The year 2018 seems to be bringing all the bad luck for the cryptocurrencies. After facing a major blow in February where Bitcoin’s price dropped below $6500, the cryptocurrency has just recently observed another major decline in its value where its price has reached $6,795 (as of writing).
This drop in value marks a decline of nearly 29% for the week and 50% percent for the year so far. Keeping in view that Bitcoin’s value was reaching the sky-high levels in 2017 with over 1400 percent boost, the slump this year is dubbed as its biggest quarterly decline since 2011.
Well, the bloodbath isn’t just limited to Bitcoin, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum dropped 11 percent to reach near $376 (as of writing), it’s lowest since Nov. 23, according to CoinMarketCap.
Meanwhile, other digital assets, including rivals Ripple and Litecoin, slumped even more as compared to Bitcoin. Ripple is down by 21.8% (lowest for the week) reaching a low of $0.5. whereas LiteCoin is down by 27% and is now trading at $116 (as of writing).
Furthermore, the transaction fee for trading cryptocurrency is also seeing a record low level. Where the major factor behind this low fee is Segregated Witness (Segwit), the new financial technology which helps to process a large number of transactions instantly, saving traders’ money and time. The overall drop in prices and fewer transactions these days could also be the cause of this low transaction fee.
While Bitcoin is seeing an immense drop in value, some analysts are betting high on cryptocurrency. Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has recently said that Bitcoin will become the world’s single currency within 10 years.
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