As I forcast at the start of the year: The pump will have stopped, people will start selling because they need cash after Christmas splurges. By March the price will have come off of the boil and institutional buyers hoping for strong gains will be facing concerning losses and so (one by one) will cash out forcing the price down.
It happens every year, maybe not as harshly as this year coming off of an ATH.
No it doesn't. Take a look at 2013. From January 1st, BTC rose
every week for 3 months straight, until we finally had a massive shakeout in April. Then we had another parabolic leg higher a few months later.
In 2017, despite two harsh corrections in January and March, BTC was essentially sideways (opening and closing ~$1,000) for Q1. You know what happened next.
So the holiday and tax effects may do
something, but the underlying market sentiment (i.e. whether it's a bull market or bear market) are much more important.
By all appearances this correction off $42K is just a typical bull market correction Like March or June-July 2017.