Blockchain and Cryptocurrency 2018 Predictions – Part IV

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Block Tribune continues today with its survey of industry leaders predicting what might happen in the coming year. We will run several each day through the New Year, offering insight from the people on the front lines of creating this bold new world.

The year 2017 has been a wild time for blockchain and cryptocurrency – more than $3 billion was raised via initial coin offerings and traditional investments, countless new companies were started, and cryptocurrency prices soared.

Now 2018 beckons, offering further innovations, government actions, traditional players getting more heavily involved, and (hopefully) continuing price increases for cryptocurrency.

Our experts predict:

Sarva G. Mada, CEO of Pocketinns: Analysts refer to it as a bubble, while others argue that this is just the beginning. Various market gurus predict a $1 million decline or a total market crash, expected within the next 5 years. This is without a doubt nothing less than a revolution with massive disruption. We’re seeing ICOs attempt to literally replace venture capitalists while emerging crypto and blockchain-based businesses working to out-disrupt innovators like Airbnb, Uber and Amazon in their own spaces. Bitcoin is surely here to say and the family of altcoins poised to take off.

My prediction for the long-term growth of the price of BTC is expansion into the $200K-$250K range within five years. By end of year, my team predicts the price will be in the ballpark of $23,000 per coin. What I’m sure of is that the upswings and volatility of the currency will keep increasing especially with the opening of CME futures trading – a service that will likely impact altcoins as well. We’re seeing Ripple, Litecoin and Monero growing substantially while BTC’s main rival, Ethereum, has hit an all time high of $844 as of this note.

The revolutionary blockchain technology upon which Bitcoin is built is here to stay, however it’s difficult to tell which cryptocurrencies will emerge as winners in the long run. We’re set to see the market mature and traders become savier as other disruptive coins – like our very own PINNS currency – are slated to go live. For now, fasten your seatbelts ladies and gentlemen, we’re in for a long ride.

David Johnson, Co-founder/CEO, Latium: I feel strongly that the cryptocurrency boom we have seen in 2017 is just the start of a very long term growth curve for the entire crypto industry. Demand is growing daily, but is still nowhere close to market saturation. I think 2018 will be a transitional year. Crypto will evolve from being a risky outsider to an everyday asset class. I see huge growth potential in the institutional side of the space including large businesses with more traditional models. Established coins will see substantial growth in adoption, but we will also see new coins come online and garner attention. Bottom-line is crypto in 2018 will set new records across the board including price, business development, adoption and usability. Who knows, you might even hear Grandma touting Bitcoin to her friends before the year is out.

Tariq Al Wahedi, Founder, CryptoBnB: 2017 was definitely the rocket launcher year for cryptocurrencis and in particular BTC.. We have seen token shooting more than 2000% in couple of weeks. This indicates two things for me one is good and the other is bad; the good side is that public is starting to believe more and more into this technology. This is great because this will make it tougher to break the crypto movement. The bad part is we are seeing signs similar to the dot com bubble in 1998. If that bubble burst and there was big cry-out then government will intervene for sure and that means the start of the decay. I think 2018 will be different from many aspects. I think the following will happen: 1) ICO regulation which might mean the end of ICO wills start. ICOs will start to cost tons of money and that will hinder many pursuing the advancement of blockchain; 2) ICOs will naturally slow down due to the competition and high number of offering. Investor will get wiser and choosy as supply exceeds demand. ICO caps will get smaller and smaller; 3) Blockchain coding will spread like fire and programmers will not be scarce; 4) BTC will continue to store value this year though this is not sustainable as it defeats its purpose. Smarter token will continue to emerge, and the pipeline has many promising replacement platforms; 5) I see major bottlenecks in the network will be created very soon which might threaten well established networks like ETH. Could forking come soon? Maybe!

Vinny Lingham, CEO, Civic: 1) Government regulations will increase. Scams will come to the forefront due to new and enforced government regulation oversight. It’s going to get much tougher in the ICO space and many will fail; 2) BitCoin will hold at $10,000 and BitCoin Cash will catch up. The combined total value could reach $20,000; 3) 2018 will be about proving the blockchain model. A lot of scaling is necessary to reach the level of Visa or Mastercard when it comes to transactions. Tokens are everywhere. Every sector will have an ICO and have a token economy; 4) Blockchain identity will take off more than ever before. Governments will be a lot more interested in how it’s used in projects including the UN partnership with WIN to curb child trafficking.

Simon Yu, CEO, StormX: 2018 will be one of the best years for cryptocurrency yet and push the market to levels we haven’t seen before. Until now it has been primarily retail investors pushing the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. With a futures market and options to reduce the risk profile, more institutional investors will finally be able to start jumping in. Traditional funds have risk levels that have prevented them from entering the volatile cryptocurrency market. But with financial instruments finally starting to be created, we could see trillions of dollars in institutional money flow in over the next few years.