Cryptocurrency Markets Had a Disappointing Q1 2018, Valuations Dropped Over 60%

02. Apr 2018 Posted by Akolkar B on News

After having a fantastic 2017, nothing has seemed to be going right so far for crypto investors. Even though Bitcoin has already started correcting since mid-December 2017, the rally in the initial two weeks of January 2018 was contributed majorly by two altcoins - Ethereum and Ripple.

The rally in these two and other altcoins had pushed the overall cryptocurrency market valuations significantly up and above $800 billion. However, these healthy movements were much short lived and were seen only until the first 15 days of January 2018.

Post that, owing to the regulatory pressures from the South Korean government and its regulatory bodies, the crypto markets took a significant hit and has been on a continuous downward trajectory to recently hit the 2018 low valuations of $250 billion. This accounts for a whopping 70% erosion in the overall market cap.

The crackdown from the South Korean government created a huge atmosphere of panic selling in the markets as retail participants, especially from South Korea, started to withdraw all their investments and eventually, the average trading volumes significantly dried up.

Following South Korea, the two major global crypto markets - Japan and the U.S have also stepped up the regulatory process in the country following increasing concerns of illicit crypto activities like tax evasion and money laundering.

If we look at the stats chart available on our website, a majority of the top 20 cryptocurrencies shows over 50% depreciation in the last 90 days. Let us consolidate this data and consider the top three cryptocurrencies by market cap.

  • Bitcoin: The most popular and still the largest cryptocurrency by market cap - Bitcoin - started 2018 at around $14000 levels and has been on a big decline ever since. The three months charts of the cryptocurrencies show that recently on March 30th 2018, it has hit its 2018 low of $5,800 a decline of nearly 51% from the 2018 beginning. The existing market cap of Bitcoin stands at $118 billion.
     
  • Ethereum: Ethereum has a fantastic start to the year 2018 at around $800 levels. In just the first fifteen days on 2018, the cryptocurrency surged to hit its all-time high of $1,363. However, since then the cryptocurrency has been majorly on a declining note and its valuations have dried by more than 56% till now. For the first time since November 2017, Ethereum has gone below $400 levels.
     
  • Ripple: Ripple entered 2018 at a high valuations trading around $2.5, and at one time, it has even surpassed Ethereum to grab the number two spot on the crypto charts as per market valuations. As per our data, Ripple has been on a continuous decline from its all-time high of $3.06 and currently, it has been seen hitting its 2018 low of $0.50. The above stats show that Ripple has corrected by a whopping 75% since it started 2018.

Apart from these top three, other major altcoins like Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash which showed a significant run-up at the end of 2017 have corrected between 50-75%.