Jihan Wu, the founder and CEO of bitcoin mining giant Bitmain, said in a recent interview that he’s optimistic about bitcoin price in 2020 despite the coronavirus outbreak.

At last year’s World Digital Mining Summit hosted by Bitmain, the young crypto billionaire and entrepreneur said the bull market might not come immediately after bitcoin halving. Later at the beginning of 2020, he carried out personnel optimization in the company considering the uncertainties of halving on the market. The price plunge of bitcoin months later proved his predictions.

Five months later, in the latest interview, Wu expressed his optimism about the prices of cryptocurrencies among other financial assets, explaining that billions of liquidity into the markets from central banks’ bailout and loose monetary policies amid the coronavirus meltdown could make the prices of all financial assets perform well.

Bitcoin price has a top, growth will slow

“As bitcoin’s market cap grows, its volatility decreases and becomes more stable. That means we may not see abrupt spikes in its price. No matter how high bitcoin goes, one day it will reach the top. Before that, it will see price at flatlining growth with lots of twists in the next few years,” he predicted on the trend of bitcoin price, “based on it, I think the bull this time may not come immediately after the halving. There likely be a delay in time.”

While the crypto billionaire said that he has been relatively calm about bitcoin now, “not that fanatic any more”. “I don’t think bitcoin could act as a safe haven in a volatile world. However, what bitcoin and the financial market in my eye are a bit like the relationship between surfboard and wave. How well you can surf depends on your skills.”

Next-gen mining rigs can serve for 3-4 years

As bitcoin is entering a slow-coming and long bull, Jihan believed the next-generation mining machines could serve for a longer time – about 3-4 years.

In addition, the service time of a generation of mining machines after their release is usually related to its rollout timing in the cycle of bull and bear. Machines that are rolled out at the beginning of a bull market can live for a longer time, and those released on the crest of a bull have a relatively shorter lifespan, according to Wu. In this sense, he believed S19 Pro could serve for at least 3 years.

BCH is promising, overly ambitious goal should be put on hold

Speaking about BCH, the BCH advocate expressed confidence in its future as usual. Wu suggested the community stay focus on the things at hand and put the functions described in its technology roadmap into practice.

“Keep the technical architecture simple and the community united,” he added.

As for the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum, Jihan commented that it did have some performance problems. It sees slow progress in technology development, and developers focused on less important issues like thinking about getting rid of POW. But he believes Ethereum’s status is untouchable with its strong first-mover advantages such as Defi.