Crypto Trading

Arbitrage on Purse:

There are many arb ops on Purse. One thing I have been doing is creating "want list" baskets of Nordstrom gift cards on Amazon (with Prime). I then import the baskets to Purse and have someone buy the gift cards for me at about a 32% discount. Purse acts as escrow and is completely legal according to my research. When the gift cards arrive, the BTC is released to the other party. The key to not losing money is not trading on Purse when BTC is volatile and when there is demand on Purse (around holidays and graduations are a good time). Most of my orders were filled in a few days. It may be possible to completely hedge using derivatives at Bitmex or similar. I never did, though.

When doing this, you will want to be VIP over at Purse. Also, seriously consider avoiding all gift cards but Nordstrom. Amazon gift cards, for instance, are easily reversed. Nordstrom, apparently, never reverses the values. There are probably other gift card candidates, but I never found them. Also, buying the BTC to be used with a credit card over at Circle should be a consideration. I enjoyed a nice cash back bonus this way.

Why am I giving away a free lunch? I don't want to be audited or to draw heat. I am not evading. In fact, I plan to report everything that has been done. It is just not worth it for me to continue. I will continue using Purse for personal consumption and alternate low-key arbitrage.

All the best fellow coiners. I will be taking some time off from this site for awhile.
 
So Digix returned around 4x on investment for me on about a third of my position (over 30 days), holding the rest.

Daohub is the next one, closing (at lowest price) in the next few hours, already raised 86m+ (aka slock.it). A close second to the highest amount raised in crowdfund (100m) to some space game that funded over several years and hasn't released yet. Seems like an investment with a huge margin of safety to me. You're not actually buying anything, you're putting money into a fund thats always going to be worth what you put into it (in ETH) plus some kind of multiple on future profits and potential... no brainer.

I've put around 80% of my crypto dinero into it. The next step in my head. Won't return as much as Digix, but a clear buy.
 
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put in 1.5 BTC at the original 1.5x rate realizing that it is very possible it is all lost but with a small chance of winning BIG. DAO futures are trading on Bitmex now. haven't yet looked at the details. GLTA
 
Fantastic link, thanks. Eth has spiked aggressively recently, maybe the link helps to explain this. I thought the initial rise in ETH was a combination of Fiat coming in to buy the dao and the reduction in supply as an increasing % was locked away in the dao contract.

I thought that these pressures would be heavily reduced once the dao price started to shift. However it seems that the success of the dao may have triggered an uptrend itself. It occurred at a good technical level too, a breakout of an inverse head and shoulders on the eth daily chart, that was an approximate measured move of the last head and shoulders topping pattern.

Any shorts with the idea that the buying pressure was merely due to Fiat coming in to the dao and that it would subside due the dao price increasing would have been destroyed in the short term. Cutting their positions and adding to the buying pressure. Eth almost hit all time highs in dollars yesterday around $15. Must have been around a 50%+ gain in the last week. Technically there should be some profit taking at and around that level, it seems the push has lost a little momentum. I think we may range for a while, if there's a push above highs after an extended ranging period the price could completely explode (also given the info in the link you posted) . I've gotten half of my remaining eth position out and will keep an eye on it trying to job any pullbacks here and there. If it comes back down I should have made a reasonable return on the range, if it explodes up I'll have a full position on after a break.

Still holding my digix position, down 50% from highs, volume has dried up after the gatecoin hack. I've already exited more than my initial investment so I'm holding until some more substantial price discovery starts to take place.

Also shifted a small allocation to the waves ico, waiting on lisk to finally be released for trading next week.

Plutus seems to be pretty close to an ico and arcade city (decentralised Uber) is considering a dao funding proposal. Exciting times ahead!
 
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Below is the rebuttal. I tend to believe the rebuttal that BTC will not go down in a death spiral (and I continue to hold BTC). Perhaps, I should look into mining again. It didn't seem feasible in the past. Maybe I am missing something.....





Honestly I hope people believe this bullshit so I can keep buying BTC cheaper. The people parroting this shit are not involved in commercial Bitcoin mining.

But I will explain, for maybe the 20th time, the reasons this is absolutely not going to happen.

1) Widely available current and previous generation Bitcoin mining equipment is extremely profitable over the cost of electricity (in most regions) and will continue to be so after the halving. For example, a previous generation Antminer S7 earns more than double what it costs in electricity today for most US locations. However, commercial mining in the US happens in places (like the state of Washington) where the cost of electricity is 1/5 to 1/10 the cost of average power consumption. This means that for these operations to shut down (as opposed to increasing deployments) Bitcoin will need to fall well under $200 per coin.

2) A large number of commercial miners (especially in China) actually get electricity for free. They will continue mining no matter what happens to the exchange rate.

3) A large number of commercial miners pre-purchase electricity for 6 and 12 month terms and will continue mining regardless of exchange rate because they are effectively locked in already.

4) Bitcoin mining is so profitable that recent deployments (ie within the last six months) resulted in a recent tripling of network difficulty with full knowledge of the coming halvening.

5) The only transactions that "get stuck" when blocks are full those paying inadequate fees. Users with wallets that predict correct fees have not had these issues. Its true that when there are a limited number of seats on the bus, some people won't get one no matter what they pay, however long chain analysis has indicated that Bitcoin likely has a lot of capacity at small average fees rates. In other words, blocks are very far from full at average transaction costs above $0.10

6) A large number of users that had issues during the most recent "fee event" were using blockchain.info's wallet which was not correctly predicting necessary fees. Blockchain has since upgraded their software.

7) Even if the exchange rate did tank, difficulty will readjust as it always has within two weeks. A new equilibrium would be found.

8) And finally, if you still don't believe that there will not be a death spiral, here's the final kicker. When blocks fill up, transaction fees rise, ENCOURAGING MORE MINING.

I like Ethereum. I've been saying since late February that its in a bubble that will take 3-6 months to deflate. If the only reason you are currently holding ETH is to bet against Bitcoin then good luck because generally betting against Bitcoin has not worked well for people.

Edit: Keep downvoting. I'm not wrong. Sell your Bitcoin right before its inflation drops. I will keep buying them.
 
Good counterpoint. There are so many fundamental reasons for and against crypto investments.

From my standpoint as a technical trader, there seem to be a few trending opportunities brewing based on fundamental triggers.

I personally have no bias as to what happens, but being aware of the triggers will be invaluable information when we start breaking out. Thanks for shifting me to look at a few more angles.
 
m1nt said:
Below is the rebuttal. I tend to believe the rebuttal that BTC will not go down in a death spiral (and I continue to hold BTC). Perhaps, I should look into mining again. It didn't seem feasible in the past. Maybe I am missing something.....





Honestly I hope people believe this bullshit so I can keep buying BTC cheaper. The people parroting this shit are not involved in commercial Bitcoin mining.

But I will explain, for maybe the 20th time, the reasons this is absolutely not going to happen.

1) Widely available current and previous generation Bitcoin mining equipment is extremely profitable over the cost of electricity (in most regions) and will continue to be so after the halving. For example, a previous generation Antminer S7 earns more than double what it costs in electricity today for most US locations. However, commercial mining in the US happens in places (like the state of Washington) where the cost of electricity is 1/5 to 1/10 the cost of average power consumption. This means that for these operations to shut down (as opposed to increasing deployments) Bitcoin will need to fall well under $200 per coin.

2) A large number of commercial miners (especially in China) actually get electricity for free. They will continue mining no matter what happens to the exchange rate.

3) A large number of commercial miners pre-purchase electricity for 6 and 12 month terms and will continue mining regardless of exchange rate because they are effectively locked in already.

4) Bitcoin mining is so profitable that recent deployments (ie within the last six months) resulted in a recent tripling of network difficulty with full knowledge of the coming halvening.

5) The only transactions that "get stuck" when blocks are full those paying inadequate fees. Users with wallets that predict correct fees have not had these issues. Its true that when there are a limited number of seats on the bus, some people won't get one no matter what they pay, however long chain analysis has indicated that Bitcoin likely has a lot of capacity at small average fees rates. In other words, blocks are very far from full at average transaction costs above $0.10

6) A large number of users that had issues during the most recent "fee event" were using blockchain.info's wallet which was not correctly predicting necessary fees. Blockchain has since upgraded their software.

7) Even if the exchange rate did tank, difficulty will readjust as it always has within two weeks. A new equilibrium would be found.

8) And finally, if you still don't believe that there will not be a death spiral, here's the final kicker. When blocks fill up, transaction fees rise, ENCOURAGING MORE MINING.

I like Ethereum. I've been saying since late February that its in a bubble that will take 3-6 months to deflate. If the only reason you are currently holding ETH is to bet against Bitcoin then good luck because generally betting against Bitcoin has not worked well for people.

Edit: Keep downvoting. I'm not wrong. Sell your Bitcoin right before its inflation drops. I will keep buying them.
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I'm still rooting for Bitcoin but I voted with my wallet ( taking money out ) due to my displeasure with core, blockstream. I would like to see all the wallets upgraded so the fee issue isn't an issue anymore. A lot of people's reasoning for going into ETH is that there is no core issues right now and it can go up 2x + from here a lot easier than bitcoin can.


One other catalyst I am looking for, is when the SEC starts peaking around The DAO, what will their reaction be and how will price of ETH, The Dao react. Will be very interesting. Perhaps that would be a good ETH short if/when that news comes out.
 
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m1nt said:
Bitcoin mining equipment is extremely profitable over the cost of electricity (in most regions) and will continue to be so after the halving.
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I don't think it is extremely profitable, and you cut the sales suddenly in half and it is going to remain so??? Wow....

Here is how business works: If something is EXTREMELY profitable, others move in and your profitability goes down. So even if electricity is free in China, you need a place to rent/buy and a shitload of computers. Now if people think you make millions they keep moving in until the share of bitcoin goes down to so low that the profitability is not worth it anymore for new miners to move in. If the price of BTC goes down, that also has the same effect. It is safe to assume that miners already reached that equilibrium and the cost of entering the mining business is already prohibitive.

Now if you are already mining, it makes sense to add more computer for larger share, but to start out new, I don't think so. And if miners keep upgrading that also cuts down on profits, so no, it is not extremely profitable...
 
Zr1Trader said:
One other catalyst I am looking for, is when the SEC starts peaking around The DAO, what will their reaction be and how will price of ETH, The Dao react. Will be very interesting. Perhaps that would be a good ETH short if/when that news comes out.
More...

If memory serves correct, there was a harsh statement issued by the SEC but nothing ever happened with regulation or enforcement to stop Neo & Bee. Unlike Neo & Bee, there isn't anyone to go after this time other than maybe the DAO contractors or quasi regulated exchanges like Coinbase. One might think an SEC or FBI inquiry would cause a short term drop, but I don't see how the DAO could be stopped or policed by the gov for better or worse.

http://ethereumwisdom.com/#!/exchanges/poloniex/USD
 
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