2018-8-4 21:29 |
Despite being on the rebound from a previous downward slip, rising from $7,000 to $7,500 over late July and early August, its value has once again fallen below the $7,000 mark and reached a daily low of $6,940.01. This downward slip will be the first time since July 18th that Bitcoin has done so after the recent surge to as high as $8,431.
Between that time and now, Bitcoin has remained relatively stable, with a minimal margin of volatility, fluctuating across a range of $300.
On August 4th, Bitcoin slid below this mark to hit $6,940, breaking through its initially stable supports but has rebounded just over $7,000 at the time posting. This was the result of a major sell-off of Bitcoin from various cryptocurrency exchanges and could be a lingering effect of the OKEx forced-liquidation debacle that happened this week.
The Cause?When measuring the success of Bitcoin among other cryptocurrencies under the lens of merchant adoption and institutionalization of its digital assets, Late July to Early August has been one of the best weeks on record for them.
Why? It was announced by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Microsoft and Starbucks that they intend to create a cryptocurrency exchange called Bakkt, in order to accept digital assets as a payment method.
When approached for comment, Maria Smith, the vice-president of partnerships and payments for Starbucks stated:
“As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into US dollars for use at Starbucks,” Smith continues.
“As a leader in Mobile Pay to our more than 15 million Starbucks Rewards members, Starbucks is committed to innovation for expanding payment options for our customers.”
For Starbucks, this demonstrates a complete, 180-degree turn in the company's perspective towards digital assets. The company's CEO, Howard Schultz has said, in the past, that Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies could not be considered legitimate currencies and as a digital asset class due to the lack of support from merchants and retailers.
Following Schultz's logic to its ultimate conclusion, with the implementation of Cryptocurrency as a recognized payment system throughout the multi-national company, this would bring the single largest coffee retailer under the crypto umbrella, thereby giving it official legitimacy as tender.
While this makes for revolutionary news, it did little to ameliorate the downturn that Bitcoin among other cryptos faced this week, with Bitcoin hitting a monthly low.
There remains to be a conclusive reason as to why the fall took place, one area, which is being considered, is the Over-The-Counter (OTC) marketplace, which the Tabb Group, a US-based research firm, believes is two to three times larger than the total size of the cryptocurrency exchange market.
If what the Tabb Group theorizes turns out to be true, then any increases to the price of Bitcoin will only be to the benefit of short-term traders using cryptocurrency exchanges. What this also means that the lion’s share of changes to bitcoin's value is due to the inner workings of OTC platforms.
Bitcoin – The Downturn Ahead?Due to the reversal-taking place while Bitcoin attempted to steadily gain ground, it's likely that Bitcoin will be testing old support levels such as $6,800 and, to the dismay of investors, $6,500 across this month. While some speculate that Bitcoin could dip as low as the $6,000 mark, this is most likely due to the anxiety of having the fall happen recently.
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