1.
Brock Pierce is getting a bad rap, but keep in mind that he hasn't been convicted of, or even indicted for, any crime. It was his partner, Collins-Rector, who was involved in criminal activities. It seem that his major problem is that he is guilty by association, which happens quite frequently in the media, especially in cases involving child molestation. There is a reason why we have trials and present evidence before punishing people for crimes.
In /r/bitcoin, I posted earlier about Joe Paterno. I remember the furor around him a few years ago, but the interesting thing is that he is the only person in that whole scandal who actually did what he was supposed to do. Had the people around him not been criminals, he would likely have been applauded for passing on such a serious allegation to upper management ("he stood up for the kids"). Apparently there was a State College Bourough Council meeting recently where a motion to rename a street as "Paterno Way" was tabled by just one vote, which shows how it is important to look at the precise actions of everyone who is involved in any scandal.
Pierce's biggest flaws are the types of business he was involved in. He ran businesses into the ground and created companies to "gold farm" and "powerlevel" characters in online games, which kills the experience for those who want to play the games fairly. He is trying to buy Mt Gox using mostly customers' money to resurrect the company. Pierce isn't an accomplished humanitarian who produces great products everyone wants to buy; he is a cutthroat businessman who makes money by denigrating others' quality of life.
2.
This recent uptrend is rising too quickly to be in line with the bubble cycle. It's certainly a great time to buy, but don't sell tomorrow if the price falls $10.
However, I think it is worth mentioning again that if the timing of the bubble is going to shift compared to the traditional cycle, then it is more likely to pull forward, not backward.
I had to edit this post before making it to state that my thoughts changed somewhat given how far the price rose in just a short time. When the price rises that quickly, that's a bubble. All bubbles crash. The fact that this mini-bubble rose so quickly might mean that a trend reversal hasn't actually occurred.
3.
Watch for Chinese government activity as the price moves up. This would be a good time to shut down one of the big exchanges for some violation, or to declare an exchange insolvent to generate negative publicity.
There was no reason for the Chinese to waste what limited moves they have left during that stable period. They were probably sitting in a back room creating a list of the actions they will take once the market starts to move again for maximum crash effect. The market hasn't completely turned to the point where bad news is irrelevant yet, so they still have time to cause people to lose money.
4.
I think that we can declare conclusively that Cryptocoinsnews was wrong. They published article after article claiming with absolute certainty that bitcoins were headed down to $260 or $120 in "mid-May." Not only is mid-May over, but bitcoins ended the first two-thirds of the month up.
I don't have any problem with people making predictions and being wrong, but those guys never even considered any other viewpoints, cherry-picked charts that ignored other evidence, and then denigrated people who bought at higher levels in their comments section.
I edited this post to state that, given the quick rise, they may actually be right, if the panic selling after this mini-bubble ends causes a large crash.
5.
I asked /u/moral_agent to extend his charts to the right so that we could see the next bottom, and he demonstrated that it was around $1600.
It's a lot easier to figure out when to buy than it is to figure out when to sell. When bubbles get going, sometimes the price rises 10% in an hour towards the top. At the bottom of bubbles, there are long periods of stability where you have time to make a decision.
Myself, I'd rather take the risk of making less money by holding too long after the next bubble than I would of selling and finding out that the bubble goes way up. That's probably why it's better to sell on the recovery after the initial high. The recovery always goes up close to the initial high, and while you can't make quite as much money, it's easier to time that second spike because the first crash has already alerted you that it is coming.
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- Days until July 24: 66