This plot shows a samples of the transaction logs from MtGOX and Bitstamp, around 2014-01-22 01:00 UTC:



The data was obtained from Bitcoinwisdom's charts by cut-and-paste and an ad-hoc reformatting script.  Beware of errors.

Note that MtGOX prices were scaled down to bring them closer to the Bitstamp prices.

Each dot is a trnsaction; the dot's area is proportional to the volume (except for the smallest transactions, which are shown with a fixed dot size).

It seems that the significant transactions at MtGOX always occur at the upper end of the spread, while the reverse is generally true for Bitstamp.  Does that mean something?

Volume on Tue Jan/21 UTC was quite a bit lower than on Mon Jan/20 at most exchanges, especially on Huobi (41 kBTC against 72).  China's share srunk a bit but is still ~71%.

Today (Wed Jan/21) the volume at Huobi between 09:00 and 10:00 local time was quite a bit lower then usual, it looks like a Sunday.  Is that because of the Chinese New Year holidays?


               !    Wed !    Thu !    Fri !    Sat !    Sun !    Mon !    Tue !    Wed
               !  01/15 !  01/16 !  01/17 !  01/18 !  01/19 !  01/20 !  01/21 !  01/22
Day total      |  91.40 |  67.37 |  74.21 |  43.60 |  67.27 |  71.78 |  40.55 |   ??
09:00-09:59    |   1.61 |   1.29 |   3.22 |   2.59 |   0.48 |   4.69 |   1.28 |   0.63

Daily volumes of BTC trade to/from USD and other national currencies (in kBTC):


               !    Wed !    Thu !    Fri !   Sat !    Sun !    Mon !   Tue !
  EXCHANGE     !  01/15 !  01/16 !  01/17 ! 01/18 !  01/19 !  01/20 ! 01/21 ! Currencies considered

  MtGOX        |   7.54 |   5.91 |  12.23 |  6.20 |   8.49 |  12.10 |  7.25 | USD,EUR,GBP,AUD,JPY
  Bitstamp     |  12.27 |   8.22 |  17.11 |  5.49 |   8.42 |   6.97 |  7.67 | USD
  BTC-e        |   9.79 |   7.22 |  12.82 |  7.22 |   8.16 |  10.01 |  5.40 | USD
  BitFinEx     |   7.17 |   3.68 |  11.47 |  3.81 |   6.63 |   5.46 |  2.89 | USD
  Bitcoin.DE   |   0.51 |   0.38 |   0.61 |  0.27 |   0.23 |   0.39 |  0.45 | EUR
  Kraken       |   0.35 |   0.29 |   0.68 |  0.28 |   0.33 |   0.19 |  0.24 | EUR
  CaVirtEx     |   0.45 |   0.26 |   0.31 |  0.01 |   0.09 |   0.22 |  0.23 | CAD
  CampBX       |   0.16 |   0.12 |   0.16 |  0.04 |   0.04 |   0.10 |  0.09 | USD
  Crypto-Trade |    .   |   0.01 |   0.01 |   .   |    .   |   0.01 |  0.01 | USD

  SUBTOTAL     |  38.24 |  26.09 |  55.40 | 23.32 |  32.39 |  35.45 | 24.23 |

  Huobi        |  91.40 |  67.37 |  74.21 | 43.60 |  67.27 |  71.78 | 40.55 | CNY
  OKCoin       |  22.24 |  24.82 |  32.28 | 25.31 |  24.52 |  21.00 | 17.31 | CNY
  BTC-China    |   5.58 |   3.54 |   4.55 |  1.77 |   4.05 |   3.44 |  2.07 | CNY

  SUBTOTAL     | 119.22 |  95.73 | 111.04 | 70.68 |  95.84 |  96.22 | 59.93 |

  TOTAL        | 157.46 | 121.82 | 166.44 | 94.00 | 128.23 | 131.67 | 84.16 |



All numbers were collected by hand from the site http://bitcoinwisdom.com, except the JPY volume for MtGOX that was obtained from http://bitcoincharts.com. Beware of possible errors.

For each exchange, the numbers include only the trade volume to/from the currencies listed in the rightmost column.  They do not include trade between BTC and other cryptocoins such as LiteCoin.

The Coinbase volume is not available, neither at Bitcoinwisdom nor at Bitcoincharts.

Dates on the header line are UTC. Specifically, "01/15" means "from 01/15 00:00:00 UTC to 01/15 23:59:59 UTC". (Beware that Bitcoinwisdom uses your local time, so the date may appear to be off by 1 day.  For example, if you are 2 hours west of Greenwich, it may show "01/14 22:00" when the UTC time is "01/15 00:00".)

Sorry I wasn't clear: I haven't seen such ads for Bitcoin yet (except here in this thread 8-).


It is hard to answer, since I am still skeptical about the chances of success - for cryptocoins in general, and for Bitcoin in particular.

One essential thing that cannot do harm is to convince more merchants to accept international payments in cryptocoins.  (I do not see any advantage for domestic payments, except perhaps for very small amounts.)

However that will require efficient, reliable and trustworthy exchanges.  It is not helpful if a merchant has to wait 3 months to get the money out of MtGOX, ou get his bitcoins snatched by the FBI.  That in turn will require regulation by the local governments, disclosure and independent auditing, just as in stock markets.

Beware that credit card charges are usually a small part of the extra cost of international purchases.  The main item, at least here in Brazil, are the customs taxes (like 40% or more depending on the item).  Not to mention the delay and hassle of having to fetch the merchandise through customs, warranty limitations, risk of item being stolen, etc..  For these reasons, I suspect that most people will continue buying imported goods in the domestic market, rather than make direct purchases.

Lots of nice predictions, we will see if they materialize.  (By the way, CNN blogs are not very selective on what theiy publish, it seems.  The author does not seem to be affiliated with CNN.  Is that a reader-contributed article?)

The title of that article is rather funny though.  Does the author realize that Napster was originally a pirate site that threatened to bypass the copyright industry's monopoly market, was crushed for that, then assimilated by that industry? 

If we take that title literally, Bitcoin will be appropriated by the banks, and turned into a fancy brand for something entirely different from the dream of its inventors.

Napster and other pirate music sites had perhaps the merit of forcing the music industry to accept the internet as a delivery channel (instead of physical records) and reduce their prices from absurd to merely exaggerated.  (But  the merit for that goes to Apple, whoc ould not simply be crushed like Napster was.)

I do hope that cryptocoins will at least have the same effect on the cost and delay of international money transfers.  Beyond that -- well, I am still not convinced.

Too much effort in convincing people to invest in Bitcoin, rather than to use it.

"Look at how many millions you could make by investing  bitcoins" instead of

"Look at how many cents you could save by buying a toaster with bitcoins instead of a credit card."

A sure sign that an investment is a scam is when its TV ad shows a smug man on a luxury boat with three girls on each side.  Renting a storefront next to NYSE is not as bad, but is going in that direction, IMHO.

Speaking of which, I was touristing in NY over the year-end holidays (yes, it was cold). We went to see Wall Street one evening, and was surprised to see a "Bitcoin Information Center" right next door to NYSE.  Behind a small lounge one could see a room where someone was presenting a talk to a small audience.

My sons, who knew of my obsession strong scientific interest in the matter, urged me to go in and pretend I was some rich sucker would-be investor. While we were at it, a fellow came out and invited us inside, saying something about something being already up to some zillions of dollars.  But I was too tired and thinking only of getting back to my hotel.

The rent for that place must be a small fortune.  That's one thing that I find off-putting about Bitcoin: too much lavish marketing for a project by a bunch of young digital subversives whose goal is to steal a highly lucrative business from banks and undermine the governments' control of money flow, worldwide.

# Last edited on 2014-01-21 13:39:26 by stolfilocal

Daily volumes of BTC trade to/from USD and other national currencies (in kBTC):


               !    Wed !    Thu !    Fri !   Sat !    Sun !    Mon !                     
  EXCHANGE     !  01/15 !  01/16 !  01/17 ! 01/18 !  01/19 !  01/20 ! Currencies considered

  MtGOX        |   7.54 |   5.91 |  12.23 |  6.20 |   8.49 |  12.10 | USD,EUR,GBP,AUD,JPY  
  BTC-e        |   9.79 |   7.22 |  12.82 |  7.22 |   8.16 |  10.01 | USD                  
  Bitstamp     |  12.27 |   8.22 |  17.11 |  5.49 |   8.42 |   6.97 | USD                  
  BitFinEx     |   7.17 |   3.68 |  11.47 |  3.81 |   6.63 |   5.46 | USD                  
  Bitcoin.DE   |   0.51 |   0.38 |   0.61 |  0.27 |   0.23 |   0.39 | EUR                  
  CaVirtEx     |   0.45 |   0.26 |   0.31 |  0.01 |   0.09 |   0.22 | CAD                  
  Kraken       |   0.35 |   0.29 |   0.68 |  0.28 |   0.33 |   0.19 | EUR                  
  CampBX       |   0.16 |   0.12 |   0.16 |  0.04 |   0.04 |   0.10 | USD                  
  Crypto-Trade |    .   |   0.01 |   0.01 |   .   |    .   |   0.01 | USD                  

  SUBTOTAL     |  38.24 |  26.09 |  55.40 | 23.32 |  32.39 |  35.45 |                      

  Huobi        |  91.40 |  67.37 |  74.21 | 43.60 |  67.27 |  71.78 | CNY                  
  OKCoin       |  22.24 |  24.82 |  32.28 | 25.31 |  24.52 |  21.00 | CNY                  
  BTC-China    |   5.58 |   3.54 |   4.55 |  1.77 |   4.05 |   3.44 | CNY                  

  SUBTOTAL     | 119.22 |  95.73 | 111.04 | 70.68 |  95.84 |  96.22 |                      

  TOTAL        | 157.46 | 121.82 | 166.44 | 94.00 | 128.23 | 131.67 |                      



All numbers were collected by hand from the site http://bitcoinwisdom.com, except the JPY volume for MtGOX that was obtained from http://bitcoincharts.com. Beware of possible errors.

For each exchange, the numbers include only the trade volume to/from the currencies listed in the rightmost column.  They do not include trade between BTC and other cryptocoins such as LiteCoin.

The Coinbase volume is not available, neither at Bitcoinwisdom nor at Bitcoincharts.

Dates on the header line are UTC. Specifically, "01/15" means "from 01/15 00:00:00 UTC to 01/15 23:59:59 UTC". (Beware that Bitcoinwisdom uses your local time, so the date may appear to be off by 1 day.  For example, if you are 2 hours west of Greenwich, it may show "01/14 22:00" when the UTC time is "01/15 00:00".)

[EDIT: added week day header.]

For one thing, all the tiny trades that bounce up and down between the lowest ask and the highest bid,  Sometimes many times per minute, sometimes once every couple of minutes.  Without them, the chart would probably look like Huobi's, only much sparser.

My impression of MtGOX is that all the sellers are over-bullish and all the buyers are over-bearish, so they just sit there facing each other, for hours on end,  with a $20 gap between them.  (I suppose that the technical term for that is "low liquidity", correct?)  Occasionally a newbie or arbitrage trader comes in determined to trade a dozen coins.  More rarely, the price in China changes so much that everybory who is sitting on MtGOX's book has to pick up their chair and move it over a bit.

From what I have read here, BTC-China decided to play it safe, and stopped accepting cash deposits. They now use vouchers that one can buy at e-commerce sites -- a system which is very cumbersome at least.

Huobi and OKCoin still accept cash deposits through commercial bank accounts.  I have read here that the owners are related to powerful politicians; if true, that may explain why they have chosen to run this risk.  I have seen no reports of problems with withdrawals, but presumaby they must be in CNY only.


Why people keep saying that of the Chinese exchanges, but not of the others?  There seems to be no evidence for that claim other than their huge volume -- which is quite expected.  Sure, there is a lot of robot trade, and zero fees encourage it; but robot trade is not necessarily fake.

On the other hand,  the 1-minute charts at MtGOX and now even BTC-e seem rather peculiar. 

Exchanges that are small and/or shrinking have obvious interest in padding their volume numbers with fake trades; and being unregulated have no reason to avoid the practice.  Note that an exchange that has  transaction fees for ordinary clients may forfeit them for special friends -- such as themselves.

According to my Seventh Level Trend Analysis™



the price of Bitcoin has now hit a Chandrasekhar-Schwartzschild-Walsoraj inversion discontinuity.

From now on it should start oscillating again, with ever increasing swings --- but with reversed polarity.  Price will crash upwards whenever the market gets bullish on bad news, and rally downwards when it gets bearish on good news.

Traders are advised to adjust their basic strategy accordingly: from now on, it's "buy high, sell low".

This article about the Bitcoins Savings and Trust scam is old news (July 2013)

http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.Ut3d3ihCYtU

but I wonder what happened to the 150,000 BTC Shavers allegedly stole from customers.  Apparently he had sold at least 80,000 before being caught.  What about the rest? Lost in day trading?

Does this have any relation with MtGOX's withdrawal delays?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/23/4651926/us-government-seized-5-million-from-bitcoin-behemoth-mt-gox

Is it confirmed that JPY withdrawals work?  What prevents one from withdrawing in JPY and then converting to USD by other channels?

Why not thru 2024?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.msg4537358#msg4537358
 

Weird. At MtGOX there are zillions of rearrangements of the order book per minute, but NO trades for several minutes on end. 

Yes, that is what I usually watch.  But it doesn't have a text download option (does it?).  Bitcoinchart does.

I conjecture that the people trading at Huobi tend to be bullish in the morning and bearish in the afternoon, local time (noting that on this Sunday the morning happened after noon  ).

I could check this conjecture if I had 1-h trade data for the last couple of months or so... 

(Why doen't bitcoincharts.com list Huobi and OKCoin?)

No one asked but here is my uber bearish version again anyway:
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/temp/worldcomm-closing-price-log-extrap.png
 

Recall that Huobi's volume was lower than usual on the previous day (Sat jan/18 UTC).  Sunday morning (China time) it was even lower, but there was an intense surge in the afternoon, when the price jumped from ~4850 to ~5050 and then stayed there until bedtime.  In the end, Sunday's total volume was typical of last week, only a bit lower than Friday's.

Sunday was mostly like any other day at OKCoin, both in total volume and in the distribution along the day.

Sunday's volume was typical also at the exchanges outside China. (Saturday's was typical too; Friday's was exceptionally high.)

With these changes, China is back to ~70% of the total BTC/"fiat" trade volume (at least for the exchange/currency pairs that I have been monitoring).

Daily volumes of BTC trade to/from USD and other national currencies (in kBTC):


  EXCHANGE     !  01/15 !  01/16 !  01/17 ! 01/18 !  01/19 ! Currencies considered

  BTC-e        |   9.79 |   7.22 |  12.82 |  7.22 |   8.16 | USD                 
  MtGOX        |   7.54 |   5.91 |  12.23 |  6.20 |   8.49 | USD,EUR,GBP,AUD,JPY 
  Bitstamp     |  12.27 |   8.22 |  17.11 |  5.49 |   8.42 | USD                 
  BitFinEx     |   7.17 |   3.68 |  11.47 |  3.81 |   6.63 | USD                 
  Kraken       |   0.35 |   0.29 |   0.68 |  0.28 |   0.33 | EUR                 
  Bitcoin.DE   |   0.51 |   0.38 |   0.61 |  0.27 |   0.23 | EUR                 
  CampBX       |   0.16 |   0.12 |   0.16 |  0.04 |   0.04 | USD                 
  CaVirtEx     |   0.45 |   0.26 |   0.31 |  0.01 |   0.09 | CAD                 
  Crypto-Trade |    .   |   0.01 |   0.01 |   .   |    .   | USD                 

  SUBTOTAL     |  38.24 |  26.09 |  55.40 | 23.32 |  32.39 |                     

  Huobi        |  91.40 |  67.37 |  74.21 | 43.60 |  67.27 | CNY                 
  OKCoin       |  22.24 |  24.82 |  32.28 | 25.31 |  24.52 | CNY                 
  BTC-China    |   5.58 |   3.54 |   4.55 |  1.77 |   4.05 | CNY                 

  SUBTOTAL     | 119.22 |  95.73 | 111.04 | 70.68 |  95.84 |                     

  TOTAL        | 157.46 | 121.82 | 166.44 | 94.00 | 128.23 |                     



All numbers were collected by hand from the sites http://bitcoinwisdom.com, except the JPY volume for MtGOX that was obtained from http://bitcoincharts.com. Beware of possible errors.

For each exchange, the numbers include only the trade volume to/from the currencies listed in the rightmost column.  They do not include trade between BTC and other cryptocoins such as LiteCoin.

The Coinbase volume is not available at Bitcoinwisdom.

Dates on the header line are UTC. Specifically, "01/15" means "from 01/15 00:00:00 UTC to 01/15 23:59:59 UTC". (Beware that Bitcoinwisdom uses your local time, so the date may appear to be off by 1 day.  For example, if you are 2 hours west of Greenwich, it may show "01/14 22:00" when the UTC time is "01/15 00:00".)