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Bitcoin has started a new year, after defeating all bonds, stocks, gold, and assets in terms of price growth and profitability in 2017.
1,300% Annual Return
According to StockTwits, S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, Long 20+ Year Treasuries, Gold, Emerging Markets, and Junk Bonds have all recorded yearly gains below the 35 percent mark, despite the strong performance of the US stock markets.
On the contrary, as it did in 2015 and 2016, bitcoin has surpassed the growth rate of all of the conventional assets in the traditional finance industry. After starting 2017 at $900, bitcoin price has closed the year at $13,500, recording nearly a 1,300 percent annual return.
Within the global cryptocurrency market however, bitcoin has not been the most profitable asset. Litecoin, IOTA, Ripple, Ethereum, and several others have outperformed bitcoin, with Ripple recording a staggering 333-fold yearly return.
$1,000 invested in bitcoin in early January would have earned an investor $13,000 while $1,000 invested in Ripple in the same time period would have earned an investor $330,000.
Regardless of its strong performance, the dominance index of bitcoin has declined significantly, from 90 percent to 38.3 percent. Analyst have attributed such a sharp decline in its dominance over the cryptocurrency market to the cryptocurrency’s high transaction fees, which increased to $20 per median-size transaction in December.
Stil, relative to other assets and currencies in the finance sector and global economy, bitcoin has recorded a strong return for investors.
2018: Big Year For Bitcoin
In December 2017, Bitfury vice chairman and prominent bitcoin investor George Kikvadze noted that the $10,000 mark was a psychological threshold for bitcoin investors and once that was passed, anything was possible thereafter.
Billionaire investor Mike Novogratz reaffirmed his target of $50,000 and has publicly stated that he is confident the market valuation of bitcoin would surpass a trillion dollars by the end of 2018. Investors also expect innovative scaling solutions to be integrated into the Bitcoin network to reduce transaction fees, which would drastically improve its usability and adoption.
“Bitcoin could be at $40,000 at the end of 2018. It easily could. What’s different about these coins than other commodities … there is no supply response here. So it’s a speculator’s dream in that as buying happens there’s no new supply response that comes up. So every price move gets exaggerated. It’s going to get exaggerated on the way up,” said Novogratz.
As NewsBTC previously reported, large-scale financial institutions such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nasdaq, and Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) plan to provide regulated investment vehicles for institutional investors and retail traders. Most recently, NYSE and CBOE filed for six bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Things to look out for in 2018 in #Bitcoin:
1. Nasdaq Bitcoin Futures
2. NYSE Bitcoin ETFs
3. Cboe Bitcoin ETFs
4. Scaling / Lower Fees
5. More Adoption Due to ↑
6. Many Billion of Institutional Money Coming to Bitcoin / CryptoNo wonder analysts are so optimistic!
— Joseph Young (@iamjosephyoung) December 26, 2017
