HODL: This word was coined from the typo of the word hold. It simply refers to the holding(saving) of bitcoin a against selling.

In the close of 2017, bitcoin took the world by a storm by closing at $15,000. Alongside this euphoria, came off-the-hook predictions for bitcoin. Four months into 2018, the given predictions have not played out -as expected. The current value of bitcoin shows that bitcoin is about 47%(two-third) of it's december value. For instance, if bitcoin was valued at $200 last year, it would be priced at $103 at present.

Indeed, if bitcoin were stock, it current value would have be an issue an issue for deep concern.

In view of all these challenges, investors and prospective investors have been forced to reconsider ownership of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole.

I hope to give critical but simple analysis of bitcoin HODling from the bear(ish) and bull(ish) points of views.

• Bitcoin From The Bears Point of View:
  Several factors can be held responsible for the present value of bitcoin. For instance, seasoned economists and industry regulators across have created undue pressure and negative media for bitcoin in public forums. This constant airing of sometimes, biased opinions have made many governments wary of giving bitcoin a legal covering.

Even sadly, series of scandals and hacks emerging form within the crypto-ecosystem, smeared the bitcoin's reputation as a hub for criminal activities. This year alone, hackers stole$500milllion worth of cryptocurrency from a Coincheck, a Japanese exchange.

Internet platforms, who formally took interest in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, have joined nay-sayers and imposed restrictions or totally dropped cryptocurrencies(bitcoin more especially), from their ecosystem. Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Reddit and Google Inc. have banned all crypto ads on their ecosystem.

In addition, the price of cryptocurrencies went downhill and bitcoin futures were introduced to curb the bitcoin's problem of volatility. As against the plan, it seems like futures played a huge role in the engendering of volatility in the system.

• Bitcoin From The Bulls point of view:

In this school of thought, the major object to hold on to is patience.It is generally believed tht since bitcoin has risen in the past, it will surely rise again.

This opinion has been strongly upheld by Thomas Lee, Head of Research, Fundstrat Global Advisors. He opined:

Market timing is generally dicouraged in traditional equity investing. If an investor missed out on the 10 best days (for each year, the annualized return drops to 5.4 percent from 9.2 percent. In other words, the case for buy and hold is the opportunity cost of missing out on 10 best days.

Lee has predicted the rise of bitcoin to $20000 at midyear and bitcoin to close the year at $25000.

Interestingly, a careful look at bitcoin's chart supports Lee's prediction. For exampleas at Oct28 and Nov 5th, bitcoin gained value by 30% and that figure increased appreciably by 50%($17,601.44).

On a more inspiring note, government and regulatory agencies are beginning to see the need for the use of cryptocurrencies and are putting things in place infrastructure for the acceptance of bitcoin in the nearest future. There has been an increased pressure on the Securities Exchange Commission(SEC) to introduce Bitcoin's ETF's on it's platform.

SegWit technology , is now being used by large platforms such as Coinbase and the list of nodes that now make use of Lightning technology has steadily been on the increase.

All these measures, have been carefully put in place to ensure the future profitability of bitcoin, better support and avoidance of the errors bitcoin grappled with in the past year.

In Conclusion, the present value of bitcoin has become a huge deterrent for prospective investors and active investors as well. This factor notwithstanding, bulls strongly believe that based on past trends, bitcoin will tower again. However, the bears seem to hold fast to their negative view as regards the viability of bitcoin because the feel bitcoin has gathered too much negative media alongside other seemingly militating factors.

    **what's your take? let us know..** 

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