anyone have any clue what some of the highest bids were?
Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
51–60 of 98 posts
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#52anyone have any clue what some of the highest bids were?
It's interesting that they didn't communicate the amount and I haven't found any sources that provide one. You would think there would be more transparency seeing that the money is going into the government's pocket.
Someone should submit a freedom of information request...
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised. What would be the reason to pay more than the market rate to get these coins?
If he had bought that many on the open market it would have driven the price up by a large amount. Just go look at the current order book on Bitstamp.net one of the major exchanges. There are only about 5k coins on offer and many of those are for prices well above market. https://www.bitstamp.net/market/order_book/
They don't seem to show their whole order book on that page. If you look at the cumulative depth chart at http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitstamp/USD, it currently shows over 12K BTC asks. Buying all that in one fell swoop would drive the price to over $4000 though.
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#54The Drapers are quite bullish on Bitcoin. Adam Draper's accelerator, Boost VC, is investing in 100 Bitcoin companies over the next 3 years: http://www.coindesk.com/boost-vc-accelerate-100-bitcoin-comp...
I'm confused as to why anyone would invest in Bitcoin companies as opposed to Bitcoins directly. The impression I got was that investing in companies provided added risks (co-founder separation, business failure, legal risks), without providing a significant advantage (risk mitigation, upside multiplication) over just buying Bitcoins directly.
Cashflow. The company can sell a service and have perpetual income. If bitcoin losses value, you are still generating income, as opposed to having your money invested directly in the currency.
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
No exact figures have been released, but based on other bidder's input, the assumptions are that his bid was well over the market price.
I'm surprised. What would be the reason to pay more than the market rate to get these coins?
There are several reasons including:
1. He doesn't want to put $2M in any exchange or spread out over multiple exchanges to buy a large amount.
2. There is no cleaner accounting than to buy 30k in one swoop and from the USMS.
3. For very little risk, he either gets it or he doesn't.
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#56how it is different to mine your own bitcoins rather than buying from market? Who decides and based upon what factors - how many coins you can mine?
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#57Wow, looking at the order book of bitstamp [1] through the eyes of someone who lives in the world of market microstructure is eye opening:) There are huge holes everywhere in the order book and the liquidity at each offering level seems to be completely without reason. I just spent 20 minutes applying the sort of algorithms that'd we'd normally run on each stock to make markets in it and it can't detect any real patt…
https://www.bitfinex.com/ allegedly (or at one point) claims to offer FIX connectivity. And they have swaps for BTC.
Why would FIX support help? FIX provides a means of expressing useful order types, but it doesn't imply that there's a backend that implements them.
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#58Wow, looking at the order book of bitstamp [1] through the eyes of someone who lives in the world of market microstructure is eye opening:) There are huge holes everywhere in the order book and the liquidity at each offering level seems to be completely without reason. I just spent 20 minutes applying the sort of algorithms that'd we'd normally run on each stock to make markets in it and it can't detect any real patt…
Is this just a case of everyone in the bitcoin market being "unsophisticated" in the quantitative sense? or is there some new form of market micro structure being created here?
Not everyone, but a lot of people heavily involved with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are rather unsophisticated.
Anyone reading this comment: Has someone started doing automated round trip trading between the various cryptocurrencies and conventional currencies?
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rob from Gliph here. Gliph is a Bitcoin company from Boost VC Class 2. Tim Draper led our angel round (with Pantera) and is a mentor to Gliph. Tim has been excited about Bitcoin and its potential for some time. Well in advance of other VCs, Tim was talking about its potential, particularly with regard to "competitive governance." Have a look at this youtube video from his presentation at Stanford in February of last…
The developers and miners are, in effect, the government of bitcoin. The developers act like the federal reserve, in that they can change the code to raise the max amount of bitcoin, increase the mining difficulty, etc. just as the Federal reserve would conduct open market operations or set interest rates to target inflation. So it's completely wrong to say that Bitcoin is "under no one's control". [0] The key differ…
They can change the code, but they can't force anyone to adopt the new version. Ultimately, it's the majority of the people running full nodes in the network who are in control, and if they reject a change made by the developers and refuse to upgrade, or even go with a fork, then that's where bitcoin goes.
Re: Venture Capitalist Tim Draper Wins Bitcoin Auction
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the market price?
Right around $650 right now. http://bitcoinity.org/markets
I prefer this site:
https://bitcoinaverage.com/#USD
It takes into account multiple exchanges, not just one.