Wall Street could not ignore the volatile, yet soaring, cryptocurrency market for long. And the wait for recognition seems to be over as asset rating agency Weiss Ratings recently announced that it is going to issue grades for dozens of Cryptocurrencies .
The firm will release the ratings on the 24th of January. They will include market leader Bitcoin along with a series of altcoins like Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Cardano, NEM, Litecoin, Stellar, EOS, IOTA, Dash, NEO, TRON, Monero, Bitcoin Gold, and many more.
Even though cryptocurrencies are attracting a lot of investors, most of them are indulging in speculative trading. Lately, many established consulting and trading firms have been recommending cryptocurrency to their clients to invest in - but none of the established asset rating agencies have rated the booming coins like a normal stock.
Addressing the announcement, Weiss Ratings founder Martin D. Weiss commented: “Many cryptocurrencies are murky, overhyped and vulnerable to crashes. The market desperately needs the clarity that only robust, impartial ratings can provide.”
The cryptocurrency market is still a very controversial one. The entire crypto economy is now worth more than half a trillion dollars, but the market is unregulated worldwide. The core structure of Blockchain technology is making it very tough for authorities to impose regulations like they do on the traditional stock market.
“We’re proud to be the first to bring that benefit to investors — to help them cut through the hype and identify the few truly solid cryptocurrencies. Our ratings are based on hard data and objective analysis. But they're bound to create controversy, including some grades that may come as a surprise to some people,” Mr. Weiss added.
Last month, Bitcoin made its debut on the mainstream stock market as two leading US exchanges listed Bitcoin futures on their platform. This development also boosted volatile coin prices, and most of them broke all previous records. However this did not last long, as prices have gone down significantly over the past couple of weeks.
Many parties are also pushing for the introduction of Bitcoin ETFs in the mainstream market, but they are facing regulatory hurdles and most of them have pulled their proposals back.
Now, it will be very interesting to see how the introduction of grades by a reputed agency will affect the market. This might demonstrate legitimacy to sceptics who are adamant that the entire crypto economy is a bubble.
