If you consider what happened in 2017 to be a bull run, and that's your only example of a bull run that you have gone through, you might be up for a surprise. Surprise in the way that we see the market go up gradually instead of massive legs up where people blindly buy themselves into the market.

I already see it happening; the price has gone over the $10,000 level, and people still speculate about when the bull run will finally start. 

Back in 2014/2015 people weren't even remotely as speculative and dreamy about bull runs as the people we're dealing with right now. 2017's adoption wave is the worst so far, and I'm pretty certain that it will only get worse the deeper we dig into mainstream adoption.

I'm pretty certain that when Fidelity gets hacked, the coins will be deemed near worthless in an instant. It's a whole new level of hacks, and one that's not nearly as similar to what happens when a crypto exchange gets hacked. Every entity associated with these coins, doesn't matter how, will be blacklisted and prosecuted. In other words, more coins off the market.

It may look like that for people here, but average joes and large scale investors don't care about decentralization and being their own bank. They just want the exposure that Bitcoin offers. On top of that, they are way better off having a legacy entity function as custodian. If you don't know how to securely store your coins, don't, and for that reason people will always use these services.

Aside from the profiteering aspect, people are stupid enough to believe that the next time will be different, and that's how they continue to have faith in something that will eventually implode completely.

I'm pretty certain that when people finally realize how toxic the Bolivar is, no one will be stupid enough to convert Bitcoin to Bolivars. One doesn't convert utter garbage to Gold, but it still happens. Ignorance is a crucial aspect within basically any dictatorial regime. It's an effective weapon. The less people know, the lower the odds are that they will figure out how to work around that system.

Bitcoin growth still needs to wait a few more months. There is definitely a possibility that when we're six months away from now, the same might still apply. 

I like how Tim Draper sticks with his main long term prediction and doesn't bother with the short term market, which is purely a casino with how no one knows what will happen.

Important aspect of a market is that when people wait for something to happen, it mostly won't happen, because they're in already. If that's the case with current market, it may very well be that we're still due for one heck of a brutal shake-off. The market has been extremely generous with people when it comes to allowing them to buy at current levels, and traditionally, markets aren't that generous.

USD leads in every possible way, market making, and volumes.

These articles are pure rubbish because they don't take into consideration how Asian exchanges incentivize people to wash trade and earn a few bucks in the process. It goes so far, that some of the most trashy coins generate 100x the volume of BTC. South Korea also fits in that category. It's ridiculous.

This is exactly why the SEC doesn't want to allow an ETF to be approved any time soon, and rightfully so. There is too much shady activity happening on Asian exchanges. The SEC isn't stupid, they know what's happening over there.

The thing here is that as long as the market is being controlled by algorithmic trading activity, we'll be seeing prices go lower and lower, because that's what bots are programmed to do. They respect the bearish trend extremely well. We need spontaneous buying to happen and give the market the boost that it needs, otherwise we can be up for a long ass bear market, or sideways moving market.

People think that we'll be pumping towards $20,000 again effortlessly, but that's not the case. Bots are securing profits as soon as they see an opportunity to do so, sell the market down, buy in, and repeat. In other words, it's going to be a slow journey.

As long as we haven't broken through previous lower highs, I'm not really expecting anything to change. Every previous support level has become a resistance level.

What they did right is ignore local regulations and aggressively onboard as many users as possible, and they took care of the support side, which is another department other exchanges are severely lacking.

I think the very fact that CZ is CEO and founder of Binance is another important factor, especially with his role over at OKCoin before Binance was a thing. He knows what an exchange needs in order to be successful, has the contacts within this space, and knows how to attract market makers, and it clearly shows.

All the respect to how he runs his business. Perhaps that Binance one day will live up to its 'Coinbase killer' status.

Purse.IO allows you to buy Netflix gift cards through Amazon with Bitcoin, and you are getting a decent discount on it too.

I'm pretty content with Purse even though it's a big block focused site, but hey, they offer a useful service for my fellow Bitcoiners, and that's what matters here.

People don't understand anything here. I'm pretty certain that most of the people here don't know how it is to actually take risk (if they even know what risk actually means), or even work for money rather than begging for it or expecting it to grow on trees. This is exactly why a lot people here end up burning themselves in the worst possible way.

I do like bots, but I'm just too paranoid to use one myself, because I can't sleep not knowing how the market will trash whatever my bot was up to.

I do wonder though, with how most of these 'mass produced' bots continue to gain more traction within this market, there could very well be an incentive for those behind the development of these bots to sell that information to market makers and whatnot. From there it's very easy to fool these bots continuously, because you know exactly what they are programmed to do.

If you want to trade the right way, then a bot is definitely it.

I'm not sure if it's gambling, I'm more inclined to say that trading manually is more like gambling than having a bot doing the trading for you is. Humans suck at trading as they have their emotions get in their way and make stupid decisions based on that. Bots don't have that problem, they enter each trade clean without any sort of regret about the previous trade being a losing one.

The very reason we're respecting the charts so much during this bear market, is because most of what we see happen is algorithmic trading activity. TA works. I was in the 'TA sucks' camp, but it has proven its usefulness for over a year now.

Side chains have always been pointed at as being the next big thing for Bitcoin, and if that's so, the rewards miners scoop up for merge mining them will significantly contribute to their income if there is enough volume.

With how miners becoming more energy efficient, have more than one source of income, and the price that keeps going up over time, I'm pretty certain that there isn't much to worry about. There is plenty enough time for Bitcoin to accumulate adoption and actual use, and that's what I am looking forward to.

The past has been a great indicator for the future when it comes to halvings versus mining rewards in fiat value, and there is no reason to expect it to change.

Most of those who complain very likely haven't invested in stocks or other legacy assets. If they did, they would be more than happy with 10-20% monthly gains, but instead, they consider that peanuts and not worth their time, lol. People are so used to shitcoins pumping with +100% before the end of the week, that everything else is just not good enough anymore.

Most people who hold stocks for long periods of time are perfectly happy with a 5-10% annual price gain, especially in current times with how savings accounts don't yield anything anymore.

I like how this bear market makes people appreciate even the smallest gains now, because even a 1-2% gain or a stable market is better than dumping with 5-10% like what he have seen happen for quite a long period of time now. Once we're done bottoming out, we'll see the price go the other direction and people will start to gain their confidence again. That's how it always goes here.

If you look at the charts, there was clearly a descending triangle visible that we respected in both the up and down direction. I personally thought it would break to the up side due to how Bitcoin tends to pump around October/November, but not this time. Down it went.

The amount of stop losses that were parked below $6000 must have been insane, and ultimately resulting in a brutal selloff with how bots instantly pull their buy orders further exaggerating the dump due to the lack of liquidity on the buy side.

Regarding OP; I do believe that there is a pretty decent chance that we're very near the bottom. If we follow the bottoming process in 2015, one should expect the 200 wma to be something we'll be dealing with for a couple of more months. Closing below the 200 wma will become a problem, but we're not at that stage and I don't expect it to happen.

Nah. People need to burn themselves once or twice to get their sense back, so it's a great thing overall.

2017's bull market made people consider everything a good investment, because everything was going up and paying out for quite a long period of time, even the most ridiculous looking scams. People become more aware of what this space is about, will look for better exchanges to use, and will eventually stick with just holding or trading the more established coins.

Regulated platforms will attract smart people. Unregulated platforms attract stupid people. Considering that there are more stupid people in this space than smart people, they will continue to get scammed, lose money, etc.

Right. BitPay offers merchants the option to accept only one of the two currencies, but it obviously is a way better option to accept more crypto's than just one. Too bad they are sucked into this political nonsense in an instant, all thanks to the propaganda machine powered by Roger Ver.

They won't. Roger and Bitmain have so much of a say, that they won't ever allow any other crypto currency to be listed, because if they do, it would instantly devalue BCash, because the only thing BCash has going for itself, is being cheap. Litecoin is cheap, faster, more decentralized, and thus more censorship resistant, and is scalable as well.

Accepting any other currency means bye bye 'use case' for BCash.

It's very difficulty for the average person (heck even for those who have been here for a long time) to figure out what a good entry or exit point is, because it's not always as obvious as it is right now at current levels being a great entry point, or in 2017 during the peak where the market looked extremely bubbly being a great exit point.

That's what I am doing right now. I allocate larger amounts to accumulate at current levels, and when it jumps over $6000 it will mark for me the moment to allocate way smaller chunks for accumulation purposes, because that's what I consider to be the safest way moving forward for me. It worked well for me during 2016 and the first few months of 2017.

I stopped buying over $2000 because it didn't feel good, but hey, there was just no way for me to know that it would pump straight to $20,000 within the same year. I'm happy that I sticked to my plan, and will stick to it similarly right now.

I honestly wasn't really into markets and let it go by as if it wasn't of any importance, especially with how it didn't affect me or the company I was working for at that point. Looking back at the actual damage, and how we potentially could have seen the world economy implode completely, it does makes me feel good about how Bitcoin made me more aware of economics and the governmental system in general.

I have done everything I can to hedge most of my fiat net worth by holding Bitcoin. The drop in price made me convert even more fiat to Bitcoin, and I will continue doing so till the price jumps over $6000 again, and from there very conservatively dollar cost average regardless of what the price under normal circumstances. I'm not buying into a bubbly market.

I'm building up and protecting my own wealth, can't rely on pension funds for a single second with how young I still am. Better safe than sorry.

We're basically at a point where people, whether they are so called experts or not, start to rehash each other continuously.

Don't expect anything, just let the market do whatever it will do, because it will move regardless of what your personal opinion or game plan is. It wouldn't surprise me to see it shoot up from here to never visit current levels ever again, but similarly, it wouldn't surprise me if we dip below the $3000 level in the forthcoming weeks or months.

My game plan is to buy the market down. The lower it goes the better it is for me. In other words, more bang for my buck.

Back in 2017 it was pretty difficult to get fiat into the crypto market with how exchanges had to deal with so many verification requests, that there was a delay of weeks at the very minimum. On top of that, some exchanges even halted their registrations for a short period of time.

Imagine how high the price would have shot up would exchanges be more prepared to handle the increased user demand, and with how many more fiat entry points there are right now. I'm certain that everything we see play out right now will contribute to more future retail bull run madness than ever before.

I can appreciate Binance for what they are doing to crypto. I wish them the best of luck to outcompete Coinbase where they can.

Bitfinex today is less of a price driver for the market than what it used to be prior to all their silly actions making sure not only traders, but also the ecosystem lost faith in that exchange. I would say that Coinbase Pro has more weight to the market in terms of pricing than Bitfinex, especially with how you know that real dollars are being traded, and not potentially unbacked Tethers.

On top of that, it's not a very good sign that an exchange has a high premium rate to it than the rest of the market due to all their problems, and the fact that they haven't managed to work out these problems isn't a positive signal either.