This explains why Roger is supporting Bitcoin Cash too, because he likes to invest in technology that will eventually fail. He is also

invested in Blockchain.info and these guys decided to add BCash, before SegWit. {Just wondering if he had a hand in that too} 

The timing with Coinbase and Kraken going down at almost the same time, might also explain the dip in the price. {less volume}

Maybe OT: really Roger Ver own Kraken?

Such an old topic

Really? You're comparing us prisons with communist labor camps?
You realized that in most of your prisons people are having a better half than 1 billion people in the world that are free?
Every time americans go nuts and cry how the "evil gubermint" is taking away their rights I feel like laughing my ass out.
Sometimes too much freedom is really making you unable to understand what freedom is.

Talk to me about how government is not able to control its citizens where you're going to be sent in a forced labor camp for a 10 lines poem against the leaders, and even after 30 years your family won't be able to find out where your body has been buried(if!!!!).

it's not that i "don’t see that as a problem." i have no control over whether markets are manipulated. i am merely acknowledging that reality and acting accordingly. you expect me to ethically refuse to hold bitcoins because some assholes are trying to manipulate price? then you expect people to be irrational. that's a losing game. and furthermore, some stranger's unethical actions have nothing to with me. i believe in bitcoin's technology. i'm supposed to give that up because you think bitfinex is manipulating price?

in reality, i don't think tether's circulation is capable of "propping up" the entire cryptocurrency market, either. and even if it were, it's just the new "willy bot." temporary market manipulation that will be absorbed by the market. today's manipulation is still tomorrow's price discovery. if the demand didn't exist, the market would have crashed to zero by now.

if the "willy bot" was using fake dollars, but we're 12x higher now than the 2013 highs, what does that tell you? that investors were defrauded into buying bitcoins, which are now worth much more money? what difference do those fake dollars really make?

how are bitfinex's "fake dollars" so different than exploiting QE/easy credit and the use of toxic assets as margin collateral, which we see in the world markets? we can bitch about this stuff all day and shout into the void about it like this guy, or we can acknowledge reality and move on. you apparently agree with bitfinexed, who says that investing in BTC is ethically equivalent to fraud because you're participating in the bitfinex/tether manipulation. i think that's a joke.

in a world where fiat money is printed with reckless abandon, all dollars begin to feel fake, and deflationary currency looks attractive no matter what.

i read through the thread, including your excerpts and clicked one of the links. i didn't see any new information. i am well aware of tether/USDT and the precarious regulatory situation that bitfinex is in.

my post was specifically a response to the suggestion you made about "market manipulation." my point (see bold) was that none of that matters. all markets are manipulated. why would we expect BTC to be any different? once a trader understands that, he has two choices. he can ride with the herd knowing full well that the price action is not "natural"......or he can miss all the action.

if USDT is being used to manipulate the price, how is that any different than the "willy bot?"

were the bubbles in 2011 and 2013 "natural?" for that matter, is the never-ending bull market in US stocks "natural?"

one of my old trading mentors told me something years ago. he said that "all markets are scams" and explained that every market functions the same way. major players (institutions, whales) just replay the wyckoff cycle over and over. they have endless USD to hold the market up during its accumulation phase. then once they have cornered the market, they can easily mark up the price. this happens with tech stocks all the time.

but regardless of price manipulation, you have to admit: the market is still the market. prices reach certain heights because buyers are willing to pay that price. as such, i don't care if the "willy bot" was responsible for the 2013 bubble. even if people were "manipulated" into buying higher, adequate liquidity always existed to prevent a drop to zero. and here we are, 4+ years later and more than 10x higher.

i don't fight the market. it's completely irrational, but being irrational is the best way to make money in herd markets.