I decided to average down my position because XBTUSD is moving up from the newly formed higher low and this is the confirm that a new uptrend has begun. I was expecting a low in the $290-$300 price zone but bitcoin did the bottom at around $360 after the Mike Hearn news of mid January. This is very bullish IMO, a strong higher low despite a bad news and concerns about the blocksize debate.
I attach here a template i use for a weekly chart, the platform is Metatrader 4. As you can see I’ve drawn a long term price channel starting from an interpolation of current uptrend (green line) and deviation lines based on the average true range, another way to measure volatility. Extrapolating current weekly upswing i think the maximum target should be around $600 by the end of march. In the lower pane of the chart there is an interesting oscillator, OSMA, now moving to bullish territory.
If i’m wrong then this market will fail to establish a new higher high and will probably move down to the first negative line at around $290-$300, an important support area.
Bitcoin Trading Ideas, Analysis 
Do you have any thoughts / position on Ethereum?
May I humbly add that my crypto investments consist of Bitcoin, MaidSafeCoin and a little Ethereum. Currently Ethereum is the best performer, long term I’m expecting more of MaidSafeCoin though. Furthermore I think they are not competitors. They serve different markets, and together they could be the big three of the crypto future. My 2cents… Also I think spreading some risk is wise, as one would do with stocks (which is not the best investment currently lol).
Thanks again for sharing Enky. Has this current bullish sentiment changed your outlook for 2016 and your possible exit strategy?
Block halving is expected sometime around the middle of July (see http://bitcoinclock.com/). When the reward for miners drops by 50%, i wonder if the hash rate will also drop by 50% because of miners quitting. Do you think it has an effect on price? (I assume in point 1 you meant an *unexpected* drop in hashing speed. Block halving is expected).
Nick Szabo stated on a podcast that Ethereum is the most decentralized way to do smart contracts. Ethereum IS a better coin. Come on now… it’s been 7 years and were still ONLY at a 8/9 billion dollar market cap. miners running classic are getting DoS attacked. This also happened with XT. and true be told, I don’t like the direct bitcoin is going in. It only takes the users to shift there funds away from bitcoin and into a better coin. This analogy happened in the social networking space when users fled my space by the millions and into Facebook. I think ethereum should at the least be bought as an insurance policy.
I think there is genuine reason for concern with Bitcoin. The sole reason I got into bitcoin was due to it being decentralized. Check out who is backing blockstream https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/47zfzt/blockstream_is_now_controlled_by_the_bilderberg/
Ethereum is working on a new proof of stake btw.
Well said! Totally agree.
Just sharing my observation/prediction: Ethereum just reached his new ATH just above $10 but in the next 1-2 months it will correct and return to ‘normal’ levels below $5. In the same period it will be the times for Bitcoin to show its power, that it is the coin that rules them all. Ethereum might have taken a lot of attention (and money) away from Bitcoin last 2 months resulting in a mega bubble for Ethereum, but that’s over now.
I’ve seen it before, some altcoins racing before Bitcoin does. Like Enky said: “bitcoin traders who use altcoins like this to pump and dump back into btcs to increase their btc stake”.
Well Enky, when I use a classic Elliot Wave pattern and its guidelines on the Ethereum charts, I humbly think we might have seen the (1) to (5) impulse waves already. (1) was 0,002 XBT to 0,0075 XBT (Jan. 11 – Jan. 26), then (2) a flat correction till Feb. 6 followed by (3) jump to 0,0175 on Feb 12 and (4) sharp correction to 0,0085 on Feb. 18, which didn’t break jump (1). (5) would have been the final jump to 0,0238 on March 3 (yesterday). Also remember, Ethereum is only on the market for 8 months, its price went 35-40 fold since IPO. I don’t remember Bitcoin doing 40 fold in one year, or extending bull runs beyond 2 months… But yeah, crazy things happen. And Elliot Wave is just a theory, with history being history lol. With Ethereum currently hoovering in the low 0,02 and not looking like it’s ready yet to dump and break 0,02 downwards, you might be right…
I agree with Enky, we have a mature bitcoin market now which means that market is quite fluid and can move easily into other crypto currencies. Etherum is more than an orchestrated pump and dump to me, the market cap is nearing the billion mark at present. Only stupid people would put that kind of money into an alt-coin without it having a genuine use or potential for the future. Etherum has better cryptology, it can handle x4 more transaction than bitcoin and it can do smart contracts, and it’s small enough to make even more significant changes and avoid bitcoin’s mistakes. For all the people that have a genuine use for bitcoin and are finding that their transactions are getting stuck they can switch over to Etherum.
Poor bitcoin is suffering a little while Ethereum is marching on (a quick and dirty Elliott Wave calculation tells me it could go to $17-$18 zone before serious correction).
But what are the thoughts here for the Bitcoin price in the upcoming 1-2 months? I think it will hold kinda strong, because there is also buying pressure on Bitcoin caused by the new people entering the crypto market looking to grab some Ethereum. They have to follow the Bitcoin route…
We have to keep an eye out for changing Dynamics too. Poloinex has just made a serious name for itself now with all this Ether buying and has managed to be very profession with near 100% up time with heavy traffic. This will be to the dismay to all the VC money that went into Bitcoin exchanges. If the Ether shenanigans continues than major Bitcoin exchanges are going to let you buy Ether directly with cash and this is going to add to the shit storm. Kraken has already added Ether, how long before Bitstamp and other major exchanges do?
My bad you can’t buy Ether for cash on Kraken.
Pete, in fact you can. If I remember well they host at least USD, EUR and CAD.
Meanwhile Bitcoin dipped below $400 but seems to recover. I really wonder what the Bitcoin VC people will think when they turn their PCs on on Monday morning…
Another thing that scares me is that since the market cap of bitcoin hit 6 to 10 billion it is harder to manipulate by the whales and the whales are mostly Chinese miners. What if they have intentionally created this dead end situation in Bitcoin so that they can move to a new coin like Etherum. Now the exchange all their bitcoin into ether and with a small enough market cap they will start pumping the price and manipulating to their will.