In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin price has lost over 10% of its value, probably due to the old adage that is always used a lot in the world of finance “Buy the rumours and sell the news”, in reference to the official news of El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender.
Summary
Bitcoin price could reach $250,000
The price of the world’s most famous cryptocurrency after surpassing $52,000 fell as low as $43,000 before rising again to $45,000.
This shows how the price of Bitcoin, but also of other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, is still very volatile and it is quite difficult to make long-term predictions about their future prices.
According to most forecasts made by analysts and experts in the sector, reaching 100K and for Ethereum 20k would seem to be achievable targets within one to two years.
Raoul Pal, former strategist at Goldman Sachs for the European hedge fund market and now co-founder and CEO of Real Vision Group, one of the most respected experts in the crypto world, has gone much further, predicting that Bitcoin could reach $250,000 by March 2022 and even $1 million by 2026.
But Vetle Lunde, an analyst at Arcane, a Norwegian crypto market analysis company, also predicts Bitcoin to be worth $120,000 by the end of 2021, and then exceed $300,000 by 2025 and $500,000 by 2030. According to Jp Morgan, Bitcoin as an alternative to gold in terms of store of value could reach $146,000 in the medium term.
The great volatility almost inherent in Bitcoin
Not everyone is so optimistic about the future prices of cryptocurrencies. Some experts are extremely bearish, including for example University of Canberra senior lecturer John Hawkins, who predicts a price of $20,000 by the end of 2021 and thinks that countries adopting Bitcoin will actually have a negative impact on its price:
“I suppose El Salvador adopting it as a legal tender puts a bit of a dent in it for a while. But after the price has dropped a lot, they might remove the legal tender status.”
This is because both Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as the other major cryptocurrencies, are considered financial instruments with enormous price volatility, which has been a defining characteristic of them since their inception.
The reasons for this volatility are many and certainly can only start from the uncertainties linked to their future use and the regulation that the financial authorities will want to put on them.
It is enough to think of the price drops of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the space of a few hours, which occurred in the wake of the news about the tightening of the Chinese authorities.
Any news related to its future use or mining activity often leads to large price fluctuations, because it raises doubts and questions about their possible future use.
Another factor that causes great volatility of the main cryptocurrencies is the still rather limited free float compared to the large stocks traditionally traded on stock exchanges around the world.
And so the so-called whales (big investors who move huge amounts of capital), by moving a few million euros, can cause heavy fluctuations in the market (which may have happened in the last 24 hours with the sudden collapse of Bitcoin’s prices by 10% in a few hours).
Bitcoin as a digital store of value may be key
According to many observers, the key factor that could change the history of the world’s most famous cryptocurrency and make it increasingly attractive to investors and less volatile and speculative than it is today, would be to become a digital gold and thus be considered as a store of value.
In a report by Nasdaq-listed financial firm Microstrategy, there is an indicative comment to this effect:
“If I had chosen gold over bitcoin last year, it would have been a multi-million dollar mistake. It doesn’t help diagnose the problem to not choose the right solution.”
The company was referring to the fact that while gold prices have lost almost 6% over the past twelve months, bitcoin prices have gained over 300%.
Former US Secretary of State Larry Summers argued in a recent interview with Bloomberg that this could and should be the future of Bitcoin.
“Gold has been a primary asset of this type for a long time,” Summers said.
“Cryptocurrencies have the potential to become an agreed form in which people seeking security hold wealth. My guess is that cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and probably here to stay as a kind of digital gold.”
Considering that the capitalization of gold is about 10 times that of Bitcoin, it is easy to understand the growth prospects of the digital currency par excellence.
