Market StatsCryptocurrencies lost ten per cent of their value on Tuesday while bitcoin fell 4.5 per cent. On the other hand, Ether’s price dropped seven per cent on the same day after dropping 17 per cent on Monday.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), “the value of all cryptocurrencies in circulation this week fell below $200 billion for the first time in 2018, its lowest since November.” In addition, 98 out of the 100 top currencies “by market value were down over 24 hours” as highlighted in CoinMarketcap’s research site.
“A broad investor retreat has pushed the market for digital currencies down 70 per cent from its January high, reflecting user frustration over their modest inroads into commerce and a general shakeout in speculative investments,” WSJ wrote.
Delayed Bitcoin ETF
The drop in bitcoin’s price could have been affected by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission’s announcement last week to delay its decision on a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Senior ETF analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence Eric Balchunas believes that a bitcoin ETF has the potential to boost the market.
“If a coin-based Bitcoin ETF comes out, I would see it getting to probably $5 billion within a year and then ultimately would be a pretty big product probably maybe $10 to $15 billion over the next couple of years and that would put it in the top 10 per cent biggest ETFs,” he told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin’s Price
The Bitcoin price stood at $6,709 (Kenya Shillings 676,585) as of Tuesday 21st, August, 2018 . This means that potential investors should buy the cryptocurrency right now since it is expected to rally at the year-end to around the same price of $20,000 recorded last year.
According to finder.com.au cryptocurrency experts, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash will be the worst performers this year, recording a growth of only 74 per cent and 63 per cent in that order.
Some of the cryptocurrencies that are expected to record higher a growth than BCH and BTC this year are Cardano (111 per cent), DigiByte (132 per cent), Dogecoin (112 per cent), EOS (131 per cent), and IOTA (123 per cent).
There are presently 1,865 cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin controlling 53 per cent of the market share.
