The 2022 trends that could signal a Bitcoin recovery

2022 has been an extremely tough year for crypto investors, as major crashes like Luna and Celsius have caused the value of just about every token to plummet, including Bitcoin. However, this year has also produced some interesting trends that lead us to believe that the future is still bright for Bitcoin.

More people using BTC for different reasons

The utility of BTC as a payment method for goods or services continues to grow. The best example comes from El Salvador, where the token has been legal tender since 2021, and where all citizens were given a digital wallet with $30 worth of tokens in it. Reports coming out of the Central American country are mixed, with some suggesting it has been welcomed and others claiming the majority do not want it.

The El Zonte area, known as Bitcoin Beach, is the center of the Bitcoin trend here. This surfing destination was a kind of pilot scheme to roll out Bitcoin across the country, and it has attracted a larger number of tourists who are eager to use digital money for everything they spend money on while visiting. The Central African Republic also made BTC legal, despite most people not having access to the internet to use these tokens effectively.

Elsewhere, we can see that the number of websites and land-based businesses accepting digital money continues to slowly but surely rise. For example, in Australia, a new agreement reached between OTR and DataMesh has allowed consumers to spend BTC in more than 400 locations such as convenience stores and gas stations. We may also see more crypto ATMs popping up across the planet, making Bitcoin more accessible and mainstream.

Another example comes from the best bitcoin casinos such as 20Bet, 888Casino and Fair Go Casino. These sites offer welcome bonuses to new players, allowing them to play with extra funds if they get started with Bitcoin, Ethereum or traditional payment methods such as Skrill and Visa. The process of depositing and withdrawing Bitcoin is simple, as players can open an account and move the money from their crypto wallet to their casino account and back as needed.

It is still the case that the number of different ways you can spend Bitcoin in physical locations largely depends on the country and city where you live, as this varies widely across the planet. Therefore, an increase in the number of places accepting the token is necessary for demand to grow equally across the planet. If this happens, it should give a clearer indication of how much people actually want to use it in their daily activities rather than just for investment purposes or the occasional online purchase.

More institutional investors

The arrival of more institutional investors is another area that has raised hopes of a market rebound. This started when BlackRock declared that thanks to a partnership with Coinbase, it would be easier for business customers to invest in Bitcoin. As the world’s largest and most influential asset manager, their decision to enter cryptocurrency was seen as a further sign that it has gone mainstream. Blackrock uses a powerful supercomputer called Aladdin to guide their financial decisions, so it seems certain that they have used this machine to run the numbers on Bitcoin, and found that it makes sense.
Equally interesting was the fact that Brevan Howard Asset Management raised $1 billion from institutional investors to launch the largest crypto hedge fund ever. The early results of this fund suggest that it performed extremely well, even amidst the steep market declines we saw earlier in 2022. More importantly, the size of the investment suggests that institutional investors are now more comfortable with the digital money market and issues such as liquidity .

The increasing demands for regulation

At first glance, the fact that so many people are now calling for tighter crypto regulations may seem like a negative point. After all, one of the biggest things driving prices down is the fear of overly strict regulations being put in place, potentially stifling the market and making new investors think twice about joining.

However, there is also the possibility that stronger, clearer regulations help attract more people to this type of currency. The fear of being scammed or otherwise losing money is among the main reasons why people are staying away from Bitcoin and other tokens right now. So what are the chances of new laws being put in place that will make this appear to be a safer and more attractive market for more people?

The calls for tighter controls on BTC and other tokens usually come when the market crashes, so it’s been no surprise to see the calls grow louder than ever this year. This has been fueled by the fact that several crashes have come out of the crypto-lending industry, where companies have operated under relatively lax regulations while handling millions of dollars of other people’s money in risky ventures that customers don’t always fully understand.

The truth is that new cryptocurrency regulations are in the works across the planet, with the EU, the US and South Africa among some of the places that have developed the fastest. It will probably be 2023 before we see any of these new pieces of legislation come into force, and there will certainly be a lot of debate about them as well. But the signs point to a growing sense of willingness to accept cryptocurrencies provided they are properly regulated, which most are asking for anyway.

Source: Pixabay

What does the future hold?

With these and other factors to consider, it is almost impossible to predict how the price of BTC and other tokens will move in the near future. There are some positive signs that the market may be getting back on track, but the level of volatility that we have seen with Bitcoin so far means that it is nothing to take for granted.

Source: Pixabay