I expected the price of bitcoin to peak seasonally near the end of the year to coincide with black friday, christmas shopping and the holidays. Transactional volume typically increases around those times which translates to heightened demand and valuation spikes. 2018 marks the 1st year we've seen something of a departure from those patterns in terms of declining transactional volume.

There are multiple explanations for declining volume. More rigid and demanding taxation and regulatory measures could be having an impact. The introduction of futures markets, european ETFs and other crypto investment vehicles catering to more wealthy demographics could have shifted markets in a way which leads to less volume on exchanges. There could be a heighted quantity of "off chain" transactions being executed with bitcoin buyers selecting 3rd party brokers over traditional exchanges. As there are no metrics quantifying this shift in transactional volume it could create an illusion of declining volume and demand even though the opposite trend is occurring.

There are relative unknowns and new developments that could be causing investors and traders to play the market more conservatively. I hope to see uptrends in price as markets mature and aspects of uncertainty become greater known entities. If nothing else bitcoin hovering between $6k and $7k would appear to be easing its volatility concerns. Those massive swings in price may also be diminishing.