“Bitcoin appears to be pushing out of a bullish flag pattern, and Ether is likely to confirm a long-term breakout on a close above resistance this Friday,” said Katie Stockton, founder and managing partner of Fairlead Strategies, in a note.
Cryptocurrency markets are decentralised, which means they are not issued or backed by a central authority such as a government. Instead, they run across a network of computers. However, cryptocurrencies can be bought and sold via exchanges and stored in ‘wallets’ .

Using data from a prominent blockchain research firm, Coinmetrics.io, we explore the relationship between prices, computing power (measured by the hashrate), and network (measured by the number of unique active users). We focus on five major mineable cryptocurrencies (i.e. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, Litecoin, and Dash). In some of our test, we expand our data to include an additional 33 cryptocurrencies. Our sample period spans from 7 August 2015 to 25 January 2019.
However, while there are some organisations that accept it as currency, others shy away due to Bitcoin’s dramatic price swings. Driven largely by speculation, the price per Bitcoin rose sharply from $1,151 in January 2017, to an all-time high of $19,783 in December the same year.* It then dropped to below $7,000 by February 2018 and rallied again to around $11,000 over a matter of days, before plunging once more to trade below $4,000. Subsequently, one of the key characteristics of Bitcoin that traders should understand is its potential for extreme volatility.