What are you talking about?  The Chinese have been ruled by emperors and masters for thousands of years.  They have never had a choice for a truly free market, ever.

True freedom (of thought, of belief, of finance, of choice, etc) has no value to a culture or society that has never felt it.  When you are basically born into a culture that brainwashes its citizens into believing that they need lordship and stewardship in order to survive, they don't know what it means to have the power to survive on their own.  In fact, they'll be raised and brainwashed to violently oppose the idea.  Just look at the citizens of North Korea for a living example.

Thanks, this is what most are expecting as well.  When this happens, it will be amusing to watch because once the uptrend gains significant momentum nothing will really slow it down.  At that point the rest of the world will have become completely immune to any more China bad news.  The market will probably go down a little on the news, but it'll be a temporary speed bump/blip as those coins quickly get bought back up and things continue on.  The people buying in the rest of the world will fear nothing.  It will be like a stampede, a tsunami that the PBOC won't be able to hold back.  They can set all the fake future dates that they want, but bitcoin demand worldwide will continue to outstrip supply, and roll right past any more bad news from China.  And then at that point the Chinese government and PBOC will lose complete face with their people, because the rest of the world will have spoken loud and clear: bitcoin belongs to the world, not just China.  It will be embarrassing for them, because they can't control it.  They'll either have to allow bitcoin to live, or risk driving it offshore or into a black market on the mainland.  Meanwhile everywhere else in the world, bitcoin will continue to thrive and grow.

At least with bitcoins you can't do this:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-23/gold-counterfeiting-goes-viral-10-tungsten-filled-gold-bars-are-discovered-manhattan

God knows just how many of these 'fake' gold bars are out there, living in bank vault reserves and possibly backing many of the Gold ETFs... people are starting to lose their trust in being able to validate gold.

I support this attitude.  If hundreds, thousands more people like you were able to take a leap of faith and buy some bitcoin right now, we'd be out of this downturn and cruisin' into a solid bull market within 48 hours.

"Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy, and Greedy When Others Are Fearful" -Warren Buffett

The community (aka market) for any scarce commodity can be expanded or contracted, especially gold.

Hang in there man, it'll pay off for you if you can think longer term than the majority of folks on this sub.  Think 1.5 to 2 years out.  Also lowering your cost average is a great strategy.  Look at the current situation as a great opportunity to acquire more coins like you said, if the price had kept going up, you wouldn't be able to acquire nearly as much... each coin you own is a multiplier of long term wealth.

I agree, I actually don't think there is as much merchant activity as the online reporting would have us believe.  Same with number of actual bitcoin holders, I believe that it is way less than the number of unique wallet addresses known.  So I'm guess maybe ~750M-1M actual bitcoin holders worldwide, including China and other countries.  If true, that's still pathetically small in the grand scheme of things.  But the upside is that there are probably 8-15M+ people who know about bitcoin but haven't bought any yet.

Liquidity has been pulled completely out of the market for now.  Coins being moved off the exchanges.  Any merchant activity must be happening off exchange.  I believe that Coinbase and Bitpay got together and came up with something.

Good luck trying to move the market significantly, or shorting.  Not gonna happen until liquidity returns.

According to Dane Cook, he also needs to have:
1.  A secret lab behind a moveable bookshelf, with Bunsen burners and schematics
2.  Paintings with holes where the eyes should be (to spy on guests)
3.  Trap doors that he can operate at will
4.  A moat
 

The point is, if an uptrend slowly starts at some point (be it 3 months out, 6 months out, or even a year out) and you see the mega whales with mega deep $$ suddenly return to this market, you can bet your arse that SOMEONE on the inside knows SOMETHING big is coming that the rest of us small fish don't.  It will continue to build momentum and ultimate culminate, but it will look like sudden organic growth and overnight demand is happening (which may only be half true).  It will catch people off guard and seem like a farce.  And yet you will see the peak of the bubble top slightly preceded by a flurry of big announcements and events ( announcements like bitcoin ETFs launching, Amazon/Facebook/Google getting into the bitcoin game, another country entering big time, etc.), seemingly out of the blue.  The timing is usually infallible, and thus highly suspect.  That's exactly how it works in the stock market and many other markets, time and time again.  

I've seen it with my own eyes play out in the stock market, enough times that I now recognize the tell-tale patterns.

"Buy on the rumor, sell on the news."

No, by all means wait until the 'Optimism/Belief' cycle starts again along with everyone else.  

Btw, just a future tip: Market mover whales with deep pockets are known have insider information at least 6 months to a year in advance of major announcements or events.  You think that it is just a coincidence that bitcoin activity picked up majorly in January 2013, only to culminate into the ultimate run up in November 2013 (*cough* China, *cough* US Fed Review)?  No?  So you think that is air that you are breathing now, Neo?  Hmmm? Interesting.  

Yeah, I'm gonna laugh my ass off when it goes completely sideways for the next two weeks, and doesn't bounce off either of those trendlines.  Man, that would really fk up the infallable EW TA, wouldn't it?

Haha, I'm laughing because I'm really understanding what you mean.  Thank you sincerely for taking the time to debate with me on this topic, it is appreciated.  By the way, I'm actually rooting for Alibaba, I think it can become a major world player.  In the West we welcome healthy competition, it is the survival of the fittest that wins here, even if from another country.

There was nothing that the Bitcoin Foundation could do to protect anyone from the Mt. Gox fiasco.  Firstly that is not their role as they don't have such power, and secondly the way it played out we call it the "free market" in the West, free and pure from overhanded Government protectionism and regulation.  That may change in the future with more regulated Western exchanges, but many bitcoiners were not surprised at all that Mt. Gox was insolvent and running a Ponzi scheme.  Especially because the owner was an incompetent, lazy half wit with no business skills whatsoever (even his technical skills were severely lacking) that needed to be run out of business in order for bitcoin to thrive long term.  It's time for bitcoin to grow up and put its big boy pants on.

Here's the thing that most U.S. bitcoiners, and maybe those from other countries may not readily admit but it's true: we definitely WANT China to be part of this bitcoin grand experiment.  The truth is we want the whole world involved in bitcoin, no matter the country or culture.  A currency similar to the Euro or the Brixton Pound, but orders of magnitude better.  A currency to break down the barriers and borders that lie between cultures, a private form of money that no one government or centralized entity can ultimately control.  A currency to connect all of us, and foster a sense of world community working together, as opposed to competing with each other.  That is the vision of bitcoin.

Again, we ultimately want China onboard.  We really do. But if the Chinese goverment and PBOC intends to "make bitcoin an enemy", then we would rather China re-evaluate their involvement long term.  Because it is going to take a head on war or some pretty clever thinking (sly fox?) for the Chinese exchanges to ensure their survival in the future.  Bitcoin is going to inevitably expand exponentially across the globe, and the price is going to increase exponentially as well.  With or without China involved.  So the question is, are the Chinese exchanges prepared to ensure their long term survival?  What is their backup plan? (In the U.S. we refer to it as plan B, or even C)  

Seriously?  Are the Chinese for real, or just making this crap up to entertain themselves?  This is the height of hubris and arrogance.  Show me one prominent bitcoiner in China that is even part of the Bitcoin core development team.  If anything has been a failure so far, it's the Chinese exchanges establishing themselves as the 'cornerstone' of the bitcoin world.  They will probably be completely out of business soon, while the Western exchanges will continue to thrive.  Sorry to rub salt in the wound, but the Chinese need to stop deluding themselves into believing that bitcoin won't survive without their involvement.  We want the Chinese onboard just like we want the rest of the world onboard, but so far I haven't seen proper leadership from there.  All I can say is, prove us in the West wrong.

You've gotta be kidding, right?  There are only a few days or weeks out of each bitcoin downturn per half year/ or year where the price completely bottoms out.  Where bitcoin is left for dead by the whale speculators and the volume plummets to a trickle.  When there is a lot of fear and uncertainty about bitcoin's future.  These provide the absolute BEST buying opportunities bar none. And here's a clue for you, WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF ONE RIGHT NOW.  Would you rather wait until bitcoin is on an uptrend and panic buy between $600-800?  Or even wait until it's back to $1000? You know, a confirmed uptrend can easily lose steam and turn into a downturn as well, so an uptrend is not a guarantee of anything either.

When longs talk about taking a long position, they are talking about holding for 1-2 years.  Not 5 minutes, or 3 months, or 6 months, or ....

And Chase, from what I've heard and read, they apparently hate bitcoin too.  My fiancee had a VERY bad experience with Chase once.  Stay. Very. Far. Away.

You know why I think bitcoin will be valuable and coveted in the future beyond any other cryptocurrency, even if arguably better ones come along?  Simply because it is the first, the original, the pure source.  Rare, uncorruptable, untaintable.  A special place in history as the one that started it all.  First mover advantage.  It will be like the Holy Grail, the Model T Ford, the Mona Lisa of all cryptocurrencies, and everyone will want to own some just because of this one special attribute.  Especially the rich.  Just look at BRK-A stock, the rich want some of it just because the "commoners" can't afford it (yes I know BTC can pretty much be owned by anyone due to near infinite divisibility, even if it attained a $1M/BTC valuation, but still).  

I know, it sounds completely crazy, but I've seen crazier things in the fine art, antiques and collectibles market.

Been thinking about this too.  Actually a high valuation could actually help 'float' the overall market cap, as most would be reticent to cash out completely to avoid paying high taxes and fees.  This would in effect provide the needed support for long term growth.  I believe that most long term bitcoiners will:

1.  Only sell small amounts of btc to fiat that they know won't raise the red flag with their bank(s).
2.  Sell large amounts of btc to fiat off the exchanges, especially to have no effect on the exchange rate.
3.  Keep the majority of their btc and not cash out, since market cap and price will continue to rise year after year until it saturates.
4.  In the future, you should be able to purchase a wide range of goods and services directly in btc.  Perhaps even houses.  

And I'm guessing that proper exchanges in the U.S. are coming as fast as they can possibly move.  

Another question for you zhangweiwu:

One of your articles discusses the notion that if "bitcoin remains small, the Chinese exchanges will be allowed to live."

So in that context, if the Chinese exchange operators know this, then how do you know that it's not the Chinese exchange operators themselves that are spreading false bitcoin news to incite panic and keep the price suppressed?  Or perhaps even using other unethical or shady means to do so?  Wouldn't it be in their best interests that the bitcoin price never rises ever again, and a rally never happen again, so that they get to stay in the PBOC's good graces and thus stay in business indefinitely?  I would think that they really don't care what the btc exchange rate is, as long as the fees keep coming in and they are not shut down.