Easy Crypto November 2019 Market Overview

November 2019 has been a hectic month in the world of crypto, seeing global superpowers reveal their stances on cryptocurrency and major corporations following suit.

November 2019 Market Update

The crypto market in November saw one of its worst months in 2019 so far. Following Bitcoin’s 12% price drop over the past two weeks, almost all altcoins have followed suit – dropping the combined cryptocurrency market cap by a whopping 18% since the beginning of November.

Bitcoin aside, XRP has been suffering too, seeing a 25.5% decrease in price over the past 30 days. Other notable price movements include Ethereum’s 19.75% loss and IOTA’s 15.5% loss.

In result of the recent price plummets, there has been a significant increase in daily trading volumes reported by Coinmarketcap.com. As shown in the purple box above, the cryptocurrency daily trading volumes on CMC have recently reached an all-time high, indicating an increase in crypto usage and adoption since the 2017/18 bubble.

Note: There have been several reports about exchanges faking volumes on Coinmarketcap – meaning the data above can not be verified as 100% genuine.

Her Majesty the Queen Rules Out Crypto as Currency

The United Kingdom’s tax, payments and customs authority, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, has updated its cryptocurrency taxation policy paper for businesses and individuals. In this update, The HMRC explicitly states that it does not consider crypto as a currency, and the policy paper uses the term “cryptoassets” and not cryptocurrency.

This update falls in line with most other developed countries and their stances on cryptocurrency as money. However, you have to ask – is one of the reasons why the queen dislikes cryptocurrency is because she can’t put her face on it?

Twitter vouches for decentralised crypto whereas Facebook pushes for centralised Libra

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is a long term Bitcoin advocate, purchasing 10k USD worth of crypto per week and making several bullish bets on the future of decentralised cryptocurrency. In the other corner of the ring, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, is a strong advocate of cryptocurrency too, believing that a centralised currency (Libra) pegged to a basket of tangible assets is a better route to take over entirely non-tangible currencies like Bitcoin.

Although these two social giants have emerged as champions of two similar but opposing ideas; it is becoming clear that there are three opposing stances on the future of money – decentralised crypto like Bitcoin, corporate centralised cryptocurrency like Facebook’s Libra and government/bank-issued fiat like the NZD.

Only time will tell which version of money comes out on top in the long term, but it is safe to say that each of these ideas has some serious entities backing them in this fight.

China praises blockchain technology, follows by issuing a public warning to cryptocurrency users

Reasons for significant drops in the market are not always clear, but one factor that may have impacted the prices over in November could have been Chinas seemingly 360° flip on their stance on digital currencies over the past 30 days.

At the beginning of November, China came out in full force praising blockchain and the secure and accurate qualities of the technology. China and their revealed stance on blockchain technology was in fact so strong, it has been outlawed in China to criticise blockchain technology.

Following China’s pro blockchain announcement, prices across almost all coins surged during the start of November, indicating that there is still a strong correlation between the mainstream market’s speculation of crypto in relation to general blockchain adoption and development. 

Speculative and bullish market sentiment would quickly sober up thanks to a public announcement from the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), who issued a public warning against any form of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency trading on the 22nd of November. A translated version of the statement reads “Once [bitcoin or cryptocurrency trading] is discovered, it will be disposed of immediately, and it will be prevented from happening early.”