Market Manipulation or Price Suppression? ... Or none of the above?

Market manipulation or price suppression: a much debated topic the past few weeks and months. After a parabolic rise to an all time high of almost $20,000 late december 2017, prices of all crypto-currencies dropped hard, with some of them dropping 90% in a matter of weeks. During this time we've seen many theories arise, looking to calm the minds of all those who bought in near the highs and have since seen their investment melt away in the proverbial blink of an eye. Answers had to be presented to first explain and then combat this horrible downtrend...

Two stories in particular gained massive traction. First there was the story about Nobuaki Kobayashi, the Trustee of Mt Gox, who sold $400,000,000 of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash since december 2017. Many articles and YouTube videos blamed Kobayashi for Bitcoin's downfall, despite there also being many articles pointing out there's no correlation whatsoever.

Most recently there's the theory about The Cartel, by @supercypto1. While there's a lot of things in his article that I fully agree with (yes, market manipulation is real), there's no real reason to assume prices are suppressed, much like in the case of Mt Gox before. Yes, prices started dropping right after the futures started trading in december 2017, and yes, similar things happened with the prices of uranium, silver and gold. But that only shows there's a correlation maybe, and doesn't guarantee actual causation.

I'm glad I know a YouTuber who can explain this much better than me, and I'd like to invite you to watch DataDash's video on this topic "Is Bitcoin being suppressed by a cartel?":

What I want to say is this: don't panic. Better days are coming. Nothing has fundamentally changed since december last year. The blockchain technology and its use cases haven't moved an inch. In fact: most news about the fundamentals was good in 2018 until now. There's no crash, there's only a much needed correction; there was nothing but the hype surrounding the CBOE and CME futures supporting the rise from around $7,000 to almost $20,000. Nothing at all. Here's the conclusion of the december 11th article on fortune.com:

"It’s hard to say for sure how bitcoin prices will be impacted by the price of futures, though investors generally should expect to see futures prices come together when the contract settle.

It’s also thought that shorting bitcoin, which several major financial powerhouses such as J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon have dubbed a “bubble.” would be easier through bitcoin futures. But so far, given the massive demand for bitcoin futures in the few days they have been trading, it’s still unclear how that theory will pan out."

As far as I can see this is exactly where we are now: we're seeing future contracts settle and the Bitcoin price comes back to the price right before the hype. From here on we should be able to go back up, and also see Bitcoin's price be a lot less volatile; isn't that what Leo Melamed meant when he said "We'll Tame Bitcoin"?

Sit back and relax; don't panic about the market cap. Tamed or not, it'll come back.

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