5 Big Bitcoin Crashes

As Bitcoin takes another fall ahead crackdown by South Korean government, presented here are Bitcoin price data from last ten days:

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5 Big Bitcoin Crashes

1: The Meltdown of April 2013

What happened: In the spring of 2013, a ghastly collapse saw the price of bitcoin fall from $233 to $67—overnight! That’s a 71% drop. It would take seven months to recover.



Why it happened: The crash of April 2013 came after bitcoin’s first big brush with the mainstream. The currency had never crossed $30 before 2013 but a flood of media coverage helped drive it well above $200. The crash, which followed two smaller jolts in March, reflected in part a correction to speculator exuberance. Some also attribute it to an outage at Mt. Gox, the most popular (at the time) exchange for buying and selling bitcoin.

2: Pop Goes the 2013 Bubble

What happened: Bitcoin spent most of the rest of 2013 around $120. Then prices jumped ten-fold in the fall: Bitcoin hit a high of $1,150 in late November and then the party ended abruptly, and prices tumbled below $500 by mid-December. It would take more than for years for bitcoin to reach $1,000 again.



Why it happened: The crazy price run up of late 2013 appears to have been a classic bubble as amateur investors rushed into bitcoin for the first time. The frenzy was helped by regulators taking a more positive view of bitcoin (in the early years, most regarded it as criminal—if they had heard of it at all), and by U.S. exchanges like Coinbase that made it easier for average people to buy bitcoin. When the bubble popped, prices would likely have recovered more quickly but for what happened next.

3: The Mt. Gox Calamity of 2014

What happened: The price of bitcoin had been making big gains after the bubble pop of 2013 when, in February, the price fell from $867 to $439 (a 49% drop). This triggered a doldrums period for bitcoin that lasted until late 2016.



Why it happened: The February crash came after the operator of Mt. Gox—long the go-to trading place for longtime bitcoin owners—announced the exchange had been hacked. On February 7, the exchange halted withdrawals, and later revealed thieves had made off with 850,000 bitcoins (which would be worth around $3.5 billion today). The incident, which created existential doubts about the security of bitcoin and undercut liquidity in the currency, likely harmed the currency’s value for years.

4: Summer Selloff of 2017

What happened: Fast forward to the go-go days of 2017. In early January, bitcoin broke $1,000 for the first time in years and started climbing like crazy. By June, the currency nudged $3,000—but then lurched back all of a sudden, falling 36% to $1,869 by mid-July.



Why it happened: Even as bitcoin boomed anew, many worried something was wrong with the code under the hood. Specifically, bitcoin was slow compared to other crypto-currencies like Litecoin and Ethereum, and its core developers couldn’t come to an agreement on how to update the software. This raised the prospect of a “fork” (which would produce two versions of bitcoin’s canonical blockchain) and future schisms, which in turn appeared to give rise to market jitters and the big fall in price. Ironically, such a fork did materialize in August in the form of rival Bitcoin Cash—but this seems to have done no longterm harm to bitcoin.

5: The Great China Chill

What happened: After fears over the fork subsided, bitcoin went on another crazy tear: It climbed close to $5,000 at the start of September before plunging 37% by September 15, shaving off over $30 billion from bitcoin’s total market cap in the process. A recovery is already underway, though, as prices climbed above $4,000 three days later.



Why it happened: While bitcoin price moves can be inscrutable, the prime reason for the latest crash can be summed up in one word: China. After it cracked down on so-called “Initial Coin Offerings,” there have been widespread rumors the Communist government is going to ban trading crypto-currency altogether. In response, the most prominent exchange, BTCChina, said it will end trading this month. This crackdown, combined with questions about China’s de facto monopoly on bitcoin mining, explains the recent price swoon.

Bitcoin Price History

This website "https://bitcointicker.co/" gives bitcoin price history very well but if you are still interested in doing your own analysis, here are bitcoin price history sheets in CSV format that can be opened in MS Excel for user friendly tabular view. The prices are 'Last price' in US Dollars, time is Indian Standard Time (UTC+05:30) and frequency is one entry every 20 seconds.

1. Chart: From 6-Jan-2018 0200 to 8-Jan-2018 1300
   
   
2. Chart: From 6-Jan-2018 0200 to 9-Jan-2018
   CSV: From 6-Jan-2018 0200 to 9-Jan-2018
3. CSV: From 6-Jan-2018 0200 to 11-Jan-2018 2130
4. CSV: From 6-Jan-2018 0200 to 5-Mar-2018 0240

The caveat here is that: bitcoin's price is going to increase long as people buy it as a tool of investment instead of using it as currency. The future of Bitcoin depends on how fast it can be accepted as a currency in people's shared imagination. With the supply already constrained and people now storing it, it ceases to become a currency and becomes a speculative empty asset.

All time price history data with 'daily' frequency, downloaded from here:
All time data (From: 02-Feb-12 Till: 09-Jan-18) in CSV Format

How to create a cult in five easy steps

Step 1: Keep It Vague; Keep It Simple.
To create a cult you must first attract attention. This you should do not through actions, which are too clear and readable, but through words, which are hazy and deceptive. Your initial speeches, conversations, and interviews must include two elements: on the one hand the promise of something great and transformative, and on the other a total vagueness. This combination will stimulate all kinds of hazy dreams in your listeners, who will make their own connections and see what they want to see.
To make your vagueness attractive, use words of great resonance but cloudy meaning, words full of heat and enthusiasm. Fancy titles for simple things are helpful, as are the use of numbers and the creation of new words for vague concepts. All of these create the impression of  specialized knowledge, giving you a veneer of profundity. By the same token, try to make the subject of your cult new and fresh, so that few will understand it. Done right, the combination of vague promises, cloudy but alluring concepts, and fiery enthusiasm will stir people’s souls and a group will form around you. Talk too vaguely and you have no credibility. But it is more dangerous to be specific. If you explain in detail the benefits people will gain by following your cult, you will be expected to satisfy them.
As a corollary  to its vagueness your appeal should also be simple. Most people’s problems have complex causes: deep-rooted neurosis, interconnected social factors, roots that go way back in time and are exceedingly hard to unravel. Few, however, have the patience to deal  with this; most people want to hear that a simple solution will cure their problems. The ability to offer this kind of solution will give you great power and build you a following.
Instead of the complicated explanations of real life, return to the primitive solutions of our ancestors, to good old country remedies, to mysterious panaceas.

Step 2: Emphasize the Visual and the Sensual over the Intellectual.
Once people have begun to gather around you, two dangers will present themselves: boredom and skepticism. Boredom will make people go elsewhere; skepticism will allow them the distance to think rationally about whatever it is you are offering, blowing away the mist you have artfully created and revealing your ideas for what they are. You need to amuse the bored, then, and ward off the cynics. The best way to do this is through theater, or other devices of its kind. Surround yourself with luxury, dazzle your followers with visual splendor, fill their  eyes with spectacle. Not only will this keep them from seeing the ridiculousness of your ideas, the holes in your belief system, it will also attract more attention, more followers. Appeal to all the senses: Use incense for scent, soothing music for hearing, colorful charts and graphs for the eye. You might even tickle the mind, perhaps by using new technological gadgets to give your cult a pseudo-scientific veneer—as long as you do not make any one really think. Use the exotic—distant cultures, strange customs—to create theatrical effects, and to make the most banal and ordinary affairs seem signs of something extraordinary.

Step 3: Borrow the Forms of Organized Religion to Structure the Group.
Your cult like following is growing; it is time to organize it. Find a way both elevating and comforting. Organized religions have long held unquestioned authority for large numbers of people, and continue to do so in our supposedly secular age. And even if the religion it self has faded some, its forms still resonate with power. The lofty and holy associations of organized religion can be endlessly exploited. Create rituals for your followers; organize them into a hierarchy, ranking them in grades of sanctity, and giving them names and titles that resound
with religious overtones; ask them for sacrifices that will fill your coffers and increase your power. To emphasize your gathering’s quasi - religious nature, talk and act like a prophet. You are not a dictator, after all; you are a priest, a guru, a sage, a shaman, or any other word that hides your real power in them mist of religion.

Step 4: Disguise Your Source of Income.
Your group has grown, and you have structured it in a church like form. Your coffers are beginning to fill with your followers’ money. Yet you must never be seen as hungry for money and the power it brings. It is at this moment that you must disguise the source of your income. Your followers want to believe that if they follow you all sorts of good things will fall in to their lap. By surrounding yourself with luxury you become living proof of the soundness of your belief system.
Never reveal that your wealth actually comes from your followers’ pockets; instead, make it seem to come from the truth of your methods. Followers will copy your each and every move in the belief that it will bring them the same results, and their imitative enthusiasm will blind them to the charlatan nature of your wealth.

Step 5: Set Up an Us-Versus-Them Dynamic.
The group is now large and thriving, a magnet attracting more and more particles. If you are not careful, though, inertia will set in, and time and boredom will demagnetize the group. To keep your followers united, you must now do what all religions and belief systems have done:  create an us-versus-them dynamic.
First, make sure your followers believe they are part of an exclusive club, unified by a bond of common goals. Then, to strengthen this bond, manufacture the notion of a devious enemy out to ruin you. There is a force of nonbelievers that will do any thing to stop you. Any outsider who tries to reveal the charlatan nature of your belief system can now be described as a member of this devious force.
If you have no enemies, invent one. Given a straw man to react against, your followers will tighten and cohere. They have your cause to believe in and infidels to destroy.

Multi-party political system – strategies and success stories!

A multi-party system is a system in which multiple political parties across the political spectrum run for national election, and all have the capacity to gain control of government offices, separately or in coalition.[1] Apart from one-party-dominant and two-party systems, multi-party systems tend to be more common in parliamentary systems than presidential systems and far more common in countries that use proportional representation compared to countries that use first-past-the-post elections. Decoding Jargon: A first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting method is one in which voters indicate on a ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins: this is described as winner takes all. First-past-the-post voting is a plurality voting method. FPTP is a common, but not universal, feature of electoral systems with single-member electoral divisions, and is practiced in close to one third of countries. Notable examples include Canada, India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as most of their current or former colonies and protectorates. Proportional representation (PR) characterizes electoral systems by which divisions in an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. If n% of the electorate support a particular political party, then roughly n% of seats will be won by that party. Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Moldova, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia and Ukraine are examples of nations that have used a multi-party system effectively in their democracies. In these countries, usually no single party has a parliamentary majority by itself. Instead, multiple political parties are compelled to form compromised coalitions for the purpose of developing power blocks and attaining legitimate mandate. - Wikipedia

Fun Fact: There are only two major political parties in the United States. This is a winner-take-all system because there is no reward for the party or candidate that finishes second. As a result, two political parties usually dominate plurality electoral systems to the disadvantage of smaller third parties, just as the Democrats and the Republicans dominate the American political system. - Google Search (Why are there only two major political parties in the United States?) - SparkNotes: Political Parties: The American Two-Party System (http://www.sparknotes.com/us-government-and-politics/american-government/political-parties/section2.rhtml)

Two major levels for political parties in India: National Party A registered party is recognised as a National Party only if it fulfils any one of the following three conditions: The party wins 2% of seats in the Lok Sabha (as of 2014, 11 seats) from at least 3 different States. At a General Election to Lok Sabha or Legislative Assembly, the party polls 6% of votes in four States and in addition it wins 4 Lok Sabha seats. A party gets recognition as a State Party in four or more states. 7 Recognised national parties as of 2 September 2016 arranged alphabetically No. Name Abbreviation Foundation year Current leader(s)[D] Party symbol Headquarters 1 All India Trinamool Congress AITC 1998 Mamata Banerjee Flowers & grass 36G Tapsia Road, Kolkata - 700039, (West Bengal) 2 Bahujan Samaj Party BSP 1984 Mayawati Elephant 12, Gurudwara Rakabganj Road, New Delhi - 11000, (Delhi) 3 Bharatiya Janata Party BJP 1980 Amit Shah Lotus 11 Ashoka Road, New Delhi - 11000, (Delhi) 4 Communist Party of India CPI 1925 Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy Ears of corn and sickle Indrajit Gupta Marg, New Delhi - 110002, (Delhi) 5 Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) 1964 Sitaram Yechury Hammer sickle and star Bhai Vir Singh Marg, New Delhi - 110 001, (Delhi) 6 Indian National Congress INC 1885 Rahul Gandhi Hand 10, Bishmabhar Marg, New Delhi - 110001, (Delhi) 7 Nationalist Congress Party NCP 1999 Sharad Pawar Clock 10, Bishmabhar Marg, New Delhi - 110001, (Delhi) State Party A registered party has to fulfill any of the following conditions for recognition as a State Party: A party should win minimum three percent of the total number of seats or a minimum of three seats in the Legislative Assembly. A party should win at least one seat in the Lok Sabha for every 25 seats or any fraction thereof allotted to that State at a general election to the Lok Sabha. A political party should secure at least six percent of the total valid votes polled during general election to a Lok Sabha or State Legislative Assembly and should, in addition, win at least one Lok Sabha, and two Legislative Assembly seats in that election, Under the liberalized criteria, one more clause that it will be eligible for recognition as State Party if it secures 8% or more of the total valid votes polled in the State.addition to one seat in any state. There are 50 recognised state parties as of 5 May 2017 in India. Among them is “Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), founded in 2012, lead by Arvind Kejriwal with recognition in Delhi and Punjab.” - Wikipedia

Success stories 1. Emmanuel Macron, the President of France (assumed office on 14 May 2017) and founder of political party “La République En Marche! (2016–present)” Macron founded the En Marche! (English translation: "Forward!", "Onward!", "Working!" or "On The Move!"), a centrist political movement in April 2016. Macron describes La République En Marche! to be a progressive movement, uniting both the left and the right. Macron founded the independent political party, En Marche!, in Amiens on 6 April 2016. A liberal, progressive political movement that gathered huge media coverage when it was first established, the party and Macron were both reprimanded by President Hollande and the question of Macron's loyalty to the government was risen. Before resigning from the government in August 2016 to launch a bid in the 2017 presidential election, Macron had held positions like Inspector of Finances, Deputy Secretary-General of the Élysée, Minister of Economy and Finance. In November 2016, Macron declared that he would run in the election under the banner of En Marche!, a centrist political movement he founded in April 2016. Macron won the election on 7 May 2017 beating the Front National’s Marine Le Pen by a landslide 66.1% of the second-round vote. Political positions: Macron has been described by some observers as a social liberal and by others as a social democrat. During his time in the French Socialist Party, he supported the party's centrist wing, whose political stance has been associated with "third way" policies advanced by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder, and whose leading spokesman has been former prime minister Manuel Valls. Overall Macron is largely seen as a centrist. Decoding Jargon: Centrism: In politics, centrism, the centre or the center (American English) is a political outlook or specific position that involves acceptance or support of a balance of a degree of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy, while opposing political changes which would result in a significant shift of society either strongly to the left or the right. Left-wing politics: Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy and social inequality. Right-wing politics: Right-wing politics hold that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be viewed as natural results of traditional social differences or the competition in market economies. The term right-wing can generally refer to "the conservative or reactionary section of a political party or system". The political terms "Left" and "Right" were first used during the French Revolution (1789–1799) and referred to seating arrangements in the French parliament: those who sat to the right of the chair of the parliamentary president were broadly supportive of the institutions of the monarchist Old Regime. The original Right in France was formed as a reaction against the "Left" and comprised those politicians supporting hierarchy, tradition and clericalism. The use of the expression la droite ("the right") became prominent in France after the restoration of the monarchy in 1815, when it was applied to the Ultra-royalists. The people of English-speaking countries did not apply the terms "right" and "left" to their own politics until the 20th century. - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Macron) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics 2. Arvind Kejriwal (born 16 August 1968) is an Indian politician and a former bureaucrat who is the current and 7th Chief Minister of Delhi since February 2015. In 2012, he launched the Aam Aadmi Party, and the party won in the 2013 Delhi Legislative Assembly election. Following the election, he took office as the Chief Minister of Delhi on 28 December 2013. He resigned 49 days later, on 14 February 2014, stating he did so because of his minority government's inability to pass his proposed anti-corruption legislation due to a lack of support from other political parties. In 2015, his party won the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections with a majority, obtaining 67 out of 70 assembly seats. On 14 February 2015, he was sworn in as Chief Minister for a second term after his party's victory in the Delhi Legislative Assembly election. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal 3. Bernie Sanders (United States Senator from Vermont (Incumbent) Assumed office on January 3, 2007) Bernard Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician serving as the junior United States Senator from Vermont since 2007; he is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. Since his election to the House of Representatives in 1990, he has caucused with the Democratic Party, which has entitled him to congressional committee assignments and at times given Democrats a majority. A self-described democratic socialist and a New Deal-era American progressive, Sanders is pro-labor and emphasizes reversing economic inequality. Many scholars consider his views to be more in line with social democracy. Sanders was born and raised in the Brooklyn borough of New York City and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1964. While a student he was an active protest organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement. After settling in Vermont in 1968, Sanders ran unsuccessful third-party campaigns for governor and U.S. senator in the early to mid-1970s. As an independent, he was elected mayor of Burlington—Vermont's most populous city of 42,417 in 2010—in 1981, by a margin of ten votes. He went on to be reelected as mayor three times. In 1990, he was elected to represent Vermont's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 1991. He served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected with 71% of the popular vote. Sanders announced his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination on April 30, 2015. Initially considered a long shot, Sanders won 23 primaries and caucuses and approximately 43% of pledged delegates to Clinton's 55%. His campaign was noted for its supporters' enthusiasm, as well as for his rejection of large donations from corporations, the financial industry, and any associated Super PAC. On July 12, 2016, Sanders formally endorsed Clinton in her unsuccessful general election campaign against Republican Donald Trump, while urging his supporters to continue the "political revolution" his campaign had begun. Decoding Jargon: Democratic socialism: is a political ideology that advocates political democracy alongside social ownership of the means of production with an emphasis on self-management or democratic management of economic institutions within a market socialist or decentralized socialist planned economy. Means of production: In economics and sociology, the means of production are physical, non-human and non-financial inputs used for the production of economic value: raw materials, the facilities, machinery and tools used in the production of goods. In the terminology of classical economics, the means of production are the "factors of production" minus financial capital and minus human capital. Social ownership: A form of collective ownership in which the control and organization of an industry, company, etc., are shared, especially by its workers or by the community at large. - https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/social_ownership Social ownership refers to the various forms of ownership for the means of production in socialist economic systems; encompassing public ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, citizen ownership of equity and common ownership. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNy6-mVtVTo)