Beg to disagree. We're in the most brutal bear market bitcoin has seen so far (2011 was more drastic in price change alone, but measure by price change and duration, 2014 to now is much worse I'd say).

What else could this forum look like in a state like that?

If you re-visit threads from the first half of 2014, you'll see the old bullish regulars declaring with full conviction that the bottom *must* be in now. Plenty of posts with the usual log-linear extrapolations to 1000s of $ per coin were posted again.

The failed May/July reversal really changed that optimistic outlook. Until the next, even bigger capitulation in October. Then the reversal after that one failed as well. New capitulation, January, even lower price, even higher volume. And it's not at all clear to me where we're heading right now.

My point is, in a deep bear market like this, what do you expect the long-term Bitcoin believers to post? Predictions about impending reversals? Done that, and failed. Pat each other on the back for not being affected yet because their entry price was in the single digits? That happens occasionally, and it provokes a justified backlash.

So the bears, on the market and in the subforum are running the show for now. I agree that probably quite a few of them are disingenuous, in the sense that they're not really here to "warn the delusional bulls" about the price decline. But whatever the reasons are for them to post here, they use the same hyperbole the bulls rely on when the market is up.

That's where I see the similarity: if you can't acknowledge bitcoin might fail after all, it's not much better in my view than if you can't acknowledge it might succeed (and price will recover). Everything between those two extremes is a valid opinion, and I like reading it usually.