With the year winding to a close, analysts are dusting off their crystal balls – in an attempt to peek into the future and uncover what 2021 has in store for the Crypto World.
This time, it was the turn of significant investment firm Blockchain Capital, which appears to be turning its year-end predictions about the year ahead into a regular event.
Kinjal Shah, the company’s investment and research team Senior Associate, wrote, in a tweet,
“On a macro level, 2020 brought unprecedented levels of money printing and debt, yet bitcoin (BTC) decoupled and outperformed equities and risk assets.”
In its 2020 Year in Review document, the firm made the following ten predictions for what they think might happen in 2021, particularly the following:
- Coinbase debuts as the first IPO in crypto, market capitalization surpasses USD 30bn
- Industry sees two acquisitions above USD 500m and one addition above USD 1bn
- USD-pegged stablecoin market issuance (tether, USDC, Libra) surpasses USD 150bn (today, it’s around USD 25bn)
- The combined market capitalization of the top three DeFi governance tokens increases from 33% to 66% of Ethereum (ETH) ‘s market capitalization (today, it’s over USD 62bn)
- Outstanding loans in DeFi protocols increases by 10x, surpassing USD 30bn
- 33% of all crypto exchange spot volumes will come from DEXes (decentralized exchanges)
- WeChat Pay and Alipay support China’s digital yuan
- The American regulatory Securities and Exchanges Commission approves the first bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded fund) and first custodial digital asset broker-dealer
- Bitcoin market capitalization grows from 4% to 10% of gold’s market capitalization
- “MicroStrategy rebrands to MacroStrategy:)”
Even though a smiley emoji followed the last prediction, it seems safe to assume that the American software firm will make waves in the world of crypto.
But what of the track record of the Blockchain Capital soothsayers?
The firm gave itself a somewhat disputable score of 4 out of 11 for its 2020 “bold predictions,” most of which proved – sadly – wide of the mark, although not by much in some instances.
Here’s what the analysts forecasted this time last year…and what occured:
- A crypto company is acquired for more than USD 500m
Not yet, but it seems only a matter of time before this one comes to pass – this year, Binance acquired CoinMarketCap for reportedly USD 400m.
- Value locked in DeFi hits USD 5bn
2020 has been the year of DeFi – a breakthrough year with billions of USD locked into a range of protocols. Today, it’s over USD 14bn, per Defi Pulse data.
- In the face of competition from China, Libra will receive the green light for a dollar-backed stablecoin
Regrettably for Facebook and friends, Libra (now developed by Diem) might only get its first regulatory node next year. However, it might happen as soon as this January.
- A federal judge rules against the SEC in a crypto case
Not even close.
- Not a single 2020 Layer 1 (or the base protocol) network launch achieves “top 10” status, as defined by network value
Missed the mark on this one, too.
- USDC sees 300%+ growth (as measured by transaction value, issuance, market capitalization, and trading volume)
True. It has been a big year for all the principal stablecoins.
- Demand for bitcoin transactions drives fees to exceed USD 100, catalyzing scaling up the stack
No. The average fee managed to hit USD 13 in October, but it dropped to around U5SD 4 during a rally in November.
8. FinCEN / the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) hold stablecoins to a stricter standard than paper cash by requiring the broad application of the Travel Rule
Bingo. It’s been a big year for the Travel Rule, which the FATF seems to want to utilize across the board.
- KYC / AML (Know-Your-Customer and Anti-Money Laundering) becomes the primary regulatory battleground for DeFi
Not yet, but there were undoubtedly rumblings on this front from the FATF at the recent V20 summit, too.
- Privacy coins are de-listed from major exchanges
Blockchain Capital marked this down as a miss. Even perhaps the company should have been reading Cryptonetwork.news a little more carefully, as South Korean regulators have booted privacy coins into touch as a result of similar moves in 2019 in the UK, this time from exchanges themselves.
- Bitcoin price blows past all-time high
Yes and no, depending on who you ask.
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