I'd say those are two weak arguments because they are purely speculation without evidence. On the other hand, i have two counter-arguments that are all for bitcoin rising in value again.

1. Bitcoin is ever-improving. Scalability is being addressed, mass adoption rates are growing, and people are becoming more aware of avoiding scams.
2. Cryptocurrencies add value to services. They cut out the middleman and offer a solution for the efficient transfer of value.

Have you considered that maybe that is why "everyone" (your words) is expecting BTC to break records and get to new crazy highs?

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens over the next few months as the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) proceed with their price manipulation investigations, and what comes of it. If the CFTC and DOJ give the futures markets (CME Group) and the exchanges a thumbs up (most likely with fines or warnings involved, along with a requirement to be more transparent/forthcoming with pricing info when requested), then there could be significant money flowing into the crypto market from the likes of Goldman Sachs, et al, who start creating investment vehicles for institutions or people not interested in hodling the coins themselves, but rather through some kind of custodian.

How much money? I don't know, but it could be significant. Am I speculating? Why yes, yes I am, but this is cryptocurrencies, and what are cryptos if not speculation?     Oh, yeah, they hold value and can be used to transact business, too. My bad. 

I am using beepool and mining to Bytom official wallet - first few payments already received.

bminer-v9.0.0   

-uri tensority://bm1qczccf363zy42lvmnan03393f43532wudl2ea43.$rigName@btm-pool.beepool.org:9502

Google Translate is our friend...

Check this out:  https://miningpoolstats.stream/bytom   Note that antpool won't work with the bminer software.  I believe the payouts only happen once a day.  I stopped mining it though because the profitability has dropped quite a bit.

<snip>

No, those arguments are not just "speculation," at least not the first one about manipulation to get to the 20K level.  Just Google the Tether/Bitfinex story and go the paper put out by the professor in Texas.  Not his first paper about financial markets and manipulation, and qualified peers take his work seriously.  I don't think Bitcoin hits 20K this year.  I don't think it will hit "crazy new highs" this year either.

And if I am right about that, it puts a damper on most every other alt-coin as well.

John M. Griffin
University of Texas at Austin - Department of Finance

Amin Shams
University of Texas at Austin - Department of Finance

Date Written: June 13, 2018

Abstract
This paper investigates whether Tether, a digital currency pegged to U.S. dollars, influences Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the recent boom. Using algorithms to analyze the blockchain data, we find that purchases with Tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in Bitcoin prices. Less than 1% of hours with such heavy Tether transactions are associated with 50% of the meteoric rise in Bitcoin and 64% of other top cryptocurrencies. The flow clusters below round prices, induces asymmetric auto-correlations in Bitcoin, and suggests incomplete Tether backing before month-ends. These patterns cannot be explained by investor demand proxies but are most consistent with the supply-based hypothesis where Tether is used to provide price support and manipulate cryptocurrency prices.

FUD?  Really?  And Griffin's work about VIX manipulation, is that FUD, too?

It is a serious academic paper and it points pretty convincingly to market manipulation that others were commenting upon in real time back last November.  I forget the guy who was Tweeting about how $200 million in Tether were appearing out of nowhere each and every day.  I took note of his tweets but did not think it through to what it might mean for the market as a whole.

Does the paper take into account the potential of crypto currencies?  No, it does not.  But that isn't the point of this academic paper either.  The author did not set out to answer the question you pose.  He just investigated whether Tethers were used to manipulate market prices.

I don't like it either.  It doesn't make me feel good.  But I can't find any angle to dismiss it out of hand, and I've asked people who work in this academic field about it.  So regardless of "feelings" I think it is non-speculative information that should be taken into account.

Or not.  Suit yourself.

Thats no fud thats the truth,similar situation is happening now because of low volume-few people open short/long position with x50 leverage on bitmex with for example 500 btc,then that same group of people buy/sell 1-3k btc on bitfinex for example pushing the price up/down where they need it to go(ussualy arround 200-300$ in one dirrection)Even as they are losing money trading on bitfinex x50 leverage on bittmex is making them more $ then they are spending.You can check all of this on charts where you can see 1-3k btc orders are filled in seconds without any reason even when TA is signaling otherwise

Zcash has spoken and declared love for ASIC. Democracy at its finest
https://www.coindesk.com/zcash-governance-panel-shoots-research-asic-resistance/
https://vote.heliosvoting.org/helios/elections/cdc15aa6-6f75-11e8-b5e0-0e48ec97cebb/view

Yeah, not at all surprised by ZCash there.  As long as they have a nice fat 20% founders reward on every single block they aren't going to give a rat's ass about how those blocks are mined. :p

well the coin was once 866 usd  it is now 185 usd.

I can't help but think they believe price will go higher this way.

 I  am mining on the eth pill earning 1.35 a card spending 180 watts a card