Many don't feel comfortable with command-line so they just keep the funds on the exchange. Having funds so easily accessible, just one click away, makes it a lot more tempting to sell. Multiply that effect with a lot of people and it can explain why there's so many dumps and big price drops as everyone starts impulse selling at the same time, and even buyers are left with XMR on the exchange that they may use to dump price further down in a moment of uncertainty.

Bitcoin on the other hand is easy to store off the exchange which makes it less likely that people will impulse buy. So we have a cycle of slow and steady price increase, and once momentum is gone a violent fast crash.

This is just a theory, and is probably just a part of the reason. Other reasons could include whales dumping to break support levels and acquire more, shorters profiting from falling prices etc.

The liquidity for XMR while still good, is significantly less than ETH so it's easier to drive the price in any direction. Traders will take advantage of that.

I heard the Norwegians were already done selling though. 

For anyone using that site please compare the two snapshots where you think there's been a short.

Snapshot #56978 says at 0.03% - 34948.17422534
Snapshot #56980 says at 0.03% - 2346.06250770

All lower offers was untouched. When someone takes out a short, they first take the lower offers, like in any order book

What probably happened is that the guy had 32k out for lending, removed it and dumped it on the market.

I agree. It didn't matter to illustrate my point so I just used the estimates from this calculator.

Monero don't need any "serious investors" to be wildly successful. The black market alone is estimated to ~650 billion USD. If XMR only captures 1% of that market we're talking 6.5 billion usd, or split across 18.4 milion XMR that will give you a price of $353 per XMR. There's a calculator to play with the values here.

In reality it's hard to tell what would happen if 1% of the black market activity took place in XMR, but this could give us a ballpark figure, chances are it would be much higher.

So assuming your conclusion is true. A network by and for criminals could actually be a good thing, and I would be extremely bullish on a network as such. This is without even talking about tax havens where you'll find trillions in value. I think monero gaining traction in the dark web would be a great start and bootstrap it as a currency for criminals.

You've been consistently attacking people who has been bearish for the last couple of weeks. Not just me. This was just one of your many posts I decided to quote.

On November 17th LTC was worth $4. At that time BTC had already had a significant rally up to around $460. $4/460 = 0.0087 BTC/LTC. Now that's a pretty low rate, in fact LTC didn't fall much further that year (I believe the bottom was in the 0.007x area).

All altcoins got slaughter until all of sudden, on 18th and forward they started pumping. I know who played a great part in the LTC pump of 2013 and you can read my observations here.

We can't always assume that history will repeat, but if we look at the previous two bubbles the same thing has happened. First altcoins suffer really bad while BTC rallies. Altcoins are reaching new lows and BTC new highs. Then once the BTC rally is getting out of control altcoins starts going up. So, if your argument against the price going lower because LTC went to $48 is going to be logically consistent you will need to expect a significant crash in XMR, perhaps in the lower 0.001x. THEN a pump to something like 0.05.

It's true, nobody really knows what will happen, but this is a speculation topic. I speculate that XMR will be dropping sub 0.002. The reasons why:
1. The violent crash we had breaking all support and taking most by surprise.
2. BTC rally
3. ETH is crashing and I think ETH dragged monero up with it. Now it's going to drag us down.

My theory fails if #2 or #3 changes. I believe I am allowed to voice my opinion regarding the price even if it's negative. Why do you not attack people who think the price is going to $1000 soon? If you're going to be logical consistent with your attacks, you should also attack those who currently hold monero and are talking their book, but in a bullish way.

I suspect that you are emotionally invested, probably in a loss, and attack me because I'm not bullish (short-term). If this topic is going to anything but a circlejerk, opinions from both sides of the table should be accepted.

If you count everybody who says that "everybody expects bitcoin to pump so it won't happen" there's actually quite a few. So not everybody expect bitcoin to pump and that's why it will happen But maybe the pump won't be as big... In any case as long as bitcoin goes up now I think XMR is headed sub 0.002 again.

Yes. Just look at how governments has been cracking down on tax havens for the last decade. Or how the US shut down wonderful inventions like e-gold, liberty reserve, liberty dollar etc and gave the owners labels such as money launderers, child pornographers, domestic terrorists. These services was not even close to as anonymous and dangerous as XMR is. I think it is only a question of time before XMR (or anonymous cryptocurrencies in general) will become the scapegoat of the Four Horsemen of Infocalypse.

No doubt that cash is king. But to transfer USD online USDT is better than having USD locked to one particular exchange. Next step could be things like Nubits and BitUSD, but I'm not sure if those are really viable alternatives atm.

Technically no. Legally I'd argue that it's impossible long term. For short term it could work, but the barrier to entry is high. Depending on where you live you'd expect there to be things like license to operate, KYC requirements, troublesome banks and other ridiculous regulations and/or taxes.

I think a gateway using something like Tether USD could be a reasonable compromise.

Regarding USD we already got something better: Tether USD. It's trading on poloniex (XMR/USDT). Tether USD is blockchain based (on counterparty) and that means you can store the USD in your own cold storage and/or easily transfer them between different exchanges. USDT is still centralized in the sense that it's backed by real USD managed by one entity, but it's one step beyond storing the USD on an exchange as it allows people to trade outside of the exchange. Also, tether has only one job: to back the asset. If you store USD on any exchange and it suffers loss in any other currency you risk socialized losses, or to be brought down with the exchange. With Tether USD the risk is limited to only USD and only the one backing entity.

Imagine if GoxUSD was on the blockchain, people could still trade it to this day. Blockchain currencies with real backing is one step above the traditional way of storing currencies imo.

There is no such thing as a free market except the black market. All other markets involves some kind of government regulation. If you need to run a company you already have a barrier to entry. In a truly free market you do not need to run a company, pay taxes or deliver income receipt to the government. There is no such thing as asking for permission in a free market.

There's an old Chinese saying; "No one rules if no one obeys". There's a whole lot of truth to that. A "black market" would be the definition of a free market: A market with zero government intervention. Because if the laws are ignored they do not apply. Unfortunately there's not enough people who ignore the law, so those currently operating in the free market risks getting jailed as you said. I wouldn't say it ceases to be a free market, only that it's under attack.

If anything we need to draw the conclusion that there is no such thing as a free market.

That's an odd thing to say. I sold 50% of my monero, not 100%. Right now I still stand to gain a lot if the price goes up It's 50/50 for me, I don't mind either way.

The market seems to have crashed very quickly and hard. I think monero is especially vulnerable because many hold their coins on the exchange due to lack of GUI wallet. It's a lot easier to panic sell when all you have to do is click a sell button. Having to actually open a cold storage and transfer the funds will make you think twice and result in less dumping overall.

Users who can't run a commando line wallet will probably be less confident in the investment because holding often means keeping funds with third party, and that is risky. Additionally they may lack understanding of the technology. These two things makes them more eager to sell and with easily accessible funds it can contribute to a pretty violent crash like we're seeing right now. It can explain why monero keeps seeing dump after dump, seemingly never ending. The coin is just so damn easy to sell.

Unfortunately we failed pretty hard at breaking 0.0043 a second time, with current low today at 0.00242. This crash wasn't very surprising and despite what has been claimed in this thread earlier (that everyone who sell moneroj regrets it) I'd suspect there are a few people who actually regret not having sold some in the 300k-400k. I personally sold 50% of my coins about 2 weeks ago and wish I sold more. But on the other hand the coins I do own is mostly profit so I can afford the price going both down and up, I'm pretty comfortable with this I'd say.

We could see a bounce up again to maybe ~300k, but the trend is broken now imo. We're probably headed sub 0.002. I am having doubts about 0.001, but it certainly could happen given the right circumstances (e.g btc rally). I consider 100k-200k a good buying range. If we go back to the 300ks I'll have to consider selling a few more.

Altcoins usually deflate over a long period of time. What's known as the "long, painful, downward spiral". So a quick crash like this could also have a quick rebound. But if the trend is broken and we consistently fail to gain new highs it will slowly sink downwards. Monero may be an exception to this rule and have more violent crashes due to the reasons I outlined above.

All this being said, the difference between 2015 and 2016 is striking and we have a lot of new people on board. I tend to think it won't be as bad as the previous times we headed down and that recovery will come sooner than we'd think.

I wasn't here to watch the dump in real time, but I looked at bitcoinwisdom, and if we take a look at minute by minute by volume we have:

01:26 - 20228
01:27 - 1839
01:28 - 15.3
01:29 - 36
01:30 - 28.9
01:31 - 29.5
01:32 - 252
01:33 - 2044
01:34 - 507
01:35 - 22670
01:36 - 17765
01:37 - 75
01:38 - 13105
01:39 - 39714
01:40 - 29239
01:41 - 9252
01:42 - 5648
01:43 - 1542
01:44 - 11386
01:45 - 2292

So it took about 20 minutes in total. Could be multiple sellers, shorters and buyers combined. It does not seem to be one entity although whoever dumped the first ~20k probably started it.

Don't hate shorters. Even if the shorter is right and the price drops he will need to buy his position back at some point, that creates support at low levels and prevents the price from falling too far. If the shorter is wrong he will be forced to buy and that can result in breaking through resistance levels and fuel a rally. Any trade activity is good as it creates more liquidity. High liquidity means it will be easier to enter or exit large position. That is good for everyone and encourages larger investments. Not to mention people eager to buy getting their bids fulfilled.

You know, what I find very sad is to hear the stories of the guys who was around here back in 2010-2012 but never seized the opportunity that was there, right in front of them. One of the best opportunities in the history of mankind. Maybe it was their nagging wife that didn't want to skip a night out in town to put a couple of hundred bucks into a silly internet money project. Maybe they had a few friends who talked them out of it. Maybe they thought it was too much work to sign up on the exchange and transfer money to a weird foreign bank. Maybe they just wanted a cool car or a new couch. Whatever the reason, they let the opportunity pass them by, and when it comes to those who really believed in bitcoin, but still let other people convince them not to buy, I find that a bit heart crushing.

When you're really excited about something, you tell people, and they naysay the shit out of you. It can be hard to stay focused and motivated. There's a quote I like, by Garret Burgwardt.

I haven't been blessed. It was through my foresight that I saw bitcoin for how valuable it was. No man helped me along, and many discouraged me.

It's not about how much you have, it's about using what you have. Think about it. Those people back in 2010-2011 could have put a $100 bucks in and held, but they didn't. They didn't need much. They just had to not let go of their dream.

What you are doing. What AP is doing. I'm a big fan of such strategy. Living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can live the rest of your life like most people can't. That's more than putting that $100 bucks in. That's real determination. Passion.

Back in 2012 after the bubble to $31. I was quite frankly piss poor back then. But after that bubble I had an epiphany: "Trying to trade myself more bitcoin is foolish. This could very well be the greatest bull-market in human history and here I'm trying to time the market for pennies?" After that day I was a changed man. I only bought bitcoin, never traded, and I kept buying all the way down. I quadrupled my investment during that period. It wasn't a lot, and it was all I had. But man, am I glad I never gave up that dream.

A bagholder is an investor who is holding onto an asset that has depreciated in value from his average buy price. I think we can agree on that definition or something similar. A bagholder may have lost a lot of faith in the asset due to being in the red for a very long time. When the price finally goes up to his entry level he seizes the opportunity to get out ahead or break even. That's why there's a lot of resistance on previous tops like 0.0043. Many bagholders are selling around that level to get out of the losing investment. Now we already had one attempt to break it, which means that some bagholders most likely have sold. That leaves less bagholders for the next attempt.

And once we break that resistance, suddenly a lot of people will be in profit. Once we break 0.0043, every single person who bought monero since October 2014 and held is in profit. The bagholders have sold and the newcomers who just bought in at 0.0043 won't sell for a while. That means there's suddenly a lot less resistance and what we often see is major spike in price before profit taking occurs.

We don't really need a a very big pump to overcome the bagholders, we need to break through the resistance at 0.0043, which isn't very far of. I'm just looking at the support and volume lately, and it seems very strong to me. We already had a correction, so now we're ready for another attempt. I'd say the chances are pretty good this time, and I think if there was too many bagholders left we would see stronger selling than we did near the top, but it wasn't a straight line up and down like the previous one.