If anything, the news stories about crypto seem to be positive today. So can anyone tell me what causes dips like this?
Finding out the cause behind a crash is not the correct approach always. Many times the real cause can never be found and for such reasons instead of wasting time on trying to find out the cause you have to take some precautions from before hand.
First thing is that if you believe a certain project is going to do good, meaning you have faith in it, you would not sell at the dump but when the dump happens you will buy it more. The reason behind the crash might be something sinister but then crypto is a wild west and you will not have anything to recover losses. That is one bad thing about investing in altcoins not bitcoin.
Also, at what point are you guys prepared to sell to protect against a crash?
If you have faith in the project you will not sell. Chances of lacking faith is common though, specially for altcoins which is why thing question creeps up. Anyway me being a bitcoin maximal, I would buy bitcoin if it goes down. ETH, I would not sell easily and defenitely at a loss. Rest of the altcoins are less than 1% in my folio.
Do most of you have sell stop orders on the books to protect against a crash?
Some traders might do this. However mechanically posting an order like that might make you lose out in case the price rises just after the dump while you sleep. Again that is a tradeoff so cant argue about that,