The cryptocurrency community has taken a hit that will be difficult to recover from. Information security specialists report that the cryptocurrency market is in crisis, as the price of Bitcoin has fallen more than 10% due to the little interest generated by the start of activities of Bakkt, the trading platform of virtual assets of the New York Stock Exchange.
Other popular cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum,
Ripple’s XRP, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash suffered even greater losses, losing up
to 22% of their value.
According to information security experts, this
fall led to losses of up to $20 billion in the total value of Bitcoin, as well
as $5 billion USD losses for the cryptocurrency market in the broad sense, no
other causes have been considered at the moment, , in addition to the
performance of the Bakkt platform. The most affected cryptocurrency was Bitcoin
Cash, which lost 22% of its value in one day. On the other hand, Ethereum is
down 15%, Litecoin 14% and Ripple’s XRP dropped 10%.
Bakkt is a virtual asset platform backed by
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and went into trading just a few days ago,
almost a year after the official announcement; its partners featured large
companies, such as Starbucks and Microsoft. However, Bakkt’s start was too
disappointing, as at the end of its first day only 72 Bitcoin scantwas on the
platform.
“This was a disappointing opening, this is
a clear sign that institutions are not yet ready to invest in virtual assets at
the level we believed, which could have serious consequences,” says Alex
Mashinsky, director of Red Celcius, virtual asset lending company.
After stagnating for a considerable time, the
price of Bitcoin grew nearly 200% over the past year, mainly thanks to ads from
major companies, such as social media giant Facebook, which announced its
decision to launch its own (Pound) in the future. Other members of the
cryptocurrency community point out that this poor performance is mainly due to
the announced launch of Bakkt.
According to information security specialists
from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS), investors announced
the Bakkt platform as the first cryptocurrency platform approved by U.S. regulatory
authorities, thereby it aimed to create a fully integrated platform that would
enable consumers, traders and institutional customers to buy, sell, store and
invest digital assets in a global network.
It may be too early to make forecasts, but experts
find it unlikely that Bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, will show a
downward trend for a considerable time.
