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Ripple's CEO predicts that the total market value of the cryptocurrency market will exceed $5 trillion this year.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, said he expects the overall value of the crypto market to double, citing macro factors such as the arrival of the first U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and the upcoming so-called Bitcoin "halving."
Garlinghouse said in an interview, "I've been in this industry for a long time, and I've seen these trends come and go." "I'm very optimistic. I think macro trends like ETFs are driving real institutional money into the space for the first time."
He added, "You see that driving demand, and demand is increasing while supply is decreasing." "You don't need to be an economics major to understand what happens when supply shrinks and demand expands."
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the first batch of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs on January 10. They trade on U.S. stock exchanges, allowing institutional and retail investors to invest in Bitcoin without directly owning the underlying asset.
Bitcoin halving is a technical event that occurs approximately every four years in Bitcoin's history. Bitcoin miners are volunteers on the Bitcoin network who use high-performance computers to validate transactions and produce new tokens.
The last such event occurred in 2020, and the next event is scheduled for later this month.
"The overall market value of the crypto industry ... it's easy to predict that it will double by the end of this year. Because it's affected by all of these macro factors," Garlinghouse said.
As of April 4th, the total market value of the crypto market is approximately $2.6 trillion. If the market doubles, this would mean a new crypto total market value of $5.2 trillion.
Bitcoin has risen by over 140% in the past 12 months.
According to CoinGecko's data, Bitcoin hit a historic high of over $73,000 on March 13th. However, since then, it has fallen well below the $70,000 level.
Global digital currencies have been the main tokens driving the overall market up.
As of April 1st, Bitcoin accounts for approximately 49% of the entire crypto market, with a market value of $1.3 trillion.
Positive signs emerge in U.S. crypto regulation
Garlinghouse believes that another factor driving record highs in the crypto market is the possibility of positive regulatory momentum in the U.S.
This year is an election year, and crypto-friendly candidates are optimistic that the next administration will be more accommodating to the cryptocurrency industry in terms of policy focus.
Under the leadership of Chairman Gary Gensler, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been actively enforcing against crypto companies, including Ripple itself.
The SEC filed a securities lawsuit against Ripple, alleging that the company illegally sold XRP, a cryptocurrency closely associated with Ripple, in unregistered securities transactions. Ripple denies the charges and is fighting the lawsuit.
Garlinghouse said, "In fact, what I would say is, for the macro tailwinds for the automotive industry, I think the situation in the U.S. will become clearer."
"The U.S. is still the largest economy in the world, and unfortunately, it's a more hostile crypto market. I think that's also going to start to change."
Garlinghouse is not the only cryptocurrency bull predicting huge gains for the crypto market this year.
Marshall Beard, Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. crypto exchange Gemini, recently told CNBC at a crypto conference in London that he expects the price of Bitcoin to rise to $150,000 later this year.
This year everything's gone up too quickly, there's been a lot of activity, a lot of adoption, new regulations, ETFs, halving, miners needing to exit," Beard told CNBC.
You're going to see violent swings up and down until we hit a new all-time high, which I think will be $150,000," Beard added. "That could happen this year. I think it's developed too fast... I think this momentum, supply shock, is developing very fast. |
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Post time 17-4-2024 01:50:01
