QUACK! QUACK! I was planning on waiting it out a bit longer - but this is very bullish.

I think current confirmation times, transaction fees and general scalability issues are serious problem for healthy mass adoption - certainly for B2C use cases such as paying for things online and bricks & mortar retailers. Otherwise we will have the exactly scenario you mention - speculators hoarding and little else.

*YAWN*

Where are we in the this current cycle?

Is this a bear trap (correction) as "early investors" take profits before this current bull run goes truly main stream? (We might be looking at $5K-$10K if the bull run continues)

OR

Is this a bull trap before we see a complete capitulation over the next few days and weeks? (We might see a price somewhere around 2013 ATH - not that we should hold much value in that ATH given the circumstances)

OR

Something else?

Personally I liquidated about 30% of my crypto portfolio including BTC at around $2350. I'm targeting a fairly aggressive/pessimistic re-buy in at $1500 for BTC ($60 for ETC, $0.05 XRP and $15 XMR), but we could see lower IMO if we continue to go down. (I'll be happy either way - the majority of my portfolio is all based on BTC bought at $50-$70)

If we see consolidation at around this $1900-2000 level into the middle of next week I'll consider my options again. Still, this will be no guarantee that we are not going side ways for some time or haven't started a longer term bear market.

Ultimately I think BTC has some very serious problems to address at the moment before we really have the fundamentals to move beyond the recent peak and truly go mainstream. These are precarious times for BTC, especially when you have alts which, whilst far more overvalued IMO, could be said to have better fundamentals in terms of tech and developer adoption. IMO, it would be far more healthy for BTC if this correction/crash forced miners and devs to get their shit together and we saw some stability and calm return to the markets. I think everyone is exhausted both mentally and financially.

Thoughts? Smart considered analysis seems very thin on the ground the moment in all this craziness...

Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day. 

It is a blood bath though - but it was telegraphed - there is no excuse not have cashed out a significant amount above $2000.

If the fork happens I agree - though for how long is tough to guess - that will be the bad news required for a long bear market. Bottom line is that Bitcoin has some problems it MUST sort out soon. Time is running out and there are many hungry younger wolves at the door.

Seriously?

There is no doubt there will be many successful alts in the future. Like it or not Ethereum is at the head of that pack right now and there is a good chance an alt will over-take Bitcoin in terms of dominance. The technology world is littered with companies/platforms/tech that were the "first" but ended up being replaced. Even "superiority" (what ever you are judging that by) is no predictor. https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

Only coin still up in the top 100!

This was one of my big high risk bets recently - already nice profit. I'm sure it will come down a bit as well though - probably just a lag given the limited market access. Still, I think Lykke looks like a reasonable project compare to most in the top 100. Definitely a long term hold for me.

A lot of people are getting very burnt right now - especially in those markets that were largely powering this bubble. Any price above the previous 2013 ATH is easily possible (based on previous experiences) if people panic and the new money dries up. This is healthy IMO. I'm looking forward to getting back into saving/buying mode instead of watching the craziness unfold on the daily basis and having to sit out.

Ye olde bubble cycle pic rears its head once more. If I had a bitcoin for every time this has been posted on Bitcointalk I'd be very rich indeed. Almost a confirmation of the current bubble popping. (Edit: someone beat me too it)

FYI: IMO we are heading to "Return to normal" and Bull Trap in case you are wondering. (For this particular bubble).

Kraken just added XRP/USD pair (and others)

All this is great but Litecoin has an image/branding problem. It will always be considered to be a "lite" version of Bitcoin.

However, I think if all those innovations are implemented WITH a change in name then it could be huge.

I'd vote for LightningCoin and keep the same symbol - LTC.

Is it me or do those walls around $1800 look a lot steeper than they did yesterday? Thoughts...

Check out this one for the lols.

http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/802255/Bitcoin-Litecoin-blockchain-exchange-traded-funds-cryptocurrency

No idea what they are talking about. This is a "mainstream" newspaper in the UK.

This thread is certainly talking me into off loading more coins. My instincts are telling me we are on the brink of proper bear market (and most here are in the denial phase) and that isn't going to change until the BU/SegWit issue is sorted no matter how much I might think it is FUD. Weak hands are not ones that sell - they are ones that are indecisive and keep jumping in and out.

IMO we are just lucky that most people are diving into alt coins rather than FIAT which is keeping the overall crypto market cap stable. What is risky for Bitcoin right now is there is permanent loss of market cap share and credibility that makes alt coins like Monero and Ethereum seem like safer options going forward. That has never happened before - Bitcoin has always been the "reserve" currency. This is the first time I really feel like that is even a possibility. Is this an objective of whales and other big players in the market that clearly have some game plan? Who knows, but there is serious volatility one way or another.

My biggest question personally is how much would I put in FIAT and what to hold in alts. How much can alts like Ether/Monero absorb - they are already crazily over priced but if everyone continues to rush there it could easily get crazier still. I've not seen so much madness since 2013.

We live in interesting times!

Please, I have read ALL the news there is to read. Like EVERYTHING in this mad wild wild west of ecosystem it's just one story to latch on - and smart and dumb speculators either use it to their advantage or get sucked in. This is NOT a mature technology, it's all speculated potential and there are too many manipulators who can have the fire power to swing the markets, even BTC.

Like I've said I have been in this market for a long time. When you get consecutive 20% bumps in price on a daily basis the end is in sight. It's just a matter of when. Perhaps the previous ATH will hold (I think around $20 might be more sensible target) and yes, the overall trend for people holding will still be very healthy (that's why I am far from selling everything). But you are smoking crack or just spreading lies if you don't think this is irrational exuberance right now (edit: or manipulation)

Neither. I hate to say this as someone who has always been long on Bitcoin and long on Ethereum since I took a significant position last year whilst all the hard fork craziness was unfolding but ... I'm cashing out a chunk of both BTC/ETH to USD to wait this out and lock in some profits, but I'll still be more than happy if either continue to do well.

I think we may be witnessing one of the greatest co-ordinated market manipulations in crypto history. Either that or some people who are holding a lot of BTC that can't convert to FIAT has insider knowledge of something bad that is going to happen and is diversifying on a huge scale. The only thing that makes me pause for thought are the volumes, which are huge. Perhaps it is both - a perfect storm of events.

I predict a blood bath one way or another. Clearly ETH didn't just become worth several times its value in the space of a few weeks. We are into parabolic territory now - calling the top (which admitted could easily go another $10 or $20 or more) is a very dangerous game - and only a gambler would buy in right now. Having been around for the Bitcoin $32 bubble and $256 bubble it is definitely going to crash ... it is just a question of when and by how much.

The more interesting question is where is Bitcoin is going to go? Perhaps it is just me but people seem to forget that the previous ATH we just broke was most likely artificial - willy bot and MTGOX fraud anyone? I tend to think the actual ATH if the market had been left to its own devices would have been much lower. Perhaps we would have never broken $266 again for quite a while - we have no idea what was going on back then. So it is quite reasonable that Bitcoin could see a significant correction and sell off - even though I think the gains here have been more steady and over a prolonged time.

If Bitcoin does have destructive war regarding Segwit and BitcoinUnlimited the whole market will tank. Not good for anyone who is actually interested in how Bitcoin and blockchain technologies can change the world.

Smarter and more powerful people than me are set to make a lot of money I suspect.

My BTC.02 - Long time Bitcointalk lurker but still a newbie poster.

If I wanted to manipulate the price, looking for feature requests on products like Dropbox and then promoting them in Bitcoin communities/forums would be a good way to go about it...

LOL.