I've been MIA a lot on this account. Real life work is busy, and talking about crypto on a daily basis gets repetitive and boring (especially in a bear market).
However, despite all that, the crypto market is sitting in a really interesting spot right now. Buyers are uncertain, Hodlers are fearful, big money and MSM is manipulating investor emotions, and crypto YouTubers are either defending their existence or being overly optimistic/pessimistic.
That's where the charts come in.
Like the blockchain, the charts can't be changed after the fact. What you see is what you got and what you get.
Here's a mostly vanilla long term chart of Bitcoin, going back to 2012. You should notice the obvious orange trend line. If Bitcoin's price were to drop down and touch that line right now, we'd be looking at a $3500-$3600 price tag. In the scenario that the price dipped that low, a lot of Bitcoin mining operations would go under. The larger mining companies would probably buy their equipment at fire sale prices and get bigger. Welcome to capitalism, and who's to say the bigger mining companies aren't helping this bear market along to squeeze out competition, hmm?
But the above chart doesn't tell the whole story. What the hell is actually going on with Bitcoin?
This next chart adds some interesting insight as to where we are sitting right now. I've added a top trend line, a Fibonacci channel, and some curves. Bitcoin was making people a lot of money up until 2014, with repeated parabolic runs. After 2014, there was a Bear market for about 1.5 years, and then for the next 2.5 years Bitcoin was in a Bull market that ended December 2017. For the first half of 2018, we appear to be in a bear market.
So this is where we sit, and this is where Crypto YouTubers and bloggers get to cut their teeth and earn their stripes. Are we going to repeat what happened between 2014 and 2018, or are we going to see price action that resembles what happened between 2012 and 2014?
I believe there's evidence to suggest we'll see the latter, simply because 2012-2014 saw a lot of price manipulation due to Mt. Gox. We're now seeing Bitcoin move into a mainstream phase where Banks will be selling crypto ETF's (exchange traded funds), and blockchain companies are put to the fire to prove that they can actually be profitable in the real world. shitcoins that have no reason to exist will get shoveled into the furnace, and protocol wars will commence as blockchains actually start competing.
That's what I see for the next few years at least. I think John McAfee isn't wrong about Bitcoin blowing past a Million dollars in value by 2020, and the above chart illustrates that it can happen very fast if a lot of manipulation is involved.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate any comments or resteems. Steem is now reaching fall 2017 prices, which is awesome by the way. I'm still active on Steem but on another account working on a more worthwhile project (in my opinion).
Keep on Steeming!