The bitcoin is anticipated to continue growing in 2016, according to some industry players.

As we are nearing the end of 2015, it is being actively discussed how the digital currency will develop next year. The bitcoin community remains quite positive on the future of the cryptocurrency sector.

Although it is difficult to forecast how much bitcoin will cost in the years ahead, some entrepreneurs revealed their predictions for 2016.

Over 2015, the amount of investment in the sector showed steady growth, reaching in total $1 billion. With the rising number of various bitcoin investment companies, people no longer consider it challenging to put their money into digital currency. Several financial industry giants, such as Goldman Sachs, Visa and American Express expressed their interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin.

Also, there has been observed a move toward exploring how the blockchain could change the Wall Street’s markets. A few months ago, the New York Stock Exchange announced the launch of a new Bitcoin index (NYXBT) that is based on transactions realized on the Coinbase bitcoin exchange. Furthermore, it is now investigating how the blockchain could be applied for securities trading.

The New York-based stock exchange NASDAQ also showed interest in the distributed ledger technology and its potential use cases. In October, entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss launched the fully licensed bitcoin exchange called Gemini.

Many in the community believe the value will demonstrate further growth due to the higher adoption of cryptocurrency. According to digital currency investor Roger Ver, the price of bitcoin as well as its volatility will escalate in 2016.

Barry Silbert, the founder of the Digital Currency Group (DCG) is quite optimistic on the development of bitcoin in 2016, noting that its cost will show further growth. Silbert believes the cryptocurrency is set to transform the way international transactions are carried out. In addition to financial services, the bitcoin will likely be applied in a number of nonfinancial sectors as well.

The increasing price is anticipated to encourage bitcoin users to spend it, what will in turn drive its adoption by merchants. “As more merchants accept it, they convert it to U.S. dollars, and that creates more transactional volume on the exchanges, and as you have more transactional volume on the exchanges, it tends to to attract more traders, which produces more volatility and ways to make money,” Silbert said.

Meantime, predictions of Analyst Gil Luria from Wedbush Securities are similar to those of Silbert, as he is convinced the growing usage of bitcoin for transactions will provoke the surge of its price.

Last week, he noted in the report that the bitcoin price is likely to hit $600 in a 12-month period. “We believe bitcoin and its associated blockchain technology have the potential to disrupt the existing financial infrastructure over the next several years, and believe the value of the Bitcoin currency (BTC) will benefit from this trend,” Luria stated.

Moreover, the bitcoin sector is likely to attract more investors in 2016, owing to the increasing price of cryptocurrency. Besides, we will observe more financial companies embracing the virtual currency.

At the same time, the growth of transaction volume is unlikely to influence the value of bitcoin. In 2015, the price remained almost the same while the amount of transactions significantly increased.