Back in 2017 it was published that certain powers will crack down on cryptocurrency in 2018. Comments by institutional representatives like "oh there just kids playing in the sand box. They'll lose interest soon." leave some wondering what they meant by these statements. Some say that the moment BTC Futures came online, the market just started tanking, and never really stopped. The double, or is it triple dip that happened here in mid Sept seemed odd to many. Commentators claimed that "unusual market activity" occurred just before it tanked. Many chalked it up to a decision by Goldman Sachs but do their choices really matter THAT much to average traders? Do you feel this market just flows naturally and it's just weak hands throwing money into the wind again and again? Or do you feel that there is a more sinister hand at work here?
As for the Bitcoin future contracts, I still have mix emotions if they are the cause of the bearish trend and the free fall of bitcoin price. Maybe when they entered the picture there are a lot of noob investor who don't know what Bitcoin future contracts is and just FOMO the hell out of it. So it bubbled and 2018 was the year it was burst.
This market is prone to manipulation because crypto is a speculative market. I believed that the market will take its natural course just like prior years, it will bubble the pop, then go on a bearish or hibernation phase and then go up again. As for the weak hands, we might see them getting smarter as time goes by but there's are a lot of people waiting and willing to throw their money so the cycle continues.