Could bitcoin price drop to zero? Expert opinions

The collapse of the first cryptocurrency is often predicted. Why is such a scenario impossible, and what will happen in theory?the digital assets industry, if this does happen, explain RBC Crypto experts.

"Bitcoin crash will liquidate an entire branch of the new global economy"

Senior Analyst Bestchange.ru Nikita Zuborev.

To assess risks, you need to understand the essencequestion. The price of any asset or liability is determined solely by the balance of supply and demand - Bitcoin is worth exactly what people are willing to pay for it.

Another question is that demand itself depends on differentfactors: here is the faith of investors, the development of infrastructure, the number of participants and the volume of the market, and much more. In fact, the price of any asset will not be zero as long as there are at least two parties interested in it. It is very difficult to imagine the immediate loss of interest in Bitcoin on the part of millions of people and thousands of companies around the world.

Another possible scenario for an asset to depreciate isthis is his destruction. For example, if you delete the database of all mutual settlements in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, then a non-cash ruble will not cost anything. But such a plan cannot be implemented in the case of decentralized cryptocurrencies. In other words, as long as there is at least one copy of the blockchain in the world on any of the nodes, Bitcoin will continue to exist, although its liquidity will decrease by several orders of magnitude.

For these two main reasons, today to discusseven the theoretical depreciation of bitcoin is somewhat pointless. Is that only from the point of view of the study of the current impact on other areas of life.

If we consider this hypothetical situation,then such a collapse will actually eliminate an entire sector of the new world economy. Bitcoin, as a “trend setter” and the main provider of liquidity in exchange trading, will pull 99% of other cryptocurrencies with it. Along with this, the profitability of mining, staking, and lending will disappear - the industry will simply self-destruct. In particular, issuers of stablecoins will also be under attack.

What are the consequences for companieswho have already invested in bitcoin? Indirectly related to cryptocurrencies, such as Nvidia, AMD, CME, Digital Power and others, will receive several months of stagnation amid the loss of some of the income from the crypto industry.

Investor companies such as MicroStrategy,Tesla, Square and others will rather suffer from their reputation, but the depreciation of their investments will not hit the companies themselves hard, since the main activities of these companies will not be affected in any way, only the book value of their tangible assets will decrease.

The effect will be strong, emotional andlightning fast, but short-term. Companies will be able to recover very quickly from such a blow to their reputation, the further behavior of the share price will not be related to the fate of the cryptoindustry and the companies will remain afloat.

Companies whose activities are directly related toCryptocurrencies such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and others are likely to be liquidated after long and high-profile bankruptcy processes. Some companies that operate somewhat broader than cryptocurrencies such as Grayscale or FTX are likely to survive, although the consequences for them will be serious.

How might this affect the El Salvadoran economy andother countries that are on the way to legalizing cryptocurrency? “What is dead cannot die.” Most of these decisions are dictated by PR, and not by the real economic benefits of countries. The mere fact of the loss of one of the country’s official currencies will not destroy its economy, especially considering the fact that Bitcoin in its current form cannot become an everyday means of payment. Another issue is that large percentage investments of countries in cryptocurrencies, instead of increasing traditional liquidity reserves - gold and world reserve currencies, can provoke hyperinflation if the price of Bitcoin collapses.

Blockchain technology itself will continue to exist inhybrid information systems, regardless of the future of cryptocurrencies, the NFT direction will be especially promising (but not a collection component, but as a replacement for databases maintained by state registries).

Cryptocurrencies are the same as they areexist today, can be completely eliminated. However, they can continue to exist as corporate stablecoins using the example of today’s electronic payment systems like Qiwi, WebMoney, YuMoney, Skrill, etc. But after such a collapse of Bitcoin, trust in the entire industry will be undermined and the value of cryptocurrencies relative to fiat currencies will be low.

"Bitcoin depreciation scenario is unrealistic"

Xena Financial Systems CEO Anton Kravchenko.

Bitcoin price cannot immediately collapse tozero due to the presence of a huge mining infrastructure, which leads to the presence of an imputed value through the cost of obtaining (mining). Bitcoin already represents a monopoly, this is a protocol that has proven its stability for almost 10 years, that is, it is almost impossible to replace Bitcoin with something else.

If you imagine that all the same it happened, andeveryone agreed to replace BTC with an alternative protocol, then the transition process will be slow. BTC will lose value for several years, and the price of another cryptocurrency will increase accordingly. This will not have a strong impact on the stocks of crypto companies, because the cryptocurrency business will remain, there will only be a change in top assets, it will also not affect the economy of El Salvador and other countries, because they will just slowly introduce another asset and withdraw BTC. Because of this, the world crisis will not happen either.

At the moment, such a scenario is unrealistic,because BTC is on its way to gaining market share of the defensive asset that gold currently holds and no other protocol has the necessary characteristics and support to compete in any way in terms of the properties of the defensive asset.

"The fall in the price of bitcoin to zero will look like a natural process"

Pavel Shkitin, CEO of the Nominex cryptocurrency exchange.

Talk about the possibility of a fall in the value of Bitcointo zero is only possible if a quantum computer emerges that can perform the complex mathematical calculations necessary to decrypt private keys. At the moment, there are no such quantum computers, and it is still difficult to predict when they will appear. Experienced samples of such computers are capable of performing only the most primitive operations, but they do it super quickly.

I am convinced that in the event of a full-fledgedquantum computer, large companies will receive insider information about this in advance and will be able to get rid of bitcoins without significant financial losses. Therefore, a potential drop in its value to zero will not affect their welfare. The legalization of cryptocurrency by El Salvador and other states will lead to the legalization of other cryptocurrencies.

It may also happen that bitcointechnologically obsolete, and people will use more advanced blockchains, including more cryptographically secure ones, given the prerequisites for the emergence of quantum computers. In this case, the value of bitcoin may approach zero, but most likely it will look like a natural gradual process.

"The consequences of the bitcoin collapse will not be catastrophic"

Lead analyst at 8848 Invest Viktor Pershikov.

I do not consider a scenario with Bitcoin falling tozero, since I don’t see any fundamental reasons that could lead to this. Depreciation of Bitcoin is theoretically possible, but none of the activities of global regulators can lead to Bitcoin being worthless. Currently, Bitcoin is backed by significant volumes of fiat assets that turn into cryptocurrency, as well as a multi-billion-dollar mining industry, and therefore cryptocurrency cannot now lose its value and value.

Of course, a significant Bitcoin crash will lead toto negative consequences for market participants, but they will not be catastrophic, since the capitalization of the crypto market is rather small, and the investments of institutional participants are now very limited: sovereign and large investment funds do not buy cryptocurrency directly, that is, they are practically not involved in the CFA market.

Thus, if the price of BTC collapsesOnly retail investors and those private and public companies that have entered the cryptocurrency market will be affected, but, again, for a small share of their capital. Thus, I do not expect anything negative for Tesla or MicroStrategy: the losses will not lead to the ruin of these market players.

At the same time, a significant collapse in the price of BTC is negativewill be reflected in the cryptocurrency market, since it is obvious that the main investments of market participants still continue to be directed to Bitcoin. It is obvious that if it falls, altcoins will fall, as has happened more than once. But taking into account the fact that at present the correlation between assets is gradually decreasing, and alternatives to Bitcoin or competitors are appearing, in the future there may well be a transition of participants to other digital assets, for example Ethereum, and, as a result, the collapse of Bitcoin will lead to the destruction of the entire market.

Where is it more profitable to buy cryptocurrency? TOP-5 exchanges

For a safe and convenient purchase of cryptocurrencies with a minimum commission, we have prepared a rating of the most reliable and popular cryptocurrency exchanges that support deposits and withdrawals of funds inrubles, hryvnias, dollars and euros.

The reliability of the site is primarily determinedtrading volume and number of users. By all key metrics, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world is Binance. Binance is also the most popular crypto exchange in Russia and the CIS, since it has the largest cash turnover and supports transfers in rubles from bank cardsVisa / MasterCardand payment systemsQIWI, Advcash, Payeer.

Especially for beginners, we have prepared a detailed guide: How to buy bitcoin on a crypto exchange for rubles?

Rating of cryptocurrency exchanges:

#	Exchange:	Website:	Rating:
1	Binance (Editor's Choice)	https://binance.com	9.7
2	Huobi	https://huobi.com	7.4
3	Exmo	https://exmo.me	6.9
4	OKEx	https://okex.com	6.5
5	Bybit	https://bybit.com	6.3

The criteria by which the rating is set in our rating of crypto-exchanges:

Work reliability— stability of access to all functions of the platform, including uninterrupted trading, deposits and withdrawals of funds, as well as the duration of the market and daily trading volume.
Commissions– the amount of commission for trading operations within the platform and withdrawal of assets.
Additional features and services— futures, options, staking, NFT marketplace.
Feedback and support– we analyze user reviews and the quality of technical support.
Convenience of the interface– we evaluate the functionality and intuitiveness of the interface, possible errors and failures when working with the exchange.
final grade– the average number of points for all indicators determines the place in the ranking.