Crypto Market Establishes YTD Low: Bitcoin At $3,650, Ethereum Hits Double-Digits

In the past day, bears haven’t abated their rampage, continuing to incessantly place straws on the back of the crypto camel. Bitcoin (BTC), for instance, continued its tumult, stumbling under $3,500. Altcoins, as always, followed suit, sending the aggregate value of all cryptocurrencies below $120 billion. At the time of press, this market’s circulating capitalization has fallen to $113 billion to near, if not establish a new year-to-date low.

With cryptocurrencies falling lower, losing an average of 8% across the board, 24-hour volumes have also seen a slight resurgence, moving to $16.5 billion (~$8.3 billion adjusted), compared to the $14 billion seen in Ethereum World News’ previous market update.

Now, let’s talk about BTC.

After moving under $3,800 on Wednesday, the industry’s household asset found itself above the aforementioned price level for a number of hours, failing to sufficiently undergo a leg lower. As the candle burned at both ends on Wednesday evening/Thursday morning, BTC suddenly experienced an unexpected surge, pushing the asset from $3,800 to upwards of $3,925 in a matter of minutes. While this occurrence of unexplained multi-percent candles is commonplace in crypto, especially with BTC, this most recent “Bart” move, like its brethren, couldn’t be adequately explained.

Regardless, after this move, BTC began to stumble, beginning a short trek downwards, backed by renewed volumes and differing market sentiment, most of which was unfortunately bearish.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin has found itself at $3,500, nearly revisiting its year-to-date low as covered by Ethereum World News. Interestingly, a number of analysts have pointed to $3,500 as a level of interest, with Nick Cawley of Daily FX telling MarketWatch that with a “lack of news to drive the move,” BTC may find a semblance of support at $3,500.

This call for such support echoes sentiment held by Mati Greenspan, eToro’s in-house crypto expert, who recently noted that while $4,000 put up close-to-zero resistance, there is buying pressure festering at $3,500 and $3,000.

Amid this move, XRP has underperformed BTC by 1%, falling to $0.31. Ethereum (ETH) found itself under $100 today, falling to $91 for the first time in over one year.

While altcoins, for the most part, followed close behind BTC, there were a few notable outliers. Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which was recently subject to a ground-breaking fork, felt by upwards of 20% to a smidgen above $100, interestingly nearing the dollar value of ETH. BCH’s strong move to the downside is in direct correlation with BSV’s 19% gain, with some analysts expecting for the Bitcoin Cash forks to flip in due time.

Interestingly, amid this continued sell-off, an unexpected theme has begun to arise in the underlying folds of crypto. This theme, of course, is discussion regarding Bitcoin market dominance, a historical topic of interest in this nascent market.

A.T. Kearney, a multinational management consulting firm, recently released a report touting its sentiment that Bitcoin market dominance may “nearly” reach two-thirds of the aggregate capitalization of cryptocurrencies. Citing reasons for this ~66% target, which isn’t out of the realm of possibility, the American firm purportedly stated that altcoins have “lost their luster” due to growing risk aversion tactics enlisted by retail investors.

Despite Downtrend, Analyst Expects Crypto “Tailwinds”

Speaking with MarketWatch, Ian McLeod of Thomas Crown Art, a blockchain-centric art startup, claimed that there could be a number of tailwinds for the cryptocurrency market in 2019. McLeod stated:

“There’s a growing list of investment tailwinds to consider for 2019. These include significant trade tensions, rising interest rates, political uncertainties, including Brexit, and complacent financial markets… Against this backdrop, we can expect cryptocurrencies will increasingly be seen as investors’ ‘safe havens’ in 2019 and beyond.

McLeod is evidently touching on the sentiment that as the traditional market falters, consumers at large will flock to BTC and other digital assets to mitigate the risk of holding assets with centralized entities.

The aforementioned industry participant isn’t the only individual to tout such tailwinds for cryptocurrencies. Anthony Pompliano, a beloved Bitcoin advocate better known as “Pomp,” recently took to Off The Chain, an institutional-focused crypto publication that he founded, to tout that industry fundamentals are booming.

Reminding readers to not get distracted by noise — the crypto market’s day-to-day developments — Pomp noted that while BTC has fallen, Bitcoin has surged in terms of transaction count, average TX fees, full nodes, and hashrate.

Title Image Courtesy of Marco Verch Via Unsplash