2018 has come to an end and hopefully the bear market too. It is now a time to reflect and think about the year ahead. So we decided to ask some crypto experts about the year in crypto and what to expect in 2019. Roger Ver, Tone Vays, Jimmy Song, Paul Veradittakit and Bitcoin Dad all gave us their 2018 takeaways and projections for the coming year. This whole year has been sort of a pretty tough bear market. And you know I sort of expect next year to be a bear market for a while to you know maybe a price increase toward the end.
But nevertheless, I mean we shouldn't expect anything for a bit of time. One event that is really positive and one event that is sort of a sign of reality. I think once the event was basically BAKKT saying that they are launching and what they are doing. I think that is significant because again if we want to see price increase I think institutions are going to be a huge part of that. I think the biggest event for 2018 has to be the declining price of not only Bitcoin but the entire space of the crypto assets.
To me this is significantly different than what happened back in 2014 or 15. I believe that this time around the altcoin bubble will not return. I think that's going to be the big difference. I think that the is the most critical event is the fact that this was the altcoin bubble. I don't expect the altcoins to come back. There were other smaller events like the implosion of the Bitcoin Cash or as I like to call it the Bcash split that showed how irrelevant those altcoins are. And so to me, that was it's a good thing. I'm really enjoying this year 2018 for the implosion of the altcoin space. I hate to say the bear market because that's pretty much what 2018 has been for the most part. You know I think it's been a healthy correction.
I mean it still hurt everybody that I know is on board in 2017 going into 2018. But you know I think it was needed to kind of you know pull back a little bit and you know gather itself again you know before we kind of you know move into 2019 and 2020 which I think will be pretty bullish. I would say was the bear market itself. The fact that a lot of crappy projects have been kind of flushed out of the system or they're currently in their death throes. That is very significant because there's been a lot of malinvestment in this space and getting those out of are out of this economy is a very good thing because it allows for investment in the things that are actually winning. I think the 10th anniversary is significant because that means that Bitcoin has been around for 10 years. There's some credible scarcity to bitcoin that I think people underestimate sometimes you know like having something proven over time is a very very good thing.
And more people will come in for that reason you know like if something like two or three years old that it's less it's not as easy to trust it as if it's like 10 years old because it's been through a lot. Correction as a whole and people start to realize that the market doesn't only go up it can go up and down. And I think people realize that like the long-term vision is to make cryptocurrencies usable as currencies. And that's what drives the long-term price. I'm bullish overall. So I mean I would like to say this the bottom. Still most skeptical but I feel 2019 and going into 2020 before having again you know I only see upside at this point.
You know we might meet might maybe go down know twenty five hundred. It's possible things are looking pretty good at this point you know Bitcoin kind of bounced here. I think we need to fall further. I think you need real capitulation. I think you need a lot of the malinvestments and ICOs and altcoins to really you know like make it possible so that nothing is like these projects just need to die basically because there's a lot of malinvestment. And until that malinvestment is cleared out of the system it's still going to be you're just sort of like waiting for another bubble another downturn in order to get rid of them. So you know this is what happens in any economy you have business cycles. And during the bottom you get rid of the inefficient and stupid projects and that's what bear markets are for. And until the bear market has done its work it's it's not really you know you're either waiting for a bigger bear market later and just sort of delaying it or you know like you're you're not really culling anything.
So I don't think we've hit bottom. I think we'll start seeing some scalability projects launched next year and I think that'll be exciting but I don't think any of them will sort of compete with Ethereum at least in the near term. I also think that there's gonna be a ton of consolidation lot of late-stage rounds being raised by companies and we're gonna start seeing some pretty significant acquisitions from existing tech companies and banks and then also a lot of you know a lot of aqui-hires. I also think the security to open market is pretty inflated right now and there's no infrastructure to facilitate any sort of liquidity whatsoever.
So we're gonna see a ton of scheming issue but I really don't think there's going to be much happening there next year. So I think that one is a I think that was a bit overhyped and I think we'll start seeing some governments starting to launch their tokens. I think we're heading into basically a building and installation phase and I think in terms of fundraising it's going to be a really tough time for ICOs. I think the main thing in 2019 will be the realisation that Bitcoin did not die. It's not going to die and it's going to reverse at some point in 2019. I'm starting to think it will be more to the latter half of 2019 than the beginning of 2019 and this time around Bitcoin will start to separate from the rest of the crypto space. So I think the marking of 2019 will be the end of the Bitcoin bear market and the start of another Bitcoin bull market this time with side chains, with scaling, with privacy and I can’t wait.
I certainly expect a lot more companies to come around to realise like Bitcoin is where it's at. I mean you can sort of see that already a lot of CEOs are starting to say good things about Bitcoin as a way to sort of pivot a little bit because they're realising like a lot of these altcoins and ICOs are not doing so well and any sort of bets that they placed on them have been pretty bad and they haven't been served well by them. So I imagine this will continue through most of 2019. I think the world is going to see more and more people building on top of Bitcoin. And of course, when I say Bitcoin I mean Bitcoin Cash. Whether Bitcoin is going to make a new all time high.
I'm not necessarily sold on that in 2019. It might not be until later in the year when it really starts to move. Maybe it's the 10,000 mark and kind of goes from there. But you know I'm bullish overall. I mean I think there's a lot of things in the pipeline with the possible ETF and you know still there's still a lot of institutional money that I think is trying to find some clarification. I think I think at least in the short to medium term it's a great time to invest into Bitcoin there's still a strong correlation between Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies and so I think the markets are really low it's a great time to be buying but the currencies I do suggest buying multiple cryptocurrencies just because the market is so dynamic and to put all your eggs in one basket is probably not a good strategy. So either investing into an index or investing into a bunch of them that you're really passionate about or even going through some sort of fund manager I am expecting lower prices.
If your time horizon is at least five years ahead then the best time to buy Bitcoin is always yesterday. I've had this answer for numerous years now but if you're actually trying to time the market and you if you don't have any Bitcoin right now that anytime is a good time to buy it. But if you are watching it regularly I think buying it in the low 3 thousands or below 3 thousand is great but definitely have a bunch of fiat on reserve so you can buy a slightly bigger chunk of it below two thousand and if it ever goes below fifteen hundred I will try to sell whatever I have not nailed down in order to pile into it. From a monetary perspective, I think it's still pretty clear that Bitcoin is the big winner. And and you know almost everything else is an attempt to try to do something interesting from a centralized perspective. Personally I'm anti-ICO. I don't feel that you know that there have been some good projects that raise money that deserve the money. But then you know you get everything else kind of piggybacking those and it really got diluted.
There was a lot of just dumb money being thrown in a ton of projects that are now down. 95%. I personally I am not going to be bullish on ICOs and in my investment position I'm really going to be extremely skeptical regarding that. I'm more of in favor of proof of work type of project something where you don't give a developer 20-30 million dollars upfront for an idea. I feel that they are more motivated by having a fair launch and you know moving forward with their work and interests that would be brought on due to their work and dedication to the project.
A ton of ICOs are really going to die next year. They raised quite a bit of money and for regulatory reasons like basis or just bad management and we just can see a lot of them get fleshed out even more so I could see even the markets getting even worse. I'm sure there will be some but not nearly to the degree that we saw in 2017-2018 I imagine most of them like most people are kind of you know jaded by ICOs in general right now. Yeah most of them haven't delivered anything and the few that have aren't anywhere near what they hyped up to be.
So. Given those experiences, I don't think there will be nearly as many though who knows. Already ICOs are having a really tough time raising any money whatsoever. They either have to go to private investors or you have to sell off a lot of the Ethereum or whatever they raised off in order to fund their operations. Some are trying some weird models where they basically gamble with the money that they have in their treasury.
I think ICOs are going to get even more popular in the future there. They're fantastic because they allow any investor to invest in any entrepreneur anywhere in the world instantly and have instant liquidity based on the token as well. So yeah there is a big run up last year and things cooled off a little bit but like this is something that never existed before. And the reason there was such a big giant run up is because people were realizing how useful it is.
So I don't think ICOs are going to slow down in the long run. I think going to see that become a more and more common funding model for new and existing businesses. All time high would be nice. But you know hang in there keep grinding. You know that the markets aren't going to be easy. You know that would kind of be my advice to you guys is you know don't give up. You know I know it's rough out there to kind of hang in there but you know obviously only invest what you can lose.
But you know be patient and hodl. I wish that you know we can all adjust you know not focus as much on price and just really focus on on building new shipping product. And I think that's what we're gonna get most about this entire bear market is that now that we're not seeing employees leaving because they can make a lot more money day trading with their currencies you know we're seeing people really focused on hitting milestones and maybe even structuring transactions with investors where money or tokens will be released where milestones are hit. But you know the most the most important thing for me is that top talent is continuing to come into this space and we're continuing to see a lot of the best talent in the startup ecosystem coming in and it makes me really hopeful.
So I think 2019 is going to be a huge year for us Become a part of your investments instead of just sort of like wishful thinking like you know contribute to the ecosystem and in whatever way you can you don't have to be a developer you can be a holder you can be somebody that's part of the social community but that's what's required in order to not just be gambling but actually investing. I wish people would actually start using cryptocurrency as currency.
Use it to buy and sell things and use it to pay other people and use it to get paid when you know when people owe you money. Start actually using it as money rather than just some speculative instrument. .
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://top10ly.com/bitcoin-blockchain-in-2019-expert-predictions/
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