Well, wasn’t 2021 sort of a moon launch? I think so. It hit all-time highs despite all the “legends” saying it’s a worthless seashell for tech dorks. Wrong! Hey, it’s not $68,000, but it’ll get there again.
Right?
“Bitcoin will reach at least $200,000 by 2025,” says Paycer UG founder & CTO Nils Gregersen in Hamburg, Germany. “But I am pretty sure we will see it fall to around $20,000 before hand.”
Yikes!
Okay, no panicking. I’ll buy it.
What about the rest of the cryptocurrency space? There’s more to this market today than Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency investing is the new stock market. Everybody knows that.
This year was a very interesting one for crypto. We saw trends coming and going very fast — with coins hyped up by influencers like Elon Musk — who gave Dogecoin a lift for a short time before it returned to being a dud coin.
“There is a lot of pump in the market at the moment,” says Gregersen. “I think in 2022 we are going to see a little cooldown in the market. Only the stronger projects will survive. For the memecoins and other shady projects, I think the air gets a little thinner for them,” he says, adding that regulations will have an impact on DeFi cryptocurrencies, within varying degrees of positives and negatives.
“DeFi will still be a thing in 2022. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of DeFi,” says Gregersen. “There are many new products to come that we can’t even imagine today.”
Some DeFi trends expected next year: Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) that offer unregulated, decentralized finance and a new regulated centralized- decentralized finance. Call it the yin and yang of DeFi, I guess. CeDeFi will offer less complex financial services based on DeFi but will hold hands with the regulators of financial markets and banking, in general. This might be the type of DeFi that Jim Cramer of Mad Money can get behind.
Ava Labs president John Wu also predicts DeFi will have a good 2022.
But he seems to like the GameFi space even more.
“DeFi will continue to lead in terms of total value in the ecosystem, but blockchain gaming will introduce more people to crypto because the learning and adoption curves in gaming are notably smaller than that of DeFi,” he says.
Yeah, I’m still playing video games on an X Box One. I don’t know about blockchain games. I have never stared into the eyes of any blockchain yet. I’ll have to do that this year.
Future game gamefi and entertainment digital technology. Teenager having fun play VR virtual reality … [+] glasses sport game metaverse NFT game 3D cyber space futuristic neon colorful background.
getty
“Gaming growth is outpacing new DeFi activity. Just wait until major developers and studios get involved,” Wu says.
GameFi is considered a subset of the metaverse as most game developers in the blockchain world are building their ecosystem to be more linked to the virtual world. Non-fungible tokens (NFT) are also an offshoot here — because diehard gamers will spend money for digital art, let alone weapons and other gear (or fake land) associated with a game.
The metaverse is in its infancy. So this gives crypto investors a chance to get in on the ground floor of some of the newcomers. I own Decentraland (MANA) as my metaverse play.
“Getting aboard the metaverse train today with all the connections to other aspects of blockchain evolution will be synonymous to getting aboard the Bitcoin train in its earliest days,” says Sven Wenzel, co-founder of Castello Coin, which operates in the digital art space. “An early investment in a metaverse token can amount to so much more in the longer term,” he says in comparing metaverse plays with the likes of Bitcoin.
Castello Coin and Decentraland all run on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s still the No. 2 cryptocurrency investment after Bitcoin. How will Ethereum look in 2022?
“I would invest in Ethereum. I would invest $200 every month in Ethereum,” says Gregersen.
Overall, market participants expect more people opening accounts with exchanges. That’s a long term bullish signal for cryptocurrencies.
I predict some of the more old school platforms (think E*Trade) will allow for investment in at least Bitcoin and Ethereum next year. That should get more people involved, especially those who can’t be bothered opening up a Gemini account, for instance.
POLAND – 2020/06/15: In this photo illustration an Ethereum logo seen displayed on a smartphone. … [+] (Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The resilience of cryptocurrencies is expected to be a highlight again this coming year. We all have witnessed how our investments can snap back rather quickly from a 10% or 20% loss.
In the past, this would have triggered a sustained downturn and ‘crypto winter’, but better risk management on the professional investor side means the market just has a snow day instead. People will be buying the dips in 2022.
I know I will. After a 23 day battle with Covid, I’m ready to put some money to work in my Coinbase account again. I’ll probably load up on some Bitcoin. After these interviews, I might have to check in on MANA.
Besides investing ideas, Wu from Ava Labs thinks more traditional brand name corporations will enter the space in 2022.
“Look at the list of major media companies, sports leagues or content creators participating in digital assets at the start of the year versus the end of it,” he says. Deloitte and Mastercard recently linked up with Ava Labs to explore their Avalanche blockchain and its smart-contract enabled applications.
This year was a true zero-to-60 growth in new blockchain protocols like Solana (SOL) and Polkadot (DOT). Many Fortune 500 companies who used this year to explore what NFTs and digital assets can do for them will be two feet in, in 12 months’ time, Wu predicts.
“They’ve seen their peers succeed and so the risk of failure is low enough to make a move,” he says.
If you watched the World Series, you saw the FTX crypto exchange logo on the jerseys of the umpires. Yes, you can buy and sell NFTs on FTX, like the currently priced $615 Stephen Curry NFT: The 2974 Collection.
So 2021 was the year of NFTs, for sure. What will 2022 be the year of, if you had to pick one?
More new blockchain projects, especially for businesses, says Wu.
“I think you will see enterprise blockchain pilots move into the live stages a lot quicker than people expect,” he says.
Sorry, haters, the world will still be investing in digital assets in 2022. To steal an old adage from the world of Wall Street: the trend is your friend.
**The writer owns Bitcoin, Polkadot and Decentraland. Oh, and sadly, Dogecoin.**
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was down more than 200 points in late-morning trading, weighed down by losses in the technology, base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets also fell.
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 239.24 points at 22,749.04.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 312.36 points at 40,443.39. The S&P 500 index was down 80.94 points at 5,422.47, while the Nasdaq composite was down 380.17 points at 16,747.49.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.80 cents US compared with 74.00 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down US$1.07 at US$68.08 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$2.26 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$2.10 at US$2,541.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was down four cents at US$4.10 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in technology, financial and energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also pushed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 171.41 points at 23,298.39.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 278.37 points at 41,369.79. The S&P 500 index was up 38.17 points at 5,630.35, while the Nasdaq composite was up 177.15 points at 17,733.18.
The Canadian dollar traded for 74.19 cents US compared with 74.23 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up US$1.75 at US$76.27 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$2.10 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$18.70 at US$2,556.50 an ounce and the December copper contract was down less than a penny at US$4.22 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 29, 2024.
The crypto market has recently experienced a significant downturn, mirroring broader risk asset sell-offs. Over the past week, Bitcoin’s price dropped by 24%, reaching $53,000, while Ethereum plummeted nearly a third to $2,340. Major altcoins also suffered, with Cardano down 27.7%, Solana 36.2%, Dogecoin 34.6%, XRP 23.1%, Shiba Inu 30.1%, and BNB 25.7%.
The severe downturn in the crypto market appears to be part of a broader flight to safety, triggered by disappointing economic data. A worse-than-expected unemployment report on Friday marked the beginning of a technical recession, as defined by the Sahm Rule. This rule identifies a recession when the three-month average unemployment rate rises by at least half a percentage point from its lowest point in the past year.
Friday’s figures met this threshold, signaling an abrupt economic downshift. Consequently, investors sought safer assets, leading to declines in major stock indices: the S&P 500 dropped 2%, the Nasdaq 2.5%, and the Dow 1.5%. This trend continued into Monday with further sell-offs overseas.
The crypto market’s rapid decline raises questions about its role as either a speculative asset or a hedge against inflation and recession. Despite hopes that crypto could act as a risk hedge, the recent crash suggests it remains a speculative investment.
Since the downturn, the crypto market has seen its largest three-day sell-off in nearly a year, losing over $500 billion in market value. According to CoinGlass data, this bloodbath wiped out more than $1 billion in leveraged positions within the last 24 hours, including $365 million in Bitcoin and $348 million in Ether.
Khushboo Khullar of Lightning Ventures, speaking to Bloomberg, argued that the crypto sell-off is part of a broader liquidity panic as traders rush to cover margin calls. Khullar views this as a temporary sell-off, presenting a potential buying opportunity.
Josh Gilbert, an eToro market analyst, supports Khullar’s perspective, suggesting that the expected Federal Reserve rate cuts could benefit crypto assets. “Crypto assets have sold off, but many investors will see an opportunity. We see Federal Reserve rate cuts, which are now likely to come sharper than expected, as hugely positive for crypto assets,” Gilbert told Coindesk.
Despite the recent volatility, crypto continues to make strides toward mainstream acceptance. Notably, Morgan Stanley will allow its advisors to offer Bitcoin ETFs starting Wednesday. This follows more than half a year after the introduction of the first Bitcoin ETF. The investment bank will enable over 15,000 of its financial advisors to sell BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC. This move is seen as a significant step toward the “mainstreamization” of crypto, given the lengthy regulatory and company processes in major investment banks.
The recent crypto market downturn highlights its volatility and the broader economic concerns affecting all risk assets. While some analysts see the current situation as a temporary sell-off and a buying opportunity, others caution against the speculative nature of crypto. As the market evolves, its role as a mainstream alternative asset continues to grow, marked by increasing institutional acceptance and new investment opportunities.
