Bitcoin crash could get worse – Investor survey
Bitcoin bulls beware: Wall Street expects the cryptocurrency crash to get much worse.
The token is more likely to fall to $ 10,000 (R170,000), and halve its value approximately, than it is to accumulate back to $ 30,000 (R509,000), according to 60% of the 950 investors who responded to the latest MLIV Pulse survey.
Forty percent saw it go the other way. It was around $ 21,850 (R370,000) late Friday afternoon, ending the week with over 12%.
The skewed prediction underscores how bearish investors have become. The crypto industry has been shaken by troubled lenders, collapsed currencies and an end to the simple monetary policy of the pandemic that led to a speculative frenzy in the financial markets.
About $ 2 trillion (R34 trillion) has disappeared from the market value of cryptocurrencies since the end of last year, according to data collected by CoinGecko.
Retail investors were more concerned about cryptocurrencies than their institutional counterparts, with almost a quarter declaring asset class to be rubbish. Professional investors were more open to digital assets.
But overall, this sector remains polarizing: while around 28% of total respondents expressed strong confidence that cryptocurrencies are the finance of the future, 20% said they are worthless.
Bitcoin has already lost more than two-thirds of its value since reaching almost $ 69,000 (R1.1 million) in November and has not traded as low as $ 10,000 since September 2020.
“It’s very easy to be scared right now, not just in crypto, but in the world in general,” said Jared Madfes, a partner at Tribe Capital, a venture capital firm.
He said that expectations of a further fall in Bitcoin reflect “people’s inherent fears in the market”.
Cryptocracy is likely to put further pressure on governments to step up regulation in the industry. Such supervision is seen as positive by most respondents, as it can improve trust and lead to wider acceptance among institutional and private investors.
Government intervention is also likely to be welcomed by consumers who are burned by the collapse of so-called stablecoin TerraUSD and troubled intermediaries such as Celsius Network and broker Voyager Digital Ltd.
Central banks are also considering developing their own digital currencies for use in digital payments.
But neither the recent price falls – nor the potential challenge from central banks – are expected to boost the industry significantly by abolishing the two dominant tokens, Bitcoin and Ether.
A majority of respondents expect that one of these two will remain a driving force in five years, although a significant proportion see that the central bank’s digital currencies play a key role.
“Bitcoin still drives large parts of the crypto market, while Ethereum is losing its lead,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., a currency broker.
There was a broader consensus on one corner of the market: non-fungible tokens.
NFTs became known for millions of dollars of attraction value for images of monkeys during the heyday of the crypto boom. However, the vast majority of respondents consider them only art projects or status symbols, with only 9% seeing them as an investment opportunity.
Also, those looking for the next asset price bubble may want to look elsewhere, as speculative ways rarely hit the same asset class twice.
Ultimately, the next big run-up of most respondents is expected to be completely unrelated to cryptocurrencies, with NFTs, the next generation of internet known as web3 and other blockchain developments being seen as having low chances of launching the next madness.
“The next financial bubble is always a little different than the last bubble, so the majority is absolutely right in this,” said Matt Maley, marketing strategist at Miller Tobacco + Co.
For more market analysis, see the MLIV blog. For previous research, see NI MLIVPULSE.
