There is anything particular to XEM justifying it's rise? Did not seen nothing impressing me, so just been sitting back watching. No interest in "quick money" at all, if it is other people's money in the end results.

Heyhey no "pressure" like ten seconds! Precise forecasts do require their time.
So the shortlist:

Lisk, so far they did not achived anything compareable to Etherium, but their technology seems to me much more accessible for programers than ETH looks like, and they did not blundered in a similar manner. DAO *cough* *cough*

Byteballs are hot just now. If they can maintain their distribution the following monthes this could get interesting. Everything DAG based, even IOTA if they will deliver.

Zcash has some solid anonymity technology, the former competition merely beeing a deathtrap for folks relying on that. But this "valley" will expand further, so only low buying opportunities approaching. Nothing on a 3 monthes timescale.

Some Alts are moving "anticyclic" as in maintaining their Fiat notation. Ten dollars staying ten dollars, like that. Usually XMR moves like that except recent christmas pump where it tried to follow Bitcoin.
If you are Bitcoin centric, leveraging out these effects can slowly lift your portfolio on a calculateable level gain.

They would act insane if stiffling this FinTech sector just out of a whim! There's that cynic nagging voice talking inside my head pointing out that somebody merely has to mention "Satoshi actuall been a mexican" for this president to act just like he's always knee jerk reflexing on that.
Technology and racism are mutually exclusive. I'm german.

Silicon Valley could get in trouble because of those recent political decisions. They are dependant upon human resource, and only the brightest minds. Which tend to happen to be of all existing religious confessions. You cannot eject a developer from your team just because she is buddhist and wears pants, not skirts.

There is that classical chartpattern called "bulltrap" which could be forming out just right now. I exspected that to happen some week earlier. Predictions aren't really easy to do, but if that (above) happens kust everybody will announce it's been "clear from the beginning" since it's pretty distinctive.

I beg to differ on all those three bullet points!

Zcash first, emissionrate and subsidy are drawing away any investment. One cannot buy, only dump it. Litecoin beeing a slightly different thing since it is closely associated with Bitcoin mining and ASICs manufactoring.

Ethereum DAO fail. WTF Classic, really?

Both Monero and DASH got an edge above DOGE and their current trade value states that in clearly visible numbers. XMR still needs more adoption at their primary niche DNMs and DASH is at least tradeable at almost each and every tradeside.

On my imagination there allready is no way to get arround getting that recognition, each and every techchannel touted the toppic one or more time. And there is politics, the complaints against Silk Road from officials (in a strange timing right before SR got busted ?)
So there comes another attac angle. Getting kids into technology and politics ooh I know that sounds nasty. The bonmot "on a long enough timescale we are all deads" (Homer Simpson) tells about the inescapeability. Face live, tech, politics and bitcoin comes as a bundle.

Aaaand again, from Chinese new year "Year of the fire rooster" it's merely +12.5% far away into 10 000 Renminbi. Huobi strieved for 8888 on that 28th january because of lucky numbers and whatsnot.

But you cannot guess what that would be in Dollars since the exchange rates are highly political. Just one party deciding to devalue their currency for export economy motivations.

Neither triple nor 4 nor 5 digits are anything stable that could act as a further support line on charts.

People acting lead by greed. You are right, nobody get's forced to even consider cryptopia as a trading place. They neither got the volume nor the user numbers of compareable, reputable altcoin exchange sites.
Your research hint on Wikipedia would be "bucket shop"

Just DOGE is all about it's unique Meme. Never been much about the tech behind. If you re-brand this, you basically kill the phenomenon.

Charts featuring a pre-pump, the main pump and some trailing bulltrap. The long decay following will usually last as long until the last one loses the signal from tracking radars.
Not exactly unique.

The narrative got invented from main media, get used to that. What bitcoin country lacks the most is leaving the echo chamber, reaching people outside over there.

Even worser than that, blockchain syncing. People who run a full node 24h usually do not recognizes, but in my case everytime I want to transfer coins it's usually a weekspan to cover up.
And at current blockchain size I doubt I would ever sync it again on a data loss accident.

2% above "Triple Digits". Those markers are arbitrary at best, just pointing out the fact that whole of europe still things Triple Digits and what about the Chinese?
Psychology of numbers is overated. 

Did that cup and handle formed out before, ever? Any examples inside chart history?
On my perception it's the most misleading pattern. When you are standing on a hill, and been standing on a hill before and have walked through a long and cheapdeep valley, what would you exspect to appear next on the landscape?

The wanderer collects fairy tells but doesn't believes in them.

Easy for everybody to get that perception of governments beeing all-so overly centralized, and cryptos beeing decentralized.
Just is it still true?

Watching the european union, which is drifting apart. The trend depicts a future of singled out nationalistic parts, each doing their own thing. This is decentralisation in progress.
Currencies might follow, each country their own currency again, as has been for all these centuries before.
One "united" key currency would break open ways for exchange again inside such a future. Govs might recognize the possibilities.

Definitely. Whenever I touch a so called blockexplorer I'm all of a sudden remembering that it's the perfect place to track people, connecting their crypto transfers with some IP and geolocation.

Lovely picture, might be we just have to scavage all those trainwrecks of these last two years to assemble something shiny new stuff that features real brilliance.
Maybe something IoT based like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirai_(malware) that can be rented out for coins?
Have to leave this thread, trying to buy in when the Fudlevels calmed down for some weeks.

Laaanguage, you Wookies! Watch your language.
Well, IOTA seems to be struggling behind now. But there are some differences between those two, and the newcomer isn't even distributed between the interested parties so far. Estimates are ranging for another >12 monthes up to 1 1/2 year.
Enough time to surprise us, devs! Both got a reason to exist. Do it.