Precisely. 

I said it early on this one that a tail had been established. And looksie, price has halved since I said that. Damn I wish there was a way to effectively short alts.

[Someone should create a derivatives market for alts. Hehe.]

Admittedly, I'm getting to the point where I think an uptick in the "medium-term" (2-3 months) isn't out of the question anymore. With the next halving having been accelerated to a sooner time frame along side with general economic cycles, I think the magnitude of changes will allow for another rally.

It's so fascinating how the dynamic of this sub-forum has turned from permabulls to trollbears.

Anyhow, $200 could be a possibility, but I only see it happening in the case of another flash dip. And, I think stabilizing around $425 is actually a good thing.

$5? No. Despite its seemingly technical worth, I don't see it.

In any case, looks like the tail of a possible climb has already been established. But look at some past history and well, more often than not, an established tail means you're already too late for the ride. Who knows though, just like so many other coins, maybe the hype (or shilling; however you want to take it) will make this a long ride.

This. Paypal isn't going to be a direct service purveyor for LTC or DOGE; and frankly I don't think they had any short or medium-term plans to do so. So people will have to go "out of their way" in some form to execute these transactions. Nonetheless, the value of exposure on a larger scale is going to be pretty good. It'll just probably take some time for this to have any significant impact (like so many other things which people in crypto seemingly hate for some reason).

I'm not going to give any "picks" for altcoins since, as previously mentioned, they are all pretty much dependent on bitcoin.

However, I will recommend picking a coin that you think will be able to maintain a stable rate in the medium term (i.e. 3-6 months). When bitcoin price kicks up again, shift over and rebalance your holdings.

I'm glad to see that Noblecoin has continued to persevere through this fairly tumultuous time (i.e., the price of btc starting to downtrend quite heavily). I really see NOBL being one of the lasting coins from early 2014 (a.k.a. 2.0 coins). Keep up the great work Rofo and team!

I will say though, I am curious to see how far diversified the marketplace can become outside of the gift card scene.

Unfortunately, I am holding. Would buy, but payday isn't until next week. But this doesn't look like a "dip," so prices at this level could be around for a little while.

Hell, no one really knows. It seems we're in a steady downtrend for now. I'm still of the opinion that another breakout won't happen in the short-term (i.e. 2-3 months). Both daily and weekly volatility measures still have bitcoin decreasing in price during "larger" movement days, and until this changes, I don't see another breakout.

But despite what I just said, how about December 13, 2014? It's 12-13-14. Yay, consecutive numbers! And it's one day out of my short-term predictions...So there.

If you take a look at the charts, the main catalyst is the sudden drop in BTC. It happens quite often when BTC goes down. The difference is that the effect is significantly compounded onto the alt scene.

Here are the 30-day price changes of several markets in terms of "adjusted" market penetration (I include these 10 markets to give a very brief overview of comparisons between PoS/PoW and Algos in relation to NOBL):

BTC     -22.07%
NXT     -36.28%
HOBO     -49.37%
LTC     -53.17%
PPC     -55.15%
DOGE     -55.27%
BC     -60.99%
NOBL     -66.93%
DRK     -74.80%
XMR     -92.12%

In essence, the "bubble" on a lot of coins are starting to pop. Admittedly, it may be a good thing that the switch to PoS for Noblecoin hadn't happen yet. A change during a downswing can be significantly detrimental. (In full disclosure, I still have a significant amount of NOBL in my portfolio.)

I'm more inclined to think that it'll be more like the second option. It just seems that way to me.

One of the reasons I feel this way is after doing a quick second level analytic look, we're still in the point where higher volume days are usually days with significant declines (i.e. days with over 3 times the average volatility and "drop" of the previous week). There may be a bubble brewing soon, but one of the leading indicators I'm looking for before I'm inclined to think we'll experience another breakout is a change in this dynamic.

Such a fascinating understanding of market principles.

Can I pay you one BTC to teach me of your knowledged ways? Actually, in the long run that means I'll be giving you nothing...How about you just teach me of your knowledged for free?

Let's see, breaking it down by the two main party policy arenas:

Fiscally: Republicans would be more likely to support (because of tenets of fiscal individualism/responsibility and lessened regulation).
Socially: Democrats would be more likely to support (because of accessibility, and as a nascent tool to dwindle parity).

Getting to the heart of your question, I'd have to say Republicans would be more likely to embrace bitcoin if it regulatory laws surrounding bitcoin made it become significantly more viable. Until then though, I'd assume democrats would give more support to bitcoin as a social parity tool.

In either case though, the support given by either party will be significantly marginal.

Maybe this guy has his own autistic friend...

Well, that's how crypto tends to go. There are ups and down, just like any other market/investment.

And hell, let's be honest, if you're really looking at long-term trending, those three are doing amazing compared to other investments when pegged against fiat (which let's face it, that's that what most of you are in this scene for).
BTC: 1-year change: +540% (cap change: +665%)
LTC: 1-year change: +245% (cap change: +400%)
PPC: 1-year change: +565% (cap change: +595%)

Long-term seems pretty good to me. I would kill for any of my traditional investments to provide me these types of returns.

I think that it'll happen again during the next major bitcoin run-up (which also implies that I think there will be another major bitcoin run-up). Oddly enough though, I don't think only Litecoin has a chance but probably one of the 2014 coins with a major base and significant innovation.

Not sure which one though...

After all, if BTC runs up to let's say a 100B market cap, the parity and trading level doesn't have to be significantly high in order for another coin to hit a 1B market cap. At that level, LTC can trade at half of its current BTC conversion value and still hit the 1B mark. And DRK (just using it since it's currently 5th in market cap), would have to go up to .0225 to put it at a 1B mark, but something like that isn't as far-fetched as other things that I can think of.

Even removing the governmental impetus for banks; they would still survive. Functionally, banks provide a very key service and the financial structure that surrounds a bank is also a very fundamental thing that allows our society to function the way that it does.

As crazy as it is, our society functions on a financial debt. And well, banks provide the cleanest and most direct way of tabulating and organizing that debt.

I do think crypto-currencies will provide bank additional avenues in the future, but there is much more that a crypto-currency would have to provide in order for banks to fall by the wayside.

Admittedly, it varies on a quarterly basis, but with the activity within the last two quarters, I've adjusted it to a lower number. Naturally though, if I start seeing different numbers and trends, this will definitely change.

This is very true, don't stop at the closest stop; try to get as much out of something as you can. In this case, it means making your money (i.e. bitcoins) work for you. However, that comes with even more risk, but if you're in this scene, you know that there is already a lot of risk.

Sure, legitimate regulation that leaves a trail for auditing would be a vast improvement, and the improvement that this scene needs. Unfortunately, it clashes with all of the "beliefs" that exist in this realm; and frankly, clashes with a lot of the "innovation" too.

Anything short of that, like "self-regulation," would just be a crock of crap hiding behind a thin veil of marketable "improvement."

Really though, it's whatever, this scene cannibalized itself, and all of the players deserve what they get (such as dwindling trading volumes and so forth).