IMO there are two factors in play:
I've long been thinking that $2000-3000 feels unnaturally high, and may well be a bubble. The 1-year low is like $400 or something, keep in mind. There have been a lot of upward changes in fundamentals, especially the subsidy halving, but a repeat of the 2013-2014 pattern (scaled up) wouldn't surprise me too much.
But the recent drop is almost certainly due to fork panic, and
that's way overblown. Let's run through the scenarios:
- Segwit2x fails to activate SegWit in time, BIP148 fails (my prediction): the status quo continues for 6-12 months, everything is more-or-less fine. I
don't think that the market would mind continuing the status quo.
- Segwit2x activates segwit in time, BIP148 therefore doesn't go off: We get SegWit, which I think would be a minor upward force. The market probably doesn't care that much, but it makes for a good headline at least. Segwit2x could cause further messiness in 3 months, but that's forever away in BTC terms.
- Segwit2x fails to activate Segwit in time, BIP148 gets miners to activate SegWit quickly: Same as above.
- Segwit2x fails to activate Segwit in time, BIP148 has significant economic force, but miners don't join it until days later (or never):
This is the main eventuality motivating the various warnings, but it's really unlikely IMO, less than a 1% chance. It'll cause a couple days of "downtime" and a massive amount of confusion, but at the end Bitcoin will still be working. And you can keep your coins safe by following the instructions posted on bitcoin.org or in my forum post.
If I knew for sure it was all the latter factor, then I would be very inclined to buy right now. But the fork panic may have just kicked off a long-lasting bubble correction; I don't know.