What's with all of the spikes in the price of altcoins a few months ago?

[CarrotKid]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking at coinmarketcap and almost every alt coin i see has spiked to it's highest price recorded recently, whereas 4-5 months ago it would be at basically, it's lowest or near it resulting in insane profits for some who invested before the spike. Here's some examples:

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/energycoin/

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/crave/

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/woodcoin/

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/synergy/

As you can see, these (as well as many other altcoins) spiked in late may-june. These are just a few examples of many that have seemingly spiked to their highest prices during very similar time frames. What caused all of these currencys to explode during this period?

I'm looking for some cheap altcoins to invest in before they spike like these did to obviously make a big ol profit! I did see this one, looks like it hasn't gone through one of these common alt-coin spikes yet. Should I invest in it? I mainly invest in bitcoin and litecoin for long term, but maybe cheap short term alt-coins could provide even more profit if i hit it right like people did with the spikes in my previous links.


https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcore/

Thanks!

[Herbert2020]

it started this year. bitcoin's scaling debate was heated and at its critical point by that time. there was a lot of arguments and then some miners started signalling different scaling proposals instead of reaching consensus so there was a small fear of split (nothing serious at that point) but the FUDsters used this to spread their FUD and start pumping altcoins.
you can find topics saying "SomeCrapCoin will replace bitcoin". mostly Dash and Ethereum.
and then the pumping season began.

it was the money that went from coin to coin, market to market to pump the coins up and then dump and get out to another one to pump that. this made all coins, even the dead ones, go up a lot.

[CarrotKid]

Okay, cool thanks for the info. Do you think coins will have another spike like this, or was it a one time market-wide deal? I am looking at that bitcash but I have little faith in it. Do you have any particular coins you would invest in foreseeing a spike like this?

you can find topics saying "SomeCrapCoin will replace bitcoin". mostly Dash and Ethereum.

I'm wondering yours and anyone else's take on this. Ethereum, maybe it could get up to the ranks of bitcoin one day. I have more faith in Litecoin to do that in the long run though. I doubt dash would get up there, mostly because it doesn't have much exposure and i doubt anything other than BTC, ETH, and LTC would be accepted worldwide.

[styca]

you can find topics saying "SomeCrapCoin will replace bitcoin". mostly Dash and Ethereum.

I (still) think ETH will overtake bitcoin in marketcap at some point, and I think XRP will as well.

Neither of these will replace bitcoin though, or even be more important than bitcoin. Alts are highly dependent on btc, partly because of trading pairs. And good/bad news about btc affects the whole market. I couldn't see ETH/XRP news affecting the whole market even if either were number 1 in cap.

[CarrotKid]

I (still) think ETH will overtake bitcoin in marketcap at some point, and I think XRP will as well.

Neither of these will replace bitcoin though, or even be more important than bitcoin. Alts are highly dependent on btc, partly because of trading pairs. And good/bad news about btc affects the whole market. I couldn't see ETH/XRP news affecting the whole market even if either were number 1 in cap.

Ripple has a circulation total of 100 billion though, as compared to bitcoin's 21 million. I haven't been paying much attention to ethereum. I need to read more on it, I've spent all of my focus on Litecoin but I get the feeling this forum doesn't favor Litecoin that much. I'll look into ethereum for long term investments, probably isn't a bad idea,

[alyssa85]

There was a lot of new money coming into crypto, and the pumper-dumpers saw their chance, so lots of coins got pumped (with the FOMO crowd then piling in).

I think pretty much every coin on Poloniex and Bittrex managed to get pumped, even deadish coins like Reddcoin got pumped.

This happens everytime noobs come into the market. The last time was early 2014 before Mtgox collapsed - many were looking for "the next bitcoin" and all sorts of rubbish got pumped - in those days the action was on Mintpal and Cryptsy.

[sch_lau]

In my opinion every time there is public news about altcoins (newspapaer articles etc), the price of altcoins altogether is affected. In march for example people speculated on the approval of the Bitcoin ETF and the prices went up like crazy. In August there had been a crash because there was talk of a new bitcoin coming out that should fix the problems of the old bitcoin chain. Recently the prices dropped again because apparently china was talking about banning ICOs. My guess is to to stay up to date with the news.

And if you want to buy cheap altcoins in order to make money, look for a coin which has a very low marketcap, the prices will multiply themselves quicker than if you bought for example a bitcoin which would have to reach the price of 8615$ to double its price as of today.
Another tip that I can give you, although it is not my favorite choice, is to try and spot pump and dump groups, but be careful how much you invest into those in the beginning since those pumps are over very fast (you have like 2 minutes or less to sell the right coin before everyone sells if you want to make any money). better start small and build up as you feel comfortable

[CarrotKid]

In my opinion every time there is public news about altcoins (newspapaer articles etc), the price of altcoins altogether is affected. In march for example people speculated on the approval of the Bitcoin ETF and the prices went up like crazy. In August there had been a crash because there was talk of a new bitcoin coming out that should fix the problems of the old bitcoin chain. Recently the prices dropped again because apparently china was talking about banning ICOs. My guess is to to stay up to date with the news.

And if you want to buy cheap altcoins in order to make money, look for a coin which has a very low marketcap, the prices will multiply themselves quicker than if you bought for example a bitcoin which would have to reach the price of 8615$ to double its price as of today.
Another tip that I can give you, although it is not my favorite choice, is to try and spot pump and dump groups, but be careful how much you invest into those in the beginning since those pumps are over very fast (you have like 2 minutes or less to sell the right coin before everyone sells if you want to make any money). better start small and build up as you feel comfortable

Makes sense!

How can I spot a "pump" or "dump" group? I assume pump means buying a lot of a certain coin to raise the price and then dump is people selling it all over again for the profit resulting in lower prices, right? How could I ever be able to predict that or spot it?