For those bitcoin enthusiasts hoping to put 2018 behind them, 2019 hasn’t got off to the best of starts with the most famous digital currency on track to log yet another losing month.
Barring a minor miracle, January will mark the sixth consecutive losing month for bitcoin — something it has never managed before, according to Dow Jones Market Data, which dates back to July 2010.
The streak began on Aug.1 with bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.03% trading above $7,700. Since then it has tumbled more than 50% with the darkest days coming in November when it crashed through support at $6,000, falling to as low as $2,500 a coin.
Read: Here’s why bitcoin isn’t the next gold, in one chart
So with January coming to an end, will February end the unpopular record?
Probably not, if you ask Travis Kling, founder and chief investment officer of Ikigai Asset Management. He believes there’s more pain to come, arguing the industry needs a shake-up before the tide can truly turn. “More exchanges gone. More projects shuttering. More SEC enforcements. More ‘crypto is dead.’ Only then do we move higher,” he tweeted.
We need more.
More exchanges gone. More projects shuttering. More SEC enforcements. More developer ragequits. More ICO Treasury selling. More layoffs. More fund liquidations. More scammers exposed. More failed cap raises. More “crypto is dead”.
Only then do we move higher :)
— Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) January 28, 2019
Market analyst Jani Ziedins also has reservations about the future of the nascent technology.
“There are cases like the dot-com bubble where the revolution was legitimate, the investors just got excited a little too early. Will bitcoin do the same in 10 years? I have my doubts,” he said in an email to MarketWatch.
“First, the magical thing about bitcoin was that by design it has a fixed supply. That was supposed to prevent manipulation and inflation. Bitcoins would get more valuable as time went by and their popularity increased. And that would have worked in a bubble. But bitcoin didn’t operate in a bubble and its popularity attracted countless copycats that greatly diluted the cryptocurrency market,” he said.
Read: Blockchain adoption tepid and interest in bitcoin waning, say JPMorgan analysts
On the plus side, the cryptocurrency has logged gains in February each of the last four years.
On Thursday, a single bitcoin was fetching around $3,450, down more than 80% from its all-time high near $20,000.
Read: Meet the lawyers who pivoted from defending DUIs to advising initial coin offerings
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