The latest decline in Bitcoin’s price had the community discussing its future once again. Naturally, various polls have popped up asking people for their opinions on whether or not the worst is over. One such poll which received a fair amount of votes has it that we’re going lower. However, it’s worth remembering that when the majority of people think something will happen, Bitcoin often does the exact opposite. So, is the negative sentiment actually a good thing?
A recent Twitter poll initiated by early blockchain proponent and popular cryptocurrency commentator Alex Saunders asked people whether Bitcoin‘s price will go any lower, following the latest declines.
As of the time of this writing, 73% of participants think that we will see lower prices.
Do you think we are going lower? #Bitcoin $BTC $XBT
— Alex Saunders (@AlexSaundersAU) September 26, 2019
Even with 9 hours left to vote, it is clear that the sentiment is fairly negative and that people expect lower prices to come.
That’s perhaps to be expected. After all, Bitcoin lost upwards of $2,000 in a few short days and we saw major support levels get shattered along the way. At the time of this writing, Bitcoin is trading at around $8,000 and is down 4% in the past 24 hours. The entire cryptocurrency market is in the red, as the majority of mid- and large-cap altcoins are also bleeding.
Remarkably, Tether (USDT), the most popular stablecoin, has unseated Bitcoin Cash and is currently the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization.
Community sentiment is undoubtedly something to be considered and not to be disregarded. However, the way it should be interpreted is open to debate.
As properly noted by one of the commenters in the above poll, if this question had been asked before the crash, people would have probably answered that we were going higher.
Moreover, we’ve seen it countless times before – Bitcoin does the exact opposite of what the majority of retail investors tend to believe. For example, before the much-anticipated launch of Bakkt, most people thought that it would pump up the price as it provided a regulated solution and a gateway for institutional investors.
As CryptoPotato reported, however, Bitcoin actually lost a substantial chunk of its value in less than an hour on the date of Bakkt’s launch.
To give another recent example, altcoins finally started to get some breathing room and actually caused Bitcoin’s dominance rate to drop. A lot of people thought that this marked the beginning of a new, long-awaited “altcoin season”. Yet, a few days later, we can see a lot of them dropping in price significantly.
In other words, community sentiment is definitely open to interpretation and it’s not something that should be used as a trading foundation. It’s important to keep what everyone thinks in mind, but always do your own thorough research.