May 19, 2026

Capitalizations Index – B ∞/21M

Bitcoin Op-Ed: Welcome Darkness, My Old Friend

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

Bitcoin Op-Ed: Welcome Darkness, My Old Friend


Bitcoin price floor stairwell spiral staircase
Advertisement


For those doubting price could go lower, this month has been rather interesting. More than 90B in marketcap burn. Gone like the wind. A literal bloodbath.

I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. Honestly.

In one hand, great, I can purchase more bitcoin at cheaper prices. On the other, goddamn it.

Did we seriously need another beating?

Why didn’t the stock markets continue to crash instead? Why couldn’t you guys just leave our dear btc alone?!

2018 has been really ungrateful for hodlers. A few bits of hope here and there; but mostly, horrendous massacres. Just by looking at absolute volumes, one can argue crypto-markets have become uninteresting for most retail investors who joined in late 2017.

Although hashrate has been able to keep more or less steady, we’re now seeing a decline in transaction numbers, which is rather surprising as it’s now cheaper to buy and sell bitcoin, due to lower fees (in fiat).

Public data obtained on Coinpayments.net, which processes transactions for dozens of traditional cryptocurrencies, showed that it had seen a drop of 50% in the first half of the year.

Now, since we’re already in deep-sh**, why not remember the worst beatings of the year? Since we’re going down, we might as well go down laughing!

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

Before I embrace darkness, hopefully in a funny way, a word of seriousness. As reported by Greg @ Hacked:

bitcoin sunk below $4,000 for the first time in the same period, hitting $3,819 on the BTC/USDT market. The market fluctuation did also affect Tether however, so the true U.S dollar figure might be slightly higher. Yet even the BitMEX BTC/USD price fell to a low of $3,686.

Meanwhile, Stellar (XLM) took the worst hit out of the major altcoins, plunging 22.4% on across Saturday alone.

If you don’t like to joke about serious stuff, this next bit might not be for you.

Otherwise, please enjoy.

–This article shouldn’t be taken as financial advisement as it represents my personal opinion and views. I have savings invested in cryptocurrency so take whatever I write with a grain of salt. Do not invest what you cannot afford to lose and always read as much as possible about a project before investing. Never forget: with great power, comes great responsibility. Being your own bank means you’re always responsible for your own money

The Worst Beatings Of 2018

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

As a starting point, I’m choosing late December 2017. Don’t start complaining just yet, my logic does make sense as the first real big drop in price happened during December, last year.

The first bearish signal happened between 17th December – 22nd December, right before Christmas holidays.

128B (in marketcap) evaporated in just a few days. This was one of the worst price drops in the history of bitcoin.

Still, we did manage to recover. Just to break our legs again: between January 6th and February 6th, btc’s marketcap dropped 190B. It went from about 295B to 105B. An absolute wreckage.

Nobody was expecting such a huge drop within just a month. bitcoin’s marketcap literally halved during the period comprised between December 2017 and early February 2018.

That manipulation, tho.

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

If the previous 2 beatings weren’t big enough, players decided to continue shorting Bitcoin. So, between March 5th and April 1st (not fooling anyone here), marketcap dropped 87B. Not as bad as the previous drops, but that’s only because there was less selling volume. After the February recover to almost 200B, short-sellers grabbed the bull by the horns and took it down once more, to around 110B.

News at the time were focusing, of course, on blaming CMBC bitcoin’s futures markets for the price drops, which made absolute sense.

We shouldn’t forget during these peak high and lows there were little to no institutional investors on-board.

I really can’t imagine what’s to come.

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

Fast forward one month and we have another Baptista Bomb on marketcap. This time, between 6th May and 29th May, bitcoin’s marketcap went from 169B to 121B. Only 48B lost this time.

Not bad!

Of course, for those of you who bought bitcoin at a premium value (8K+), desperation started to kick-in. This was the time news started to get darker, and some folk started to contemplate bitcoin’s price coming down to 5k eventually.

We’re not far away from those bearish predictions now, are we?

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

During the summer bitcoin’s price also went up and down, burning about 40b in marketcap, between the 25th July and 14th August.

For those enjoying your summer holidays, those were really bad news. It was at this point most of us accepted the harsh reality bitcoin’s price might not be recovering anytime soon.

Although I don’t think that was the killer blow.

Sentiment was already pretty beaten up, however there were still some lights at the end of the tunnel.

Hope was still alive.

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

In my mind the final flow happened between the 5th September and the 9th of September, when marketcap was at about 127b, and the 9th of September, when marketcap dropped to 107B.

Although the drop was about half what happened the previous time, for most that was the actual fatality move.

A destructive kick in the balls.

It was at this point google trends showed sentiment to be at its lowest levels since early 2017.

One thing some people do not immediately realize is that since January 2018 both price drops volatility and the difference between minimum and maximum levels has stabilized.

This is, if we compare the amounts lost in terms of marketcap by date, this is what we see:

190B -> 87B -> 48B -> 20B -> 12B

Doesn’t it seem interesting the amount lost halves each time? 

I cannot guarantee these drops were calculated precisely, as it’s near impossible to say so; however, it does seem curious we have such a high correlation between the min-max (or average lost) of each period, being the later the half of the previous.

This result gives me confidence to believe we’re getting to a point of real stability and price should be going upwards soon.

My personal bet?

Until the end of Q1 2019, bitcoin’s price will double.

Let’s see if my analysis performs better than bitcoin over the last few months. If it doesn’t… well, just buy some more!

Conclusion

Bitcoin op-ed: welcome darkness, my old friend

Since bitcoin was released many booms and bursts happened, due to a plurality of reasons. Some of the most epic I would like to mention are:

  1. June 2011: The price of the bitcoin rose from $0.95 in early 2011 and reached a peak of $32 around 8 to 10 June 2011. By the 12 June 2011, however, the coin fell by about 68% in value. A further drop was seen to $2 in November 2011, contributing to a fall of 94%. This was associated with early volatility so the bitcoin did see more interest from traders despite this crash.
  2. January 2012:  In the beginning of 2012, the coin further increased in value to $7.20. An unexpected crash then occurred around 16 to 17 January, 2012 when the value fell by 36% to $4.60. While the coin did recover sufficiently to $6.25, it continued to flounder in the market for the next six months. This was a pretty scary proposition for early investors who had seen a high of $32 in the previous year.
  3. August 2012bitcoin recovered pretty well between July and August 2012 to reach a high of $15.25. This happy trend was soon cut short by a fall around August 18 2012 by 51% to reach $10.50, and then fall further to $7.50 in the same month. The cryptocurrency stayed below the $15 mark for the remainder of that year.
  4. April 2013: While the price did increase as far as a whopping $266 in April 2013, it also fell sharply in the same month by about 71% to a value of $67. Experts have since attributed this fall to investor enthusiasm through media coverage as well as a brief outage at the Mt. Gox exchange.
  5. November 2013: The price of bitcoin remained at around $120 for the rest of the year and then surged again in November to reach a peak value of $1,150 towards the end of the month. This was clearly because of the rush of first-time investors who were attracted towards the new cryptocurrency. By about mid December of 2013, another huge meltdown occurred. The coin dropped in value to $500. It remained below $1,000 for the next couple of years.

Despite the terrible news around during these periods, bitcoin has always managed to recover; each boom and bust is a perfect example to show how resilient cryptocurrencies can be when supported by a solid community.

Whatever you might feel now about bitcoin always remember: markets work in cycles. If you’re patient enough you’ll be able to participate in both bearish and bullish cycles.

The key thing is to time markets right.

Good trades!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to, CCN.

Get Exclusive Crypto Analysis by Professional Traders and Investors on Hacked.com. Sign up now and get the first month for free. Click here.

Advertisement


Published at Sun, 25 Nov 2018 07:38:38 +0000

Previous Article

Bitcoin – The next probable move and a way to profit

Next Article

Bitcoin Core 0.17.0 Released

You might be interested in …

The Bitcoin Block Clock Jr. Is Half Full Node, Half Work of Art

The Bitcoin Block Clock Jr. Is Half Full Node and Half Work of Art

bitcoin is a decentralized system of digital cash in which users don’t need to trust anyone else with their money; however, the full benefits of this technology are only seen when users operate a full node on the network. The vast majority of bitcoin users do not operate their own full nodes, but one man is trying to change that with a piece of hardware he calls the bitcoin Block Clock Jr.

There are many good reasons for individual Bitcoiners to operate a full node. Full nodes are responsible for validating transactions and blocks on the bitcoin network. Only by running full nodes can users know with full certainty that they received a valid payment. Additionally, the more users that run full nodes, the more decentralized the bitcoin network is, making it harder to shut down or corrupt.

And as Sia Co-Founder David Vorick pointed out in a talk at this year’s MIT bitcoin Expo, those who do not operate their own full nodes do not get a say in the matter when hard forks are deployed on the network. “If you’re not running a full node … your opinion on whether or not you like a hard fork is less relevant because, ultimately, if you’re not validating the rules and someone gives you a transaction following a different rule set, you don’t have a way to detect that,” he explained.

Running a full node, however, has been a rather expensive proposition. As a result, larger, economically invested entities that are better able to support full nodes have had more of a say.

According to Vorick, users can be dragged along with miners and large businesses if the cost of running a full node is too high: “If full nodes are expensive to run, only people who are capable of running nodes really have any say in what happens in a contentious upgrade.”

Matthew Zipkin is the man behind the bitcoin Block Clock. A sound engineer by trade, he has been working in his spare time on creating full nodes that are both affordable and fun to use. During a recent discussion with bitcoin Magazine, Zipkin revealed his desire to create a piece of hardware for operating a low-cost bitcoin full node that isn’t boring.

A bitcoin Full Node That Isn’t Boring

When commenting on his reasoning for creating the bitcoin Block Clock, Zipkin pointed to the full node devices made by Bitnodes before they were acquired by 21.

“I always wanted one, but they disappeared when they got bought out, so I decided to build my own,” said Zipkin.

While there are other full node options out there, such as Bitseed, Zipkin wanted to make something that was more than a piece of computer hardware that would sit on the floor next to a router. Zipkin wanted to turn a bitcoin full node into a work of art, and that’s exactly what he did.

Zipkin built the first version of the Bitcoin Block Clock last year, and it was on display at the SF Bitcoin Meetup’s “Proof of Art” event in May of 2016. After receiving positive feedback at the event and on Reddit, Zipkin decided to make a smaller version of the full node hardware to sell.

The bitcoin Block Clock included a screen that displayed various live information about the bitcoin network. Zipkin put the original version of the bitcoin Block Clock for sale on OpenBazaar and Purse.io, but it hasn’t sold.

“I priced it pretty high because it’s art and I love it and kind of want to keep it,” explained Zipkin. “So of course it still has not sold.”

Creating the bitcoin Block Clock Jr. With Bcoin

In an effort to create a version of the bitcoin Block Clock that could be produced at a lower price, Zipkin turned to Raspberry Pi Zero and Bcoin, which is an implementation of the bitcoin protocol written in Node.js.

“I discovered Bcoin was super easy to install and use, and the codebase was easier for me to review because it’s in Javascript instead of C++, and was built from scratch by a small group of developers (basically just two guys), so everything is really well labeled and consistent,” explained Zipkin.

Of course, the problem with using SPV mode is that it’s not a full node and the device won’t receive all of the information related to a new bitcoin block as it’s mined on the network. Zipkin opted for the pruned full node option in Bcoin in an effort to lower the system resources required to operate the node on Raspberry Pi Zero.

“With pruning, I get all the fun block details I wanted to display,” said Zipkin. “I even submitted a pull request (which got merged!) to Bcoin to make my application work even easier.”

Zipkin described the LED displays on the bitcoin Block Clock Jr. as follows:

“The bitcoin Block Clock Jr. has two LED rings. The outer ring of 24 LEDs indicates recent blocks. Each LED represents 2 minutes, and they “tick” clockwise around the ring. The color of the LED is determined by the block’s version (BIP 9 version bits combined with keywords from the Coinbase scriptSig like “/EXTBLK” or “/EB1/AD6/”). The inner 16-LED ring indicates the progress of the current difficulty period (2,016 blocks, or about two weeks). It starts blue and gradually turns more and more red as the meter fills up. The tiny little display screen indicates some details about the latest block: height, size, version (and extra scriptSig version) and the adjustment period progress. I added a little web interface so I could turn the lights off at night without having to SSH into the Pi every time.”

front-back

An Economical Way to Contribute to the Network

While Zipkin noted that the original bitcoin Block Clock displays much more information and also comes with full wallet functionality, he also pointed out that the latest model proves that bitcoin users only need about $20 to run their own full nodes (at least in pruned mode).

Having said that, Zipkin admitted that the bitcoin Block Clock Jr. can struggle to keep up with the network at times.

“Bcoin plus my Python script and all the GPIO display output just barely hangs in there on this tiny underpowered computer,” said Zipkin. “The Python script has a method to restart Bcoin when it crashes and monitor it as it catches up to the network.”

All of the technical details of the bitcoin Block Clock Jr. are open source and can be found on GitHub.

Zipkin has now placed the bitcoin Block Clock Jr. for sale on OpenBazaar and Purse.io.

The post The Bitcoin Block Clock Jr. Is Half Full Node, Half Work of Art appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Core 0.18.0 Released

bitcoin Core 0.18.0 Released bitcoin Core version 0.18.0 is now available for download containing several bug fixes and minor improvements. For a complete list of changes, please see the release notes. If have any questions, […]