Cryptocurrencies, capitalization at 2018 lows. A trend that does not worry all analysts ...
La capitalization of all cryptocurrencies today negotiable has dropped to 186 billion dollars, for the lowest level of 2018 and, more generally, lower since November 2017. It is a long and painful fall for the cryptocurrency market compared to the January peak of 831 billion dollars, opening up new margins of interpretation in the near and short term future.
In particular, Bitcoin - the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization - is actually holding up well against other virtual currencies, priced at $ 6.281 at the time of writing, but still far from its January peak of over $ 19,800. However, Bitcoin has so far stubbornly refused to drop below $ 6.000 this year, rebounding from that level on several occasions.
But other cryptocurrencies in particular Ethereum, the second largest currency by market capitalization, are losing value at an evident pace, at the lows of the year and with a rapid and drastic drop in the last month.
The reasons behind the drop in prices have not changed much since last week: institutional investors, banks and regulators are still wary of cryptocurrencies, perhaps even more than in recent months. And numerous start-ups that raised a lot of money through the ICOs (initial coin offerings) on the Ethereum platform, are now changing it into legal currency, thus generating selling pressure on the price.
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, was recently cited by Bloomberg for saying that for cryptocurrencies there would no longer be an opportunity for further growth as happened in the past. This too, perhaps, may have contributed to the explosion of general negative sentiment towards Ethereum. However, Buterin subsequently clarified his comments on Twitter, saying that his words were misinterpreted.
