Why Bitcoin, Ethereum and 2 More Cryptos Are Poised To Boom in 2024
Following last year’s disastrous landscape for the crypto ecosystem — a year marred by scandals, collapses, losses and lawsuits — 2023 fared better. While the industry is still reeling from these developments, some assets have been slowly gaining ground.
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In turn, many experts argue that 2024 is off to a good start, with some cryptos poised to significantly progress. As of Dec. 20, the global cryptocurrency market cap was $1.72 trillion, according to CoinGecko.
Bitcoin
Price as of Dec. 20: $44,130
Past year: up 160.9%
Year-to-date: up 166.46%
Past 30 days: up 17.8%
All-time high: $68,789.63 on Nov. 10, 2021
Many experts are very bullish on Bitcoin for 2024 due to a combination of factors that could provide a perfect storm situation for the asset.
As David Waugh, lead analyst at Coinbits, explained, one significant development is the expected approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds) in January- which could result- according to analysts from Galaxy Research- in $14.4 billion of institutional inflows into Bitcoin in the first year, exerting significant upward pressure on its price.
Another factor is that by the end of this year, Congress could also pass comprehensive crypto legislation providing the industry with much-needed regulatory clarity, making Bitcoin more attractive to banks – allowing banks to work with Bitcoin companies to enhance the services they can offer consumers, he said.
Finally, another key catalyst is the Bitcoin halving event slated for April, which occurs once every four years and has always been associated with a massive price increase in the months before and after the event, according to Ric Edelman, founder, Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals.
“The impact of these developments on bitcoin’s price are expected to be substantial, with many predicting future bitcoin prices of $100,000 to $1.5 million,” said Edelman. “I’m expecting Bitcoin’s price to reach $150,000 by Dec 2025.”
Ethereum
Price as of Dec. 20: $2,255
Past year: up 84.7%
Year-to-date: up 87.9%
Past 30 days: up 10.3%
All-time high: $4,891.70 on Nov. 16, 2021
Ether underperformed Bitcoin in 2023 with a gain of “only” 80%, trading roughly in line with its peer group in the smart contract platforms crypto sector, said Zach Pandl, Grayscale‘s managing director of research.
Pandl added that there has been extensive debate about Ethereum’s competitive landscape as 2023 comes to a close, and he expects this to continue into 2024.
“Grayscale Research remains optimistic about Ethereum’s outlook despite better performance from some other Smart Contract Platform tokens in 2023 (such as SOL or AVAX), as Ethereum network will go through an upgrade in the first quarter, that could support is “modular” scaling plan,” he said. Another driver could be any progress on the regulatory approval on spot Ethereum ETFs in the U.S. market, which could support token valuation, as well, he added.
Ripple’s XRP
Price as of Dec. 20: $0.621
Past year: up 78.2%
Year-to-date: up 84.25%
Past 30 days: 0.00%
All-time high: Jan. 4, 2018, at $3.84
As Aaron Rafferty’s CEO of StandardDAO and co-founder of BattlePACs, while XRP has increased significantly, it still remains 81.78% below its all-time high.
“We have seen a turbulent albeit positive year with an SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) win and many acquisitions out of Ripple including toward real world asset tokenization,” he said. “Expect strong price trends for this payment rail.”
Chainlink
Price as of Dec. 20: $14.66
Past year: up 142%
Year-to-date: up 164.85%
Past 30 days: down 3.3%
All-time high: May 9, 2021, at $52.88
According to Rafferty, the year-to-date rise demonstrates robust growth potential, standing 74% below its peak.
“Past bull run gains were 1400%+ and typically run prior to other players,” he said. “LINK’s expansion into enterprise solutions, including collaborations with major players like Google, SWIFT, and Oracle, provides a vital security layer between blockchains and real-world data.”
Other Assets and Trends
Lee Taylor, the founder of MonarchX, said that in addition to Chainlink, if you’re looking for the unicorn altcoins of 2024, I think Solana, Avalanche and Algorand should be top performers.
“ALGO, which features low costs, is particularly well-suited to content creators. While seeing a dip earlier this year, it is up a whopping 38% over the past month, and it should continue to see high growth into 2024,” he said. Meanwhile, AVAX is in a similar position, up over 75% in the past month alone. It is likely that these unicorns are well-positioned to see 100% growth over the next year.
Bitcoin-related assets, which have been on a roll lately, are also something worth watching, according to several experts.
For instance, “Ordinals” -NFTs on Bitcoin- or, as Decrypt explained, “digital assets inscribed on a satoshi, the lowest denomination of a Bitcoin,” have garnered a lot of interest lately.
Now, whether they have staying power remains to be seen, according to Grayscale’s Pandl.
According to Austin Alexander, co-founder of LayerTwo Labs, building on Bitcoin-related assets and networks is a big trend in the coming year.
“There are many people who had never touched Bitcoin – they’re altcoiners – who are now getting into Bitcoin because of Ordinals and other related assets,” he said. “Bitcoin has the most liquidity of any decentralized network, and it’s also the most secure, so this all makes BTC more desirable. Bitcoin’s network effects are powerful, and I think we’ll see the broader Bitcoin ecosystem flourish in the year ahead.”
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