8 predictions about where bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are headed

1. At least one country's currency is likely to fail soon — likely Argentina or Venezuela. This will lead to mass adoption of bitcoin among that populace. That will in turn lead to bitcoin rising by more than $50,000 when it happens.

2. Mainstream banks will accept bitcoin, and will start offering storage and software access. They will also create cryptocurrency derivatives — as the CME is about to start doing.

3. Despite the optimism, there will be a massive wipeout, and 95 percent of the alt-coins out there will go away — just like the dot-com bust. The surviving coins will go up a ton. This will happen within next four-six months.

4. The U.S. government will secretly start accumulating one of the smaller cryptocurrencies to make it easier for gray-area transactions with other countries. This has already started happening but will really start to ramp up in 2018.

5. China will invest heavily in another cryptocurrency, but probably not bitcoin. China will want to have a cryptocurrency that is competitive with bitcoin, but under its centralized control. This will, in general, provide legitimacy to all cryptocurrencies.

6.One big problem with cryptocurrencies now is their volatility. At least one — basecoin — will likely dramatically reduce that in 2018.

7.In the same way the internet changed the monopolistic phone industry, crypto will change the monopolization of government-backed money.

8.Thousands of crypto companies will be created and go public, but only a few will be massive successes.

Source: Bloomberg Pro Terminal

Trader Bozhidar Arabadzhiev

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