Even if 'pushing back' crypto adoption is their main motive, it won't have much of an effect in the long term at all. Whether it's crypto gaining ground or mobile payment forms based on fiat, digital payments will continue to grow as they have been doing for over a decade now.

In the end, Bitcoin right now isn't at the point it has any sort of ammo to compete with the big boys such as PayPal, AliPay, etc. If it isn't the infrastructure forming an obstacle, the volatility here will make sure people will always prefer to settle their transactions with fiat related payment forms. Money is meant to be free of hassle, which is an experience Bitcoin can't provide yet due to the speculative nature of this market.

It's not just very difficult. It's impossible to figure out where the market will bottom. I even think that people should stop trying to aim for a bottom price, because who actually manages to buy the bottom? The only thing you can do is dollar cost average every 10-20% the market dips, which is what I have been doing for a while now.

In the end, the bottom will likely be a brief bottom visit, a sort of mini flash crash where the price will be bought up seconds later. The only one's who are lucky enough to have their orders filled are those who set up buy orders prior to the flash crash, and thus not those who are waiting for a bottom.

Does it even matter to catch the bottom? 10% more or less won't make any sort of difference in the very long term.

Booms happen when people don't expect them to happen, so don't waste any of your time waiting for them. No one back in 2016 expected 2017 to be a year where the price would rocket past the moon, which is exactly what made 2017 such a crazy year.

People last year had no choice but to keep buying on the way up, while if everyone knows it's going to happen at this or that date, they buy in well before the event and effectively make a boom close to impossible to emerge because they will end up selling what they bought at lower levels. That's exactly why it's good to have the current market shake off as many weak hands as possible.

It's difficult because people make trading difficult for themselves. Instead of trying to benefit from smaller trades, which is a waste of time in my opinion, people should have opened a short position the moment the price went below yearly support and sit it out. Currently the opportunity is gone and you have to respect the market as it comes.

The smartest guys in the room are waiting for the market to steer clear from all the uncertainties it's currently bombarded with. The price could literally go up or down from here. If this isn't a clear signal that you should wait for improvement in the sentiment, then I don't know what will be that for you.

The only thing that makes sense right now is to accumulate spot for the long term.

I have been reading through stories and articles (for years now) where a massive crisis was expected to hit the world, but thus far it hasn't happened yet. I'm actually pretty content with that, because the longer it takes for a crisis to show its face, the more time Bitcoin will have to expand and gain the safe haven status that Gold currently enjoys.

In the end, you can better have Bitcoin in your portfolio and not need it in the far future than to not have it and then realize that you should have bought it because you badly need it right now.

Right. That actually reminds me of how people were hyping up that Bitcoin reached all time high levels in Turkey, while most of the noobs don't realize that the price hasn't actually gone up, but adjusted itself to match the US dollar equivalent.

Similarly, USDT lost a considerable amount of its value which inflated the prices of coins prices against USDT, which got people hyped up, and they failed to understand that the price hasn't gone up at all. It was yet again nothing more than an adjustment to levels to match the US dollar equivalent.

Banks and the MasterCards of this world screwing people over, that signals Bitcoin's usefulness and results in worthwhile price increases, not currencies losing value which makes Bitcoin increase as well, but without a gain in purchasing power.

I remember back in 2015 someone on Bitstamp placed a sell order of 30,000BTC at $300 which people were buying into, but it probably didn't shrink fast enough so that entity removed the sell wall and placed it at $275 which people bought in like crazy. This was just before the price tanked to $150 so it's not sure whether that entity ended up buying back lower or left the market entirely.

I miss these old times where these massive orders used to pop up frequently. Right now the only large orders you see pop up are on Bitfinex which I wouldn't be surprised about if it's all spoofing taking place. Nowadays whales either use the hidden orderbook feature to not publicly show large orders, or they make themselves look like a small fish by trading small amounts.

If people are thinking logically, he's out to provide you with information that's meant to stirr up the market. One day he'll tell you to go left, the other day you'll be told to go right. He doesn't care what direction you'll follow as long as you place a bet on his platform, and you are more likely to do so during a volatile market.

Bitmex settles everything in BTC, so up or down means he still profits in BTC and that's all that matters. If you also take into consideration that the majority of the traders are always wrong, you know how much profit Bitmex is generating on a monthly basis. Their $5 million per year office is a glimpse of their wealth.

Nasdaq is planning to launch their own futures market, haven't heard anything about an ETF. More importantly, both Nasdaq and Bakkt won't be able to launch any sort of product without regulatory approval (which they don't have yet), and while I initially believed it would be an easy okay, I'm somewhat more bearish towards these platforms right now.

As for the patents of BAC, it's not much to be excited about. Hundreds of entities are securing crypto related patents on a daily basis, which is more like domain hoarding; it's great to have in your portfolio, but only time will tell which ones will be the money makers. Most of these patents will expire unused anyway.

Don't focus on external elements. Focus on what Bitcoin has to offer going forward (i.e. LN, Schnorr, side chains, etc). Fundamentals we can build on.

Same here. People are too stupid to realize that this is very likely the last ever opportunity to buy coins at these levels. It boggles my mind that even some of the olders members here are stuck in their rooky mindset. They say they believe in Bitcoin yet are afraid that the price will completely collapse. These are the times where real hodlers seperate themselves from the rest.

I'm of course not celebrating that this market has turned into a pile of rubbish, but I'm just utilizing my opportunities the best way I can instead of complaining. It won't sell off for ever.

Welcome in the speculation section, the place where experts share thoughts.

Sorry, but the SEC and an ETF are pure shit and fill up people's empty heads with hopium that the price will rocket up. It won't because you'll see the SEC reject it in February and we can then finally get rid of those who are in just to sell this event. I'm seriously glad that they technically can't delay it anymore, so no more bullshit from this point.

In the end, we never needed any sort of financial product to go up. We boomed hard more than once and will continue to do so in the forthcoming years. All this market needs is one spark and it ignites the whole space.

Discarding the motives for his statement, there is an extent of truth here. If we look at the market last year, people fomo'ed in like there was no tomorrow. It wasn't because they love crypto so much for that what it represents, they just love the price that went up like most of the people who entered last year have never seen before.

ICO's were able to raise millions with just a simple website, and an idea with a white paper you can have someone set up for like $50-$100. IIRC, there were a few ICO's that admitted to be a ponzi scam, and people still invested in it, lol. The sentiment last year was literally; shut up and take my money!

It's okay man. I tried to convince people around me of how important it is to take care of your own keys, but most of them are plain stupid and not worthy of my time. Suckers will keep using banks and whatnot because they don't know any better than having a centralized party reign over them.

The only way for them to realize how bad their crypto etiquette is, is to have an exchange implode in their face with severe losses as result. Only then will they think back at all the people who tried to explain them the importance of storing your own keys. It's just not enough seeing an exchange implode far away, they have to be sucked into an actual exchange hack scenario.

Coins gaining market cap dominance over each other has no meaning, so why should you then worry? In fact, XRP has gone over Bitcoin's market cap more than once already. All the XRP idiots cheering for XRP to take over the nr1 spot have much to learn. In the same way, they have gone over Ether's market cap plenty of times as well, yet don't know how to execute a simple task as opening a market cap chart to see that it already happened.

There is nothing wrong with shilling a coin, we all do it to a certain degree, but the XRP +$2 bag holder community is the worst so far. You don't see any other altcoin bagholder be that desperate. Some times I even wonder how many of these idiots have been paid to spread nonsense. Any other entity with a large stash of coins (being locked or not) is considered to be a scammer, but with Ripple it's all fine, yeah right.

Bitcoin is always Bitcoin. Shitcoins are always shitcoins.

That's way too soon. I will only start to believe that the bottom is in once we conveniently break the yearly support that kept us above $5800 for such a long period of time, and stay above it. Don't forget that support levels turn resistance levels once broken through.

The thing is that the market has a bias towards being extremely bearish during Q1 of each year, which is why I don't expect the current month to yield anything of positive nature. Every increase that we have seen so far is shallow and doesn't signal any sort of confidence. It also doesn't help that the volumes drop rather quickly where we are right now.

Don't ever underestimate this market. $6000 was low people here were echoing. It can always go lower as we see, the same applies to current levels.

I find it funny how people consider it to be a good idea to diversify in the crypto market. It's close to impossible to diversify outside Bitcoin itself. I'm not going to fill up my portfolio with shitcoins just because they have or might not have potential. If any coin had any sort of serious potential, it should have shown it by now, and not follow Bitcoin where it goes.

Altcoins following Bitcoin just indicates how much this market is filled with utter garbage. I said goodbye to altcoins back in 2014 and certainly won't touch any again. ICO's are one of the most contributing factors as to why Bitcoin continues to tank hard. Notice how projects having raised millions in Ether don't know how fast they should unload their coins to BTC and then dump it for USD because their own market isn't liquid enough.

Purity matters.

The lower the price the better it is for me. It's no longer 2013/2014/2015 where the price of a whole coin was just a couple hundred bucks. $3400 would allow me to buy 10'ish Bitcoins back then, right now it's just 1. This is an opportunity of a life time for people, use it instead of complaining about everything. Months ago people would wipe McAfee's booty to buy at current levels, and now they act like a prima donna and play hard to get.

Someone should set up some sort of a Bitcointalk book with comments from previous bear and bull markets. It's great fun reading through how people in 2011 called each other suckers for having bought the top at $6 or something, lol. Current times aren't much different. Same panic and trolling, just a different price. 

What exactly makes you and me different from these billionaires? They only allocate a small percentage of their worth to Bitcoin and crypto in general, and so should you do. People here act like billionaires have money to blow like it's nothing, but they don't have huge bags full of fiat lying around. Most of their worth consists of their own businesses being worth a certain amount, properties they own, etc. I doubt that most of the billionaires have even 10% of their worth in liquid means.

People need to understand that investing shouldn't be done with borrowed money or money you need in your own life. If you only risk a portion you have sitting in your savings account and won't need anyway, you will be able to walk through this bear market without any problems. It's just a matter of logical thinking.

Could be, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it test $3000 flat in the coming days or weeks. Most of the "gains" that we have seen in the last days was largely a mixture of mini short squeezes and bots further inflating the price. It's not based on actual demand, and it shows with how we're falling back to the same levels again.

I would love to see the price test the $3000 level, because that's somewhat of a price most people agree on that it is an important level. It's basically a moment of truth level. If the support fails at that level, it will probably fail at any other level as well. It will indicate that there is more selling pressure to get rid of, even with how most people think the current price is low already.

Firstly, you just blindly assume they have tons of coins to sell, which they might not at all have. Bitmain, Roger, CSW, and a bunch of other fools have done everything they could to unload as many of their BTC to preserve their 10-15-20% BCash pairings, which they failed to do because there just aren't enough coins to utilize.

The likely reason it happened afterwards could very well be an institution or even miners themselves cash out some of their holdings. The difficulty adjustment was around the corner, plus it was clear that Bitmain with its Antpool, BTC.com pools and ViaBTC pool would shift over hashrate to protect their own chain. Lower hashrate + lower difficulty adjustment = lower production cost.

I'm sorry to say, but with what you just stated you invalidated everything you said regarding this subject.

The whole point is that these idiots are out for attention. They don't have hundreds of thousands of coins ready to be dumped. As I said above, they spent most of their BTC resources on having BCash be paired to Bitcoin as far as they can financially sustain it, and they failed.

I am very disappointed with how poor the 'hash war' actually was, because their big words didn't match their actions. Why? They don't have the financial resources to sustain it.