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After the crazy cryptocurrency rallies of 2017 and their spectacular accident in 2018, the following year, according to what they know, could be a year of relative calm, which at times may seem stagnant. This will allow the market to regain its breath, purge itself, understand the regulatory environment and determine the direction of its continued development.
We at ICOBox are quite certain that this is exactly what will happen, but regardless, we have put together a list of six improbable, shocking and even fantastic predictions for the cryptic 2019 market, each of which can act as a catalyst for the next incident or the next boom. Please do not rely on our ideas when deciding to support a particular cryptographic project and do not take our predictions as something that will happen in part or in full.
Nasdaq will devour Binance for $ 1 billion
At the beginning of December it emerged that the Nasdaq, one of the largest stock exchanges in the world trading high-tech stocks, has officially confirmed that it will launch a cryptocurrency platform in the early part of 2019. The new platform will come as soon as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of the United States grants the exchange the necessary approval.
It is not implausible that, once this happens, Nasdaq will try to acquire Binance, the largest cryptocurrency trading platform. The agreement can be extremely beneficial for both parties. Due to the ongoing crisis in the encrypted market, the number of active transactions on Binance has decreased by 9/10 compared to January of this year. And although in one of his last interviews Binance's CEO Changpeng Zhao said his company is not worried about the drop in trading volume, it's probably not perfectly true here – ignoring these numbers would be unthinkable.
The Nasdaq in turn has never denied its interest in the cryptographic market and, once obtained the approval of the CFTC, will have all the axes to proceed with the plan. How high will Binance end up? Bitstamp, which held 11th placed in the world in terms of 24-hour turnover, it has been sold this year for $ 400 million. So it is not unreasonable to expect that Binance, with its two ready to launch ambitious projects – the Bincha chain blockchain and the decentralized exchange of Binance DEX – will win a billion dollars.
In the event of the global crisis, 10 countries will launch their cryptocurrencies
The era of US economic growth is coming to an end and investors are seeing the first signs of the imminent recession: the yield spread between US Treasuries in the short and long term has recently swooped, landing in negative territory.
The last time it happened in 2007, just before the infamous Lehman Brothers collapsed. This indicates a probability of a looming global economic crisis in 2019, which will cause another currency meltdown in developing countries. To avoid this, small countries can try to "digitize" their money, following the example of several countries that are under economic sanctions. By creating new virtual means of payment, they will try to avoid a massive issue of legal tender and the resulting colossal inflation.
After Venezuela and Iran, Ukraine is testing alternative currency waters. Their National Bank has launched a research project to implement the electronic Hryvnia, which will be exchanged at 1: 1 with regular grivna. Ukrainian cryptographic exchange Kuna is engaged in the development of a national stablecoin (working name "criptohryvnia") from 2017. The new currency will have ownership of various types of coins depending on the transaction and will be used as an alternative to the traditional legal tender currency.
It is unlikely that these cryptocurrencies will be of great use in international settlements in the event of a massive collapse of national currencies or an acceleration of sanctions. In fact, it is much more likely that if the dollar was expelled as the main settlement instrument, it will be replaced by the euro. But the use of national cryptocurrencies can be effective enough to prevent public panic on local markets and among citizens. We can not rule out that as many as 10 new countries will launch their cryptocurrencies in the event of a global crisis.
Ethereum to go down to $ 1
Like most of the major cryptocurrencies, Ethereum exploded between December 2017 and February 2018, that is, in the mild days of the encrypted market. Having gone through a subsequent one-time increase in May, the currency took a downward turn, moving further and further away from Bitcoin.
At the same time, the number of ICOs initiated and completed successfully also declined rapidly, and these trends were decidedly related. Ethereum's blockchain allows you to easily create and release new tokens – a feature much appreciated by new startups, as most of the projects that lead ICOs were based on Ethereum's capabilities.
The nuclear winter of the cryptographic market, which was accompanied by the 70% decline in market capitalization, by the collapse of all major cryptocurrencies and by massive expulsion from ICOs, could cause Ethereum to lose most of its value . And even the $ 1 scenario does not seem impossible at this point.
Bitcoin will be the only top 50 currency to continue being mined
The global collapse of the major cryptocurrencies has caused a collapse in the mining sector. Things went so badly that Chinese miners started selling their scrap rigs rather than as valuable pieces of equipment. Nvidia, one of the world's leading manufacturers of gaming graphics cards, used for the mining industry, has announced that it will move away from the cryptography industry after sales in this market have fallen 5.5 times.
While the situation in the industrial mining industry is critical but is not yet desperate, the profitability of cryptocurrency mining for single time-limited miners is almost zero. This makes it quite possible that in 2019 bitcoin will remain the only profitable currency to be extracted from the first 50 monitored by CoinMarketCap. Considering that the market share of the fundamental currency remains above 50% and that this situation is unlikely to change soon, this scenario can not be ruled out.
The STOs will treat for themselves a 10% share of the securities market
The ongoing stagnation in the crypto industry, the decreasing number of ICOs, the lack of a concise and definitive legal regulation, the collapse of all the major cryptocurrencies and their wild volatility are causing the market to seek new routes of development.
Small players who often did not look beyond the initial money collection will be replaced by large investors, including institutional investors. They are looking for a different environment and clear and transparent rules of the game.
This is why we are witnessing the birth of a completely new but extremely promising market segment: that of security tokens, which meet regulatory requirements and access to traditional capital for startups. This is a well known and familiar tool for professionals in the professional market, and all signals indicate that 2019 will become a year of STO (Security Token Offerings), which will replace the obsolete ICOs.
And considering the growing interest of large multinationals in security tokens (and our own interest in extraordinary and unlikely scenarios!), There is the possibility that STOs will let themselves be enchanted by just 10% of the securities market.
Central banks will convert 20% of their reserves to Bitcoin; BTC in Surge up to $ 200k
Recently, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has determined the maximum amount of encrypted assets in the total capital of the country's banks. The limit is set to 4%. Taking into account the fact that Switzerland is eager to become one of the world leaders in crypto-space and that many governments of the world look to the country as a guide in the management of banks, this decision has every opportunity to become the pivotal principle for other important institutions .
However, when the 4% number was announced for the first time, the Swiss regulator would probably have considered the current market potential rather than the probable global financial crisis that we talked about earlier. The new crisis could bring down the price of gold.
This is what happened in 2008, when the world went through the most devastating economic paralysis from the Great Depression. In 2008-2009 the price of gold fell from over $ 1,000 to $ 700 an ounce. A new collapse in the price of the world's most precious metal will force banks to quickly find safe havens for their rapidly escaping reserves – and 20% of them could be converted into bitcoins. Which will increase bitcoin prices up to $ 200,000.
