Yeah people tend to get hyper emotional with alts. Cloak is a neat coin and all, but it did see its post-launch pump and charts are charts, all things being the same I would think it will continue a downward trend over a long period of time, like Bitcoin/Litecoin/DRK/BC/every other coin before it. ...Until one day it potentially sees the mega pump (a la BC). What I keep thinking of in the back of my mind as a corollary is Quark coin. Quark followed a very similar type of path. Launched beginning of summertime, saw a small pump, then long period of declining prices and accumulation, and then the big winter rally. But that was because somebody accumulated a lot and put the effort into promoting it. So what I am hoping, is that if/when the dev team delivers in September, it is a positive signal to external forces and then we see more outward promotion and it sees a cycle like Quark. Of course, after the winter holidays last year we all know where Quark went. Unfortunately that seems to just be the way the alt markets work. To some degree I suppose it is debatable if that is what we have seen in Bitcoin as well, and perhaps we are on the downward side of the great Bitcoin pump and dump of 2013.
Of course my above paragraph of commentary pre-supposes that one's only focus or interest is in price going "very very high!" but aside from that I could see Cloak gaining wider regular usage by people as...*ahem* a currency and not a commodity. A counterpoint to that argument however is that other coins have also implemented markets that...see no use. So I have to assume that most people's interest is just in price going "very very high!"
But remember, it is a zero sum game, every time the price goes very high, somebody is buying at that price, and becomes the new bagholder filled with emotion and anxiety on the other side....
...but then again maybe I'm the fool. I don't think we will ever see $1000 bitcoin again, I think the price will trend to around $100 over the next 6-12 months unless someone decides to pump it again.
I think you are wrong for the most part.
Firstly mega-pump does not exist, you have just made up this term because you thought it sounds cool and professional. I can assure you, it does not. It is and it was always pump and dump, whales and sharks playing with the small fish. If you know the mechanics and can play by their terms, "swim by their sides", you may achieve high amount of profit in a short period of time.
Secondly, Quark was a very nice startup at the end of last year, with great features and active developers. The coin was even analysed by Max Keiser in one of his reports. It wasn't a sole pump and dump after-all, the price still hasn't fallen back to the original levels -- i.e. before-the-pump-levels -- but yes in the long term it will tend to decrease a lot since the devs have left and there are no new features or ideas invested into QRK. Shame.
Thirdly, the altcoin-markets are massive test terrains for future currencies -- if you haven't noticed this trend already -- most will die, some may prevail. Therefore, yes you were mostly right about this, there is a fast rise in case of most coins and a long fall-back period -- which may be not as long in most cases because we all know how many scam-coins are around these days.
And last but not the least, in my opinion BTC is just maturing -- complete maturity is still a far cry though, it may take a decade or more --, there is more fuss in the news about it every day. We are in an era of mass adoption by the public. More and more people can reach it; even more important, gain knowledge of its existence. I don't believe we will see the price going below $400 any time soon -- except if another flash dump happens but that's not a long term price. In the long term I think we will see many more ATHs followed by price decreases but IMHO $700k/btc in a decade or so is not impossible at all.
Well, I hope I have covered all your points, looking forward to your response. BTW your chart in the next post is less than childish.