Looks like there wasn't anywhere near the rebound energy to get back to 16.5k
I have a theory! (who doesn't!)
I was throwing around some ideas with a mate of mine about the recent top...
The part of the chart where I put "ran out of steam" and then said the next bit of growth might be to do with tether.
It occurred to me maybe that from 10th it was all tether!? I was sure 16.5 was the natural top, so I think what we are looking at here is a "tether boosted top".
Maybe the natural top was even lower. So that would explain a weak rebound to just under 12. Tether has shut up shop now so the real demand is much lower.
So it looks like we are into the second leg down after all (so soon!) where I guess it has to retest ~6. All this could be construed as some monster bullish pennant, but I'm not convinced about that. I think it breaches 6 to the downside 5 is a very popular number on the social media (and thats really all charting is, trying to gauge sentiment) so we'll bounce at 5 then get another upswing. Bottoms in bitcoin have never resolved this way before, I don't expect this to be different - I still think the market wants to "fill the gap" with the gap being the "speculative mania" runup which starts at around 3 (after the first time we hit 3 there was that little bit of consolidation, then it really took off) so I maintain there will be a bit more choppiness before the ultimate bottom in that range 2483 is a rather arbitrary number but its as good as any - it will be that ballpark)
Anyway for me thats all that BTC has going for it at the moment, lots of speculative capital, liquidity and plenty of people doing TA so things might play out like chartists want. Perhaps plenty of opportunity for traders to make bank. Not really for me. I'll continue to hold a little of the XBT in my pension as a hedge (just in case!) and the majority of my crypto in BCH, which I'll be spending and replenishing, as that is the next phase...! I always had a few alts since back in the day, always fun to spin the wheel too
So the way I see it with Bitcoin (and have done since around 2013 before any of this fork debacle) is that the "bitcoin price" is a product of 2 things. Fundamental value and speculative mania cycles.
The first comes from utility and adoption, and follows an s-curve which spans a few decades.
The second is the periodic exponential run-up in price followed by blow off top and a period of consolidation.
The run-ups are great, and fun and everyone loves it but really they aren't the measure of bitcoin. (The one useful thing they add is reading awareness).
The consolidation periods are the real key thing to look at.
Connect the *bottoms* to get your s-curve. Thats the base fundamental price. Each time the speculative run-up is relative to this price, each time it collapses and the consolidation bottom give you the real signal about what is going on.
The fork has complicated things. Could have set thing back 5-10 years. That's 2-3 years of stalled progress whilst everyone bickered and another 3-10 years whilst we wait for core's roadmap to play out to its inevitable end.
It certainly really took its toll on the community, but I have to say after 2-3 years of despair I've never felt more like it's back in the day with people excited about working on things, and a real fervour in the community about where this is going.
The "bitcoin price" doesn't exist anymore, well I suppose as a composite of BTC+BCH price it does, and in that respect the above continues to apply. What's important now (to the bitcoin cashers) is the BTC:BCH ratio.
So BCH is very young, and is still perceived as an alt, and is still subject to a lot of money just doing simple arbitrage trading. That is going to keep the ratio pegged on the most part. The thing is ratio in the short term is not so important, because even if people play it safe and hold both coins. There will come a time when the speculative mania kicks in, and all the while BCH has been building out the infrastructure to cope with this - and if you do a really rough each time is 10x bigger than the last. Then the fundamental value in the capacity of the networks is going to be illustrated.
People who wanted to dump BCH for BTC have done so. People who wanted to dump BTC for BCH have done so. They are the philosophical hard liners. The die hards, the crazies. The people that think you have it all figured out! .... Who me? I er.. well er... no its not like that... ok you got me
The dumps have happened, the pumps have happened, and this is where we are still around 0.1 territory
Now think back to the connect the "bottoms". The same s-curve / hype cycle applies to this ratio, it started out around 1:20, its been pumped a few times by excitable folk, but here we are now around 1:10
and what we have now (and I think its still a good majority) is a cohort who are the ambivalent. They did nothing when it forked, they held there coins and decide to see how things played out. I bet most people reading this post will identify with this - its the star thing to do after all. Why rock the boat?
These people are less interested in philosophical ideals not because they aren't smart enough to get it, but because they probably just don't care as much. Probably still think mostly in dollar terms, they got into bitcoin because its an investment. Investors generally want to make money. They are interested in what works, what sells, what people are buying and *using*.
As things unfold people will see what works and what doesn't and as the ambivalent start to recognise this they will slowly start to rebalance, the chart above already shows the steady creep. Every pump is sold off, but a hard core isn't selling because they "know".
On top of this the whole mining market is balanced on a knife edge. Markets set the price, miners adjust accordingly. The BCH DDA keeps it that way, this benefits BCH, because it gives miners the facility to juice their returns by siphoning more into BCH as the ratio improves.
I think the ratio will continue to improve, there's no rush. I already switched - I feel its inevitable. Its for the ambivalent to decide at which point they are going make the plunge. Eventually FOMO will kick in, the trickle becomes a flood and there is no way back for a coin, who's primary purpose is a store of value, that has no value.
Thats what I think, but what do I know.
