If the end of 2017 made it seem like 2018 would be the year of the cryptocurrency, the first quarter of the year has proved anything but that. Prices dropped rapidly from the unbelievable $20,000 price range towards the end of January to as low as $6,000. Since then, a sense of normality has returned with prices settling in around the $10,000 range. Still, prices dropped 7 percent this week in a trend copied by other major cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Tron and Neo. Even more worrying has been the decline in trading volumes, as there simply aren’t as many people buying and selling as there were three months ago. Google Trends data shows a similar trend: searches for Bitcoin are down by more than 80 percent from their highs in December.
