[sk2code]

I never want to reuse my comments from other thread but this time I just can't resist. No one really anticipated what we all are currently experiencing and Coinbase is not different.

It seems Coinbase struggling to cope up:

$0000 - $1000: 1789 days

$1000- $2000: 1271 days

$2000- $3000: 23 days

$3000- $4000: 62 days

$4000- $5000: 61 days

$5000- $6000: 8 days

$6000- $7000: 13 days

$7000- $8000: 14 days

$8000- $9000: 9 days

$9000-$10000: 2 days

$10000-$11000: 1 day

$11000-$12000: 6 days

$12000-$13000: 17 hours

$13000-$14000: 4 hours

$14000-$15000: 10 hours

$15000-$16000: 5 hours

$16000-$17000: 2 hours

$17000-$18000: 10 minutes

$18000-$19000: 3 minutes

[AndrewBissell]

It would make more sense to put this on a logarithmic scale. The move from $18000-$19000 is nowhere near as meaningful as the move from $0 to $1000.

Also, the move to $19,000 seems to have been some kind of liquidity issue on GDAX, the price did not get that high on other exchanges.

[hervature]

I agree, so putting this together from the parent's info:

$0000 - $1000: 1789 days

$1000- $2000: 1271 days

$2000- $4000: 85 days

$4000- $8000: 96 days

$8000- $19000: 20 days

Edit: Even on a logarithmic scale, bitcoin is experiencing exponential growth.

[heynk]

Thanks, this is a really interesting way of looking at it. The change from $0-1000 is still not comparable to the other 2x gains. I looked up $500-$1000 and it looks like it took about 1000 days.

[zzxxddere333]

wow

[dang]

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

[chrisco255]

That being said, does price matter or does volume matter, in terms of Coinbase? Their infrastructure should be indifferent to price. I understand there's a correlation there, but daily trading volume would be the ultimate determinant of Coinbase's performance.

[yongjik]

This unfortunately reminds me too much of stellar evolution timetable[1]:

> Star burns through a succession of nuclear fusion fuels:

    Hydrogen burning: 10 Myr
    Helium burning: 1 Myr
    Carbon burning: 1000 years
    Neon burning: ~10 years
    Oxygen burning: ~1 year
    Silicon burning: ~1 day

(...and then it goes supernova.)

I hope Bitcoin's end is not as violent. :/

[1] http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit3/supe...

[oelmekki]

While I agree with you that the amount of users probably raised a lot to the point were servers are stressed out, there's something slightly off with the data you present: the latest entries are actually smaller percentage moves.

Here is the same data with (approximated) percentage moves:

$0000 - $1000: 1789 days

+100% ($2000): 1271 days

+50% ($3000): 23 days

+33% ($4000): 62 days

+25% ($5000): 61 days

+20% ($6000): 8 days

+16% ($7000): 13 days

+14% ($8000): 14 days

+12.5% ($9000): 9 days

+11% ($10000): 2 days

+10% ($11000): 1 day

+9% ($12000): 6 days

+8% ($13000): 17 hours

+7.5% ($14000): 4 hours

+7% ($15000): 10 hours

+6.5% ($16000): 5 hours

+6.25% ($17000): 2 hours

+5.8% ($18000): 10 minutes

+5.5% ($19000): 3 minutes

Anyway, it's more the volume that is of importance here than the price when it happens.

[Snackchez]

How much money needed to come into the bitcoin market for it bump from 15k to 19k? Where is this money coming from??

[nabla9]

You don't need money "coming into" to increase value of Bitcoin.

All you need is back and worth trades in th market. It can even be market manipulation where some buy and sell between themselves.

Bitcoin has massive market liquidity problem. Once people want to sell, the price drops like a stone. This is why it would be convent to have "technical problems" or do DDoS attack to prevent sells and allow markets to calm.

[0xCMP]

Had to be a lot. Should have screen recorded it, but instead recorded with my phone. The order book entries and chart were going nuts. Entire sections of the book disappearing at once. The chart would go almost entirely flat several times.

Almost always you see minor movement on the order book except maybe sometimes at the actual mid point it may update a bit. The chart is almost always balanced until the past few weeks it's be HEAVILY weighed towards the sell side.

71K+ BTC had been already traded by the time it hit high 19k.

[JonasJSchreiber]

I saw the same thing. It was insane

[dnautics]

Technically, not much. Let's say people stopped trading except for two people that made a series of trades of .0000001 btc at $100k, then the price would be $100k.

[dx034]

Not much. 1% of asset allocation for an institutional investor is enough for that.

EDIT: You currently need $70m to bump the market above 20k on GDAX. That's a lot for retail investors but not much if institutional investors get involved.

[0xCMP]

In the grand scheme of things sure, but definitely a large influx as compared to the size of the market in Coinbase.

We're talking probably low 2-digit millions to make big moves I think.

[dx034]

Yep, around $70m to get it above $20k.

[tome]

What institutional investor is going to put 1% into Bitcoin?

[WA]

How do you determine the $70m?

[obiefernandez]

You look at the "Depth Chart" -- it shows you how much people are selling (or buying if you go to the right) in a way that escalates as you get further away from the mid-market price that is currently executing.

[alexasmyths]

"How much money needed to come into the bitcoin market for it bump from 15k to 19k?"

Almost none.

If there are just a few transactions at a price, well, we assume that is the worth of all bitcoins in existence.

Which is a crazy assumption, but hey.

[gnarcoregrizz]

right now, as i'm looking on gdax, the price is 16.3k/btc, and it would take 42m to fulfill all of the sell orders to push it up to 19k. that's not a lot (but it's only one exchange). i think <100m to swing the market by that much across all of the exchanges.

[swarnie_]

New money is coming in that's for sure. But a limited resource and a lack of sellers will also push the price.

[gradys]

Tangent: it would be cool to have a browser extension that could notice that this data could be presented visually and offer to show you e.g. the scatter plot.

[nostromo]

Can you describe what this data is you're sharing? As is it's not clear what phenomenon you're describing.

[sk2code]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_bitcoin

The insane rise in the valuation of Bitcoin. How many times we have seen a currency or an asset that represents this kind of momentum? Clearly no one has seen this coming (that soon).

[pilsetnieks]

Well, there was the tulip bubble of 1637.

[boombip]

I think its the amount of time taken for the price of Bitcoin to rise from the first amount to the second.

[DINKDINK]

>No one really anticipated what we all are currently experiencing

Actually, those in the Bitcoin economic space have been saying this was going to happen for ~3 years

Hyperbitcoinization - Daniel Krawisz - March 29, 2014 http://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/hyperbitcoinization/

[FooHentai]

The article you've linked to does not address the situation being described.

[QML]

How many 9s do you think Coinbase has?

2 9s, or 99% uptime? Or is it worse than that?

[mv4]

They are rarely completely offline. But, they've been experiencing all sorts of "minor outages" and partial service degradation. And when you can't trade or transfer between wallets, the fact that their portal is "up" doesn't matter much.

[gamblor956]

During normal times? Uptime is maybe 95-99% as they're down for maintenance for a few hours every few days, usually during off hours.

During major price swings? About 10% uptime at best. They're almost always down when the price jumps or drops.