What's Going on at Crypto Market

The whole crypto community has been quite on edge over the last days. Some reviewers have rushed to claim that the “bubble” finally burst and this is just the beginning of the end. Others said, current market decline is quite reasonable correcting. So who is in the right and what is the cause for all this?

There are several points to be highlighted. First, never-ending rumors on cryptocurrency banning in South Korea have obviously produced their impact. With South Korean industry which makes over a third of the whole market leaving the stage Bitcoin along with all other altcoins may well fall into another stagnation period.

The other ones suggest the current situation is just one more currency manipulation by the great. After institutional funds entered the market, many investors have made short selling of Bitcoin so the would-be currency reduction will just result in even bigger gain for them.

Bitfinex, one of the largest crypto exchanges around the globe, may probably turn to be another Bitcoin price manipulator. The point is that Bitfinex issues its cryptocurrency called Tether (USDT). As the company assures, it has USD backing and been keeping steady one-dollar-rate for quite long. But many still doubt Tether reliability considering that 50 mln USDT were issued on January 14, another 15 mln on January 15, 100 mln few days ago and another 100 mln just some hours ago. So the matters look queer, to say the least. Perhaps Bitfinex is trying to help Bitcoin stay afloat: the exchange issues Tether and buys Bitcoin for it thus creating and rigging the market for the currency.

Many believe that it is nothing but regular correction preventing the market from becoming the ‘bubble’. Judge it for yourself: below there are Bitcoin charts for 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively. As you can see, every beginning of a year saw significant decline, but finally it reached new heights.