I've been a bitcoin owner for years. I discovered a block pool mining with my then new Mercury. As mining became less profitable I used my best Bitmain product to mine and reduce heating bills. I was a hodl until this year.
Last year I was elated to see the rise up to December and had visions of buying a house for myself and one of my sons (the other doing very well). Then that slide from 12/17/2017. I held on through slides before, like when btc was down in the low hundreds but the steady drop at a rate of roughly 5%/week was just too much and I almost fully cashed out. Of course the buildup and fall was due to futures trading. Capitalism at its worst. In economics we learned futures were started in the Chicago Mercantile, betting on acts of God, the weather. But futures on other than crop yields is suspiciously like powerful forces in trading saw they had the power of gods to control future prices through media. And they did and do. Even Bill Gates said he could short Bitcoin and drive it down, but then his grandfather's family, Maxwell, owns one of the largest banks in the northwest. I wonder if that bank is bitcoin friendly.
So, I'd been watching the drop. It looked like someone was pumping value out of the ecosystem. Was it Bitmain? Not having confidence in the coins it mines? Mining and cashing in? But it wasn't just cashing in. There would be a big drop in value, then sometimes a relatively stable period, then a big jump up. Like catch me if you can, buy low and sell high. But the trend was always down, that 5% per week.
Then recently, June 29, the big drops changed to big jumps. Twice on June 29, once on July 2 and again on July 7. I couldn't bring myself to trust the rise because it wasn't due to a confidence change but due to big money pumping it up. Then yesterday a big drop. Who the heck is going to put confidence in coin that visibly being bounced around by some manipulator?
My question was Who is it? But maybe the subject should be Is it possible to ban bitcoin futures? If futures trading is what's pumping money to the top 1% so steadily then bitcoin with futures trading is no better than fiat.
soy39
The crash was just the market coming back to reality. Everyone was out of their damned minds last year, and if thought $15,000 or even $19,000 was a reasonable price for Bitcoin, you were too. It was clear to anyone not drinking the Kool Aid that Bitcoin had long since entered bubble territory. There's no conspiracy here to crash the market or keep the prices low. This is just much nearer the proper price (though in my own opinion, still seems greatly inflated) than it was last year during the irrational exuberance. Bitcoin is dominated by traders, not investors. There's a big difference. Investors want price appreciation. Traders don't care what happens to the price as long as their is back and forth volatility. Because Bitcoin is dominated by traders, they create volatility. Bitcoin isn't a proper investment asset, it's a speculative vehicle. Could make you money, but is just as likely to lose you money. Trying to derive meaning out of the movements is a fruitless endeavor.
