Specialists such as George McDonaugh consider that it is at a critical stage in bitcoin’s price trajectory.
At the end of 2019, crypto-users predicted that 2020 would be “the year of cryptocurrencies” and that 2020s would be the decade of Bitcoin (BTC).
But the truth is that bitcoin’s price has been on a steep downward trend over the last six months and now that behavior changed a little.
Last Friday, January 3rd, a U.S. airstrike took place in Iraq. In that operation, Iran’s General, Qasem Soleimani, was assassinated. The official directly commanded the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite. These countries have had inconvenience since March 2003 since the US considered that Iraq had had weapons of mass destruction.
After the airstrike, Bitcoin’s price has bounced 4% to back over USD 7,000 per Bitcoin and was seen trading at USD 7,265 on the Bitstamp exchange before falling back slightly.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency watchers link the U.S. airstrike with the bitcoin rally. One of them is Matthew Graham, chief executive of Sino Global Capital. He asked if Bitcoin began “moving in reaction to geopolitical risk”.
And this is due not only because of the airstrike. U.S. allied countries fear suffering an unplanned attack, due to the threats they received from the Iraqi government, which said that the attack could occur at the least expected place and time.
“We stand before the dawn of a new decade. As we look ahead, there is little doubt that the next one —the 2020s— will be the decade of crypto”, the co-founder of the U.S.-based Gemini Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange, Tyler Winklevoss, assured on New Year’s Eve.
The Reasons
Bitcoin was one of the best-performing assets in 2019. It was up 90 % for 2019 while iPhone-maker Apple’s share price climbed 85 % and the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 35 %.
George McDonaugh, co-founder and managing director at the cryptocurrency and blockchain venture capital investment firm KR1 told Bloomberg: “We’re at a critical stage in bitcoin’s price trajectory”.
He predicted the bitcoin price will soon rebound to around $7,500 before climbing through to the middle of the year.
According to McDonaugh, the creation of new bitcoin wallets could contribute to the price increase. Maybe this could help increase the levels of cryptocurrency adoption too.
As Forbes cited, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency watchers are this years looking forward to the launch of social media giant Facebook’s cryptocurrency (Libra), and the crypto platform Bakkt’s Starbucks project.
Similarly, Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, has revealed his plans for Bitcoin. Besides, major U.S. Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is working on some new technology and new projects.
So certainly, 2020 could be “the year” of bitcoin, altcoins and blockchain technology. It will be 12 months more of possible advances, new regulations, and to observe what happens with projects like the one of Facebook, and the project of Telegram, which is trying to launch its token called Gram but faces some restrictions and probably will have to share information of its users, to comply with SEC’s requests (the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission).
Bitcoin is a digital currency created 10 years ago and that continues to expand throughout the world. There is a long way to go yet for it.
By María Rodríguez
