New to this... What's causing the current selloff?

[yurez]

High volatility in the cryptocurrency market is normal and Bitcoin price fluctuations from 5 to 10 percent per day should not be considered anything special. I look at such fluctuations calmly, as I am sure that there will still be continued growth.

[Ararbermas]

I see my portfolio has lost around 5% over the past couple of hours. So I searched the internet expecting to find some kind of explanation to no avail. I figured another govt issued a negative statement regarding crypto or something. But that doesn't seem to be the case. If anything, the news stories about crypto seem to be positive today. So can anyone tell me what causes dips like this?

 definitely the news mate it really can affect in the crypto market ! Because for your information that is the common reason even before, wherein why crypto suddenly swing down within days. especially if there's a government issue,? Well don't expect that the market has ability to recover immediately.

Also, at what point are you guys prepared to sell to protect against a crash? Do most of you have sell stop orders on the books to protect against a crash? Thanks in advance!  

 mostly in the market they preferred to dump during the crash., especially those who earned a lot, wherein there's no way they will not skip in order to protect there profits IMO.  Especially those greedy ppl who always waiting for the lowest price to buy again, don't assume they'll not join to jump, because they always dump immediately to start again from the bottom.." Buy low and sell high!"..  . So all i can say there is a lot of hodler that dumping instead of hodling especially if there's a massive collapse in the market. .

[imstillthebest]

the government issue in cypto can cause a crypto to decline too .
you never knew that it wasnt only a negative statement but after that ,
the crypto on that country are not going to be available anymore because their government already banned it and that was the cause why crypto prices are going down but havent you sell off ? if you didnt sell off then you are fine but if you wanna know if everyone is using a stop loss yes we do that because that is an important tool in trades .

[Kasabus]

the government issue in cypto can cause a crypto to decline too .
you never knew that it wasnt only a negative statement but after that ,
the crypto on that country are not going to be available anymore because their government already banned it and that was the cause why crypto prices are going down but havent you sell off ? if you didnt sell off then you are fine but if you wanna know if everyone is using a stop loss yes we do that because that is an important tool in trades .

It was a long-time battle for crypto vs the government. But that is not what I suspected the cause of some declines because we are actually to have that thing anytime. I neither to say also that this is all about market manipulations done by whales but this how volatility affects the market price trend. And therefore, it was expecting to see a zigzag line than to have a straight high or down.

I'd never suspected any cause for this, but this comes naturally.

[Jackl87]

I see my portfolio has lost around 5% over the past couple of hours. So I searched the internet expecting to find some kind of explanation to no avail. I figured another govt issued a negative statement regarding crypto or something. But that doesn't seem to be the case. If anything, the news stories about crypto seem to be positive today. So can anyone tell me what causes dips like this?

As you said yourself you are new to crypto so if you stick around long enough you will get used to daily price movements of +-5% or more pretty quickly. 
I also don't know any particular reason why the price droppe a little the last two days but you need to remember that we had a nice positive trend overall during the lats few months so it's no wonder that from time to time there are small corrections.
I would say the market as a whole is still in a sideways movement at the moment.

[Clement Kaliyar]

I see my portfolio has lost around 5% over the past couple of hours. So I searched the internet expecting to find some kind of explanation to no avail. I figured another govt issued a negative statement regarding crypto or something. But that doesn't seem to be the case. If anything, the news stories about crypto seem to be positive today. So can anyone tell me what causes dips like this?

There is no specific reason for a minor correction, we need to see that the market was rallying for a long time and you should expect a minor correction here and there. I could not find a specific reason for the correction but we can say that the resistance was strong  .

Also, at what point are you guys prepared to sell to protect against a crash? Do most of you have sell stop orders on the books to protect against a crash? Thanks in advance! 

If there is a huge swing in price especially after a correction of around 10% to 20% i will book my entire profit.

[lobo13hf]

Just remember this buy at the dip and sell when it was pumping. Im seeing the market right now and bitcoin is starting to bump again after a small decline that happened before. You should have learned a lot of knowledge from this never panic when the correction will be happening. The whales were transferring their wealth to big parties like institutional investors. which creates a small decline.


Im always selling my coin when it gets -4% as the minimum decline that can be approved to be used as a point to leave from the market.
I think that anyone has their own standard but I do believe if they will always sell their coins when it gets pumped