The shock fall in the value of Bitcoin and other Altcoins have hit investors hard, coming after a sustained period of relative stability, the industry was not prepared for it. Mike Novogratz, the billionaire investor who has also been one of the cryptocurrencies’ largest influencers has also suffered from the collapse of the market, potentially triggered by a major stock market sell-off. Novogratz’s crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital has lost in excess of $100 million throughout 2018, as the ongoing bear cycle for the industry extends into the final month of the year according to EWN.
To Better Days
Novogratz was among the most high-profile Wall Street personalities to jump into the crypto craze, which saw the price of Bitcoin spike to a high of $19,511 in mid-December, only to drop to around $4,000 more recently. And through the recent developments in the market, he remains optimistic, even though he accepts the situation the market is in and is making no effort to sugar coat it. Speaking in a conference call on Nov. 30, he spoke on the markets crash: “It’s been a horrible bear market in tokens. There’s plenty of reason to be depressed.”
Nonetheless, Novogratz still stays resolute amid the volatile market situation and has reiterated his long-term commitment to the growth of both blockchain technologies and tokenized cryptocurrencies. Though many have fallen back on the refrain of “coming adoption” and “institutional investment,” Novogratz is leveraging his position as the former Fortress Group hedge fund manager and Goldman Sachs partner to assure the industry of the market’s future.
He explained that “I fundamentally think you’re going to see big adaption in 2019, 2020. Lots of items in the digital world, the e-gaming space, are low-value items so I think people will be more comfortable participating in the blockchain. We’re making big investments in that area.”
Novogratz’s comments about the integration of blockchain and cryptocurrency into the gaming industry come just days after TRX announcing the launch of TRON Arcade, the group behind top fifteen coins by market capitalization. The initiative bears a novel aim to incentivize development and innovation in the gaming field integrating blockchain and crypto on the TRON network. The movement which amounts to a $100 million fund paid out over the span of three years in installments is not far off from Novogratz’s vision.
A Sticky Situation
While Galaxy Digital’s loss through the first nine months of the year is no small sum, amounting to $136 million, the company is still in prime position should a market turn take the industry by surprise. The latest slump was caused, in part, by losing bets in Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP, the company said, as well as regulatory developments. Even though the valuation of Bitcoin and other large name crypto’s have suffered through 2018, adoption and integration of the technology into existing fields has seen a massive improvement.
It is reassuring to hear opinions that provide an optimistic outlook for the future of cryptocurrency amid the frankly horrible time that investors and the industry, in general, has been having. However, long-term veterans of the industry are calling out another cycle of boom and bust pricing, potentially decelerating all the growth the industry has achieved over the past months.
Novogratz called out the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for their decision to forgo approval of a Bitcoin ETF at present, as introducing uncertainty into the market which led to the most recent selloff, “Part of the sell-off is because, I think, the SEC got tough on a few fraudulent ICOs. And not just were tough on them — they mentioned personal investors can go for reparations in most cases. And people got very nervous”.
However, he stated that a better relationship between cryptocurrency and the SEC could act as the catalyst the industry requires as a driving force for new growth, paving the regulatory path for larger investors and companies looking to get into the industry: “As the rules get clearer with the SEC and other regulatory bodies around the world, it’s easier, quite frankly, to build a business and it’s easier for institutions to feel comfortable participating,” he said. “We are reaching out to regulators hoping to help structure some of the rules.”
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