where to see bitcoin price: coinmarketcap.com is beyond salvation; same goes for google

Like most prices, the Bitcoin price is best checked infrequently.  Monthly is probably okay, but daily is too much.  Multiple times daily and you're using time poorly, messing up alignment of natural emotion with portfolio performance due to noise (thanks Taleb for this one), and risk making bad trading decisions.  The exception is when Bitcoin is breaking all-time-highs: on these days you are also allowed to wear a space outfit or maybe just a fake NASA T-shirt.

And where to check the price?  These come and go, with the informative ones inevitably being bought up by spammers after getting popular.  Check this spam site out:


Conspicuously missing from the above is: the Bitcoin price.  Okay, making the window a little bigger would yield it, but it's already 985 pixels high, contains prices for at least 9 other items, has large ads, makes all my computer's fans start whirring, and so on.  If a Bitcoin price web site can't tell you Bitcoin's price in its first 985 pixels, it's not a Bitcoin price site.

The low point of coinmarketcap.com was at the start of this year, when Bitcoin disappeared entirely from the page.  They were pushing TSLA shares (bubble), the Gamestop thing, doggie coins, just about anything but Bitcoin.  The top line was replaced by a fake line about something else altogether.

Maybe it's better to get it from an exchange, not an info-only site.  I don't know.  I don't want to confuse price-checking with trading, so I would have to ensure separation somehow.

I could use Google, but they put it in weird currencies based on my IP, instead of using my home currency as per my logged-in account (google are getting worse at making bad IP-address-based assumptions for customisation instead of using the info they already know about the logged-in user).

The problem with any site listing so-called "cryptocurrencies" as a general category is that all the scam coins are presented together with Bitcoin, as though they're in the same category.

A quick survey of exchanges indicates they too are mixing a Bitcoin price listing with listings of many shitcoins.

Let's see if we can find a satisfactory site in the first 20 Google results for a search for "Bitcoin price".  Blogger doesn't do tables, so here's a list:

TLDR: the winner is https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_price followed by https://bitflyer.com/en-eu/bitcoin-chart

  • search results rank: 0
    • google's built-in one
    • "localised" currency based on IP address, so no
  • search results rank: 1
    • coinmarketcap.com
    • no; this is the spam site case study described in this article
  • search results rank: 2
    • coinbase.com
    • circle whizzes for 20 seconds instead of page just displaying
    • text says "Market is up 3.37%", but it doesn't say the market in what; no price shown
    • other text says "No assets could be found / Show all assets"

At this point you probably think I'm shitting you, so here's a screenshot:


 continuing:

  •   search results rank: 3
    • annoying flashing thing, so no
  •  skip over the "news" results, there are 3 of these
  • search results rank: 4
    •  markets.businessinsder.com > something
    • google doesn't link to the actual URL, so I can't copy the actual URL from the search results (applies to all, but google really)
    • annoying animations, page greyed-out due to spam-up ad, so no
  •  search results rank: 5
    • https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/121815/bitcoins-price-history.asp
    • flashing ads, anyway it's an article not the price
  • search results rank: 6
    • finance.yahoo.com
    • best one so far, but also rather heavy and lists "people also watch" shitcoins 
    • some visual distraction, prices update in realtime and flash, "related video" crap
    • overall, no
  • search results rank: 7
    • cointelegraph.com
    •  article not price; no
  • search results rank: 8
    • https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/cryptocurrency/btc
    • no price, "Data is currently not available", so no

again, I think I have to back this up with a screenshot.


 

You could read it off the right hand side of the graph for an estimate, but printed price?  Not from Nasdaq's page that promises you the Bitcoin price.  "Data is currently not available", and cookie consent spam, and a nice animated ad.

I wish I hadn't said 20.  Okay, continuing:

  • search results rank: 9
    • bitcoin.org
    • this is a well-known scam site pushing "forks" incorrectly using the Bitcoin name, but in any case no price is presented on the page we land on coming from our google search
  • search results rank: 10
    • ycharts.com
    • not bad.  Has ads but they're stationary.  So it's possible to keep the page open off to the side without it having to be closed due to distraction.  Current price is clearly displayed, and dailies going back in a table.  No shitcoins on the page.  Wow.
Okay so ycharts is my new choice.  I didn't say if I would continue to 20 after finding an acceptable one.
 
While I'm deciding, note how poorly Google Search performs on this simple and popular search.  The first acceptable result for the search "bitcoin price" is result number 10.  Many of the top results simply do not contain the wanted information, and of those that do, the spamminess of the pages is unacceptable.  Google is not so much an organiser of the world's information, as a pusher of the world's spam pages, with a little information thrown in, sometimes, just enough to optimise for short-term profit.  The undergrad course is called "information storage and retrieval", not just "information storage".  Maybe if google's motto had been "organise the world's information and present it usefully", instead of just "organise the world's information", then but, never mind, never mind about google's mottos. 

Continuing,

  • search results rank: 11
    • https://www.statista.com/statistics/326707/bitcoin-price-index/
    • article, not recent price
  • search results rank: 12
    • https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/bitcoin-price-news-live-crypto-btc-b1961991.html
    • claims to be "live" but shows no price
  • search results rank: 13
    • https://www.google.com/finance/quote/BTC-USD
    • not too bad, but visual distraction every few seconds from price update transition effects
  • search results rank: 14
    • https://www.kitco.com/bitcoin-price-charts-usd/
    • animated ads, so no
  • search results rank: 15
    • https://bitflyer.com/en-eu/bitcoin-chart
    • not bad. EUR by default, but fine.  It's acceptable.
  • search results rank: 16
    • https://gadgets.ndtv.com/finance/crypto-currency-price-in-india-inr-compare-bitcoin-ether-dogecoin-ripple-litecoin
    • rife with shitcoins (but apparently no visual skidding around and flashing)
  • search results rank: 17, 18
    • youtube videos, so not our category, but they don't have the live price. If I wanted a recent bitcoin price via a youtube video, it would have to be Tyler S, but these ones, no
  • search results rank: 19
    • https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/cryptocurrency/bitcoin-price/cryptodetail/symbol-btc.cms
    • things are skidding around and flashing, so no
  • search results rank: 20
    • https://www.luno.com/price
    • to end it off, we have a cloudfare captcha instead of a web page, so that's a definite no:

Conclusion: use https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_price or https://bitflyer.com/en-eu/bitcoin-chart for the time-being.

Other conclusion: google is now nearly useless for search.  Need to find decent search engine.


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