The PNG images that I post still are being truncated, often and randomly.

The image files are small (less than 100 kB).

Perhaps some timeout is too low?

The sale date is fixed (April 01, 2014) and the price too (480 USD/BTC for the red line).  The horizontal axis is when the coins were bought. 

By selling at that price and date, one would have made a profit only if one bought before mid-November.

However, the plot considers only mean (L+H)/2 daily prices.  There were a few "golden windows of opportunity" when the price momentarily went lower than 480 USD/BTC. (For example, 400 on Feb/25, and ~435 on Mar/30--31).  People who bought at those prices and sold on Apr/01 at 480 USD would have achieved a fairly large ROI per year.

This plot may be of interest:

The red line shows how much one's investment would have been multiplied, on a yearly basis, if one had bought bitcoins at various dates in the past on Bitstamp and sold them on April 01, 2014.  

Thus, for example, if one bought bitcoins at almost any time between December 2011 and November 2013, and sold them on April 01 at 480 USD/BTC (the approximate price on that date), one's  investment would have grown by about a factor of 10 each year, ie., at 900% return over investment per year on the average.

(Unless one bought at the April 2013 peak, in which case the average return rate would have been "only" 200% per year)

On the other hand, if one bought bitcoins in December 2013 or later, and sold on April 01 at 480,  one's investment would have shrunk by a factor of 10 or more per year, that is, at least 90%  loss per year on the average.

(Unless one bought in the last half of December or within a short interval in February, in which case one would have almost recovered one's investment.)

The other two plots show what would have happened if the price on April 01 was 300 USD/BTC (lower line) or 600 USD/BTC (upper line).

Note that, in all three scenarios, the yearly appreciation rate would be almost the same for early investors (about 900% per year), and the lucky/unlucky break date would be nearly the same (second half of November).   If the Apr/01 price had been 600, someone who bought at the right time during the February crash would have made a profit, but otherwise the late (post-November) investors would still have lost ~80% per year.

EDIT: Fixed a 6-day error on the sale date, affecting mainly the final days of March/2014.

Not quite...

It is a fact that Huobi's volume is very low around 03:00 am local time. (OKCoin has a steady background traffic that does not disappear even at those times, may be fake volume.)

My impression (not yet verified quantitatively) is that the prices sampled daily at that time of the day are more likely to follow steady trends over successive days  than prices sampled at other hours, or even mean daily prices.   

It is my impression, also, that the price at that hour often deviates from the current trend whenever the trade volume is large at that hour, compared to the daily volume (i.e., when Huobi's clients stay up trading through the night).  However, the price sometimes returns to that trend on the next night, if Huobi's clients go to bed at the usual time.

These impressions are the basis of the "Chinese Slumber Method".  I look the price and volume around 03:00 am.  If the volume too high relative to the day's total volume, I ignore that data point (W near zero).  Then I try to fit a simple trend formula to the most recent good points (W near 1), either a straight line or a shifted exponential, and extrapolate it to predict the value at the next "slumber time".

At each day I must decide whether to continue with the previous trend or assume a trend break and start a new trend,  Bad "slumber points" are preferred trend break points.  Apart from this general principle, the choice of breaks is still subjective (but I hope to automate it, with dynamic programming, if Huobi does not collapse on April 15).

I do not believe that past prices by themselves are useful to predict future prices.  However, I believe that the price is influenced by certain "concrete" factors, such as the amount of money and coins in the exchange, or the general mood of the traders; and that these factors tend to change gradually over several days -- but suddenly at times, in response to news or new exchange policies.  The "Chinese Slumber" method tries to determine the price trends determined by those "concrete" factors.

I don't know why the "slumber prices" should follow the trend more faithfully than prices sampled at other times (if they indeed do).  One guess is that most traders return to their "base positions" (their preferred ratios of CNY:BTC in their accounts) before going to bed; and those moves somehow cause the price to drift back to the "ideal" price determined by the "concrete" factors.  Whereas, during the day they may deviate considerably from those positions, thus adding "noise" to the price.  But that is only a guess.
 

You are all aware that this weekend including Monday is a big national holiday in China, right? 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Sweeping_Day
Which means low volume, most banks are closed, no new news about the bank blockade rumor, etc.

Chinese Slumber Method prediction for Sunday April 06

Prediction valid for: Sunday 2014-04-06, 19:00--19:59 UTC (not before, not after)
Huobi's predicted price: 2874 CNY.
Bitstamp's predicted price: 466 USD.


Plot legend


This last data point was not too bad (S = 0.0038, W = 0.745), and almost aligned with the previous two points. Therefore it seemed appropriate to use again a straight trend line, defined by least squares on the last three Slumber points - namely, A + B*(d-d0) where d-d0 is the number of days since Apr/03, A = 2667.94, B = 68.82.

The Bitstamp prediction, as usual, is the Huobi prediction divided by the currency conversion factor R, which was assumed to be 6.17 CNY/USD (it was 6.20, 6.13, 5.96 at the last three Slumber Times).
 
Checking the previous prediction

Prediction was posted on: Saturday 2014-04-05, 02:41 UTC
Prediction was valid for: Saturday 2014-04-05, 19:00--19:59 UTC (~16 hours later)

This was an easy hit:

Huobi's predicted price: 2796 CNY.
Huobi's actual price (L+H)/2: 2808 CNY
Error: 12 CNY (~2 USD)

Bitstamp's predicted price: 461 USD.
Bitstamp's actual price (L+H)/2: 453 USD
Error: 8 USD
 
NOTE: See the previous note.

This Mircea Popescu (is it allowed to write his name?) seems to be a terribly powerful devil, a Sauron who, without moving from His dark fortress in Transylvania, can destroy a great solid bank by having a couple of sock puppets post abusive and cynical messages to a free-for-all forum.

Could a bitcoin business ever succeed against His will?  Perhaps we should let Him rule the world?


(I have learned that on the internet one should never omit the "" even when the sarcasm should be obvious.)

How can one say that without a single financial statement or audit?

Is the store owned, leased, or rented? 

What other tangible assets do they have, besides the store and servers?

Since BitFunder went down, there seems to have been no progress on recovering those "frozen" coins.  AFAIK no lawsuits were brought against Jon (the owner of BitFunder). Why would a buyer believe that those coins can be recovered some day?

I read this November post by Brewster https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=348468.msg3732068#msg3732068 as:  "Jon has two options, keep saying that he is working on it, or admitting that the coins are lost. I prefer the first."  Of course.

Can you give me one example of such turnaround by a company which never had any revenue and never published a financial statement, and whose entire staff quit after the CEO left the country without explanation and without paying their salaries?


You and Brewster are part of the "Bitcoin community".  I am not, fortunately; and I do have some experience with real companies that failed.

Please correct me, but I understand that filing for bankruptcy is a way to suspend all lawsuits that creditors and investors may move against the company and their management.  These lawsuits can easily cost more in legal fees than a bankruptcy filing.

Yes, that is what Mark Karpelès tried to do before finally filing for bankruptcy.  And many MtGOX clients kept hoping that some "angel whale" would buy the company and honor its debts.  But no sane person will buy a company in that situation.

According to an earlier post, it is customary on real stock exchanges to append a "Q" to the symbol, as a warning to traders, when the company is involved in bankruptcy proceedings.  Havelock apparently is imitating them.

However, N&B has not yet officially filed for bankruptcy, has it?   

As someone else pointed out already, Monday April 7 is a national holiday in China.  It is the last day of the "Tomb Sweeping Days", a three-day holiday:
http://www.qppstudio.net/bankholidays2014/china.htm
Besides "no bank news, good or bad", this may also mean "low volume" for tomorrow and Monday.

EDIT: Low volume in China usually means little arbitrage trade, and therefore low volume in the West, too.

Was it in person, with cash? Or by check, or bank transfer?

If cash, they must have got a paper receipt.  If by check or transfer, they can get the bank's records that show the deposit.

Either way, they can prove in court, if necessary, that they gave money to N&B.  Then it is N&B's burden to prove that they received bitcoins or something else in return.


Wait, you mean that N&B bitcoin investors have no way to prove in a court of law that they gave their BTC to N&B?

Presumably only the earliest investors (who entered in September 2013) are being allowed to liquidate.  ("On a limited basis", the site said.)

Those investors bought shares at ~13$, and are liquidating now at ~45$.  That is ~245% return over investment in 6 months, or ~1100% per year.

On the other hand, all investors who entered after November 15 would lose money if they could and choose to liquidate today.  Many of them would lose more than ~40%, or ~64% per year.

"Sentiment" may mean several things, including "wish", "hope", or "estimate".  It is not good to confuse them.

SecondMarket's Bitcoin Investment Trust (SMBIT) has enabled liquidation of its shares, "on a limited basis", it seems:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337486.msg3620842#msg3620842

Presumably only the earliest investors (who entered in September 2013) are being allowed to liquidate.  They bought shares (fixed at 0.1 BTC each) at ~13$, are liquidating now at ~45$.  That is ~245% return over investment in 6 months, or ~1100% per year.

On the other hand, all investors who entered after November 15 currently have lost money.  Many of them lost more than ~40%, or ~64% per year.

Do you mean coins that you just bought at the same exchange? They should be available instantly for trading.
Or do you mean coins that you brought into the exchange by BTC deposit? Those should require confirmations, I suppose.

About the China situation, no good or bad news should break out until Monday Apr/07 01:00 UTC at least.  So the market should behave "normally" over the weekend.

Most Chinese exchanges reported that their banks did not yet see reason to close their accounts.  This may give Chinese traders confidence that bank account transfers will continue to work indefinitely for CNY deposits and withdrawals, even after April 15.  This may result in the price rising  towards the pre-rumor levels (3000--3500 CNY, 500--580 USD).

It has been reported that two exchanges, BTC38 and FXBTC, did receive such account closure notices from their banks. However that information may be inaccurate, or those banks may have decided to close the accounts because of the Caixin article, not by  order of the PBoC.

On the other hand, the closing of CNY deposit channels using 3rd party payment processors (e.g. to recharge "top-up" cards issued by the exchanges) was confirmed.  At Huobi, it seems that these 3rd party channels will be closed as of today (saturday).  So the small rally now under way may be due to clients emptying their top-up cards into their Huobi accounts.

[FUD]
On the other hand, there has been no definitive denial yet of the bank part of the Caixin article.   It is still possible that the bank accounts will be closed for both deposits and withdrawals on or before April 15.  After all, the article was correct about the 3rd party channels.

IIRC, the article did not mention a deadline for blocking deposits.  So perhaps the banks are just taking their time (which means more profits for them), but will indeed block deposits by April 15.  They may, or may not, give advance warning, and may, or may not, block deposits a few days before blocking withdrawals.

By the way, if the bank accounts are to be closed, it means that the PBoC considered their use for bitcoin trading "bad".  Normally, a government agency (anywhere) that wants to stop some "bad" activity will not give advance notice of its actions.  Why would they want to warn the guy who intended to do that "bad" thing -- so that he can rush to do it before the deadline?

Perhaps the report was leaked to Caixin as a way to warn the exchange clients without officially warning them.   Closing the accounts without any warning, as the reasoning above would require, would have left thousands or people very angry, and would have created some bad press for them.

Perhaps the exchanges negotiated a grace period with the banks.  Besides allowing them to  survive for another week, it may give them and their friends enough time to unload their private BTC holdings at a favorable price, while new money may still get in.

In any case, I imagine that the closure of the 3rd party channels will continue to pull the prices down, even after Apr/15, and to push cheap coins off China and into the Western exchanges by arbitrage.
[/FUD]

Chinese Slumber Method prediction for Saturday April 05

Prediction valid for: Saturday 2014-04-05, 19:00--19:59 UTC (not before, not after)
Huobi's predicted price: 2796 CNY.
Bitstamp's predicted price: 461 USD.


Plot legend

We had two rather bad data points on Apr/01 (S = 0.009, W = 0.19) and Apr/02 (S = 0.0123, W = 0.05), and then two good ones on Apr/03 (S = 0.0025, W = 0.87) and Apr/04 (S = 0.0015, W = 0.96).  I therefore assumed a straight trend line defined by the last two Slumber points: A + B*(d-d0) where d-d0 is the number of days since Apr/03, A = 2670, B = 63.

The Bitstamp prediction, as usual, is the Huobi prediction divided by the currency conversion factor R, which was assumed to be 6.06 CNY/USD (it was 6.13, 5.96, 6.06 at the last three Slumber Times, skipping the bad Apr/01 and Apr/02 points).
 
Checking the previous prediction

Prediction was posted on: Wednesday 2014-04-02, 01:15 UTC
Prediction was valid for: Wednesday 2014-04-02, 19:00--19:59 UTC (~18 hours later)

On that day the price was moving according to the trend, but then there was a steep crash starting at 12:00 UTC, so the prediction was awfully wrong:

Huobi's predicted price: 2963 CNY.
Huobi's actual price (L+H)/2: 2648 CNY
Error: 315 CNY (~52 USD)

Bitstamp's predicted price: 490 USD.
Bitstamp's actual price (L+H)/2: 442 USD
Error: 48 USD
 
NOTE: None.