You either love or hate cryptocurrency. There’s nothing in between because either you had made a lot or you had missed out the trend. The coins were having tough time during the first few weeks of 2018, but I reckon this year the crypto market will behave like 2017, if not stronger.
At the beginning of 2017, the market cap of Bitcoin was only $16 million. On 17 Dec 2017, the market cap was $327million. This is to say that, the capital inflow into only Bitcoin excluding other crypto had gone up 20 fold in less than 12 months time. Other than bubble, I can’t find any other description. Ballooning?
However, the term bubble is very sensitive and misleading. Public perception of bubble is a definite burst in a very short term. Is perception = reality? Let’s look at a few of the most famous financial bubbles.
Great Depression. Price soar from 1924-1929
Japanese Asset Price bubble 1986-1991
Dot-com Bubble 1995-2001
There is one thing that make me feeling comfortable. Out of these 3 charts, there is none bubble burst on the second year. They sustained for 4 or 5 years.
Bitcoin’s price had been steady until early last year when it broken $2,000 and never tested that level anymore.
5 reasons why 2018 is going to match, if not even better than 2017 in crypto market.
Wall street is joining us.
Bitcoin futures had launched in Dec. Traders around the world will have more participation. One of the reason why Bitcoin peaked at 17 Dec was the launching of Bitcoin Futures in CME Group. Future traders might have shorted the crypto down after the hype had pushed the price to all time high of near $20,000. Eh, buying the rumours selling the news?
More people are joining the party
The reason why are you reading this article is there are more fresh people who had started to show interest into crypto currency everyday. People like you and me are not early people who involve, but we are all here because we believe that crypto and blockchain is the future. Bitcoin is everywhere in the media. We could hear people around us talking about Bitcoin. Word of mouth is the best marketing.
More high quality ICO.
This year, there could be thousands of ICO launches. Out of the thousands, there could be hundreds of potential ICO project which is disruptive and could change the business landscape in the world. It would reward thousands of people to become millionare too if the ICO is really to the moon. As they are ICO, you need to buy crypto especially Etherum to invest into the projects and thus, pushing the price higher up.
Decentralization
Decentralizing is sexy. Who doesn’t like democracy and freedom? The concept of Decentralized Exchanges is not a concept anymore. Trade.io is working on it and if things are smooth, they might be the first decentralized exchange in this world. What will be the token used in the exchange?
Corporate involvement
Crypto is so disruptive to the business world that it makes IPO very small and troublesome. Instead of going through the hassle of Security Exchange, by issuing a token, people can trade with the token in coin exchanges such as Binance and Bittrex. Howis it different from IPO in a stock exchange? There would be more established corporate that looking for funding from either issuing own ICO or listing their company’s “share” in a decentralized exchange, as it save hustle and save cost too. This year, we had already heard of one of the largest social messaging company, Telegram, is launching their token ‘TON’ in q3 2018. Kodak, the fallen giant, is launching their coin, 'KODAKCoin' on 31st Jan 2018. I believe there would be more corporate which will follow suit. And these corporate involvement will not only pushing the price of smart contract coins higher but also encourage public acceptance towards crypto currency. Get ready for the ride. It is a good beginning for fresh player like me to start the year on the dip.