Cryptocurrency Prices Feel Hangover of ETF Rejection – ThirtyK

Cryptocurrencies head into the weekend lower on the week, still under pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rejection of a bid for the first-ever bitcoin-related exchange-traded-fund. Some analysts anticipate a continued price slide into year-end.

Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $7,414.82 around 4 p.m. EDT Friday, down 10.4 percent from a week before, according to ThirtyK data provided by CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin has been on a fast and furious ride this year, having fallen from a high for this year of more than $17,000 in January. It hit an all-time high of nearly $20,000 in December 2017.

Other cryptocurrencies Friday were also lower on the week. Ether (ETH) was trading at $414.69 around 4 p.m. EDT, a 13.1 percent drop from the week before; litecoin (LTC) slid to $76.08, down 10.9 percent.

For the long term, Mashinsky sees cryptocurrency prices pushing up, but in the short term he anticipates continued volatility.

Given lofty market levels, a correction makes sense, Tone Vays, a cryptocurrency analyst and trader and former analyst on Wall Street, tells ThirtyK. “Bitcoin got overbought,” he says. “People really want to believe it’s the future, and I agree with that.” The market, however, must face multiple hurdles before adoption can become widespread, he says.

Vays sees bitcoin plodding back down to the $5,000 level as soon as the end of August amid a price correction and as the market works through kinks, including the need for increased privacy. His most bearish view: Bitcoin will fall back to its April 2017 level of $1,300.

An ETF This Year?

The market has been under pressure since the SEC rejected, for the second time, a bid by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who founded crypto exchange Gemini, to list the first-ever cryptocurrency ETF on a regulated exchange.

In a release dated July 26, the agency cited issues with fraud and investor protection. The SEC has yet to approve a cryptocurrency-based ETF, although at least two more proposals — from Bitwise Asset Management and a joint proposal from VanEck and SolidX — remain under review.

Vays says investors need an alternative to the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which is the closest product to a cryptocurrency ETF, but he doesn’t envision the SEC approving an ETF this year. Chris Dannen, founder and principal of Iterative Capital Management, tells ThirtyK there’s a “stupendous amount of optimism around one of the ETFs passing.”

Fear of Fake Cryptocurrencies