We should all realize by now that the bubble/bust cycles of crypto are a manipulation of the system. Just like the world economy enters these same types of bubbles and busts, so does crypto. From this perspective, crypto is actually quite the wet dream for the establishment. Instead of fleecing the world once every 12 years they can do it once every four years with Bitcoin.

How?

Well, when you own the media outlets it's just a numbers game. If they can trick even just 10% of the population to pump all their money (especially debt) in at the peak and then you dump on them, good job: yet another inside job to keep the wage-slaves from rising up.

When major MSM outlets are getting it wrong 95% of the time and all you have to do is the opposite of what they say, do we really think this is a random occurrence? We need to get real.

Silver lining.

Crypto isn't like other assets. Other assets store value while crypto creates a network effect of increasing value through the community that wields it. This puts the Average Joe in a much better position to survive these boom/bust cycles. Average Joe doesn't even have to worry about them; he can just HODL and still get massive returns over time.

The problem is that the establishment/market is so good at manipulating the emotions of the masses it can be extremely hard to keep a cool head and do the right thing. It can be very difficult to keep HODLing over an extended period of time when the market is bleeding. The same can be said about HODLing when the market spikes up. The obvious question we have to ask ourselves is:

What are the signs that the market has bubbled?

When has the crypto market gone full greed? When has the bubble been blown up so full that it can't do anything else but deflate? There are several obvious signs we should be looking for over the next few years to make sure we don't get fleeced again. We should all be attempting to make these manipulators pay the price for their arrogance and constant attempts to extract the market for everything it is worth.

XRP flips ETH

I've noticed when Ripple flips Ethereum the entire market is in somewhat of a tailspin. This is quite fitting when we think about it. Ripple is a garbage central banking product that not even the central banks should want to use.

It's not open source. It's not decentralized. Yet it's always at least #3 on the market cap. This should tell us all a little something about greed. When it hit's #2 on the market cap, greed is in full swing. As it stands now, the market cap of XRP is just over half that of ETH. This tells me that the market is in a very safe place; nowhere near bubbled.

When SBD > $2

SBD is the most loosely pegged stable coin out there. When we see its price spike significantly higher than the intended target, we know the market is bubbled. This is a really bad situation for Steem because it's almost guaranteed that SBD stays inflated for quite some time, and all the debt that we print turns into way more inflation than was originally intended.

This is a big reason why Steem dropped so much rank down the market cap. Never speculate on SBD. If it's over $2, you should probably get rid of it if only to support the ecosystem by trying to bring the price down to where it's supposed to be.

Dai

In my opinion, decentralized stable coins are a great way to gain market information. Dai is yet another way we can predict if the market is bubbled. Demand for Dai will rise and likely start averaging a value of over $1.01 or $1.02. When that happens we know that the MakerDAO will start lowering interest rates aggressively again. This is the sign that the bubble is about to pop again.

When Bitcoin is x10+ higher than its doubling target.

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2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
$100	$200	$400	$800	$1600	$3200	$6400

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Jan	Feb	Mar	April	May	June
$3467	$3733	$4000	$4267	$4533	$4800

July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec
$5067	$5333	$5600	$5867	$6133	$6400

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I throw out this speculation spreadsheet out quite a bit. It hasn't let me down once. Bitcoin has been doubling every year since 2013 at an insanely predictable level. If this trend continues, we know for sure when the market is bubbled because the trading value of Bitcoin will far exceed its doubling value.

For example, if Bitcoin hit $128,000 by the end of 2020, we'd know that taking at least some profits would be a smart thing to do because the doubling metric tells us the base value is $12,800.

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Beware the volcano

It's easy to get caught up in the moment and think that crypto is just going to keep spiking up after it's already spiked up significantly. Who knows!? It might!

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Essentially when I see three big pumps followed by massive volume and volatility (no more liquidity left) I'm going to expect a correction over the next few months. This happens time and time again yet we never seem to learn our lesson. Greed is a powerful blinder.

I get the feeling we are going to see this pattern over and over and over again. Be on the lookout.

Conclusion

Sure, this might be a bit of a premature post, seeing as everyone is still a bit salty about alts being pummeled this summer. However, that is exactly why we need to be thinking of stuff like this now. If we allow ourselves to fishtail into a bear market mindset we're bound to make very bad decisions when running with the bulls. Avoid tilt at all costs.

The market is stupid, yet it's constantly trying to share its secrets with us. Calm your mind and seek to filter out the noise and emotions associated with price action. Easier said than done.