2018 has been an interesting year for the cryptocurrency market. While the market has been on a constant downward trend after the bull in 2017, this year has not been about the price, it has rather been about the market expanding.

This year, the market faced some of its worst bears, but at the same time, the cryptocurrency market and the blockchain industry has been the centre of a lot of regulations and discussion across the globe.

2018 has also seen a lot of people retract their statements about the cryptocurrency market. And change their minds about it. This year, a lot of people entered the market too, helping the cryptocurrency market recover slightly from the bear it was undergoing.

Here is a year in review;

The Cryptocurrency Market in 2018.

January

January saw the cryptocurrency market falling from the bull of 2017. In the bull, Bitcoin almost touched $20,000 USD. January pretty much set the tone for 2018 with a downward trend. The month of January also saw a lot of sell-offs right after the market set its all-time highs. In the month of January, Bitcoin varied from $13,770.10 USD down to $9,982.61 USD.

In January, a Japanese exchange called Coincheck was hacked. And because of the relatively high price right after the 2017 bull, the exchange was hacked for cryptocurrencies valued at a whopping $50 million USD. 

February

The December bull that soared the entire cryptocurrency market to their all-time highs, by February had equalised itself. Thanks to the constant downward trend that the cryptocurrency market embarked on, by the second month of the year the Bitcoin bull was wiped out by 50%.

While the market in the month of February was relatively stable, the Bitcoin market varied between the range of $10,063.70 USD to $10,982 USD.

March

One of the biggest breakthroughs of 2018 happened in the month of March. The G20 Financial Stability Board declared the cryptocurrency market, specifically Bitcoin, as a non-threat to the global financial industry. This breakthrough led to a large acceptance of the cryptocurrency market globally and positively impacted the way the G20 nations viewed, dealt with and regulated the cryptocurrency market.

Bitcoin prices in this time of the year varied in the window between $10,492.20 to $6,953.53 USD.

April

April was a month of mixed feelings across the world. While names like NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs and other key players from Wall Street entered the market, quite a few Asian countries announced a blanket ban on the market.

In April, China, India and Pakistan announced through their central banks that all businesses, banks and startups registered with them will be withdrawing support for the cryptocurrency market. While this announcement did not exactly ban the cryptocurrency market in these countries, it made it very difficult for people to hold, trade, buy and sell. Thereby, inadvertently, calling for a blanket ban.

Bitcoin prices in April varied between $6,901.96 to $9,318.46 USD.

May

As the cryptocurrency market slid into the middle of the year, the cryptocurrency market braced for one of the biggest blows it got in 2018. The three big names in social media and search engines, ie Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo, announced an ad-ban for the cryptocurrency market.

The ad-ban was called for by these companies because there were a lot of newbies that were the butt of scams and fraudulent schemes. This was a big blow to the cryptocurrency market and there were a few cases that were registered to fight the ban.

At this time, the Bitcoin price varied between $8,984.06 to $7,575 USD.

June

No big changes happened in June for the cryptocurrency market and there was an undercurrent of discontent amongst the community because of the relentless blanket bans and ad-bans that the cryptocurrency market was being faced with.

At this time of the year, more than 80% of the price the Bitcoin bull was neutralised as Bitcoin varied between $7,555.12 to $6,371.19 USD.

July

In July, the ad-bans of the social media giants and the largest search engine started to lift the cryptocurrency ad-ban. They did this with a large amount of partially because the ICO space advertisement of the market was banned.

The Bitcoin prices varied from $6.413.99 to $8,136.20 USD.

August

August was the month of regulation. Many financial bodies and institutions came together to make regulations and put rules in place for the cryptocurrency market.

August also saw the SEC’s crackdown on the ICO sector of the cryptocurrency market. Apart from that the cryptocurrency market also had many ETF applications get rejected. The most known of those ETFs were that of the Winklevoss twins’.

In August, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced the Bakkt Exchange. Bitcoin prices in August were in then between $7,275 to $7,079 USD.

September

September was a highly volatile period for the cryptocurrency market. It saw coins drop close to $1,000 USD in a day and worse.

The cryptocurrency community was also expecting an answer to the VanEck ETF application. But the SEC further delayed it.

September also market the beginning of dominance of the security coins of the market. In fact, the Winklevoss twins released their Gemini security coin in September too.

Bitcoin in this period was valued between $7,261 to $6,624 USD.

October

In comparison to the other months, October was a relatively quiet month for the cryptocurrency market. Not much happened and Bitcoin managed to stay pretty steady.

The Intercontinental Exchange postponed the release of Bakkt.

Bitcoin ended October at $6,325 USD.

November

November was the month that marked the beginning of one of the worst hash wars the market has ever seen. The BCH community split down the middle into two right before their network update was due because of ideological reasons.

What ensued after the hardfork was a long drawn out hashwar that managed to pull down the entire market, even Bitcoin.

The world’s first ETF was approved in Switzerland in November. This is was a big breakthrough for the cryptocurrency market.

December

December has been very touch and go for the cryptocurrency market. The market entered December at a low and had been slipping even further. But with that being said, December also saw a little reprieve when the market recovered very briefly, bringing Bitcoin just above $4,000 USD.

But following that, the market went back down again. The actual hashwar between Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV took place in this time. It left a terrible taste in the market and community. But the hashwar concluded with Bitcoin ABC winning the BCH banner.

Bitcoin is currently trading at; $3,884.01 USD.

Bitcoin is going into 2019 in a recovery mode. It has to recover from the downfall that 2018 has been throughout. Majority of the community has their hopes pegged on 2019.

Most of the predictions for 2019 include coming back to a value which makes holding, trading and mining profitable. 2019 by the looks of it now, will have no drastic bulls or bears.

With hope for the next year, the cryptocurrency market enters 2019. And has all the makings of being a good one.

Must Read The Satoshi Nakamotos of 2018

Ramaa Mohan