I've been reading a lot of articles lately about the supposed speculative price of bitcoin and how the current price is a bubble and due for correction. I disagree vehemently.
First of all, I watched the price of Bitcoin soar to above $11,000 this morning. Not coincidentally, I also saw problems on the Coinbase website. My assessment of the situation is that because a major exchange had problems this morning, it caused the prices elsewhere to go up because the demand could not be met, driving up prices. After people started realizing what was going on with Coinbase (from what I can see was due to a problem at CloudFlare) the price adjusted itself back down.
This does not suggest a speculative surge. Quite the opposite. This is market conditions, plain and simple.
Second, the introduction of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in August suggests that people in the Bitcoin community saw the writing on the wall with the forking of the blockchain, and started buying up Bitcoin in advance to ensure their wallets were sufficiently fat to see a huge ROI when it forked. Because BCH is a fork, it's inevitable that the value of BCH will go up alongside Bitcoin, with prices fluctuating in tandem with other cryptocurrencies. Looking at the charts at Coinbase for cryptocurrencies, you can see the ups and downs for all cryptocurrencies occurring in near unison.
This tells me that the cryptocurrency market work just like other fiat currency markets around the world. What affects one affects the many.
It's my opinion that the forking of the blockchain and the introduction of BCH is one of the best things to happen with cryptocurrencies in a long time. Mainly because it adds a new, highly valuable and easily marketable cryptocurrency to the mix, further ensuring the longevity and viability of cryptocurrencies. But it also causes miners to choose what to mine. This means fewer hashes on each network, further increasing the value of each of them and decreasing the likelihood that there will be a bubble to burst.
One last thing to consider is the identities of the naysayers. All of them are long time players in finance who are heavily vested in the fiat markets. They don't fully understand cryptocurrencies, which are a direct threat to their livelihood, careers, and worldviews. A similar phenomenon occurs in academia when new ideas are introduced that challenge the old ways of thinking. Those vested in the old ways will fight against the new ideas because they represent a threat.
So for me, I'm going to hold it, mine in, buy it, and spend it.
