What awaits the cryptocurrency market in 2021?

What was 2020 like for the cryptocurrency market and what awaits us in 2021? Your opinion on the future of the crypto industryshare leading experts and analysts.

"There will be no more protracted crises on the crypto market"

United Traders analyst Fyodor Anashenkov

In short, this year has becomebest for cryptocurrency. Investors finally understood the true value of the HODL strategy (“buy and hold cryptocurrency regardless of the market situation”), and the volatility was good. This is not to say that this is some kind of unhealthy hype, as in 2017. The positive is reasonable, but moderate.

Much more has come to the market in these three yearsprofessionals, and pricing has become much more balanced and fair. I think that there will be no more protracted crises in the cryptocurrency market, as in 2018. Yes, correction is possible, but this is a normal state that will not be perceived as an apocalypse.

Regarding expectations for 2021, Bitcoin isthe moon" has already been sent, now it’s time for other coins. First of all, Ethereum. There will be further integration of crypto tools into the financial industry, and technology into the real economy.

To move to the next level of globalrecognition, cryptocurrency needs full legalization in key economies and a way out of the “gray zone.” We can also see a continuation of this process in 2021. The main result of the year is the realization that the crypto market has a great future.

"The beginning of a new stage in the cryptoindustry"

Director of the largest crypto-exchange Binance in Russia Gleb Kostarev

The outgoing year was difficult, but at the same timeincredibly interesting. Despite the fact that the pandemic has caused irreparable damage to the global economy, it has contributed to strong growth and development for many industries. Cryptocurrencies have broken unthinkable records this year, and we've seen significant increases in awareness, penetration and adoption. We have witnessed many historical events and changes. All this was just the beginning of a new stage in the industry, which will continue to grow next year.

In the outgoing year, the whole world expected crypto payments to show explosive growth, but this did not happen. But the entry of payments giant Paypal into the global arena will give a huge boost to this trend in 2021.

In 2021, the market will remain attractive to institutional and private investors. Not only bitcoin, but also many altcoins will fall into their field of vision.

Central banks in 2021 will launch a large number of pilot projects to implement CBDC (digital currency of the Central Bank), and large corporations will begin testing their own stablecoins.

"In 2021, the role of Russia in the digitalization process around the world will be decided"

RACIB Executive Director Alexander Brazhnikov

The upcoming 2021 should be a test anddecisive on a very wide range of issues. Obviously, the most significant for the whole world and for Russia in particular will be the results of vaccination, which will certainly show themselves in the coming year and will determine the correctness of existing treatment methods, the need for new drugs.

In blockchain technology, the coming yearwill also play an important role. After public discussions, the Central Bank of Russia will decide on the methodology and functionality of the digital ruble, directions for its development, implementation and informing citizens about the possibilities of using it. We can say that all subsequent years will be implemented the decisions of exactly 2021. And on how professional, deep and comprehensive the Central Bank's decisions in this matter will depend not only on the fact of the digital ruble, but above all on the role Russia will play in the digitalization process around the world.

The digital ruble is not a cryptocurrency.Therefore, the Central Bank will have to resolve the issue of the relationship between crypto assets and the digital ruble in such a way as not to create further unnecessary difficulties, questions and confusion among users around the world over the next few years.

"We may see the rise of Ethereum in the new year"

Senior Analyst Bestchange Nikita Zuborev

Features of cryptocurrencies in the future will be able tobecome the basis for their development as an international financial instrument, and already in 2021 one can expect positive confirmation of this status. The rhetoric regarding cryptocurrencies has improved significantly in recent years. Even outgoing SEC head Jay Clayton recognized bitcoin as a means of accumulation and settlement, as opposed to the "inefficiency" of current payment systems.

Stock-to-Flow model (ratio of the currentsupply of an asset to its inflow to the market; the indicator allows you to assess the "rarity" of an asset, and it, in turn, can directly affect the price), which was first applied to Bitcoin by the anonymous Dutch investor Plan B, is often mentioned in expert forecasts recently. One can be skeptical about its solvency, but the price of bitcoin repeats the S2 ° F model with sufficient accuracy to allow further development of the situation in accordance with the bold forecasts of the Dutch investor. If the scenario continues to be implemented in 2021, then in September we will see the six-figure price of bitcoin.

Risks in the near future include a Bitcoin correction.According to various estimates, it can adjust to $20 thousand or even to $15 thousand in some negative scenarios. And do not forget that most projects on the market follow the trends of the first cryptocurrency.

Since the beginning of November 2020, the Fear andgreed "of the crypto market is at the level of" extreme greed ". Investors are often irrational in their actions, and react to green or red numbers of currency rates quite impulsively. Therefore, we assume that the volatility will continue to rise, and the trends will not remain constant, and we can enter the correction stage.

At the beginning of 2021, the cryptocurrency marketmay threaten to decrease by 25-30%. Historically, bitcoin lost 20% to 40% in 2017 and 2019. If the predicted price decline occurs, it is likely to be short-lived, as there is demand from institutional investors and the falling price could attract even more participants.

Also in the new year we can see the sunrisethe second most popular cryptocurrency Ethereum. The launch of the zero phase of Ethereum 2.0 with the transition to a new emission model was successfully held on December 1, 2020, which in the future will solve many of the current network scalability problems. And the rapid development of the DeFi market segment, built mainly on ERC-20 tokens, contributes to the growth of the platform's popularity. The market also reacted positively to the planned addition of ETH-linked derivatives to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) in February, which in the future could provide a large influx of institutional investors into the Ethereum ecosystem.

"In 2021, the growth of the DeFi ecosystem will definitely continue"

Development Director of the EXMO crypto exchange Maria Stankevich

If we talk about cryptocurrency market forecasts in 2021, I would highlight the following important trends that will become the main growth drivers for BTC and altcoins.

I would say the key and most important thing is the influx of companiesfrom the S&P 500 to the crypto market. Already in 2020, we saw several large purchases of Bitcoin, which resulted in fluctuations in its exchange rate. I am confident that this trend will continue, since Bitcoin is the highest-yielding investment today. This means that the capitalization of the crypto market will continue to grow.

In 2021, we will definitely continue to observegrowth of the DeFi ecosystem. The industry has surpassed $ 270 billion in transaction volume this year and continues to grow. Many people predicted the collapse of the industry and compared it to the ICO scam of 2017. However, the fact that 1.7 billion people on the planet still cannot use traditional financial institutions continues to drive the industry. It seems to me that next year DeFi will take shape in a more serious market and maybe even become part of centralized finance.

Asset digitalization is the future, which meansthat the trend of NFT (unique, non-fungible tokens) will definitely come out ahead. The undoubted advantages of NFT are fast and cheap transactions, NFT interoperability, decentralized storage of metadata.

Needless to say, 2020 was the yearhacker attacks - about $500 million was stolen by hackers. More than 20% came from DeFi protocols. It looks like regulators will start paying more attention to DeFi and their compliance requirements. Unaudited smart contracts of projects often have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers. As for the remaining losses, 2021 will definitely be the year of rethinking and introducing additional security measures and custodial services. In addition, we really hope that more and more cryptocurrency exchanges will begin to put into practice AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know your customer) policies, which will make life very difficult for scammers.

“An important innovation in 2021 is the emergence of digital analogues of fiat currencies in a number of countries”

Head of Analytical Department AMarkets Artem Deev

One of the main events of the upcoming 2021in the cryptocurrency market will be the dynamics of bitcoin. Most likely, until March there will be a sharp decline in the rate of the main digital currency, but then it will grow again, and by the end of the year it will be able to exceed the current levels. The coin can start testing the value of $ 40-50 thousand by the end of 2021.

Second expected event important for turnovercryptocurrency in Russia is the entry into force of the law “On Digital Financial Assets”. Cryptocurrency owners will have to declare their property in digital assets and pay taxes on them. Cryptocurrency will not be used as payment.

And the third important innovation of 2021 is the appearancedigital analogues of fiat currencies in a number of countries, including Russia. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation announced the emergence of a digital ruble, and the EU also intends to introduce a digital euro. The emergence of such a hybrid version of the currency is a step towards reducing the circulation of cash, which fits well with the logic of events in recent years. The growing share of non-cash payments in the world is a long-term trend, and digital currencies will become a tool for the transition period when cash circulation will rapidly decline.

Rating of TOP-5 cryptocurrency exchanges

For those who have not yet managed to buy bitcoin in 2020, we have prepared a rating of the most reliable cryptocurrency exchanges that support deposits and withdrawals of funds in rubles and hryvnias.

The most reliable exchanges are those with the highest turnover.funds, for several years now the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world has been Binance. The Binance platform is the most popular crypto exchange in the CIS, as it has maximum trading volumes and supports transfers in rubles from Visa/MasterCard bank cards and payment systems QIWI, Advcash, Payeer.

Especially for those new to the cryptocurrency market, we have prepared a detailed guide: How to buy bitcoin on a cryptocurrency exchange for rubles?

#	Cryptocurrency exchange	Official site	Site evaluation
1	Binance (Editor's Choice)	https://binance.com	9.7
2	Huobi	https://huobi.com	7.5
3	Exmo	https://exmo.me	6.9
4	Yobit	https://yobit.net	6.3
5	OKEx	https://okex.com	6.1

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.
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.
Platform Features– availability of additional features — futures, options, staking, etc.
final grade– the average number of points for all indicators determines the place in the ranking.