January was an awful month for cryptocurrency investors. First there was the threat of a cryptocurrency ban in South Korea, which turned out to be just more regulation. The market slowly clawed back until the 500 million dollar hack of Japanese exchange Coincheck, the alleged scam that is Tether coin and rumblings of a Cryptocurrency ban in India just this morning. Whew! busy month.
2018 actually started off hot, the total market cap shot from 600 billion to over 800 billion in the first week of the year and then abruptly dropped on the South Korea news.
The market had been hot since November, so it was looking for some news to correct on and South Korea gave the catlyst, dropping the market all the way down to 400 billion. It's been one negative news release after another since then continuing to push markets downward in the worst month since September 2017, when China banned crypto trading. It's times like these I'm glad I focus 90% of my portfolio in quality projects like Steem and Vechain, both have stayed strong in January.
Steem
Vechain
How a coin fairs when markets are performing poorly can tell you a lot about the quality of the project. In January the whole market was down 25% but Steem and Vechain were up 58% and 191% respectively. This shows investors are holding their coins and looking to buy more on any price weakness.
For more info on Vechain:
https://steemit.com/steem/@honeydew2002/buying-vechain-is-a-no-brainer
or Steem
https://steemit.com/steem/@honeydew2002/my-case-for-a-100-dollar-steem-in-one-year-s-time
G'day
Sources: Coinmarketcap, Blockfolio