The Cryptocurrency Industry is 'On the Brink of an Implosion', Research Says (bloomberg.com)

Echoing sentiments of mainstream economists, Juniper Research is warning that many of the metrics in the cryptocurrency world are pointing to a market implosion. From a report: Industry bellwether Bitcoin had seen its daily transaction volumes fall from an average of around 360,000 a day in late 2017 to just 230,000 in September 2018. Meanwhile, daily transaction values were down from more than $3.7 billion to less than $670 million in the same period, Juniper said in the study, The Future of Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin & Altcoin Trends & Challenges 2018-2023. The market as a whole has contracted quickly as well. In the first quarter, cryptocurrency transactions totaled just over $1.4 trillion, compared with less than $1.7 trillion for 2017 as a whole, Juniper said. However, by the second quarter, transaction values had plummeted by 75 percent, with total market capitalization falling to just under $355 billion. "Based on activity during the first half of Q3, Juniper estimates a further 47 percent quarter-on-quarter drop in transaction values in that quarter," the researcher said in an accompanying white paper.

Comments

Re:It's about time ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always wild to me that SlashDot users have aged like dinosaurs and are actually, it seems, as a majority, not that bright. You do realize that once one algorithm is broken, that the chain itself can implement the next strongest algorithm indefinitely, right? Y'all need to go back and get a NEW CS degree, then actually try to stay with the times. Assume the current algorithm was broken and all funds were stolen. The chain itself is the public ledger, rewind to the point of failure, implement to the new stronger (resistant) algorithm, and press the play button. It happens again? Scale the algorithm to the new encryption model that is resistant to that time's systems. Rinse and repeat. You all talk as if the laws of mathematics are going to be rewritten and it's a bummer to know that I'm surrounded by so many dummies on this site.

Re:Cryptocurrencies are not going anywhere

[geoskd]

Ok, I'll have a go:

1: There is nothing intrinsic to crypto that makes it go up. If demand (i.e. utilization) is not growing as fast as new coins are mined, then the value drops. This is even more pronounced when the utilization growth goes negative. See yesterday, and last month, and this whole year. BTC is currently worth less than half what it was last year, and has the potential to drop all the way to zero without major changes to the world we live in. USD by contrast would only be capable of dropping to zero by way of the apocalypse.

2: They are only as secure as the software that is used to handle it. Software in general is notoriously insecure. Also see 51% attack.

3: You can achieve this same effect using a brokerage service, of which there are millions in every flavour you could want. The easiest to use variants are Credit Cards which are accepted almost universally. Visa handles 150M transactions per day, or approximately 3 orders of magnitude more than bitcoin, and in spite of that high load, they handle individual transactions in seconds. Nothing about cryptocurrency is inherently faster, better or safer.

4: Oh Really?

5: Only if they are universally accepted. If people stop accepting them, then they loose utility, and less people will be inclined to use them, which makes them even less useful. This is known as a death spiral, and the research cited in this story seems to indicate that bitcoin is headed in exactly that direction. This phenomenon is not unique to cryptocurrency, and is one of the reasons that AmEx plays dirty pool to force retailers to keep accepting their cards.