I would suggest it is based off of a lot of new money entering the market over the last months and combined with people who have become savvy "investors".
I believe it starts with a minor drop (probably caused by legitimate profit taking or a random piece of "bad" news) and causes new investors to "panic sell" their coins (thus lowering the price even more).
Older and experienced investors then sell their stacks in the hopes of buying back in lower (sound strategy, if you know what you are doing). That decrease in price drives even more selloffs until steady hands can't pass up the opportunity to buy even more coins.
Eventually we will find the bottom and start all over again.
I believe this is the new "normal". We don't have office hours, we have scant regulation, and limited oversight; we just have each other--a global community.
People often say they want freedom, I suspect what they really want is comfortable prisons with "certified" people looking over them; as for me--I prefer a dangerous liberty. @dollarvigilante