What can I say. That was probably one of the most eye-opening things I have ever read on here. The early Bitcoin adopters were not cut-throat pirate financiers who like to drink babies' blood at the weekends on a full moon. They were wild-eyed libertarian zealots such as sgbett who have seriously lucked out. I made a 'near term price prediction' thread when Bitcoin was hovering at 790, telling people to go long Bitcoin, then short at 815-820 range. Bitcoin then done exactly as I predicted, at which point sgbett jumped into the thread and had a rant at my day-trading antics telling me that I should just be buying as many Bitcoins as I possibly can at these prices cos Bitcoin is going to $10K. Someone who bought Bitcoin at $1, getting ratty at someone successfully day-trading Bitcoin and demanding that the daytrader buy as many Bitcoins as he can, at $800!!

Very telling!

I thought that perhaps he had ran into the blatant bulltrap. Perhaps it is more that fact that him and a few of his cronies set-up the bulltrap, that absolutely nobody walked into and are now a few Bitcoins/USD shorter than they were before. It took a volume of about 5000 BTC (on Bistampt) to ramp bitcoin from 790 - 817, yet just 500 BTC to bring it back down to 795. I don't believe for a minute that fresh capital is what caused Bitcoin to surge up from 790. It was USD from existing whales, trying to kickstart market. Joe Bloggs proved he wasn't so stupid to fall for it when we got up to the huge ask walls at the £820 range. Absolutely zero interest whatsoever.

The zealot theory as opposed to my financial shark theory could also explain the huge stage managed cash-outs being triggered as a result of the engineered frustration of free market price discovery. The whales need ammunition (USD) to throw at coming battles below.

In reality, there will be both sharks and zealots and all other kinds of political implications and interests at work in the higher echelons of Bitcoin or affecting Bitcoin. One thing is clear, is that the public interest in Bitcoin is dead for now. All that is going to prevent Bitcoin from tanking from these wildly overinflated prices achieved on relatively very low volume, is a prevailing of the HODL mentality amongst the well heeled Bitcoin classes. But there is just one problem with that. China.

I would also surmise that if Wall St capital is preparing to get into Bitcoin (a big IF), then those market players will do whatever they can to bring the Bitcoin price down as much as they can so they can take an as proficient an entry as they possibly can......cos that is what they do. It is their job. I wouldnt be surprised if we see a Bitcoin slaughter so big, that it causes even the fattest most zealous whales to squeel and drop a shit ton of coin into Wall St koffers.