After reading your post, I understand a lot. I personally feel that Bitcoin is the basis of other altcoins, because what I see in the cryptocurrency market is that when Bitcoin drops slightly, then the value of the altcoin will be greatly increased. Falling, and I am very skeptical that there are manipulators behind the scenes.
If that is what you learned so far, then you have not gotten the gist. Sometimes it might be irrelevant, but 90% of the time, the only time altcoins tend to do well is when bitcoin is in a slow upward movement or consolidation. In the case of Bitcoin in a bull run or bears in action, you really want to be careful being in alts. There are always going to be manipulators behind the scenes which are usually classified as whales, but even at that, you only have to be very smart and cautious when trading the market. There are market controllers everywhere and not just in cryptocurrency.
