Financial conglomerate Wells Fargo, one of the "big four" US banks, has published a new investment report, in which a separate page under the heading "Bitcoin - 2020's best performing and most volatile asset" is devoted to the cryptocurrency market. The authors do not directly encourage clients to invest in digital assets, but generally maintain an optimistic tone regarding their prospects. “Over the past 12 years, they have grown from literally nothing to a $560 billion market cap,” writes Wells Fargo. "Hobbies don't usually last 12 years."
The bank notes that bitcoin is up 170% over the year but warns about its high volatility. “Investing in cryptocurrencies today is akin to living in the early days of the 1850s gold rush, which involved more speculation than investing”, the bank's analysts think. And yet they add that cryptocurrencies attract a lot of attention, but not necessarily a lot of investment. (Here the title of William Shakespeare's play immediately comes to mind: "Much Ado About Nothing").
It is difficult to disagree with this: the total cryptocurrency market capitalization now is far from even its own high at the beginning of January 2018, $830 billion. And this is in a world where, according to billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, "there is a $90 trillion stock market, and God knows how many trillions are in fiat currency."
The crypto market went down another $50 billion last week: starting from $575 billion, it dropped to $525 billion. Optimists call the clear bearish trend a seasonal correction and associate it with the end of the year and the desire of investors to fix profits after such an impressive leap up. Recall that the BTC/USD pair was never able to overcome the $20,000 mark. And analysts estimated that it will be able to gain a foothold above this iconic level by the end of December, as 30% probability. The likelihood of its fall to the $15,000-15,700 zone is estimated at the same 30%.
In the meantime, the bears were able to lower quotations to $17,600, and they did it twice: on December 09 and 11. And also twice, at the time of these failures, buyers came to the rescue of bitcoin. However, they did not manage to radically reverse the trend, and as of Friday evening, December 11, bitcoin is trading in the zone of a strong support/resistance level of $18,000.
It should be noted that the Crypto Fear & Greed Index declined very slightly in seven days, from 92 to 89, still signaling the pair BTC/USD is strongly overbought, which could portend an even deeper correction.
So, a correction or a repeat of the collapse of the late 2017-2018? The question is still open.
Bloomberg experts believe that there is no reason for a change in the direction of bitcoin's movement now, and its cost may increase to $50,000 in 2021. “The dollar is gradually losing its position, ducking other fiat currencies,” writes this authoritative agency, “All this is noticed by investors who are forced to switch to alternative assets.” Bitcoin has significantly more support now, which minimizes the likelihood of a pullback. Open interest in the CME bitcoin futures market has exceeded $1 billion for the first time in history, which also speaks of growing support from investors.
A similar point of view is followed by the American billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, head of Tudor Investment Corporation, who said that “cryptocurrencies are facing a crazy flight on a rocket with ascents and descents along the way.” “In 20 years, bitcoin will be significantly higher than the point where it is now. From here, the road for it lies north,” Yahoo! Finance quoted him.
But Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz is less optimistic. In his opinion, bitcoin will certainly not return to zero, but may fall to the $14,000 mark. Therefore, although the losses of investors will not reach 80-90%, they may well be about 30-40%.
The report of the fintech company Cindicator is of great interest. This is due to the fact that the figures presented in it are not the opinion of individual specialists, but the average results of the survey of more than 156,000 participants of the crypto market, according to which bitcoin next year will rise to $29,569. The respondents with the most accurate forecasts, the so-called "superforcasters", on average expect even greater growth, to $32,056. As for the lower bar, according to the average forecast, it is at $15,000. “Superforcasters” are less optimistic and expect a decline to $12,000.
Cindicator's “hybrid intelligence”, which uses machine learning algorithms to process data from a team of analysts, predicts similar values, only in a narrower range. According to its calculations, the BTC rate next year will not exceed $25,222 and will not fall below $16,000. At the same time, the total capitalization of the cryptocurrency market in 2021 with a probability of 80% will surpass the 2018 record of $828 billion.
In addition to institutional investors, additional serious support for the crypto market in 2021 should be provided by countries with troubled economies and those under sanctions. As of now, the SWIFT International Banking System, together with the Financial Crimes Agency (FinCEN) and the Financial Anti-Money Laundering Development Group (FATF), control each international transaction in dollars. Because of this, the countries that have come under the sanctions are deprived of the opportunity for international trade and are literally forced to turn to cryptocurrencies. So, for example, Venezuela, which at first paid in gold, has now switched to settlements for imports with Turkey and Iran in bitcoins. At least this is evidenced by anonymous sources from the Central Bank of this country.
Here you can find some general answers to the most common questions about cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrency Forecast
