Were the Bullish 2018 Speculations false?

2018 has been a very rough year for the world of cryptocurrencies. 2019 is just a little over a month away. If you have been in the cryptocurrency world for even a while now, you know that there are speculations of Bitcoin breaking its all-time high during the January of 2019 or even December of 2018.

However, now that we are eight days away from December, there is no sign of any increase in the valuation of Bitcoin or Ethereum. In, fact, we can see signs of a sharp drop. It is essential to bear in mind that although the term cryptocurrency covers all the cryptocurrency, the primary ones are Bitcoin and Ethereum.

That is precisely why I am mentioning Bitcoin. The nature of all cryptocurrency is such that it is dependant on Bitcoin. So for example when Bitcoin’s price rises then the prices of a majority of other cryptocurrency rises too and vice versa. This can be clearly seen if we take a glance at the stats.

During the January of 2018 when Bitcoin was at its peak, other cryptocurrencies including XRP, IOTA and DASH were also at their all-time high. Another proof of the interdependency nature can be seen if we take a look at the cryptocurrency Ripple or XRP. Ripple Lab’s token XRP which is the world’s 2nd top cryptocurrency was stable at $0.51 per coin for quite a while.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Today – BTC / USD

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$12 Billion wiped out

However, this week after Bitcoin’s price dropped sharply, XRP, followed the footsteps and came down to $0.44. That is a 14% drop to be precise within less than five days. That means if an investor had invested $1,000 in Ripple’s XRP then his portfolio dropped to $860 within five days. If we take a look at the entire crypto market then a little over $12, Billon was wiped out because of the initial Bitcoin price drop.

XRP (XRP) Price Today – XRP / USD

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During the year 2018 Bitcoin’s price dropped when China had put regulations on Bitcoin and had apparently made cryptocurrency trading illegal. Talking about laws and regulations the SEC or U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stated:

“Any entity that provides a marketplace for bringing together buyers and sellers of securities, regardless of the applied technology, must determine whether its activities meet the definition of an exchange under the federal securities laws.”

The agency used the example of EtherDelta’s smart contract:

“EtherDelta’s smart contract was coded to, among other things, validate order messages, confirm the terms and conditions of orders, execute paired orders, and direct the distributed ledger to be updated to reflect a trade.”

What’s next?

There is nothing that can be assured because of the volatility of the cryptocurrency market. We can speculate, and some experts including McAfee still predict that Bitcoin will rise before February of 2019. McAfee is the same person who predicted that bitcoin will be worth $20,000 in January of 2018 and that prediction was absolutely true.

With that being said, it is very important o only invest money that you can afford to lose and to do your own research. In fact, when investing in crypto, you should be prepared for losing all that you have invested.