$200 USD on Monday? GoWest and Hazek Jr Debate the Possibility

An excerpt from a Skype discussion...

GoWest: This morning's trading activity has been absolutely mesmerizing, if not unbelievable. In the nearly two years I've been following Bitcoin, I can't remember the last time I've seen such a bullish run this early on a Sunday. It seems quite likely that we could hit $200/BTC as early as Monday.

hazek jr: I agree, the Bitcoin exchange rate is going full retard at the moment, and what is happening today on a Sunday typically shouldn't be happening. So in my disbelief I cannot agree that we will reach $200 that fast. I'm as confident as ever we will get there eventually but we need to take a break first, wait for traders to take some profits perhaps with a temporary top just below $190 and then in a day or two we can make a $200 attempt.

GoWest: You have to keep in mind that last week's press coverage was unparalleled. I guarantee that, in response, some deep pockets lined up to get their money into Mt.Gox. At a rate of 1000 account verifications a day, which seems to be the case, anyone who got in line early last week will be able to get their funds into Mt.Gox when the banks open in Japan on Monday or on Tuesday (which is still Monday over here in North America). There's plenty of time for fiat to rush in and give us the boost we need to soar past the $200 or $2.2 billion mark. As I'm typing this, we've hit $163, with over 1000 BTC support above $159.

hazek jr: That's an excellent point, Mt.Gox does open their offices with quite a nice head-start before the rest of us which could yield just enough of a push. However if one examines a bit of trading history from the past 6 months, one could easily see the same potential momentum in buying getting accumulated which then simply needed to face a psychological barrier, for how ever short period of time, before being able to push through. That's why I stand by my prediction, $200 no sooner than Wednesday.

GoWest: Alright, so we're only arguing about 48 hours here. Here's some food for thought: you only have to get an account verified with Mt.Gox if you're going to deposit (or withdraw) more than $50,000 USD. Anyone else is simply waiting for an "ID check." What percentage of those 14,180 accounts are getting an ID check and how many are dealing with $50,000? What's 14,180 accounts (the current waiting list) x $50,000 USD? That's $709 million. That's right, $709 million dollars. Even if only 2% of the accounts are dealing with $50,000, that's still $14,000,000. I'm beginning to think that $200 may be a low-ball estimate for Monday. 

hazek jr: Ok, you're on!

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The Mt.Gox Verification Queue: 14,180 Users!

I just received a report from a friend that the Mt.Gox verification queue, as of eight minutes ago, is now 14,180 users long.

Fourteen thousand, one hundred and eighty users! That's a lot of money about to flow into Bitcoin.

Six days ago the queue was reported to be over 8300, with approximately 1000 accounts being verified daily; that works out to 12,000 new accounts in the last week.

Update:

Why is there a requirement to verify an account? From Mt.Gox:

"If you plan to invest more than 50,000 USD or equivalent on the long term in bitcoins, we need to know about you. In this case please use our verification system to get your account verified first. 

Please also be advised that all deposits are subject to an ID check by our AML team and this process would take up to 1 business day.  First-timer depositors are requested to upload their copy of the official ID to facilitate this process (you will not have to be fully verified at this point if your deposit is lower than 50,000 USD)."

So, how many of these 14,180 users are planning to invest over $50,000? How much money is that in total? The implications are staggering.

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Stage Set for Surge to $100/BTC

Back when I proposed Bitcoin might hit $100 USD in 2013, I definitely did not expect it could happen within six weeks. 

The media coverage and overall interest in Bitcoin has surged to remarkable levels. BBC, CBC, FOX, Bloomberg, Forbes, CNN, you name it, they've all run Bitcoin stories in the past two weeks.

Tradehill is back, ASICs are flashed up around the world.

There have been 243,000 downloads of the Bitcoin client in the last month.

On March 28th, 4824 users were on the Bitcointalk forums simultaneously, beating the June 19th, 2011 record by over 1000 users.

Bitcoin is now seen as a real alternative to fiat, thanks to the fiasco that is Cyprus.

There's $11 million in open bids on Mt.Gox, and only $2.5 million in asks. The wait list for account verification on Mt.Gox is over 4000 users.

Weekends are notoriously bearish for Bitcoin, but huge bid walls, amounting to over 10,000 BTC above $90 are now in place. 

Is this a bubble, or the next step in a global financial revolution? You be the judge, but if I were you I wouldn't get in the way of this freight train.

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Six Bullish Facts About Bitcoin

There are many Bitcoin enthusiasts who, through the fall from $32 to $2/BTC and the slow climb back up, kept the faith and fought off the critics and the pessimists. Now, their faith is bearing fruit.

Here are six reasons to be excited about Bitcoin at the moment:

• There are 289 users on r/bitcoin right now. It was only a couple of weeks ago that seeing more than a hundred users was rare.

• Coinbase, which recently reported over $1,000,000 in Bitcoin transactions in the last month, has stopped taking buy orders for today, as they've "reached the limit."

• The Bitcoin market cap has just hit $275,000,000, a new record, and there's no sign of it letting up.

• A major US-facing online gambling site is in the process of implementing Bitcoin.

• You can buy pizza with Bitcoins, as reported by the BBC. Yes, the BBC.

• Membership on the Silk Road forums is growing even faster than on the bitcointalk forums.

• Wordpress, the 22nd most visited site on the entire Internet, accepts Bitcoin.

Expect to see additional major announcements in the coming months, as Bitcoin finally goes mainstream.

Edit: oops, I guess that was seven.

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Bitcoin Hits $25/BTC, Shows no Resistance to Further Increases

It's been all of two weeks since Bitcoin cracked through the psychologically important $20 USD barrier, and now $25 has been breached.

At this time, the order book shows no resistance to the price moving rapidly higher. One can only surmise that this is a setup for an even larger upwards move, followed by an inevitable crash to lower support.

It would not surprise me to see a rapid move past the previous all-time high of $32, perhaps to as high as $40-$45, before a correction takes us back down to the mid twenties for a rest. One thing is for certain: the next week of trading will be exciting.

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Bitcoin Hits $20.50/BTC, Continues Climbing

Well, that didn't take very long. $120,000 of Bitcoins were rapidly purchased on the Mt.Gox USD exchange, breaking down the ask wall at $20 and pushing Bitcoin over the $20 mark for the first time since the July 2011 bubble. Resistance beyond $20 is minimal, which will likely lead to a spike into the high-twenties before trading settles down again.

(chart courtesy of bitcoin.clarkmoody.com)

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How's "The Best Investment of 2012" Doing?

Remember this post?

If you followed my advice at the time and bought your Bitcoins for $2.55 a piece, you are now up 378%!

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Bitcoin Poised for Rally

I don't normally like to make predictions, but... (click images to enlarge):

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Massively Bullish: Buttcoin.org for Sale

Edit: turns out I referenced a six-month old post. Oops.

You know the tide has turned when Bitcoin's detractors throw in the towel, which just happened in a big way. The site famous for its connection to the Cosby Coin incident, Buttcoin.org, is now for sale.

With headlines like "A really good fucking comment on why Bitcoins are destined to fail," "Someone grab me a fork, because bitcoins are done," and "Ars Technica readers expose Buttcoin as a shill for the Fed," Buttcoin.org was Bitcoin's most notorious critic. Obviously the site's owner does not see a bright future in the Bitcoin-bashing business and is hoping to pick up a couple of dollars (eww) before it becomes completely worthless.

This follows the December 12th closure of Something Awful's Bitcoin thread, which ended with this statement:

"Now is the time to retire this thread. Bitcoin has been mined for it's depths, all comedy nuggets extracted and now we have nothing left but shit-brown flakes to pan over. I would have liked to jettison this thread when we hit $1, but it looks like the miners will do everything to try and keep the money train rolling.

You can read a good write up on the Rise and Fall of Bitcoin, read the original GBS thread that started it all, check out the greatest moments on Buttcoin, and see peak comedy when Bill Cosby gave the forums a visit.

Good night, sweet prince."

No doubt there will be another round to fight with the trolls, but it definitely looks like they've run out of ammunition for the foreseeable future.

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Shades of May 2011 as Bitcoin Tops $6.00

In a round of extremely volatile trading, Bitcoin hit $6.00 today and is now up 200% from the November 17th low of $1.99, and up 27% in only the first four days of 2012.

24 hour volume on the Mt.Gox USD market is in excess of 151,000 BTC, representing a very busy day on the Japan-based exchange.

$6.00/BTC was last seen on September 21st, only a couple of weeks after Bitcoinica first opened its doors and gave Bitcoin traders the opportunity to short the market. Interestingly, if Bitcoin crosses through $8.00, it will be theoretically impossible for any legacy short positions to still be in-the-money, as shorting the market was not possible above those prices.

What's to blame for this bullish market? It could be anything from recent positive media coverage to new software and service announcements. Whatever the case may be, clearly, people want their Bitcoins in a way that hasn't been seen since last May.

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Bitcoin Building Substantial Support Above 4.00 USD

Over the last 24 hours of Bitcoin trading, support above the $4.00 mark on the Mt.Gox USD market has grown from being non-existent to over 8,000 BTC and is continuing to climb. Selling pressure is proportionally minuscule, although there is still a bounty of offers in the $4.15 to $4.30 range, totaling nearly 12,000 BTC.

Resistance on the way up to $5.00 remains substantial. The last foray into these prices lasted over a month, between September 8th and October 15th, on the way down to an eventual low of $1.94 on November 19th.

The spike to $4.50 on December 20th, followed by the dive down to $3.50 on December 22nd and subsequent rise back into the $4.00 range is very bullish, indicating that we are becoming less and less likely to re-visit the $3.xx range.

I suspect that the recent slew of "maybe there's something to this Bitcoin thing after all" press is likely partially responsible for this change in market sentiment.

Edit: Only two hours later, there is now 13,000 BTC support above $4.00.

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Bitcoin Posts Most Winning Month in its History

Between November 19th and December 19th of this year, Bitcoin has had 22 up days, 8 down days, and one flat day on the Mt.Gox USD market, better than in any previous month of trading.

Chart courtesy of BitcoinCharts.com

The second best month of trading was from April 5th to May 5th, when a record of 22-9 was posted, which eventually led to a 900% increase in Bitcoin's value by June 8th when the peak of $32 was hit. Interestingly, on May 5th, Bitcoin had a weighted trading price $3.41, exactly the same as on Dec 19th, to the penny!

Will this current winning streak lead to another record run? Unlikely, but trading is undoubtedly bullish and should be exciting to watch for anyone holding a long position.

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All the Cheap Bitcoins are Gone

Chart courtesy of BitcoinCharts.com

This has got to be one of the most lopsided Bitcoin depth charts I have ever seen. Relatively speaking, there are almost no Bitcoins for sale beyond $3.50!

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Bitcoin Christmas Rally in Full Effect

After spending a week in the $3.10 to $3.30 range, Bitcoin has made a strong 12% move to the upside on the Mt.Gox USD market, hitting $3.70 and threatening to take out the seven-week high of $3.82 previously hit on October 29th.

Chart courtesy of BitcoinCharts.com

The month-long bull market has been confirmed in a big way. Pay attention, stock markets, this is what a Christmas rally is supposed to look like.

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Most Bullish Move in Bitcoin Since the Bitcoin Conference on August 19th

Keeping a close eye on this one. Buying volume is huge. Haven't seen a move like this in two months.

UPDATE: Well, that was short-lived. Seems like these rally half-lives are getting shorter each time.

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