I think you are greatly exaggerating things here as only a minor proportion of the world population gets paid in that little green token (just as friendly a reminder to put things in their true perspective). Indeed, that is not your point (let me guess), but forgetting this simple fact makes your whole claim somewhat dubious and suspicious (or even chauvinistic, to a degree). Sorry, but the world doesn't revolve around America, though everyone loves the American dollar

Other than us, of course, who love Bitcoin more than the dollar

It largely depends on specific jurisdiction

It kinda goes without saying that if the authorities consider crypto outright illegal (there are quite a few such countries), you wouldn't really expect a lot of crypto related companies and businesses to have bank accounts to support their cryptocurrency operations. Truth be told, you wouldn't even expect these companies to be open about their operations involving cryptocurrencies in the first place

The bottom line is that the devil is in paying precious attention to specific details as legality of crypto varies greatly among different jurisdictions across the world. And things get even more complicated and convoluted with businesses operating on a global scale

There is not a lot of new money in crypto these days

So your whole question becomes kinda meaningless if this assumption is correct (which seems to be the case). But if you in fact wanted to ask why people got into crypto earlier (like a few years ago), then the answer should be straightforward and it was easy money. Those who invested in early 2015, had patience to keep their coins till the end of 2017 and prudence to quit when the time came, multiplied their investments. That was the primary driver if we cut the crap and noise

Very good point, bro

Everyone should think about this before jumping to any conclusions about bottoming out (even though it looks and feels like we did), finding a strong support, breaking resistance, and similar things. Cryptocurrency market has always been unpredictable, and it is even more unpredictable now when there is no established trend and any news, either positive or negative, can cause a major price shift

Could you elaborate on why it is so?

More specifically, I refer to the part where you say that there is a belief that the economy grows on credit. Personally, I think there is some misunderstanding here. As far as I see it, the economy doesn't grow on credit but credit is still required for the economy to grow (this is not the same thing). if you come to disagree with this, I would like to hear your reason why you disagree (in your own words)

This is also a complicated question

Up to a point where such overgeneralizations become meaningless and utterly misleading. To put it differently, you can't possibly say that day trading is gambling while long-term holding is not as both can be gambling just as easily as they may not. Obviously, it all depends on the individual engaged in any of these. It should be clear that people can lose money irrespective of their investment horizons (short term versus long term) just as they can earn profits riding both short-term volatility and global trends

I think it's way more complicated

For example, if someone wins the lottery, is he smart or not? If you ask me, I think that winning the lottery only proves that you are lucky. But if you are then able not to waste the money and put it to work in a meaningful and purposeful way, you prove to be a smart guy indeed. In the earlier days, Bitcoin was very much like lottery, and many people were just lucky to turn up in the right place at the right time. Whether they were able to keep this wealth and not waste it is another question, though

Further, for many people it is not about selling at a profit (or at least not just about it). A lot of people now use Bitcoin for quite a few purposes which are completely unrelated to speculation (for example, the unbanked ones using it for remittances), and they may not care so much for the price of Bitcoin (read, you cannot even always tell if they are selling for a profit or loss when and if they have to sell). Are they smart or not in your system of values? To me, they are clearly outside it (though they may still be smart on their own)

Personally, I wouldn't call that manipulation

As what you mean (i.e. anyone with deep pockets buying a lot of Bitcoin and thereby moving the price up) is a regular market activity. Technically, this is how we are expecting the market to resurrect in due time, with more institutional buyers entering the fray. Would that count as manipulation? I guess no, though I agree that the term and notion itself is a bit vague and requires a more clear definition

This has always been the case in the past (though it may take time)

The alternative is a new world war, as simple as it gets. But then the stocks and their quotes will be your least concern. So any way you look at it, your only viable alternative is assume that everything will be back to normal after the dust finally settles. As an aside, you are basically repeating what Warren Buffett has been saying all these years, i.e. in the days of crisis you can buy valuable stock really cheap and then make a fortune when the sun shines again

На самом деле идея использовать сантехнику не такая уж и плохая

И для этого вовсе необязательно совершать какие-то хитрые манипуляции по принципу дверцы в трубе канализации. У многих в отводах от стояка врезаны вентили, например, для подключения стиральной машины. Перекрыв вход, этот вентиль можно легко снять, а потом прикрутить назад, сделав в нем или в самом отводе нычку. Открыл кран - полились деньги ручьем. Про нычку в сифоне уже писал, но она слишком палевная

The majority of trading folk should stay away from naked shorts

And it is not because the profit potential is capped (though it is because of this too). Shorts (and their forced liquidation) is what brings exchanges easy money. It is not uncommon to see sudden spikes in this or that coin which come out of nowhere and which sole purpose is to wipe away margin positions

Myself, I had my massive short position wrongfully liquidated a few months ago at Bitfinex, so this thing is also possible (read, you should be extremely cautious and alert). Anyway, if you want to profit off a falling market, you should go for covered shorts using different currency pairs. But that's an art in its own right

Logic is the last thing you should employ in such speculative markets as Bitcoin

And Bitcoin is certainly not alone in this department. The famous phrase by John Keynes about markets staying irrational longer that you can stay solvent was said in respect to stock markets, and while there is an ultimate limit as to how low Bitcoin can fall, there's virtually no limit as to how high it can rise

Remember that dude from early 2017 who lost a pile of cash trying to short Bitcoin? This was a wake-up call for all the shorters out there (read, the price can in fact explode to insane levels in less than no time as it did in the past many times). Everyone and his grandma should stay away from naked shorts at all costs at all times

I think people are making whales into a scapegoat

Whales do buy as well as sell since otherwise they wouldn't be able to become whales in the first place (apart from mining, of course). But we have yet to see any conclusive and solid evidence that any whale is actually engaged in actual market manipulation. People love to talk about this sort of thing as it gives them piece of mind via rationalization of their losses allegedly incurred through deliberate market manipulation by wealthy cryptoholders. Please note that I don't deny market manipulation as such but I'm very dubious and skeptical whether it really comes from whales. Does anyone actually think that the Winklevii (for example) are manipulating the market?

I'm not sure if the 4225 high is the highest high so far this year

Regardless, it seems to me that we should take an earlier point of reference. I think we should proceed from the lowest low reached during the bear trend which started in 2018. If I'm not mistaken it was December 20th (not very far from 2018 anyway) and after that we rebounded to almost 4400. That should be our major resistance level. Besides, in February we also surged to almost 4300 but didn't stay there (all prices are Bitfinex)



As you can see, we have a pretty big distance to cover before we break out

That's not the only pattern

Another pattern which is worth mentioning here is the slow rise. And it is not so much the rise of the price itself (I refer to local highs here) as the uplift of the whole trading range. In other words, we may not be making new highs (for example, in early January we surged to almost 4400), but we are nevertheless still making higher lows. If anything, this is definitely a good sign since the recovery is well underway

I understand and even reciprocate your sarcasm (to a degree)

On the other hand, you should in fact expect some people to love, for example, dead cat's bounces as they typically give you a chance to unwind your losing positions with a minimal loss. Damn, we should all love them. Conversely, if you are deep in shorts you may not in fact love bull runs, that's true. Most certainly, you will outright hate them. But as the saying goes, there's only one step between love and hate, so when you change your exposure from short to long, you will start to love the bull all over again


See, you definitely love rising wedges

Unlike movies, you can't give somebody your time

Well, in fact you can (like in conversations or whatever), but there's no guarantee that anyone will be interested in your precious time at all (and it is more like spending time, not earning it). In this manner, there cannot be what we could loosely call a universal time or duration exchange. In other words, duration is not fungible, i.e. any unit or part of duration is different from another unit, and therefore it cannot be used as money

See, one bitcoin is still the same bitcoin no matter what wallet it came from. Technically, it is not quite so due to tainted coins (wallets) but it is still a safe assumption overall (and you can always use mixers if something). To sum it up, the whole idea seems to be stillborn as it has severe issues with fungibility, which makes duration not suitable to be used as money, end of story 

Such stories definitely have some ground and substance

In fact, making money with Bitcoin was pretty easy the whole time since the second half of 2015 and till the end of 2017 (which is over two years, just in case). You could simply buy a few bitcoins at any price back in the day and then wait patiently for your investment to double or triple (and if you were extremely patient you could even quadruple your starting capital). The hardest part was to curb your greed when it was the right time to call it a day. That's what these stories typically don't tell

That's a piece of bullshit (pardon the language)

Bitcoin is not about blind trust, it is not a Ponzi. It is about real-world utility as this is what counts at the end of the day. You may trust Bitcoin or you may distrust it (or whatever), but if it does its job damn well, you will be using it just because it fits your purpose. If it were only about true believers, Bitcoin would still be in single digits (likely after the decimal point). People can get richer only if they start using Bitcoin in real life. Otherwise, it is a zero-sum game. Think of musical chairs here where there's only one chair standing and it's already taken

I guess the point is here to not get married to your investment. Broadly speaking, it depends on your definition of "fun". For example, Linux was started "just for fun" but that didn't prevent it from turning into a major milestone in the operating system development and information technologies in general. So there is a grain of truth in approaching trading with a sane bit of superficiality since otherwise you wouldn't be able to deal with the losses which are inevitable on your way to success at this endeavor. And let's be honest here, many of us like the thrill of trading, especially if we have a backup income not related to this activity

Simply put, when you are penniwise, you'll never win the highest prize!