Bitcoin Solstice: BTC Sees Twelve Percent Hike, Crypto Markets Rebound

Bitcoin Solstice Sees A Twelve Percent Hike

After the mini-crash of December 2017, bitcoin experienced muted trading and a prolonged caution. The cryptocurrency has now bounced back 12 percent from its previous lows during the week of June 20, 2018, touching $6,609.50 on June 25, 2018.

The overall market’s value has sunk significantly this year as the asset class struggles to realign. Commentators like FundStrat’s Tom Lee earlier predicted bullish outcomes for bitcoin this year, with Lee’s personal estimate pegged at $25,000. Others are less optimistic, but it remains unclear whether bitcoin will reach suggested highs in 2018.

Recent Bitcoin Snapshot

In the penultimate week of June 2018, bitcoin dipped to its lowest price since November 2017. Traders pointed to CME futures contracts expiring and overall market quiet. Both factors saw a bitcoin price below $6,000 for the first time this year.

Industry data shows a 52 percent bitcoin drop since January 2018. General caution or apathy seems the recent buyer’s stance, although a wider perspective demonstrates that the altcoin is up 145 percent since July 2017. Some enthusiasts point to the currency’s potential as seen in last year’s meteoric rise as simply latent, and remain confident that a digital currency that rose 1,300 percent in a single year can regain its December 2017 highs of nearly $20,000.

As the cryptocurrency novelty wears off and exchanges enable adoption all over the world, other established coins are also in a slump. The price for ETH has dipped 40 percent in 2018, and XRP has shed around 80 percent. Bitcoin Cash lost some 70 percent, and Litecoin has lost 64 percent during the same period.

The cryptocurrency marketplace overall has dipped around 57 percent in value after January 2018's kick-off with a market cap of $608 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. Once Bitcoin had demonstrated its phenomenal fund-raising capacities, innumerable other altcoins were minted, hoping to cash in. At least 800 are listed as now dead by Dead Coins, the industry site that monitors the legitimacy of ICOs.

In an ICO, tokens are issued either as utility or currency tokens, but the aim is the same: generation of starting capital. While some indeed seek to emulate the blockchain ethos embodied by bitcoin and other altcoins, many were simply opportunistic, scams or not market-ready. Dead Coins tracks the trajectories of all tokens issued via ICO.

Cryptocurrency Regulation Takes The Shine Off Things

A potential contributor to the recent months of subdued crypto trading could be the fact that global regulations have harnessed the movement. Some stringent crackdowns as well as a host of legislative controls have generated substantial bad press in the arena.

America’s SEC has been trumpeting its mandate to protect consumers from pump-and-dump schemes wrapped up as ICOs. The celebrity ICO Centra that was backed by Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khalid has been shut down and the founders charged with fraud. These and other incidents generate negative sentiment among retail investors.

Bitcoin and its fellow altcoins have begun a chorus, calling for speedier clarity on regulations so that newcomers and legacy investors alike can once again partake.

The SEC, for one, has been busy analyzing altcoins and recently determined that ethereum cannot be deemed a security for trading purposes. Regulators are beginning to clarify legislation and have also promised not to apply anything but standard criteria when regulating the cryptosphere.

The votes are still out on whether bitcoin will return to the position of new gold it occupied in 2017. According to Lee’s complete prediction, bitcoin should have reached $20,000 by the “middle” of 2018 and cap out around $25,000 in December 2018. To date, Lee is the only prominent Wall Street strategist to risk issuing bitcoin price targets.

Bitcoin Bulls Wait At The Gate

Major VC Tim Draper has predicted a 2022 bitcoin price of $250,000. Draper said during April 2018 that his bitcoin investment was destined to be bigger than his combined early investments in Hotmail, Skype and Tesla. He was referring to his returns, not the initial investment. He concluded in opining that bitcoin would be “bigger than the internet.”

Dan Morehead, the Pantera Capital founder and CEO, said around the same time that bitcoin would be “highly likely to have exceeded $20,000 within a year.” Bitcoin is currently trading at $6,612.06 while the market sleeps with one eye open.