It’s Christmas and the year is drawing to a close. It’s that time of the year where traders take stock of their investments and prepare for the future. Oddly enough, 2018 seems to be ending on the same note as it started—with mixed feelings. However, while views on the average performance of the crypto market this year are unanimous, the outlooks in 2019 are more diverse. Some analysts believe 2019 will be an improvement of the preceding year, while others see the crypto market as being dead in the water already.

It would seem that Henri Arslanian, FinTech & Crypto Lead for Hong Kong & China at PricewaterhouseCoopers, belongs to the former school of thought.

Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg TV yesterday, December 24, 2018, Arslanian touched on various aspects of the crypto debate, including his expectations for 2019, the effect of the bear market on the plans of institutional players, and the belief that the bear market brought balance to the industry. In general, his sentiment is one of optimism.

In 2018, we saw a lot of the big players entering the space. In 2019, I expect even more players to enter into the sector as well, especially in different ways. Some of them may decide to launch their solutions, others may look to partner with crypto firms, and others might look to invest in crypto companies.

Citing the importance of institutional entry into the crypto space, Arslanian said that it would be able to provide the kind of expertise and institutional backing that the industry needs. Also, concerning the perceived notion that that bear market has affected the plans of various institutional players from entering the crypto landscape, Arslanian ascribed their late entry to the lack of regulatory clarity that has plagued a lot of countries. However, as it is with the previous case, the FinTech expert is hopeful that things will get better in 2019.

“I think a lot of things are changing on a global level. For example, take a look at regulatory clarity in 218, a number of jurisdictions provided more regulatory clarity than we had before….. I expect more of this to happen in 2019, and that will give even more comfort to institutional investors and players as well,” Arslanian argued.

Arslanian’s words echo the sentiments of Changpeng Zhao, CEO of crypto exchange platform Binance, who revealed that his company is maintaining a bullish start to the year, and they aim to begin 2019 “with a bang.” Zhao had told “Bloomberg Daybreak: the Middle East” hosts Tracy Alloway and Yousef Gamal El-Din that:

2018 has been a tough year in terms of pricing for the cryptocurrency. And we see a lot of projects not making it this year, so it’s a correction year. But technology will stay, and we wanna kick off 2019 with a bang… So I think the people in the industry are still very confident about the future. So there’s no worries about that.

Featured image from Bloomberg. Henri Arslanian picture from LinkedIn.