market manipulation is from GHOST payments.
EG a exchange has an account with its mysql database given funds that were not due to deposits. and then trades occur using that fake balance.

however if trades occur because someone with coin deposited their coin and wanted to do trade.. that fair trade, not manipulation.

the spark of the match was asics. but how big the flame of the 2013 ATH was as you said due to a few speculative factors that over priced it. which is why it corrected dow nonce the flame blew out

blockchain is more secure. sorry guys above, but its true

what you dont realise is if you take away the politics and just concentrate on the actual funds security. you will see it more clearly.
the reasons banks need security guards that are usually contracted in, thus not part of "the bank". the reasons banks need governments again not part of "the bank" and why they need authorities and auditors and other third parties is because banks security is bad

its why banks are looking into DLT(closed network blockchains) so they can sack the security guards, sack the auditors reduce the political bureaucracy and just let their DLT do it all more efficiently and cheaper

banks are just a service provider offering something of a convenience. not security. these days with "tap to pay" are handled by third parties (visa, mastercard, applepay) which are not "banks" and so while convenient.. banks are starting to refuse fraud refunds and instead blame users for not securing their payment tool(nfc card) properly.

what people dont know is that banks dont actually "getback" peoples funds from a thief/ scammer. instead they just add balance into victims account. and then take it off their allocation of accepted loss account. this is not security. its creative accounting for convenience.
why waste a bankers labour time investigating loss whn they can just give a victim the money far cheaper. think about it the time to locate theives, get lawyers involved file court claims always costs mor than the average victims amount lost.

but bitcoin is self securing. you dont have to worry about target, sony, apple leaking people credit card details. you dont have to worry about identity theft to get access to accounts.. the only issue bitcoin has is its less convenient than using these third party services

try not to look at ATH. look for the yearly bottom
dont surf at the tip of a tsunami alone where only 0.1% of traders got to experience personally.
stand at sea water level looking up, where everyone gets to experience, and notice all the waves and water level corrections after temporary events..... its much healthier for you

2016 always above $300
2017 always above $900
2018 always above $5800 

the october(2013) jump in price
the october(2013) release of the first asics..
not a coincidence

when hobby GPU miners realise they cant profit from mining because asics takeover. 2 things happen
1. hobby GPU miners stop buying GPU and electric to get btc. and instead just buy btc.
2. asic miners realise the costs of mining increase so refuse to sell so cheap

then speculators see a jump and FOMO to over-jump the value. (value =moon fomospeculation=mars)

lightning network is not a bitcoin feature.
its a separate work for ANY COIN to use
people can link any altcoins chainhash to lightning and do offchain transactions with others who are also wanting to play with that coin.

its only currently talked about in regards to bitcoin because just mentioning bitcoin and something else in the same sentance gives that something else instant fame.
remember bitcoin had to change to be LN compatible. not LN was designed to be bitcoin compatible... that alone along with the chainhash required code shows LN is its own network.
and lastly LN is not a blockchain. LN is not peer to peer. LN is not a push network LN needs the users to be online to accept/route payment(you cant just send funds to anyone anytime)

LN is simply a separate service network that could be used for convenience by any coin. and is not a feature that bitcoin requires. so dont over promote LN as a needed solution for bitcoin because that just warps peoples minds into thinking that bitcoin just doesnt work/is broke and needs these separate networks. by saying bitcoin is broke and needs a separate network is foolish. and thats why many people want BITCOIN evolution and not other network evolution and takeovers

bitcoin is a currency.
do not think the only way to make bitcoin is by doing signature campaigns. thats the trade of the poor person standing on street corners asking for pennies by wasting hours a day.

instead think of bitcoin as your national currency. whatever you can do to earn national currency you can do to earn bitcoin.
you can sell products for bitcoin
you can start your own business
you can get a job paid in bitcoin
you can freelance your skills for bitcoin

too many people are told that bitcoin can only be earned via this forum and only join this forum to make fake/boring posts in the hope for a few pennies a day.

think beyond this forum as a income strategy and feel free to try anything and many ways to make some income. dont just settle for spamming a forum for pennies

they are.. but im not talking about the ones tha are wasting money already, by applying.. im taking about once the first mover advantage is over. then NEW applicants will buy up hoards and apply using the template that works because they seen previous applicants use such to get approval

its like why waste $10k going to university. when you can just wait it out and see loads of people release FREE tuition videos on youtube. why waste mony going to a new cocktail bar and finding a gross drink. get ur friend to try it first and then buy the one that didnt make him do a cringe-face

that said.. like i was pointing out. once one is acceptable. you will see others suddenly jump in and apply and buy up baskets of btc when applying. and thats what most bitcoiners that salivate over ETF.. because they see lots of institutions grab up btc

lastly if it doesnt hold equity in trust. its not a ETF. if its just a futures market. then its just a gambling house(in laymans terms)

though ETF's will be selling shares and not letting user hold actual btc.
what most people are salivating over is that successful ETF's have to lock up a hoard of coin before they begin

imagine the winklevoss with their 200k hoard. if they get their ETF accepted under a new draft thats acceptable. we will then see other companies buy up 200k+ hoards and then apply using a similar template that would too be accepted. (many companies ar waiting for first acceptance so that they can save money not applying until they se a template that works)

and if you look at real bitcoin exchanges. they only do 5-30k btc volume (lets call it 5k of individual coins being held and re-spun (arbitraged /rinsed and repeated) a day. so sudden buyups of 200k. is a big deal

knowing there is only 10mill coins that actually move regular. thats only the oppertunity for 50(max, but more realistic only 20 because users wont sell off to ETF).. so thats only an oppertunity of 20 ETF's to realistically boot up with 200k bitcoin baskets

so thats a huge chunk of coin locked into ETF causing the real bitcoin exchange market to jump in price... once the first ETF gets acceptance and then causes a snowball effect of upto 20 other ETF to follow the template to start up themselves..

as for bakkt. well we will see as its a hybrid model and yet to see the regulators poke at it

its a project done by starbucks and microsoft. so imagine it as a everyday, normal people thing. and not something that wall street whales only have access to.

oh here we go again
calling lightning a bitcoin feature but using the term "layer"
you might aswell call ripple a bitcoin layer. or circle.com a bitcoin layer
whats next re introduce NXT as bitcoin2.0

.. and then for no reason at all you introduce a random tweet from a nobody talking about a different altcoin.......
seens you really have ran down the rabbit hole of not letting people talk about the reality of lightning and to keep trying to meander the topic into a point finger at bitcoin cash..

so here goes, bitcoin cash is a separate network that does not affect anything. so why bring it up.... oh yea thats it.. 3 years of the astroturfing tactic of meandering topics..
thats a boring well known and failed tactic. to distract the conversation away from talking about real flaws by trying to make it into a bch btc social drama
(do i need to remind you of the kardashian drama trick)

how about realise that LN is not a bitcoin sole feature. it was not designed for bitcoin.. bitcoin actually had to be changed to fit LN, not the other way round

LN asks for the chain hash of which chain to monitor because its a separate network for many coins.
the network is not centralised. but the channels and funds will become centralised. learn about factories
and right now the codebase seems to be coded by the same group that were salivating over blockstream

well if you can buy real bitcoin that can be withdrawn to a bitcoin address.. and not just an ETF-esq share scheme.. then bakkt can become a big deal

reasons:
1. unlike ETF's which are KYC heavy and aimed at just the market traders with certain level of deposits. Bakkt will be aimed at people that are regular shoppers/consumers

2. Bakkt will be aimed at people that just wanna buy some at their local coffee shop. thus instantly create a "buy nearby" market for most towns in many countries. (that have a starbucks)

3.imagine it as accessible as facebook credits are compared to the hassle of buying gold shares

i can also without LN make private payments. yep you dont need LN nodes.
people have been using multisig for years and doing things privately.
many exchanges have had multisig reserves between themselves for years without LN and without needing to broadcast every trade to a blockchain

people have actually done physical bitcoin trades (paper wallet and casascius coins) without needing to broadcast to a blockchain

in 2012-2013 i remember arbitraging between mtgox, btc-e and bitstamp without seeing bitcoin broadcast onchain

bitcoin has always been in a bull run
2016 above $300
2017 above $900
2018 above $5800

if you mean what will spark the next calve(smal bull) run up a ATH mountain and then a cub(small bear) correction.. then the answer is anyone

the 2013 event was sparked by ASICS taking over the GPU
the 2017 event was sparked by VC money buying up coin to pay off developers contracts to get a certain feature locked in by november 2017

so it could be ETF, bakkt, or other things.
but those are just temporary events..

as i said. we have always been on a solid bull run year on year. and the stable bottomline value that remains higher then previous years is only going to hold by USERS and miners who both have acquisition costs higher than the previous year to refuse to sell for less thus keeping value up by not selling for less

first of all. your final sentance proves you dont understand how things work. ven though its obvious u exagerated such numbers. in any context your point would be wrong

you mind set is that if there were
20 pools of lets say 2.5exa (to total a 50exa network)
that there would become a 20 pool of 1.25exa
or there would be 10 pools of 2.5xa
the reality is that IF some people see things slow down(not much chance). they would 'pool hop' and make a scenario of 20 pools of 1.25 become 10 of 2.5
so that in a scenario of like i mentioned before a 100m race of initially 20 runners, now becomes 10 runners and all 10 runners still average 10 seconds but only one can be declared the winner
this means if there were over 100 races per day the racers actually double their chances of winning becuase there is less competition fighting over who gets to cross the finish line first

it might be worth you looking at the real data. the realtime data and not the averaged aggregated data that loses its meaning

i truly laugh at anyone that thinks because an olympic runner crosses the finish line in 10 seconds. a runner up must take 20seconds and 3rd place must take 40 seconds.. (facepalm)

but there are things such as lightning explorers
they reveal many things, balances per channel, who the nodes connect to. they actually reveal alot more then the bitcoin block explorer does about individuals

its quite funny how much stats you can get out of lightning about a particular node. but you cant get node information out of a block explorer.

using the node information you can see what node just signed some funds and which other node it got attributed to
so have fun looking at lightning network stats/visualisations.

imagine there are:
90009251394333065553493296640760748560200586941860545380978205674086221273350
keypairs
and you were able to check 1000 a second
or simply able to check 60000 a  minute
or simply able to check 3600000 a an hour
or simply able to check 86400000 a day
or simply able to check 31536000000 a year

then..
315360000000 is 10 years
3153600000000 is 100 years
31536000000000 is 1000 years
315360000000000 is 10,000 years
3153600000000000 is 100,000 years

screw it ill get to the point.
a million years can pass and you (and your 40,000 descendants) would have only checked some thing along the lines of less than
0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of all keys
so you better get started

firstly lower hash rate does not mean slower blocks

here are the reasons

1. the 20+ pools are all running their own races. with their own hashrate. if 10 pools disappeared there are still 10 pools running.

2. imagine it like a 100metre race, 20 runners. they all average 10 seconds but only 1 is declared the winner. if you shoot 10 runners.. the remaining 10 runners dont suddenly race at a 20 second average. the 100m is still completed in the same 10 second average.

3. those racist fools promoting "china is evil" have no clue. if you actually study the network. you will see there is more diversity within the pools tagged as "china"
lets take antpool. they do not use 1 coin reward address. they use a few. and if you study things more these addresses are individually managed at SEPARATE LOCATIONS in iceland, gorgia, america, mongolia and china. you will notice that some of the antpool addresses use segwit bech32 addresses and some dont. which also proves the management is independant
so its not as "china is evil" as you think. then there is slushpools that gets classed as china. but is actually managed in thailand and users are all over the world. f2pool have users around the world
so stop believing the racist rants of china owns bitcoin mining

4. if you actually check the hashrate per block as oppose to averaged day you will see even today some blocks were solved with
5exa to 35exa... meaning every day there is actually a variance of more than 50%... but you dont realise it because the charts average it out and combine data

7. if some stratum servers are taken out. you will actually see alot of farms actually pool jump. and so the remaining pools will increase the hashrate per pool and some blocks will get solved FASTER

6. in short. you wont notice it because if you take away the 'average' stats that hide the real numbers. we are already in a zone and always have been in a zone where blocks are solved with a 50% variance

at the brexit

the $:£ wil change.. making things more expensive to import..  but.. thats the narrowminded side they want people to be afraid of
the flip side expensive to import=cheaper to export

take these examples instead of £1=$1.60 (like a few years back) becomes £1:$1
so buying a $160 item a few years ago would have cost £100
now a $160 item will cost £160

that is actually good. because we brits stop buying other peoples stuff giving them money. and we start to make our own stuff again
(reboot the industrial age of britain)

also
america wanting to buy £100 of something couple years ago would have cost them $160.
now a £100 will cost them $100

so now they will happily buy more from the uk because its cheaper.
(another reason to reboot british industry)

we now start receiving more currency flow into the UK and less currency flow leaving..

and ofcourse the main thing. instead of bitcoin being ~£4900.. as the forex changes occur that turns btc into £6400

lightning is not bitcoin. it actually asks users to add in the chainhash, to allow the node to know which chains to monitor. lightning is a multicoin network of IOU transactions measured in 12 decimals.

in short lightning is a visa app to different nations fiat..
(swap visa for LN and swap 'nations fiat' for altcoins)
thus making lightning a killer app for crypto currency (coins) and not a feature of pure bitcoin