An important harbinger of trouble to come is that the Tether (USDT) coin, which is supposed to be pegged 1:1 to USD, is now trading substantially below $1:
Billions of Tethers were printed seemingly out of thin air and used to purchase Bitcoin. It's part of the foundation of the house of cards that keeps Bitcoin at its current price:
"Despite their modest total market value of about $2.4 billion, Tether’s coins play an outsized role on cryptocurrency exchanges. They were the second-most traded among all digital currencies after Bitcoin as of Oct. 15, according to data compiled by CoinMarketCap.com."https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/why-crypt...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-15/dollar-pe...
Billions of Tethers were printed seemingly out of thin air and used to purchase Bitcoin. It's part of the foundation of the house of cards that keeps Bitcoin at its current price:
"Despite their modest total market value of about $2.4 billion, Tether’s coins play an outsized role on cryptocurrency exchanges. They were the second-most traded among all digital currencies after Bitcoin as of Oct. 15, according to data compiled by CoinMarketCap.com." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/why-crypt...