@cryptovestor I know you’re saying this is a potential opportunity but is there a significant probability that this is the end of the bubble? Itseems like this past few weeks have been pretty different from recent history, even from the large corrections in the past. Trying my best to hold somewhat long term. That said I feel bullish very long term but pretty tentative short term as people tend to overestimate progress.
Obviously there are similarities with .com. We’ve also seen this recently with the 3D printing craze. The technology has promise but over a long period of time. Stocks were out of control way too early and had a substantial crash.
These things tend to eventually exceed the previous bubble but if you have to sit on your investment for years of sideways movement, there is a huge opportunity cost there.
I think the whales are priming the market for a nice discount on BTC for 2018. If they make the first move in and allow the price to rise, it will be a very fast move upward to try to discourage Joe Six pack from joining the party. Most of the seats in BTC that were vacated by weak hands and fair-weather fans in December's correction will be occupied by the new wave. Despite this new unprecedented upsurge, many Joe Six packs will jump on board to create another socially irresponsible fever pitch around the 50-60k mark. Uber drivers and hair-dressers will be talking again about their bitcoin which will signal another dump to 30k as futures traders win on the short side to gather more powder to buy the dip for the upside. The whales will continue to shear the sheep as long as its profitable. As each cycle of shearing transpires, more and more BTC will be concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. The layperson will become exhausted and disillusioned with the incessant crypto volatility; instead of being sheared, many of them will feel they got skinned and never return to BTC, which will be known as the elite's cryptoasset.
Once a predetermined majority percentage of BTC is owned by a conglomerate of like-minded elite, the cycle of shearing will cease and BTC will finally be allowed to be what it was destined to be: the world reserve currency, supplanting gold and the IMF SDR. National central banks will yield to the notion that BTC is a viable store of value and normal supply and demand will return, only this time, central banks with trillions in capital will be in play. As each central bank aggressively competes for its nation's share of this vanishingly small pie, the price will spike to unreal levels, further ossifying BTC's central role in the world economy. To paraphrase SelectQuote: "When central banks, corporations, Wall Street, hedge funds compete, you lose...UNLESS YOU HODL'd."
At this point, S Nakamoto will realize his vision has been twisted and will flood the market with his/her/their 1million BTC as a last ditch effort to reset the system. He will telegraph his intentions to the masses by ravens with the code words: "Winter is coming."
You have been warned.
noob reply here, but my 2 cents, (from a guy who has watched a few bubbles, like that internet thing back in the 90's) this is just getting warmed up with the money starting to climb aboard, just wait until full on FOMO hits in a few months..., but again, just another noob with an opinion
Solid concerns. I feel most people are in the same boat as you! Most feel optimistic for the general long term, but right now is a slightly scary time for BTC. It is still overvalued (in my opinion) and analytically it would appear it needs more of a correction (the pop), but time and time again BTC has surprised everyone with the directions its taken in reciprocation of traditional analytics.
I don't think so, but bubbles are notoriously difficult to predict when they will end that I obviously can't say for certain. There is a lot of capital on the sidelines still and plenty of dumb money wanting to get in that has either procrastinated on getting in or is realizing that it can take a while to transfer money to exchanges so are still waiting to get in after the recent spike and crash with Bitcoin (e.g: I have some family in that situation now). Given this, it's likely the bubble continues into 2018. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't last into 2019 though at the rate it has been growing.
Thank you, CI and everyone else for the responses. Looking forward to seeing how this shakes out.