Bitcoin in the News : 2018-12 More++

Just like every month over the past year, a monthly 'More++' post follows a monthly 'Price' post -- in this case, the preceding post was Bitcoin in the News : 2018-12 Price. And just like last year's January post, Bitcoin in the News : 2017-12 More++, I'll summarize all of last year's monthly price charts in a single chart.

I count six different months where the price retreated during the entire month. Good thing I have this yearly price overview to fall back on, because almost all of the bitcoin stories flagged during the month of December were about price. Take the following story, for example, which appeared at the beginning of the month:-

• 2018-12-01: Bitcoin, and Cryptocurrency in General, Had a Terrible November (gizmodo.com) • 'Bitcoin, as well as smaller cryptocurrencies like XRP [Ripple] and ether, had a terrible November that saw $70 billion in value wiped off the market, CNBC reported on Friday. Bitcoin closed at $3,878, well below $6,000, which proponents had long insisted was its "floor" but in retrospect appears to have been a magic number.'

Also in retrospect, I can say that all bitcoin future price projections are based on 'magic numbers'. In 2017, they were fantastic price targets sometimes getting into six figures USD. In 2018, they were floors, always new, always lower. The only real floor is $0.00, about which there were more than a few articles in December. Opinions varied:-

• 2018-12-05: Why bitcoin -- by design -- won’t become worthless, according to this crypto heavyweight (marketwatch.com) • 'Bitcoin protocol is set up to be adjusted as mining conditions worsen, says teaching fellow Andreas Antonopoulos.'
• 2018-12-16: Famed crypto millionaire says Bitcoin is dead (techspot.com) • 'A famous early investor [Erik Finman] who made millions from Bitcoin has warned that the best-known cryptocurrency of them all is "dead."'
• 2018-12-23: A VC Thinks Bitcoin Passed A Major Milestone This Year (forbes.com) • 'Bitcoin has crossed a major milestone this year, with its chances of falling to zero almost non-existent.'
• 2018-12-26: Does Bitcoin Have a Future? (coincentral.com) • 'Whenever a major financial market struggles for survival in a deep, enduring bear market, undertakers with access to the financial press gleefully pronounce its imminent demise. For Bitcoin, such dire pronouncements have been arriving at a steady pace since summer 2018.'

Another recurring theme in December was to mark an ignominious anniversary. Here's an example from one of my favorite writers at Yahoo Finance.

• 2018-12-17: It's been one year since bitcoin was interesting (yahoo.com; Myles Udland) • 'It was exactly one year ago today -- December 17, 2017 -- that the price of bitcoin hit a record high of $20,000 per bitcoin.'

In fact, the peak price was somewhat short of $20,000, but that's little consolation to anyone who actually bought at that price. Finally, let's not forget that this sort of thing has happened before.

• 2018-12-11: The Biggest Rises and Falls of Bitcoin, Explained (cointelegraph.com) • '1. November 2011; 2. November 2013; 3. April 2013; 4. December 2017; 5. November 2018'

Have we seen capitulation in the bitcoin market? I found two definitions on Investopedia.com:-

• What is market capitulation?
• Capitulation

If we have seen capitulation, then we have seen the bottom. We'll find out in a year or so if that was in the case. As for me, I'll continue to do exactly what I always do : watch and learn. I'll learn nothing from capitulation.

Bitcoin in the News : 2018-12 Price

The chart for December (shown below) has a different look than the chart in last month's post, Bitcoin in the News : 2018-11 Price. When I asked Cointelegraph for a one-month chart, it gave me a three-month chart; when I asked for a three-month chart, it game me a chart covering the entire life of bitcoin (not a pretty chart). I specified a date range, as I did for Bitcoin in the News : 2018-09 Price (October 2018), and where I remarked,

The data granularity for a specified date range appears to be a full day; the granularity of the monthly chart appears to be six hours. That accounts for the difference in the look of the chart.

Anyway, here's the chart for December 2018.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Index (cointelegraph.com)

The chart shows a painful drop from $4200 to $3200 during the first half of the month, bottoming at mid-month. That was followed by a sharp one week rise leading to a gentle decline that lasted into the new year.

Cointelegraph's Analysis category made no attempt to explain any of those three trends, focusing instead on stories like From Blanket Ban to Its Own Stablecoin: How Facebook’s Relationship With Crypto Changed Over 2018, which was the last article in the category for the year 2018. Cointelegraph's Price Analysis tag had three stories that coincided with the three stages in the month's chart:-

• 2018-12-17: Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Stellar, EOS, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, TRON, Cardano: Price Analysis, Dec. 17 • 'In December of last year, market participants were rejoicing as cryptocurrencies led by Bitcoin were soaring. The leading digital currency reached a high of close to $20,000 on Dec. 17 and investors were hoping for even higher levels.'

The analysis continued with a cautious prognostication:-

A year later, after a massive bear market, the question in every investor’s mind is, can Bitcoin rise from the dead once again and stage a turnaround? While we believe that Bitcoin is closer to a bottom than ever, we do not expect a sharp rally from current levels. There is a huge overhang of positions that will liquidate when the virtual currency attempts a recovery. Hence, it will be a slow and laborious move higher.

This forecast was based on a plausible scenario:-

Fundamental factors like actual utility, clear regulations and wider adoption of the technology will attract institutional investors who will drive the next leg up. All of this will require time and will not happen overnight.

The second stage was that one week runup:-

• 2018-12-24: Bitcoin, Ripple, [etc...]: Price Analysis, Dec. 24 • 'Christmas has brought some cheer to the crypto traders. The total crypto market capitalization has spiked by about 29 percent from just under $101 billion on Dec. 15 to $143 billion on Christmas Eve. Though it is still way below its all-time-high, the growth over the past few days is showing signs of a bottom formation.'

The situation mid-month could indeed have been a bottom. Looking back at the previous monthly charts for 2018, there was no other month that looked like December. The analysis covering the third stage was:-

• 2018-12-31: Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Bitcoin SV, TRON, Cardano: Price Analysis, Dec. 31 • 'It is the last day of a very tough year for crypto traders. While 2018 started on an upbeat note, it is ending with uncertainty. Traders and analysts are divided on whether cryptocurrencies have bottomed out. This, in a way, is good, because markets are cautious and excesses have been removed.'

Have excesses been removed? The year 2018 ended with a bitcoin price four times greater than at yearend 2016.

I have one more small analysis to make before I close this post. In the '2018-11 Price' post, I noted,

Back to the November chart, I noticed that there are three additional price sources available over what was shown in the '2018-10 Price' post.

Here's a similar analyis for the December chart, which also shows changes.

(A : 2018-11 Price) Index, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Hitbtc, Huobi, Poloniex, Kraken, Binance, Okex, Coin

(B : 2018-12 Price) Index (A1), Okex (A9), Binance (A8), Bitstamp (A2), Kraken (A7), Bitfinex (A3), Hitbtc (A4), Coinbase (A10?)

Ten price sources end-November dropped to eight sources end-December. Huobi and Poloniex disappeared, after appearing for the first time end-November. One of the differences, Coin/Coinbase, was due to an error on my part, not noticing a slider. If that was the only error I made in the previous post, I'll consider myself lucky.