Wall street and bankers are bitcoin's enemies.
As a means of maintaining value, in the present bitcoin has been defeated. On 12/17/17 btc=$19379 and today 7/11/18 btc=$6345. A drop of $13034 or $501/week. I bailed when I looked at the slope and the previous 2 weeks saw 5.05%/week drop. Right now the the $501/week average amounts to 2.57%/week.
One would be an idiot to leave money as bitcoin while it's losing value at 2.57%/week.
Bitcoin's enemies did this. Wall street brokers and bankers used media to boost the value of bitcoin approaching 12/17/2017, when trading in bitcoin futures took effect, then casting shade driving bitcoin down, classic pump an dump.
I tried buying a few stocks years ago when my bank allowed trading. I figured oh, no traders to deal with, I was wrong. Buying a few stock saw unexpected fees that made the whole exercise a bust. This was years before bitcoin. And moving money, the international fees were horrible. That's why Wall Street brokers and bankers couldn't allow bitcoin to stabilize and rise in value. They don't want our money in btc. As fiat currencies increasingly continue to be watered down while money is pumped to the top 1%, the fixed quantity of bitcoin should only allow it to win. At least that was the case until bitcoin futures trading took effect.
Will eliminating bitcoin futures trading fix it? Big deposits and withdrawals will still work to pump money out even without bad press to drive value down. Still, stopping futures trading will kill the incentive for some bad press.
Early on bitcoin was the place to be when there was trouble. That sure changed. Right now with trade wars a reality one would think money would be heading to bitcoin in a big way. Why isn't it? Who's ox was getting gored that that changed?
soy39
(the 39 unrelated to red lining implications - though that 17/17 does bring a pair of grim reapers to mind)