The cryptocurrency market has been relatively slow this year. When compared to last year, Bitcoin managed to establish its all-time high right before the year ended.

This year, the cryptocurrency market has been on a constant downward trend. Recovering from the bull of 2017, the market fell. With that being said, 2018 wasn’t all bad for Bitcoin because there were a lot of places in the market when the cryptocurrencies showed immense stability.

The cryptocurrency market too, this year showed quite a bit of maturity in terms of trends and reactions to news. The crypto community no longer made instinctive sell-offs and buy-ins as they have in the past.

Here are few trends we saw that were prevalent and managed to change the way the world views the cryptocurrency market.

The Scalability Issue

The cryptocurrency market is faced with one of its most important issues. The lack of scalability has been at the back of everyone’s mind for ten years, but now it is time to face it. With most cryptocurrency networks fraying because of traffic the scalability issue is more prevalent than ever.

2018 saw the fall that Ethereum took because of scalability issues. The cryptocurrency lost a lot of market capitalisation over the year and went from 2nd to 3rd place in the market. Ethereum also lost most of its value this year.

With that being said, there are many startups in the Blockchain industry that are focussing on bettering the scalability issue that the market is faced with as this point. These dedicated startups are most definitely the answer to the Blockchain’s scalability issues.

News vs Reality

One of the most positive changes that the cryptocurrency market saw this year was the understanding among the community that there is a huge difference between news reports and on ground reality.

Back in the day the cryptocurrency community was infamous for making instinctive sell-offs based on headlines and news that was distributed in the community.

This inherent change in the community reflects on the amount that the cryptocurrency community has matured over the last couple of years and goes to prove just how much the cryptocurrency market and the industry have become part of people’s everyday lives.

ICO Crackdown

Many regulatory bodies and financial institutions this year, payed extra attention to the ICO sector of the cryptocurrency market. The SEC, in fact, conducted a massive crackdown on the same.

The SEC held companies and their registered founders and employees accountable for not fulfilling their promises.

The ICO crackdown has inadvertently helped the DAICO market become stronger in the Blockchain industry.

More Access

One more very important thing that happened this year was that the cryptocurrency market decreased it’s exclusivity by making the market more accessible.

There were many exchanges that came out and made the cryptocurrency market more and more accessible for newbies to enter. While they were made accessible, the cryptocurrency market also remained safe for the new entries.

Markets have matured and so has the community. With Bitcoin officially turning 10 years old, it has been a good year all around. The cryptocurrency market and community are now gearing up for the next year and here are the expected trends in 2019 for the cryptocurrency market.

Low Volatility

The next year the cryptocurrency market is going to be very stable in terms of volatility. The cryptocurrency market is expected to climb and settle down at a comfortable rate by the second quarter of the year.

With the market in a terrible state already the cryptocurrency market is only expected to make a recovery and that’s what 2019 is going to be about.

Recovery Mode

The cryptocurrency market is not going to have huge bulls next year like 2017. And that is just something the cryptocurrency community has to deal with.

The cryptocurrency market is in recovery mode and is going to take a while to return to a place where mining and storing become profitable.

The cryptocurrency market, as far as predictions and speculations go, is expected to make a full recovery only in the second quarter of 2019 and will remain quite low until then.

Bigger Names

With every passing year, biggest and bigger names get into the cryptocurrency market. Now with the cryptocurrency market having matured along with the community, more bigtime names are expected to enter the market.

This year, large institutional investors are also expected to make an entry. With more governments regulating the cryptocurrency market and accepting that it is here to stay and not a threat to the economy, financial institutions are also expected to get into bed with the cryptocurrency market.

Regulation

The cryptocurrency market for the longest time was viewed as a threat to governments and economies that were solely run by banks and financial bodies. But ten years on, that view has changed.

Countries that outright banned the cryptocurrency market and Blockchain industry from flourishing, have changed their minds and have decided to regulate them.

Many more regulations are expected to come the way of the cryptocurrency market. And that will further let the cryptocurrency market mature in its way.

More Trade Volume

The cryptocurrency market because of all the factors stated above, is going to become more accessible to people. A market that have been quite exclusive until now will open its doors for the next generation cryptocurrency enthusiasts to enter.

With that, the cryptocurrency market is going to see a large hike in terms of trade volume. Just last week Bitcoin registered its all-time high trading volume. That figure is only expected to further go up in 2019.

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Ramaa Mohan