Why is the Crypto Market Suppressed This Week?

I’m writing this blog post in the middle of May (the 15th to be exact). The price of Bitcoin stands at $8,553 which is down over $1k from the beginning of the month. The total crypto market cap is just under $400B at $394 Billion.

So, everyone is asking why? Why did BTC nearly hit $10,000 at the beginning of the month to come down $1,500 in a little over 2 weeks?

I want to identify the 3 areas of what I believe caused the drop.

1. Korea's Biggest Crypto Exchange Raided Over Suspected Fraud

• Let the FUD begin! FUD or Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt is a huge contributor of driving cryptocurrency prices for better or worse (mostly worse). When this news hit of UpBit being raided, the price of BTC dropped over $500+ overnight. People get scared. They don’t want to lose money. In this case, their cryptocurrency. When news like this hits, it causes mass amounts of ‘panic selling’ which therefore causes crypto coins to drop in value.

1. Consensus Blockchain Technology Summit

• The 4th annual blockchain technology summit is happening this week (May 14th - 16th) in New York. Anyone that is anyone in crypto and blockchain is at this summit (or should be). The attendance is planned to be over 8,500 at $2,000 per ticket. Leaders of some of the big-name coins will be there as well as universities, some Fortune 500 companies and even the financial sector. Partnerships are hoping to be made with the crypto and business/financial world from this summit or at least kickstarting more of those discussions. Everyone is in limbo waiting to see what happens during or after this summit.

1. Whales and the Manipulators of the Market

• This third point plays into the previous two points as the ‘big guys’ are using the UpBit raid and the summit to kickstart their price manipulation. What do I mean by this? Whales (those in the investing world that have A LOT of money) want to dump prices so they can buy-in lower. They play off of news (like the above 2 points) to cause FUD then they dump their 1,000+ BTC or whatever insanely large amount they hold, further dropping the prices. Example being I have 1,000 BTC or more and start selling it at once, likely coordinating with my whale buddies too. People see this as it causes the price to drop and these folks start selling too. The sell orders keep coming with the FUD meanwhile these ‘whales’ are buying up the FUDster’s sell orders for discount pricing. To them it’s all about getting more at discounted prices. This is how the rich get richer at least in the crypto world.

I’ll end on this crypto-positive quote…

“Right now Bitcoin feels like the Internet before the browser.” - Wences Casares