Thanks, I agree -- those are very informative.
Glad those posts helped.
The situation doesn't seem to have changed for the better. Numerous factors are driving money out of the crypto market at the moment, and it doesn't helped that Tether Ltd. has resumed printing of USDT. They're up to 3.2 billion USDT in circulation. Does anyone really think Tether Ltd. has acquired $1 billion in backing assets after coming under the scrutiny of the CFTC? Where are they getting the money? Though it is interesting that the market isn't responding positively to the printing of more USDT as it has in the past.
The DoJ has gotten into the act as well by investigating exchanges, including USDT-happy Bitfinex and GDAX (which has nothing at all to do with Tether).
Sadly, the prolonged nature of the CFTC investigation along with the involvement of the DoJ means that it may take awhile for the Feds to conclude anything. Personally I predict that the market will tank either way. Continued delays will make the decline slow and painful. Should the CFTC rule USDT to be generally fraudulent, the decline will be more swift. I just don't see a lot of upside for the market as a whole until the dust clears. Outside money does not seem to want to enter the market until there's some restoration in investor confidence. It's hard to know which crypto projects are valued correctly right now.
On the plus side, there will be some nice buys soon. Pick projects with strong technological fundamentals and snap them up when they get cheap. A few projects may have already bottomed out, and if you do just a tiny bit of research on historical pricing, you can probably tell which ones. Personally I am tempted to jump in with some "play" money soon, though every time I think my target has reached a floor, it just gets lower. Can't say I'm too disappointed (sorry, HODLers). Anyone hoping to enter the market or increase their stack during the current bear market should look at HODL times of 6-12 months at least (IN MY OPINION) since it may take awhile for the market to recover. I do not have any fun charts with alligators on them to prove my point. I'm just looking at market history and going off the noise coming from the no-coiner world. It's going to take a significant amount of capital investment in crypto to send it back to Jan 2018 levels. We will hopefully not see any more USDT-like shenanigans in future market valuations.
Dunno what to tell you if you are already HODLing, though it's probable that the market will go through its spasms and wind up higher by this time next year. Maybe. Some projects won't make it though, and it could get real ugly for Bitcoin and its various clones. I also have serious doubts about NEM. But boy is it getting cheap.
Those of you who are ETH veterans from 2016 have experienced similarly agonizing markets. You can try to time the market, sell now, and buy back in at a lower point, and I am almost tempted to tell you to do that (since it's really quite likely that the Feds will do something to make the markets tank), but again we don't know how much money will enter the market between now and the conclusion of the CFTC investigation. Strange things can happen in the cryptoverse. Maybe it will go back up to $700 or so, and then dip to $500 after the investigation is complete. What profit comes from selling your stack in that scenario? Or it could drop to $100 or less with zero upside between now and the post-CFTC floor. You just don't know! Which is the exciting, fun, and scary part of it all.
And if you try to set an exchange stop-loss, a stop-loss hunter may eat your lunch.
Good luck. I won't be posting much due to busy schedule blah blah blah but I'll lurk as time permits.