The Top of the Cryptocurrency Market: Consolidation or a new bull run?
A blog about the current crypto market.
The recent crypto market dip has led to many people speculating that this could be the beginning of a bear market. However, I have a different take on things, and I think we are currently in a consolidation period at the top of the market.
What does consolidation mean?
Consolidation is when price moves sideways for an extended period of time before making another move. This is usually after a prolonged trend and serves as “breathing room” for the market before making another move.
Traders use consolidation periods to re-gather their strength to continue the trend, or gain enough energy to start a reversal. The more extended and stronger the prior trend was, the longer and stronger consolidating action will be needed to recharge for another move.
Consolidation can take many forms, but what matters most is that it occurs at previous support/resistance levels. If consolidation occurs at resistance, then it is usually bearish (possible reversal or just profit taking). If consolidation occurs at support, then it is usually bullish (possible continuation or just buying opportunity).
The Top of the Cryptocurrency Market: Consolidation or a new bull run?
The cryptocurrency market has been consolidating in recent weeks. At the time of this blog post, Bitcoin has been in a consolidation period for 35 days. During this consolidation period, altcoins have been slowly chipping away at Bitcoin’s dominance rate.
Bitcoin is currently down -2.43% from its highest price and down -48% from its all-time high. The current price of Bitcoin is $6,717. Ethereum is currently down -29% from its all-time high and trading at $233. Ripple is currently down -87% from its all-time high and trading at $0.33/XRP.
Altcoins have seen large gains during this consolidation period as they chip away at Bitcoin’s dominant position in the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin Cash has gained over 150% during this consolidation period while XRP has gained over 30%.
The question I want to answer today is whether we are seeing a consolidation period or if we are seeing the top of the cryptocurrency market? My bet is that we are seeing the top of the cryptocurrency market and that we will see a pullback in many cryptocurrencies soon.
After climbing out of the
The cryptocurrency market is in consolidation phase with the prices hovering around $300 Billion. This number is almost half of the peak which was $600 Billion. But even at this level, people are calling it a bubble which was burst by the regulators and banks.
If you look at history, the markets have gone through many phases of corrections and consolidation before it started the next bull run. The same thing happened in 2014-2015 where the prices consolidated for almost 18 months before it started moving upwards.
It would be wrong to say that Cryptocurrency is a bubble because it has only been 8 years since Bitcoin came into existence and there are still many avenues to explore. If we look at the Internet, there were many phases of correction before it actually penetrated into our lives. Even today there are many areas in Internet which are yet to be explored; similarly, there are many areas in Cryptocurrency which can be explored and developed. And if we do see the next bull run, it’s going to be bigger than ever before!
The reason why I am bullish on Cryptocurrency is because it has various use cases: payments, exchange, lending, wallet services etc. There are multiple industries which can be disrupted using this technology like Financial Services, Banking etc.
We have been through a tremendous bull run, and the market has consolidated a bit since the highs of December 2017. Market cap is still quite high at $450b, but down from its all time high of $820b in December. There is a lot of uncertainty with these assets and their place in the world. Is this consolidation a sign that we are going to see a new bull run?
Cryptocurrency has seen an enormous rise in popularity and value over the past couple of years. Many people believe that blockchain technology is going to be the next paradigm shift for society, and some even go as far as saying it will be as big as the internet. We are at the early stages of this movement, and many believe that we are only scratching the surface.
The main reason cryptocurrencies have risen so much in value is because people have been buying them. If you bought Bitcoin at any point over the last year, then you would have seen an incredible return on investment, even though it has decreased from its all time high of $20k to its current price of $6k (at time of writing). Many people that bought Bitcoin early on were early adopters or tech geeks who heard about this new technology called “blockchain” and wanted to get involved
The cryptocurrency market has seen some significant changes over the past few months. Following the late 2017 bull run, Bitcoin BTC and altcoins have slumped in value, losing a lot of their recent gains. While the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market cap (according to CoinMarketCap) consolidated over the last few weeks, it looks like new life could be coming to the market.
The total crypto market cap has seen a lot of movement over the past few weeks. After reaching a high of $800 billion on January 8th, 2018, it dropped to $300 billion on February 6th, 2018. Since then, it has been consolidating above $300 billion but saw a spike on March 7th when it reached a high of $450 billion before pulling back slightly.
Bitcoin has also been consolidating over the past few weeks but also saw a spike on March 7th when it reached an intraday high of $11,400 before pulling back slightly to sit at around $11,000-$11,500.
As the cryptocurrency market begins to show signs of life again after a period of consolidation, let’s take a look at how some of the biggest cryptocurrencies are faring.
The cryptocurrency markets have been in a down trend for the past 6 months. The market cap has lost over 70% of its value since its all time high back in December 2017, when the crypto market cap hit an historic mark of $800 billion dollars.
This is not the first time that the crypto market has experienced a significant correction. In fact, this is the 3rd major correction since Bitcoin’s inception (the other two corrections occurred in 2011 and 2014). The important thing to note about these corrections is that every single time Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have reached new all time highs after a correction. This happened with Bitcoin in 2013 and again in 2017, and many believe that it will happen again in the near future.
The question now becomes: what will drive the price of cryptocurrencies higher? The answer to this question depends on who you ask. Some people believe that institutional investors will be what drives the next bull run, while others believe that the mass adoption of blockchain technology will be what drives the market cap higher. I personally think that it is going to be a combination of both of these factors along with some other catalysts, but I will get into each one later on.**
Bitcoin and Ethereum are consolidating, but the rest of the market is starting to heat up.