The large drop was almost instantaneous. This points to liquidations of positions taken out on exchanges offering silly levels of leverage. Once we dropped some 5% the liquidations began and we had a cascading effect.
I guess the noobs will never learn or this was an intentional push down by some nefarious entity (insert your favourite villain here).
I agree with this. I think this is likely what happened.
The sooner we can limit leverage the better (unless you are kinggoldminer of course).
I don't agree with this at all. A few weeks back Bitcoin went up $10k in a day because the opposite happened: short leveraged positions were liquidated in cascade.
Bitcoin is strong enough as a long-term project for anyone who wants to bet against it to bet that they will not be able to break it.
Only weak projects succumb to shorts. The strong have short term volatility from shorts but long term gains.
On the other hand, how would you do it, does a politician have to come in and establish a ban on leverage in this market? Politicians of the world would have to agree and they haven't reached an agreement to ban bitcoin or to regulate it globally (yet).
This is not like the US regulator temporarily banning short positions in the NASDAQ. It is a global market.
I don't see it.