As many of our regular readers are probably well aware of, 2018 saw the price of Bitcoin [BTC] — the world's largest digital asset by total market capitalization — plummet by a staggering 80%. In this regard, a new report released by Adamant Capital recently claims that there are a number of new catalysts that could still adversely affect the price of BTC in next 4-8 months.

For starters, the study claims that as we move into the future, more and more BTC exchanges will fall victim to various hacking related incidents. To be even more specific, the authors claim that more than 20% of all altcoin trading platforms will experience some kind of illegal, third-party intrusion by the end of 2020.

In this regard, the report reads as follows:

“While cryptocurrency custodians were perceived to be the least risky, our experts still estimated that before the summer of 2020 an industry wide 10-15% of custodians would suffer from loss of funds due to a hack”.

A Closer Look at the Matter

According to Adamant Capital's aforementioned study, another factor that could trigger a crypto slump in the coming few months is a possible “macro-economic downturn”. The report further states that since BTC possesses a decent level of liquidity, manipulators could use it as a “proxy for cash if equity or bond markets start to drop for some reason or the other.”

“This could lead to a situation similar to the 2008 paradox of the gold price declining by over 30% coinciding with a record high demand for coins and bars […] we don’t see a financial crisis as a long term headwind for Bitcoin, on the contrary […] we believe that Bitcoin is of compelling value for investors looking to diversify their portfolios […]”

Final Take

In closing out this piece, it should mentioned that the folks over at Adamant Capital still believe that memories of the 2014 Mt Gox hack are still fresh in the memories of many investors – as a result of which many moneyed players are still staying away from this otherwise promising market sector.