Bitcoin Market Cap could rise 50 times in the Next Decade
February 1, 2020Predicting bitcoin market cap is a process that is a lot less frequently employed than examining its price. Unlike the price, market capitalization is not something that impacts everyday users or crypto holders as much as the actual value of a single token. The same is clear in any cryptocurrency, not just bitcoin – with any of them, users simply want to see price changing and doing the same in their benefit.
Yet, when it comes to long-term growth and sustainability, the key element is the market capitalization, or how much money is there in a cryptocurrency network. Market cap tells about the stability (or lack of it) and the general direction where the price might be going in the coming period.
Right now, the capitalization of bitcoin stands at about 169 billion USD. However, this is small compared to the state of the network’s market cap just two years ago. In the same period, a lot of money left the cryptocurrency network and returned to fiat, weakening the entire crypto market. In spite of this, a US company believes that even the 2017 market cap is nothing what humanity could expect by the end of the next decade.
WESCAP Group Prediction
WESCAP Group is a wealth management company from California. Its Andy Edstrom recently gave out a very bold prediction. According to him, the bitcoin ecosystem could have an incredible rise in market cap in the coming years. In fact, he sees the possibility of bitcoin market capitalization reaching over 8 trillion USD. This wealth manager believes that this stellar jump in capitalization would encompass all other assets. These would include shares, fiat, gold, and offshore assets, while domains like real estate would be demonetized by the flight of capital to crypto.
At the same time, interestingly, Edstrom also mentioned that the use-cases of the rising technology in the future will attract many adopters, not just the desire to invest and thus earn. Instead, in the ten years to come, many users will explore things including micropayments through the Lighting Network or things like Abra which will provide user access to different assets through nothing more than holding some bitcoin and using it as collateral. When the two groups meet, the influx of new users will be substantial in the years ahead, as WESCAP Group sees it with the same prediction.
Return of FOMO
FOMO or the Fear of Missing Out is a complex element in the crypto community. While some praised its ability to lead people into the ecosystem, even thanks to shallow and greedy reasons, others point out that those that do come in because it rarely tends to stick for long. However, this double-edged sword element is present in esports and many other digital-only ventures, where benefits come with instant downsides and vice versa. The world already saw FOMO at its full speed in 2017 when the price of bitcoin jumped through the roof. Since then, digital currencies ended up with a hard case of the crypto winter and the same sense of missing out fizzled to almost nothing.
But, it appears now that FOMO is back and could escalate to a level that would surpass its 1.0 version from three years ago. In this case, the new push will be almost definitely ushered in by the notion that bitcoin was the best investment of the previous decade. During this time, the cryptocurrency took off from just a few cents to an average value of 7,100 USD. This outperformed even the result that Goldman Sachs, the US investment banking giant, attained in the same period. Once the prices are back in bullish territory, there is little doubt that many will once again start fearing that they are missing out on the deal of the decade.
The 2020s
As the new decade begins, bitcoin is now among the best-performing assets, but still one with an abundance of problematic baggage it carries. For some, it is still the ideal safe haven against global geopolitical instability and overall risks to the macroeconomic state of the world. A lot more experts and analysts believe that the ability of bitcoin to actually safeguard funds over a prolonged period of fiscal instability is simply overstated. Instead, the showcase moments where bitcoin and the rest of the crypto domain acted very similar to traditional assets.
If the safe haven concept is true, they should have immediately shot either up or down related to what the traditional market is doing. This is further complicated by numerous voices outside of the crypto circles who still maintain that bitcoin has no underlying value and is nothing but a speculative asset. Here, there is even the know argument regarding how the bitcoin price could reach zero one day. In these cases, the zombie talking points of bitcoin being bad while blockchain tech is very good to continue to crop up regularly, even from individuals who would have to know more about all of this.
Central Banks
WESCAP Group prediction is not insane and it is not by any means something that is completely out of the realm of possibility. However, it has a big precondition that many in the crypto adopter community often shun – institutional exceptions. To get to a market cap value of 8 trillion USD, the cryptocurrency first needs major companies and similar business institutions enter the market. They would likely first be only buyers, but later on, bitcoin would end up as a financial asset with a diverse user case.
From there on, the final big push would also need to occur and it would need to include central banks. Only if institutions and central banks start creating their deposits of BTC and engaging in day trading could bitcoin reach this level of market cap. At that moment, this digital currency would attain full and complete regulatory inclusion, equating it in some shape and form with any other tradable asset. While this is not impossible, the chances of the same inclusion of central banks in the crypto market do not seem overly likely at least in the first half of the new decade.