Cryptocurrencies
2017 was the year which had all the major headlines about Bitcoin. In 2018, the Cryptocurrency king, Bitcoin began on a
much weaker start. This is for the first time that Bitcoin has started the year on a lower note since 2015. It hit
$14,156 on the final day of 2017 and traded in around 13K on Monday. However, the cryptocurrency is trading higher today
as the wave of trading in other Alt-coin has changed the momentum.
Ethereum is making the most amount of noise to start the year. Nearly, $3 billion worth of Ethereum has been traded
between the exchanges in only 24 hours. The total market capitalisation surged to $ 84.12 billion as the cryptocurrency
surged to an all-time high of $869.83. No doubt that Ripple was the best performing cryptocurrency last week, but today
all the momentum is behind Ethererum. The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has surged to astonishing
$620 billion.
Iran and Oil
Iran is one of the biggest Middle Eastern members of OPEC and the current turmoil in the country could potentially have
a much larger impact on the oil price. Iran's security forces clash with demonstrators (who are rallying against the
government and country's leader). Historically speaking, over the last two decades, the protests in the country had a
very inconsistent impact on crude prices. The major shock to the oil price was in 1979 when religious leaders rose to
power and it helped the oil price to rise 90 percent in that year. Initially, the demonstrations in the country started
over economic depression, however, it has quickly changed its colour. Revolutionary Guards, the protector of the
religious leader have taken over to control the situation.
A similar uprising did take place back in 2009, this time the effect of foreign forces, such as tweet by Donald Trump
(who has divided the nation in his own country), support for demonstrators by Israel (old rival country) and a more
favourable stance towards protestors by Britain's foreign secretary John Boris (once again divided the nation) are all
riding on this bandwagon. The foreign influence would only yield more instability in the country as the government would
press hard to stop it. The situation, if not controlled would have some serious impact on oil prices. Higher oil prices
would surely help the Saudi's agenda, the country is consistently trying to support the oil price in order to have a
successful IPO for their own oil company.