Crypto Market Forecast: The week ahead, 10th December

This week in crypto

Digital assets continue to be pulled back towards new yearly lows as another week ended with heavy red trading across markets. The total crypto market fell by ~12%, while the price of market leading tokens Bitcoin (BTC), XRP and Ethereum (ETH) fell by 12%, 14% and 17% respectively.

There continues to be reports of 2017 ICOs scaling operations, struggling to consolidate accumulated funds, and being forced into a position of selling held crypto reserves.

Last week the CEO of Sirin labs, a project which raised $255 million at the time of its ICO in December 2017, told Bloomberg that his team had just enough money to run ‘reasonably’ for 6-12 months and may have to pivot away from its original concept of building a blockchain smartphone, and instead may sell software to phone manufacturers.

Stories like Sirin Lab’s continue to create anxiety for holders across the crypto marketplace and raise questions as to how much value can be created by blockchain projects in the current crypto ecosystem. The possibility of continued crypto sell-offs from weak hands continues to loom over the sector.

Another factor contributing to last week’s red trading was another delay to the Van-Eck SolidX ETF. However, any direct effect of the announcement was likely muted given that this was the result expected by the majority of market participants.

Institutions, however, remain positive regarding the potential of blockchain technology and the powerful data settlement solution it provides.

This week Mastercard announced the filing of a patent for a blockchain based data privacy solution, while news that Facebook was in the market for a new senior blockchain developer led to fresh hype & excitement that a blockchain connected Facebook app (which should easily be crypto’s ‘most used app’ ever) was already in development.

Upcoming events in crypto

11th December- TenX community Q&A

TenX is a digital wallet and physical cash card based blockchain solution designed to drive crypto’s adoption and usage as a point-of-sale solution. TenX raised over $80 million during its ICO sale ( through PAY token) in 2017. Usage of TenX payment solutions remains limited, The physical TenX card does not yet have a release date and PAY token holders are likely to demand answers surrounding the delay notifications issued by the TenX team.

12th to 14th December-Hardfork Decentralized, London

One of Europe’s leading blockchain focused events takes place in London this week and features an impressive list of speakers including Yonni Assia – CEO of Etoro, Dominik Schiener – co-founder of IOTA and Charlie Shrem – founder of CryptoIQ. Topics of discussion include ‘How to achieve mass adoption of a blockchain’ and ‘Trust in the age of a blockchain’. Building blocks for long term crypto infrasture appears to be the focus of the conference.

15th December- Komodo mandatory hard fork

The Komodo blockchain has built one of the best alternatives for low hash rate proof-of-work networks with blockchain notarization. The blockchain continues to develop adding Sapling capabilities, bringing significant technology upgrades to the network this Saturday. The new network is set to enable faster CPU mining speed, time-locking for miner rewards and implementation a new POS algorithm which lets the blockchain run as a POW/POS hybrid.

Top 10 Crypto Summary

Amongst the top 10 assets there were few safe havens with deep red trading across the board. As highlighted by Cryptocurrency Newsfeed, TRX was able to reduce losses on the back of news that it would be implementing Zk-Snark technology into transactions across the network.

Outside of the top-10, WAVES continues its period of market bucking price performance rising ~1% in the last week, as the network’s new mobile wallet release continues to drive enthusiasm.

For most of the week the price of BTC ranged between $3500-$4000, finding buying resistance and volume every time the price neared $3000. $3500 is likely this week’s new key resistance level to keep an eye on.

In terms of Bitcoin fundamentals, hash rate and difficulty continue to adjust downwards.

However, a ‘mining death spiral’ is unlikely, given the scale and investment of the large Bitcoin operations which dominate network block productions.