The drop in the market and the start of futures trading is not just a coincidence.
Of course it's not coincidence; institutions using CBOE & CME aren't stupid. They shorted the crap out of Bitcoin, which at that point was the only right thing to do.
I argue that digital money will never rise in price as fast as last year, due to the availability of futures contracts.
Bitcoin spot markets don't care about futures. I'm sure that eventually when the market becomes way more professional than it is right now futures will become an important part, but not now. In regular markets spot prices follow secondary markets because they have surpassed spot market volumes by orders of magnitudes. That's not the case with Bitcoin.
If you think it does already, then explain my why a combined $200 million in futures trading volume (where it's purely cash settled) can affect the spot market that at least generates $4 billion in trading volume every day?