In my most recent Crush The Street post, I gave an explanation yesterday as to why the bitcoin price was falling, especially after Consensus 2018 (ie. the "bitcoin conference").
My argument was that despite the tremendous interest in bitcoin and major cryptocurrency assets, the entire blockchain industry was still mired with pump-and-dump schemes (of which I consider Tron as one shining example).
Pump-and-dumps occur in every financial market, but they're especially difficult to pull off now in today's "analog" markets. With the SEC vigilant as ever, pump-and-dumps are a surefire way to get you seeing a lot of orange, if you know what I mean.
But with cryptocurrency and altcoin markets? It's easy to pull off because many of these fly-by-night projects are in "friendly" jurisdictions.
Interestingly, I was proven right less than 24 hours later!
As you undoubtedly know, the bitcoin price took a massive dump today, along with almost every other altcoin.
The "official" explanation is that China is cracking down on ICOs. As I just mentioned, many of these ICOs are pump-and-dump schemes. But because the U.S. government has no set mandate on cryptocurrency tokens, the SEC can't do anything substantive.
More to the point, cryptocurrency pump-and-dumpers are headquartered in places like Malta or the Cayman Islands...good luck trying to regulate there!
From CoinTelegraph's article yesterday:
βThe recent selloff has come from the news out of China that the ICO [initial coin offering] market is still very active and there are fears that China will further increase the strict regulation.β
But hold on...didn't we see this exact same thing before?
By golly, we did!
Back in September...SEPTEMBER, folks!...of last year, China cracked down on ALL ICOs! At that time, it sent a massive ripple effect against cryptocurrency markets, sending virtually all tokens sliding.
We have to understand this point very CAREFULLY! -- The bitcoin price is falling on FAKE NEWS!!!
I understand that China cracking down on ICOs isn't fake news technically. But it IS fake news to RECYCLE old news in order to generate fear in the marketplace.
I mean, how the heck do you ban something that's already been banned?
I'm at a loss...
Seriously.
Do people today not remember what happened eight months ago? Has the fluoridated water and the mental programming gone deeper than we could have imagined?
Or are people really this dumb and gullible?