Black Friday didn’t bring relief to the Crypto Market. In fact, it brought in a new year-to-date low as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum(ETH) and a majority altcoins slide further. BTC fell below $4,300 while Ethereum dropped to $120.
The selling pressure that began on Wednesday the 14th, the eve of Bitcoin Cash’s hard fork settled a little after sending BTC and ETH plummeting through supposed levels of support. However, that sense of stability didn’t last long. Bitcoin fell below the $4,500 level it had established just days before at 1:00 AM (GMT). Bitcoin was at $4.250 at the time of writing. This is 78% lower than its previous record of $20,000. Soon after, Ethereum saw a 7% drop in value from $130 to $120.
The altcoins were close behind ETH, BTC and XRP. XRP is at $0.415 and -7% respectively. The over cryptocurrency ecosystem is facing major challenges due to the market leaders in trouble. The total value of all crypto assets fell to $137 billion for the year, the lowest figure since mid-September 2017.
While a lot of reasons can be cited for the fall, however, none can be clearly pointed or solely stated as the key catalyst. A few experts have predicted the plausible reason for the fall, an outspoken cryptocurrency advocated and believer, Susquehanna’s Bart “Crypto King” Smith, spells out that the relative unusability of fiat on-ramps is directly hampering the adoption of cryptocurrencies. He said:
An heirloom individual of the GI generation will not take a high resolution photo of their drivers licence to send to a website and then send them money. They want to invest at Fidelity and Bank of America. This has caused the second problem: without the capital on-ramp liquidity has been very low. So far, we have seen a stable price throughout the summer… but when sellers come in, [those sales] are not absorbed by liquidity.
