I'm selling my ETH before the hard fork tomorrow.
I've been in bitcoin since 2011, and I've been trading altcoins since 2013. I caught a lot of major rises along the way, lots of 10X - 100X moves.
I'm not a TA guy, in fact I had no trading experience before trading crypto currency. I've developed a feel for the altcoin markets...thankfully I'm right more often than I'm wrong, which is why I'm still trading =P
I've developed a trend following trading style over the years - I don't get attached to any specific coin ... however, for some reason I broke my rules with Ethereum and I am over-exposed to the upcoming hard fork.
That's why I'm selling all of my ETH today.
Since I'm not a technical analysis guy, or a fundamentals guy, I am taking my advice to get out of ETH before the hard for from some traders I trust in a couple of skype mastermind groups I'm in.
The consensus seems to be that there's too much uncertainty with the hard fork.
Reason 1:
There very well could be 2 winning chains in the end.
The chain with the most work will be supported as the official "Ethereum" chain by the exchanges (Kraken, Poloniex, etc) however the other chain is probably not going to just die off.
That unofficial chain that does not have the most work will probably live on...the people on that chain will hold their value and they will abandon the main chain. There's pressure on Kraken and the other exchanges to provide a trading market for the Ethereum chain that doesn't win.
What does this mean?
Well, it means that the value of the ETH token could be easily split in half. Half on the main chain, and half on the unofficial chain which ends up being supported by exchanges (if there's enough miners supporting it, and pressure on the exchanges.)
We could easily see $6-$7 tomorrow (0.010/BTC) if panic sets in. The chart shows some very large buyers at $5, which really means that there's some large profit taking shorts at $5. The smart money is lining up to short ETH, betting that it will drop significantly in the next week.
If the bottom falls out, it will drop fast, just like it dropped from $20 to $10 last month after the DAO exploit news came out.
This scenario of a 50% drop in value is not even factoring in The DAO, where the lead developer just quit.
Reason 2
More than 12 million ETH is going to be released back to people who bought into the DAO.
Think about that.
In the next 4-5 days, an additional $120,000,000 worth of ETH tokens will be back in the hands of nervous ETH investors who will most likely want to exit for USD or more likely, BTC.
The 24 hour volume of ETH is around $13,000,000 - so even if only 10% of the DAO ETH gets placed on the market, what do you think will happen to the price?
There will be a lot more selling than buying, and the price will probably go down.
I hope this helps.
On the flip side, I'm a trend trader, so if I see the price of ETH start to rise, I'm going buy back in once it hits a new 3 day high.
hard fork count down:
On the flip side, a successful hard fork will re-introduce confidence into the system. Keep in mind that Ether already suffered a 50% drop following the disruption, so the concerns that you point out may already be baked into the price.
this is FUD, especially closing with "I hope this helps someone avoid a major loss."
As if the price won't recover and the ecosystem will not continue on its previous growth trajectory.
good call - I changed the ending to point out the possibility of a rise in price, and to state that I will buy back in if the price starts rising.