Is 2019 the Year of the Crypto Bull Market?

How Long Will the Crypto Market Bull Sleep?

Speculations about the cryptocurrency market continue to weigh heavily on the hearts of crypto enthusiasts as the market is yet to improve from the slump of 2018. The space is now left with dashed hopes, closed crypto exchanges, layoffs, hacks and a whole lot of constructive partnerships by the very few who truly understand what the blockchain is all about.

Reality has become grim for investors who hopped in at the all-time-high, especially shattering the expectations fueled by crypto influencers – the claims of Bitcoin reaching a high of USD 100,000 at the end of 2018. The ‘lambo’ songs that once reigned in many social communities have lost its savor as the lingo is being replaced with more realistic expectations such as measurable development goals and expected platform launch date.

Where are the 1000x’s promises?

Tough times greeted the new year, though still at the beginning of the year, many investors, as well as spectators, are wondering why the market still hasn’t had a bull run even though interest in blockchain has spiked. Some blame it on the delay in the entry of institutional investments.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse provided his personal opinion in a Blockchain Summit in Europe held at Brussels, saying that he estimates a 5 to 10 years waiting time for mainstream crypto payments.

This may be heartbreaking, as 5 years is indeed a long time to wait before hitting those 1000x’s again. More so, one would wonder if Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin was right about his earlier predictions on the end of 1000x’s in crypto space. However, in just under a decade, cryptocurrency has evolved many times over.

The flagship cryptocurrency Bitcoin started its dramatic steep decline in the wake of 2018 and dragged the whole market with it after grazing an all-time-high of USD 20,000 the previous year. The cryptocurrency market with a cap of over USD 813 billion in November 2017 has now dropped to USD 114 billion according to data from CoinMarketCap as at press time. Surely, this drop in market value is enough to make investors wary.

The previous 3 years had seen a steady rise of activity in ICO markets, with 2016 recording an approximate fund collection of USD 93,922,741; USD 6,576,372,746 in 2017;  a reportedly recorded USD 21,576,147,596 in 2018 and now, in 2019 ICOs have raised over USD  126 million and still counting, according to data from CoinSchedule. With these humongous figures, it behooves one to wonder what happened to post-ICOs and why the current conditions appear rather stale.

What’s wrong with Crypto?

Brad has said that the biggest risk in the market is regulatory uncertainty. With the Securities Commission of different jurisdictions like the US SEC breathing down the necks of ICOs for securities compliance and making scapegoats out of defaulters, startups are exercising more caution. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao had opined that 2018 was a year of correction and expressed his confidence for the future of crypto, however, he also pointed out that lack of clarity from regulators was a major drawback.

An analyst from JPMorgan expressed his skepticism about cryptocurrencies saying that real use for cryptocurrencies will only be in a dystopia – [one that has been duly noted in some hyper-inflated economies] – and that despite the correlation, the crypto market has with traditional assets, it’s of little value because of the prolonged bear market.

Legislation has indeed pegged the growth of the industry to a certain degree – at least from the cryptocurrency market perspective. However, some jurisdictions are opening up to the Idea of regulating the space in a way that innovation isn’t stifled. What’s left is for blockchain projects to live up to the hype that once ruled the space by developing more proof of concepts that are usable beyond the cryptomarket, as the market has so far proved to be a poor benchmark for the healthy state of blockchain enterprise.

For a while, the promise of institutional grade crypto services by elite financial systems such as Fidelity, and Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt has held many ‘hodlers’ ransom. Fortunately, as the space continues to mature, it becomes less reliant on external influences and survives on its initial narrative – decentralization.

Amid the market downturn, regulatory uncertainties, organizational restructuring, high expectations of institutional players; immense developments and innovation are driving adoption such as the rise in the numbers of Bitcoin ATM kiosks, use of crypto in charity, banks collaborating for cross-border payments, legacy systems shifting towards blockchain to tackle logistics problems. Perhaps, the market is just one trigger away to the next bull-run.

 

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