Crypto Market Forecast: The week ahead, 17th December

Prices in digital asset markets continued to slide as the search for a definitive bottom continues to unfold. Crypto benchmarks BTC, XRP and ETH fell ~9%, 7% and 10% respectively, while total market cap for digital assets was down by ~10%.

Despite this, altcoins like WAVES, DCN and SYS were able to generate gains of ~50%, ~31% and ~20% over the last 7 days providing a silver lining for altcoin traders. This illustrates that as the crypto market matures, individual tokens have the capacity to create positive buying momentum, in contrast to the dominant market sentiment.

For all its short term struggles, the crypto industry continues to build infrastructure that will bolster the ecosystem in the long run. Leading crypto broker Coinbase, for example, announced on December 14th that it would allow proceeds from trades to be withdrawn into Paypal accounts — not simply physical bank accounts.

Last week also saw the release of the University of Cambridge’s 2nd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study. Among its insights was evidence of large global growth in the coverage of multi-coin crypto service providers (exchange, wallet and payments), along with big growth in the number of id-verified crypto asset users.

The trend of crypto projects expanding full steam ahead in the midst of near term bear market conditions and concerns surrounding the immediate utility of blockchain solutions, remains an encouraging sign for long term investors.

Upcoming events in crypto

18th December- Syscoin Rebranding

In the lead up to its rebrand, the price of Syscoin has risen an impressive ~20% in the short term bear. A richer design and improved information resources can be an effective lure for attracting new users, adding a sense of professionalism and reputability to an investment proposal. There is a possibility of some dumping after the ‘event’ of the rebrand, however.

19th December- CBOE XBT Expiration Date

This Wednesday the latest round of CBOE XBT futures ends. The nature of futures contracts means they need to be settled on a set, predefined date, based on a contract. All CBOE contracts will have to be traded, or settled, before this date. There is generally a fall in the trading volume of futures around expiration dates, that coincides with a rise in volatility and potential short/long squeezing.

19th December- AION & WandX Reddit AMA

Market leading blockchain interoperability solutions provider AION, has a community AMA (‘ask me anything’) this week with the CEO of key partner company, WANDX. WANDX lets users create composite baskets of smart contract assets tradeable over an AION-based Dex. Cross-chain interoperable transaction capability is becoming an increasingly monitored and valued crypto solution, with AION considered an early mover in this space.

Top 10 Crypto Summary

It was another challenging week of primarily red trading for major digital assets and cryptocurrencies.

As highlighted by Cryptocurrency Newsfeed, ETH found some positive buying sentiment mid-week following reports that the date of Ethereum’s next major hardfork had been confirmed, removing some general uncertainty about the blockchain’s future.

However, the pervasiveness of the bear market continues to be unforgiving. Any positive steam from the news dissipated, all gains were erased over the next few days, and the ETH price slipped further as the week progressed.

The price of Bitcoin fell below the $3500 mark on December 10th, and it has been unable to find enough buyer support to break out over $3500 since.

At a fundamental level Hashrate appears to be back to trending upwards following multiple negative difficulty adjustments over the last month. The next difficulty adjustment for BTC network is likely to be negative again and should mean hashrate will continue to move upwards in the short term. This may mean some miners returning to the network, potentially bringing buying pressure with them.