An excerpt from a Skype discussion…
GoWest: This morning’s trading activity has been absolutely mesmerizing, if not unbelievable. In the nearly two years I’ve been following Bitcoin, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen such a bullish run this early on a Sunday. It seems quite likely that we could hit $200/BTC as early as Monday.
hazek jr: I agree, the Bitcoin exchange rate is going full retard at the moment, and what is happening today on a Sunday typically shouldn’t be happening. So in my disbelief I cannot agree that we will reach $200 that fast. I’m as confident as ever we will get there eventually but we need to take a break first, wait for traders to take some profits perhaps with a temporary top just below $190 and then in a day or two we can make a $200 attempt.
GoWest: You have to keep in mind that last week’s press coverage was unparalleled. I guarantee that, in response, some deep pockets lined up to get their money into Mt.Gox. At a rate of 1000 account verifications a day, which seems to be the case, anyone who got in line early last week will be able to get their funds into Mt.Gox when the banks open in Japan on Monday or on Tuesday (which is still Monday over here in North America). There’s plenty of time for fiat to rush in and give us the boost we need to soar past the $200 or $2.2 billion mark. As I’m typing this, we’ve hit $163, with over 1000 BTC support above $159.
hazek jr: That’s an excellent point, Mt.Gox does open their offices with quite a nice head-start before the rest of us which could yield just enough of a push. However if one examines a bit of trading history from the past 6 months, one could easily see the same potential momentum in buying getting accumulated which then simply needed to face a psychological barrier, for how ever short period of time, before being able to push through. That’s why I stand by my prediction, $200 no sooner than Wednesday.
GoWest: Alright, so we’re only arguing about 48 hours here. Here’s some food for thought: you only have to get an account verified with Mt.Gox if you’re going to deposit (or withdraw) more than $50,000 USD. Anyone else is simply waiting for an “ID check.” What percentage of those 14,180 accounts are getting an ID check and how many are dealing with $50,000? What’s 14,180 accounts (the current waiting list) x $50,000 USD? That’s $709 million. That’s right, $709 million dollars. Even if only 2% of the accounts are dealing with $50,000, that’s still $14,000,000. I’m beginning to think that $200 may be a low-ball estimate for Monday.
hazek jr: Ok, you’re on!