Bitcoin is officially the first cryptocurrency in the world, which was launched on the 3rd January 2009 when the genesis block of the blockchain technology was mined by Satoshi Nakamoto. In the course of the next 7 years, all news for the cryptocurrency was auspicious and the USD price was climbing new peaks.
Bitcoin’s impressive success was broken in 2017 after the launch of numerous altcoins, making all cryptocurrencies with skyrocketing values. For Bitcoin that meant an unbelievable price of $19,343.03 on the 16th December 2017. Since then, however, this value is nowhere near to be reached.
During the last 8 weeks, Bitcoin’s value was hovering everywhere between $7,000 and $9,500. Unfortunately, as of today (30th May 2018), its trading price is $7,472, which goes above the last major support level of $6,900 by merely five hundred dollars. In these times, forecast agencies and websites become best friends to the holders of this blockchain-based crypto, which unfortunately are not always helpful. In the long term, Bitcoin is expected to reach $15,957.70 in the next year and $52,467.80 by the end of 2023, according to WalletInvestor.
Alongside with WalletInvestor, the Economy Forecast Agency also stated that the BTC/USD price is expected between $17,000 and $20,000 by December 2019. Although they don’t produce forecasts longer than 4 years, they also expect a rise up to $47,000 in the second half of 2021.
Despite the positive forecast, the market watch has proven that predictions are not guaranteed. If the current price decrease trend continues, BTC threatens to hit another low, worse than the November 2017 crisis - a value drop below $5,500.
Ever since mid-December last year, the USD race against Bitcoin shifted uncontrollably with repeated heavy drops, followed by rapid recoveries. The phenomenon lasted for 3 months until in March the price reached $6,500 for a little while before rebounding above seven thousand USD. Even more, the predictions above can be argued, considering the announcements of Google and Bill Gates about the cryptocurrencies significantly affected the industry.
In March, Google announced that it would restrict all advertising related to financial spread betting, which impacts all cryptocurrencies. Two months later, Bill Gates explained that according to him all digital tokens lack intrinsic value. His opinion was that they are not producing anything, thus a rise in the price should not be expected, saying that crypto trading is a kind of a pure 'greater fool theory type of investment.
He referred to the theory to describe that the investments are only made when people buy assets, which later expect other people to buy at higher prices. Furthermore, he is also concerned about decentralized networks and how digital currencies are used for buying drugs. These reasons were the main behind his pessimism towards cryptocurrencies.
Despite his lack of interest towards cryptocurrencies, he praised the principle of blockchain technology and acknowledged its impact and value in the future of digital transformations.