The Crypto Review 2018

By Prashant Jha

The new year is almost around the corner and holiday season is at its peak. It’s time to look back and see what the year had in the offering and how far have we come.

Cryptocurrency trade market suffered heavy losses, however, blockchain technology gained much wider acceptance than what many might have predicted. People got to know the true value and bigger potential of the digital currencies and realized that a much-polished version of the digital asset can bring a new financial revolution.

A look back at the Performance of Cryptocurrency Market

2017 ended with a bang for the cryptocurrencies, where major digital assets like Bitcoin reached its all-time high price, and major altcoins followed the suit, bringing the necessary attention towards digital assets.

The high-price point prompted many to consider an investment into the bullish crypto trade market hoping to earn great dividends. The high price point even prompted many enthusiasts and noted personalities to predict absurd prices and new highs for the cryptocurrencies. However, all the price predictions came crashing down, as the market lost 80% of its valuation in the final quarter of 2018.

The major blood-bath started with the announcement of the infamous hard fork of the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network on November 15. The fork created a rift among the crypto community where a few choose to be on the Roger Ver led BCH ABC (now simply known as BCH) while many whales took the side of the Craig Wright led BCH SV side. The war of words and probable manipulation led to a downward spree, which saw the prices of Bitcoin and other altcoins touch an all-time low.

Bitcoin is currently struggling to maintain a lower resistance point at $4,200 and continuously fluctuating between $3500 to $4,000 mark. Many crypto bulls and enthusiasts are optimistic about the future of digital currencies and hoping for the major institution to adapt to digital assets sooner than later.

The trade markets might be on a downward bleeding spree, but the blockchain technology and concept of decentralization have gained much wider acceptance and many use cases in the real world.

Blockchain & Decentralization sees Tremendous Growth 

The year hasn’t been the greatest when it comes to the price value and market trends, however, Satoshi Nakamoto would be one happy man (or men or women) to see his concept of a true decentralized world slowly gaining the momentum in the right direction. The blockchain technology has finally come out of the shadows of the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies and ever-changing trade markets.

Europe, Asia, and the United States of America have put in their time and research to understand the technology better and find different ways to implement it in the real world.

Regulators who often seemed as the anti-protagonist in a fairytale Blockchain story have finally started to play the supporting role. Many regulatory bodies backed by the government has paved the way for crypto exchanges and transparent crypto trades. Apart from the regulation reliefs, governments have also initiated many programs to induct blockchain in the current scheme of things. Be it Australian Beef market implementation of blockchain for quality check, or Bank of America using blockchain for Cash handling. The demand for blockchain implementation is at an all-time high.

What to Expect in 2019?

2019 would be a breakthrough year for blockchain technology. The bearish trend in 2018 has prompted many core development teams to polish their network for the demand and scale it accordingly for mass use. The prices would still be volatile, as there is no real-world entity backing the digital currencies. However, many analysts and crypto enthusiast believe, 2018 would serve as the stepping stone and a lesson for developers to look back and improve upon the causes for a massive downfall.

The distributed ledger system would gain mass popularity and see much more real-world use cases than 2018. ICOs would go out of trend as the regulations will tighten, but if you are able to prove that your token is more than security, then, declining ICOs would be your last concern.