Anyone who glanced at his Blockfolio application Tuesday morning would have had a rude awakening. With each cryptocurrency drowned in a sea of red, newcomers could have been forgiven for feeling uncomfortable. A day filled with tragedy, dominated by the negative news of South Korea and China, saw bitcoin fugitively embrace four digits on some exchanges before bouncing back abruptly. On Wednesday, the BTC again dropped to $ 10,000, joining altcoins that are bogged down in the red.
2018 is barely more than a fortnight old, and already the year promises to be more action-packed, exhilarating and sometimes more terrifying than the year before. To date, January has witnessed the rise of vaporwares, a capitalization with gains and losses in billion dollars won and lost, and XRP flew to finally come down quickly. At its lowest point on Tuesday, Ripple moved closer to the dollar, down 65% from its January high.
While some traders panicked and others kept their corners against all odds, some tried to surf the waves that saw the bitcoin blow in all directions. At least one trader predicted, noting the previous support line, that bitcoin would rebound, and this turned out to be good. Tether 100 million was released in the fray in what a trader dubbed the "quantitative easing" of crypto, unleashing a green candle that temporarily limited the blushing of bitcoin. Despite recovering the $ 11k and staying at $ 11,200 for a few hours, starting Wednesday at 9am (NYT), the BTC is close to the four figures once again.
The Altcoins did not do well either. Only three of the top 100 cryptocurrencies posted gains on Tuesday with Quantstamp, Neblio, and Ethos. Bitcoin ended the day down 15%, while stocks such as Verge, Ripple and Tron lost more than 20% of their value. Tron, who once held a top five spot, has now fallen to 14th place and is coming down quickly.
Bitcoin is a capricious beast in the best case, but is more erratic than ever since the beginning of the year. Rumors of repression from South Korea have proliferated for weeks, but so far they have been just that. Trying to lessen the nation's enthusiasm for cryptocurrency - a move that would involve one in every 25 South Koreans - will require more than the disapproval of a few ministers.
As news.Bitcoin.com recently observed:
Crypto-currencies have been threatened at one time or another by almost every country on the planet. Rarely does a government venture beyond rhetoric ... Whether by communist bastions or liberal democracies, bitcoin can not be stopped.
As long as Asian markets dominate bitcoin trade, South Korea, Japan and China will serve as rudders. Like it or not, Westerners are subject to the movement of markets beyond their reach, and there is little they can do to mitigate this during times of uncertainty other than to migrate to the world. Security of the USD and wait.
It seems normal that a currency named Neo starts the new year with its biggest flight known to date. Monday, he was the only one in the top 100 cryptocurrency to be in the green. Despite the decline, Neo, with Gas, the fuel used to execute smart contracts on the network, has been a rare ray of light in the middle of the penumbra. The "Chinese Ethereum" is finally proving itself, with a series of ICOs launched on the network this month, and a level of development of the side chain and the ecosystem in the works that justify the new value of Neo .
In 2017, there were only two major ICOs on Neo, Qlink and Red Pulse. 2018, in comparison, already has 20 ICO of planned. Ethereum, the other January performer in the top 10 cryptos, was also supported by the ongoing ICO series. Token Data reports that $ 570 million was collected by 23 ICOs in the first two weeks of 2018, and a total of 60 tokens sales are launched this week - the highest level since October.
If we look at historical indicators, bitcoin will recover and finish the month higher than it started before another great year. It may be harder to endure before the clouds rise and Bitcoin can begin to ogle another historic high. Ari Paul's prediction last week may not be so exotic after all: