The Chief Commercial Officer (COO) of global crypto payment processor BitPay has ventured that Bitcoin (BTC) will hit $15,000 to $20,000 by the end of 2019. The COO, Sonny Singh, made his forecast during an interview with Bloomberg Nov. 22.
In the midst of a bearish market picture – with Bitcoin down over 32 percent in value on the month – Singh said that he expects the next big price action to come when mainstream financial sector giants such as Fidelity and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) start to launch their crypto-based investment products next year.
The financial giants’ entry into the space could catapult Bitcoin’s price to as high as $15,000-$20,000 by the end of 2019, Singh told reporters.
Aside from traditional financial incumbents’ launch of crypto-based products, Singh pointed to structural changes in the crypto market itself, with stalwart companies such as U.S. crypto exchange and wallet provider Coinbase and crypto bank Silvergate gearing up for possible initial public offerings (IPOs).
Singh forecast that next year would therefore herald an “exciting” moment: the launch of a crypto-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) by a “Blackrock-type” company or a Fidelity product will energize the space as traditional players jostle for market dominance against “the Bitpays and Coinbases” of the sector.
Singh nonetheless drew a firm distinction between Bitcoin and altcoins, arguing that:
“There’s a night and day difference between Bitcoin and everything else. Bitcoin is the under pound gorilla, it’s the one that has the mass network effect… the one the traditional financial incumbents are building products around. Other crypto assets … I don’t know what’s going to happen to them.”
Remarking that “the ICO market is pretty dead right now”, Singh also suggested that signs of increased intervention from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does not bode well for the future of the token space.
In an interview this September, Singh outlined a broadly similar argument that the crypto markets are on the threshold of a certain “defining moment”, which will come with big institutional investor market entry, set to “become real” in 2019.