3.  i think since June, Pantera used it's known considerable BTC resources obtained in the early days of Bitcoin, to sell/short down the market with a bot and occasional 1000 BTC chunks, keying off known bulls like myself to knock the market down with the goal of causing a whale or whales to finally capitulate, at which time they'd buy back the sold coins or cover shorted coins back at a cheaper price, at what turned out to be in this case @$300.  i doubt they had a specific price point; they were simply hunting for a large selloff source from a weak whale.

4.  a large economic actor like Pantera could afford to hire forum and Reddit trolls to help talk down the price.  no matter what anyone says, this type of trolling is effective in destroying confidence.  it is also well known that when there are big price moves either way ppl come to these meeting places to find out what's going on.  the fact that Severro, antibitcoinconsortium, falllling, etc. have all abruptly disappeared since Sunday indicate to me they were on hire by someone with substantial resources to manipulate the market.

5.  Pantera Capital is the major investor in Bitstamp and clearly has a close relationship with its founders.  only they would have the resources and confidence to leave large amounts of BTC and fiat on an unregulated exchange awaiting opportunities, manufactured or otherwise, considering what happened to mtgox clients.  

now it's time for them to talk the price up with bullish reports.

i welcome any thoughts or criticisms.