A cryptocurrency is a digital currency that is created and managed through the use of advanced encryption techniques known as cryptography.
Cryptocurrency made the leap from being an academic concept to (virtual) reality with the creation of Bitcoin in 2009.
While Bitcoin attracted a growing following in subsequent years, it captured significant investor and media attention in April 2013 when it peaked at a record $266 per bitcoin after surging 10-fold in the preceding two months.
Bitcoin sported a market value of over $2 billion at its peak, but a 50% plunge shortly thereafter sparked a raging debate about the future of cryptocurrencies in general and Bitcoin in particular.
So, will these alternative currencies eventually supplant conventional currencies and become as ubiquitous as dollars and euros someday? Or are cryptocurrencies a passing fad that will flame out before long? The answer lies with Bitcoin.
- What is the Future of Cryptocurrency?
- Which Cryptocurrency Should you Invest in?
- What Does the Future Hold for Bitcoin?
- Will Bitcoin die?
- How Many Bitcoins are Left?
- Should I buy XRP?
- Which Cryptocurrency is Growing the Fastest?
- What will Bitcoins be Worth in 2025?
- Is Ethereum the Future?
What is the Future of Cryptocurrency?
Some economic analysts predict a big change in crypto is forthcoming as institutional money enters the market.
Moreover, there is the possibility that crypto will be floated on the Nasdaq, which would further add credibility to blockchain and its uses as an alternative to conventional currencies. Some predict that all that crypto needs is a verified exchange traded fund (ETF).
Read Also: Top 10 Best Cryptocurrency to Invest in 2021
An ETF would definitely make it easier for people to invest in Bitcoin, but there still needs to be the demand to want to invest in crypto, which might not automatically be generated with a fund.
Some of the limitations that cryptocurrencies presently face – such as the fact that one’s digital fortune can be erased by a computer crash, or that a virtual vault may be ransacked by a hacker – may be overcome in time through technological advances.
What will be harder to surmount is the basic paradox that bedevils cryptocurrencies – the more popular they become, the more regulation and government scrutiny they are likely to attract, which erodes the fundamental premise for their existence.
While the number of merchants who accept cryptocurrencies has steadily increased, they are still very much in the minority.
For cryptocurrencies to become more widely used, they have to first gain widespread acceptance among consumers. However, their relative complexity compared to conventional currencies will likely deter most people, except for the technologically adept.
A cryptocurrency that aspires to become part of the mainstream financial system may have to satisfy widely divergent criteria.
It would need to be mathematically complex (to avoid fraud and hacker attacks) but easy for consumers to understand; decentralized but with adequate consumer safeguards and protection; and preserve user anonymity without being a conduit for tax evasion, money laundering and other nefarious activities.
Since these are formidable criteria to satisfy, is it possible that the most popular cryptocurrency in a few years’ time could have attributes that fall in between heavily-regulated fiat currencies and today’s cryptocurrencies?
While that possibility looks remote, there is little doubt that as the leading cryptocurrency at present, Bitcoin’s success (or lack thereof) in dealing with the challenges it faces may determine the fortunes of other cryptocurrencies in the years ahead.
Which Cryptocurrency Should you Invest in?
The core purpose of cryptocurrencies is relatively simple: leverage technology to eliminate the middle-man in financial transactions and make buying and selling things less costly and more efficient.
Through the blockchain — a decentralized public ledger of transactions that anyone can view, is consistent across the whole network, and is unable to be edited and/or updated unless the whole network agrees with the update — cryptocurrencies are able to conduct and verify financial transactions without needing any central oversight.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Of course, the most obvious cryptocurrency to buy at the moment is bitcoin. Over the next few months, bitcoin will be a direct beneficiary of slowing supply growth and accelerating demand growth across the cryptocurrency world.
On the supply side, the third halving in May will directly impact the amount of new bitcoins coming into market, and will lead to relatively slow supply growth.
Meanwhile, on the demand side, cryptocurrency interest will continue to soar in 2020 as the third halving draws media coverage and public attention.
Bitcoin demand will move higher simply because this is the “gateway” into cryptocurrencies for new investors. That is, as new investors enter the cryptocurrency market over the next few quarters, most of them will likely start by getting their feet wet with bitcoin.
Accelerating demand growth plus constrained supply growth will lead to higher prices for bitcoin in 2021.
Zcash (ZEC)
Privacy is a top priority in the cryptocurrency community, and privacy-focused coins will likely win big. That’s why McCall has picked top privacy coin Zcash as one of his top altcoin investments for 2020 and going forward.
Zcash, which is one of McCall’s favorite altcoins in his Ultimate Crypto portfolio, is a pure play on the growing importance of privacy in cryptocurrency.
That is, the first wave of cryptocurrencies was all about decentralization …
“Existing currency valuation models do not quite take into consideration decentralization — a potentially distinguishing feature of cryptocurrencies,” says Professor William Cong of Cornell University.
Now that cryptocurrencies have gained more mainstream traction and are starting to exhibit staying power, it’s time for another distinguishing feature to emerge — privacy.
Privacy is one of the more important and discussed characteristics in both the crypto world and the financial transaction world at large.
As the importance of privacy grows in the crypto world, privacy coins will outperform, and Zcash looks particularly primed to outperform given the company’s recent pivot into private mobile transactions.
Ripple (XRP)
A leading altcoin positioned for potentially big gains in 2020 is Ripple.
Ripple is a company which leverages blockchain technology to enable banks, payment providers, digital asset exchanges and corporations to send money globally, usually using the company’s cryptocurrency, XRP.
In many ways, then, Ripple is the infrastructure behind cross-border cryptocurrency payments.
As cryptos gain more mainstream traction, Ripple is adding more and more banks and various other customers to its network. Most recently, the National Bank of Egypt just partnered with Ripple.
More and more banks will partner with Ripple in 2021 as cryptocurrency awareness and demand rises. As it does, the price of XRP will rise, too.
DxChain Token (DX)
On the smaller side, a cryptocurrency which look like an interesting speculative buy is DxChain Token.
DxChain is a very ambitious project which aims to use blockchain technology to solve the world’s data computation, storage and privacy issues. It’s a tall order. But, if it works, it could yield huge results in terms of DXC usage and value growth.
In 2020, data privacy concerns are front and center. As such, privacy-focused coins should rise. DXC is one of the more interesting privacy-focused coins with potentially huge long term upside.
While it’s still all very speculative, those attributes may make this altcoin worth the risk over the next few quarters.
Chainlink (LINK)
One of the hottest cryptocurrencies, and one which Matt McCall thinks will remain red hot for the foreseeable future, is Chainlink.
In his Ultimate Crypto portfolio, Matt first recommended Chainlink in early January at a price of $2.09.
Today, Chainlink trades hands at $3.87, up a whopping 85% in just five months. What’s more, that 85% return over the past five months, follows a 450% return in 2019.
In other words, Chainlink has been scorching hot. Strengthening fundamentals imply that it will remain hot for the foreseeable future.
Specifically, Chainlink leverages blockchain technology to create smart contracts, which are essentially self-executing contracts that can be executed without central oversight.
But businesses have been slow to adopt smart contracts because data is integral to executing these smart contracts, and there hasn’t yet been a reliable way to connect external data with the smart contract.
That’s exactly what Chainlink does. So, they provide a very necessary gateway to usher in broader adoption of smart contracts. This adoption uptake in 2020 will provide a natural tailwind for LINK, and the coin’s red-hot rally will likely persist.
Synthetix Network Token (SNX)
The Synthetix Network Token is a cool platform in the ethereum ecosystem which leverages blockchain technology to help bridge the gap between the often very obscure cryptocurrency world, and the far more tangible traditional asset world.
That is, in the Synthetix Network, there are Synths, which are synthetic assets that provide exposure to assets such as gold, bitcoin, U.S. Dollars and various equities like Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).
The whole idea of these synthetic assets is to create shared assets wherein users benefit from asset exposure, without actually owning the asset.
It’s a very unique idea, and a promising project in the ethereum landscape. Because it helps bridge the gap between cryptocurrencies and traditional assets, it creates a level of familiarity and value that are often missing in other cryptocurrency assets.
This familiarity and value ultimately position SNX price to rise in 2020 and beyond.
What Does the Future Hold for Bitcoin?
The future outlook for bitcoin is the subject of much debate. While the financial media is proliferated by so-called crypto-evangelists, Harvard University Professor of Economics and Public Policy Kenneth Rogoff suggests that the “overwhelming sentiment” among crypto advocates is that the total “market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies could explode over the next five years, rising to $5-10 [trillion].”
The historic volatility of the asset class is “no reason to panic,” he says. Still, he tempered his optimism and that of the “crypto evangelist” view of Bitcoin as digital gold, calling it “nutty,” stating its long-term value is “more likely to be $100 than $100,000.”
Rogoff argues that unlike physical gold, Bitcoin’s use is limited to transactions, which makes it more vulnerable to a bubble-like collapse.
Additionally, the cryptocurrency’s energy-intensive verification process is “vastly less efficient” than systems that rely on “a trusted central authority like a central bank.”
Increasing Scrutiny
Bitcoin’s main benefits of decentralization and transaction anonymity have also made it a favored currency for a host of illegal activities including money laundering, drug peddling, smuggling and weapons procurement.
This has attracted the attention of powerful regulatory and other government agencies such as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the SEC, and even the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
In March 2013, FinCEN issued rules that defined virtual currency exchanges and administrators as money service businesses, bringing them within the ambit of government regulation.
In May that year, the DHS froze an account of Mt. Gox – the largest Bitcoin exchange – that was held at Wells Fargo, alleging that it broke anti-money laundering laws.
And in August, New York’s Department of Financial Services issued subpoenas to 22 emerging payment companies, many of which handled Bitcoin, asking about their measures to prevent money laundering and ensure consumer protection.
Alternatives to Bitcoin
Despite its recent issues, Bitcoin’s success and growing visibility since its launch has resulted in a number of companies unveiling alternative cryptocurrencies, such as:
Litecoin
Litecoin is regarded as Bitcoin’s leading rival at present, and it is designed for processing smaller transactions faster. It was founded in October 2011 as “a coin that is silver to Bitcoin’s gold,” according to founder Charles Lee.
Unlike the heavy computer horsepower required for Bitcoin mining, Litecoins can be mined by a normal desktop computer.
Litecoin’s maximum limit is 84 million – four times Bitcoin’s 21-million limit – and it has a transaction processing time of about 2.5 minutes, about one-fourth that of Bitcoin.
Ripple
Ripple was launched by OpenCoin, a company founded by technology entrepreneur Chris Larsen in 2012.
Like Bitcoin, Ripple is both a currency and a payment system. The currency component is XRP, which has a mathematical foundation like Bitcoin.
The payment mechanism enables the transfer of funds in any currency to another user on the Ripple network within seconds, in contrast to Bitcoin transactions, which can take as long as 10 minutes to confirm.
MintChip
Unlike most cryptocurrencies, MintChip is actually the creation of a government institution, specifically the Royal Canadian Mint.
MintChip is a smartcard that holds electronic value and can transfer it securely from one chip to another.
Like Bitcoin, MintChip does not need personal identification; unlike Bitcoin, it is backed by a physical currency, the Canadian dollar
Will Bitcoin die?
Ever since its inception by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, Bitcoin has had its ups and downs. In 2011, Bitcoin dropped to $2.00 after reaching $31 a few months before. In 2013, when Bitcoin reached $1,000, it plummeted to $300.
So, it only makes sense that when Bitcoin reached nearly $20,000, it dropped back down to $7,500 (at the time of writing this).
Does that mean Bitcoin will rise again?
Most likely.
Ran Neuner, an expert on Bitcoin, told CNBC that he expects the market to hover for a little while and then go back up. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell if he’s correct.
The right time to invest
While many believe Bitcoin will go back up, others who look at cryptocurrency as a whole say to go with another route.
Alternatives to Bitcoin, known as Altcoins, have flooded the market. A lot of them offer variations to Bitcoin, such as different economic models, mining algorithms, and some offer more or less privacy than Bitcoin itself.
In some cases, these altcoins can be more valuable than Bitcoin and are worth the investment.
Where Bitcoin doubled in value in months before losing its gains, Alternative coins such as Cardano were up 30 to 40 fold.
Putting that in perspective, 10,000 USD invested from 1st December 2017 to 31st December 2017 in Bitcoin would yield a little more than $4,000 in profit. That same amount invested in Cardano coin would have over $54,000 in profit.
How Many Bitcoins are Left?
One of the core features of the Bitcoin currency is its limited supply. The importance of a limited supply has never been more apparent than now, as central banks around the world ramp up their money printing to unprecedented levels.
Gold is valuable because no matter how high the price only a small amount can be mined every year. Bitcoin takes this scarcity to the next level! No matter what price Bitcoin is selling for, only a predetermined number of BTC will ever exist. This makes Bitcoin the hardest currency in the world.
But how many Bitcoins are left? Let’s take a look.
In total there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. This means that Bitcoin’s scarcity is even greater than gold. Although gold is difficult to mine, there is a near “infinite” supply as new mines are always being prospected.
Although Bitcoin has a supply of 21 million, that doesn’t mean that all 21 million of those coins are available to purchase.
How Many Bitcoins are There Today?
The current supply of Bitcoin is over 18 million. There are a couple of ways to follow Bitcoin’s circulating supply. Messari has a great Bitcoin tracker that displays all sorts of interesting metrics, including current supply. Blockchain.com displays the same data in graph form.
If you want to use an App to track the current circulating supply of Bitcoin you can use the Yahoo Finance app. They have a Bitcoin section which displays the current circulating supply.
How Many Bitcoins are Left to Mine?
How many of the 21 million Bitcoins are left?
There are 2.6 million Bitcoin left to be mined. Surprisingly, even though 18.4 million Bitcoin were mined in just over 10 years, it will take another 120 years to mine the remaining 2.6 million.
That’s because of the Bitcoin halving. Every four years the number of Bitcoins produced per block (a new block is created every 10 minutes) are cut in half. Currently, the mining reward is 6.25 Bitcoin per block. In 2024 it will drop to 3.125 BTC per block.
If you want to follow the countdown to the next Bitcoin halving, you can check Bitcoin Block Half.
In theory, the total number of Bitcoins available would be simple to calculate. We would take the total current supply of 18.4 million, subtract the number of lost coins (for argument’s sake we’ll say 1.4 million) and arrive at a total of 17 million Bitcoin available.
However, this number doesn’t really tell the whole story. The number of Bitcoin available also depends on the number of sellers versus buyers. During a bear market, investors sell Bitcoin en masse and more coins are available for purchase.
During a bull market, investors buy and hold Bitcoin which reduces the available supply. If demand remains high, then prices will increase.
Recently, there have been stories that the number of Bitcoin available is decreasing. We’re witnessing more and more addresses holding onto their Bitcoin for a year or more, which could indicate the start of a new bull market.
Should I buy XRP?
Ripple is among the most promising digital currencies, known for its solutions with wide real-world application and partnerships with banks.
Digital money, cryptocurrencies and Ripple itself are made to improve our global economy and increase transparency in remittances.
Governments recognise the value of all the work done in this area. At this moment, no matter what challenges Ripple faces, its future is bright.
The work done by Ripple inspires confidence that in the future, the company will continue to develop and create new, better technologies.
Which Cryptocurrency is Growing the Fastest?
Ethereum is the digital cryptocurrency works on Blockchain and created via mining. The miners mine this cryptocurrency by solving the tough block. It is same as the gold mining. The miners get the reward and the fees associated with these coins. The token ETH is generated through mining the Ether.
The Ethereum token ETH is touching the height of success by beating ripple behind. The data of past and the current cryptocurrency, the ETH is keeping surging and will overtake the bitcoins in the future.
In the first week of January 2018, the ETH coins have surged around 90 percent and expected to touch the peak by rising up to 100 percent in the consecutive months. Flippening is the term that is very much asked in the crypto market.
Flippening is the day when the ETH will overtake the Bitcoin and become the number one cryptocurrency. The recent data shows that future prediction, in fact, shows the unanimous results of Ethereum beating the Bitcoin and lead the crypto world.
So the investors who are looking for the currency which will give them high return in future then choosing ETH token or Ethereum is a good option. This is a profitable investment as it will provide +93.03 percent in the future which id closer to a hundred percentile. Ethereum is just not a coin or token as it is a web 3.0 along with a platform to create next-generation decentralized apps. So investing in this highly profitable cryptocurrency is one of the best decisions.
Unibright [UBT]
Unibright price growth is more than 200% in month of May 2020 and still growing. UBT offers a unified framework that incorporates layouts and integration tools and devices. The coding abilities are a bit much for utilizing a framework and sending of a keen agreement or for the extraction of data from the blockchain.
Unibright is a unified framework project, offering all functions and tools capacities to help a total blockchain-based business lifecycle of integration.
Google using Chainlink Technology
ChainLink is another fastest growing Cryptocurrency, Chainlink is a decentralized way to pull data from oracles and inject it into the Ethereum blockchain, they already have 46 partners including Google.ChainLink’s LINK coin is up 400% on USD value in 2019
Yearn.finance To earn interest on your tokens
The purpose of yearn.finance is simple. Yield aggregator for lending platforms that rebalances for highest yield during contract interaction. Simply go to yearn.finance and deposit $DAI, $USDC, $USDT, $TUSD, and/or, $sUSD and start earning interest on your tokens.
Polkadot Coin High Returns
Polkadot – Polkadot[DOT] is a sharded multichain network, meaning it can process many transactions on several chains in parallel, eliminating the bottlenecks that occurred on legacy networks that processed transactions one-by-one.
At present Ethereum has a lot of issue and eth is facing scalability issues, Dot token solve this issue as well as its highly popular among crypto investors.
In just a few months, this cryptocurrency creates and maintains its reputation among its investors. Many of the investors tend to this cryptocurrency and buy that. This is the hot cryptocurrency nowadays with the continuous rise in the price.
It is becoming one of the tough competitors of Ethereum by providing fast and scalable transactions which enable users to use decentralized application proficiently. It is too early to come out for the outcome or future prediction of this cryptocurrency as it is still new to the market and the investors.
After facing any financial downfall cases the stability and the performance of this crypto coin reflect. So for the short-term, it is good to invest but in the long run, it is unpredictable.
What will Bitcoins be Worth in 2025?
Bitcoin was created in early 2009. Since then, we’ve seen its price increase from Bitcoins to the cent (circa March 2010), all the way up to $19,000+ per Bitcoin.
One of the stories that illustrate this growth best is that of two pizzas, which were bought for 10,000 Bitcoins, on May 22, 2010, by a Florida developer by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz. Those 10,000 Bitcoins (at $4,000 per bitcoin) would be worth over $40 million today, pitted against the $40 or so they were worth then.
Is there any limit to this growth, and if so, where is it? While nobody knows for sure, there are plenty of anti-Bitcoiners who see the market as a bubble, ready to pop and have Bitcoin’s price fizzle back to mere cents, and plenty of pro-Bitcoiners, or Bitcoin evangelists, who see little hindrance in Bitcoin growing up to 200 times its current price. Here what those evangelists think Bitcoin will go on to be worth.
Bitcoin price has been trading inside a large bull pennant for the last several years. The chart pattern across the largest timeframes matches the previous pennant breakout, so similar results are expected.
The main difference analysts point to, are extended Bitcoin cycles. This means that the cryptocurrency is likely to trade sideways and consolidate longer than most traders would hope or expect.
Any breakout in Bitcoin from its long-term triangle will result in a retest of resistance turned support. BTCUSD will likely grind along this support, bringing an extended accumulation phase. Whales will buy up the asset ahead of the real bull market, taking place at the start of 2023.
For 2021 through 2022, Bitcoin price targets range between $17,000 and $5,000.
Bitcoin Price Prediction 2023 – 2025
Bitcoin price has formed a long-term bullish pitchfork channel, that if the asset continues to follow, could result in the next Bitcoin price peak and all-time high taking place above $100,000, to as much as $400,000 as predictions from experts suggest.
It would take another five years to make it to such valuations, as Bitcoin becomes much more widely adopted.
Based on Fibonacci extensions alone, additional short-, medium-, and long-term price targets can be found. Using math alone, Fib ratios point to prices of $75,000, $64,000, $47,000, $31,000, and $25,000 for possible new price records.
Is Ethereum the Future?
Regardless of the growing competition, Ethereum remains a very special technology that has the ability to completely change the world as more and more is built on top of the smart contract focused protocol.
Read Also: Top 10 Best Cryptocurrency Trading Sites
By far, the biggest potential for Ethereum now lies in the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 update and the massive growth of decentralised finance, or simply DeFi.
Last month, the value of the tokens underpinning the DeFi protocols has surpassed $1bn. Over the past year, the number of DeFi projects providing lending services has increased dramatically, with DeFi transactions coming to represent up to one-third of the Ethereum block space.
This has significantly boosted the demand for Ether in recent months and will likely support the price of the coin going forward.
With the crypto market moving at a rapid pace, it may be rather difficult to predict its future movements.
Final Words
The emergence of Bitcoin has sparked a debate about its future and that of other cryptocurrencies.
Despite Bitcoin’s recent issues, its success since its 2009 launch has inspired the creation of alternative cryptocurrencies such as Etherium, Litecoin, and Ripple.
A cryptocurrency that aspires to become part of the mainstream financial system would have to satisfy very divergent criteria.
While that possibility looks remote, there is little doubt that Bitcoin’s success or failure in dealing with the challenges it faces may determine the fortunes of other cryptocurrencies in the years ahead.
