Bitcoin Forum

So, as many of you are painfully aware, bitcoin crashed around 30% over a couple of days, reportedly due to regulatory pressures in Asia, and a potential ban in China due to energy wastage and tax evasion risks etc. Reports suggest that China contributes as much as 70% of the worldwide hashing power, and yet we only saw a 30% drop.

Source: Report: PBoC Quashes Bitcoin Mining Ban Rumor in China (https://www.coindesk.com/report-pboc-quashes-rumor-it-would-shutter-chinas-bitcoin-mines/)

Furthermore, we saw 30%+ drops in other cryptos, even unminable, non-decentralized ones. So, conspiracy theorists, why do you think bitcoin really suffers these sporadic crashes, could it be large-scale market manipulation? Or is it simply FUD leading to a wide-spread panic selling?

I think the price reduction of bitcoin is a normal phenomenon, it is a very normal adjustment.
A lot of people saw a lot of falls, and they said they broke, I don't think so, I think of it as a correction, so it's better to go up.

It is a living market - there are so many factors which contribute to the up and downswings of a token with as much liquidity as bitcoin.

From:

a) Market manipulation
b) Longs/Shorts being called
c) Bot Triggers
d) Greed
e) Fear
f) Safe havens
g) Speculation / store of value
h) Utility


etc etc

A 30% drop doesn't seem like a normal adjustment to me, seems like either market manipulation or a panic sell.

 
The utility of bitcoin has been decreasing as transaction fees increase, and yet BTC price rose massively in spite of this. I understand it is difficult to understand the exact cause behind the price movements, but still I think we can narrow down the changing parameters if not understand the whole driving force.

up and down, rise and fall. thats life

To be a way of payment is not the only utility of Bitcoin. Many use it as store of value or as speculative/investment asset. And for that the transaction fees don't matter much.
Of course, since it's an unregulated market, manipulation with FUD (with news, with spam with extreme trust or negativism on forums), bots, maybe even pump and dump (at banks/states level) can be some "recipes" for what happens on the market.
Also, the extremely fast growth calls for correction now and then.

What's the difference between a normal adjustment and a panic sell?

It's normal for markets to overvaluate assets, only to crash down and undervaluate them at a later time. Bitcoin is no exception and much more extreme in terms of price movements, both up and down. I know we've been spoiled by the recent bull market, but the price fluctuations Bitcoin has gone through have been much harsher in much shorter timeframes just a few years back. The reality is that Bitcoin is still a highly speculative asset with little comparables for gauging the "proper" price level leading to the volatility we still see today.

There might be large scale market manipulation at play, but if that's the case it likely was the cause of the recent bull market as well, not just the crash.

But they are never going to understand this, we all need a little dip after a huge bullish trend.
And no, this is not a crash, and it can not be compared to one.
The price has only dropped 55% from the ATH, and a crash, could be considered when the price drops by more than 80%.

Simply it is a not regulated market so 30% var are normal

After China closing their farm, South Korea ban and India freezing account of btc the price dip happened. Price dip is good for traders they gain more on it. I guess those anouncement from that huge crypto country is just to stare up the market. Prices will soon soar then.

Fear of the bubble bursting i think was a factor in the correction we had last week.
There was a lot of talk and hype about crypto being in a bubble which was going to burst,
Which didnt happen.
I think any major hype at all in the markets and a lot of people will jump on it.
We saw this before christmas when we almost got to 20k and we saw it again last week.

OK, let's assume the initial drop was due to people being scared that bitcoin is a bubble about to burst.. After that sudden drop the price had begun to recover, so why the drop now? Not only bitcoin, but pretty much every single altcoin is down by double digit percentages.

It is normal and usual of this month. You can also compare this trend with the last year.

There’s one specific reason to it and that is the structure of bitcoin investments all along.. The demand and supply thing that can be triggered with many continuous or simultaneous factors or even a single one that makes the investor especially the new one’s who is more vulnerable to this kind of propaganda’s and bad imaging.. It will not change even if this will go mainstream as competition is always present..

I think that the primary reason of the current high volatility of Bitcoin is the rumors from the South Korea. The situation is nervous, therefore some people commit a panic sales.

UPs and Downs are normal in Cryptocurrency.

I think it's a mix of both of those things (market manipulation and fud). Although the cryptomarketcap looks huge to the common people, the truth is that those values are quite small, if we compare them to the marketcap of stocks, gold, or any other solid assets. I won't even dare to compare it to fiat marketcap, since crypto want to work as currencies. So yes, they can be easily manipulated. Whales can put walls and lock the price at a certain point. Then they take advantage of the news that could lead the price up or down, and the price ends up moving the way they want. Even if people don't want to go into the fud, and start buying, they price wont go up because of the walls, and since there are a lot of people selling as well because of the news, and there is not clear support, we will see the price go down. This will generate more panic sell, and we have those big dips.

Low liquidity and market manipulation, are in fact the reasons appointed by SEC for not releasing ETFs right now. The crypto markets still need to mature a lot more, before they can deliver what they are promising.

Usually crashes are the result of manipulation and market being tired of going up. People are starting to have second thoughts and are prone to selling. If at the same time somebody spreads fake news like the one about Korea banning Bitcoin you got yourself a huge selloff.

crash needed after very long time increasing this is normally and healthy for market.
market need some correction after rising for very long time.
last correction happen because south Korea ban exchange sites.

The bitcoin price sometimes goes down quickly because too many people want to sell at the same time.
They do that when they are driven by fear.
In most cases that fear is triggered by news that indicate problems on the market of crypto currencies.

There is as well the theory of big players dumping coins in order to create a massive over supply on the market.
Theat leads to a low bitcoin price as well, where the big players buy back, only cheaper. I am not sure if players with such large amount of coins still exist.

A pure pump and dump sceme like we know it from smaller coins, I think bitcoin is too big for that.

It's normal because the volume is very low.
If the volume gets larger then the amount of coins being sold should increase also.

No one dares to place themselves on the long run with all the bad news, and that's where we see that bitcoin is primarily a trading tool and not a currency

Recently bitcoins prices increased a lot in very small period of time within 1 year bitcoins prices went from $900 to almost $20k so this drop in price was merely because of correction of the bitcoins price.And as bitcoins is very volatile in nature it's price gets affected alot from many things.

We could not assure that the main reason why bitcoin getting crash these few weeks, maybe it's because of china's down full from their miner and also banning in other countries just like Indonesia and South Korea. Or another reason it's being normal of bitcoin crashing down it because of being volatile it may fluctuated by itself high and low price movement. This is not first time crashing out with bitcoin then in this scenario now i did not surprised besides i keep holding on bitcoin.

Asia, main movers of crypto currency has been  tough on crypto  traders recently  as a result of new government  policies. Traders in these areas are out of fear selling their coins massively is the major reason  for bitcoin  recent crash.

There are plenty of reasons why Bitcoin crash sometimes. When Bitcoin gains a lot of attention, its price tends to surge. Most of the people want to cash out - usually large amounts of money which generally leads to huge panic and decrease in price. Sometimes people are afraid of upcoming hard forks (Bcash and SegWit2x are a good example) or just something bad happened e.g. China claimed to ban Bitcoin. These crashes are definitely healthy for Bitcoin and our community.

The news that come up of recent is enough to crash the price of bitcoin but from the look of things the traders, miners and exchangers owners from that country will fine a way out so just relax.

The volume of bitcoin is very low? Seriously? do you even know how many volume does it has? It is changing everyday, you clearly do not understand a shit about cryptos..

As far as i am concerned this crash is very healthy for BTC.Because many people were indulge in undervaluing BTC that its a bubble and can blow any time and the investors investment will go waste.Right now it went through dip by 30% and interestingly its recovering and soaring again,gaining lost Courage of investors that despite 30% dip it has recovered so quickly and shut down the rumors of bubble and blow.If you carefully see the history of other cryptocurrencies you will implicate that after dip it takes long time for them to pump up or finally crash.Its BTC who endured a huge jerk and moving up and sustaining its reputation.So finally i can say very proudly that this crash is very helpful & fruitful for potential buyer.After 30% crash people will not think to invest in it for long.Its my analysis for BTC..

Bitcoin is still a new product which is still unregulated in some parts of the world and if it is to be used by people without fear we need regulations but the problem is if the people in charge of putting these financial rules come up with something we dont like value dips but as time goes by this will become a stable market  as we wont have uncertainties.

The same thing as the stock market, prices goes up and down due to so many factors, to say one for sure is what no body can pin point .

I think Bitcoin crashing is due to multiple factors like traders grabbing their profit by selling (market correction) or when an event is upcoming like xmas or something like that.
Furthermore,media spreading fud about cryptocurrency also influence people to panic sell.
I guess that altcoins falls when bitcoin falls and that's because panic sellers trade their altcoins to bitcoin first,then convert it to fiat currency.

Well it depends on multiple factors. Sometimes it's just a market correction and other times it's based on the market sentiment that changed due to news.

One of the guesses for recent crash is the recent talks of ban in South Korea and China.

The value of any crypto currency is regulated by the demand and its volume at the moment, that is, how much it is extracted and how difficult it is to extract in the subsequent time, and the demand can be speculative, and this is one of the main problems of crypto currency.

Its a peer to peer currency. Its price is dependent on the usage of it. And moreso, some news may likely influence its price.

The problem is, that the volume are low and there are to many weak hands who own bitcoin. WHen theres some FUD news in the mainstream media, those people run over to their pc and sell everything, even when there are just fake news. So in future when more people will own bitcoin or cryptocurrencies and the volume get higher, there will no more -25%dumps.

Crashes can happen after the price rises high very quickly. The price may be too high because of enthusiasm of investors or because of price manipulation. The crash would follow if there is any bad news such as a government regulation or a cryptocurrency exchange that had a problem. Or the price drop could be just because investors are cashing in on there recent huge profits.

First and foremost, we should be mindful that price changes would definitely occur in the investment of cryptocurrencies, and hence a normal phenomena. However; the following factors play major role in the crash
a. Fear: many people are selling Bitcoin at the same and hence causing supply to exceed demand
b. Influx of altcoins in the system are reducing the demand for Bitcoins and hence causing the price to fall

      Well, the way i see it, there are a lot of alibis that can be used today. Some will say it's because of the Chinese new year and other holidays, then, there's the price manipulations. Then there's another reason caused by greedy weak handed people that only came for greed and when the prices went down they decided to cutt lossess or simply take profits or panic selling. This is because they do not have enough understanding about how things work in the crypto world.

It doesn't crashes it under the correction
Don't worry it supposed to get back even rise up higher
I believe it'll be about 20+k for BTC

It is a usual part of bitcoin or any cryptocurrency to have a price correction or a crash and then rise up again later. It is bound by its own volatile nature and fluctuates in almost every second. The rapid changes of bitcoin prices particularly price crashes are caused by some factors like price manipulations, the moves by some governments to ban crypto exchanges, hackings and spreading of FUD that causes further increase panic selling. Othe other hand, demands for more bitcoins will cause its price to move up and often lead it to another all-time high.

There’s one specific reason to it and that is the structure of bitcoin investments all along.. The demand and supply thing that can be triggered with many continuous or simultaneous factors or even a single one that makes the investor especially the new one’s who is more vulnerable to this kind of propaganda’s and bad imaging.. It will not change even if this will go mainstream as competition is always present.
Crashes can happen after the price rises high very quickly. The price may be too high because of enthusiasm of investors or because of price manipulation. The crash would follow if there is any bad news such as a government regulation or a cryptocurrency exchange that had a problem. Or the price drop could be just because investors are cashing in on there recent huge profits.
We could not assure that the main reason why bitcoin getting crash these few weeks, maybe it's because of china's down full from their miner and also banning in other countries just like Indonesia and South Korea. Or another reason it's being normal of bitcoin crashing down it because of being volatile it may fluctuated by itself high and low price movement. This is not first time crashing out with bitcoin then in this scenario now i did not surprised besides i keep holding on bitcoin.

Whales manipulation
Fear and panic sell
Fake news
etc...

In my experience, Bitcoin price crashes sometimes due to negative news or a technological problem that bitcoin encountered such as high transaction fees or slow transaction time. The latest crash is due to China's ban on mining and Korea's ban on bitcoin. But after all these negative news btc price only dropped down to 30%. I think it will go up though.

A lot of people buying bitcoin dont know it well and dont know the technology. A lot of them only buy bitcoin for gain that is why we can see a crash occasionally when negative news comes. 

There are two major reasons which I know of through the price crash of BTC occurs and they are
* News and FUD
* Corrections
The Bitcoin price crash occurs when there is a certain news about a country banning it and so people FUD and then panic sell their coins. Most of the FUD occurs because of rumors such as the recent one of South Korea.
Corrections occur then and there because of volatility and profit taking of the traders. When the coins go in upward direction for a long time it has to come down a little to maintain its stability. This is why minor crashes occur then there for a healthy growth of coin.

Yes,  bitcoin do crush but saying this happens occasionally, well somehow. It is almost an obvious given scenario and statement about bitcoin. But knowing how it works could take hard time since it has a lot of factor.Maybe what you have said could be a hint for now.

Bitcoin is really volatile and vulnerable from small fishes that holds a partial amount of it. Due to negative news to regulation etc. That makes most of the little holders sell their coins because of panic that something is going to happen really bad and they may lose profits

yes, great damage happens this year, thus making the bitcoin fall and sick. I think this is because at the end of 2017 more sales, so the market is not controlled. hype will restore natural correction to normal again. but it will run slowly. so keep hold of bitcoin and not leave bitcoin is an option today.

Bitcoin crash occasionally specifically on its market price because of people dumping their bitcoins or perhaps whales are dumping their big stock of bitcoin. A correction could be a reason too why bitcoin is occasionally crashing.

Bitcoin sometimes falls in his course and you need to get used to it and take it easy. First, it can not constantly grow in price. By its nature, it is very volatile and will periodically rise or fall. Secondly, it is decentralized and is not supported by anyone in a certain course. The usual money from the fall of the course is guarded by the Central Banks, in which there is a so-called stabilization fund, from which they feed their currency. Here, bitcoin is left to itself. Third, bitcoin very clearly reacts to external financial factors and bad investment news. Fourthly, bitcoin is now experiencing not the best of its times and has a lot of problems with transactions, which frightens off investors.

This is bad side of decentralised market, when a big whale gather  together they will be able to manipulate the price, and when people buy bitcoin, one day they will sell to get profit, but this time the damage is due to the banning rumor from different countries and the people that rejected to used  bitcoin because of the expensive fee

There can be many reasons from which this occasional crashes can occurs and the most evident one is when this whales try to manipulate this prices by taking out all their stocks is when this type of short crashes occurs.Other reasons are FUD's. and false news of countries banning bitcoin or announcement of some forks like segwit2x etc.But things could stop if people starts to think logically and they don't panic on this fake news would definitely reduce some crashes.

as bitcoin is being used as an asset (mostly), it is similar to stocks (right now), I guess you would get some good information about this trend here https://www.disnat.com/en/learning/trading-basics/stock-basics/what-causes-stock-prices-to-change

Demand and supply greatly affects bitcoin price and so it's easy for billionaires to manipulate bitcoin price, these manipulators are all looking in one graph we are all looking, so you must master technical analysis and candlestick indicators to help you cut further losses, crypto exchanges must have this setting, gladly almost all exchanges I now have.

All of this. There are plenty of reasons and it happens in other forms of investment too. Things grow, they reach a tipping point, they 'correct' when selling starts to happen and it somewhat snowballs due to fear, bots etc. and then it starts rising again. It's nothing to worry about. It's natural to worry a bit when an investment falls quite sharply, but a correction is actually healthy for long term growth - without periodic corrections, you'll see a bubble which bursts and many people get wrecked.

It all comes down to demand and supply, but there are so many factors that affect it. How the press shines on bitcoin is a huge factor. Currently, bad news after bad news, put btc on a bad light. That made some people lose confidence in it and sold their coins. Another factor is competition. There are so many other cryptocurrency, and it divides the people. Supply and Demand goes somewhere else. Lastly, you should also pay attention to is how btc changes on a technological level. What some people seem to forget that, there's actual tech and developers behind BTC, and you should be paying attention on how they improve the system. What they do can drastically chance the market.

and japan pullout almost majority of their assets because they are planning to build or create their own cryptocurrency thats why price of bitcoin crash this season. Reason why bitcoin crash in occasions its because they will use their money for buying stuffs they need in that occasion sample christmas they need to pullout some of their money to buy christmas gifts, give money to parents and other needs in that season.

I think now bitcoin has fallen because it's prone to the Chinese New Year: Asian cryptotraders translate the crypto currency into fiat to buy gifts and tickets for traveling on vacation ;D. I'm sure that the market will start to grow after February 16)

Bitcoin crash occasionally as a result of news pertaining to crypto issues,presently lots of people are taking profit reason why we have a crash in the price,its is a norm in the sector

Looks like nobody dares to keep bitcoin in the long run and everyone is happy with little profit, hence the bitcoin behavior

I think that the amount of new traders entering the market is one of the main reasons for the FUD sell chain reaction after each and every negative mainstream media message. They still have to develop strong hands.  

Bitcoin doesn't crash occasionally, it just crash depending on the circumstances that is currently happening in the market of bitcoin and because of the FUDs right now that we have for bitcoin, it creates fear for the other people especially those who are newbies in this cryptocurrency world and that creates panic selling situation that decrease the price a lot.

Market fluctuations will have bad or good news to bring to people and make them bitter about the bitcoin market, in addition there are many other contributing factors to increase or decrease the value of bitcoin as market manipulation , speculation / storage of great value ..., There are many reasons and it also happens in different forms of investment and you should pay attention to how to improve the system. What they do may have a bitcoin market opportunity.

The rise and fall of BTC is normal behavior!
Because the price of BTC is determined by the market, although the value of encrypted currency is now affected by demand and trading volume!
Many people don't understand the technology of bitcoin, and the purpose of their purchase is to make money, so sometimes they choose to sell when they fall, causing the price to fall!

The rate at which bitcoin speedily raced to the $19K mark was really very alarming and am sure though investors where happy, there were also afraid of it as well, because it was simply very much unbelievable. Bad news and rumors as well price corrections are the reasons why the price constantly falls.

There should be an agency that filters information about bitcoin, so anyone can not make false information and do fud.
China has done it several times and succeeded in making bitcoin holders panicked. this may be one of the strategies to gain profits in a sneaky way. :(

The theory could be a truth since it happened suddenly to all known crypto currency , but we cannot change the fact that it also happened in past which is seem to be normal to everyone.

Perfect. I go with the above answer. Adding to this there is some correction happens in bitcoin as part of their activity to strengthen their base to make bitcoin further bullish. This activity sometimes lower the price but that's part of the cryptocurrency health check kind of thing. Do not panic when price goes down and you cannot actually say that it is a crash, it's just a warm up activity for a bullish future.

the crash of bitcoin sometimes happens crash unpredictably due to the first reason is big amount of bitcoin held by some big whales on the world, so they can control the market whenever they want, secondly using the unstable from the world such as bitcoin banning in Korea or China, bitcoin can be drop more than before.

Hi,

I think both can be explanatory.

I mean, the Asian bitcoin community is large so whether it is a manipulation from the Chinese government, or an over-reaction of the involved market once the news is out... Both lead to the exact same result. So actually, it is hard to say... and quite uninteresting because both phenomenon are completely out of reach of individuals.


Then, regarding the bitcoin generally, I would say that there are so many factors and so many people involved here, that it is completely impossible to build any accurate model.

The rise and fall of the btc occurred constantly, the Whales use influence on the course, as well as the upcoming Chinese holidays on the eve...
Everything will soon normalize and the market will grow after february.

like what you said OP "it simply FUD leading to a wide-spread panic selling" because 5% of bitcoin holders/investors are newbie in this industry so it is very normal that this newbie sell all of their bitcoin when they see that they are losing money by the dip which is not recommend to do as a trader. and in addition, bitcoin investors are switching to altcoin just to make more profits after a massive effect of bitcoin dip to altcoins. this is just all my opinion.

Chinese are always part of the bitcoin crash.  They always announced that they are banning bitcoin.  Also the crash was a result of the big players.  They hold big amount of bitcoin and they can control or manipulate the price of it in favor of them.  Always in favor of them.

maybe we need to change the meaning of "crash" first before starting to talk about bitcoin. i mean there is nothing else like bitcoin (at least not that many other markets) so the comparison is impossible. what we call big drop most of the times is simply daily fluctuations of price. for example the $1000 that goes up and down these days!

and the same way the "crash" is a simple market correction most of the times and then it is followed by the large number of newbies panic selling.

Anything below 8k will be catastrophic. But, I believe if it goes to 8k, it will be there for a split second and then BAM! the much needed correction is done and she will bounce up so fast you can then truly call it the lighting network.

There's a lot of anticipation to buy at 8k though so will be hard to catch - I'll be happy if I can grab some below 9500.

Don't worry fellas, like Htl says, this correction is healthy and needed for further growth.

Although bitcoin couldn't be manipulated by any private sector, its value can be. This is called Market Manipulation. A group of people will decide wether this productnwill increase in price or it would be decreased. Then bam, they have now manipulated the market based on their own hypotheses and inferrences.

We touched the second bottom, 8-9k is too unrealistic, 10340 was a low on bittrex today so now im waiting for a rebound.. im happy my buy order at 10500 was filled!

There are two major reasons which I know of through the price crash of BTC occurs and they are
* News and FRUD
* Corrections

A lot of people mentioning FUD, but who are the people driving this? What are their motives? Are the whales somehow collaborating to crash the market so they can buy back in lower?

To much people involve in here, and with that Market Manipulation it seems to be true. It really affect the entire crypto, as they continue doing this, it makes people moving out from crypto which is not good. We make this market grow not by killing it, maybe we should keep helping each others to make this new form currency to succeed.

I think we cannot consider it as crash, It was just a correction and now we can see that bitcoin price is trading in a very stable mood and hope that very soon bitcoin will once again get its accelerator and very soon its price will cross 30000$, we just need to remaid as calm and cofident and should not sell sell our bitcoin in panic.

It crashes so small fry investors are able to buy BTC at a price they can afford  ;D For those who've been in crypto for quite a while now seems to enjoy crashes like this too as it gives them opportunity to top up and add additional coins in their portfolio.

This already happened late of 2017, we have seen how bitcoin value was affected due to reported news related to China banning of ICO. Tgere is no denying that China takes a large role in the changes of price for bitcoin basically because there is a large market people in the country. Though China may manipulate the value, they cant still have the full control over it and make it totally dump. There arr still large number of people around tge world whose into it.

An attempt from China before succeed to decline the price, but luckily bitcoin showed that its price not dependent on a country. In tact ita value was regain ang and hit even harder.

Do you think btc can fall more or it's the good time to buy for a short term buy/sell?

This is probably because of the FUD from korea, Chinese banning miners and the super high transaction fee of bitcoin. Hope core developers take into account micro-users that doesnt have that big money to use bitcoin.

Yeah, a few days ago bitcoin was averaging at $12k after their pump it is now down to $10k again, this is probably due to the whales that has been manipulating the market for their own gains.


It has also some effect on small scale traders because they cant really compete with the big traders they only go with the trend that whales decide.
FUD can really spread fear when your budget in the market is low, cant blame the small traders as they only want to profit on what ever they can hold.

no body say why bitcoin is increasing rapidly every one want profits but when it comes down everybody losses their mind well it is market need correction often to see new highes

It is normal for crypto market to have wild ride (up and down). FUD and speculation are factors...

I think bitcoin crashes occasionally due to the economic status of a country. If the economy of a certain country is healthy a lot of new investors would pursue their interest in bitcoin that might affect the demand in the currency that later on cause an increase in its price. On the contrary, when the economy is sick or low, the probability of a certain person to engage towards bitcoin is cut-off. They would rather use the money for their daily needs due to high price in the marketplaces than starve just to invest in it.

That crashes are not sporadic or occasional.
I know that we all desire bitcoin to be higher and higher, but there are a lot of decreasing factors an people who play down.
And it's clear, that market depend on news, and I hear only bad news last time (from India and China mostly).

I do not see it as a crash. Bitcoin itself very strong in cryptocurrencies. I would say a market correction rather than crash. Market can not move non stop in the same direction. Correction was due because market rose very aggressively in the past 2-3 months. It's a normal behavior of market. We can not expect always bullish market. I hope soon market will be stable.

It is normal for bitcoin to crash because the market of bitcoin is very vulnerable to that since the market is decentralized and there is no regulation that is happening in bitcoin so it is so easy to think for the possible reason why does bitcoin crash occasionally. If there is a bad news then it will be a huge negative effect on bitcoin like what is happening right now.

MM also create artificial FUD that cause panic sell could also be another factor

Here not a single factor affecting the bitcoin market to go up and down , specially here our discussion is targated over the dump in the market price of the bitcoin .
Here we can see that every time a negative news enter in the bitcoin market and gave a big impact regarding the trust that most of the people have with the bitcoin and that results into panic to have bitcoin in bulk .
Here recently a big factor that is running in the bitcoin market is that taxation rules that will government take from the Bitcoin users ( even bitcoin is not legalised ) and also government is taking all the old statement of used bitcoin amount.
So people are thinking that bitcoin will no more remain like that which was easy to earn and make profit ( newbie like thinking ) .

bitcoin has a nature of volatility, any untoward incidents and mislead information regarding crypto currency create chain reaction that measure the stability of the coins, i think that is one of the reason why it crash occasionally

This week’s Bitcoin crash was all about fraud and regulation.
Cryptocurrencies have had a rough week: the value of bitcoin plunged to a mere 50 percent of its 2017 peak, and other currencies, such as Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin have seen double-digit losses compared to their heights from last year. Tuesday also witnessed the collapse of BitConnect, an anonymously operated crypto exchange that had been repeatedly accused of running a Ponzi scheme via its proprietary BCC currency.
Taken together, these events may simply act as another reminder of the “volatility” of the cryptocurrency market, which saw bitcoin rise to a peak of $19,783 on December 17th. Bitcoin has gone through multiple crashes before: in spring 2011, in November 2013, and in January 2017. However, this current bubble comes against a new backdrop: a global tide of regulation against the inchoate cryptocurrency industry. On one hand, these regulations may be scaring bitcoin investors into selling their coins now before the full impact of regulation makes itself felt. On the other, it may also be threatening suspect exchanges such as BitConnect, with its own token declining in value by 46 percent between December 17th and January 15th — the day before it announced its closure.. interesting times!

In my opinion its easy to say that when people are greedy and buying bitcoin which drive the price upwards, then it will be the best time for the whales to gaining profits. We've seen a huge increase of bitcoin in a few months and its just a normal investment advice that when people become greedy, then we should avoid it. And people start to feel insecure and FUD began entering the market pshycology, then its the time to entry and looking for cheap coins. Basically regulatory pressures are normal thing when people start to acknowledge something, some will try to take benefit of it or even try to control it.   ;D

I strongly agree on your opinion that, the bitcoin price sometimes goes down quickly because too many people want to sell at the same time. They do that when they are driven by fear. And in most cases that fear is triggered by news that indicate problems on the market of crypto currencies. And adding also my opinion that, it usually crashes because the result of manipulation and market being tired of going up. People are starting to have second thoughts and are prone to selling. In addition, I think it's a mix of both of those things (market manipulation and fud). Although the cryptomarketcap looks huge to the common people, the truth is that those values are quite small, if we compare them to the marketcap of stocks, gold, or any other solid assets.

There are different scenarios on where bitcoins value is falling depending on the season. Sometimes there is a hype on the coin and the value is keep on increasing because the supply will also last, there is also an incident last year where ico's are banned in china but still cyrptocurrency manage to increase its value and reach 10k dollar before 2018 starts.

The problem with the news, is that it tends to focus on the negative aspects, bad news spreads faster than good news, and that is a problem when it comes to bitcoin and other promising altcoins.

Have you ever heard the word "market"? This refers to a context of buyers and sellers, the buyers are convinced that the best thing to do is to buy, the sellers are convinced that the best thing to do is to sell. You wouldn't ask this question when the buyers ("the bulls") are in control and the price explodes to the upside. Well, when the seller ("the bears") get in control, the opposite happens. In cryptos, the swings are very extreme - that's it. But of course, big whales manipulate the market too. This happens in every market.

And now we see bitcoin recovering again from this crash? Is it due to the Korean new tax rules, or something else entirely?

das einzige Bitcoin-Dienstprogramm. Viele nutzen es als Wertaufbewahrungsmittel oder als spekulative Anlage. Und für diese Transaktion sind die Kosten nicht so wichtig.
Natürlich, da dies ein unregulierter Markt ist, Manipulation mit FUD (mit Nachrichten, mit hoch glaubwürdigem Spam oder Negativismus in Foren)

So, as many of you are painfully aware, bitcoin crashed around 30% over a couple of days, reportedly due to regulatory pressures in Asia, and a potential ban in China due to energy wastage and tax evasion risks etc. Reports suggest that China contributes as much as 70% of the worldwide hashing power

Very true.  Bitcoin can be manipulated by these big players.  I am thinking right now if the Chinese government is one of these big players.  They always ban bitcoin.  By doing this kind of announcement, people will panic and se their bitcoins.  Price will go down and they will be able to buy coins.  

All coins crash for numerous reasons ranging from normal pullbacks, to deep corrections resulting from negative market sentiment or bad news.... Eitherway, they are all part of Bitcoin's overall growth and success.

Maybe an unexpected wide selling panic but I do not think that this is kind of an intentional activities. Since bitcoin is decentralized the biggest company or group could make an intentional crash. This crashes could possibly the root of recent news that south korea bans bitcoin and about Japan's and China's regulatory woop such news probably drive people in panic for them to buy and sell bitcoin to get the hell out of such crashes.

A 40% pullback seems excessive even in the midst of the negative news as of late. There may be some deeper manipulation going on.

well, to be honest i really cannot tell for sure what in the crap's name is truly responsible for all these price drops or corrections(as what others call it) that has been happening the all the crypto currencies present. because obviously no one knows what the truth really is(except for those people behind the market manipulations if there are really market manipulators). the  percentage of all the reasons being thought of are completely equal to each other since they all can really be true or completely false. in fact, all these things might be the reasons behind every price drops for all we know.

having said all these, i really think that your guesses and other people's guesses are only as accurate or inaccurate as my guess.

It is totally normal in this market cycle that during the first quarter of the year, people will take profit from what they have invested in the past year/s. It just seems like its crashing because of the FUDs that are spreading across the social media and mainstream news but those who knows and truly understands bitcoin and its technology, they won't get affected of this spreading disease to cause panic selling.

There are opinions that cryptocurrency fluctuations are closely related to CME futures expiration dates.
CME began trading the first Bitcoin futures at the beginning of December.
The first contract expired about a week ago and the initial one will expire 26th of Jan.
So let's see what will happen with crypto market tomorrow.

Bitcoin itself may be a very new thing, excessive investment may be bitcoin bubble, which led to misconfiguration of capital.

Doesn't really seem excessive, less than 0.1% of the world is invested in crypto as of now, there is still massive room for growth. I don't think it was the sudden growth that caused this.

Chinese Government could be one of the players, and wall street sharks for sure is another one. They control also the mainstream media and when the mainstream media starts a campaign against bitcoin, you can bet that someone there is buying the dips :)

I dont even call it crash. One year ago at this time bitcoin worth 900$, i say this because i am a long term investor.

Regulation can’t stop Bitcoin, but it can stop liquidity entering Bitcoin. If large scale institutional money is restricted from entering cryptocurrencies, then Bitcoin will eventually reach a peak and that will cause a selloff.

According to my understanding BTC crash due to FUD. Whales/Market manipulators distributing fake news to dump the price. Then they buy in the dip and people who feared about the dump sell their BTC with loss.

After bitcoin hit its all time high at almost $18000 last December 15, 2017 some price correction happens. Now bitcoin back to its normal state seeing dumps and pumps for the past weeks. And the whales are now playing it right now thats why you are seeing some crashed on bitcoin and other cryto currency in the market.

In fact, this is a normal phenomenon, BTC to be adjusted, I believe the next it will grow up

I believe that there are no "occasional crashes". What has been observed are the natural oscillations that can be observed in most markets, although this seems to be maximized in the price of bitcoin given the volatile nature of this emerging market. But I have no doubt that in 2018 the bitcoin market will reach a greater degree of consolidation and we will see a price much less volatile.

Bitcoin crashes because that is what happens in a market that is this volatile. Bitcoin has never had a stable price which means prices can sway either way and can actually go very low just like the prices can also go very high, all it takes is time.

I strongly agree on your opinion that, usually crashes are the result of manipulation and market being tired of going up. And people are starting to have second thoughts and are prone to selling. And adding also my opinion that, the bitcoin price sometimes goes down quickly because too many people want to sell at the same time, they do that when they are driven by fear. In addition, recently bitcoins prices increased a lot in very small period of time within 1 year bitcoins prices went from $900 to almost $20k so this drop in price was merely because of correction of the bitcoins price. On the otherhand, Bitcoin is still a new product which is still unregulated in some parts of the world and if it is to be used by people without fear we need regulations but the problem is if the people in charge of putting these financial rules.

I knew that the price is going to fluctuate as the end of 2017 was too stable to be annoyed

Weak hands. There were too many of them, and when the planned dump went, they just started to jump out of the market, afraid to lose the last. In general, cryptorines are not about technical analysis and not about short-term inputs: one simply believes in it, but one believes in the head, understanding technology.

Looking at the price drop sharply or price crash, I would like to say that it is mainly affected by bad news and high volume of sales for profit taking. On December 2017 to January 2018 we could see that price drop was affected by great sales of bitcoin from btc holders  whether to take profit  or just to cash their bitcoin for end year to new year party. Besides that bitcoin price will fall down when bad news are suddenly announced that may come from governments banning bitcoin or from social media. As bitcoin lovers or bitcoin holders we should consider it as a normal circle and don't be panic.

The price of bitcoin sometimes drops rapidly because too many people want to sell it at the same time. That's because some bitcoin speculators are panicking when they hear or see some negative news about bitcoin.

The price of bitcoins tends to recover in a few months, so I think bitcoin is a long-term investment.

Bitcoin crash occasionally I think because bitcoin is volatile and no fix value so this is normal to crypto, we expect this to happen anyway so we must hold our bitcoin during the down or buy it and sell when it rise.

sometimes bitcoin crashes because investors pull out and trying to trade to some new coins.