Crypto Today: US Government Shutdown Can Delay Bakkt, Bitcoin Fundamentals Getting Stronger

“This analysis is an adaptation from the work of Mati Greenspan, Senior Market Analyst at eToro

Key Highlights

• US Government Shutdown brings selling pressure on Bitcoin
• The Shutdown could delay the launch of Bakkt
• Bitcoin fundamental indicators just getting stronger

US Government Shutdown Could delay Bakkt Launch

Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have retracted and were in reds over past 24 hours, all thanks to the US Government Shutdown with regards to funding the border wall. While politics doesn’t have much impact on cryptocurrencies, here is an event where both seem to have collided. Many crypto analysts believe this US Government Shutdown could delay the much-anticipated launch of Bakkt.

As Bakkt is still pending regulatory approval, many think that the shutdown could affect this timeframe.

Furthermore, many people now seem certain that the delay will last about two weeks. Going into the seventh day of the shutdown today, it remains unclear when it will be over. There might be a deal today or the shutdown could potentially drag on for months.

There was no indication that the specific offices responsible for Bakkt’s regulatory approval will not operate during the shutdown. Certain reports suggest that the government is still operating at partial capacity and the financial regulators may continue operating as normal. Furthermore, one can anticipate that any crypto investor is going to start selling coins they’ve held for more than a year over a two-week delay. Also, there are many more indicators to prove cryptos growth than just the Bitcoin ETF and institutional products.

Bitcoin Indicators showing strong growth in Bitcoin Fundamentals

Judging by the market prices, crypto-assets haven’t done too well this year. However,  the price can be a rather slippery indicator when trying to measure growth. Everyone is aware that the industry is going stronger but its time to look at the factors that actually show that Bitcoin has grown in 2018.

• The first would be blockchain stats, like, transaction rate and volume. By both of these measures, it is clear that usage of Bitcoin’s blockchain is down sharply from last year but still noticeably higher than previous years. The thing is, though usage may fluctuate, the infrastructure once in place tends to stay in place. So the above is kind of like judging the effectiveness of a highway using traffic reports.

• The other important data point to look here would be merchant adoption and the installation of ATMs. ATM growth has been fantastic. According to data from coinatmradar.com, the number of bitcoin cash machine on-ramps has doubled this year from around 2000 to 4000 machines. As one can see, this is exactly on pace with 2016 and 2017. Meaning, that over the last three years this number has doubled every year.

• And, as for the number of merchants, one can gather a good reading from coinmap.org, which shows strong growth this year but not quite as strong as previous years. Take a look at their heat map.

All these indicators do suggest that Bitcoin is definitely growing irrespective of what the price is.