efficient ASIC units are in very short supply, and solutions using video cards also require quite some investment but are far less efficient.

As for the role of SR in the price of BTC: that really depends on how often BTC are traded on average. Within each month about 1% or the total BTC actually flowed through SR (this figure was before the value hit double digits constantly), but i have no idea what the other 99% was doing. It could be stockpiled, used for trade in other markets and what not.

If you only use BTC for brief trades the value doesn't matter much, but volatility can be problematic. We've seen 10% moves within the hour recently. This is nice if that movement is upwards, but it can be negative when you, for example, buy 12 BTC to pay for a $1000 order, and find the spot rate at $80 when you want to complete that order.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: bravesoul on March 31, 2013, 07:43 pm
Bitcoin also is very well known as an investment within european countries, like spain(has been something on spanish news) and cyprus(big russian investors trying to get their money out of there;)). Since the euro is constantly having problems, being a safe currency, people the last few weeks, tend to buy them in order to save their money from getting ceased by the banks...that caused the increase by a simple system...demand versus offer. Since mining equipment won't be released too fast, it should at least stay stable. But the statement with may might be true, since if they again get easier to mine, the repertoire of bitcoins available will rise against the demand....otherwise we will see something really incredible ;) Cheers! ;)
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: fingertothefbi on March 31, 2013, 08:04 pm
I think there's going to be a pullback again soon but not a terrible one I think after the next bull run to 100-110 there might be a pull back to like 70 and then steady growth back up, bit-coin remind me of what the gold market did, makes gains really fast cause a little panic then there's a "crash" but the crash is just a new bottom for bitcoins meaning the general trend is up over the long term its safe, I made a probably 1-2grand over the last 6months never having all that much in my account I let 1000 chill in my account for a while and made good cash off that I just cashed out though(in drugs of course) get out while your up unless you have a lot of cash to invest for me bits are a side revue but drugs are the money maker for now.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: KintaroBC on April 02, 2013, 10:51 pm
It's packed with speculators, it has nothing do with financial markets, gold has been deregulated for like thirty years now. There are safer assets than Bitcoin. The problem is people think it is going to save the worlds savings, when it requires a bag holder. Someone is going to be left holding dollars in the race to adopt gold, Bitcoin, etc. We need political change.

If it was financial market turmoil Bitcoin would be $10,000.

Ultimately news is going to turn on Bitcoin and new speculators will stop coming, smart speculators will start selling, and everyone else will take huge losses.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: QuiteArbitrary on April 03, 2013, 04:36 am
I theorize that the rise in price is part media exposure (google trends has btc at an all time high) + part speculation that BTC will be widely used in money transfer (could be huge in the remittance market, western union recently said they were looking into BTC) + part massive bubble that gets bigger and no one sells because it has gone up so massively and so consistently no one can bring themselves to sell. I think the current price of BTC is justified if new industries begin to use it, but if major applications don't develop soon the price will crash.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: Ben on April 09, 2013, 12:41 am
The price level seems to be totally out of control - i've seen $180 figures today.

That is about 10 times the cost of electrical power required to mine one at the current difficulty level, so its just a matter of time before miners move in and start selling them off capping the price and eventually driving it down. It is, after all, a pig cycle economy as long as new bitcoins can be mined, and once someone invested in the mining equipment they can produce additional btc for $20 or (much) less.

Currently we are in the part of the cycle where mining equipment is being invested in an slowly deployed, leading to a short term shortage and high price. I do not expect the >$100 level to hold for over a year though. I expect the price to drop back to the $30-$50 level in the year ahead. After that most of the bitcoins will have been mined and the price can soar up again without any realistic upper limit.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: iceorphen on April 09, 2013, 03:27 am
The price level seems to be totally out of control - i've seen $180 figures today.

That is about 10 times the cost of electrical power required to mine one at the current difficulty level, so its just a matter of time before miners move in and start selling them off capping the price and eventually driving it down. It is, after all, a pig cycle economy as long as new bitcoins can be mined, and once someone invested in the mining equipment they can produce additional btc for $20 or (much) less.

Currently we are in the part of the cycle where mining equipment is being invested in an slowly deployed, leading to a short term shortage and high price. I do not expect the >$100 level to hold for over a year though. I expect the price to drop back to the $30-$50 level in the year ahead. After that most of the bitcoins will have been mined and the price can soar up again without any realistic upper limit.

The last block isn't expected to be mined until 2140, we'll all be long gone by then. I highly doubt that BTC will drop to sub 100 any time SOON, especially so with all the publicity its been getting. All of these cryptocoins are being brought to light thanks to BTC.

It does have me puzzled, as most of the recent spikes are being caused by general idiots who have no idea of the TOR network. So there interest in BTC is only the huge spikes its been seeing. LTC is gaining popularity because of this as well.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: surmer on April 10, 2013, 05:15 pm
It's packed with speculators, it has nothing do with financial markets, gold has been deregulated for like thirty years now. There are safer assets than Bitcoin. The problem is people think it is going to save the worlds savings, when it requires a bag holder. Someone is going to be left holding dollars in the race to adopt gold, Bitcoin, etc. We need political change.

If it was financial market turmoil Bitcoin would be $10,000.

Ultimately news is going to turn on Bitcoin and new speculators will stop coming, smart speculators will start selling, and everyone else will take huge losses.

Ah yes, the voice of reason returns to me. BTC is based on price holders. If everyone decides to cash out after 420 or something else, then there will be a "run on the market". The wise investor pinches off the top, leaving most of their assets--those superfluous funds that we call wealth... when we have enough money to take care of ourselves, well-balanced savings, and have EXTRA--to chance. If you put money in, then you should take that same money out, and whatever interest you think is fair. Leave the rest to play in the cycle of life. Thermodynamically, as we have seen with the 2008 Housing Crisis in America, stock will only continue to rise as long as humans survive. The DOW has returned to where it was and broken the record. As long as our cultures and civilizations continue to grow and develop, however slowly, then our resources will only increase in value...
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: Magic Man on April 10, 2013, 05:56 pm
Nearly shit my pants when I seen it at 194 :(
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: fuckyou777 on April 10, 2013, 06:27 pm
157 jesus
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: jpinkman on April 11, 2013, 10:50 am
BTC has become a complete Ponzi scheme.  People are holding seeing the increases, causing less supply, and folks using the coin to buy (mostly SR) need to pay the market price so it is fueling demand.  Once the tide of “horders” begin to cash in…..it will be a blood bath.  There will be no speculators (non SR) coming in to support demand.  Only the SR buyers will be there.  That demand will be insignificant to the sellers supply.  I bet it is below $5 by May 1 2013. 

I have no skin in the game.  I only buy the coins and turn them in a purchase within hrs.  So it does not matter if it is $100 or 10 cents.  Simple math.  I just do not want to see great sellers get stuck holding the bag and give up on selling on SR.  I know most sellers are “hedged”, but once they receive coin, it takes time to convert.  They will get caught up in the Ponzi from non SR speculators.

Just my 2 cents….we’ll see.


It's ignorant to call bitcoin a ponzi scheme. It's a virtual currency, not a scheme.

I know your post was almost 12 days ago, but in case it still stands I'll take your bet that btc won't be dropping below five bucks by May 31st. How much?

its a bit annoying trying to buy stuff tho because by the time you get your coins together and get them into SR you've paid commission several times and then get hit by a volatile rate and potentially lose money although at the moment its more likely you will make money between purchasing.

It cuts both ways. It's also nice when your coin throttles upwards in between the time you make your deposit to when you purchase. It peaked at $277 yesterday before a round of profit taking had it bottom out at $105 where it stabilizes and it's now back up to $189 last time I checked. Word on the street is that the plunge was somehow linked to a millionaire on reddit handing out $13,000 in coin for free.

There are a few factors at play at the moment. The reason for the high price is basically a shortage of mining equipment. You can mine bitcoin on US grid power for a price lower than their current market price. Getting the mining rig is another matter though, the most efficient ASIC units are in very short supply, and solutions using video cards also require quite some investment but are far less efficient.

As for the role of SR in the price of BTC: that really depends on how often BTC are traded on average. Within each month about 1% or the total BTC actually flowed through SR (this figure was before the value hit double digits constantly), but i have no idea what the other 99% was doing. It could be stockpiled, used for trade in other markets and what not.

Curious where you read this about only 1% of btc flowing through SR? I've read that 50% of BTC volume goes to gambling on Satoshi Dice but I have a hard time buying that. I read that SR is the second largest use of bitcoin outside currency trading but it's hard to see how both could be true.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: Seeds and Stuff on April 11, 2013, 11:10 am
Whats going on with mtgox, can't load the webpage, anybody else suffering the same problem?
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: jpinkman on April 11, 2013, 11:22 am
Whats going on with mtgox, can't load the webpage, anybody else suffering the same problem?

I don't have any problem logging into mt.gox.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: surmer on April 11, 2013, 01:32 pm
Whats going on with mtgox, can't load the webpage, anybody else suffering the same problem?

I don't have any problem logging into mt.gox.

Nor I.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: surmer on April 11, 2013, 01:34 pm
157 jesus

I fucking love that quote. "157-Jesus". It's like 187-Homocide. 157-Jesus. I love you guys.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: joolz on April 11, 2013, 04:18 pm
$120  ???
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: Ben on April 12, 2013, 12:56 am
The price level seems to be totally out of control - i've seen $180 figures today.

That is about 10 times the cost of electrical power required to mine one at the current difficulty level, so its just a matter of time before miners move in and start selling them off capping the price and eventually driving it down. It is, after all, a pig cycle economy as long as new bitcoins can be mined, and once someone invested in the mining equipment they can produce additional btc for $20 or (much) less.

Currently we are in the part of the cycle where mining equipment is being invested in an slowly deployed, leading to a short term shortage and high price. I do not expect the >$100 level to hold for over a year though. I expect the price to drop back to the $30-$50 level in the year ahead. After that most of the bitcoins will have been mined and the price can soar up again without any realistic upper limit.

The last block isn't expected to be mined until 2140, we'll all be long gone by then. I highly doubt that BTC will drop to sub 100 any time SOON, especially so with all the publicity its been getting. All of these cryptocoins are being brought to light thanks to BTC.

It does have me puzzled, as most of the recent spikes are being caused by general idiots who have no idea of the TOR network. So there interest in BTC is only the huge spikes its been seeing. LTC is gaining popularity because of this as well.

I suppose your doubts have been confirmed right now - prices soared well over $200 for a bit, but are back to the $70-ish level as i write this. MTGox may be hard to reach right now, but on a smaller exchange like bitstamp the latest trades are all under $80.

This is to be expected however, the electricity cost of mining a bitcoin right now is much lower than $70, so i expect more coins to be mined soon and the price to drop to not much over production cost somewhere during 2013.

If you want to gamble on a big rise of BTC, just do exactly that and buy 1 single bitcoin, put it in a safe wallet and never touch in again. It could be worth a thousand or a million on 20 years, or a loss of 80 bucks.

Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: Purple_Hue000 on April 13, 2013, 12:43 am
I think a wealthy person(s) just decided to purchase a shit load of bitcoins and thus creating such chaos in the market.
Title: Re: What is going on with the BTC prices?
Post by: surmer on April 13, 2013, 04:11 am
I think a wealthy person(s) just decided to purchase a shit load of bitcoins and thus creating such chaos in the market.

It's an unregulated market, so this will happen. It also means that wise investors will make money as long as BTC remains secure. Some of it is social hype, but the profits are real enough. This is a money market that is predictable--signal and the noise, baby....