Let's take out all the BTC hysteria that started during The Thanksgiving Weekend. Before we all sat down to talk turkey (and then eat it), BTC seemed to behave "rationally". It was going up and down and all around, and that can be attributed to "reasonable" investors - those who were the starters in the game, the early adopters, the crazy nephews fighting The Man from the basement fortress in Aunt Gracie's condo. ICOs were adding excitement, and took BTC, so people bought to buy in to whatever was the altcoin de'jour. We'll call these folks Lucy.
And then, by the time the turkey dinner turned into turkey sandwiches some time around the third quarter of Lucy's favorite college bowl game, let's call the rest of the folks "Bob". And Bob had heard all about this fake magic interwebz money that is worth a gahbadjillion dollars and is going to be worth twice that in 10 minutes. And Lucy talked about how it's really not that weird, but the blockchain keeps a record of all transactions through cryptography mined in airplane hangers in Russia because, heck, you know, there's nothing that really backs the dollar or gold or Monopoly money anyway, so Bitcoin will be the currency of the future!
Bob didn't have a clue what that meant, but hey, he didn't have to understand how it works, as long as that nephew in Aunt Gracie's condo basement can get his Coinbase account approved in time to get some Bitcoin. That happened a few weeks later, and BTC was now running a few $X THOUSAND more than at Thanksgiving, but heck, it'll probably go up another thousand by next week, and he'll use that to fund Christmas presents. At least that's what Lucy's friend that does "technical analysis" (whatever that is) says, so I'll give it a try.
And it worked. Bob wasn't a millionaire like Lucy, but he made that thousand dollars because he had learned how to HODL. So he bought some more, because why not, it worked last time. Oh, and there's some other crypto called Ethereum / Litecoin / Ripple / Monero / whatever, and that is going to moon in a lambo!, so let's toss a hundred dollars at that one, because that's all he had left on his credit card.
And THAT worked. Bob had bought a few dollars worth of Crapcoin, and geez, it really had mooned a gahbadjillion percent! And ICOs gives bonus amounts if I buy before Thursday, and that one exchange in Faraway-istan has Bitcoin for less than the price on Whatever dot com, and it seems like there are a bunch of other ways to make crazy mad wealth.
And the whole time, Lucy really had become a millionaire, even though she wasn't telling many people about it. At least on paper, and with seven clicks through his exchange & broker, that money would be in her bank account. Except she HODL-ed, and made more money.
And it kept happening daily. Hourly. Minutely. Until mid-January.
BTC tickled $20K, and that became the All-Time-High. The Bitpocalypse started, and now Lucy and Bob were loosing money as fast as they had made it. It's just FUD, there's no more FOMO, hodl Hodl HODL to the end! But the sell-zombies marched, and broke the floors, and the ceilings, and the floor again, and left carnage in their wake. They popped up in Korea, and in Japan, and maybe Russia is or isn't FUD-ing. And they marched, and grew, and The End of the World came.
But it wasn't. All of this was anti-FUD. It really was the Tullip Mania, and oh, yeah, that purchase of a million Bumpcoin was a taxable event, so maybe I need to sell something to pay, and do it before it goes down more. And for a thousand other reasons, the destruction rolled on.
So here we are. The trendline channel of the bid/ask spread BEFORE Thanksgiving could be considered the real trajectory of BTC. We're sitting at the bottom of that now, so the conclusion? If we breach the floor of the trendline channel, we are literally uncharted territory. Elliot Wave and Dow Theory and Fibonacci retracements may or may not foretell the future, for only Time will tell.
And then, by the time the turkey dinner turned into turkey sandwiches some time around the third quarter of Lucy's favorite college bowl game, let's call the rest of the folks "Bob". And Bob had heard all about this fake magic interwebz money that is worth a gahbadjillion dollars and is going to be worth twice that in 10 minutes. And Lucy talked about how it's really not that weird, but the blockchain keeps a record of all transactions through cryptography mined in airplane hangers in Russia because, heck, you know, there's nothing that really backs the dollar or gold or Monopoly money anyway, so Bitcoin will be the currency of the future!
Bob didn't have a clue what that meant, but hey, he didn't have to understand how it works, as long as that nephew in Aunt Gracie's condo basement can get his Coinbase account approved in time to get some Bitcoin. That happened a few weeks later, and BTC was now running a few $X THOUSAND more than at Thanksgiving, but heck, it'll probably go up another thousand by next week, and he'll use that to fund Christmas presents. At least that's what Lucy's friend that does "technical analysis" (whatever that is) says, so I'll give it a try.
And it worked. Bob wasn't a millionaire like Lucy, but he made that thousand dollars because he had learned how to HODL. So he bought some more, because why not, it worked last time. Oh, and there's some other crypto called Ethereum / Litecoin / Ripple / Monero / whatever, and that is going to moon in a lambo!, so let's toss a hundred dollars at that one, because that's all he had left on his credit card.
And THAT worked. Bob had bought a few dollars worth of Crapcoin, and geez, it really had mooned a gahbadjillion percent! And ICOs gives bonus amounts if I buy before Thursday, and that one exchange in Faraway-istan has Bitcoin for less than the price on Whatever dot com, and it seems like there are a bunch of other ways to make crazy mad wealth.
And the whole time, Lucy really had become a millionaire, even though she wasn't telling many people about it. At least on paper, and with seven clicks through his exchange & broker, that money would be in her bank account. Except she HODL-ed, and made more money.
And it kept happening daily. Hourly. Minutely. Until mid-January.
BTC tickled $20K, and that became the All-Time-High. The Bitpocalypse started, and now Lucy and Bob were loosing money as fast as they had made it. It's just FUD, there's no more FOMO, hodl Hodl HODL to the end! But the sell-zombies marched, and broke the floors, and the ceilings, and the floor again, and left carnage in their wake. They popped up in Korea, and in Japan, and maybe Russia is or isn't FUD-ing. And they marched, and grew, and The End of the World came.
But it wasn't. All of this was anti-FUD. It really was the Tullip Mania, and oh, yeah, that purchase of a million Bumpcoin was a taxable event, so maybe I need to sell something to pay, and do it before it goes down more. And for a thousand other reasons, the destruction rolled on.
So here we are. The trendline channel of the bid/ask spread BEFORE Thanksgiving could be considered the real trajectory of BTC. We're sitting at the bottom of that now, so the conclusion? If we breach the floor of the trendline channel, we are literally uncharted territory. Elliot Wave and Dow Theory and Fibonacci retracements may or may not foretell the future, for only Time will tell.