There is no denying that 2018 has been the year from hell for cryptocurrencies. The majority of them, including the big daddy Bitcoin, have lost over 80% from their peaks almost a year ago. Industry analysts are now looking to 2019 and their predictions of what is to come are not all doom and gloom.
Big Things to Come to Crypto in 2019
Fintech and crypto leader Henri Arslanian from PwC China and Hong Kong spoke to Bloomberg with his analysts on what to expect next year. Firstly a greater number of institutional investors and banks are expected to enter the space. Some will be offering their own products while others will be seeking new partnerships with established crypto companies. He went on to state that there will also be more investment going on, citing Goldman’s backing of Circle as an example.
When asked why 2019 will be different Arslanian mentioned regulatory clarity which is something that has been lacking this year, especially in the US. More clear and defined regulations will provide a layer of comfort for larger institutional investors. Mentioning the US specifically he said;
“Even here in the US … there are some bipartisan initiatives to try to make the US more competitive when it comes to crypto assets,”
Referring to the ‘Bitcoin bubble’ as labeled by the presenter he added that a year-long market correction has cleared a lot of the ‘noise out of the sector’. Adding that a lot of companies that raised funding in crypto will be hurting now unless they have hedged earlier in the year when prices were a lot higher.
In addition to predicting more security tokens and stablecoins in 2019 Arslanian stated that “Crypto grew from being a baby to a toddler in 2018”. The coming year will see more growth and stability especially with security tokens that add a level of financial security since they are backed by tradable assets such as real estate.
Timing the Bottom
Twitter has its own array of crypto experts and market analysts and they too have predicted a turnaround in 2019. Willy Woo has slated Q2 as the end of the bear market;
“Putting together the blockchain view, I suspect the timing for a bottom may be around Q2 2019. After that we start the true accumulation band, only after that, do we start a long grind upwards.”
Others have analyzed the charts and call a $3,000 BTC floor that will turn around in the second half of 2019. Either way there is a lot more in store for crypto in 2019, and things are only just beginning.
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