Interesting, OP.

So he got OTC then.

We can conclude it was the weak hands who drove the price down.

Now, who will drive it up? There are good news around, but this market is weak.

Fact is that most people want to have their money controlled by banks and governments. They buy bitcoin only for a quick profit. If the profit dont come in just some days, they sell at the first bad news they find. They dont want to hold for years, or to spend their btc to buy stuff. In other words, they dont want to wait.

It doesn't really matter anymore. The price was bound to go down anyway, so whether it's the speculation about MtGox dumps, or just the lower overall demand, it's the same in the end. If one thing became clear over the last months, the ranges have only gone lower and lower. People for now need to adjust their expectations to significantly lower levels, because the support of the last weeks wasn't able to maintain $11,000/$10,000/$9000, and perhaps not even the $8000 level. The less you expect from the short term market, the less disappointment you'll face. In other words, don't even dare to speculate about $50,000 this year.

Nobody is going to believe that and even if they do, too few will read or bother to read that statement in the first place.
The community needs a culprit, needs somebody to blame for the price drop.
Be it Gox, G20, just find somebody and blame him.

Already we have ideas about rubbing out everybody that tries to dump coins, the whole thing will only go downhill unless BTC goes up in price again.

LOL. Someone says that it will go as low as $5000. There's really too much FUD going around right now. I think you already know that this is a speculative market, that's why the price is very volatile and just like you said a single negative news will turn the price down south. However, every FUD, every attacks that we have witness are short lived. Because one investors found out that the news is just fake or spreading lies, they will go back to the market again. Sometimes common sense and due diligence is the best weapon to combat all this bearish sentiments. As of now bitcoin is up, around $8600 so I don't think that $5000 could be test anytime soon. And talking about bitcoin coverage:

LIGHTNING NETWORK GOES LIVE WITH $2.5M FUNDING FROM TWITTER CEO, TESLA & SPACEX INVESTOR

First Bitcoin Mainnet Lightning Network Product Launches As Developers Net $2.5 Mln

Well, it is not so much about him selling the remaining 160k Mt. Gox coins he has in his wallet as about the fear that many, if not all, buyers of crypto now have because of him. It doesn't even matter if the price crash as of recent was actually due to his massive sell-off, though the evidence seems to be overwhelming. In fact, he may not even sell them at all, not a single satoshi, though this is unlikely given the circumstances, but people will still think that one day he goes nuts about selling these coins at any price, and then prices will be halved again extremely fast. Therefore, Bitcoin won't rise until these coins are gone for good, burned or otherwise disposed of, and people become confident and positive again.

You need to put yourself in their shoes to understand the motives. Those guys who have a lot of coins, like 1000 or more, they are there to make money on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Most of them don't care about the coins they're holding, they want a monthly wage to appear on their bank account. So they will pump and dump with those thousands of coins and each move can make them 10k USD, sometimes 100k, a couple moves each month and the newbie sheep get fleeced and there's 100k back on the bank account and they still got the initial 1k coins on the exchange and another month begins. They've been doing it for years and the fact that they are owning a large percentage of money on a given exchange gives them advantage.

True, it was more an observation of some of the ideals the community have adopted - or at least the image is presented.

The white paper is, as you say, straightforward in that it's essentially about money over IP, nowhere in there is talk of revolution or overthrowing traditional financial institutions - that has been implied and appended by members of the community, who have taken to this more as evangelists on a mission.


A shame that we cannot escape this part of the human condition - for the time being. It might be centuries before we move on from this antiquated way of thinking - don't take this the wrong way, I'm for open free markets and capitalism - but it's the human condition (irrationality, fear, greed) that basically spoil what could be an elegant system.

I understand that Bitcoin isn't here to solve these problems, but it doesn't help that the community seems to preach that it will. Plus, I assumed the 'new money' personalities that crypto minted would be of the ilk that might try to solve these problems, instead, all I see is the same manipulation, the same greed.

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There were a lot more replies here than I expected, so apologies I can't reply to everyone, but I've read through all of them - thanks for replying with your thoughts and balance to this discussion.

I agree that BTC is not about philanthropy (although there have been some fantastic examples) and that crypto isn't some global effort to re-distribute wealth proportionately, even though it is redistributing wealth to some degree. However, this is the 'image' that crypto portrays to a lot of people; that it isn't just tech solution, it's about a revolution in many ways.

To me, that revolution is nullified by the economic landscape that crypto has built, where it's basically the same as our current 1% system in many ways - which isn't the end of the world, it's just an observation of the difference in the image and the reality.

I suppose after some thought, my main concern right now is that larger players are hindering adoption through their manipulation and greed. Sure, we may never live in a 'fair' world, and that's fine, nature isn't fair, the universe isn't fair, perhaps it's a utopian pipe dream, and that's OK, but if the goal is to have BTC or crypto adopted globally, then how does that work with such blatant manipulation? As another user said:

It's scary that one entity can do all this. Makes me fear what banks might do, since they can definitely profit from shenanigans.

Bitcoin price will likely Surge as Mt.Gox Sell Off Paused Until september according to this article - https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/03/11/bitcoin-price-will-likely-surge-as-mt-gox-sell-off-paused-until-september/. This is a good chance to Hold until that time comes when he decide to sell his Bitcoin again.