The leading cryptocurrency has had a terrible 2018. Will 2019 reverse its fortunes or will the digital currency go to zero?

A Turbulent Year

2017 was an excellent year for Bitcoin, the world’s first and the largest cryptocurrency. From being priced around $1000 in January 2017, the digital asset saw its price pump to $20,000 by December, an appreciation of around 20X.

This year, however, turned out contrary to the expectation of the Bitcoin bulls who had predicted a further rise in the value of the virtual asset. The price of Bitcoin started declining since January only to slump to around $3000 earlier this month, an overall drop of over 85%.

For investors who had entered the market around the November – December 2017 timeframe, this year only brought worries as they saw their portfolio shrink in value.

The price decline also gave an opportunity to skeptics of Bitcoin to come out in arms and declare that cryptocurrency was nothing more than a hyped bubble.

So, what does 2019 have in store for the asset that has been called by many as the honey badger of money? Will it rise from the ashes like a phoenix or will it prove the skeptics right by spiraling its way down to zero? Let’s hear from both the sides as reported by express.co.uk.

Prediction by Pessimists

Calvin Ayre, the supporter of Bitcoin Cash who has now thrown his weight with Bitcoin SV, believes that the cryptocurrency will overthrow BTC’s market capitalization and make it worthless.

Ayre said:

I’m afraid I am predicting it to go to zero value as it has no utility, it does not do anything, and they intentionally are anti-scaling Bitcoin, the technology, and economic model, are alive and well with Bitcoin Satoshi Vision and is going to have an amazing year.

Economist Nouriel Roubini, who is a prominent detractor, earlier in June, said:

Blockchain is the most over-hyped — and least useful — technology in human history. No asset class in human history has ever experienced such a rapid boom and total utter bust and implosion.

Roubini claims that the value of Bitcoin in due course of time would become zero.

What the Bulls Say

The supporters of Bitcoin continue to maintain a positive outlook for 2019. Mike Novogratz, CEO, and founder of Galaxy Digital believes that Bitcoin price will hit an all-time high before the end of 2019.

Sonny Singh, Chief Creative Officer at BitPay, also believes that BTC will surpass its previous high of $20,000 within the next 12 months.

Fundstrat executives Tom Lee and Sam Doctor are very bullish and predicted a price of $36,000 in 2019.

David Thomas, director of the GlobalBlock digital asset brokerage, feels that the bruised investor base will slow down the recovery of Bitcoin that as per his calculation should have moved towards $20,000 in the second quarter of 2019.

Revising his prediction, Thomas, said:

With positive news, ETFs (performance trackers) and regulation, we believe Bitcoin will recover to the US $8000 to $10000 levels during 2019 which given where it is today would on balance be a decent year.

It does appear that Bitcoin price has bottomed out and the last week has seen price recover from $3000 to its current value of $4260. The overall market has been mostly in green over the past week or so. However, the crypto market is so unpredictable that nobody can forecast the price of digital assets accurately.

What is your price prediction for Bitcoin in 2019? Let us know in the comments below?

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