I may agree that LTC is still "underpriced" at $7 to those that value it and think it's worth more in the long run.  But I've found that is fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.  I watched LTC rocket from $2 to $48, then slowly fall for a year from $48 to $1.20.  All the while, the Litecoin camp was screaming that it was "undervalued" and "underpriced" at such and such prices... all the way down to $1.20 and finally stabilizing there.  So it really doesn't matter what the supporters think it should be, it only matters what the market supports.

Same goes for BTC, all the supporters were screaming that bitcoin was "undervalued" at ~$700, then $500, then $400, then $300.  But the market said No, it's market supported value was much much lower.

When the Litecoin rally deflates again, and it probably will, hopefully LTC will land somewhere higher than where it took off ($1.70).  But when the smoke clears and people are saying it's dead again, I don't give it much higher than maybe double that.

My theory:

Bitcoin is intentionally being suppressed, but in a unique way.  The whales are busy pumping the litecoin market.  Bitcoins are being sold to the whales in exchange for litecoins, so that noobs can play the litecoin rally.  The whales are holding the bitcoin price fairly steady to make it seem unappealing and boring.  The whales are also attacking the Bitcoin network with spam to continue to delay things.

Once that is done and LTC maxes out, the whales will then take off the parking brake and Bitcoin will start to rally.  The whales will mass dump their remaining litecoin for bitcoin.  All the noobs will then rush in from LTC to BTC en masse, forcing the rally even higher.  The world will then start reading about bitcoin in the media and join in the Bitcoin party.

When that happens, Katy bar the door.

I read that some stock analysts are saying that the U.S. stock market is going to have one final bull run later this year, and then a huge correction shortly thereafter.

After what I've witnessed now with the Chinese stock market, I'd say that would be a completely plausible scenario.  Greed and fear now rule the markets, and the rich oligarchs of the world are the ones pulling the money levers.  They count on the retail investors to be late to the party every time, in order to be the long term bagholders.

To play Devil's advocate here:

If all of their savings are locked up in underwater stocks, then with what money left are the Chinese going to rush into bitcoin?  And after the great ruse of their own domestic pump and dump stock market, why would they risk yet another possibly disappointing investment so soon after?

These are legitimate questions, I believe.

http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/06/26/china-stock-swoon-could-signal-end-of-bull-run/

Here's something to think about -- What if the Chinese government does this:

1)  Pops the Bitcoin bubble in 2013 with bogus reports of a bitcoin 'ban'

2)  From the Bitcoin mania, sees that their own Chinese 'Average Joes' have loads of savings to invest, and will even go long on margin (i.e., get into debt)

3)  Engineer a Chinese stock bull run

4)  Promote the stock bull run domestically, even providing easy borrowing for more margin leverage

5)  Get all of the Chinese Average Joes to go all in at the peak of the bubble (like a month ago)

6)  Pop the Chinese stock bubble

7)  Short the deflating market - Profit!

Now all those Chinese Average Joes that were late to the party just got burned and are heavily underwater and in more debt.  And they'll probably continue to double-down (average down) on more Chinese stock shares as their stock bubble deflates.  Which means being more underwater.

At this point, they then will have nothing left to even invest in Bitcoin.  And that's the way the Chinese government wants it.  They just bailed-in their own slowing economy by going majorly in debt.

Surprised that anyone ever thought otherwise (that this is a single manipulator with deep pockets).  It's pretty obvious he's just selling back to himself over and over again, with little to no risk atm as he is the only one playing around.

This market is still pretty dead.  Whatever the game is, it's not working.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/24/meet-the-worlds-biggest-stock-market-bubble-since-the-dot-com-boom/

It's sad to me that the majority of Chinese retail stock investors are going to get burned, as they were of course late to the party.  Once it pops, their stock bubble will continue to fall over the next 6-12 months, maybe even longer.

Instead, they could have bought bitcoin at the bottom of the bitcoin market (i.e., like NOW), and just waited it out for demand to increase.  Just imagine if all those billions of Chinese stock investments from the last 2-3 months had instead got pushed into the Bitcoin market now?  We'd definitely have a new rally.

I think their gov't neutered the bitcoin rise in Dec 2013 on purpose.  I think their gov't saw all of the pent up demand that their own people had for investing, and knew that if their people invested in bitcoin it would not directly benefit anyone in their own country or their domestic economy.  But if they could engineer and rally a Chinese stock bubble instead, and then promote it from within, then their corporations and executives would directly benefit.

Their poor, uneducated people just unwittingly participated in one of the largest "bail ins" in history.  All coordinated and endorsed by the Chinese gov't.

Totally agree.  Here's the big question:

Does the whale truly think that the market is at bottom here, and intends to go long?  If so, we may see more seeding/pumping.

Or will he "take his cards and go home" if he can't attract some other whales to start a new bull market run?  There's still the downward pressure of market inflation to deal with, as well as some miners/early investors who may need to dump holdings to satisfy some short term debts.

I guess no one here would consider that this entire pump n' play was orchestrated by a single whale or maybe two, because no other whales are currently in this market and they can play with free abandon and with little downside risk?

This is the fun you get when one or a few whales splash around in a dead market.

Cyprus being the reason behind Bitcoin's rise in mid-2013 is something that the media keeps spouting to this day.  But I still don't believe it.  I believe the media loves to "engineer" reasons for things, either in hindsight or in conjunction with other events.

For example, they also said the second rally in Nov 2013 was because of a retail buying frenzy on the good news that the U.S. chose not to ban bitcoin. Complete bullshit:  the whale pumpers "pumped" the bitcoin price because they already knew that the impending news from FinCen would be good/positive.  They had insider trading info for months in advance of the news. Retail buyers had nothing to do with the "pump", in fact many of them bought either at the peak of the rally or after it had popped.

And down she goes....

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/19/investing/china-stocks-shanghai-correction/

It's not Chinese retail, it's probably the whale traders that bought Chinese stock and then proceeded to run it up.  Now that they are starting to cash out profit (whilst leaving the poor Chinese retail investors holding the bag), they'll start sinking their profits into another market.... like BTC, LTC, etc.

Meanwhile in other news:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/bank-of-china-becomes-first-chinese-bank-to-help-set-gold-price-1434453559

Great, now China is set to get in on the Gold price fixing (fraud).  Is this good news?

Right now it doesn't need to be relevant to the whole globe, just a few million more people who have had enough of their savings seized or their fiat purchasing power diluted.

Also, I feel sorry for the Chinese retail investors. They don't realize it yet, but they are the unwitting participants in their government's attempt at a 'bail in' using their domestic stock market as the vehicle.  They will all soon be holding very heavy bags of way overvalued Chinese stock, that will begin a multi-year descent, and probably won't see a rise again for 7+ years or possibly a decade or more.

Still climbing, which will make the subsequent fall even worse.  Their stock market will take years to completely deflate and bottom out.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-08/the-6-5-trillion-china-rally-that-s-making-stock-market-history

Hopefully the smart ones will sell early (like now) and come back to Bitcoin.

Bingo.  Coinbase launched their exchange and look what happened?  Zilch. Nada. Tumbleweeds.  And they didn't even get licensed in all States, only about half of them.  I expect the same or less for Gemini.

As long as the Chinese stay fascinated with their overhyped, overvalued tech stock market, bitcoin is not going anywhere.

http://qz.com/399664/behind-the-chinese-governments-brazen-bid-to-pump-up-its-stock-market/

Last paragraph:

"Of course, slashing debt and privatizing inefficient state behemoths are good things. But by hyping the market, the government is essentially urging its people to buy the stocks of companies with very weak—and in some cases possibly fraudulent—fundamentals. Last week’s selloff shows just how fragile China’s stock rally is. When the market finally reverses, it will be Chinese households who have ended up paying for the excesses of the state, once again."

Yeah, and apparently he's Chef Ramsey now.  Lol.

Just like Ethereum.

_(zing!)