2019 in crypto: Bulls, Bears, and where to find them.
Confucius once said: “Study the past, if you would define the future.” Hardly anyone would argue with him. While you’re taking a break from preparing new year’s resolutions and celebrating this Christmas season, we offer you to spend few minutes studying the striking crypto news of 2019 and hope it’ll help you define your 2020.
Part One: True predictions vs. Maya Indians
The Internet always replete with loud statements about an unprecedented rate increase or cryptocurrency becoming a new gold, let’s go back to 2018 and check what crypto leaders were betting on.
SEC Regulation
SEC regulation was one of the hottest topics last year, and many analysts predicted that the US Securities and Exchange Commission would approve a bitcoin ETF this year. Bitcoin ETF not only didn’t receive an approval, but it seems unlikely for the stock market regulator to sign off on any financial vehicles to enable further speculation.
BTC Price
Bitcoin market rate is always the hottest topic in the news and notably predictions. BTC believers made a lot of loud statements about the price at $100,000–250,000, but there are quite a few representatives of another camp who sincerely believe that the potential of bitcoin is limited. Despite doubts and even without ETF, BTC is ending the year almost twice as high as its open — jumping from $3,735 on Jan. 1 to $7,605 at the time of writing.
Promising Coins
Numerous economists predicted the XRP place on Olympus, even promised that it would become the new Bitcoin, but the real situation isn’t so clear. XRP is the obvious leader in terms of adaptation, but the price doesn’t reflect its potential. XRP started this year at $0.35, but in December, the price dropped to approx. $0.2.
At the beginning of 2019, privacy coins like Grin and Beam were dashing. In H2, it looks like the interest subsided, and the price only proves the point. Zcash has dropped nearly half of the price, from $57 on Jan. 1 to $29 at the time of writing. But Monero is approaching 2020 at a confident position — $48 on Jan. 1 to $46 today.
Part Two: Total Recall
Naturally, no one can predict everything, therefore we suggest to take a look at the most significant news of 2019.
Libra
Facebook announced Project Libra on June 18, 2019. Libra, a cryptocurrency, was scheduled to be launched in the new year, but those plans hang in the balance after Facebook faced a difficult year of privacy and security issues. Astrologers promise Libra success in 2020, so let’s hope for the best.
Chainlink
No doubt that LINK crashed the market this year. Crypto and non-crypto businesses, including SWIFT, Google, Gartner, and IC3, rushed to team up with Chainlink, utilizing the smart contract and oracle network for connecting off-chain data feeds and enabling tamper-proof inputs and outputs. The LINK/USD trading pair has surged by over 500% since the start of the year, and the LINK/BTC pair has also gained more than 300% over the same time period — which is quite an impressive feat, to say the least.
Remarkable Innovations
Unfortunately, one article can’t be enough to describe all promising projects, but we want to highlight three of the most high-profile launches of last year.
- LiquidApps
LiquidApps aims to optimize development on the blockchain by introducing products and services that make developing decentralized apps (dApps) more efficient and scalable.
- Matic Network
Matic Network brings massive scale to Ethereum using an adapted version of Plasma with PoS based side chains.
- Synthetix
A decentralized synthetic asset platform that provides on-chain exposure to real-world currencies, commodities, stocks, and indices
Crypto Without Taxes
The Portuguese Tax & Customs Authority announced that buying or selling cryptocurrency in Portugal is tax-free. This is confirmation that Portugal intends to treat crypto as a currency rather than a taxable asset, which is the tack that other regulatory bodies may take in 2020.
Salary in Bitcoin
In September, in New Zealand, the law came into effect, which enables companies to replace the New Zealand dollar with Bitcoin and is a positive nod towards how other countries might regulate crypto in the coming months. New Zealand became the first country to legalize salary payments in Bitcoin.
Part Three: Future Is Bright, right?
Depending on what side of the spectrum you are. Some predict a drop in the price of bitcoin to $2000; others predict the increase to $15000 and higher, while others believe that it is out of date. Analysts cannot agree on the issue of official regulation, and lists of promising projects are changing at an unprecedented rate.
In Indacoin, we don’t usually focus on predictions, but we strongly believe in the crypto market and its bright future. We are convinced that today shapes tomorrow, therefore our team is working 24/7 to make Indacoin better.
