A bear of historic proportions

GB Market Commentary 29/06/2022

by Marcus Sotiriou

Bitcoin fell below $20,000 briefly this morning, whilst the Total Crypto Market Cap dropped below $900 billion, from a high of $3 trillion last year. A new report from Glassnode Insights claims that the current bear market is “a bear of historic proportions,” and highlights that “it can reasonably be argued that 2022 is the most significant bear market in digital asset history.”

Glassnode data such as the market value and realized value oscillator (MVRV, which is a ratio between Market Value and Realised Value) can give us an insight into how this bear market compares to previous bear markets. With the MVRV, we can view the relative monthly capital inflow/outflow into Bitcoin. As this indicator has reached -2.73 standard deviations (SD) from the mean we can see that Bitcoin is currently experiencing the largest capital outflow event in history.

As mentioned previously, the industry needs regulatory clarity for the next wave of institutional money to enter. British Parliament Member Matt Hancock has called for “liberal” cryptocurrency regulation, claiming that no country can stop the crypto revolution. Hancock said, “I hate the patronizing idea of regulators telling people what they can and can’t do with their money.” Hancock touched on the Terra fiasco serves as an example of the “maturing of the market,” whilst highlighting how there are stablecoins with less risk. His claims align with the notion that the UK has the power to choose whether the crypto revolution happens on UK shores or happens to the UK from elsewhere.

I agree with Hancock’s line of thought and that we should compare this period in the crypto space to the internet in 2001 – despite the dot-com bubble crashing in 2001, we didn’t discredit the internet as a technology.