Second post: Crazy crypto week

I was wondering what I would write about for my second post, but it became really obvious after waking up this morning and checking the market: Crypto prices.

As you already know, crypto prices tanked last night. It started with Bitcoin yesterday, and it finally took the rest of coins with it. Is this going to be a short-term correction, or more of a long-term drop towards its actual value?

What I mean by actual value is, the value that the coins are actually providing society, not just the potential. The potential value is still there, and has been powering the rise of prices for the past year, but the actual value of what is being created is not nearly 500 billion dollars worth, yet.

I think the main reason that the market is crashing, is that whales cashing out. Whales, the large holders of particular crypto coins, can move the market and manipulate it to their benefit. Instead of malicious manipulation though, I think that some whales are just trying to cash out while the prices have had this incredible rise over the past couple of weeks. I don't blame them.

@endpoint has a good, easy post on whales, if you want to know more about them:
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@endpoint/crypto-whales-and-how-they-manipulate-the-price

So, what should we do when the prices are down this much in a few hours? I don't think it's clear that it is ALWAYS a buy when you have a drop, at least in the short-term. If you believe in the potential of the technology of a particular coin, then heck yes, buy away.

But you have to think about the larger market as well. Whales can, and do drive prices. Additionally, end of year means that people may start doing some cashing out to pay for taxes, now that the IRS is becoming much more interested in this. So, it's not clear that today is the lowest it will go.

Of course, who actually knows.

What about Steem prices?

I'm a believer in Steem and think it is one of the few coins actually adding value to society right now. Many of the other coins are good on an academic level, but steem has an actual community building something. And I think it's building something pretty great.