BITCOIN COULD HIT $50,000 THIS YEAR ACCORDING TO CRYPTO ANALYSTS.

Bitcoin could reach $50,000 this year, an expert has predicted, but cryptocurrency will remain volatile as its meteoric rise, an experts has predicted.

The values of Bitcoin, Ripple, and other cryptocurrencies have been crashing lately, but analysts are predicting a huge rise ahead for Bitcoin—with a forecast for it to reach as high as $50,000 in 2018.

For that to happen, each unit of Bitcoin, currently worth around $12,000, would have to increase by more than four times its current value.


That might seem extremely unlikely. But the analysts are predicting Bitcoin’s 2018 surge has been right before. Toward the end of 2016, the Danish firm Saxo Bank released its annual list of “Outrageous Predictions” for the year ahead. In it, the bank’s analysts said that Bitcoin could easily triple in value in 2017.
That prediction came true by the spring of 2017. Bitcoin went on to increase from around $900 to $18,000 in the course of the year.

Bitcoin has struggled since the end of 2017. It has plunged on more than one occasion, and its current value is down roughly one-third from its all-time high.
Nonetheless, Saxo Bank analyst Kay Van-Petersen told CNBC on Tuesday that she “wouldn’t be surprised” if Bitcoin peaked between $50,000 and $100,000 this year. The pattern Van-Petersen has seen is for Bitcoin to surge in value, then plunge and plateau for a little while, before surging again. Right now, Bitcoin has been “kind of building a foundation,” Van-Petersen said, and soon it “will re-rate a bit higher.”

Last month, Saxo Bank’s “Outrageous Predictions” for 2018 called for Bitcoin to peak above $60,000 this year. But the bank’s analysts also say that the Bitcoin bubble will ultimately pop before the year ends. “After its spectacular peak in 2018, Bitcoin crashes and limps into 2019,” the bank stated, with each unit of Bitcoin worth only around $1,000 one year from now.

Jeet Singh, a cryptocurrency portfolio manager for the last six years, says it is common for virtual currencies to fluctuate by 70 or 80 percent.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he compared cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ripple to early tech giants like Microsoft.

He said: "If you look at Microsoft or Apple, when they went public their stocks were very volatile because the market wasn’t mature."

The volatility of the market may have worried newer cryptocurrency traders, but long-time investors are less concerned, as they are used to some variations, Mr Singh explained.

As the market for bitcoin becomes more mainstream, and traders begin to better understand cryptocurrencies, some of this volatility is likely to calm down.

Mr Singh predicts: "Bitcoin could definitely see $50,000 in 2018."

However, he added: "We will probably go through a suffering period of volatility" around the time of Bitcoin’s next $10,000 landmark.

Bitcoin’s volatility has led traditional financial experts to slam the investment, claiming it is a "bubble" doomed to crash and burn. 

Bank of Canada boss Stephen Poloz claimed crypto would never be used as a real currency, branding it a form of "gambling" rather than a legitimate investment.

Delivering a stark warning to investors, he said: "A lot of words have been used but I think the main thing is, buyers should be aware it is much closer to gambling than investing."

He claimed cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value and would not be seen as "assets" in the same strain as other investments.

Mr Poloz said: "They are not assets, really, for the most part. I suppose they are securities, technically.

But tax authorities treat them as securities. Because you have to pay tax on a capital gain or loss."

However Mr Singh said he believed cryptocurrencies would be used transactions in increasing measure in the coming months and years.

He claimed: "There are not so many vendors right now who accept cryptocurrencies but there’s huge adoption on the black market."

Adoption has begun principally in countries with unstable national currencies but is set to extend, he claimed.


SOURCE: w.w.w.express.co.uk
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