Bitcoin (BTC), Cryptocurrency, Wall Street–JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon might be the only one laughing as cryptocurrency prices continue to plummet.
While investors across the space of cryptocurrency watch another day of double digit losses for Bitcoin and the larger altcoin market, the CEO of America’s largest bank has been vindicated in a few of his bearish remarks surrounding the outlook for BTC and cryptocurrency. Dimon, who has been critical of Bitcoin in the past, stating the asset constituted a “fraud,” now looks to have the upper hand amidst crashing prices.
Last week, after the crypto markets appeared to be rallying in anticipation of Nov. 15th’s hard fork, the price of cryptocurrency took a precipitous turn with the market capitalization shedding $45 billion in a week. Just as the volatility seemingly tapered off, the price of Bitcoin and altcoins continued to plunge over the last two days, falling to their lowest levels since summer of 2017 and, more troubling, with no end in sight.
In the words of Bloomberg,
“Maybe Jamie Dimon was right after all.”
Last year, just before Bitcoin broke on its exponential bull run which saw the currency briefly hit $20,000, Dimon managed to falter the price of the number one cryptocurrency by threatening to fire any employee caught trading BTC. In response to the harsh measure and subsequent bullish turn, cryptocurrency advocates regularly found solace in criticizing Dimon for being short sighted and for preventing JPMorgan from capitalizing on the wild appreciation of cryptocurrency. Despite his early statement, Dimon gave a slight reversal, claiming that he believed in blockchain even if he held little faith in Bitcoin or, to a larger extent, the landscape of cryptocurrency.
However, that backpedaling appears to be vindicated, as the falling crypto markets provide some validation for the CEO and those who have routinely attacking Bitcoin for being too price volatile and destined to fail–a la most speculative bubbles throughout history. Ironically, Bitcoin’s latest slump in pricing, which has the coin dropping below $4500, is also the same amount during which Dimon made his now famous remarks about Bitcoin, bringing the bull and bear cycle full term for 2018.
Considering the upward trend for crypto investing experienced in the days leading up to last week’s Bitcoin Cash fork, it appeared that cryptocurrency might have finally turned the corner on the year. Not only was BCH riding high on the speculative investing that has come to characterize the prelude to most high profile forks, but tangentially related currencies such as XRP managed to receive a significant boost. Instead, the market made a full u-turn, shedding tens of billions from the market capitalization in a manner of days.
Now, the price fall appears to have little resistance in sight, as investors wait out what could be a punctuation mark to end 2018’s already severe bearish market. However, even as prices continue to falter, many development teams and coin communities are pushing forward to build the industry. Just last weekend, TRON announced a million dollar program to help accelerate projects created for their Main Net platform and partners such as Ripple continue to drive adoption for the crypto and blockchain.
