Although up 70% on the year, Bitcoin hasn’t had the best of 2019s from a market perspective, with the price surging 330% to $14,000 before seeing a precipitous drop to as low as $6,400 just earlier this month.
Despite this harrowing price action, which some analysts say is indicative of mass complacency in the crypto market, recent data compiled by a cryptocurrency on-chain analytics firm suggests that 2019 was a record year for Bitcoin in terms of on-chain metrics and fundamentals.
This bodes well for the crypto market in the longer run.
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Bitcoin Network’s Record 2019
According to a recent thread posted by TradeBlock, Bitcoin’s 2019, price action aside, was a record year in terms of the most basic of on-chain metrics: transaction count, transaction volume in USD, and hash rate.
The growth in transaction count seemingly stems from the growing adoption of the SegWit solution, allowing for more transactions to be put into each block, while the aggregate yearly Bitcoin transaction volume was aided by the price action over the past few months, which has forced exchanges and traders to use the network as a medium of payment.
#Bitcoin has had a record 2019 with transaction count, transaction volume (USD equivalent basis), and hash rate reaching new all time highs this past year. pic.twitter.com/hSGXyeq4JR
— TradeBlock (@TradeBlock) December 26, 2019
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Bullish For Crypto Market
So why is this bullish for the price of cryptocurrencies?
Well, firstly, Spencer Bogart, partner of Blockchain Capital, suggested in a Bloomberg interview that Bitcoin’s growing functionality as a payments network will act as a catalyst for the price of BTC to return higher heading into 2020 and beyond. He specifically cited the fact that the network is “processing $1 billion to $3 billion worth of transactions daily,” which is a far cry from when the cryptocurrency was deemed “a joke” just years ago.
Also, the strong metrics have led Adaptive Capital partner Willy Woo, a top analyst in the entire cryptocurrency space, to remark that on-chain momentum is “crossing into bullish” territory after a multi-month downturn.
With this in mind, he asserted that the “bottom is most likely in,” meaning that any move lower than the $6,500 plunge “will be just a wick in the macro view.” He added that the unnamed indicator also implies that cryptocurrency investors will start to front-run the impending “halving,” the block reward reduction that will be taking place in May 2020.
On-chain momentum is crossing into bullish. Prep for halvening front running here on in. Can't say what this indicator is, as it's proprietary to @AdaptiveFund, but it tracks investor momentum. The bottom is mostly likely in, anything lower will be just a wick in the macro view. pic.twitter.com/WqiPRpweUv
— Willy Woo (@woonomic) December 7, 2019
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