Never thought this feeling would be back again, but it is. Bitcoin rate fell by $1,000, dragging the market along with it. Whatever is the cause of this event - you can only rejoice. During the past half a year, in the absence of volatility, the interest towards crypto from a mass audience began to fall, which affected the mood of participants that by now have become accustomed to the fact that the rate could show wildly different numbers during the course of a day.
It’s the essence of human nature to seek an explanation for what is happening. The sharp fall in prices coincided with the fork of bitcoin cash, which divided into bitcoin cash ABC and bitcoin cash SV. New currencies are about to appear on stock exchanges, and those who got the digital money out of thin air will attempt to convert them into real cash. Can the fork put pressure on the market?
Everything that happens with bitcoin cash depends on the desire of Bitmain, the largest manufacturer of mining equipment. The word decentralization, in this case does not even appear in the conversation. In fact, this is a private cryptocurrency, the promotion of which takes place through different methods. As the last example: Bitmain representatives went to the miners and tried to supply them with 70,000 mining devices for BCH. What happened to this attempt - is unknown.
It was known that the fork is coming for some time. Those who wanted to participate in this experiment, began to buy currency in advance since the key feature of the blockchain split process is that the funds are essentially doubled. At the time of the first fork, all bitcoin users who had coins in their wallets received an equivalent amount in BCH, which instantly got into the stock exchanges and major trading floors, although the price was several times lower than their native currency.
Can the expectation to generate some funds as a result of the fork lead to a dramatic change in the rates? Most likely not, because new assets appear on the market every day, receiving capitalization in tens of millions of dollars and liquidity from literally out of nowhere. Forks are also not new, albeit even large enough. All this happened in the last six months and the cost of the main cryptocurrency.
Even ten years after its creation, the way the price of the world's main cryptocurrency forms the remains a mystery. Everything that we see on the stock exchanges has nothing to do with the reality - all figures are approximate, many exchanges overestimate them, others vice versa. And it's not even about the exchanges! Most transactions occur in the OTC format — outside the market, and most likely on different terms to the market. The price, by mythical whales - the owners of very large numbers of bitcoins, who are able to manipulate the market through their actions.
In addition to the fork, which is the obvious scapegoat to blame everything on, maintenance work on Binance, which despite the presence of numerous competitors, is at the top of the rankings, is also rumored to be a part of the conspiracy. While Binance came back to life, the fall , on a small exchange Bitstamp. The exchange processes $60 million worth of crypto with the average weekly volume at ten times that amount. Such the are unlikely to be the cause of the manipulation, but the price of $5,500 for bitcoin quickly spread across to the other platforms.
Last winter, we observed an attempt to reach the moon, which turned up being a manipulation of the tether stablecoin. Since then, many other currencies have appeared, supported/backed or not, with real financial assets. There is a possibility that a release, or the destruction of a large number of tokens, same as last time, will have an effect on the market. Trying to say that one or a number of events caused the crash for sure while trying to explain what the rate depends on is not a worthwhile task.
Bitcoin dropping by $1,000 has pulled the rest of the market along with it. All popular crypto assets are beginning to show 12-month lows. Litecoin is less than $40, ethereum $160. It’s still a month before Christmas, and the sale has already begun. The only one still sort of holding on is XRP. Ripple, against the background of a large amount of good news, has solidified at the second position of the cryptocurrency rating. That is a historical event.
The past six months have been excellent for the blockchain market, but disgusting for bitcoin. The price was stable. A massive influx of new users has ceased, even search interest has fallen. Bitcoin - began to disappear from the news agenda. There is nothing to say. And then - the movement. It does not matter down or up - the main thing, something has happened.
Following all that attention that cryptocurrencies have obtained, due to their continuous decline, a logical question appears - what's next. Analysts of large websites like Forbes or Bloomberg agree that the bottom has not yet been reached, and they are also keeping in mind that any drastic fall is usually followed by a rapid growth. In general, same probabilities as meeting a dinosaur - either you do, or not - half and half.
Those who bought bitcoin for $15,000, you just want to hug and calm them down, you can understand how hard it is for them to watch, this endless downward marathon, those who have long wanted to go to the market received a signal. The last stable period was quite a good point to buy cryptocurrencies, but the current decline is simply a gift from the gods. It is time. No one can say what will happen next, but something is happening right now. Bitcoin is back on the agenda, and even though it’s flying away from the moon, it is still flying.