Ever since the CME opened, we have seen negative days -- every day -- except a day on which the CME was not open (Saturday the 23rd).
The CME resumes trading in 30 minutes. I suspect we will see another negative day.
Correlation is not causation.
Then what are you doing on the Speculation forum?
There is the idea that futures might reduce demand. The price action is consistent with that. Let's wait and see.
If they actually want BTC prices to go down, along with the direction of their bet, they have to buy BTC in order to be able to sell it, no?
you can short bitcoin with cash, though you may borrow btc to do so (from lenders who wouldn't be selling otherwise).
That is true. Some people do use those kinds of shorting services to borrow BTC and to short in that way, but I still say good luck if you believe that kind of system is going to work to cause bitcoin's price to crash at these prices and with the levels of capital that is likely to come into the space and the number of coins that would likely need to be borrowed in order to support such price declines, as compared with the likely number of coins to be bought as compared to sold.
I know some people are expecting that BTC prices are going to go down because of various kinds of shorting and these kinds of ambitions of BIG capital to drive BTC prices down; however, I doubt that ambition and the ability to borrow coins alone is going to accomplish the desired downward price movements.
I personally believe those kinds of downward BTC price betters are going to get R3ckt, and it is more likely that we are going to need a decent amount of BTC price going UP first, before the shorters are going to be able to have success in their ambitions... perhaps 1 year of accumulation and price appreciation at minimum, but perhaps could take 3 years or more before they are going to have sufficient tools in place.