I was in the process of writing another article, but I felt that could hold off for another day, as we are amidst another bear market here. All I can say to anyone with investments in cryptocurrency out there, hold on tight. Although this is bad for anyone with money in the market, this presents great buying opportunities. As I stated in my previous article, "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful," from the GOAT of investing, Warren Buffett. Though timing is tough, be patient and wait till you feel comfortable entering the markets if you wish.
Below is the top 19 cryptocurrencies as of 8 A.M. EST on July 25th.
This might be directly related to the August 1st bitcoin user activated soft fork or user activated hard fork. Per Coin Telegraph, the largest mining group, Bitmain is setting up a contingency plan just in case that the soft fork does not work properly and puts the bitcoin ecosystem in danger. This is because ViaBTC, one of the major mining groups is signaling that it is pursuing to create Bitcoin Cash and hard fork the Bitcoin chain.
Below is the cryptocurrency market cap, note the drop off over the past 18 hours. From $ 96 billion to $90 billion.
Here is a quote from Jimmy Song, a well respected researcher and Bitcoin developer:
“After the scaling drama of the past few years, we finally made progress when BIP 91 locked in on Thursday. Though SegWit increases transaction capacity, it’s not done so in a way that everyone is happy with. BCC looks like an appeal to the segment of the Bitcoin users that don’t like SegWit. Since SegWit is getting activated on Bitcoin, this fork gives many of these people a place to go.”
As you can see, there are people in the Bitcoin community who were unhappy with the decision to do a soft fork, which will only push Bitcoin's scaling issues down the road. For those that don't know, Bitcoin can only handle seven transactions per second, where as Visa on average handles 2,000 per second, but can handle up to 56,000 per second if necessary. The community is now considering the hard fork which will split the chain into two, Bitcoin Cash (BCC) and Bitcoin Core which will keep the original ticker name BTC.
Many exchanges, including the Japanese Cryptocurrency Business Association (JCBA) and it's 13 exchanges are going to deal with the hard fork by suspending withdraws and deposits on August 1st. I urge anyone with bitcoin in any amount to put it into cold storage during this time period. I've seen a lot of people worrying about alt-coins on exchanges, and from what I've seen, your alt-coins should be perfectly fine on exchanges, but if you want to be extra cautious, put them in cold storage.
Now for a little speculating (which I hate personally), with all this uncertainty in the crypto market, there will be a lot of good buying oppourtunities that present themselves over the next week, especially in alt-coins. Be patient, but don't be surprised to see a strong rally once this bitcoin soft fork hard fork drama is over. I would wait to see how the market goes for the next few days if you are making a long term investment.
By the time I finished editing this article, it appears the crypto market began rebounding. This screenshot was taken at 10:40 A.M. EST.
This just goes to show how trading in the crypto is a whole other game, with markets open 24/7/365, and extreme volatility due to it being a new asset class.
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Disclaimer: this is not investment advice, always do your own research. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances.