Finder’s Expert Panel Suggests Litecoin’s Price to Spike More Than 40%, $266 per LTC by Year’s End

August 17, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Stablecoin market to have hit $1T by 2025, Unstoppable Domains CEO predicts

August 5, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Stablecoin market to have hit T by 2025, Unstoppable Domains CEO predicts

Adoption

As an early crypto bull, Unstoppable Domains CEO Matthew Gould believes that Bitcoin won’t retest its all-time high of $64,000 for at least one year.

The private stablecoin market will surge parabolically in the next four years despite the existing regulatory uncertainty, Unstoppable Domains CEO Matthew Gould believes.

In a Thursday interview with Business Insider, Gould predicted that the stablecoin market would hit $1 trillion by 2025 to see roughly a tenfold increase from around $115 billion at the time of writing.

“We may even do it quicker than that,” the CEO noted, adding that the global stablecoin adoption will be partly driven by the growing acceptance of decentralized finance applications. “The more people with stablecoins in the pocket, the more people who can participate in decentralized finance,” Gould said.

Despite being optimistic about the future of stablecoins, Gould still emphasized that a rapid surge of this digital asset type is associated with certain financial risks, including concerns over stablecoins’ volatility and their one-to-one backing with pegged assets like the United States dollar. “Whenever you have that kind of growth, you’re gonna have risk. You shouldn’t be able to call yourself a $1 coin if you don’t actually have $1 in the bank,” he noted.

However, Gould is still confident that the greater regulatory clarity and the growing competition in the stablecoin market will gradually eliminate these risks. “Groups like Circle with their USDC have taken the most conservative and safest approach in building out their stable coins. And they’ve been really actively engaged in the US to ensure that they’re compliant,” the CEO added.

Apart from forecasting a major stablecoin market surge, Gould is also optimistic about the crypto market in general, expecting the industry to continue consolidating in the long run. However, the CEO doesn’t expect Bitcoin (BTC) to near its all-time highs for at least one year after reaching $64,000 in April, stating:

“I think we’re going to continue to be range-bound for the rest of this year. This is based on past experience, typically when the market crashes 50% or more, it takes a year or two of consolidation.”

Gould’s remarks come amid global financial regulators increasing attention to stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) amid more concerns over the rapid stablecoin growth as the market surged from less than $1 billion in 2019 to over $100 billion. In mid-July, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on financial authorities to quickly establish a proper regulatory framework for stablecoins. Previously, the Japanese Ministry of Finance disclosed plans to develop stricter global rules for digital currencies, particularly fiat-pegged stablecoins.

ETH 2.0 will help Ether outpace Bitcoin, Pantera Capital CEO predicts

August 3, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Ether has more potential than Bitcoin as a newer cryptocurrency, and the latest EIP 1559 will help the token trade more like a fixed asset, Pantera Capital CEO said.

Amid the looming Ethereum London hard fork, Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead predicted that the upcoming upgrade would likely help Ether (ETH) outpace Bitcoin (BTC) as the largest cryptocurrency.

As a newer cryptocurrency, Ether has more potential than Bitcoin, Morehead said at the Reuters Global Markets Forum on Monday, noting that the latest Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 upgrade will help the digital token to trade more like a fixed asset.

One of five EIPs in ETH London upgrade, EIP 1559 is an anticipated update to Ethereum’s existing fee structure, introducing a minimum payment for sending Ethereum transactions and move away from a bidding system that allows miners to prioritize the highest bids. Designed to programmatically adjust fees for users to pay the lowest bid for each block, EIP 1559 upgrade would potentially make Ether a deflationary asset.

“You’ll see a transition of people who want to store wealth, doing it in Ether rather than just Bitcoin,” Morehead predicted, adding that the cryptocurrency’s shift to Ethereum 2.0 will significantly reduce Ether’s mining energy consumption levels compared with the one of Bitcoin. Ethereum’s wide implementation in decentralized finance applications would also help Ether grow bigger than Bitcoin, he said.

Despite predicting a brighter future for Ether, Morehead is still optimistic about Bitcoin’s growth in the future. The CEO reportedly predicted that Bitcoin would trade between $80,000 and $90,000 by the end of 2021, rising above $120,000 within a year. Surging mainstream adoption could further drive Bitcoin price to as high as $700,000 in the next decade, Morehead noted.

Launched in 2015, Ether is the second most valued cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization amounting to $290 billion at the time of writing. Scheduled to take place on Wednesday, the Ethereum London is one of the biggest Ethereum upgrades designed to move its blockchain from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, meaning that the network would mostly rely on staking instead of mining. Launched in 2009, Bitcoin relies on the PoW consensus algorithm.

Morehead is not alone in thinking that Ethereum could outperform Bitcoin in the future. Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, predicted in late June that Ether could become the “biggest cryptocurrency one day.”

Blockchain identity market to grow $3.58B by 2025, report claims

August 2, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain identity market to grow .58B by 2025, report claims

Adoption

A new forecast for the global blockchain identity management market expects growth at a compound annual growth rate of almost 71% during 2021–2025.

A new report on the potential for blockchain identity management solutions to become integrated across sectors has forecast strong growth for its global market, at a compound annual rate of close to 71%.

The report grounds its predictions on a study broken down into segments by sector — e.g., government, healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), geography, and applications. It was published by the Lyon-headquartered market research solution provider ReportLinker.

Drawing on an analysis of several existing blockchain identity management market vendors — Accenture, Amazon, Bitfury Group, Civic Technologies and others — the report expects the total global market to grow by $3.58 billion between 2021 and 2025.

The study’s baseline assumption is that the market for blockchain identity management will continue to expand as the proliferation of online and cloud services and digitalization more broadly continue apace. As Cointelegraph has previously reported, the demand for more efficient, decentralized and privacy-respecting identity solutions has arisen in a vast array of diverse sectors, from public services to logistical and supply chain networks and all the way down to consumer wearables and other smart devices.

With increasing digitalization, a form of secure identity verification to access basic services — both public and private — online is quickly becoming an inescapable requirement; some have gone so far as to argue that privacy-preserving digital identity needs to be recognized as a basic right for all.

In tandem, with the global user base of social media networks now exceeding the 3.8-billion mark, some advocates have argued that blockchain offers the only adequate, equitable identity solution that can protect these users from threats such as data theft and privacy abuses.

Earlier this month, Ethereum co-founder and lead developer Vitalik Buterin pitched his vision of the future of the Ethereum network across a range of non-financial applications, singling out areas that included both decentralized social media and identity verification and attestation.

Ether already ‘flippening’ Bitcoin, says Celsius CEO

July 6, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Adoption

Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky suggested that Ether has already started “flippening” Bitcoin in U.S. dollar terms.

Bitcoin (BTC), the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has already started losing its market dominance to Ether (ETH), according to Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky.

In a Monday interview with Kitco News, Mashinsky argued that the Ether “flippening,” or the hypothetical scenario in which Ether overtakes Bitcoin as the world’s most valued cryptocurrency, is already happening right now.

Mashinsky said that the flippening has already happened on Celsius. “We manage about $17 billion in deposits, or in customer coins, and the number one coin held in dollar terms is Ethereum,” he said.

Mashinsky also predicted that Ether will completely surpass Bitcoin in terms of market cap by 2022 or 2023:

“The flippening already happened. Ethereum already surpassed Bitcoin in dollar terms as the total holdings of the Celsius community, and I think that the broader market will follow it in the next year or two. We will see that flippening happening also in the broader market.”

Mashinsky went on to suggest that the main trigger for the upcoming flippening would be the difference between the key use cases of Bitcoin and Ether. According to the CEO, Bitcoin’s primary use case is the store of value, while Ether’s major use case is yield farming or the practice of staking or locking up crypto in return for rewards.

“Yield is an application that just has a broader user base. So I think over time you will see a broader adoption of Ethereum than of Bitcoin. But obviously both of them are exceptional applications and exceptional blockchains, and we will see a broad adoption of both, it’s just that one will exceed the other,” Mashinsky stated.

Launched in 2018, the Celsius Network is a decentralized lending and borrowing platform, allowing users to earn rewards by transferring their coins to the Celsius wallet and borrow dollars or stablecoins against their crypto collateral. The platform operates its own CEL token that is an ERC-20 coin running on the Ethereum network.

Bitcoin has emerged as the world’s oldest digital currency and the most valued cryptocurrency, dominating altcoins like Ether in terms of the market cap. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was launched in 2015 and has yet to overtake Bitcoin in terms of market value.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s share of the crypto market — also referred to as Bitcoin dominance — is 44.6%, while Ether’s stands at 18.5%, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

*All-time Bitcoin dominance chart. Source: CoinMarketCap*

Mashinsky is not alone in thinking that Ether will flip Bitcoin in terms of value. Last week, Galaxy Digital founder and CEO Mike Novogratz also predicted that Ether could become the “biggest cryptocurrency one day.”

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey keeps saying ‘no’ to Ethereum

July 1, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Despite Twitter releasing 140 NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, Twitter's CEO continues to reject the altcoin as an investment.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has again rejected the idea of him buying into Ether (ETH) despite the social media platform's activities with Ethereum-based nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

On Wednesday, the social media platform announced a giveaway through Rarible, a major NFT platform utilizing the Ethereum blockchain network for minting digital collectible tokens.

But despite Twitter releasing 140 NFTs on Ethereum — the foundation for the second most-valued cryptocurrency after Bitcoin (BTC) — Dorsey apparently remains loyal exclusively to Bitcoin.

Following the NFT news, Twitter user Packanimal suggested that it was “only a matter of time before” Dorsey invested in Ether, to which the CEO simply replied “No.”

No.
— jack (@jack) June 30, 2021

The crypto community subsequently reacted to Dorsey’s two-letter take on Ethereum, with Cinneanhaim Ventures’ Adam Cochran criticizing Twitter CEO for “still being a BTC maxi” while Twitter “prints Ethereum-based NFTs on Rarible.” “With this level of mental gymnastics I'm surprised he won't be representing the US at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo this year,” Cochran added.

Dorsey, who’s also a co-founder and CEO of crypto-friendly digital payments firm Square, previously expressed his loyalty to Bitcoin alone, stating in a 2019 tweet, “I only have Bitcoin.” At the Bitcoin 2021 conference in early June, he said, “Bitcoin changes absolutely everything. [...] I don’t think there is anything more enabling for people around the world.”

An early Bitcoin believer, Dorsey has repeatedly argued that Bitcoin will be the single currency of the internet since at least 2018. He previously rejected moving into altcoins like Ether, claiming that he invested only in Bitcoin in 2019.

Dorsey’s remarks come as some of the biggest Bitcoiners admit that Ether could eventually flip Bitcoin as the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, predicted Thursday that Ether could become the “biggest cryptocurrency one day.”

‘Bitcoin is the king of crypto and it’s here to stay’ says eToro CEO

June 11, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Adoption

Some regions may want to ban Bitcoin, but industry experts say BTC is here to stay

While countries like El Salvador have welcomed Bitcoin (BTC) with open arms, other regions are pushing to legally ban the digital currency. Although this may be, some industry experts believe that Bitcoin is here to stay — for good.

For example, during an exclusive interview at Bitcoin 2021 Miami, Yoni Assia, chief executive officer of eToro, told Cointelegraph that he considers Bitcoin to be the “king of crypto,” noting that the most popular digital currency is here to stay:

“I'll be surprised if we don't see a significant rise in the price of Bitcoin over the next three to five years, as there are still 5 billion people in the world that basically don't have good local currency.”

Yet in order for this dream to become a reality, Guy Hirsch, managing director of eToro U.S., told Cointelegraph that people need to believe in the morality of decentralizing money:

“I think that the moral case for Bitcoin and teaching people that it is the right thing to do is to basically separate state and money. It will ultimately create that vision that we all aspire for.”

Regulations: bridging the old world with the new world

In order to prepare for a decentralized future, Assia mentioned that eToro is building a bridge between traditional finance and the crypto industry. As such, Assia explained that the combination of crypto assets and equities is important. “The majority of our clients trade both cryptocurrencies as well as stocks in the platform. I think that's definitely a trend that we'll see continuing in the future,” he said.

Assia further mentioned that it’s good to see more institutions entering the crypto space, especially when it comes to innovating within decentralized finance, or DeFi:

“DeFi a bit of a wild west right now. No regulation, no real financial institutions, but a lot of amazing innovation. I think we're going to see a lot of that innovation going into traditional or regulated financial institutions, centralized companies to be able to offer that innovation directly to consumers.”

Moreover, Assia mentioned that he thinks there will be a transfer of over $100 trillion dollars over the next 10 years into native digital assets. He noted this will be spurred by the notion that nearly all financial assets will eventually be incorporated onto blockchain networks moving forward.

Bitcoin price crash isn’t over, says JPMorgan strategist

June 1, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Price

JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said that a medium-term fair value for Bitcoin now stands between $24,000 and $36,000.

Following the worst May for Bitcoin’s (BTC) price in the past 10 years, the largest cryptocurrency is likely to continue falling in the short term, according to JPMorgan analysts.

Weakened institutional demand is likely to drag the Bitcoin price below $30,000, JPMorgan strategist and Bitcoin expert Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in the latest research note to clients.

Based on Bitcoin’s volatility ratios to gold, the JPMorgan analyst forecasted that Bitcoin will continue to trade between $24,000 and $36,000 in the mid-term. “The fair value for bitcoin based on a volatility ratio of Bitcoin to gold of around x4 would be 1/4th of $145k or $36k. The fair value for Bitcoin based on the current volatility ratio of Bitcoin to gold of around x6 would be 1/6th of $145k or $24k. We thus see a fair value range of $24k to $36k over the medium term,” the note reads.

Panigirtzoglou said that JPMorgan still sees a $145,000 price mark as a long-term “theoretical target” for BTC’s price, “assuming a convergence of Bitcoin volatility to that of gold and an equalization of bitcoin allocations to that of gold in investor portfolios.”

“$145k is the price of Bitcoin that would equalize it with the private sector holdings of gold for investment purposes of around $2.7tr at the moment. Needless to say, full convergence or equalization of volatilities or allocations is unlikely in the foreseeable future,” the strategist wrote, adding:

“The longer-term signal remains problematic, as it has yet to turn short. It would still take price declines to the $26k level before longer-term momentum would signal capitulation.”

Panigirtzoglou noted that institutional investors appear reluctant to buy the dip in the aftermath of a major crypto crash on May 19. “We note that the mere rise in volatility, especially relative to gold, is an impediment to further institutional adoption as it reduces the attractiveness of digital gold vs. traditional gold in institutional portfolios,” the strategist stated. JPMorgan previously suggested that large institutional investors were dumping BTC in favor of gold as Bitcoin touched five-month lows near $30,000.

On Monday, Peter Brandt, a veteran financial analyst and trader, questioned whether Bitcoin’s price is likely to bounce in the near future. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $36,638, down around 1% over the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGecko. The cryptocurrency has lost around 37% over the past 30 days but is still up 286% over the past year.

Bitcoin dominance likely to bounce back after market slump: Report

May 20, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Price

A new report from Stack Funds anticipates that Bitcoin dominance is likely to see an uptick soon, further supporting the asset's price in the short term.

Stack Funds — an issuer of crypto access products that include trackers, indexes and structure vehicles for institutions — has released a new report predicting that Bitcoin (BTC) dominance is set to ratchet back up to former highs in the near future.

*Cryptocurrency dominance trends, Jan. 1 – May 20. Source: CoinMarketCap*

As of the start of 2021, Bitcoin dominance — the cryptocurrency's share of the total market capitalization of all crypto assets — has been on a steady decline, down from 72.3% in January to roughly 40% this week. As Stack Funds' head of research Lennard Neo notes, that figure represents a three-year low since May 2018.

Whilst BTC dominance has continued to go south, total market capitalization has gone in the opposite direction, gaining 40% in value over the same time frame. For Stack Funds, this implies that investors' capital remains locked in the crypto markets. Neo notes that key sectoral rotation has been at play, with investors seeking to maximize opportunity costs, as seen by the rise of Ether's (ETH) price by almost 180% at last month's highs.

However, the dynamics between dominance and the wider markets suggest a swing back in trends. For Stack Funds, BTC dominance is long due for a rebound:

"We believe the rotational playbook has reversed as dark clouds loom over the markets. We are expecting investors to cycle back into Bitcoin as uncertainties increases as the markets undergo another reset. Hence, a bounce in Bitcoin dominance should occur, further supporting Bitcoin’s price in the short-term."

Stack Funds' report also notes the dramatic volatility of the past week, echoing other commentators and analysts who have pointed to the impact of comments from Elon Musk and his company Tesla, as well as bearish news of a potentially renewed crypto crackdown in China.

Bears, bulls, or something else altogether? Crypto experts weigh in on recent volatility

May 19, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin Price

Bitcoin is "not going to bounce right back," said Mike Novogratz right before it bounced back to the $42,000s.

The price of Bitcoin and many cryptocurrencies may have taken a double-digit percentage drop in the last 24 hours, but some crypto experts still seem to be cautiously optimistic about the market as a whole.

In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Wednesday, Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz said that it was “going to take a while” for crypto markets to consolidate and find a bottom as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) dipped to $30,000 earlier in the day. Novogratz’s comments came when the price of the crypto asset was roughly $38,000, having been more than $42,000 at the close of stock markets yesterday.

"You had a confluence of events: a combination of tax day, Elon Musk tweets, whatnot and we started breaking down the positivity in the price action, and now we’ve got a liquidation event,” said Novogratz. “It's not going to bounce right back, it’ll consolidate for a while.”

"It felt like we had capitulation this morning," says @Novogratz on #bitcoin. "You had a confluence of events a combination of tax day, @elonmusk tweets, what not and we started breaking down the positivity in the price action...it's not going to bounce right back." pic.twitter.com/n0QqjOmh21
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) May 19, 2021

Though the Galaxy Digital CEO estimated that Bitcoin could hit a bottom at $36,000 or $38,000, the price rebounded slightly to reach $42,434 before sliding back under $40,000. At the time of publication, the price is in the $38,000 range.

There are likely many factors at play concerning the recent crypto market volatility. Cryptocurrency prime broker Genesis Global Trading reported there was a Bitcoin-driven sell-off overnight due to forced liquidations and levered closeouts. Meanwhile, the firm said many Ether (ETH) cash buyers came in when the price of the token dropped under $2,000 for the first time since early April, and macro funds were buying BTC when the price hit $35,000.

“While the initial volumes at the beginning of this morning’s rally off the lows were muted, we're seeing the market stabilize with more consistent institutional appetite,” said Genesis.

Others in the crypto space — including Konstantin Boyko-Romanovsky, CEO and founder of validator node hosting platform Allnodes, and Steve Ehrlich, CEO and co-founder Voyager Digital — said the recent price drops may be attributed to people migrating their investments following reports that China had allegedly banned crypto exchanges, services and transactions. Three associations in the country recently outlined issues related to crypto investments and warned people of the market risks.

“Correction in the cryptocurrency market is a common phenomenon,” said Boyko-Romanovsky. “It doesn’t mean, however, that a bear market is underway. The latter would be the case if the blockchain industry were showing signs of slowing down. That can’t be further from the truth.”

Ehrlich added:

“We are seeing a correction, but this is an opportunity for retail participants to reestablish themselves and increase their positions in the market. Crypto is not going anywhere.”

Predictions