Crypto Dives AGAIN? Trading and Some Warnings
Bitcoin is down yet again - it's the January blues. As always, the same question is on everyone's mind: Opportunity or trap? To which I say, I have no idea! But given that volume seems to have been declining while Bitcoin has been rising and vice versa these past few weeks, this suggests that upward momentum has been relatively weak and downward momentum is stronger. This is a valid concern.
More importantly, given I allocated what I wanted to allocate at this level last week, I won't be purchasing any Bitcoin. I remain firm on the level mentioned previously at $8,300, but otherwise will not be buying in to any further dips or corrections. I also won't be buying to upside unless there is a significant sign that suggests more bullish activity (e.g: high volume to upside).
I spend a decent amount of time in this video discussing "hot" cryptocurrencies, currently Vechain but the idea really appeals to all of them. Perception is so far detached from reality now with Vechain (but again, could be applied to any other "hot" cryptocurrency) that it has become exceptionally risky.
Tacking blockchain onto RFID doesn't suddenly remove all the inherent issues that RFID has had for (wait for it) decades now. Just like Raiblocks has corrected nearly 50% since I talked about it being the "flavor of the week," I would be cautious investing at highs for Vechain.
I also wanted to point out that a lot of cryptocurrencies are taking older technologies and tacking blockchain on it to capitalize on this craze. That isn't to say these are scams, which some people seem to unfortunately mistake my comments as insinuating. Rather it is to point out that blockchain is not an end all, be-all solution. Note that "reducing counterfeits" was a key argument for RFID 20 years ago and look where it is today in that specific use case.
The point of my little "rant" in this video is that while it may seem that cryptocurrencies are brand new, there is really only a few new elements and a TON of modifications from there. Understanding the base technologies which are decades old will help you separate the substance from the fluff. And trust me, there is a LOT of fluff.
Moving back to markets, as for altcoins, I am really only looking at a few that I like which are still a little too high for me to want to buy more (e.g: Monero and Steem). In short, I'm buying nothing in this dip currently - you don't always have to if you feel comfortable with your allocation.
What are your thoughts on the market and irrationality? Let me know in the comments below, thank you.
When BTC peaked at $20K+, I was confident that it would correct, but I thought it would settle at around $15KUSD. I'm still feeling surprised that it's fluctuating between 10-13K. I will be even more surprised if it reaches the $8.3K mark. That $10K line is a strong psychological barrier, IMO. But then again....
The 10k line was sliced through in the last 2 pullbacks and didn't seem to be much resistance. Today, however, it seemed to hold.
When BTC was on the way up from $15K up to $20K, the move was too parabolic. This is a much healthier market and institutional market will be moving in.
institutional money is very cautious, if they do move in, why would they move into BTC?
the idea of institutional money moving in when there is so much uncertainty about the future of bitcoin and weather a coin that was created to be money will ever get the kind of backing that was once imagined, is no longer so promising imho.
$10k seems like it should be a strong psychological barrier, but it certainly wasn't on the way up. BTC blew through $10k on the way up, so it certainly could do the same on the way down.
Don't be too surprised by anything Bitcoin does and you'll be fine. I wake up every morning expecting it to either be up or down 20%.
That's right. recently I am surprised to see it maintain let alone go up! it seems that there are less and less reasons to invest in bitcoin and more and more reasons to explore other coins recently, although I strongly believe in bitcoin's ability to fix all its current problems, it seems that the developers or those calling the shots among them have a different idea and direction which is becoming very suspicious.
Like @lordprime said "This is a much healthier market", and I agree with that. The price of BTC is currently sitting at 10,884.60 USD (-0.03% change). The rampage momentum has dried up for the moment, but I'm willing to bet that it will greencandle up to $23K+ in 2018. I feel safe making that claim. Absolutely no facts or evidence to back up that claim, just a gut feeling that the momentum will boil up again this year. 2018 will be a rollercoaster... @cryptovestor, I dig your work. Keep it up.
I think we might see $8K pretty soon with this market conditions and news spreading FUD non stop just to get that clicks.
Besides the support on $10K level has been tested for multiple times now.
i agree 100%
Absolutely true. I am personally waiting for the price of bitcoin to drop to 8-7k USD before buying a couple of coins and enjoying the volatility and observing the market trying to pass the 10-11k$ support over and over again. We will wait and see what the next month brings around. Fingers crossed 🤞🏽
John Shill McAfee must be terrified by now! The next thing can happen is that he'll end up eating his own dick.
Very interesting analysis on VeChain. I didn't know too much about it, but again I loved your analysis and your bluntness as well. I've been watching since October now, and I always love the video.
The big question is when is this all going to go up, or at least when will the market stabilize again? We had another dip today, but it seems like there's less energy in cryptocurrencies right now. Maybe it is that January Blues. I get the feeling like a lot of people are waiting for something to trigger the market to go up, but that might take a while.
My guess, based on not that much, but a hunch and watching everything going on, we'll be stabilized by the end of the month and slowly going up overall.
wait till someone analyses VChain. its another one with only V Chain. not out yet though...
There likely needs to be a catalyst of some sort to push it forward rather than just going up out of nowhere like it does frequently.
Cryptovestor, what do you think are the odds that the Robinhood crypto rollout serves as the catalyst? There are 896K people signed up currently. I am betting that the smart money sees this and that is why BTC is on its way up again. $11,499 at coinbase/gdax, $11,615.96 at Gemini, $11,898 Poloniex.
Nice level headed take as usual.
This is slightly off topic (at least, from a timing perspective) but do you see Bitcoin eventually losing its market position as the premier crypto? I don't think this downtrend is that moment but it's something I worry about. Bitcoin still has some significant advantages (hash rate leading to network security, fully tested cryptography, good dev environment, fiat on-ramps, de facto trading pair for alt coins, institutional focus, eventual ETF) so I'm not discounting it at this point. But it seems to me, none of these are impossible to overcome for ETH or any other 'alt'. ETH already has seen an explosion in fiat on-ramps and non-fiat, non-BTC trading volume in the last few months - what compels people to keep using BTC as a trading currency? Especially since moving it between exchanges is now completely impractical. Personally I think that if Bitcoin can't solve its transaction issues it will slowly be replaced by something else, whether that be ETH (my bet) or something else. Once an ETF for Bitcoin is released, and regulators are forced to admit the world hasn't catastrophically ended, what stops an Ethereum ETF from being created? Not much... so in the end, my question is: is institutional interest (and the money that comes with that interest) enough to keep Bitcoin at this level on the long-term? And what tends to shift institutional interest over time?
Would love to read your, or anybody else's thoughts on this.
very good observations. Bitcoin cannot maintain the top position for many reasons including your accurate analysis. bitcoin took the bull by the horns and went very high very fast. The truth of the matter is there is no real reason for this. The fomo effect is short and sweet, unless there is a real vision for bitcoin to become a useful network (as was intended) then its just another altcoin and sadly it doesn't work and, it is way overpriced, making it very unlikely to find new investment in the short term.
I don't, no. Given that most normal people associate Bitcoin with being cryptocurrency, if it fails to stay on top I suspect that will not set a good image to a lot of people. However, given how low float is for many cryptocurrencies, I do not see it as impossible to overtake Bitcoin on CoinMarketCap, but have my doubts they will overtake in real capital, time, and people invested.
Ethereum has way more security concerns than Bitcoin because it has much more sophisticated scripting for smart contracts - always remember that the more complex you make something, the more possibility of vulnerabilities (a reality we have faced with Ethereum over and over again). You can't fix that - it's a law of nature. It doesn't make Bitcoin superior, it just means Bitcoin is dumber and you literally CAN'T screw it up in the same ways you could Ethereum.
It's too soon to say what will happen in the long-term, but always remember that the most time has been invested in Bitcoin which can't be replaced with money. A lot of altcoins are just Bitcoin's codebase with a few tweaks made. Whether or not sidechains can be securely and practically implemented will be a key question going into the future. As we speak, just seeing Segwit and batching become adopted will clear up the bottlenecks we have in BItcoin now.
This isn't to say there isn't potential in other cryptocurrencies, but rather that it is not as simple as it seems (e.g: Bitcoin is expensive and slow, therefore should be replaced as it is impractical).
absolutely
What is up with those ridiculous amount you are getting papotus?
18.50$ for 1 vote.. 2.50$ for "Absolutely" hehe erm wut?
Nice comment and rationale behind your ideas.
I too have my doubts about the "Bitcoin is the gold standard of cryptocurrencies" argument... While Bitcoin and gold both have a finite amount in existence, what makes gold different and in my opinion more valuable in the sense of scarcity, is that it can't be recreated (i.e. Bitcoin hard forks or other alts that use the same underlying code with added benefits or improvements). Gold is valuable because there is a limited supply— yes—but it is also valuable because the elements that comprise it are rare in the universe and is incredibly hard to create due to the extreme energy-intensive process. If you create something with the same chemical characteristics as gold you aren't making something different, you are making gold... that is why it cannot be replaced and deserves its status as a backing of fiat currencies.
While I have no idea if Bitcoin is going to $1,000,000 or $1,000 in the future, in my opinion, it won't be the gold standard forever. At the end of the day, it's technology and tech always improves, while precious metals do not.
"Bitcoin is a store of value". An excuse which holds no value.
here here
I do some digital marketing on the side and understand the importance of brand. I tell people I invest in crypto and they are like what is that. I say bitcoin and the lightbulb moment happens. For better or worse bitcoin is the household name. But I agree with all your points. I buy eth to move between exchanges and for buy and hold. There are so many erc20 tokens that validate the existence of eth. I personally think we will have niches. I am very interested in projects like Polymath looking to bring securities easily onto the blockchain. Getting into an either or debate is like asking if Google or Amazon is more powerful.
I'm with you here. I've been thinking about this for a little while now, and it makes sense if ETH overtakes bitcoin at some point. There's too many negatives about bitcoin and Ethereum itself makes it like a little internet is being built with it.
What good can bitcoin really do now? The transaction fees are crazy (although they are around $1 right now), it's losing vendors and adoption is down, and the transaction speeds are too slow. But at the same time, I get the sense that bitcoin could shoot up out of nowhere at some point. And it's not like Bitcoin can't change either.
One big successful update to the Bitcoin blockchain could change everything. If it could lower the transaction fees way down, bring the speed way up, and get the adoption to increase, then there's no saying where the price of bitcoin could end up. It already has the awareness and the name.
For now the market as a whole seems like a big waiting game.
Hey Cryptovestor. I have a few points, that you didnt explain deeper and I'd like to hear your opinions.
1 - Don't you think that it's kinda reasonable btc's dominance moving down? Market is getting bigger, there are things faster/cheaper than Btc and market (at least some part) already realise that? So it means BTC have to lose it in long term. But I'm not saying btc will die. I'm just an investor and I focus on making money, it's nothing personal.
2 - You kinda answered it with two magical words MASS ADOPTION, and I'm curious why you are still that bullish, once we have things like VEN / ETH / Waves etc. that you already can use for something? Isn't it just an old dogma, that BTC has to be >50?% . I'm also oldschooler, when i came to cryptos in 2013, i bought 8 things and i literally had whole market. So btc #1 , yes i agree, but i'd find an argument that it will slow down, and new projects w reasonable use will take their own (big) parts. Whole my point is basically that we expect cryptos will have some real life USE , but there's lack of it for btc
3 - For what exactly we will need BTC if :
a - you can buy alts w fiat (waves dex, vertbase etc. in the future)
b- you can buy alts w eth / ltc / neo / something random big directly
c- you can SWITCH alts cuz token swaps/atomic swaps etc. ?
d- you can store value/trading capital in something more "boring" and less volatile... I'd say LTC/XRP but it had also crazy action lately, but you get the point
4 - Why exactly you hated mindset w this logic
I have 20 000$, what makes bigger gains?
a) I have alt w reasonable tech, hype, events and it has mcap 100mil, so i think it will double at least
b) I have btc, what's chance to double on 20k$
You said it's bad mindset, maybe im kinda overthinking that, but once im not a new, buying some stupid thing w lambo/moon hype and have some kinda of attitude ( check events, that thing itself, s/r lvl, cap, supply,team behind, is it PnD or not, is it real use/concept, enough hype, grups shilling it etc) ... Why it's just that bad , when i says yes, i think this think will make more than 2x cuz this and that, vs btc (on 20k for example) that needs 2x capital incoming (rougly obv) ..
Thanks for your time and thanks for everything you've helped me it, in your videos.
very good questions and observations, thank you
Nice vid. I agree...gonna have to wait it out with BTC. Doesn't seem like anyone is too sure which direction it's headed. As for VeChain...I like the concept and missed the boat, but there is no way I'm getting in at these prices. It hasn't had a major correction yet. People are way too optimistic on it.
I agree with your thoughts on VEN. I bit into the Raiblocks hype and I bought some at 25 dollars, and now I'm almost 50% down on that investment. Clearly you were right - it wasn't ready for primetime, and a lot of issues came up with it's integration with exchanges that it became clear it was super overvalued.
I think VEN is a promising project, but like all altcoins, as long as it sees barely any usage and all we hear is "partnerships" (I hate that word) then to me it's a shitcoin.
The thing that would have saved you this January is if you moved all of your money into ETH, which has been on an incredible bullrun in January and has very impressively sustained itself around 1000USD. I think ETH is by far the safest investment at the moment, but that could change at any time - we've seen it drop more than 50% before, and I suspect that kind of correction is coming up.
This kind of movement proves a point you've made many times in your video that altcoins are becoming more and more like crummy penny stocks while things that are actually being used (e.g Bitcoin, Ether, Monero, etc.) are the "safe" places to be in corrections like this.
Personally since most of my altcoins are currently at a loss, swapping them out for Ether is not a good move. I just have to hold and wait, unfortunately.
The key is to buy alt coins at a boring time. I bought VeChain a while back. I profited off Tron despite how dreadful a project it is because I bought at four cents. I never even bothered researching Raiblocks because I clearly heard about it too late.
Flight to safety when the market isn't behaving well is never too bad an idea (ironically there is no safe place in crypto, only safer).
that's right
My take is that Bitcoin is in an extended correction, we all know there's constant FUD as we're not the only ones who are wishing for a low entry... there's institutions, and they are really working on it, with new bad news every day. Quite successfully, there's not much trust right now...
Also, there's the TA and Bitcoin is in a triangle, a big one that stretches from December to March, and my guess is that there wont be a major breakout before February 10th. So, relax...
Most TAs are constantly correcting their counts and expect changes from day to day but lets be honest :
We all want lower rates and we'll only be satisfied if the bear market lasts for awhile.
It just wasn't low enough yet, and once it's over we can look forward way more confidently.
If anyone thinks this is the end of the crypto market, I can only say DON'T BE ABSURD. This will be a great year, it just has a late start.
Hi,
Not sure on what you based your horizontal support line here ? It just seems to me that, pre-january 15th, you could as well have decided to draw it on the 11000 line... I myself am kinda holding to the hope that we don't go too close to (or past down) the 8000 (as this is close to my average entry level) and that we'll see a consolidation, but I'm actually wondering if I wouldn't be better off taking the small profits I still can make, pull back a little and wait for a clear market direction.
I'm also quite tempted to compare the actual situation with an oddly similar price action we met in the past :
Euphoria, parabolic rally, double top, severe correction, 'back on track', even more severe 'correction', nice rally (without volume) and then...
Besides the fact that the support line there seems way more solid, imo, with at least 3 to 4 contact points,
at that time the pullback we saw reached 69% down from the top. In today's price, a similar pullback would put us way below the 8000, around 6000k.
Afterwards, that 2014 'compression' ended on a nice +60% rally... before a downtrend that took 2 years to reverse (and passed trough an 86% down from the ATH - today that would mean something like 2600k).
I totally agree on the not-the-end-of-the-crypto-market part, and I also realize the market is not in the same state it was back in 2014, but still I don't think the possibility of a long term bullmarket ahead can be so easily wiped off. What's your take on it ?
PS : I don't know how this will be read so I feel more comfortable clarifying : I'm not trying to antagonize you, here ; I'm trying to have a discussion and would like to have your opinion - amongst others.
Thanks for reading.
I see the triangle as symbolic, only the upper line is important here - I wanted to show people that Bitcoin is in a triangle, or that it can be seen that way - because most don't so far.
If you want a line that touches some more wicks and candles, take the dotted one... the yello just being a horizontal that more or less touches an earlier resistance level and the point where BTC (and most coins with it) bounced at the new low.
It was a decisive bounce. I know because I had been pressing thumbs that it would fall lower, and it didn't happen. Real support lines if you're wary of an imminent further dip, are way lower.
But I haven't looked for them here, I don't fear the dip, I've been waiting for it as long as Mike Novogratz ;)
The blue and green lines are coming from lows in July and November, each touches another low on its way and this is simply where they all meet or get close to meeting, which may or may not be significant, I see them as possible trend lines - I've watched too many tries to determine a trend on a shorter term these last weeks and I think their angles were all aiming way too high.
I've also compared earlier years and I'm aware of the similarities - we should understand that it' s us who are making the market, if we decide that it will be a three year bear market, then exactly that will happen. Posting on steemit will not influence much, but the people who take turns in telling us that "bitcoin may dip to $1000" or "governments will eventually ban cryptos" or "crypto is a bubble, and the bubble is popping" have much greater power but if they're doing this to get a better entry level, then that makes me rather more confident than less.
Because it means that they do NOT want a prolonged bear market at all from a certain point in time onwards.
Apart from that, FUD will only last so long, it didn't have a lot of influence last year and buyer confidence can make it all useless.
All we need is some success, and my guess is we'll see hat in altcoins first, Ripple is breaking out as we speak. It's now testing the upper triangle border for the seventh time within 90 minutes, at $1.35 - just saying. Looks like a must-buy, it can hardly fall much lower than 1.28 and the breakout is a must soon. Ripple often looks good when BTC doesn't but there's no way to be sure., so maybe it will fall to 0.90
I'm mostly interested in Bitcoin as a moodo-meter for the entire market, and though we have a better situation financially/market cap with institutions coming on, BTC has been under direct attack from the BCH miner faction and other parties, and if they get us to seeing this situation like the one in 2014, a wet dream will come true for them.
Curves or no curves, Elliott or Gann, the real game is marketing. Let's do our thing.
For most, that means screaming "market withdrawal!" on youtube or here once a few rates come down, or critique-less hype of an exocoin. The market of the many is not always a good market as it's entirely dominated by senseless herd animal stampedes.
Should be interesting to see if this plays out jojo, thanks for commenting as always.
Hi Crypto Investor, totally unrelated to today's topic, but are you familiar with Cindicator? I'm curious if you have any thoughts on it. Here are mine if anyone is interested...
It seems like Cindicator is offering a decentralized prediction market service very similar to Augur, except Augur has double the market cap ($950 million vs $430 million, and it looks to me like Cindicator has substantially more user activity than Augur.
Whereas Cindicator decides what questions to ask its crowdsourced "analysts", Augur allows anyone to pay Augur tokens to ask the crowd a question. These are two different use cases with different implications, but the big takeaway for me is that I think, for the near-future, Cindicator's top-down control of their questions will allow them to have a much easier time gamifying their platform and keeping users engaged, while Augur will struggle to achieve a critical mass of users.
I think Cindicator has an interesting token benefit structure as well, where you only gain access to their data if you hold a large amount of their coins. Seems like a plausible way to create a virtuous feedback loop between speculators and token holders.
While I'm unsure of how accurate Cindicator's data will be long-term, regardless, crowdsourced market prediction data of this sort seems valuable, especially if you can identify analysts with unusually high prediction accuracy. That seems to be the direction they're going with it.
Anyway, sorry for sharing something off-topic. Just wanted to put it on your radar if you haven't looked into it yet. No reply needed. Thanks for reading!
No, I haven't looked into Cindicator. How far is it into development? If it's not launched yet like Augur, there is yet another option out there which is even smaller - Gnosis. Of course, the reason why is because circulating supply is so much smaller than total supply, so Cindicator might still better.
It's probably better to have fewer questions like Cindicator seems to be doing (based on what you told me) than the scattershot approach Augur is taking where anyone can post them, given both will struggle with adoption. If you don't have a ton of users, the best you can do is concentrate them by having fewer prediction markets.
How is consensus reached on the outcome of an event? Same as Augur or differently? Anyway, maybe I'll look into it at some point. One point I want to say here is that all of these "prediction markets" are fancy gambling platforms, so can be good to look at other gam-ahem prediction markets that exist out there. Thanks for your comment.
First and foremost, I want to tell you I'm finally following your advice and I'm here, on steemit. I'm glad I've found your channel from the very first beginning of my crypto adventure and I was able to be more caucious and retained on my investments as you've always tried to see the other side of the fence.
Secondly, a lot of times these coins are being pumped by different whales or "Pump and dump" telegram groups or so. I've seen this trend going pretty stupidly spread with pumping and dumping coins, people get in there at the end of the pump and tend to lose a lot.
That's true there are a lot of duplicate coins which do not give any true value to the market and I'm really curious upon what we will be seeing in the future months, years. I want to thank you a lot for sharing your wise skepticism with us.
I had some doubts about your "visions" in the past when you were talking about ETH going 75000 satoshis right when it had a drop from 65000 to 55000 and I was already pretty nervous I've followed your advice ( after my personal research and a lot of thinking ), but you were found out to be more than right!
Although I'm still a newbie (~2 months in this world) I still learned a lot by myself and you helped me avoid a lot of mistakes that might have costed if I'd been making them my own.
One last thing I'd like to say, you should really check out Nebulas they want to build a search engine for the blockchain apps. Their main ideology is that in the future there will be a lot of blockchain applications and people won't be able to filter them. Also, Founder and co-founders are founders at Antshare(NEO). I would really appreciate your opinion upon this!
My concern with a project like that is that it assumes there will be a lot of blockchain applications that are actually useful, which has been far and few in-between. The fewer there are, the less required it is given that everyone will just know the "good" ones by name. Haven't looked at it yet though so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Yes, well their project an idea is not projected to the "now" but to the future. Hitters XU makes some intersting comparasions in his presentation of Nebulas at Global Blockchain Summit in Shanghai from aug 2017.
He is comparing the internet 1.0 as the internet in 1997, internet 2.0 as internet in 2007 and internet 3.0 as internet in 2017 talking about the number of apps and users. He made an analogy between internet and blockchain considering Bitcoin - Blockchain 1.0, Ethereum (with the smart contracts ) - Blockchain 2.0 and Nebulas being the Blockchain 3.0 with the search engine.
Of course these comparasion might be exaggerated but I really believe in his vision.