Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Continues to Shrink, Bitcoin Price Heads Toward Sub-US$1900

Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap Continues to Shrink, Bitcoin Price Heads Toward Sub-US$1900

It is a very rough weekend for cryptocurrency holders,

as is to be expected. With the value of Bitcoin going down even further, most other altcoins see similar losses. We also saw both Dash and NEM suffer from their market cap going below US$1bn. Moreover, the total cryptocurrency market cap continues to drop and is on target to go below US$60bn in the coming days.

The Cryptocurrency Downtrend Continues Unabated

Do not be mistaken in thinking we like to report on massive losses in the cryptocurrency world. At the same time, there is no reason to ignore the obvious facts staring us in the face right now either. Cryptocurrency is not in the best of places and the overall downtrend is not over just yet, by the look of things. Bitcoin has dipped below US$2,000, as we predicted in yesterday’s article. We wouldn’t have minded being wrong in that assumption, though. Looking at the current price, Bitcoin is holding its own around the US$1,900 level. That doesn’t automatically mean the price won’t go below that target, though. Rumors and speculation on Telegram hints at how BTC may even hit US$1,400, although that may be wishful thinking at best. There are plenty of people who wouldn’t mind buying some additional bitcoins while they remain cheap. Now is a good price to buy Bitcoin, assuming you expect the value to bounce back over time.

Other currencies are not doing much better either. If the Bitcoin price goes down, the rest of the ecosystem will automatically follow. It is one of those unwritten rules in the world of cryptocurrency. Ethereum lost another 24%, with Ripple putting up similar numbers. Litecoin “only” lost 4% – which is quite remarkable – whereas Ethereum Classic dropped 13.3%. It is quite interesting taking note of these different percentages, even though the overall trend is anything but positive.

As is to be expected, there is always one currency to buck this trend. On this Sunday, that coin is none other than IOTA. Given the recent beating IOTA has taken across the exchanges prior to this Bitcoin drop, the reverse trend is quite intriguing to take note of. Whether or not this momentum can be maintained for the long run, remains to be seen. Most currencies are noting losses of well over 12%, which is quite a bit higher than Bitcoin’s 7% loss. All things considered, Bitcoin is still in a better position than most other currencies, with the exception of Litecoin. The bigger question is why this extended downtrend is taking place right now. The upcoming SegWit2x and UASF activation certainly cause a lot of fear among novice users. Moreover, it appears some exchanges will halt Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals during that period. That is not uncommon by any means, as the risk of a chain split is very real. Halting trading at such a critical point in history is the best course of action and shouldn’t be any cause for concern whatsoever.

If the cryptocurrency market cap continues to shrink at the same rate, we will go below US$60bn very soon. Right now, the total cap is just below US$64bn, which is well below the US$110bn mark we reached a few weeks ago. A correction was bound to happen sooner or later, though. We have seen a lot of money pour into cryptocurrency as of late. Such a massive trend can’t be sustained indefinitely. The markets will bounce back eventually, though, and now is a good time to hold and not look at charts until early August.

Chuck Reynolds


Marketing Dept
Contributor

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Cryptocurrency fall continues ahead of Bitcoin’s ‘civil war’ conclusion on Aug 1- Ether below $200

Cryptocurrency fall continues ahead of Bitcoin's 'civil war' conclusion on Aug 1- Ether below $200

Cryptocurrency fall continues ahead of Bitcoin's 'civil war' conclusion on Aug 1- Ether below $200

Bitcoin prices fell below USD 2,100 today and are inching towards breaking the USD 2,000 level, as bears continue their rampage on cryptostreet.

Cryptocurrencies continue to bleed as speculators remain jittery ahead of bitcoin’s scaling debate conclusion on August 1. The total market cap has dropped by USD 9 billion, a 11 percent fall, in the past 24 hours, according to coinmarketcap.com.

Bitcoin prices fell below USD 2,100 today and could soon break the USD 2,000 level, as bears continue their rampage on cryptostreet.

The price slipped to USD 2,057, at time of reporting, according to CryptoCompare.com, a drop of around 32 percent from its all time high of USD 3,000.

Ethereum, bitcoin’s closest rival in terms of market cap, again dropped sub-USD 200 to the levels of USD 186, as per CryptoCompare. After falling 50 percent from its all-time high in June, ether has now hit a 45-day low.

Other major cryptocurrencies like litecoin, ripple, zcash have witnessed a drop of 10-20 percent over the past 24 hours.

The crypto-asset space reached a peak market cap of USD 116 billion in June and since then has lost USD 42 billion, a 36 percent correction over the past one month, entering a bear market, going by conventional definition.

Since the start of 2017, cryptocurrency prices have had a phenomenal rally. Experts believe this was due to speculative buying as prices were being driven by the mania for initial coin offerings (ICOs).

 

What the ‘fork’

Just when everyone thought it was over, the bitcoin ‘civil war’ resurfaced in June when major mining firm Bitmain announced the launch of a user- activated hard fork (UASF).

In May, a majority of blockchain industry bigwigs reached a consensus regarding the bitcoin scaling solution and agreed to enable the Segregated Witness (SegWit).

The SegWit was supposed to be a soft fork, a temporary solution to make bitcoin's software protocol handle the growing transactions burden.

"The prospect of a bitcoin fork isn't enticing for bitcoiners as it highlights the inability for the project to move forward and the divisiveness in opinions on how to do so," Charles Hayter, co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency data platform CryptoCompare, had earlier told Moneycontrol.

"The scaling debate has been around for two years now and the ramifications of the present state of play lead to a number of price-sensitive scenarios that are not positive."

n case of a hard fork, if the bitcoin blockchain splits, users are at risk of losing their bitcoin. Bitcoin experts have suggested to not make transactions during the uncertain time period around August 1.

If the Bitmain hard fork happens then there would be two legitimate Bitcoin ledgers on August 3rd. The soft forked version of Bitcoin and the newly forked Bitmain Bitcoin.
 

David Ogden
Entrepreneur
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Author: Sidhartha Shukla

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member