The world’s most valuable digital currency, Bitcoin, has had a rough last 12 months. Not only it collapsed all the way from $19,000 (that was its worth in early January 2018) to less than $4,000 in November, a span of 10 months, but it still has not been able to recover from its drought and is trading in the $3,400-$3,500 range at the time of this writing.
The bear market has been darkening Bitcoin’s landscape for weeks now. However, some experts and pundits have identified a growing opportunity throughout the year, and state that there is light at the end of the tunnel despite BTC’s evident inability to even break the $4,000 barrier in recent days.
The latest community to show its long-term support for Bitcoin and its value is Finder.co.au, most specifically, the financial experts that provided a market forecast in the company’s most recent study. The specialists believe that BTC’s price will be in the $7,500-$9,000 range by the end of the current year.
A Massive Increase
Since Bitcoin’s price is still hovering around $3,400-$3,500, a jump from $3,500 to $9,000 would be a massive one in just 11 months, most precisely; it would be equivalent to a 157% upswing in cost, which would be impressive since the cryptocurrency shed more than 80% of its value in a similar timeframe, from January 2018 to today.
Whilst some people and investors have been selling off their BTC assets for a few weeks now, executives at investment companies and fintech specialists maintain a positive attitude towards cryptocurrencies and, most specifically, Bitcoin, in the long term. They think that there are short term catalysts that can re-activate the bull market.
Several companies and platforms are becoming more involved by offering crypto-related services. For instance, ICE’s Bakkt will launch a Bitcoin futures market in America, and Fidelity will offer cryptocurrency custody. Banks and financial institutions’ activities in the bearish version of the market will go a long way into enhancing investors’ confidence that have recently doubted about the future of digital assets.
Things to Look out for in 2019
According to Ben Ritchie, the COO of Digital Capital Management, “two things to look out for in 2019 will be whether we will see decoupling of the cryptocurrencies, as to date they have trended in a relatively similar manner; and the impact of the traditional markets on cryptocurrencies. Will bitcoin rise if the S&P drops? On-ramp and off-ramps to purchasing cryptocurrencies will improve in 2019 with Bakkt and Fidelity Group entering the market. However, I do not believe we will see many institutional investors enter for some time yet.”
Ritchie’s prediction was in the higher end of the $7,500-$9,000 range, whereas other fintech specialists preferred to keep a more conservative approach, and yet they forecasted Bitcoin ending the year at $7,500.
A very important development is the one reported by Finder.com.au and HiveEx.com. The companies’ co-founder, Fred Schebesta, stated that the adoption of cryptocurrencies by millennials is steadily climbing, at least in Australia.
According to Schebesta, “millennials are particularly open to embracing crypto in order to accumulate wealth for themselves. They’ve grown up with digital technology, so it’s little wonder they want to get involved in digital currency. They are looking at investing very differently to their parents.”
By Andres Chavez
