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If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

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Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#141

Post by solotronics »

RandomTisk wrote: post #6

Where is the lightning network, so people can buy common, small dollar amounts of goods and services with BTC? IMO that's going to be the next catalyst, it's slowly fading out until it's at least technologically possible to go mainstream.

Its awesome, I have been using Bluewallet app to send and receive Bitcoin/Lightning between friends for about a year now. There was a "lightning torch relay" where hundreds of people added some lightning and sent it on as a proof of how the network performs. The money was then donated.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/lightning-torch-reaches-final...

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#142

Post by spookthesunset »

account73466 wrote: post #78
spookthesunset wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It remains a possibility that they are wash-trading. I'd say they all have every single incentive to wash-trade, front-run, and otherwise cheat the hell out of their system to their advantage. After all, they are completely unregulated and almost always operate well outside any jurisdiction who would care to go after them. I'd say you'd be silly to assume they aren't doing ultra-shady crap.

The trade-off is the following. If serious traders don't make any profit on a platform but make it on another one, they will leave. That is the primarily reason for an exchange to steal money at a reasonable rate instead of doing some super greedy stuff.

Their target isn’t “serious traders” like folks on Wall Street. Most bitcoin people think they are the “serious traders” but in fact they are the very rubes that get scammed by these exchanges.

With most things bitcoin you are either the one doing the scamming or the one being scammed. Often you can even play both roles! It is what keeps the ecosystem interesting!

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#143

Post by JumpCrisscross »

account73466 wrote: post #136
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you believe Binance's figures then these figures alone are sufficient to support Bitcoin's current market cap in the sense that it market cap / volume is about the same as for well-traded stocks from S&P500 You're defending a metric by citing the metric. The only utility for market cap with Bitcoin would appear to be to make arguments like this one. Comparing a nonsensical ratio to a similarly-sounding meaningfu…

>> To someone who isn't thinking through what the numbers and their resulting ratios mean, I suppose it sounds authoritative. Is it an insult, Arnav? Thousands of scientists use my research and they would probably disagree that I am "someone who isn't thinking through what the numbers and their resulting ratios mean".

Not an insult. An observation regarding the metric.

The product of Bitcoin's price and its current circulation is financially meaningless. It's meaningless for fundamental reasons. (It’s even more meaningless to compare it to an equity market cap.)

That doesn't mean it is useless. People talk about it because it's a marketable metric. But so is community-adjusted Ebitda or the theoretical value of a comet's mineral wealth derived from multiplying its mass by the latest commodity trade.

These are narrative tools. Not analytic ones. Both are okay, but they have different roles.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#144

Post by shepardrtc »

mathgenius wrote: post #127
shepardrtc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believe its anything other than market makers providing the illusion of trades. Have you seen the price swings? If there was real volume and real transactions asides from trades, how would such insane swings be possible?

Traders use stoploss orders when they enter a position. After a few days or weeks of this, there’s a huge pile of these stoploss orders, on both sides. A bit of movement is all it takes to trigger an avalanche.

That's true. I guess it kinda shows that Bitcoin isn't really being used out in the real world. If there was true utility, large sales would be eaten up quickly by entities needing to transfer money.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#145

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

axlee wrote: post #11
rwmj wrote: post #4

Many reasons to be dubious about bitcoin and its liquidity and how much wash trading goes on, but it seems a bit odd to judge it by the amount of outstanding coin being traded. How much gold that exists is actively traded? Or even the same question for a typical company stock?

That's one of the standard metrics to judge any currency. Bitcoin is not advertised as an asset but as a digital currency. But it has clearly become primarily an asset, given the minimal uses of it as a currency.

Bitcoin can't be a currency until it is legal to use as a form of tender.

These days, I see bitcoin like the ivory trade. Plenty of it out there, not much public movement, and it is illegal to do with it what everyone wants to do with it. So people are hoarding it while appearing to distance themselves from it for tax/legality purposes. I no longer look into this topic too regularly so this may be a naive thing to say, but there are far more naive people than me out there with money in bitcoin...

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#146

Post by wruza »

shepardrtc wrote: post #39
account73466 wrote: post #31

Bitcoin has about $133 bil marketcap. NYSE symbols with the twice (2X) this marketcaps according to Yahoo Finance: UNH (UnitedHealth Group) mcap: $262 bil, trading volume: $1.2 bil KO (COCA-COLA) mcap: $231 bil, trading volume: $0.6 bil MRK (MERCK) mcap: $225 bil trading volume: $0.7 bil Therefore, for Bitcoin to be tradeable as similar stocks it has to show $0.25-0.5 bil for $133 bil mcap or $0.5-1.0 bil for $250 bi…

I have a hard time believe its anything other than market makers providing the illusion of trades. Have you seen the price swings? If there was real volume and real transactions asides from trades, how would such insane swings be possible?

I’ll save your time by telling a story from close buddies who do real sales (not exchange-exchange, but offline trading from hedged volumes). For few months there is basically zero volume in trades, one tiny deal a week and a bunch of no-payment competitor fakes. Nobody’s buying or selling right now, except for 0.01 “investors” who aren’t worth all the clicking.

Last year was pretty active; solid volumes were sold at -6% for cash, now it just floats around the market price.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#147

Post by rolltiide »

axlee wrote: post #11
rwmj wrote: post #4

Many reasons to be dubious about bitcoin and its liquidity and how much wash trading goes on, but it seems a bit odd to judge it by the amount of outstanding coin being traded. How much gold that exists is actively traded? Or even the same question for a typical company stock?

That's one of the standard metrics to judge any currency. Bitcoin is not advertised as an asset but as a digital currency. But it has clearly become primarily an asset, given the minimal uses of it as a currency.

That same standard exists for currencies too!

How much of M0 is of the total supply

How does everyone walk past good criticisms of bitcoin and bang their head against a wall of the dumbest criticisms ever? I mean specifically holding Bitcoin to a fictional higher standard that no asset satisfies just because they dont respect that particular asset

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#148

Post by dehrmann »

shepardrtc wrote: post #39
account73466 wrote: post #31

Bitcoin has about $133 bil marketcap. NYSE symbols with the twice (2X) this marketcaps according to Yahoo Finance: UNH (UnitedHealth Group) mcap: $262 bil, trading volume: $1.2 bil KO (COCA-COLA) mcap: $231 bil, trading volume: $0.6 bil MRK (MERCK) mcap: $225 bil trading volume: $0.7 bil Therefore, for Bitcoin to be tradeable as similar stocks it has to show $0.25-0.5 bil for $133 bil mcap or $0.5-1.0 bil for $250 bi…

I have a hard time believe its anything other than market makers providing the illusion of trades. Have you seen the price swings? If there was real volume and real transactions asides from trades, how would such insane swings be possible?

I'm not sure what it would be, but there's a lot of tricks big players used to use to manipulate markets that the SEC outlawed over the years. I'm sure clever people saw that cryptocurrencies are unregulated, dusted off that playbook, and are cashing in.

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#149

Post by dehrmann »

bduerst wrote: post #57
rwmj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never owned or traded bitcoin, but as I understand it the main attraction is that it's like the gold standard (of course for people who don't understand why the gold standard was a bad idea).

Bitcoin attracts three different niche markets: - Crypto enthusiasts who are infatuated with the technology or the math involved - Anti-Fed Libertarian types who want to use something that isn't controlled by a government - HFTs and speculators who either use it in part of their models or as a pump and dump vehicle Some people also use it to buy illegal stuff, but most of them have moved onto Monero as the primary pr…

> Crypto enthusiasts who are infatuated with the technology or the math involved

I agree that it attracts these people, but I can't figure out how they make the leap from "clever math" to "this has monetary value and I want in."

Re: If Bitcoin Looks Like It Isn’t Trading, It’s Because It Isn’t

#150

Post by thawaway1837 »

account73466 wrote: post #31

Bitcoin has about $133 bil marketcap. NYSE symbols with the twice (2X) this marketcaps according to Yahoo Finance: UNH (UnitedHealth Group) mcap: $262 bil, trading volume: $1.2 bil KO (COCA-COLA) mcap: $231 bil, trading volume: $0.6 bil MRK (MERCK) mcap: $225 bil trading volume: $0.7 bil Therefore, for Bitcoin to be tradeable as similar stocks it has to show $0.25-0.5 bil for $133 bil mcap or $0.5-1.0 bil for $250 bi…

Except those other market caps are companies, where you’re discussing changing ownership, whereas BTC is a currency, whose only point is to be traded.
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