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- Bitcoin’s market cap could hit a trillion dollars as early as 2021, according to Blockchain.com’s head of research.
- “My expectation is that bitcoin will become a trillion dollar asset as early as next year,” Garrick Hileman, who is also a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, told Business Insider.
- While the bitcoin 2020 rally is largely driven by institutional investors, it expects to see increased participation from retail investors and Wall Street going forward.
- The researcher expects the United States to digitize the dollar, but not too soon as he says “the Fed is happy with the way the world is.”
- Watch bitcoin trade live here.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Bitcoin’s market cap could reach $ 1 trillion sometime in 2021 as investors take its reserve status more seriously, according to Garrick Hileman, Blockchain.com’s head of research.
Big institutional players like Stanley Druckenmiller, BlackRock, Bill Miller, and Jack Dorsey have recognized that bitcoin not only disappears, but that it becomes a backup asset and validates the digital gold thesis, Hileman said.
Bitcoin has a current market cap of around $ 350 billion, while a gold cap is around $ 10 trillion. This week the cryptocurrency gained 12% over just two days, and was trading at $ 22,994 on Saturday.
“My expectation is that bitcoin will become a trillion dollar asset as early as next year,” the crypto researcher told Business Insider.
Blockchain.com has seen a 39% growth in wallet creation so far on its crypto exchange. That’s about 17 million wallets created since December 2019.
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The exchange saw the widening adoption and ownership of crypto assets this year as more people still wanted to come in when acquiring the ticket. As many as 100 million people own crypto assets today, according to Hileman.
He noticed that much of the recent price action was driven by institutional investors, based on transactions happening on the chain, and is different from the retail investor frenzy in 2017. Chain demand and metrics others suggest that the 2020 rally is more driven by institutional hedge funds, family offices, and money managers.
Hileman expects to see continued participation from retail investors and Wall Street going forward, rather than corporations. That’s because it’s more difficult for larger players to get involved than professional investors who already have accounts and easy access to major exchanges, he explained.
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For a bitcoin market cap to reach $ 1 trillion, it would have to hit a price of $ 54,000 a penny next year – a 130% rally from where it is.
In terms of US dollars, the researcher expects the world’s most popular reserves to be digitized sometime in the next five years. “At this point, the Fed is still taking its time because the Fed is happy with the way the world is,” he said.
The status quo works well for the dollar because it prevails through the SWIFT mechanism and the corresponding banking system, he said. The US government can also raise debt at attractive interest rates, supporting the dollar’s status. But there is a competitive challenge in the crypto space and in the rise of fixedcoins.
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