What is the Current Outlook for Bitcoin?

I’m a big fan of Bitcoin and over the years made many more buys than sells – in a nutshell, my default position, whether the market has gone up or down, has been to HODL.

However, that is starting to change – despite my view that I believe Bitcoin will go up in value hugely in the future. I am a long term Bitcoin bull and think that it will beat its all time high in the next few years.

In the short term, though, there’s no getting away from the fact that Bitcoin is going down. Despite a few rallies and spikes it has been dropping pretty consistently since the New Year, and now has half the value it did then (£5k vs £10k).

Bitcoin Price on Trading View 2018 (Image: BIUK)
2018 Bitcoin Price on Trading View (Image: BIUK)

I had got used to the price of Bitcoin going steadily down and hadn’t thought too much about it. I had bought most of mine at £1k – £3k so I wasn’t bothered. Then on 25th July everything changed for me.

Oddly what woke me from my stupor was an email from BullionByPost telling me that the Gold price was beginning to climb. Was it particularly low, I wondered? I idly looked into it and found that, incredibly, at £935/ounce (spot price) it was at the lowest it had been for 8 months, and very nearly the lowest it had been for 18 months.That woke me up. Here I was sitting on a stack of Bitcoin slowly decreasing in value while missing out on other investments. Being a keen proponent of hedging, this made no sense.

I Immediately looked into the Bitcoin price, which I had ignored for some time, and saw that it had been rising, erratically, for exactly a month to a peak of £6400 but since 6am that morning (25th) had been dropping sharply. It was now mid evening.

Bitcoin Price on Trading View from 27 June to 27 July (Image: BIUK)
Bitcoin Price on Trading View from 27 June to 27 July (Image: BIUK)

I took one Bitcoin out of cold storage (on a Ledger Nano) and transferred it to Pro.Coinbase. As soon as the transaction went through, at about 1130pm, I sold it. I got £6300.

By 0020 I had bought 7 one ounce gold coins for an average of £976 each. The total was £6343. That seemed like a very good hour’s work.

Just 36 hours later the value of Bitcoin had sunk to £6000. I decided it was time to start active trading again, if only to hedge against what seemed like inevitable losses if I kept staying out of the market.

I came up with a plan to offload Bitcoin at the best price I could get, ready to buy it back once it had gone lower.

More to come in the next blog post.

HODL On: In Defense of Bitcoin’s Best Strategy

In 1987’s Black Monday stock market crash, Sam Walton, the world’s richest man, lost more than half a billion dollars in a few hours.

When reached for comment, Walton said, “It’s paper anyway. As far as I’m concerned we’re focusing totally on the company doing well and taking care of our customers.”

He didn’t care about dollars; he cared about his asset Wal-Mart, and he still owned that.

History of the #HODL

In bitcoin’s volatile and roller coaster past, “HODL” was the meme that bound the cryptocurrency community together. It stood for the proposition that we all believe in the future of bitcoin. It’s both funny and insightful.

Bitcoin Cryptocurrency (Image: MaxPixel)
Bitcoin Cryptocurrency (Image: MaxPixel)

Here is the original post by GameKyuubi on a Bitcoin Talk forum (spelling errors and profanity included):

I AM HODLING

I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time. Still wrong. w/e. GF’s out at a lesbian bar, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I’LL TELL YOU WHY. It’s because I’m a bad trader and I KNOW I’M A BAD TRADER. Yeah you good traders can spot the highs and the lows pit pat piffy wing wong wang just like that and make a millino bucks sure no problem bro. Likewise the weak hands are like OH NO IT’S GOING DOWN I’M GONNA SELL he he he and then they’re like OH GOD MY ASSHOLE when the SMART traders who KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY’RE DOING buy back in but you know what? I’m not part of that group. When the traders buy back in I’m already part of the market capital so GUESS WHO YOU’RE CHEATING day traders NOT ME~! Those taunt threads saying “OHH YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD” YEAH NO SHIT. NO SHIT I SHOULD HAVE SOLD. I SHOULD HAVE SOLD MOMENTS BEFORE EVERY SELL AND BOUGHT MOMENTS BEFORE EVERY BUY BUT YOU KNOW WHAT NOT EVERYBODY IS AS COOL AS YOU. You only sell in a bear market if you are a good day trader or an illusioned noob. The people inbetween hold. In a zero-sum game such as this, traders can only take your money if you sell.

so i’ve had some whiskey

actually on the bottle it’s spelled whisky

w/e

sue me

(But only if it’s payable in BTC)

It was not about bitcoin versus bitcoin cash or 1,000 other cryptocurrencies. It was bitcoin vs. the world and we ALL embraced it.

It only took 11 minutes for this post to become a meme that became the rallying cry for the entire crypto world. We were all on the same rollercoaster ride and GameKyuubi, in the depths of his frustration, had (sort of) elegantly articulated both what it feels like and the best trading strategy for an asset this volatile.

Buy and HODL.

Read more: CoinDesk