For the crypto industry, 2020 has been a very busy year: over the past months, the digital asset market has experienced one of the largest falls and one of the most rapid ups in its ten-year history.
Also this year, several famous predictions for Bitcoin and altcoins came true at once.
Recall that the topic of predictions in the cryptocurrency niche is not unambiguously positive or negative. On the one hand, promises of significant growth for a certain cryptocurrency can grab people’s attention and make them seriously get carried away with the topic of blockchain assets. At the same time, some novice investors may well lose everything due to greed or a banal lack of experience in fixing profits.
We examined in detail the topic of the prospects for cryptocurrency predictions in a separate article. We recommend that you familiarize yourself in order to form your own opinion about the situation.
Cryptocurrencies vs cash
In 2013 and 2014, philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates stated that «Bitcoin is better than regular currency» in terms of storage and fast transactions. That is, he assumed that very soon BTC would be able to replace the money we are used to.
In 2020, the relevance of Gates’ statement is growing more and more, as Bitcoin continues to play an important role in cashless payments. Of course, cash is still in circulation, but a fresh look at global financial trends shows that the situation has changed.
For example, cash transactions in most countries are losing their relevance in the total number of transactions: payments in the «cache» account for 20 percent of all transfers in Sweden and 14 percent of payments in South Korea. In addition, quarantine due to COVID-19 only accelerates the world’s transition to a cashless society, Cointelegraph reports.
That is, and although Bitcoin is still not a global currency – which is hardly possible given the BTC network bandwidth of seven transactions per second – the trend of phasing out cash is obvious. In addition, top global companies are increasingly investing in cryptocurrencies, which proves the correctness of Bill Gates’s early vision.
Ethereum overtakes Bitcoin
Even now, they are talking about the prospects for bypassing the first cryptocurrency by Ethereum. In particular, investor Raul Paul believes that such a scenario is more than possible in the future.
Bitcoin has shown significant gains this year, confidently testing its all-time high in 2017. However, the success of the main cryptocurrency does not seem to be that huge compared to the milestones achieved by Ethereum developers in 2020. «DeFi» has become the new favorite buzzword of the crypto space as developers have created financial instruments that work autonomously and are freely available to everyone.
For clarity, decentralized finance startups like Compound allow anyone to start earning roughly 7 percent a year in less than 30 minutes. Users of such platforms lend money using stablecoins without going through the cumbersome identity verification procedures common among traditional financial institutions.
The runaway success of DeFi projects saw the amount of funds blocked in decentralized finance protocols jump to $ 14 billion in 2020. All this gave an unprecedented impetus to the development of the Ethereum ecosystem. And, of course, do not forget about the successful launch of Ethereum 2.0.
Unsuccessful Bitcoin price prediction
Finally, let’s recall one funny but disastrous forecast from millionaire John McAfee. A couple of years ago, he stated that Bitcoin should skyrocket to a million by the end of 2020, or else it will eat up its penis on national television. There are just over two weeks left until January 1, and Bitcoin is still trading at around $ 19,000. True, before that John had already managed to joke his quotes and, of course, is not going to fulfill his promises.
We believe that in this case, the implementation of the predictions is a positive development. Still, they testify to the development of the cryptocurrency industry – both within the niche and in relation to other components of the economic sphere.
As experts have noted more than once, blockchain assets are only at the beginning of their development. Accordingly, further we should expect a wider application of cryptocurrencies in other niches and an increase in their popularity. Well, this will lead to the emergence and implementation of other forecasts.
