2017 was the year that the world really began to take notice of Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. The market exploded in value and regulatory authorities are still scrambling to catch up.
What will 2018 bring? Finance Magnates spoke to a number of industry experts to hear their predictions for this year.
Market cap
David Drake is the chairman of LDJ Capital. Drake has been involved with the technology, media, and telecommunications industry for more than twenty years. He has spoken at the world's top universities and his articles are published in Thomson Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. He said:
“Cryptocurrency market cap will break a trillion by Q1 and two trillion by year end. The newest line of initial coin offerings centered in the market space are bringing real businesses and services to the forefront, and thus their multiples will surpass the current technology ‘ideas’. This will make it easier to underwrite investments entering and we will see more people levitate to the futures market."
Mike Savchenko, ICO advisor and CTO at Chronobank.io, has more than 20 years experience of software development, security and cryptography. He recently became an advisor to Caviar, a blockchain-based real estate company. He also believes that the industry is still going up:
“Big financial institutions are going to join the cryptocurrency world, so I believe next year all bets will grow significantly.”
Many believe that the industry is overdue for a correction. Kirill Bensonoff, partner at Caviar, said:
"No one can predict exactly when, but corrections will occur, and may be followed by protracted bear markets. Continuous upward trends can continue in the short term, but will slow down in the mid to long term. We may see BTC to $25k by mid-2018 and then a protracted correction. This will affect the vast majority of all other crypto’s as well, due to high correlation."
Alex Shvayetsky, another Caviar partner, agreed with this sentiment in a blog post:
“Significant growth of the market will continue fueled by institutional players’ involvement and continuous mass adoption. However, uncertainty remains that almost guarantees high volatility. Risks still exist that any major negative event, such as new regulations or a security vulnerability exploit could shake public confidence and cause a crash and bear markets in the mid-term.”
Drake added:
“I think there will be a correction when the SEC comes out with stringent rules this winter. Hopefully they won't be too stringent but I can see market adjusting with 30 to 40% on the cryptocurrency side of things. However, it will recoup and will see over $30,000 Bitcoin prices mid-2018 and we should see Ethereum hit at least $1,500 within the next few months.”
ICOs
ICOs were big business in 2017, raking in enormous amounts of money, for better or worse. James Sowers is an ICO advisor, angel investor and crypto capitalist who has invested in 35 different businesses. He said:
“The ICO market will become a market of haves and have-nots as there will be a few record-breaking raises, while the average ICO struggles to raise $10M."
Drake believes that this market still has room to grow:
"Meanwhile, getting access to the crypto market is facilitated with custody and insurance products in place. The solutions with insurance products in custody was already resolved months ago but it has just not been commercialized yet. In Q2, that would be taking hold, and with ATS [alternative trading systems] operational both in Gibraltar [Blockchain] Exchange and in the US at tZERO and half a dozen more I know, by summer 2018 we will see an explosion in activity."
How to invest
James Sowers gave us some very specific predictions:
“In 2018 Bitcoin will experience a flash crash then rebound to $100K. I predict that ETH hits $5K, LTC hits $2K, and XRP hits $1K. Stellar Lumans will be the surprise crypto of 2018 as many revolutionary ICOs and, even a Coinbase and Binance competitor will be built on the Stellar network.”
He added:
"By late 2018 real estate will become a major part of the crypto asset class.”
Kirill Bensonoff warned against banking on one coin:
“With all of the hype and uncertainty in the marketplace around all things crypto, you may find yourself looking for more than one basket to put your eggs into. Whether it’s a bear market or a crash - diversification and downside protection are two assets among assets that can’t hurt.”
Sowers agrees:
“Diversification in various classes of crypto is the best strategy for the majority of institutional investors that will pile into the space in 2018."
Final thoughts
Kim Miller-Anderson, founder and president of MSK Consulting Services, has more than 15 years of executive-level experience working for global financial services firms. She said:
“Where I think 2018 and beyond will lead us is to improve the technology that allowed crypto to come into existence in the first place – which is to transfer digitally something of value – with greater trust between one another – to a whole new level. I am unclear as to how exactly, but I do see significant advances in social impact projects across the globe, the use of block chain across multiple industries and the continuing evolution of Cryptocurrencies and digital money. We have incredible potential as humans to be creative and imaginative – especially when it comes to technology.”
What do you think will happen in this dynamic market this coming year? Leave a comment and let us know.
