What’s Causing this Crypto Bear Market and What’s in Store for It Going Forward

As I am writing this article on April 2nd, 2018, the crypto market capitalization is at $260B with a BTC price hovering around $7,000 USD. That’s 1/3 of the market capitalization it once was back in the beginning of January.

So what’s causing the market to continue on this downward trend?

1.) Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) and Bad Press

For those of us in the US, we know how our media and press loves to cause an uproar. Case in point the 2016 presidential election…that they still can’t stop talking about. These media companies have one goal and one goal only. PROFITS!! If they can’t profit from a headline, topic or story they won’t run it. It’s clear to me that the media despises Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I have yet to hear a positive thing on it whether on TV or online from them.

Most of the general population trusts the media and simply do not have the desire or the time to do all the research themselves. So when these media outlets start bashing cryptocurrencies and saying things like they are scams, for the most part, people believe them. There just isn’t any money in crypto for the media so why would they prop it up? Besides, most of the ‘journalists’ writing the stories have no understanding of the technology behind it nor care for the most part. Most of the folks watching their broadcasts won’t bother to do their own research anyways.

I personally know so many people, friends and family included that have simply stayed away from Bitcoin simply because the talking heads on TV told them to (without bothering to do their own research). Or they bought a little back in December and took a loss and now call the entire market a bubble. When the ‘bankers’ own the media and crypto goes against everything they ever known or worked for you can see why you won’t be hearing much positive news for crypto any time soon from them.

2.) End of 2017 Influx of New Investors Back in November and December of last year, Bitcoin was as popular as iPhones. Everyone was talking about it and everyone was trying to buy some. For the most part, a lot of these folks were unforchantly trying to get rich overnight and were not at all familiar with the basic concepts of cryptocurrencies let alone the technology. So here we had a huge influx of buyers simply buying because it was the cool thing to do and in hopes to get rich overnight.

Little did these folks know but they were about to invest in a manipulated market and one that was already at all time highs. These investors have either already sold for a loss or are still holding right now. Most of these folks still don’t have a decent understanding of what they even invested in.

3.) Scams, Scammers and Hacks

Being heavily involved into crypto, I can’t tell you how many scams I’ve run across. If you’ve been involved with crypto for at least the past few months I’m sure you’ve heard of some of the lending platforms that were guaranteeing you daily gains if you simply gave them some of your crypto to lend on their platform. Crypto was and still is very new so for your average investor these platforms sounded great. Bitconnect, LaserOnline, DavorCoin…I could go on. Bitconnect did end up lasting for about a year but the others lasted barely 3 months before the owners either closed up and ran away with the money or their own coin dropped in value overnight rendering your investment worthless.

Lending platforms aside, many other scams were happening in the crypto world. From folks asking to be paid in crypto for services rendered to then never to be heard from again to outright hacks on exchanges. These scams and hacks took a toll on the crypto world scaring off any first-time investors and leaving those who got burnt to never invest again.

4.) Bitcoin Futures Contracts Folks, including myself, weren’t sure what to think when CBOE and CME started offering Bitcoin futures contracts. This could be good right, I thought, as Bitcoin needs to settle in price before it can be taken seriously as a currency. What I didn’t know is to what extent these futures contracts would have on suppressing the price of BTC. I think it’s clear that these future contracts have played a part in suppressing the price of Bitcoin but to how much I am not sure.

5.) ICO’s, Forks and Pump & Dumps I think we can all agree that the outright number of ICO’s being introduced have skyrocket in the past few months. So many that the few that are good are getting diluted by the ones that are either outright scams or are completely unnecessary. I’ve read a couple of different articles now saying over 80% of ICO’s coming out now are scams. But at the same time, there are some really great ideas coming out but they get overshadowed by these scams giving a bad name to the ICO market.

Quote of the year, “Too many forks in the silverware drawer.” Two forks of BTC already just in 2018. These types of things causes every day investors to stay clear as who knows what’s going to happen when coins are forking off left and right. Some forks are a success, like Bitcoin Cash. But others end up not even getting listed on an exchange and/or crashing in value overnight.

Summary I’m assuming two things if you are reading this article. One, you are a crypto diehard like myself in this for the long term. Two, you are a newbie just now getting into crypto. Regardless of which one you are, I’m hoping you got something out of the article above and weren’t scared off.

The crypto market has been in an absolute tailspin lately and those of us that are in it for the long haul are prepared to sit and wait. I truly believe cryptocurrency is what the internet was in the 1990’s. Give it time to get its kinks worked out and watch it take over the world. Oh, and I’ll end with this…please stop worrying so much about the darn prices...we're in it for the technology remember :)