With cryptocurrencies yet to break out of their protracted range-bound cycle, the speculation on how these markets will mature continues to build, particularly with regards to institutional investor participation.

Throughout history, there has been an inherent need for peoples and cultures to have a means to store value and exchange goods and services. The first currencies that moved beyond barter systems were primarily in the form of receipts representing commodities stored in central or communal locations, such as grain silos in the temples of ancient Egypt

Predicting price action in a fledgling asset class like cryptocurrencies which is still undergoing a series of volatile price discovery corrections is undoubtedly challenging, but performing retrospective fundamental and technical analyses of the factors surrounding the 2014 – 2016 bear cycle can provide clues as to what we can expect going forward from the midst of the current bear market.