It's no secret that Bitcoin (BTC) has experienced a rough 2018. The coin has fallen more than 80% from the highest level of all time in a matter of months, it has two market falls, a market that is constantly bearish, and even problems in its own ecosystem. Crypto investors spend the whole year hoping for a surge that never arrives, and because BTC is the most influential coin in the crypto space, its behavior usually determines the speed of other coins as well.
Then, the year is finally over, and investors believe they can finally start again, hoping to see BTC perform better in 2019. While Bitcoin certainly performs better than in 2018, the current situation is far from imagined. However, it is possible that this will change in the future.
New developments that might have an impact on the price of Bitcoin.
Although there are two big opportunities that eventually receive another delay, there are still other developments that are expected to occur in the future and help BTC grow its value. One of them is what happened on January 30. This is the launch of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), the ERC-20 token pegged to Bitcoin itself. This token is expected to bring liquidity to the ETH network and at the same time, allow new use cases to BTC, such as access to dApps, DEXes, smartcontracts, and the like.
The supply of WBTC will depend on how much BTC is held by the safekeeping service, and the result is a stablecoin type token that will make the ethereum network into a network.
Furthermore, there is also the possibility that the Bitcoin Lightning Network can be aired at some point in 2019, which will have a major impact on the speed and cost of transactions in the BTC ecosystem. LN will provide an additional layer to the Bitcoin blockchain, where traders can build a tunnel network. The tunnel will allow traders to send BTC payments that do not have to be recorded on the blockchain, as long as the tunnel is active.
With these projects, BTC will be on the road to receiving additional use cases, achieving better performance, and the possibility of seeing more activities, which are expected to help the price grow.
Finally, it is possible that BTC will reach a rally without outside influence, because analysts believe that BTC follows a circular pattern that directs the coin from the bearish period to the bullish period on endless repetition. While 2017 is in the bullish part of the circle, 2018 is clearly in bearish. The next step is expected to return to the bullish trend, where BTC can jump higher than in 2017.
This theory has seen a lot of support, although this may not have happened in the right way. It should be noted that 2017 is also the year when cryptocurrency receives more exposure than before, so most of the following surges are pure hype. 2018 is only a correction that follows after the hype has subsided. If a new bullish period arrives, there is a possibility that the rally will be more controlled, because the market seems more mature now than it was two years ago.
Whatever the case, investors around the world still hope to see the crypto market release a bearish grip and become more profitable for traders and investors. Although this will almost certainly occur at some point, it is not clear when to expect such developments.
