So, I thought that prices would just slowly raise up after having "slept" at 120~130$, but it looks like we are in a big depression. Pretty much like in 2011.
Before the 200+$ peak, there was great expectation, opportunities, lot of good news, media attention picking up, perfect timing of events. That was followed by a correction as the prices just raised too quickly. Now however, it seems that people are just loosing faith in Bitcoins. Go everywhere and you can see that there's general uncertainty over the future of Bitcoins.
The biggest problem now is how people perceive all of this U.S. regulations. The regulations are mainly for avoiding money laundering. The takedowns did have some legitimacy, for example, the Liberty Reserve was well known for tax evasion plots. However, we are currently now in a void. The U.S. would really need some big BTC exchange, who play along with the U.S. rules, to give more confidence.
Now, the world being what it is, for sure, a lot of people probably did invest in Bitcoins with questionable motives. Big investors, wanting to hide some money away. And there's probably a few cashing out while they still can.
But even for the 'good guys' out there, for sure there are other investors that are uncertain about Bitcoins future. So they pull out. That in turn drive the price lower, leading to more uncertainties, more doubts, and a general medium/long term downtrend. That's basically a bear market.
What will drive the price up now? For a start, would need clearing uncertainties with the U.S. regulations (more precisely how people perceive it). It would need some good news also, like big company accepting Bitcoins (read Amazon, Paypal, WalMart, etc.). The last one is not a joke, remember who actually killed the HD-DVD in favour of the Blu-Ray... Well, not 'killed', but tipped the balance
So, the future really is uncertain... It may dip to nothingness, or may well flip side and go up to 1000$ in a few months. 'Satoshi Nakamoto' did invent a really great concept, and he was able to forecast a lot of things when he implemented the blockchain, but he surely could not have predicted how the very basic human nature would drive it's project
Well, it's just my theory... My 2 cents worth (my 0.0002BTC worth!).
