Bitcoin is currently trading for $9,100. This is a $200 spike from yesterday’s $8,900 price, which was $400 less than where it had been trading previously. It appears $9,000 is offering strong resistance levels for bitcoin, and the currency is having a hard time crossing the latest boundaries.
The market appears more mixed than ever when it comes to digital assets. On one hand, you’ve got companies like meat mogul Oscar Meyer entering the crypto-space and looking for any way to potentially get in on the action that’s had America by the robe since bitcoin’s previous high of $19,000 last December.
The company – now a division of food enterprise Kraft Heinz – is releasing a new cryptocurrency called bacoin, the first virtual token to literally be backed by bacon. Sharing information about it on social media apparently ups the price of the currency and allows traders to exchange what they have for larger stashes of bacon. At press time, one bacoin is worth approximately 27 slices of bacon – up from three this morning.
Though proud of their latest creation, representatives are warning investors that the currency is just as volatile as other digital assets, and vulnerable to price swings. Oscar Meyer is now the latest “weirdo” company to enter the cryptocurrency space after camera giant Kodak and adult entertainment empire Playboy.
The entry of Oscar Meyer to the digital currency arena shows just how mainstream and popular virtual coins have become, yet some analysts remain bearish in their overall sentiment regarding the future of the industry. Technology investment bank GP Bullhound, for example, has released a new report predicting that cryptocurrencies are on the verge of undergoing mass corrections that could literally wipe out roughly 90 percent of the market’s value. 90 percent is a large number, and one that’s likely to take a massive toll on investors’ power.
Sebastian Markowsky – director of GP Bullhound and the report’s main author – says that institutional investors are now entering the cryptocurrency space and thus driving prices higher. While this can be great in the short term, more retail investors are likely to enter the market by the end of the year, and buy cryptocurrencies at extremely high prices. The market will begin to see massive falls, which will in turn cause widespread panic, causing many people to sell quickly. This, he says, will spark the predicted correction.
“Nonetheless, once this ‘crypto-winter’ passes, the growth dynamics for the precious few survivors will be unprecedented,” he explains in the document.
What’s interesting is that the report also suggests that initial coin offerings (ICOs) are not only here to stay, but will greatly mature in the future. ICOs have raised over $4 billion since 2017, though many have been marred by scams or malicious activity, causing a heavy level of distrust amongst investors and regulators alike.
Markowsky explains that the way ICOs are handled today will change, with more financiers demanding to see products before initially investing in them.
“Raising money on the back of a whitepaper will not be possible,” he states. “I think people will need to see more products. The bar will be rising very fast.”
