Brian Kelly & Charlie Lee “Bitcoin Is Still Bullish”

This week, the South Korean exchange, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Bithumb was hacked which led to the theft of $31 million virtual currency’s. In the aftermath of the hack, Brian Kelly from CNBC’s Fast Money, brought attention to how, this time around, things are distinctively different for Bitcoin. Kelly described three key reasons on how he thinks the price rebounded as well as the potential he sees for a positive backtrack. Reimbursement In past hacks, investors of cryptocurrency were simply unfortunate and had to deal with their loss. However, with the Bithumb hack, they acted quickly and let investors know that they would be reimbursed for their losses from the theft of this hack. Investors might be worn out As most of us know, Bitcoin has had a bumpy ride in 2018. It’s getting to the point where investors could just be plain worn out from the constant roller-coaster that the market is in. Back in January this year when Coincheck was hacked, the prices of Bitcoin dropped straight after the announcement by more than 10 percent. Whether you think this is related or not, Coinrail was also hacked just under two weeks ago, the prices then fell by more than 12 percent. However, after the Bithumb hack broke into the news, the prices of Bitcoin only dropped by 2 percent and was follow by a 3 percent rise. Bithumb’s reaction Kelly also mentioned the quick reaction from Bithumb. When the hack was announced, Bithumb also instantly brought all their operations to a stop. All deposits and withdrawals were put to a halt whilst their wallet system was changed. Not to mention, Bithumb were very fast in moving customer funds over to a secure cold wallet whist these security issues were taken care of. According to Kelly, when the markets have a positive reaction to bad news, such as a hack like this one, this is the sign of a bullish trend. Charlie Lee – a bright future for Bitcoin The founder of Litecoin, Charlie Lee has said he shares the Kell’s view on that better days are coming for Bitcoin. Lee believes that this hack on the cryptocurrency exchange doesn’t affect the main essentials of Bitcoin.

“It’s like if a bank gets broken [into] and gold gets stolen, does that affect the price of gold? It shouldn’t. So [it’s the] same with Bitcoin. If the exchange doesn’t protect their coins well enough and it gets hacked, it doesn’t really change the fundamentals of the con they’re protecting.”

Lee went on to say that the importance of people getting used to protecting their coins in a manner which is “much better than traditional finances.” The Litecoin founder still says that Bitcoin has a bright future despite it’s drop in recent weeks, and points out that its network has, if anything, become stronger and that the current price of Bitcoin is “disjointed from the actual development.” Lee also acknowledged the current behaviour in the market saying that the market we are in is currently a bear market, and that it’s difficult to predict how long this would last. Lee said:

“I’ve been in this space for seven to eight years and I’ve seen bear markets last three to four years now. So, this one could be a three to four-year market or it could recover tomorrow.”

However, Lee also noted that the Bitcoin network improvements may have a price recover, sometime soon.