but, but, bitcoin is not allowed to fall or retrace ever, only rise in a perpetual staircase pattern.

The exchanges do not do very good (if any) reports at all and I've used various paid tools/sites to import the data and they were all completely wrong with errors. They cant keep up with margin vs exchange wallet, altcoins, deposits/withdrawals, etc.

How exactly do you guys deal with taxes if youve made 1000 trades this year and each trade has dozens of people who traded against your trade and you have complex interactions between altcoins and different exchanges. Do you just kind of estimate how much profit you made based on your account balances? That worked for me in 2013-2016 and I've never been audited but I was once audited for a $1500 Health Savings Account  I didnt report...

Why do we need a different coin for each investment fund in each industry? We already have bitcoin/etc which is already capable of doing this. Cant we just build a kickstarter app on top of bitcoin?

How is bitcoin different from stocks:
-decentralized
-fixed supply - no sudden dilution
-numerous exchanges with different price, books, liquidity
-much much more volume
-much more volatility
-not regulated
-price movements tend to trend instead of having instant movements on news like stocks - because it isnt locked down by banks and professional traders yet
-difficult to short
-no 'book value' that can be calculated from assets, earnings, etc - completely speculative
-24/7 markets worldwide
-free instant market data including full L2 with robust presentation tools for free
-can trade different coins directly with eachother without selling and buying for cash
-can transfer and settle coins between different people instantly
-can hold coins off of exchanges
-cannot be halted, confiscated, or seized by an authority if held off an exchange
-no ownership in a company
-no dividends (except forks)
-coins can be stolen or lost into a void (reducing supply) if sent to the wrong address or the key is lost

Bitcoin is now $200bn+ and more difficult to manipulate. You might be able to manipulate one exchange but then the rest might not follow. Little altcoins can definitely be manipulated. Ive seen price movements and breakouts in little alts triggered simply by me placing a large order (which I intended to buy of course). It's kind of like poker where the bigger your stack gets the more successful you are.

The intensity of the bearish sentiment on here during the past days by the noobs over a 15-30% dip was laughable, and now it's nearly made a full recovery.

Trying to keep your coins like...

All I'm saying is there are single points of failure and it is much easier for Tether to become worthless than it is for bitcoin which is backed by a global economy and the laws of thermodynamics or whatever.

It's not just bitfinex anymore that uses tether. There is poloniex, bittrex, and maybe more. I have a polo account and am all bitcoin in it, unless I see a quick trade.

All it takes for Tether to become completely worthless is one guy decides to seize the account for TetherBank which has been illegally printing a dollar pegged currency

I got an email from Bitfinex saying something to the effect of that if I try to trade there then they'll take my money and call the police so I wouldn't even bother with thinking of  trading on their dodgy platform with tethers where most are probably going to lose thier money anyway after they are goxxed at any moment.

Gox had 80% volume before mid 2013.  When it went down in 2014 it only had 33% of the volume or less after the rally driven by China and the growth of bitstamp and bitfinex,

Well in 2014 i went 75% bank and 25% cold storage, completely ignored the market for 2 years, and then in 2016 I came back. I never reccomend full fiat and it's easier for all your fiat to stolen than it is for bitcoin to lose all of its value.

You cant price in something that is still uncertain. Plus the effect of an actual exchange failure could be much different and more profound than could possibly be anticipated or traded. All the traders would still be trapped there now artificially holding up the price. Remember gox?

or just a parking lot in miami

Theres whaleclub but I dont consider myself a whale, more of a dolphin.

I also need to withdraw a huge amount to pay taxes and the exchanges are dragging their feet. It's freaking me out. What about private buyers?

Clearly his analysis was based on TA and not events. Sometimes the event is just a whale trying to dump.

I see no reversal pattern on the daily chart and flat series of lines at the bottom of the candle body of last drop. Then last night we had that huge attempted breakout where it went up $600 in a second with a good follow through, only for me to wake up today and see it went back down. The volume that was driving the bounce has been gone for a while now.  So this isn't going anywhere until it goes back down and catches support again. I'm not saying it has to drop a whole lot further. It might just be a little like to $8K or it might even be within the shadow of the last drop.