Last time I talked about the first ever cryptocurrency summit at the White House and what that could possibly lead to and might possibly cause the cryptocurrency market to skyrocket. Well….while there were some things mentioned there, including the opening introduction of some of the attendees, there wasn’t a ton of stuff mentioned and unfortunately, the crypto market did not react favorably to it.
I’m going to take a look at some of the things that were talked about or came out of that cryptocurrency summit as well as the markets continuing to have a negative reaction and why there may be other things at play here. It does beg the question, is a cryptocurrency bear market upon us? Let’s take a closer look.
Is The Cryptocurrency Summit A Bust?
A lot of people believe the crypto summit was a bust. While an official executive order came out of it that was signed by the President, that a Bitcoin Reserve be created immediatly consisting of Bitcoin already held by the Federal Government, it also looks at ways to acquire more of it without using taxpayer money.
Even with that, the crypto markets did not react well to that news and there wasn’t too much else mentioned about a further reserve containing other digital assets like the President mentioned would be a part of just days earlier. That seemed to make a lot of people unhappy as they wanted to see a digital reserve with other cryptos in it, signed into being by an Executive Order just like Bitcoin was. They wanted to hear XRP, Ethereum, Solana, and Cardano specifically mentioned as those cryptos going into a separate digital reserve.
Not much else came out from the cryptocurrency summit, but the rest of it happened behind closed doors. I think what was mentioned is how important it is to get fair crypto regulation out as soon as possible so that the crypto industry and markets can move forward in the United States. It has been repeatedly said that the President and others want to make the US the crypto capital of the world and so certain things have to happen in order to make that a reality.
I don’t think the cryptocurrency summit was a bust, but things didn’t happen the way crypto investors thought it would and so that did have a negative impace on the market and it continues to bleed and it in fact appears to be accelerating. Is the crypto summit the biggest thing causing the crypto market to slide heavily? The answer is no as now other factors are at play that has every kind of investor worried. I will take a look at some of those factors next.
The US Economy Appears to Be Headed for Recession
Folks, there are a lot of things happening in the broader US Economy that has people nervous. While inflation has generally slowed down a bit, prices of things are still high and are probably to be higher in the short term for other reasons. The biggest thing that has everyone jittery is the tariffs that President Trump is enacting against Mexico, Canada, China, and even other countries with possibly more to follow.
Needless to say, those countries have enacted their own tariffs against the United States in response to what’s happening. This means higher prices on certain items which make it harder for people to purchase. Both stocks and crypto have started to tank because of this. People are selling in a frenzy and over $1 trillion has been wiped out of the crypto market.
Recession voices are getting louder because of it as well as a bear market returning to crypto. This has panicked so many and crypto continues to shed a lot. Bitcoin is now below $80,000, Ethereum has dropped below the $2,000 mark and one of my most beloved cryptos, XRP, is threatening to go below $2.00. This is definitely concerning because overall, there has been LOTS of good news in the crypto world with new partnerships, a loosening of certain bank regulations related to crypto, a dropping of crypto related lawsuits, record numbers of ETFs being filed, especially for XRP, a Bitcoin reserve coming into existence for the US, and more partnerships with crypto firms are happening. Even with all of this, the crypto market continues to drop. Why is this happening, when there is now so much more promise for cryptocurrency than there ever has been?
The Speculation phase vs The Utility Phase
One of the best things about crypto that sets it apart from other, more traditional assets is that a lot of them have actually utility to them rather than just a store of value or investment. That’s very important because some of these utility based cryptos aim to change the world in a number of things.
What that also means too, is that massive institutions, governments, and more will pour money into these utility based cryptocurrencies because of the problems they aim to solve. One of the best utility tokens out there is easily XRP. It aims to be the best cross border utility option in the world to where money can be sent anywhere in 3 to 5 seconds with very minimal fees and into any currency that it needs to be and XRP is the bridge token to make all of that happen.
Ripple has the most partnerships with governements, financial institutions, investment firms and more than any other crypto company out there and has been laying the ground work for years to get its infrastructure setup to make all of this a reality. The biggest things holding this all back though has been the SEC lawsuit against Ripple in the US as well as a lack of crypto regulation in the US too. Everything is primed to move into the utility phase, but the problem is, we are just not there yet.
Because the utility is not fully realized yet, most of crypto is still heavy in the speculation arena, meaning there is heavy volatility and markets are easily swayed by rumours and news that can be very negative. That’s a big reason the crypto markets are tanking right now, because we are still highly into the speculation phase of crypto and people are quite fearful of things in the economic world.
It is also being heavily speculated that major institutions and other key players are trying to shake out the retail investors (which are investors such as myself and other individuals) to try and get as much of the utility cryptos for themselves for the inevitable rebound that will come especially when we start moving into the utility phase, all crypto lawsuits come to an end, and full scale regulation is enacted. So now the question becomes, should we get out of crypto because of how bad everything is dropping?
What Goes Down Will Eventually Come Back Up
While this might be a scary time for crypto investors, this is also one of the best times to keep steady hands. What I mean by that is to hold what you have because eventually, things will rebound and may be a sudden pop upwards. I’ve been into cryptocurrency since 2017 and this isn’t my first rodeo with downslides or bear markets in the crypto world. Through it all, I’ve bought more and held some crypto for a very long time.
XRP is my favorite of nearly all the cryptos because of the utility behind it. The CEO of Ripple has said that they want to make it possible to move money like the way we communicate with each other seamlessly through email, chat, and other things. Basically, create the internet of money and XRP and the technology behind it is definitely poised to make that happen.
I refuse to sell any of my XRP because it’s definitely going to have MUCH more value to it when the utility phase officially begins. It can’t be worth cents or just a few dollars to move around very large amounts of money. It has to have a certain high value in order to do that with many people saying that it needs to be at least worth $10,000 or higher. I certainly do believe that’s the case with XRP and it will happen one day.
There are also other promising tokens known as RWAs meaning real world assets. What that means is tokenizing everything, from real estate, to art, to stocks, bonds, and even more. XRP, Stellar (XLM), and Hedera (HBAR) are poised to make that a reality. downturns like what is happening now can really be a good thing because it can allow people to stock up on cryptos at lower prices. Even if this is a bear market we’re moving into, it won’t last forever and things will eventually go back up. The question is, will you hold what you have right now, or panic like so many others have done and decide to sell? I’m definitely going to stock up when I can because I know this market will pop once again, it’s just a matter of when.