Haha wtf, this scam thread hasn't even been killed or flagged?

I hope no one fell for it.

The motivational speeches here make me laugh.

You bought a lottery ticket. You had way more chances to win than with any other lotery, & the ticket was also expensive.
Tech doesn't matter, you were counting on mass adoption, everyone to agree that "yes, this is the new gold".
Could have worked! It had pretty strong chances, but it didn't. Those who are still singing that it's gonna come back, will have to explain WHO is gonna make it come back. Institutional money? Well perhaps, that's what everyone expects, but you're taking a high risk. But then what? Those will only push the price a little, you will need idiots to buy at the top again. And those idiots all came a month ago. And they either lost their money & will never touch crypto again, or they are holding, and if the price ever reaches their entry price again, they will get their investment back & never touch crypto again.
Dollar-cost-averagers who also believe in the market will probably keep doing that, but it's not gonna push the market the same way, that's for sure.
So, who else?
Perhaps, in a few months/years once the crash has been forgotten, and some ICOs end up turning into concrete, useful stuff, perhaps people will look back at crypto, but will invest wisely, probably not in BTC.
Or perhaps a new batch of idiots will buy again, assuming wall street gets allowed to sell crypto, and are marketing geniuses. If that happens the bubble will pop again, higher this time, and it's gonna make more damages.

What's funny is that, while I was looking BTC grow since its infancy, even though I wouldn't have put a penny on it, I eventually did after mid-2017, when the craze started. Not long after my value had dropped by like 40%, after the Chinese ban. And I saw how the market recovered from that, and that's actually what motivated me to invest more, seeing that yes it could crash hard, but also get back hard.
But this is different, it's not the Chinese leaving to later come back from another door. Sure, even long-investors are selling to buy-back lower, but they aren't the mass who have pushed the price so high. That mass is lost. And hopes are lost. Just gather the positive points from around november, to now. It's those points that push the price so high, each of these points is now invalid. Bitcoin futures, forks, money-making, nope, forget that. What news do you count on? Lightning network? A second run of "it's over 9000" motivational memes? Not enough, and too late.


Personally, I've extracted my initial investment, and kept a few tickets, because "who knows?".
Also make sure you have tickets for everything, because BTC is one of the worst in crypto, as for investment. It's not a share, isn't sharing profits, its only value was money-making. There are other stuff that are gonna
-generate profits (decentralized gambling, gaming asset sharing, etc), and might have a coin buy-back plan
-power apps (you take a risk if you don't pick all the possible winners. ETH or NEO?)
-what else?

Wow you people are so stupid.

What did you not understand in the concept of USDT? It's supposed to have the value of 1 USD. Are you using YUANT? No, because there is NO SUCH THING.
How can you possibly blame 1 USDT for not following the value of the Yuan?

Let me share my view on crypto (and it's not necessarily negative, I've invested quite a lot myself).

If you watch Youtubers about crypto (& I don't mean Bitconnect-like crap), part of them debate about technical aspects, others produce what looks more like motivational videos (granted, I only judge from english-speaking ones, while the market is mostly asian, but still).

I don't think the technical part matters. At least, not that much, & not anymore.


As a programmer I do believe in the blockchain, but probably not as much as everyone. I do think it does make sense for some things. A decentralized casino or an exchange, yes. A decentralized currency, yes, but only for some parts of the world, & some people. Decentralized gold, yes. I don't think it's THAT revolutionnary, though. I don't think that it will change your daily life. Many concepts that are imagined running on a blockchain, don't really need to. They CAN, but that wouldn't change anything. It's often "mmh what can we do on the blockchain, would that work? Why not?". CryptoKitties? Just give me ONE reason for that to need to run on a blockchain. It's just a fun Rube Goldberg machine. Yeah, perhaps in 10 years you will still have your kitty on the blockchain, but they will be long forgotten. And that's if you can still access it, because the front-end is centralized & may not exist anymore.

Which brings me to the value. Of everything in the crypto world, and thus (well, for now), to the value of the BTC, since it's the mother of all values.

I think it (BTC) is now all about trust, it's gold in its infancy, and nothing else.
I think it WAS about technology. What boosted BTC drastically? Silk Road. That was the spark that it needed. Here, technology mattered. BTC isn't very tracable, quite useful to hide money. And I think it still has that value, for many people, not necessarily big criminals, also the average Joe who has some money to hide. Except BTC is far from the best as for anonymity, something to keep in mind as well.

Last month was the second phase: bringing the mass. Here the technology doesn't matter anymore. Money-making is the main, and I'd even say only appeal. And the trust that was required for them to arrive, was there (didn't last for long, who knows when it's gonna come back).
XRP was brought up to second place for a moment, and it's not even decentralized, proof that no one cares about technology. You just make some tweets with "banks" in them and there, you gain trust, & thus money.

The rest is all faith, and just that. LOTS of motivational posts and replies in this forum, for example. Someone makes a FUD-sounding post, most of the replies will sound like "BTC to 50k(/100k/insert your fav price here) end of <some month>", with absolutely nothing to back it up. It's all motivational answers & speeches.

Which does NOT mean it's bad. Because that's all what gold in its infancy needs.
Gold doesn't have much value. I mean yes it's rare, that's its most important value. It has uses but its fiat value isn't based on that.

Say someone approaches you on the street and says "I'm starting new gold, do you wanna put 1 buck on it"? You won't put a single cent on it.
A year later he comes back and says "that new gold I had started last year, it now has 5000 backsters. Do you wanna put 1 buck on it? Oh, and the government won't know about it, no taxation!". You still won't put a cent on it (well, some will).
Next year, he comes back, "you remember that new gold I had started? I now have 100k backsters. Do you wanna put a buck on it?". This time perhaps yes, you will put 1 buck on it.
Next year, "I now have 200k backsters. And that buck you put on it, now it's worth 2 bucks". Starts to look interesting, this time you may put 10 bucks on it!
Then you know the story, some time later your 10 bucks are worth 2 because 100k people have left the boat. Perhaps you will leave, or stay. Etc.
Repeat until 2 possible conclusions:

1) the boat is now filled with 500 million people. It's now impossible to sink it. If 100k leave it, it won't change much to the price. And pretty much nothing can make them all leave at once, anymore. There, that initial little shady investment succeeded at becoming gold. It's there and it's there to stay, or possibly very slowly fade away, but it's strong.

2) the boat has sunk. Why? Too many left, or they moved to another, shinier boat. And please don't correlate the price to the amount of people in the boat. What happened 2 months ago? A massive amount of new people bought BTC. What happened yesterday? A massive amount of those people have sold, and *much less* people have bought the dip. You now have less people in the crypto world, but they have more coins now. Well it has worked this way for quite some time, the money drops from the hands of the many weaks to a few strong hands. So even if the price went back up a little, don't think that so many have joined back. And less investors with more money isn't really what you're looking for if you want this to gain the mass adoption it needs.


The ONLY bit of technology in this story is tax evasion. The rest is all faith, trust, confidence.

So when you put your money in BTC (& I did!), just remember:
-it may succeed, but don't think it's about technology (plus, BTC is v1 of crypto, v1 is always the worst until it gets rewritten). Your (self-)motivational speeches won't change anything to it (or well they will, if people buy them).

-BTC<>crypto. Investing "in the crypto world" doesn't mean "investing in BTC". Crypto is there to stay, but to "invest in crypto", you need to invest in quite some things. Had you picked your favs before the bubble, and it wasn't Amazon, you got fucked.
Also, some ICOs, while initially too based on trust (well, you expect the company to do the job. It's pretty much Kickstarter), have less risky plans than just "possibly becoming gold, or a currency". Some will end up as real businesses, like online gambling, card trading, whatever, with real uses of token & thus better garantees of prices increasing. Or some have buy-back plans. Didn't I just say the technical part didn't matter? Well it eventually will, for those. Just not for virtual-gold/virtual-currencies, many competitors, maybe just 1 or 2 will stay (& yeah maybe it will be BTC).


And well, don't forget that your fiat is too purely based on trust. And somewhat manipulation, but.. still much less than in the crypto world. Yeah I know something decentralized should be less prone to manipulation, but well, it's quite obviously pump&dump everywhere (because in its infancy).

Also keep in mind that you don't need your gold-like values to actually BE currencies. It'd be plainly stupid to buy something online straight with crypto (unless, again, it's money you wanna hide). You will use frontends like Paypal, those will take a fee, but will protect you. The general public values protection over anonymity, they wanna have someone to talk to if they didn't receive their goods, have sent 10x the amount by mistake, or got fraudulous transactions made on their account. People DO want their name on their money. Not the minority of libertarians, but normal people who wanna live normal lives. Things like Paypal will most likely end up feeding on your <whatever crypto wins> account, just like it already transparently does using your bank account or your VISA. So yeah, keep in mind that the only form of "zero-fee" transaction possible (& I do believe it's possible, fully zero-fee, not with BTC but with systems where it's people who verify transactions at the same time as they make one, instead of miners who want rewards), means zero protection/insurance. Protection has a cost.

Not everyone is a fraudster, it's normal to get investigated if you send large amounts of money.

Still, I wonder who will be ready to pay 50k for a BTC. I get it that at such a price the average Joe will only buy fractions, satoshis, but the mass has recently been aware of the BTC, it was everywhere in the media, and the ones who were ready to buy, already have. Those who weren't ready to buy at 15k, and were still not ready to buy now under 10k, yeah SURE they are gonna buy at 50k.. knowing, from recent events, that it will most likely crash shortly after. Quite likely that anyone intelligent later interested in BTC is gonna wait for the next crash to enter, actually.

So if tomorrow it's announced that there is only a small fraction of real fiat to back USDT, you're gonna hold yours?

Everyone will panic-sell it. You will see a BTC at say $9000 on Bitstamp or Kraken, and $35000 on Bitfinex/Bittrex. And that will be the first step, after that all crypto will crash again, even more. I'd say, it'd better be now once for all.
And then god knows what happens to USDT-supporting exchanges, they are gonna have massive debts.

You can trade USDT/USD on Kraken, thus, yes of course it can collapse. Just this night it lost 5%.


..which doesn't mean there is anything wrong happening with it.. YET. Indeed, you can trade normal USD/EUR on Bitstamp, and it's not uncommon to see a  gap of a few % between the pair on Bitstamp, and the "real" USD/EUR value. Hell, EUR even peaked at 1.4 USD for a brief moment on Bitstamp, probably because a whale made a mistake.


Still, the more you read about what's happening around USDT, the more you understand it's probably a scam. Seems to be all red flags.
Bitfinex isn't a small exchange, and some other big exchanges support USDT, I don't know when we will know the outcome of this, but it will be either really good or really bad.

That will totally depend on the outcome of the USDT case. I can understand price stopped dropping while we don't know yet, but what do you think will happen?

-USDT is legit? Instant pump (most likely before I have the time to react. I sold half of my BTCs, so if that happens I'm a bit screwed. Well not really because I still made a profit, but I intended to hodl them all)

-USDT is a scam? Instant dump, perhaps as bad as the ones caused by MtGox.
In a short time it will probably pump because people will wanna quickly get rid of their USDT, then move what they just bought to another exchanged not backed by USDT, dump there for real fiat & transfer to their bank.

I too think it's gonna slowly increase, but the question is who will keep investing in a crypto that "just" slowly increases? Knowing the risks, that is. If the BTC keeps just slowly increases, I predict people will quickly move to ALTs, and then BTC crashes again.

I don't think it's the BTC concept that's wrong anyway. The problem is the way to mass adoption. It needs to be adopted by a lot of people to be stable enough.

Also the problem that, and it will be true this time again, after a crash the money (well, BTC) goes from the many weak hands to the few strong hands, isn't helping mass adoption.

I think a solution would be to, for many years or even decades, limit the amount of BTC that one person can hold. But, with it based on anonymous addresses, I don't see how you'd achieve that. But if you managed to initially limit the amount of coins one could hold, it would probably go to everyone quickly, without as much pumping, it would get a chance to actually be used.

I 100% agree.
I like to watch Tone Vays because he's entertaining and he seems passionate about what he does. But he's really full of shit when he does his pointless analysis. And when he ever predicts right, it's because he actually has enough influence to change the market.



That's where I don't agree. Well first, blockchain isn't just BTC - which is btw the reason I sold a few of my BTC, I'm holding way more ALTs now, I had too many BTCs (which I only value like gold, but gold needs confidence).
As a programmer, I admire that it works, and I think it can have many uses. But not nearly as many as people think. Remember when the .com craze started, people were valuing shitty "cooking receipies" websites at crazy prices.

Also, I believe people put too much money on what are just -concepts- right now. I'm not surprised about it, because well, Kickstarter. The only coin that I valued when I got in, was REP, because Augur was close to being an actual app, for which on top of it profits do make sense (even though they make sense in ETH, not really REP, but that's another story).
A decentralized casino, a decentralized exchange? Hell yeah, that'd have advantages. A decentralized reduction coupon system for some brand? Well, give me a reason for that to need to be decentralized.
Decentralized currency? Sure, not really for us who are already used to pay instantly, using stable fiat, but for some countries, or fraudsters, yes. Question is, why should it be Bitcoin? Technically, I don't see why. I do see the trust, and that's the reason I invested in it in the first place, but it looks fragile, when you see so many peole leaving the boat instantly.
I don't think that blockchain & decentralization have that many uses. But if Bitcoin's technology has that much of an advance, I'd like to see where exactly. It has support, definitely. As a currency? Well it needs miners, while, as a programmer, my ideal decentralized currency would need no miners, at least not to verify transactions. In a system of *actually* used currency, it's people doing transactions who can also verify them.

Also, as a programmer, I would never value so much v1 of something. BTC is v1. It will forever be in history books. It's amazing that it worked/works, and paved the way for the future. BUT I'm a programmer, v1 is always far from the best. Sometimes you can patch things for years and still improve it. But really, often you just need to rewrite things. I don't think that BTC is "the best" because it was the first, I think the opposite.

Yet, I don't even believe this matters at all. People are there for money, they don't care about technology. XRP was pumped to second place, and it's not even decentralized. BCH was pumped to second place, and it's a copy/paste scam. People go where the money is, it's that simple.
Long-time hodlers sure care about technology, but here too, beware, there is always a new challenger to improve on your coin of choice, and make it worthless. ETH vs NEO? Who knows which one will win, if both, or any, will survive? Apps on the blockchain, totally. But using which technology? Perhaps not even one started yet. Sadly one can't simply invest "in blockchain".

Yeah I don't see anything good anytime soon, it will probably take many months.

Well, my analysis there:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2873358.0

The main thing to think of: -who- will buy BTC above 12k? You need new blood for that, veteran investors will not risk it. And the new blood, well the BTC just got its chance, blew it, it will take time for the confidence to return to the general public who is more than needed for the price to reach 20k again, I believe.

Perhaps one day many investors will come from the classic shares market to BTC, and well, -perhaps- now is the right time for those, but frankly I think the crypto world will need to be a lot more stable for that.
If BTC now takes a whole year to reach 12k, then yes I can imagine it continuing to grow (slowly). But do you see this happening? I believe that if BTC "only" goes up to 12k by the end of the year, many will have sold in-between, or have moved to ALTs.


While I knew BTC for a long time, I would never have risked putting my money in it. That, until a few months ago when it reached 3k$. By the time my bank transfer arrived to the exchange, it had already pumped to 4500. And you know what, I still bought. Because I was a newcomer, because I wanted to take my chance. I was the idiot, like the ones needed for prices to pump. Quick rise to 3k, then 4.5k, who already in the community would have bought? No one. Only newcomers do.
So that's the question, who will those newcomers be now. Perhaps those who are wise enough & didn't dare to buy at 20k, but if it does one more parabolic rise & dump again, it will be over for those too.
Gamblers will always be part of it, though. And well, crypto is a fun game afterall, and you still have less chances to be fucked than in a casino.

I don't much believe in chart analysis, maybe that works for normal stock market, but to me the price of BTC is all about news/events, feelings (& manipulation). Especially for something that has a purely subjective value (that is, not a business with future buy-back plans & revenue sharing).

So I'd like to list key points from when the price was a little lower than the current one (let's say between the current price & the price it could still drop to, thus october to november), vs now. Just to get an idea of where it could go in a near future (because far future isn't taking much risk).
Feel free to comment or suggest important points.
It's just to be a little more objective than the usual "BTC forever", "BTC will never die" blind faith, which to be honest sometimes reminds me of the BCH worshippers.




Yesterday:

Positive

-beginning of recent bump in media attention & new investors

-predicted pumps due to forks

-the "10k before christmas" mentality

-(a bit later) CBOE & CME futures announcement, everyone expecting it to rise the price so much. <- this is IMHO the biggest mistake at that time, as it's not those futures that pumped the price so much, but the expectation, and it then dangerously stagnated once everyone realized nothing was happening.

-the perspective that one day the mass of senior investors will come from other markets, for long investments. Still valid today obviously, but I don't see that happening in the following months.

-BCH dominance still pretty high, ALTs hadn't pumped like crazy YET (even though months earlier the ETH had already threatened BTC)

-China ban having left more scars to ALTs than BTC which went back up pretty quickly in comparison. Yes I consider that a positive point, that people join back as fast as they left the boat.



Negative

-non-legit pumps & predictable/predicted dumps due to forks

-straight attack by BCH & media manipulation pro-BCH (now possibly over? Maybe not. BCH dipped quite a lot and we all know who scooped the dip).





Today:

Positive

-the lightning network. Even if it's not exactly necessary since no crypto is really used as a currency (& I don't even see the point), it will certainly have an impact. But that will be in many months.

-it has already dipped way deeper than after the China ban, so perhaps it is the bottom

-all ALTs are still fiat-valued according to BTC (but with more ETH or fiat-pairs appearing in exchanges, will that last?)


Negative

-the USDT case still not cleared up. Depending on the outcome, immediate pump or immediate crash. Doesn't even matter how much USDT really matters in the price of crypto, it's a huge red flag, people sell when they think everyone else is gonna sell.

-we now know how little the Bitcoin Futures really did (unless crash was partially due to those)

-BTC got its moment of fame, now a moment of infamy, very possibly a good thing for veteran investors, but not the general public

-weak hands who sold at a loss probably won't touch crypto ever again, and those who held are likely to be the first to sell once they get their money back

-after a dump, everyone thinks he will be less an idiot this time, & sell before the ATH

-ETH (friendly) threatening BTC dominance. Except it'd be way more legit than BCH or XRP, because it's in many pairs & ICO offers. NEO is itself threatening ETH's dominance in its domain, though.

-it has already dipped deeper than after the China ban, so it's gonna leave bigger scars. Sure, BTC has crashed more than that in its history, but less investors, higher volatility, and MtGox, that's not comparable. Also, the upper part of this crash wasn't abrupt at all, that's more scary IMHO.

-people have witnessed or participated in megapumps in ALTs, realizing how much more profit there was to make there. And I predict that the money may now move to pre-ICOs, until that too stops being profitable because there will be no one left to buy once they hit exchanges.

-more generally, loss in confidence. And I think the BTC is really based on that. Well, it was for me. I know the BTC since the beginning, technically it has hardly changed for me. But it's only in 2017 that I put money in it, for the only reason that it was getting widespread trust. Pretty much like gold, I don't think it has any other value, well at least not as a currency for the average asian, american, european Joe, only to people in shitty countries with shitty currencies, or for fraudsters (and hey, let's not forget BTC owes quite some of its value & fame to Silk Road). Which, granted, is value, except that BTC has many competitors as "just a currency" now.

-even some hodlers now considering selling to buy lower. And that's what I did, at least partially (at 10k), except I now have doubts about where the bottom is


But now, whatever the bottom is now or it's gonna dip deeper, the question is who is gonna bring the price to what it was? The whales who just got richer? They aren't gonna buy high. And the average Joe isn't likely to touch BTC for quite some time, perhaps for the next few months or years when this crash will be forgotten like the past ones.




What did I forget?

Also, those who believe the price is gonna get back to say, 20k, I would like to know your analysis on it. I can well imagine who is gonna buy, or already bought below 10k. But past 12k, perhaps 15k, who exactly is still gonna buy?
-not veteran investors who only buy dips
-not whales who only organise pump&dumps
So who do you predict will be buying BTC past 12k?
-daily cost averagers? Yeah, probably. I don't think that will have a huge impact, though
-newcomers? Nope, the ones who were ready for that, have already done just that, and most likely won't touch BTC with a 10-foot pole anymore.

You know what, this too is a threat to BTC. All ALTs are heavily in the red not because they're shit, but because their USD value is based on their BTC value (& thus people see the USD value go down, and they sell).

This alone is probably make more exchanges provide direct USD/EUR/ETH/whatever pairs for ALTs, reducing BTC's dominance even more.

It tomorrow *all* exchanges exclusively provided USD/ALT pairs for all ALTs, this bloodbath would look very different, so it's not just a matter of perspective, it would also really affect the market. Perhaps that's a good reason to change that. On the other hand, for the exchanges that chose to go with USDT instead of real fiat, it's even worse for the reasons we know...

For what it's worth, the problem is that there aren't many exchanges you can switch to.

I started with Kraken, their engine was the worst thing, it just never worked. They promised to fix it, 2 months later it was still pure crap, I moved to Bitstamp, Bitfinex & Bittrex.

I've now moved back from Bitstamp to Kraken, even though Kraken still has login errors, and their tradeview doesn't even work at all in Firefox anymore.
This because Bitstamp made me lose like 5000eur and refuses to take responsibility.
Bitstamp's support BLOWS, Kraken's engine sucked (still sucks but much less apparently). Bitfinex & Bittrex are Tether-based - never had a problem with those, but you don't know when the Tether shit will hit the fan.
So, good luck finding a good exchange..

When you have many millions of people trading, yes obviously there is always someone (+bots) to buy & sell.

A few whales just wouldn't be able to manipulate the EUR/USD pair like they can for most crypto. And that's certainly not because "governments" would prevent them to. Sure, market manipulation also happens to be illegal, but you also have no idea how much money (& how much media brainwashing) would be required to manipulate the EUR/USD pair. Because it's waaaay too big.




What's your definition of stability? Pump & dump is pretty much the definition of unstability.

It has nothing to do with being controlled. The more buyers/sellers, the more stable, and that's obvious.

Do you think you can pump & dump BTC like you can do with an unknown coin? No. It requires much less money to pump & dump a shit coin with nothing in its order book.

As soon as a currency or share is in the hands of many people, too many for them to organize pumps or dips, then it stabilizes, because sells have way more chances to find a matching buy.
And if you think that BTC will never become stable, then it has absolutely zero chance to become an actual, used currency. You can't do ANYTHING with a currency that's not a minimum stable. You can't make a business work, you can't lend, you can't use it for your salary, etc. Can't buy goods for your store at a price and find out that no one will buy them over half the price you paid, because that month the currency has crashed. You can't get paid in BTC and the next month not be able to pay your rent & your food because of a massive pump.
You do sound like the child here, it's obvious to everyone that volatility is related to how big/supported the thing is. Yes, governments can & do control values, but to keep things stable at another level. Without governments, don't think that eur vs usd would suddenly crash or pump anywhere like crypto does. The markets are waaaaay too big for that.
Same thing with shares. Tiny company X launches an amazing product, it can pump 10x. Large company did something bad, its shares will lose 5% and even that will be considered a problem.

Which doesn't even mean that something like gold can't pump 5x, it can and it has, but that spreads over many years. Too many people have trust in gold for it to have any chance to crash like a crypto. You know why? 8 trillions vs 160 millions, that's the difference between their market cap.

Crypto isn't stable because there aren't enough people in it, it's that simple.

You just can't compare the amount of people trading BTC vs the amount trading EUR or USD.


And BTC, still being at the top, is still the most stable crypto (which, again, does not mean stable, at all). Those who are saying that ALTs are more stable, are probably very new.

Serious question for Kraken-Septimus: is it safe to assume that, like Bitstamp, Kraken is backed by (supposedly) real USD/EUR, and not USDT?

Couldn't find the answer anywhere. I would assume that if, like Bitfinex or Bittrex, Kraken's USD was actually USDT, Kraken wouldn't provide USDT/USD pair for trading. So I'm assuming that Kraken only provides USDT for quick transfer between exchanges, but does not rely on it more than that, and that by holding USD or EUR on Kraken, we aren't actually holding USDT/EURT. Do you confirm?

I hope you're right. I too bought ripples at like 20 cents. To me it's a miracle it reached that crazy ATH, it's not worth that IMHO. Sadly Bitstamp was holding mine and prevented me from selling them. I sold the ones that weren't locked at $2.5 and I think I made a good deal.

I just.. don't see why banks would need it.. I don't believe in all that marketing bs, and I believe it went up artificially. But hey again, my wallet hopes I'm wrong & you're right.