A cryptocurrency investor is telling the rest of the trading world that bitcoin could be headed for a downhill slope if things ease up in China. Omer Ozden – the CEO of Rock Tree Capital – claims that if problems like the coronavirus calm down, we’re likely to see less trading activity in the coming months.
The coronavirus has been running through areas like China for the past several weeks. Over 1,000 deaths have been recorded, and the virus has seemingly passed on to regions like Singapore, and even areas of Europe and the United States. Ozden himself has left China and is staying in New York for the time being to avoid any potential problems.
The virus has caused many of China’s people to stock up on bitcoin as a means of remaining financial stable during this period. Ozden explains:
People in China have been sitting at home trading because there’s nothing else to do.
He states that cryptocurrency trading platforms like Binance and Huobi have seen huge surges in trading ever since the virus was first announced to the public. He also says that the number of users each platform has added in just the last month alone are staggering.
But he also comments that if they hype surrounding the illness dies down, bitcoin and crypto trading could die down along with it. He says:
We’ve yet to see the full impact of the coronavirus. If the coronavirus is fully contained or if things get better, then we may see less activity in crypto, but it’s difficult to see at this stage… The full impact of the coronavirus won’t be known until March and early April. Right now, we have a situation that’s unique. It’s impacting people’s behavior and equity markets and it’s possible that if the virus spreads then money will bail out of traditional markets into crypto.
From a moral standpoint, this doesn’t sound great. The idea that a virus must continue, and more lives need to be potentially lost for investors to have a crypto-trading field day is quite repulsive. That’s not quite what Ozden seems to be saying, but when it comes to human life, there is no compromise. Humans should come first, not commodities or other tradeable assets, and no humans should be forced to deal with excruciating diseases for investors’ gains.
At the time of writing, there are approximately 64,000 recorded cases of the coronavirus, though most of them are reserved strictly to China.
Ozden also claims that the country has become far more loyal to blockchain technology, which could also positively impact the price of bitcoin in the coming future. He states:
We’re going to see them impact more money being put into blockchain and we’re going to see more activity by institutions.