Just when it appeared that the cryptocurrency market was about to bottom out just a fortnight ago (with Bitcoin reaching a reported 14-month volatility low), the market subsequently started displaying indicators of a directional shift.
Last week however, we saw a short-term appreciation in value. In typical crypto fashion it was just as rapid if not more so than the recent decline and Bitcoin, in particular, was observed to have exceeded “a key resistance level at $7,000 after breaking out of the $6,800 mark… crucial for the short-term recovery of Bitcoin.”.
Right now however, we are looking at what some mainstream media organisations have described as an ominous price-crash: if not full-blown ‘meltdown’.
Causation Between News and Value?
The reasons for the crash – like many before – are likely plenty, such as the theory of market manipulation by wealthy crypto-barons, amongst other interested parties.
Just looking at the news recently, we can identify a handful of reported events and moments which might have contributed, coincided with or preceded this rapid deppreciation in value. They include:
- Goldman Sachs’ decision to shelf previously announced plans for opening a Bitcoin trading desk.
- A continued rampancy of international cryptocurrency fraud, theft, and misappropriation.
- Speculative doubt stemming from recent pump-and-dumps which utilize the ‘Bitcoin’ moniker.
- Prophetic warnings from pundits and other luminaries.
Looking at the Market
The large fall in value could be considered either a correction or a short relief. Either way, it is fair to say that if the market were to return to a more positive trajectory: we could expect the collective growth to be reflective year-over-year, exponentially.
Coinschedule (an “ICO listing and cryptocurrency portal”) recorded $3.695 billion total funds raised in 217 from 209 ICOs. By compairson, the same site records 500% times more investment this year (up until August 2nd, 2018) – with $17.489 billion gathered from 686 ICOs so far.
It is still important to bear in mind the sobering fact that a great number of ICOs and cryptocurrencies fail.
Additional Studies and Observations
Cezary Graf (AKA Crypto Poland) is a Polish blockchain enthusiast who recently shared a tweet which featured an image which depicted where ‘Bitcoin & The Crypto’ as a collective industry would place in Statista’s list of ‘The 100 largest companies in the world by market value in 2018 (in billions of U.S. dollars)‘.
The 10 largest companies in the world by market value in 2018 (in billion U.S. dollars) PLUS Bitcoin & The Crypto @StatistaCharts pic.twitter.com/I46OEbcVHl
— Cezary Graf ?? CRYPTO POLAND (@CryptoPoland) August 3, 2018
Graf’s post only provided information from the first page and 10 entries of Statista’s list. This suggests that the total industry value is comparable with the likes of Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon (The Big A’s) – whose combined value is over $2471.1 billion.
Veering beyond these pages however and considering cryptocurrency’s overall market value has surpassed $262,5 billion. Comparatively it would fit it closer to 17th place – best resembling the following trio of financial industry giants.
Statista isn’t the only organization to perform and curate in-depth analysis of blockchain and the cryptocurrency investment market.
Back in 2017, PricewaterhouseCoopers (AKA PwC) performed an investigation into the same criteria – entitled ‘Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalisation, 31 March 2017 Update’ with similar results.
The Market Future & ICOs as a ‘Bubble’
Some of the great issues, conversely, plaguing the crypto market include fraudulent and scam ICOs: as well as honest projects which simply offer little to no value to justify their price or existence.
This is in addition to (and arguably supported by) an almost universal lack of effective regulations or standards to prevent such tokens, and has led to some going as far as to call ICOs an ‘investment bubble’.
If true, the space will prove unsustainable if it continues on its current trajectory: a claim which has been thrown around by those in the industry since at least the end of 2017. If, however, things continue as they are right now then we are likely to enjoy a profitable end of 2018.
Court of the Crypto Kings
No matter the market status: the value of many a cryptocurrency lies in their viability and practical effectiveness of their end-goals, and means of achieving them.
Bitcoin of course is the original cryptocurrency and has established its value through its integrity (public whitepaper and open-source nature), as well as it’s practical effectiveness and the rate of adoption it has enjoyed upon implementation.
Ethereum is arguably one of the most successful challengers to the BTC throne so far. The project helped to instigate the now-prevalent ‘Blockchain As A Service’ (BaaS) sector, and offers a platform upon which new utility tokens can be constructed – powered by ‘Ether’.
Lightning Bitcoin is an example of the new market contenders. One of many which offer a direct and highly competitive alternative to many of the key features associated with Bitcoin. According to their website: ‘LBTC’s utilitarian value as a tradeable currency is boosted by its speed and low-cost transaction fees.
Looking at New Securities
Security Tokens’ comprise a much newer field, which has been quoted to have contributed to the major crypto-crash back in January 2018. The first of these digital securities contracts were sold in December of the previous year and expired the following month – and thus, correlated with the market drop.
There has been a lot of news regarding security tokens over the past year, including attempts to either regulate or otherwise ensure a level of safety with regards to risk and fraud prevention, as well as protection of funds. These efforts come from a combination of governments and independent projects and organizations.
MOBU is one of these projects and seeks to utilize a proprietary utility token (the eponymous ERC20 ‘MOBU’) to power its “end-to-end solution for ICOs to launch compliant security tokens on the blockchain.”. Features of MOBU cited include KYC / AML compliance integration, enforced and maintained through Ethereum based smart-contracts.
This is in addition to what they call the “MOB20 protocol will define a set of commands that a compliant security token should implement.”
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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