Digital Asset Management Company Coinshares presented its first semi-annual report on the state of the market for cryptocurrencies, excerpts from which are cited by Decrypt. Analysts assessed the trends from January to June 2019 and noted several significant differences between the current upturn and the bullish market in 2017.
"Four factors that were present at the bull's-eye rise of 2017 are not evident now: widespread media attention, the growth of search queries on the key word "Bitcoin" in Google, the growth of tweets about bitcoin and rally altoin", - Coinshares write.
At the same time, analysts pay attention to the long-awaited arrival of "institutional money". In particular, they mention the investment company Fidelity, which announced its intention to launch a custodial service of institutional level for storing Bitcoin. In addition, major players such as Microsoft, Starbucks and Intercontinental Exchange, all of whom are involved in the creation of the Bakkt platform, have become interested in the cryptocurrency industry.
Special attention should be paid to Facebook, which announced the development of its own cryptocurrency project Libra. "Although Libra is centralized, has limited access, is based on trust, is not uncensored or limited in emission, and is not considered by some to be a cryptocurrency at all (although the term is not clearly defined), it may indeed be useful for those who do not have access to banking services - services that we take for granted in the West, such as online shopping," the document says.
In doing so, the authors pay attention to certain risks of the current institutional rally. Tether's unregulated steyblecoin continues to play a significant role in it. Well-known banks and pension funds, which are commonly referred to as institutional investors, are unlikely to use Tether to buy bitcoin.
In their report, analysts also touched on the second and third largest cryptocurrencies in terms of capitalization. In their opinion, "internal contradictions" continue to undermine the effectiveness of the Ethereum developers community. Coinshares, however, hope that the plan to launch Ethereum 2.0 they will still be able to implement.
The authors call XRP "the worst cryptocurrency in the first half of 2019", whose six-percent growth fades against the background of 188-percent recovery of Bitcoin and 281-percent rise of Litecoin. Even the positive comments of IMF head Christine Lagarde and other influential figures on the value of the cryptocurrency as a means of payment are not able to correct the situation.
"It is not clear whether these views on XRP's digital asset or whether they apply to Ripple, RippleNet's product suite, or perhaps all of the above,