If you think that cryptocurrencies hype has died down, think again. Though Bitcoin is no longer near its all-time high at $20,000, it still has been able to recover after rough days. In fact, it is alive and well.
If you will look at the market capitalization of the entire crypto market, it has reached its peak at over $800 billion on January 6th. However, after four months, it has lost two-thirds of its value.
What Caused the 2018 Bearish Trends?
There are a number of factors at play as to why the entire cryptocurrency market lost a lot of its value in recent months. It is simply a cumulative effect of regulatory changes, hacks, and negative publicity received by the crypto industry. The media coverage, for instance, has put cryptocurrencies at the forefront of discussions. Investors who simply joined the crypto bandwagon also didn’t help. A lot of them don’t even understand the technology behind cryptocurrencies. And therefore, they aren’t actually prepared for the price fluctuations.
Recently, it was the increasing scrutiny on online advertising that caused the recent fall in price. Twitter, Google, and Facebook banned crypto related advertisements.
Is This a Crypto Rebound?
Both Bitcoin and Ethereum had its worst first-quarter price performance in history this year. From $13,412, Bitcoin slipped to just $6,928.85 in a matter of three months by the end of March 31. It was more than 48% of decline. If you will look back in 2013, from $770.44, Bitcoin slipped to $478.72.
It only means that there was over $119.9 billion worth of money wiped out of Bitcoin’s market cap in just 90 days. On the other hand, you have Ethereum that declined by 47.7% in the first quarter from $755.76 to 394.
On March 25, Bitcoin was able to hit $9,000 only to drop as low as $6,400. Since March 30, Bitcoin has not been able to surpass the $7,350 mark. However, in the past 12 hours, there were large buy volumes recorded on Bitfinex, Binance, and other major crypto-exchanges.
Bill Barhydt, the CEO of cryptocurrency payment startup Abra believes that Bitcoin is going to actually make a comeback in this coming year. He explained that there is “zero large-scale institutional money from the west in crypto right now”. It only means that there is a gap between institutional money investing in Bitcoin compared to its counterpart in Japan.
According to Julian Hosp, he suggested that there is a chance that
Bitcoin could reach $60,000. Spencer Bogart, on the other hand, speculates around $50,000.
Price Predictions Can Be Hard
It is true that price predictions can be difficult. If you will look back at price predictions of most analysts in 2017, they thought that Bitcoin would only reach $3,000. However, in reality, it almost reached $20,000.
Though it is true that things have normalized for cryptocurrencies in the last three months, blockchain technology is still relatively young and anything could still happen in the future. There could even be institutional investors coming from the west that could simply boost the price of cryptos.
