They simply can't. Wasted too much resources to bring us from 14K to 7K. They sold their bitcoins, while hodlers didn't. Bears had one last hope to use Black Friday FUD and that did't work as they hoped. We still don't sell   And their present state is like:

If bears don't want to starve to death, they should start buying their bitcoins back soon  

Today bakkt has a record volume 2120BTC+. Congrats to all who bought bitcoins today! Several hundred thousands were traded on the major exchanges, probably way more on all exchanges worldwide, ATM's, etc. Woe to those who sold! The next bull run is about to start!

This should have happened next week, when I get paid. I am afraid that by next week, we would be around 10K. These bears haven't learned their lesson. Bull counter attack is imminent. 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1  boom!

I can't explain to myself where did those sold bitcoins come from. Traders who bought in the last 6 months don't have any profit.  Miners don't have that much to sell, and besides almost all of them are mining on a loss now. Shorter manipulators (a.k.a. bears) can't count on dumping, because the price may shoot up any moment resulting in massive loss for them. Anyway, these bitcoins belonged to ultra epic weak hands, who don't deserve to be called investors. I mean, to lose 50% of your wealth 5 months after the AYH at 14K and 30% after the pump to 10500 a few weeks ago is really pathetic. Moreover, this all happened after a bear year and one year before the next halving - a clear sign that these prices will be revisited after the halving. I can picture such dudes as mentally unstable. While hodlers are sitting on 100x+ profits, these morons being caught in the daily market trading are registering massive losses.

Regarding our net worth. I am not happy only because my stash is still under 20BTC. I don't care how much it costs in terms of fiat.  As mic says, 1BTC=1BTC-always! I prefer to convert my savings from the salary in bitcoins and spending fiat on bills and food. After several years, it will be possible to buy cars and houses almost everywhere with bitcoins, so it may not be necessary to sell bitcoins at all. The only thing that bothers me is whether Bitcoin will be able to overcome all the manipulators and weak hands in the near future.

Let's see... In 2017 despite the PBOC attacks aimed at chineese weak hands (which by the way formed 95% of the total volume), we had a journey from 700 to 20 000. So it is possible to start from 7K and reach 200K despite all bad actors. The question is will it happen in the next few years? I hope so, but I don't count on that. I am determinted to contiue buying in the next 20 years, if the price is not enough to change my lifestyle! I mean a real fuck off status, where I can afford a nice house, not going to work anymore, bodyguards, girlfriend(s), and to travel around the world. With my salary, I can only afford a 2 weak summer vacantion per year. So I have nothing to lose. If we are going to sink, so be it! But we won't! I believe that we will see 50K, then 100K and after that who knows. I often wonder, how will feel then all those weak hands who sold at $200 in 2015, at $3100 in 2018, at $7500 in 2019, etc. Not well for sure! Some of them will got completely insane by then and shitpost here just like r0ach     #HODL #stronghands

What do you mean by that: internal arbitrage in bitmex or external to other exchanges? And how exactly the liquidated/covered positions on bitmex can influence the price, say on Bitstamp? The price on Bitmex is determined by an index formed by the prices on the 'real' exchanges : CB, BItstamp and Kraken. So the traders outside Bitmex should look only these prices and not the derivate indexes which follow these prices. If you mean the external arbitrage, this would mean only that they can withdraw their bitcoins and sell them on ohter exchanges, which may or may not happen soon after the withdrawal, so again I can't see how this will affect the price. Again, I am not sure about all this. I am just thinking that only the short/long positions trading can affect the price if it is done in one of the three above mentioned exchanges (which I don't know if it is possible, only for Bitfinex I know, and the price there is monitored always by the traders)+Binance, which recently introduced these trades.

I have to admit first, that I am not a trader and I don't understand everything completely. Here are my questions and thoughts related to your frequent posts of bitmex liquidations. What is the relation between bitmex and the price of Bitcoin? In particular, why do you think that a liquidation of a long position precedes a dump in the price (which is implied by your post)? As far as I know, Bitmex is a derivate exchange and some contracts are cash settled, others physically, but I have no clue what portion is each. On the other hand, if there is an option for short/long positions involving real bitcoins that have to be sold/bought to cover/close the positions on the major exchanges like bitfinex and binance (I think they have their own short/long game looking at https://blockchainwhispers.com/bitmex-position-calculator/#), this may affect the price. But I don't see why the traders on the major exchanges will be influenced by what is going on on CME, bakkt, bitmex, etc. These futures and leverage tradings are like roulette - the player vs the house. Unless some manipulator dumps first on bitstamp, coinbase and kraken (which form the price index of Bitmex), I don't see any other connection with the price. And in that case, first is the pump or dump, then the closing of long/short positions, not the reverse. Or I miss something?

Because bears are over confident. And this is what is awaiting them:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1196699470223814656

This is the most recent article claiming that Ethereum 2.0 to roll out in January 2020:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-research-ethereums-switch-to-staking-will-transform-industry

Dark theme is better for the eyes. I know since I had problems with the left eye and wasn't able to watch white for a while. I use this:
https://darkreader.org/

I scored the first vote for the bulls  
Bears vs Bulls -  parity (from a minute ago)

I think on Dec 4 is the next HF Istanbul. It has nothing to do with the mining. ProgPow was initially scheduled for the next HF in the 1st quarter on 2020. The share of asic miners is way too small and progpow won't have any effect. However, because of the crash of ethereum price devs decided to switch to POS quicker. From some articles in coindesk, I've read that the next HF Casper is planned for 20 Jan 2020. It will start the new POS algo, a.k.a. Ethereum 2.0. There will be no mining after that date, only stacking. The minimum amount is planned so far to be 32 ETH, but it is not finally decided. Currently, Casper is implemented on testnet with some POW/POS mix. I think every 100th block is validated by POS. It is possible that devs will introduce some transition period of half blocks verified by POW, and the other half by validators, i.e. users that stacked eth and lend their computers for block validatioins. There are many coins with such mixed algos - like ETP (metaverse) which uses both ethash and POS. But there is no word from devs about that, so the transition may be radical and the mining to stop in Jan 2020.

I know HM used to post some comparison charts before May 2016 and now. The price in 2015-2016 fluctuated between 200 and 490 (1 time for a brief period) and in the second half of this period from 300 to 430.  In terms of percentages it was roughly speaking like between 80% and 60% from the last ATH, and at the second half between 70% and 60%. In 2019 we had a journey between 80% and 30% from the last ATH. We've had some serious battle and longer stays above 50% i.e., $10K. In the last month, we fluctuated between 65% and 55% touching 50% briefly. These percentages are not exact, so one may fiddle more with them.  But my conclusion is that we are still a little bit ahead of schedule with some BIG bull sign - the 30% top from the ATH (~14K). Currently, we are 57.5% below the ATH. I personally don't think that we will fall below 60%. But even if that happens briefly, we will still have better chances to get a new ATH before the end of 2020, than at the end of 2016.

In early 2019 the same 'experts' said it is not the time to buy at 3100. When we were at 5K, they said: it will come back to 3100, we will buy then. At 6K: it will come back to 4k, we will buy then. At 9K: it will come back to 6k, we will buy then... Well to the surprise of all, we went to 13800. Then we went back to 7400. And they still  said it is not the time to buy. Then we had the historic 42% pump in 12 hours. Now, they say the same. My point is that obviously all these people don't have enough respect and belief in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is not like some shitcoin that will certainly die in 2-3 years. Bitcoin will be still here and sooner or later the price will surpass 100K. If you don't belive that you can set a lower target - 50K, or 30K. But you have to believe. Otherwise, you have no chance in this game! And if you set your profit in terms of 5-fold, 10-fold, etc. why risking waiting for 10% drop to enter? I don't get it. Really! It is like the diet - I will start from tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes!

I agree completely! This is the truth! There were many chances in 2018 and 2019 to increase the stash by trading. If someone used them - cudos! But most of us didn't dare to try such a thing and increased their stash only by buying. With the coming of the next halving these chances will be very limited if any at all. Look at the last crash - it was 5% but from a temporary pump, so it is effectively 1% below the steady line around 8800 from the last week. Recently we've had a 42% pump out of nowhere and Bakkt's volume is getting higher and higher. At the beginning it was 10-70 BTC, whereas now is over 1000 BTC every day. All this shows that clever investors are buying while the small fish are selling with lame 1% profit (or worse, stop loss).  

As for the bad actors on the market, there are 2 types:
1st type - The miners with huge farms with the new s17s asic miners. They would want to suppress the price so that old s11 (which are still the vast the majority of miners) are shut down because of the loss. And this break-even price is around 9K even for those with 4-5 cents per kWh. The recent drop in the difficulty shows this might be the case.
2nd type - Manipulators with bitcoins dumping on Bearstamp with the hope of bigger percentage profit on the unregulated derivative exchanges like Bitmex.

Having said that, I don't think we should despair because there is a cure for both groups.
1st type - It is better to hedge the newly mined bitcoins on bakkt rather than dumping with the hope of the difficulty drop. This is very hazardous and may bring dissapointment resulting in a bear market. Also, the halving is coming soon, and such a move can be an own goal, because if the current price is kept after the halving, even the s17's won't be on profit.
2nd type - What is the point in shorting with 1% profit when some surpise 40%+ pump erases almost half of your manipulation ability?

And finally, as hodlers, let be rational and not emotional no matter what happens! 1% drop, 40% crash, who cares! Buy moar, hodl if needed 5 years, and enjoy the fruits of your perseverance!

Inverse Ouch!

Another day going sideways with several upward attempts. And another day with good bakkt volume - so far 920 BTC. After the slow start, the volume increased dramatically in the last 10 days and hopefully it will increase even more henceforth. Notice that the volume chart is very similar to the price chart.



My explanation is that the price formation on the major exchanges is in a delicate balance and such volume is commensurate with half of the daily mined bitcoins. Considering that these bitcoins are bought from these exchanges and deposited into bakkt, this is breaking the balance in the right direction. The effect is like the halving already happened and nobody knows it. Short positions are vulnerable because of the scarsity and their liquidations are making the domino effect on the price. And after 6 months, when the halving happens and real FOMO starts,  nobody will be able to stop the new ATH storm! (With regard to the poll, I have the feeling that the first ATH will come around the halving.) Good times are coming for the HODLERS!  

On a more sober note, I think that we underestimated the impact of bakkt on the market. Is it a coincidence that bakkt record volume 1100+ BTC was yesterday? Yes, bakkt had a slow start, but we don't know how many bitcoins are being bought/mined with the purpose of depositing in bakkt and making monthly contracts. The fact that we never had a 12 hour  42% pump in the last 8 years shows that there is something new happening right now. I don't know the reason for that pump. What I know is that the thousands bitcoins "locked" into bakkt's monthly contracts weren't abailable on the exchanges to hinder the pump. And that is something!

The last days summarized:



This is Bitcoin! This was the last fatal blow for the bears!