What awaits the cryptocurrency industry in 2020: trends and forecasts

In 2020, the cryptosphere will develop in a number of areas, which are based not only on theBitcoin, but also on the principles that were laid by Satoshi Nakamoto as the basis of the first cryptocurrency.

Interestingly, these principles are gaining more and morepopularity outside the crypto world, and the cryptocurrency market itself is becoming the main standard for the new social ethics of mankind. What exactly will bring 2020 to the players of the crypto industry - Mining-Cryptocurrency.ru understands.

How did 2019 end for the cryptocurrency market

In 2019, blockchain and cryptocurrencies becamethe subject of attention of key politicians and representatives of the global elite, and this is a sure sign that the innovations everyone is talking about are truly transforming the life of humanity.

Late last year, the Securities Commissionand US Exchanges (SEC) has proposed to make changes to the definition of who is considered an “accredited investor.” In essence, we are talking about the fact that millions of Americans who were previously not allowed through by the regulator want to be allowed into the securities market. These changes were a direct result of the SEC's sense that the world was changing and more citizens were interested in gaining financial freedom. It is for this reason that before our eyes there is a change in the long-standing strengthened position of American officials regarding the crypto market.

Cryptocurrencies are taking a different approach to providingfinancial services, and this forces regulators to change their attitude towards classical models of behavior in the market. Thus, in the key economy of the European Union, Germany, legislators from January 1, 2020 grant banks the right to work with cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the country continues to develop decentralized energy, which will call into question the need for significant volumes of Russian oil and natural gas in Europe.

It is also significant that the group of tenmajor oil and gas companies (Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Hess, Marathon, Noble Energy, Pioneer Natural Resources, Repsol, and Shell) are beginning to use smart contracts to interact with each other. This means that those companies that will transfer processes to the blockchain will be more competitive than their colleagues who either do not do this at all or are limited to declarative statements.

At the same time, a difficult moment in the EuropeanThe Union will remain implementing the provisions of the EU's Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5 AMLD), which will come into force on 10 January. The new rules will oblige crypto platforms to register with supervisory authorities, identify their clients and transfer the addresses of users’ crypto-wallets to the authorities. In this situation, it is interesting that neither the EU nor the USA imposes the same requirements for the circulation of cash euros or dollars that are put forward for crypto exchanges and transactions with cryptocurrencies in general. However, this seems to be a biased approach, since classic cash becomes an instrument of criminal activities much more often than, for example, Bitcoin, transactions with which are used in transactions of a criminal nature in less than 1% of cases.

And the fact that the creator of the TRON crypto project JustinSun's decision to support renowned environmental activist Greta Thunberg by allocating $1 million in funding for her further confirms the increasing role of new technologies in energy and environmental issues. Thus, de facto, the crypto industry is forming a new social and environmental ethics not only for global business, but for all of humanity.

Events and trends of the cryptocurrency market requiring attention in 2020

First of all in 2020 the crypto communitydraws attention to the launch of national cryptocurrencies (CBDC). Thus, according to the ECB, at the end of 2019, 18 different Central Banks (CBs) were working on the launch of CBDC. In addition to the European Central Bank, we are also talking about banks in China, Tunisia, Senegal, Sweden, Venezuela, Singapore, Uruguay, Cambodia, the Marshall Islands, Thailand, the Bahamas, Curacao and Sint Maarten, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The second significant event for the crypto market will be the launch of the digital currencies Libra from Facebook and Gram from Telegram, despite all the difficulties associated with tightening regulation of the crypto industry.

As for the key trends in the development of the crypto market in 2020, the following areas can be noted here:

• Investors will be interested in those crypto projects that are aimed at launching platforms for launching decentralized applications (dApps).
• The number of areas where they will be involved will increaseblockchain and cryptocurrencies. At the same time, entrepreneur and famous crypto enthusiast John McAfee is confident that the possibility of introducing smart contracts has great potential. And the list of economic sectors where the developments of the crypto industry will be used will number in the dozens.
• Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is an important partcryptosphere 2020. As part of the development of the DiFi sphere, the crypto market will see the maturation of decentralized trading of digital assets, cryptocurrency depositories and cryptocurrency staking (analysts of the Binance crypto exchange make a bold assumption that 2020 will just be the “year of staking”), cryptocurrency loans, as well as decentralized prediction markets. This is stated in the Messari company report “Theses for 2020”.
• Decentralized Internet (Web 3.0) is what will be actively developed in 2020, along the way creating the basis for the development of the Internet of Things (IoT).
• There will be more and more entry points into the cryptocurrency marketfrom institutional investors, as analyst Alistair Milne points out. Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at Coinshares, says the same thing, predicting that in 2020, the presence of such opportunities will lead to “more and more companies meeting the wishes of clients to have part of their retirement savings invested in cryptocurrencies.”
• As for crypto projects, first of allin 2020, the crypto community is waiting for the transition to Ethereum 2.0 based on the PoS algorithm and the further development of the second level blocking technology Lightning Network. And also the market will catch the emergence of new startups, in particular, focused on increasing the efficiency of operational interaction between various blockchains.

Bitcoin in 2020

What will happen to the price of Bitcoin in 2020?The same John McAfee confirmed on December 14, 2019 that he is confident that the price of Bitcoin will rise to $1 million by the end of 2020. That Bitcoin will tend to rise throughout its existence is clear. Peter Brandt, a Wall Street trader with 40 years of experience, also points out this point.

The fact that Bitcoin has been de facto since January 2015is in a situation of “parabolic upward movement”, and that this will continue in 2020, says the founder of the investment company Adamant Capital, Thor Demeester. Quite a few analysts are building charts that actually confirm a very important thesis: there has been no fundamental change in the Bitcoin growth trend for several years now, and there is no reason to believe that this trend will not continue in 2020.

Therefore, even if the upcoming May 2020halving in the Bitcoin network (reduction of the reward to miners for each created block from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC) will be a shock for the mining industry; this circumstance cannot change the long-term trend towards an increase in the price of the asset. The only question is how quickly Bitcoin will rise in price. Entrepreneur Tim Draper on December 18, 2019 confirmed his bullish forecast, which he made on September 13 last year. In his opinion, the first cryptocurrency will break the $250,000 level twice: in 2020 (most likely six months after the halving), and this could also happen at the end of 2022 or early 2023. Draper attributes the growth to a reduction in the supply of bitcoins after the 2020 halving.

Former Bear Stearns Risk Analyst TonyWeiss believes that Bitcoin will rise in price, but more moderately, and that Bitcoin will only reach $50,000 in 2023. At the same time, it is difficult to agree with his maximalist view that the increasing role of Bitcoin will lead to a significant displacement of altcoins from the market, which Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also says in his forecast for 2020.

Theoretically, one can imagine that in 2020,As Weiss predicts, Bitcoin dominance will rise to 85%, but this situation is not static: it all depends on the persuasiveness of the marketing teams of various cryptocurrency projects. And even the probability that Bitcoin may eventually lose its leadership cannot be considered zero. One thing is certain: the principles on which the oldest cryptocurrency operates will increasingly gain popularity in the world.

Commenting on Bitcoin price growth forecasts,BKCM founder Brian Kelly pointed out that the price of cryptocurrency has dropped significantly four times since 2013. However, in general, the movement of the value of the first cryptocurrency is in a “channel” that resembles an escalator connecting one floor of a building to another, that is, it demonstrates an ascent. And he is confident that, as a result, the upper limit of the corridor in 2020 is precisely at the $250,000 mark, as Tim Draper also says. Kelly believes that in the next two years, the capitalization of Bitcoin will be about half the value of all commercial gold in the world, and this just indicates that Bitcoin will reach high price levels.

The analyst also noted that “the growth of bitcoin withA few cents to its present price is an impressive achievement, but this is normal market movement for such an asset. Moreover, this confirms that bitcoin has proven its viability. " Kelly also drew attention to the fact that fluctuations in the framework of the upward “channel” allow traders to earn income several times in 100%, which is “very good”.

Tom Lee, who worked for many years in the largestAmerican bank JPMorgan, in the position of head of the securities trading department, is also confident in the growth of the price of Bitcoin, and that “2020 will be a better year for cryptocurrencies than 2019.” And it’s very hard to disagree with this: as entrepreneur Josh Miller notes, “cryptocurrencies can definitely have great benefits for the global economy, as well as for humanity as a whole.”

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