BTC Keychain via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
After a recent hack that stole millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency, the Bitcoin price forecast and Ethereum price forecast are looking a little less positive.
Bitcoin and Ethereum
When taking a look at values moving into the future such as with a Bitcoin price forecast or Ethereum price forecast, it’s hard to be optimistic about the upcoming year.
Cryptocurrencies performed quite well in 2017, with Bitcoin in particular climbing to massive highs near the end of the year. This huge spike in value caused many first time investors and experienced traders alike to pour a significant amount of money into the market, only to see a massive crash in the beginning of 2018.
The Ethereum price forecast is still recovering although the drop wasn’t quite as severe as what we saw with Bitcoin.
Basically, the beginning of this year was a stark reminder that cryptocurrencies is an incredibly volatile market and pouring money into the investments comes with a large amount of risk. With that said, the Ethereum and Bitcoin price forecast was starting to look positive until a recent incident of theft caused millions of dollars worth of the currencies to be removed from the market.
Bithumb Hack
Earlier this week, hackers managed to steal a massive 35 billion won ($31.5 million) from a South Korean exchange called Bithumb. With the market cap of cryptocurrencies in the hundreds of billions, it wouldn’t seem like this theft would be a major issue at first glance. However, both the Bitcoin price forecast and Ethereum price forecast have dipped lower over the last 24 hours – presumably in response to this massive theft.
Unfortunately, this isn’t even the first time we’ve seen an attack from hackers causing a market dip even within this month. Earlier in June a hack attack on another South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, Coinrail, led to a seven-month low from which currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have yet to recover.
It’s clear both from the response we’ve seen from the Coinrail hack and the issues with the Bitcoin and Ethereum value following the Bithumb issues that this sort of activity shakes investor confidence in the currencies and causes the value to continue to dip.
So the price of cryptocurrencies took a hit, but what are the Bitcoin price forecast and Ethereum price forecast looking like moving further into the second half of 2018?
Bitcoin Price Forecast
Earlier this morning Bitcoin dropped in price by several hundred dollars. It had since bounced back a bit, but we’re looking at a decrease overall following the news of the hack.
An accurate Bitcoin price forecast can be difficult to determine due to the fact that the market is so volatile, and industry experts and analysts are divided on whether the price will bounce back or if it will continue to stagnate.
With the value of Bitcoin being over $19000 at the end of last year, many were shocked when it dipped to $13000 at the beginning of January. But the price has continued to drop, currently sitting around $6600.
Many believe that cryptocurrencies are the way of the future, but it’s difficult to give a positive Bitcoin price forecast when the value has struggled so much over the first half of this year. It’s certainly possible it will bounce back, but it doesn’t seem to be rallying nearly as quickly as a lot of analysts were expecting.
There’s no doubt that cryptocurrency will be here to stay one way or another, but the Bitcoin price forecast isn’t looking nearly as rosy as it was during the beginning of the year when we saw hope that it might climb back to that huge valuation at the end of 2017.
Ethereum Forecast
Unfortunately, it appears to be a similar story with Ethereum. A cursory look at Coinmarketcap shows that 88 out of 100 cryptocurrencies have seen a drop in the last 24 hours, and Ethereum has struggled so far in 2018 as well.
While Ethereum prices were never quite as high as Bitcoin was in the end of 2017, it did see a significant drop in the new year and is having trouble gaining traction once again – making the Ethereum price forecast less than optimistic.
Ethereum isn’t quite as popular as Bitcoin, but alongside Ripple XRP it fluctuates between the second and third largest cryptocurrency on the market. As such, many are looking for an accurate Ethereum price forecast and fretting about whether it will climb to the highs we saw previously.
Just like Bitcoin, the Ethereum price forecast is pretty mediocre from many experts. Many do believe that we will see the value explode over the next few years, we’ve seen the market stagnate or drop over the past 6 months with no clear sign of a significant climb.
Just as volatility can lead to drops, it can lead to spikes, so there’s a real possibility we’ll see a climb once again. Reaching those record highs that we saw at the end of 3017 by the end of 2018 is seeming like a tall order at this point in time, however.