Faith...

What's going on in the Crypto Market ?
(some asshole already unfollowed me on this, don't hesitate unfollowing me, guys if reality is more than you can bear). Que solo estoy de paso aqui...

Crypto is as much theoretical as culture is, as what we call "human intelligence" is, it's backed by 1) people with vision who see the long term benefits and want independence from the dominating banking system run by the 0.01%, 2) people who only "buy green" and have recently jumped on the train because it grew exponentially, 3) institutions who also see technical and organizing benefits while they hate the part that might hurt their dominance, because the come from institutions = the 0.01%.

End of year growth became exponential with the expectation of institutional flood of investment into the cryptosphere, but that didn't really happen. Instead, institutions decided to spread FUD and try to let this dry up again, from sheer human psychology - the December correction was in part "healthy," but the power play between "different bitcoins" propagators irritated customers, the overall FUD kept coming, and it seems they all managed to torpedo customer morale to a degree that enabled a prolonged bear market.

You have to understand that only faith will drive theoretical constructs that get human evolution ahead, and that theoretical constructs will only ever affect those who are able to understand them... crypto currencies are more complex than Allah, which is why billions of the not-so-bright believe in religions, while only a few million are even able to continuously believe in the crypt currency concept, because they actually understamd it. The rest don't understand anything, they won't ever, and so must follow the leaders - humans are simply herd animals who always run where the many are running.

So, as these people bought green while there was green, many lost quite a percentage of their funds, and they're now very scared and totally sans morale (when morale would be the one thing that could totally turn the situation around and save them). After all, they're not organized, they're individuals - where the one human strength is organization, it's "every man for himself" for most of them now, so panic is rife among these little investors.

This is what the institutions need - nothing can go wrong for them - evolution hardwired the species and institutions know how they will react. So they wait and see and keep spreading FUD, and they will either get into the mart and literally buy it up, or they'll create their own coins that all the chickens will surely later use because their leaders designed them, like they use fiat - as nothing else is available... and the cryptocurrencies will be left to the true understanders, developers and believers who initially backed them up.

This means that prices for all cryptos will drop towards rock bottom and then probably reassemble at the proce level of a year ago or so, those that survive, with the exception of a few which have real world use (not just prospect of use), and this is why ETH is doing better than BTC, as an example.
I don't know that much about the individual ICOs to tell which coins really have a future, I would say XLM does and ETH also does, with several of its derivatives. Dash, Litecoin maybe. You have to evaluate real life application and international interest, then vision - vision alone is entirely irrelevant in this situation.

So far, this hasn't happened and we all hope it won't, and there's still a receding possibility that institutional investors are only waiting for low prices to buy and join the crowd. I just don't think that will happen anytime soon, because the concept of staying away is working beautifully, human psychology is once again living up to its dreaded historical lows, and caution is more virtuous than patience.
Oh - steemit - is that a real life application ? Yes, but steemit is a little shithole of a social network that seems to have been launched to pump the coin and then was left unattended. You cant even find replies to your own comments here in longer threads, there's greedy, psychopathic little prole mafias ruling it...
IQ levels are low, as everybody is here to make a few bucks only, issues of higher aspiration simply cannot be discussed.
Facebook and others will take over what's good about the concept, other more expert new networks also will - so, don't count on steem to stay above the fray.

Bitshares ? No idea. Why would anyone trust an external exchange that might go offline any day, just because it's offshore ? Tax evaders maybe, just as illegals will keep Monero afloat. I do see chances for Stellar Lumens, as they are a free token that could be useful to many organizations, states and individuals and already have good application history, while I don't see such benefits for Ripple - the banks will use it for awhile and then find something else.
So here we sit, waiting for the institutions to decide our fate, right ? What will they do ?

That's about it for today. I typed it here, so I'll also post it here - but nobody will of course read it as they are all still following the Massive Prophets. That's steemit for you - but the text is good for all the other networks I'm on.
Just thought I'd let you know. Be well !
See ya ;)