In my May 17, 2019 update, I noted that Bitcoin was at $7100 that day. Today, June 26, 2019, its moved up to just under $13,000.

Having followed Bitcoin since 2011, and having been in Bitcoin since 2012, these sorts of moves up are nothing special.  Neither are the prolonged downturns that cause people to sell low what they have purchased at a high price.

I have learned patience from my time investing in Bitcoin, and also Unobtanium cryptocurrency, and a few others.  My biggest disappointments have been Block, and Monero.  

Block is the cryptocurrency of a technology that has brought permissionless distributed crypto exchange (BlockDx) to the world. It works, I've used it. It needs to see adoption, but when it does I expect the price of Block will rise.  For now, BlockDx technology development is being funded by "Super Blocks" which introduce inflation to Block cryptocurrency. 

Many so called "Dex" or distributed exchange projects are not distributed at all. Those that are based on BitShares technology require that you swap out your real cryptocurrency for a proxy token that can be traded. These types of exchanges are centralized, because they require you to trust a gateway to exchange the proxy tokens back to real cryptocurrency. 

Block solves this centraliation issue by making it possible to swap coins directly from your cryptocurrency wallet without risk. The technique of swapping coins directly between cryptocurrency A and cryptocurrency B is called "Atomic Swaps." Atomic Swaps work perfectly on BlockDx, and it's cool!  BlockDx just needs to be made user friendly, though. It's very different from the experience most traders are familiar with, but once you understand it, you wonder why we need to trust these scammy centralized crypto exchanges that are constantly being hacked and exit-scammed.

Regarding the price decline of Monero, this cryptocurrency is 120% committed to privacy. All Monero transactions are private. There is absolutely no comparision between the pseudo privacy offered by Bitcoin (basically, no privacy) and the tremendous advanced privacy conveyed by Monero. 

Because it is so opaque, Monero has been the target of government efforts to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges, particularly in S. Korea, but also now in the U.S.  Exchanges that list Monero risk being seen by regulators as non-compliant. 

A vibrant market for Monero is growing on Bisq.network exchange, which is an anonymous P2P exchange operating over TOR that has some traction.  Bisq exchange is actually a Java app that connects to the bisq network over TOR.  Its perfect for trading a cryptocurrency as private as Monero.  

BlockDx doesn't currently support Monero because of a technical issue, but its my hope that BlockDx will sort it soon and Monero trading will begin there as well. 

Block and Monero have a ton of unrealized potential.  I'm holding my stakes, but it hasn't been easy.  While I bought Bitcoin and Unobtanium to hold long term, I had shorter time horizons for Block and Monero.  Oh well, win some lose some.

I'll check back in another month and we'll see where Bitcoin is.  My long term price target for Bitcoin remains $50,000.   Shorter term, I'm looking for new highs above $20,000 by the end of year (many would say I am pessimistic).

Other things that impress me about Bitcoin at this moment:
Trade volume today is above $30 billion, which is very high.
Bitcoin is being recognized more and more as a "digital gold," which is already disrupting the $7T gold industry.

Bitcoin is in a better place than it was back in 2017, technologically.  Back in 2017, a technology known as Lightning Network promised to enable cheap offchain p2p transactions. Lightning is a reality now, gaining traction. It works and I know because I've used it.

Back in 2017, Bitcoin was also plagued with high transaction fees.  Bitcoin was able to scale through a technology called Segwit, and this has reduced fees significantly.

Also in 2017, there was a battle for Bitcoin that eventually resulted in a "fork" called Bitcoin Cash (or derisively, Bcash).  This seems to have settled the scaling argument that precipitated the Bcash fork, and all of the shenannigans that went before the fork, such as spamming the Bitcoin transaction pool (mempool) with tiny transactions, creating delays and scaring the hell out of new Bitcoin investors.

In 2017, there was much to be concerned about.  In 2019, most of these unknowns have been resolved. Bitcoin has never been more secure, with record amounts of mining hash being applied to the Bitcoin blockchain.  Imo, a $20,000 bitcoin price was optimistic in 2017 but is very reasonable in 2019 and beyond.

And yet, in the short term I'm looking for dumps of Bitcoin that will bring down the price.  As usual, I will hold (hodl) through and keep watching for my long term target of $50k. What's the hurry to arrive, when the journey is so much fun.

Remember that my musings are not investment advice. This is my hobby as well as my largest personal investment. This is just me trying to make sense of it all and predict the future for my own benefit. Nobody reads this phlog stuff any way.