Bitcoin and altcoins lost up to 40% of their value the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 16, as regulatory pressure from China and South Korea appears to upset optimism.
But according to Kay Van-Petersen, a CNBC analyst who correctly predicted the cryptocurrency's rally at the start of last year, Bitcoin could hit $100,000 in 2018.
"First off, you could argue we have had a proper correction in bitcoin, it has had a 50 percent pull back at one point, which is healthy. But we have still not seen the full effect of the futures contracts," Van-Petersen said.
Cross-exchange data from CoinMarketCap reveals the extent of bear sentiment arising from the confused situation in Seoul and the news of additional trading sanctions from Beijing.
On Monday, Cointelegraph reported on how Korean authorities would likely stop short of an outright cryptocurrency exchange “shutdown,” but had introduced fines for users unwilling to use personal identification data on crypto exchanges in the country.
Julian Hosp, co-founder of TenX, a firm that wants to make it easier for people to spend virtual currencies, told CNBC in December that bitcoin could hit $60,000 in 2018, but could crash first. And Dave Chapman, managing director of cryptocurrency trading firm Octagon Strategy, said that bitcoin could hit $100,000 in 2018.