While it tends to be in my experience in this subforum as a lurker that this is no place for discussion of any depth, I am making an attempt. Indeed, that is to be tangentially relevant to the theme of this topic.
I am consistently astonished at the lack of understanding of the Bitcoin ecosystem and markets in general from users who have stuck through many cycles, and others who claim and otherwise air a general sense of economic learning. Case:
I am consistently astonished at the lack of understanding of the Bitcoin ecosystem and markets in general from users who have stuck through many cycles, and others who claim and otherwise air a general sense of economic learning. Case:
What are you? Some kind of mock-Victorian dandy, with long frilly shirt cuffs?
With all your flowery and pretentious language, not to say deeply arrogant and self-obsessed, you are making one fundamental flaw.
All of your thinking around behavioural finance, and in particular endogenous cycles due to herd behaviour, are based on experience from real commodity markets, equity markets and foreign exchange markets. All of these underlying assets have a real value - an anchor - to the wider economy.
Forgive me if my speech style comes across as odd. English is not my first language. Other Germanic languages have held closer to the grammar and syntax of older variations of English, so I am mildly amused by your characterisation
. I also am partial to the natural expressiveness of English as that is mostly absent therefrom, so please bear with my pomp 
. Of course I do not mean to come across as arrogant. It just feels a deep shame to witness the state of the forum at a time when Bitcoin as a project is really flourishing.Now, I must correct you in your false assumption. My experience comes mainly from observation of the Bitcoin price specifically. To counter your point, that I have truncated from the quote, there is plenty reason to believe that the price will bounce back, as it has many times before. Putting it in perspective, I was lurking the forums and studying the price back when Pirate was a celebrity and the 12,00 BTCUSD rate was something to be excited about, even as it had not advanced beyond the 33,00 BTCUSD bubble peak of previous summers. More perspective can be gained from remembering the the BTCUSD rate was 1/4 of what it is today, even yet, in this time of near desperation, just 1 year ago.
I see that you are a relative newcomer. For this I cannot fault you your pessimistic attitude, and I can appreciate that you seem to have a competent outlook which by itself is better than most. I urge you to take not a closer look but a broader view of the price graph at this moment. The overarching upwards trend has not yet been broken. This bear market can be depressing, but its contours should not be surprising. All of the action since the peak earlier this year obeys basic technical rules of price behavior, as I pointed to in the topic head, specifically the shape of a market in consolidation.
The reason I have "called the bottom" with such confidence is because even the intermediate contours since the peak have exhibited scale-invariance. If we look at the movement from the peak to the recent low, and then from the peak of the smaller rally to the present low, we see striking similarity. I am not calling for a resumption of the upwards movement towards a new ATH, but only a shorter-term reversal and another iteration of this pattern. This is currently playing out at the exchanges as I type.
Most of the "speculation" that goes on around these parts seems wildly misinformed, myopic, and unelephantine. It would do the community a great deal of good to take a little focus. Panicked and/or greedy traders which do not understand even the basics of the protocol do not make rational market participants. This increases risk, general unpleasantness, and negative reputation.