Cryptocurrencies have been on somewhat of a rollercoaster ride since December’s huge sell-off sent prices of bitcoin and major altcoins tumbling between 60-80% by February, followed by a sharp rally in April before settling into a trading range between $7,000 – $10,000. With bond yields flat and the stock market stuck in a corrective phase since January, it hasn’t taken long for attention to return to the crypto space, and many are now asking how long the latest bear market will last.
Predicting price action in a fledgling asset class still undergoing a series of volatile price discovery corrections is undoubtedly challenging, but performing retrospective fundamental and technical analyses of the factors surrounding the previous bear cycle in 2014 to 2016 can provide clues as to what we can expect going forward.