Bitcoin Bulls Neglect One Problem
Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin (BTC) bulls have buoyed BTC’s more-or-less positive start to 2020. And this happened despite the mounting risks coming off the back of a significant escalation in tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
Through December, the BTC price limped, following six months of declines. After that, it fell under the psychologically important $7,000 per Bitcoin mark early in the new year. Then, a few hours later, it bounced back.
This week, analysts at Arcane Research noted, “The seven-day average real trading volume continued downward this week.”
The analysts also added that the first day of the year recorded as low as $192 million in volume.
They had last seen these levels in April 2019. However, they might link this to the holiday period and less activity during weekends. Still, this is not a positive trend for the leading crypto in the space.
In addition to that, many crypto analysts have warned that Bitcoin’s trading volume is currently at its lowest since April. Its volume declined 90% from its June 2019 high. Every time the volume is low, markets are more likely to make unexpected, volatile moves.
Volumes Going Down
In October last year, BTC and crypto analysts warned against dismal trading volumes. Since then, the problem started to worsen, with volume falling fast.
The volume spike of Bitcoin came earlier in 2019. At the same time, social media giant Facebook unveiled its planned Libra cryptocurrency. And BTC trading remained closely tied to media coverage of crypto news.
Aside from that, Bitcoin trading volumes are near to its original level during the start of 2019. The BTC price at that time was under $4,000.
But there are a lot of upcoming dates in 2020 that might push BTC interest return to July levels. Some of these are the planned launch of Facebook’s Libra, crypto platform Bakkt’s Starbucks project, and Bitcoin’s May halving event.
Bitcoin Figures: Moas and Lingham
Elsewhere, two well-known Bitcoin figures have resorted to a painfully public Twitter exchange in solving an argument over a $20,000 unpaid bet. The fueled debate, still ongoing, is about a pledge which investor Ronnie Moas made back in 2018.
Moas stated that if BTC were not worth $28,000 by the end of last year, he would donate the lump sum to FreeRoss.org. This is a charity working to free jailed former Silk Road owner, Ross Ulbricht. He made this bet with Vinny Lingham, VEO of blockchain identity startup Civic.
On January 1, 2020, BTC/USD is trailing at $7,200. Then, Lingham asked Moas to confirm he had made the payment as promised. Moas then surprised by stating that he would no longer honor his commitment.
All of a sudden, the tone shifted to being unfriendly. Moas described Lingham as a ‘f*****g bastard’ and asked him to explain the near-total drop in the price of Civic’s native cryptocurrency CVC.
He replied, “I will keep my word and distribute $20,000 in 2020 to organizations highlighted at my website.”
He indicated that he would instead divide the FreeRoss funds between five charities of his choosing, Moas gave a piece of advice for Lingham, “Read my last three posts… and the ones preceding from the last 24 hours you f*****g jackass… stop making a fool of yourself in a public forum.”
According to Moas, he had enough reasons as to why he will not send any money to Freeross. But responses predictably sided with Lingham. And this was because Moas had nonetheless reneged on the initial terms of the wager.
