Bitcoin Fundamentals Hinting At Bear Trend

Willy Woo, a leading Australian crypto researcher, analyst, and commentator, recently took to his well-followed Twitter feed to convey his latest bit of Bitcoin (BTC)-related analysis. According to his proprietary network indicators, which many argue are better than pure technicals, “there’s not a lot of on-chain volumes to fuel a prolonged move [to the upside].” He then went on to note that the influx of traded BTC could be chalked up to market volatility, which pushed investors to send their holdings to exchanges to capitalize/liquidate.

Despite the technical setup that suggests bullishness is possible, there's not a lot on-chain volume to fuel a prolonged up move. What we saw in the last 7 weeks was a spike of on-chain volume driven by volatility, coins moving to exchanges to trade. pic.twitter.com/MVxlN8ttO1 — Willy Woo (@woonomic) January 5, 2019

Woo explained that this volatility initially signaled that an “earlier end to the bear market” could be in sight, but noted that was actually false. The analyst noted that there are no ostensible signs that accumulation has begun to occur, in spite of the growth in UTXOs.

As such, factoring his “Bitcoin Network Value Transaction Ratio (NVT)” measure, Woo noted that means that the NVT chart is on the “high side of its oscillation.” Although this doesn’t mean BTC will definitely head lower, Woo noted that in his opinion, this means that the flagship cryptocurrency likely has little space to run, so in the longer-term, bears will the trade.

Yet, Crypto Market Surges To Follow Ethereum’s Lead

In spite of the harrowing picture that Woo painted for Bitcoin in the months to come, the crypto market underwent a short-term surge on Sunday, seemingly on the back of no catalysts. As reported by Ethereum World News previously, BTC surged past $4,000 for the first time in weeks, with other cryptocurrencies following close behind it.

Per Live Coin Watch, a leading crypto analytics provider, BTC is currently valued at $4,080 apiece, posting $5.02 billion in 24-hour volumes to match its 4.33% gain.

Although a majority of its altcoin brethren surged, with XRP posting a 2.5% gain, EOS finding itself up by 5.6%, and Litecoin surging 10%, Ethereum actually fell, losing a smidgen of its value. At the time of writing, ETH is down 0.25%, underperforming its fellow top cryptocurrencies due to its relatively strong performance (~80%) in the past two weeks. Ether’s surge has been attributed to the impending Constantinople hard fork, which will reduce ETH issuance by 33%, which is likely to be bullish over time.

However, if Woo’s analysis is any indicator, there is a chance that cryptocurrencies could head lower in the weeks/months to come, just as a number of other commentators expect. Per previous reports from us, Anthony Pompliano, the founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets and a leading anti-establishment figure, believes BTC will revisit sub-$3,000 levels before breaching its late-2017 all-time high in the future.

Title Image Courtesy of Andre Francois Mckenzie Via Unsplash