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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.
So some folks with more dollars than sense dumped a bunch of money into the cryptocurrency market trying to make a quick buck. Some won, some lost. It's been long accepted that most of the alt-coins available today will eventually disappear, leaving only the strongest and most useful cryptocurrencies. Speculation is what drove the market up to unsustainable levels. I believe it has come back down where it belongs, if not a bit lower, against the U.S. Dollar. But remember, we're talking about currencies, not stocks. People need to get out of the investment mentality and see the technology for what it is: Digital CASH. Blockchain will never die. Cryptocurrency as a whole will never fail. The genie is already out of the bottle. It just might take a little time for people to change their mentality about it.
Replace fiat with crypto and you have an accurate assessment of our current financial situation.