it's pretty obvious what is happening here. The coin has had these random spikes for months but overall the price has fallen. What we're seeing is the coin supply changing hands from weak holders to the dev and his friends. Dev is purposely trying to make the coin look like vaperware to get the price to fall so he can accumulate (remember, he didn't have any ico). Every now and then he spikes the price to get rid of bagholders (the above poster is a perfect example of how this tactic works). Rinse and repeat until they've got enough coins to get insanely rich when they drop the torrent functionality.
Could well be true, but they've had over 2 years to accumulate at much lower prices and they hold a 3% premine. Also, if the coin is to have any success once torrents are dropped there needs to be some kind of distribution of the coin. If they were looking at getting rich quickly they could have pumped it earlier.
Could well be true, but they've had over 2 years to accumulate at much lower prices
Who says he hasn't been accumulating since the beginning? What matters is if he is done accumulating or not. He may be done or he may not be done (my theory being the latter). More specifically, I think he has been steadily accumulating since the birth of the project with a specific goal in mind in terms of coin supply percentage. When the prices of literally all blockchain projects exploded in March (thus including the price of vTorrent) it suddenly became a lot more expensive to accumulate. As such, to be able to keep accumulating as cheap as possible the only rational thing to do would be to make the price fall which obviously is most effectively achieved by making people lose trust in the project.
Now, one could always counter that if the dev wants to accumulate as cheaply as possible he would be better of just refraining from communicating at all in the first place. However, this would only be sensible if it wasn't for the fact that he needs some sort of community to operate nodes, report bugs etc. In other words, he needs to maintain a delicate balance between having just enough followers to accomplish the former and just enough disinterest in the project to accomplish the goal of accumulating cheap. When you look at his posting history you'll see how he balances this act by throwing just enough bones to maintain a few loyal followers. He has never been more quite than the last months which makes sense due to the higher prices which he needs to get down.
they hold a 3% premine
That would be a valid argument against my theory if you believe the dev would be happy with only 3% of the coin supply. Why would he be satisfied with 3% if he could have 25%, 35% or some other arbitrary and fairly large percentage of the supply knowing he will deliver a killer app that will yield him a 100x - 1000x ++ roi? In other words, why only become somewhat rich when you can get filthy pimping on yacht with models all day rich. It's just common sense.
If they were looking at getting rich quickly they could have pumped it earlier.
This also boils down to common sense. If the dev had pumped it earlier he would only had become somewhat rich. Let's say he wanted to pump it last year, what grounds would he pump it on? He most likely did not have a fully working product ready at that time so he would have had to post a video of some half working torrent functionality. Well, maybe it would pump the price 10x (remember, market conditions were totally different just a few months ago), but the liquidity would probably be low and the pump would not sustain for a long time. Thus, his roi would not have been that great. Also, a consequence would be a price floor permanently higher than before the pump due to increased confidence in the project which in turn would mean that future accumulation would be more expensive.
Now let's assume he follows my theory. He keeps the price low all the time, accumulates as much as possible. When he is done he drops torrent functionality and price quickly 100x's with the medium to long term possibility of at least 1000x ++ with sustained liquidity. In other words, he will be able to sell off as much as he wants for at least 100x.
Also, if the coin is to have any success once torrents are dropped there needs to be some kind of distribution of the coin.
I agree with you on this one. However, I don't see how accumulation NOW with the consequence of decreased distribution equals low distribution AFTER he drops torrent functionality. Imagine when he drops it. Price will explode and those few people owning coins will sell all the way up thus increasing distribution again. The higher the price goes, the more of the initial holders will sell their coins and make for greater distribution. And the same goes for the dev. If he wants to be rich he actually has to start selling at some point.
Honestly, it all boils down to the fact that paid seeding is THE blockchain killer app (at least top 3). It will create an easily available market for the almost infinite amount of long tail content. We're talking a huuuge hidden demand getting fullfilled. It will also create a market for faster downloads. It will benefit content creators in numerous ways, especially musicians: Much cheaper distribution of their art (they keep all the revenue in contrast to current content providers who take up to 30%), they get instant and undiluted payouts in contrast to the current scheme where greedy publishers take a laarge cut and delay the payouts for weeks, they get exposed to a global audience in contrast to current providers and their geographical restrictions, they don't have to work through expensive aggregators, etc etc.
The shit will sell itself when it drops and the dev knows this perfectly well. He doesn't need to cater to his community beyond the minimal effort required to keep the network running. When it drops it will begin living its own life, just like bitcoin did, but the difference being that the demand for this coin will be highly organic pretty early due to the supply and demand gaps in various areas waiting to get bridged as explained above.
