Crypto Market Forecast: The week ahead, 7th January

2019 has started well for traders in crypto markets with strong green trading across the board and a series of positive news stories creating optimistic sentiment. Crypto benchmark BTC rose~ 6%, while leading platform blockchain Ethereum (ETH), has regained its number 2 spot on the crypto market cap table, rising an impressive ~13%.

On December 31st much hyped physical BTC futures platform Bakkt, announced that its launch would again be pushed back – this time until ‘early 2019’ (originally November 2018, then January 24th).

While this may have been disappointing to those counting on a ‘Bakkt Boost’, the project announced the next day that it had successfully completed a $182 million first round seed raise from 12 partner investors and is continuing to work closely with the CFTC to cross final regulatory hurdles.

Also in the past 7 days, major US online retailer Overstock announced it would be completing taxes for the Ohio based part of its business with Bitcoin, using the state’s novel crypto tax platform Ohiocrypto.com.

Ohio introduced its program for crypto tax payments in November 2018 and Overstock is the first major national brand to put its name behind the project.

Upcoming events in crypto

January 6th – Waves Smart asset launch

The Waves blockchain platform will add a new ‘Smart asset’ option to the network’s mainnet to complement existing custom token creation capabilities. Issuers creating tokens on Waves can now create scripts for asset freezing (locking token transactions until a certain block height) and taxation (adding a fee to transactions). The platform’s native WAVES token has risen an impressive 121% in the last month, backed by a series of positive fundamental news events.

January 6th – Bitcoin Private removal of shielded tokens

This Monday Bitcoin Private will remove all tokens sitting in shielded pools at block height 455500. Bitcoin Private is a merger of the Bitcoin and Zclassic networks, adding shielded address facilities to the Bitcoin chain. A recent forensic audit from Coinmetrics revealed that over 2 million BTCP tokens were covertly mined during the initial fork merge that created the network. Analysis showed that the covert tokens created a total supply in excess of the maximum possible as per the Bitcoin Private whitepaper, implying foul play. The network has chosen to remove all shielded tokens as a move to boost legitimacy.

January 7th – Pundi X (NPXS) token removal

The Pundi X platform which provides blockchain based point of sale solutions for retail businesses has announced that it will remove 5.7 billion native NPXS tokens from its chain on Monday. The project announced the news conceding that the project had struggled to preserve token value and treasury funds in the 2018 bear market. Removing supply artificially creates scarcity making every individual token worth more. It is unclear how the market will react to this shift, and some selling pressure may be generated because of the negative implications around Pundi X’s long term financial position.

Large caps alts enjoyed an encouraging first week of trading, with double digit gains for many. Platform blockchain tokens ETH, TRX (Tronix) and ADA (Cardano) may potentially have benefited from some early year ICO hype.

Outside of the top 10, XMR (Monero) had a strong week rising 14%. As highlighted by Cryptocurrency Newsfeed, buying pressure was impacted by news that XMR could be used for purchases on popular online game Fortnite. However, the team behind Fortnite has stated this was an error on the part of their payment processor and it does not accept Monero.

After settling around $3800 for most of the week, the price of BTC passed $4000 following a short period of chaotic trading on Sunday. BTC’s price appeared to be trending positive all week with the surge ending it being the final cherry.

Bitcoin’s next difficulty update is expected to be positive again, as Hashrates continue to trend upwards, reversing the downtrend that ended last year. Block generation times currently sit at ~9.5 minutes.