In the news today...
"As central banks around the world are studying the potential of issuing cryptocurrencies of their own, the consortium of banking regulators in Basel, Switzerland released their white paper saying “(Central bank cryptocurrencies or other forms of digital currencies) could bring substantial benefits.”
Cryptocurrency issued by a central bank could be a stable, robust and even safer alternative to cash said the study by the group that includes the Federal Reserve and 59 other central banks of nations that account for about 95 percent of world gross domestic product."

An epitaph for the crypto market as we know it - I have been watching it for a half year and profited enormously, not really in money earned (very little, I'm too cautious on the whole) but general and technical market and trading knowledge, wouldn't want to miss it. So what is the overall impression, what is the situation, what's the sense ? Why did it happen ? There used to be widespread fears about cash money being forbidden and even more control being established by the establishment, but that was last year or so... meanwhile, an educational experiment has been successfully launched and executed - let's call it the "controlled crypto boom." It wasn't controlled ? Define control. The developments were foreseeable for insiders.

The Crypto boom has served its purpose : small investors now understand that they themselves want a cashless society as much as the bankers do, and they have learned that they cannot trust ech other or private initiatives - only central institutions can be trusted. Trust is being enabled by control - the fuller the control, the greater the trust : this is how herd animal psychology operates, where individualism is nothing but a means of division, so the divided can be even more easily handled, one by one, while they enjoy a feeling of personal "liberty"*

*)[this liberty being nothing but a licence to give ones personal desires more room than societal norms might permit - also the reason why societal norms are being elasticized lately, to enable these irrelevant herd animal individual freedoms under total 24/7 control, being compatible now without causing revolutionary impulses. What does a sheep want after all, except to indulge in a few drive-caused fantasies, think paedophilia and the likes. Why would a controlling instance be concerned about such things?
While individuals may feel dominated by a controlling authority, but that's irrelevant compared to the feeling of safety withing a conforming, ideally god-believing crowd].

The billion or so get rich quick little investors have learned that a few already big rich guys can take all their money away by pumping and dumping the rates whenever they like, and so they are withdrawing their funds, waiting for REAL crypto money to be created by authorities rather than some hippie programmers, which is exacly what the banking businss had been hoping for.
The brief episode of seeming "crypto freedom" showed that humanity has never been interested in freedom or privacy at all but in fast money and fast food only - they didn't invest in concepts, they bought "green" - a prime example of naked human nature at work, entirely predictable. For example, Ripple ("the bankers' coin" - this wasn't factual but that hardly mattered) was a huge success when it went green, investors had no moral scruples about it not being "ethical" simply because humans have no morals (though they talk about little else). There were other, more "social" and more private alternatives but they found less interest among the investors, which clearly proves their interest level - in all, it was a perfect social experiment within a financial experiment within a New World Order experiment.

Volatility did the rest, we now ALL know and have accepted that a cash-free society can be created within months if need be, and we know that everybody will be relieved to have it controlled by the traditional institutions. Please !
That was the main reason for the experiment, and maybe even why bitcoin was launched in the first place - to make electronic cash more digesteable for the public. Well played, proving mass psychological theory to be as correct as it is simple.
The human individual, the only source for intellectual development in science, is powerless inside the dumb smallest-common-denominator mass which cannot be argued with and only be organized from the top.
This is exactly what these masses of crypto investors must now have intuitively understood and resigned themselves to, that they can never escape the grip of the banks or the control of government - they are members of human society, which as such mercilessly dictates these things.
[A divide of human herd society between top and rest is necessary as long as the genetic disposition lasts, and a few intelligent individuals will rule the masses for the benefit of all - there are no alternatives because of the intelligence bell curve, so let's not waste time by even discussing such].

In 2018, the first central crypto currencies will be issued while the 'free' cryptocurrencies will wither for sheer lack of interest, and because nobody needs them anyway.