The tough year for cryptocurrency bulls continued throughout October. Lagging performance by the big four coins highlighted the action. Monthly losses in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin were posted, eliminating the positive sentiment of late September. It looks like 2018 is going to go down in history as an epic corrective phase for cryptos.

A Rough 30 Days For Cryptocurrencies

Although performance was far from strong, volatility facing cryptocurrencies did die down a bit. Aside from the period of October 10-15, action was relatively stable. Here is a look at the monthly performance metrics for the leading crypto assets:

Coin                                           % Gain/Loss           Key Number

Bitcoin (BTC)                                 -5.06%                   $6000

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)                      -22.5%                   $400

Ethereum (ETH)                           -16.4%                   $200

Litecoin (LTC)                                -20.0%                   $50

It doesn’t seem that long ago that cryptocurrencies were the big story in finance. Values were pushing all-time highs, with no shortage of buyers. Now, some 10 months later, the crypto landscape is very different. Questions pertaining to regulation, taxation, and the adoption of cryptocurrencies by the financial mainstream have yet to be answered. Perhaps the coming months will inject some much-needed optimism into the asset class.

Overview

From a trading standpoint, there isn’t a whole lot of good news out there in the cryptosphere. While the integration of blockchain technologies is certainly growing by leaps and bounds, the odds of cryptos returning to late 2017 values do not look good in the short-term.

A holding pattern is very likely to take shape for the last two months of 2018. The final BTC ETF decision by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is not due out until early 2019. Values have crashed, with altcoins ETH and LTC trading at 12- month lows. Barring any significant fundamental news item, traders are very likely to wait for the BTC ETF proceedings to be resolved before jumping in with both feet on the long side of these markets.