Bitcoin Forum

I hear in news here and there many persons claiming the burst of bitcoin bubble in the year 2017.  The price of one btc rose to $21 k and then falling to the levels of $5-6 k. 
During the year 2018 several people were of the view that the price will again rise and break its previous record motioned above.  The claims were different according to the mindset of the claimants.  Few people claiming btc price will rise to $50k and surprisingly some claiming that it will touch $120 k. 
The entire year of 2018 passed.  The price was moving between around 6-7k US dollars.   So the expectations of the people were not met.
I am of the opinion that it was the burst of bubble of people’s greed but  not  of bitcoin  Because greed of the investors increased with very high speed.    With the passage of time the price will increase but the price  to touch the moon dramatically I think will end in the result got during last around one year.
What  you think; is not it lesson to people to control their greed.  Should not our expectations be near to realities? 
Please share your view on it.

It all depends on the price you paid.

Just check the historic charts and you will see that the pumps happen around the bitcoin halving event. Accumulation starts before that so expect the bull run to start slowly around Q2 this year

it is not a burst if later bitcoin rises again to 21k, but if bitcoin is stable or even will continue to decline, they will still call it a bitcoin bubble has burst, even if later bitcoin has risen again, there is a high probability that people will also be traumatized before they finally chose to play safe. That play safe will make bitcoin hard to rise more

First, bitcoin didn't reached $21k, it peaked around $19,500-$19,700.


It's because price moves based on speculation and sentiments of the people. Obviously, it didn't turn the way a lot of us wanted it to be, but for those who have been in this market long enough, the price is already a bubble and was burst in the whole of 2018.


It will definitely go up again, but we can never really tell. As far as the greed, I guess it's human nature. The market works in different cycles but currently the market is controlled by the bears. Might take some time before we really recovered and a reversal takes place.

Well, first bitcoin did not grow to the level of 21 000 $ from reached 19 800 $ I understand that you mean that we have to be as one and move the price up but at the moment of greed in the market there is only a fear of loss.

What happened is like the small ocean and lots of fish, there was a little fish in the lake and when fishing became easy, the number of fishermen and speculators increased in the vicinity of that lake.

It is not greed, it is simply speculation, the willingness to pay for Bitcoin, 20000 was not the real price, but the same speculations.

Be smart and use it to buy or keep them for long periods, in the end the number of fish is limited

I think 'burst' isn't the right term but rather 'deflation' since the pieces are still intact (if you think that bitcoin is a bubble, that is.) It could go on to crazy heights once more should there be another catalyst for a bull run with the same degree as the 2017 run. The 2017 bull run to a new ATH was caused by media attention and credit card purchases, and the latter stages of the run was definitely caused by FOMO from non-believers who started questioning why the hell bitcoin is still going even after it crossed the $5000 mark.

It can happen, knowing how people's emotions can be easily swayed by a single factor.

By definition the bubble burst. It's just that many associate a bubble with the price going from 0 to something high and then back to 0. Instead of it just being the price raising much above a fair price and then returning towards a fair price.

It almost, but never touched 20k, let alone 21k...
I wouldn't call it a burst of a bubble. It was more like an abnormal inflammation that healed itself back.

I really can't understand people who saying Bitcoin is bubble. It price is not stable everyone knows! And if you can't get this risks, don't invest. It is really simple to do that.

Don't think about today, it is related with future. We are looking at future.

Yeah price was just nuts. People were crazy pumped about bitcoin.

Is it fair to call a bubble something that went from 10 cents in price to 3600 (current price)? People see the fall from 20k to 3k but do not acknowledge that Bitcoin was priced less than 1 dollar once. And we still have to see about the future because I am sure Bitcoin will go up again.

Such volatility exists since the very beginning of Bitcoin's existence. If you follow the past bear markets you will see that in comparison with them we still have some space for BTC to go lower to keep the peak to bottom ratio.
And as last bear market lasted almost 2 years, it would be not unreasonable to say, that in 2019 it might be better to accumulate BTC and HODL it. And you even do not need to make enormous investments. Many of customers of our cryptocurrency exchange buy now BTC worth $50-70 each paycheck.

I will said that its not a bubble burst, when irs called burst, it won't have the ability to go back again while bitcoin still got yhe potential to go up, its veey unfortunate to seen bitcoin price falling in 2018, its a good run but now its full of manipulation, many people frustrated to see the price but actually it's not a bad price, the hype in 2017 that makes 2018 price seems like a bad price, but if you see the whole picture you can see bitcoin still in a good track

the rise that is so pantastic in 2017 makes everyone so excited ... but after the passage of time throughout 2018 where the price of bitcoin dropped steadily which caused many people to panic and worry ... but I'm sure someday the price of bitcoin will return to prominence ... .

it all depends on what "it" stands for.

the drop from $20k (not $21k since price reached $19.xk and no more) was obviously a bubble burst but the the real question in my opinion is about how much of the drop from that ATH to current price is because of bubble burst and how much of it is because of manipulation. i'd say the correction ended somewhere around $8.5k and the rest has been constant manipulation and artificial dumps that crashed it lower and made it a "reverse bubble".

as for prediction of others last year, we have had a wide range of them! most were bullshit because they were guesses without any basis even if they came true! and those predicting a new ATH were too caught up in their own illusion. but predicting a rise to start in 2017 was not so out of ordinary. we have had quite a long and large drop and logically it needed to end a while ago, the fact that it didn't end and continued more doesn't make them wrong per se.

Right now you can't say the bubble burst because a bubble and a correction are 2 different things.

When a bubble bursts the price would return maybe to 99% of its peak value and never gain stability and recover.

But BTC started the year at around $900 or so (2017 year) and its still 400% above that value, so its looks like a much needed correction. If it keeps dropping and goes to like $50 a coin, then yes the bubble did burst but most likely that won't happen.

that's really the distinction to make. it all depends how we define "bubble". some people are referring to events like tulip mania (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania) or the beanie baby craze.

but around here, "bubble" more often refers to periods of "boom and bust" performance---explosive growth followed by harsh corrections. bitcoin has had numerous of these cycles.

Many speculators has said the bubble has burst but I think it is a corrections because bitcoin and cryptocurrencies market went too far in 2017. If we should have the same pump bitcoin and cryptocurrencies market witnessed in2017,  last year it could be called speculatives assets but we see the reality of the market that last year and we really see how the market make some corrections and patterns through out the year.  Traders that has been following the market has also made some money especially the bearish trend traders.

I've always thought of the bubble analogy as pretty fair, even when I properly took to Bitcoin in 2016, and even with 2017 and 2018 coming along. If anything the past 2 years have reinforced my understanding of a bubble.

And that's the cyclical boom and bust bubble definition. Not the tulip style spectacular boom and death in one fell swoop.

Nothing wrong with this being called a bubble. No less a bubble than say, stock market or real estate.

Hey let’s start with basic facts bitcoins is not a bubble, it’s a technology something people are yet coming terms with even after 10 years of it’s launch. I believe you were misled by the media, and the so called influential analysts who predicted big numbers without any fundamentals. If you see on this forum many regulars kept warning that 2018 bitcoins prices may slow down and gave reasonable targets, and I rely on their expertise rather analysts. I will advise you not to worry about the prices, but worry about it’s adoption if people adopt it prices automatically will increase, and I believe we’re already seeing decent adoption in 2019.

First of all Bitcoin is not a bubble but it has some rules how it's functioning. Looking at such conments here on forum it's easy to conclude that many users don't have a clue what is Bitcoin and how it's functioning, what are the basic characteristics. And that is really sad. They only motive is obviously only greed and when they are unable to fill that everyone else is fault and of course Bitcoin at first place. This shows how education about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general is deeply needed.

Bitcoin itself is not a bubble. There's no disputing that. But the boom and bust cycles are similar to those which people would associate with a bubble. A bubble does not have to begin and end at 0.

Bubble usually doesn't last that short. What we call "bubble" is something that takes a long time and bitcoin wasn't that high for long time, it was just a "hype" if you will that people realized they could get rich really quickly but than realized it wasn't sustainable.

Bubble is just like housing market where almost all globe gets affect by, when the housing market crashed in 2008 the american economy was effected so much that even some other countries got into economical crisis because of it, 2008 housing market created a wave of bankruptcy all over the world. The first known bubble of tulip bubble effected Netherlands so much that at one point a house was sold for a bulb of tulip.

On the other hand bitcoin went up and down not effecting too many people (maybe some of us but we are small compared to world population) and that can't be considered bubble.

I disagree, the prices at the end of the year of most cryptocurrencies clearly showed we were in a bubble and now that bubble has burst, it seems some have a problem calling things as they are, we were in a bubble accept it, but that does not mean the technology of bitcoin is not useful and cannot grow even more in the future, in fact I expect that to be the case but I hope the next time the price of bitcoin grows we do not see another bubble forming.

Bubble is not something you can actually call right away when something falls off.
With that logic apple was in a bubble and that bubble burst. Can we call what apple or amazon did a bubble ?
I don't think so, we all know apple and amazon will continue to grow and grow and eventually be double and even triple of their value right now.

Hence, just because something drops down a bit from its peak doesn't mean it will never pass the peak again, if you believe apple has a chance to grow bigger than its peak one day, why don't you trust the same would happen to bitcoin ? Maybe this drop is not bitcoin related and the market caused a chaos among investors which affected bitcoin first and stocks later on ? I doubt we can call this a bubble, it is a correction which we will recover from one day.

Depending on where you look, the high increase then falls low indeed it looks like a bubble, but because the market conditions are unstable so the price movements become very volatile.

It only shows that bitcoin price is unpredictable and nobody can really predict what going to happen in the whole year or the future. Those predictions that given by the crypto experts are only a guide or assumptions to create news and speculate the market into a bullish trend if people will take the ride. I think it's not correct to call it burst of bubble when it dumps from $21k down to $5k it could be the effect of volatility because if it's a bubble it will go down to zero and die. Bitcoin has still making a good volume and this will be back on top again in the right time with the support of the community.

Boom and bust is a different analogy and when a bubble pops thats it, you dont have any substance remaining after the bubble pop.   So that extreme an example is not current or relative to the Bitcoin transaction confirmation network.   Same for people who want to call it a ponzi scheme and so on, do you really believe thats a correct definition because stating that is misleading and incorrect imo and its been shown as wrong over last five years or more.

  People rely far too much on a price for an idea of success or not when its really not about that and didnt start that way and wont end up as that either imo

Goddamn, you people are so clueless. The Ethereum er20 tokens created an ico scam bananza that blew the whole scene up - that, and usdt created out of nothing to pump the markets. Bitcoin wasn't the reason for a $20k price, it was the scams surrounding it that made everything rise, including bitcoin - which btw rose at a much lower rate than pretty much every other top 10 coin. Even Litecoin kicked it's ass in proportional gains from 2015 to late 2017.
So where are we now is the question.

Bitcoin had more downfalls in '13-'15 and it was pronounced dead over a 1000 times. Burst of the bubble and dead of Bitcoin is only when the price hit 0.

My very last bitcoin is nought on under $300 level. I'm still on plus and meanwhile make enough from trading. So I'm not expecting anything, not calling anything, I'm just doing my job. Everything else is unnecessary loss of energy.

There were more causes, for example opening the crypto markets in certain Asian countries.
Social engineering did quite a good job too on that, advertising news that are doubtfully beneficial for Bitcoin as super great.
The FOMO sentiment was unprecedented.


Imho the bubble bursted quite a number of months ago. Imho now we are on "the other side" of speculation, when the price is kept extremely low for no valid reason (and may go even lower!).
Patience is the key. This is just a new accumulation phase, like we had in 2015.


PS. I expect during years such cycles to go on and on. Rinse and repeat.

The last catalyst in my opinion was mainly er20 icos that aren't ever going to explode again. What do you see the next catalyst being? actual mainstream finance adopting crypto? because I don't see that happening anytime soon, certainly not by next halving.

I don't call this the burst of bitcoin bubble but it's similar to the movie the purge. We'll now seeing the real value of the tokens when the government becomes more stricter about pump and dumps and exchanges volume manipulations. It's also killing all useless and copycat altcoins in this bear market so we'll only see valuable projects that will last.

@WinslowIII: halving, Brexit, stocks crash, LN and some linking to institutional investments (bakkt, etf,  ...) can all be catalysts.

And I think that Bitcoin needs at least 2 catalysts to start going up for real (bull market as a first step before the FOMO).

I am agree. The thing is many people become interested in bitcoin only after it began to growth in 2017. That time there where a lot of fud information that bitcoin will go to 50000$ and many new investors were hooked on this and invested in bitcoin at high prices. Normally now they say that bitcoin is a bubble which popped.

If we look at things from an unbiased perspective, we have only the block halving as event that will play out for sure and very likely drive the price up before and after. Lightning is something that people have to use first to understand and appreciate, because most people right now wrongly assume it's not ready, can't be used, and that it might take like years before it's rolled out.

Lightning is something that will later on affect the market positively, because that presents an opportunity for people to 'stake' their coins by locking them up in Lightning channels to scoop up fees. It wouldn't really surpise me if there are like 50,000BTC locked up in the Lightning Network within 5 years. The more coins are locked up the less that can be sold on the market, it's that simple.

That would be the tail wagging the dog, thats not an excuse for Bitcoin because there will always be copycat schemes to any successful product.   If anything I'd be surprised we dont have more as Bitcoin has no official way to fight trademark infringement.
But also its a test of the product that people are looking for the original to be the best.   I dont see ETH having success or not, or being a product that was open to alot of sale without substance is why BTC has kickback or reason to fail.

Same thing can apply to a FIAT standard with people attempting to copy the originals and print as many as possible.    Its going to be part of the challenge to establishing a reasonable crypto network, to remain distinct and discernible in its transactions

We should expect coins with smaller capitalization to see larger percentage gains (and losses). That's why Bitcoin's gains from September 2010 - June 2011 blew the 2013 and 2017 bubbles out of the water. Markets are much easier to pump when they're tiny.

What are you really saying with your narrative? Are you saying the dream is dead, because ICOs and Tether? If Tether was pumping the markets, so was the Willy Bot in 2013. So what? Real people were still paying $1200 in 2013 and $20K in 2017. Litecoin and other early altcoins as well as security markets like Havelock Investments and ASICminer swallowed up coin supply and pumped prices back then just like ICOs did in 2017. These are the same cycles playing out over and over.

BTC is the unit of account for virtually all altcoin and ICO markets because the entire market has immensely more faith in BTC than anything else. Sure, ICO markets increased demand for BTC, but there's no way to separate that from all the other demand for BTC. Hell, many altcoin traders (including myself) only trade those markets so they can earn more BTC. Bitcoin was already returning to its previous ATH in early 2017 before the altcoin bubble began. The bubble would have happened regardless of ICOs or Tether. Those simply exaggerated things and drove prices higher.

yup, it's impossible to predict but exciting to speculate about. metcalfe's law/network effect should apply to lightning the same way it applies to bitcoin. if it ever experiences the same kind of exponential adoption, we're talking about an insane amount of supply being locked up in LN channels. that could have a huge effect on price.

If that happen many old investors will be happy but there is no hard and fast rule that always history will repeat. So invest wisely and make money.

Next time try to learn to book some profits now and then instead of just holding your investment forever. Because many people just watched prices touching 20K mark but never really they are benefited from those high prices.

To me bitcoin went away too high in 2017 and the market has to reset in other for us to began to see another upwards movement.  It is not a bubble burst but a reset of the market which is normal in every market especially the forex  and stocks market.