Crypto Currencies Endure Another Minor Correction
All crypto currencies endured a minor correction on Monday evening as the Asian markets came into play. It was expected that there would be a slight reversal in the trends of crypto currency prices after several positive news alerts across the board but it seems that the investors are still out to drag the coins to further lows in the hopes of picking up more bargains at excellent prices. One has to be reminded that a few weeks ago, prices of crypto currencies were less than half what they are now.
Bitcoin led the drop with another 5% reversal added to the 5% of Monday which means that all gaisn made on Sunday have now been reversed. Ripple lost another 5% to trade at around $1.19 while Bitcoin Cash also dropped around 5% before recovering slightly to pare out losses to around the $1650 mark. Litecoin was also down by around 3% while Dash seemed to be the best performer with a loss of only 1-2%.
Ethereum was the only currency which was in recovery mode and was trading more or less at par with a minimal 0.5% loss over the past 24 hours. Many financial observers and investors are expecting a breakout in this currency where it is expected to reach the $1300 mark quite soon although there are no signs of this happening imminently.
According to crypto market analysts, the current price trend of bitcoin and Ethereum do not accurately reflect the performance of both cryptocurrencies in terms of user activity, user base, and adoption. This week, two of Asia's largest retailers have announced support for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies including Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. However this has not seen any positive movement in the price, rather it is down substantially by about 15% week on week.
Most notably, South Korea's e-commerce platform WeMakePrice has started the integration process of 12 cryptocurrencies listed by Bithumb. Within a few weeks, millions of active users on WeMakePrice will be able to transact using bitcoin and 11 other cryptocurrencies. Last week, Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz stated that if cryptocurrencies cannot be adopted by retailers and merchants, they will fail to evolve into legitimate currencies. Already, despite the underlying scalability issues of most major cryptocurrencies, some of the largest retailers in Asia have started to integrate bitcoin and Ethereum. There are also rumours however that Starbucks could be having its own ICO very soon so this statement has to be taken with that information in context.
Currently, the Bitcoin network is settling about 250,000 transactions per day while Ethereum is processing more than 1.2 million transactions on a daily basis. The integration of the two cryptocurrencies by major retailers could significantly increase their transaction volumes, given that the merchant adoption for leading cryptocurrencies is still minimal as of current.
The demand for cryptocurrencies is still increasing at a rapid rate, given that Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the market, also added 6 million users in the past 6 months, allowing it to become the fastest growing startup in history. Other exchanges are also following suit. But, the market has also experienced an exponential growth rate over the past few months. In 2017, the price of Ripple increased by 330 times, Ethereum by 150 times and bitcoin by 19 times. Investors within the cryptocurrency market only expect the price of cryptocurrencies to surge by large margins most of the time while dismissing the importance of corrections.
Short-term corrections allow the market to strengthen because weak hands drop off from the market. Because of the week-long slump the market experienced over the past 7 days, many speculators have left the market and the market has stronger hands. Such a trend is evident in the decrease in the daily trading volume of most cryptocurrencies in the market. However this could also have an effect on the long term prospects of crypto currency prices which take much more time to recover to their recent all-time highs.