That explains why everyone's busy shopping. 9 months in Canada still isn't enough to familiarize myself with everything (most especially the taxes lol). Oh well, happy Canada Day to all!

Charts and history suggest that the blow off of the 2013 ATH was the worst bear market we've ever seen in the history of bitcoin, with the bear's influence extending over a period of almost 3 years. During those times, every little push of the price is immediately shut down without remorse. causing all the valiant efforts of the bulls to disappear without notice. Right now, the pushes in price somewhat retains its strength for a couple of days before returning to sub-$6000, and such price development should be expected seeing how high we went on the last ATH. This is no sorcery, just math and simple market reactions.

I'd say hold it if you are still in profit since technically you will lose nothing by waiting, just your time and a few brain cells due to anxiety. If I were in that situation, I'd still believe in my assets and let it sit there for the next few months/years since it still has the potential to go big given that governments and financial magnates are now seeing bitcoin in a good light. The speculative charm of bitcoin is yet to fade; some giant investors are only having the feel of the party and are entering the market with good leverage. I'd forget about those coins for 1 or 2 years and look back at coins with enormous value compared to what it's worth in 2017 and 2018.

For someone who already profited a lot, it doesn't really matter at all, but for someone who bought in during the hype, it might be a matter of losing money or losing one's sanity. Well if it isn't a problem to wait, then that's the last resort if anyone doesn't lose money in the process, but seeing the prices crashing every now and then, it would be hard to keep holding on knowing that your bags might be worthless someday. Only the mentally and emotionally strong can hold through these series of crashes, especially if you are invested knee-deep in bitcoin. A stagnant investment is hard to live with especially if the investment is based purely on speculation. Sell to cut losses and call it quits or hold and 'believe;' the latter's hard and the former's hard to accept.

The massive hysteria that was present in the tulip mania could be compared to what has happened with bitcoin in its previous run to ATH, and people fail to realize that bitcoin and tulips are entirely different things. On the case of both, they just look at how the boom formed and blew off, but for bitcoin, it has been too many blow offs yet the market is still alive, pointing that bitcoin isn't really that easy to delete no matter how many pumps and dumps appear in its market. It can be utilized greatly, unlike tulips which literally were used as ornaments and fake medicines during its hype.

This is not a hidden or secret thing in the cryptomarket. Aside from not getting any potential discounts or lower-than-market price, it also gives them a good leverage since the price won't move even after eating up a huge volume of the coins. Same when big mining companies offload their coins: they do the trades not in rexchanges but P2P. There's just too many benefits in doing P2P for buyers and sellers, especially in moving large amounts. No one wants to inflate the market by buying hundreds of millions worth of coins only to be dumped at by bears.

I don't think 'coward' is the right term as others gauge the market before investing fully. I'd like to think that most investors now just know the nature of bitcoin and like to avoid getting ripped off, hence not investing during a downturn and waiting for even the smallest signs of reversal. Investing during crashes and bear markets does not signify bravery; you took risks but what is it for you in return? Risks without possible rewards are risks taken for nothing and just wasted resources in the end.

I don't think ICOs are to blame for the sudden decline in price of bitcoin, IMO it's about high time that the price comes to a halt and correct itself since $20k was something out of the ordinary and definitely not bitcoin's natural growth. Aside from that. people may regain confidence after seeing that they can now buy bitcoin at a much lower price, bringing in a new wave of investors that *might* stick into bitcoin no matter the weather once they experience taking profits. People who get burned by fake ICOs are the ones to take blame and not bitcoin. Poor research often leads to poor results.

This is the beauty of bitcoin: you can literally send millions of dollars without a huge transaction fee or any intermediaries questioning where would you send the money. As for this transaction, probably the one who sent the transaction is in close ties with the pool operator that's why they let it pass with only a fraction of a fee, or it's the exchange operator himself who made the transfer. Things like this doesn't amaze me anymore since I've seen numerous transactions with the similar nature. Now, if anyone tells me that WU and other intermediary money transfer concierges are still better, I'll show them this transaction just for reference.

Well technically this is the most important and crucial factor on deciding whether to go closed-source coins or support open-source coins. Technically there isn't anyone who can seize or take control/authority over open-source codes as there isn't anyone who have the rights on the code to begin with, and by that no one could be held legally responsible if the government starts its crackdowns and whatnot. Like you mentioned on the side of closed-source coins, once the government signalled that something is fishy over a certain coin, they can immediately order a closure of operations or halt all services that is being run by the coin. It only gets worse the more you dig deeper into it, whereas on bitcoin people can buy everything they want since no one would stop them and price is determined ultimately by supply and demand, nothing more.

Not sure about that though there are portfolio managers who you can come to if ever you need something done for your assets. I don't know if any crypto hedge fund manager is doing such right now but for the mean time, ICOs are your best bet in diversifying your portfolio. It will take long before traditional stocks start accepting crypto funds into their platform. and I'm pretty sure it will be restricted to bitcoin and ethereum for the first part knowing that some altcoins aren't really that stable and strong.

I share the sentiment. Even I thinks that the last stronghold of the current price are the miners, seeing that the difficulty and the hash rate is continuously going up despite the beatings the price had received within the past few weeks. They will be the ultimate jury whether they're still okay with the current price or whether they'll pull out their assets. But from the looks of it, it seems that they are still confident with the price and can still make a profit despite the redness of the market. Once the miners shut down their machines for some time, I wonder what the bottom of this bear market will be? $4000 seems to be very likely but lower than that is pure carnage.

As you say, bitcoin in itself is pretty damn secure. The only problem is when you try to keep your funds in a third-party service that is prone to hacks, say exchanges and whatnot. Personally I keep my wallet and wallet files in a separate machine that is never connected to the internet, and thumb drives that I know are pretty secure and encrypt my files once they're loaded in the system. I know that seems to be overcomplicating things since my machine per se is already offline but you can never tell. If you don't have a separate machine, your pc can pretty much handle it though always make sure that you'll encrypt the file before doing something risky and stupid over the internet.

You can't gauge that as early as now since there's no real motivation behind any price increases, just speculation from the side of the bears and the bulls. Even one of the richest people banking in on bitcoin or crypto isn't enough to get the people on-board knowing that these figures aren't the real market movers, just another late-to-the-party guy who thinks they can outwit the veteran traders easily. Huge market adoption is a possible candidate, though I don't think it will be enough to escape from the chains of the bears. The only thing I can see is that when the selling pressure subsides and everyone has accumulated enough, a small bullish signal should start all the craziness once more in the market.

10 years IMO is a small time-frame to witness a big overhaul in the financial system. It took us centuries before we parted with our dear gold as a medium of exchange, and with the government who has an established control over finances and the people, it'll be hard for cryptocurrencies to take over. Probably it will co-exist with fiat, just like fiat with gold and other precious metals, but that's it; no overhauling of the system, just an 'innovation' from its state--transitioning to physical to digital but still mandated and controlled by the government.

No crazy gains or whatsoever is happening in bitcoin so people aren't bothered to produce hype or to be extra when it comes to delivering news and relaying information. See bitcoin gain massive traction towards a new ATH, everyone will start losing their minds and a massive hysteria would follow. As of now, only the FUDsters and shorters are alive, spreading exaggerated bear news in this forum and other media. Watch them disappear once a reversal happens; every strangers and freaks have their own place and time especially in a highly-lucrative and highly-speculative market.

Partly, yes. I'd say that bitcoin is there to protect us from fiat and its undervaluation, also notably from the government's control on our spending and whatnot. Fiat is as oppressive as it can get; with how the laws are shaped to protect the banks and the government from the people by printing money to 'stimulate the economy' while the poor people are getting the negative implications on what the governments are doing. Bitcoin protects people from that sort of thing, by distancing their assets from their local fiat while retaining its value over time.

Don't take any replies you'll get with a grain of salt. Invest what your wallet can afford and surely, don't do absurd decisions that lead to further losses. As of now, there's still a huge sell pressure despite the recent attempts to take off the $6k mark; no clear signs of breakout whatsoever can be seen over the horizon so for now, if you can take the mental anxiety, buy in small increments and average all your buys. Right now I'm still gauging as to how far will this market go, but it seems that $5800 was the bottom of this crash for now.

It could mean something but as of the moment, I doubt that there would be any serious implication towards the market given that the bears are still in control. Most likely there's something looming over the horizon that's why they printed a lot of tether, but I wouldn't take it seriously as of now. It could be another stunt or claim to publicity but given the capabilities of Tether in the market right now, this just gives the bears more reason to dump hard on the market and make the people convert first for the bears to buy all the cheap coins.

You've bought in to a hype that means absolutely nothing, so it's your loss at the end of the day. Everyone and their mothers have warned other people about investing in Bitcoin Gold since it's just another scheme to make money for the devs and a select few. There are no real changes implemented on that altcoin and no real-world application can be found, so why invest into something that is only prominent because of a short-lived hysteria and hype? If I were you, I'd cut losses and charge everything to experience. It will take long before bitcoin and other alts to perform well again, seeing that we're only 6 months past the initial blow-off from the last ATH.