It's all relative I guess. If you have an operation running that nets its revenue and profits in BTC, you don't lose or gain anything based on what the fiat reflection of the price does.

Overall, it seems that most of the traders and services dealing strictly with BTC are out to stack up what they have, regardless of what the price does. Sure, a small percentage needs to be sold to pay bills, but that's it.

Coming back to your statement, fiat is inflationary, which means it is supposed to lose value as time goes by. Bitcoin is the complete opposite, meaning, you'll be looking at a price going up as time goes by.

And what are these other investment options that you are referring to with a higher degree of risk? The only thing that comes to my mind is trading and investing based on derivatives, but these are again linked to the asset class.

Overall, I legit find it hard to diversify my portfolio with how there isn't anything that grabs my attention and has fundamental value similar to Bitcoin. The closest is Ethereum, which I bought into very recently.

Having Bitcoin and Ethereum there really isn't anything else that makes sense to own because every other crypto or token will be a gamble, and I don't gamble. I only buy into fundamentals which 99.9% of crypto can't provide.

Considering that everything has pretty much been mentioned already, I would like to highlight how derivative platforms have a near perfect formula to remain relevant and thriving even during the worst times.

BitMEX has been doing extremely well and keeps gaining popularity, because they offer you all the features you need to make money on any direction of the market.

That directly makes me wonder how the market would look without these derivative platforms, because they incentivize traders to remain active, which then motivates other aspects of this industry to remain active.

Things are connected to each other one way or another.

Agreed. Charts are as bullish or bearish as you want them to be. The 2013 peak looks like a failed pump if you look at the current all time chart. In the same way, the 2017 peak will look like a failed pump after 2020.

People tend to disregard the possibilities of Bitcoin to do the impossible until it actual does it. If you asked someone that we would hit $20,000 within 5 years back in early 2013, that person would tell you to stop talking shit.

On the other hand, if everyone believed in Bitcoin right from the start we wouldn't be able to buy at current levels anymore. This seems to be an ideal opportunity for average joes to be less average as time goes by.

@Betwrong.

Bitmain doesn't own all the miners it's running. Most of it belongs to clients that Bitmain on their behalf operates and watches over. In other words, Bitmain isn't all that mighty and big as they appear to be.

Another thing is that some parts in China are going through a rough time which basically lead to the electricity prices to at least double, which significantly affects every large farm due to their size and operational margins.

Of course some miners are more competitive than others, but there is a breaking point for every miner, and the difficulty adjustment to the lower side doesn't happen fast enough to make less profitable miners wait an extra month.

If you would have asked people a few weeks ago if they would buy Bitcoin at $4000 if the opportunity presented itself, they would say yes. Currently we have gone far below $4000 and people suddenly no longer want to buy....

It seems that most of the people need a super duper confirmed end of the bear market by seeing the price break the $10,000 mark before they start buying. Rookies always buy when things are going up.

For me everything below $7000 was a worthwhile entry point to accumulate at once or twice a month, so you can understand how much I enjoy buying at current levels, because bear markets means more bang for your buck.

I see it as a healthy movement despite the horrible sentiment amongst most of the people here. This market has been infested with get rich quick rookies and they did everything they could to turn this market into a shitshow.

This longer term bear market drives these rookies out, and while I feel somewhat sorry for people, because I don't want anyone to lose more than they can afford, but if utility wants to get the upper hand, this is the way to go.

What we will be left with are those who are here for the fundamentals, and not to fill their pockets and then exit. We'll see where it goes from here, but I'm not confident that we have seen the worst yet...

Even with that in mind, legacy payment infrastructure is still the leading way of conducting payments, especially with how beneficial it is for the buyers. It will take a lot time for crypto to adjust to that.

Overall, the legacy payment infrastructure won't sit on its arse for ever. As crypto takes it to the next level in terms of adoption, so will the centralized options do, because that's what competition does at the end of the day.

I have yet to see how Bitcoin or any other crypto currency will make me switch my tap to pay debit card. It's fast, free, I enjoy buyers protection, and even bonus points in some cases.

I really expected to see some crazy shit with what many here consider to be a reputable exchange, and then get hit in the face with a bitch slap. As mentioned above, this movement is peanuts.

You know what real shit is? Ethereum's flash crash to $13 a few days ago on Coinbase Pro. These things even happen on stock markets, so it's definitely not related to crypto alone. Software isn't perfect. It messes up some times.

https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/12/06/coinbase-ethereum-price-collapse/

I find it quite funny how these perma bulls quite often highlight the importance of a long term view, yet find it necessary to throw around with bottoms. Someone who isn't interested in the short term doesn't care about bottoms.

People genuinely interested to buy into this market for the long term don't mind the price to deflate further, because the lower the price is the more exposure they can get for the same amount of fiat.

Tim Draper is quite an enthusiast, but refrains from talking about bottoms because you can only lose here. Even if you call the bottom right, it's nothing to brag about since it's just a matter of luck. Keep guessing....

That's basically my concern. In a market where we're currently going through a cycle meant to flush out the weakest hands, I honestly don't think any TA based 'support' line is going to hold firm.

In case it drops again, we should expect $3000 to break, and very easily so. I never like a market re-testing certain levels on the lower side, because they in most cases will break, which we saw with $5700-$5800.

Not sure what to think about what's currently going on with how poor the volumes are. We are literally a 1-2k BTC dump away from dipping below the averages you were talking about.....

It's quite funny how the mass manages to be wrong time on time again. They bought the peak near the end of last year and sold--likely will sell the bottom near the end of the current year.

At some point you should expect people to follow common sense and to see where they go wrong, but nope, they keep burning themselves chasing quick profits. This market literally trashes these folks.

A colleague of mine was EXTREMELY bullish weeks before the price tanked below $6000 and now suddenly thinks Bitcoin is going to fall to $1500 because "experts" said so. Smh.....

It's very likely that OP used a fake site riding on the CoinMixer brand to trick users into thinking the site is safe to use. I remember the same happened quite some time ago with BitMixer after it shut down.

Apparently it pays off for scammers to set up fake sites after a site or service has gone down. Most people with some form of understanding won't fall for it, but those who do are enough to make it worthwhile unfortunately.

Exactly. I find it way more likely to have one of the leading Asian countries in this market to be the first to approve an ETF. It also makes sense with how Asia accounts for the far majority of the volumes being generated.

I think the US doesn't like that the compliant exchanges such as Coinbase aren't able to steer the market forward, but rather have a following role. In other words, whatever happens in Asia, Coinbase and the rest will bravely follow.

I wonder how the SEC will think about an ETF when Bakkt and Nasdaq have been granted the approval they need to launch their futures platforms. I think that it will increase the odds of an approval more than anything else.

On the other hand, everything look good on paper, the main point still is that Bakkt and Nasdaq aren't guaranteed to obtain an approval.

They must be buying OTC gold then, because the market as it is doesn't reflect the huge buyers interest that seems to be suggested here. It's entirely possible like what happens with Bitcoin, but I doubt it at this stage.

Governments are mostly the first to notice that their economies will very likely perform poorly in the coming years, and would start accumulating as much gold as possible to hedge potential risk of devaluation asap.

We haven't yet seen the global economy go full bear to see what its effect is on Bitcoin at current stage. I guess the odds are high that it works against Bitcoin rather than for it, but I will applaud being proven wrong if so.

If you realize how thinly traded this market is, you'll know that a few hundred million in Bitcoin is enough to terrorize the global crypto market, because Bitcoin takes everything down with it whether altcoiners like it or not.

Surprisingly, I haven't seen many large buy walls in the last couple of weeks, while I have seen them pop up quite frequently when the price was still hovering over the $6000 mark. Probably an indication of the fear of investors?

Overall, manipulation is doing either good or bad for you, which all depends on what side of the market you are. If you're accumulating and the price tanks, you'll obviously love their effort to buy cheaper coins.

The same goes up for if you have bought and the price pumps afterwards. That's good manipulation from people's perspective, but brace yourself for when manipulation works against people, then is no longer cool.

If anyone here knew they wouldn't be here.....

I bought on the way down, yet again, and my results for today are:

Bitcoin @$3500 @$3350
Ethereum @$94 @$90 @$87

I use smaller amounts to buy with, which allows me to do some longer term buying while the price is still going down. I don't mind it going lower, but it seems that $3000 might be a temporary level to bounce from.

I will stay up all night to see how it moves on.

How will it be a surprise if Japan turns out to be the front runner, yet again? They have been the first in many ways, especially with how they allow a group of exchanges to form a self-regulatory body within the exchange industry.

They are also the first when it comes to actively enforcing their own laws and either shut down non registered services completely, or have them halt their operations within Japan if it concerns a foreign player.

Also, how will the SEC prevent the US government from owning a large number of Bitcoins? It's not that any entity, regardless of the nature, can't purchase a considerable number of Bitcoins through the spot market.

Spot coins aren't financial instruments like futures or an ETF.

Bitcoin grew to where it is today without marketing at all, aside from what happened in the very early years. Even then, the marketing, if you can call it that, was done by enthusiasts of the technology, and not speculation.

Marketing right now would mean you attract even more gamblers betting their life savings on crypto. We should aim to educate people and bring in quality, not quantity in form of get rich quick rookies.

Shitcoins need marketing, because they can't differentiate themselves from the 1001 different coins and tokens that this industry counts. And even with marketing, will that make people here more interested in them? I doubt it.

Isn't that the beauty of this market? Smart investors buy right now, while the mass is panicking, and the mass will then buy up the market to crazy high levels by going full fomo when it's almost too late.

Seriously, the only reason the price broke through the $10,000 mark comfortably to hit last year's all time high, was because of the mass going full fomo. They didn't want to be the loser they have been far below $10,000.

To some degree I do feel bad for people, because no one deserves what's happening right now, but this isn't the kindergarten. Crypto's market is probably the most brutal market of the last decades.