The experts at the British bank and financial company Standard Chartered predict that the Bitcoin price will double by the beginning of 2022 at the latest. They also believe that Bitcoin will reach a price of around 100,000 US dollars by the end of this year. A strong Bitcoin would probably also bring a steep rise in Ethereum.
- Standard Chartered experts see Bitcoin at 100,000 US dollars by early 2022
- Longer-term price target is 175,000 US dollars
- Industry experts also see decent potential for Ethereum
Industry experts are confident
A new cryptocurrency research team at Standard Chartered sees plenty of potential for bitcoin in the coming months, according to Reuters news agency. Later this year or early next year, they see bitcoin at a price of around $100,000. In the longer term, the experts even consider a value of 175,000 US dollars per Bitcoin to be realistic. Bitcoin could become the leading peer-to-peer payment method for non-bank customers worldwide, according to the research team led by Geoffrey Kendrick. After bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies spent the last few weeks staging a strong recovery rally, last Tuesday saw another sharp setback. El Salvador had become the first country in the world to approve bitcoin as an official currency. However, the launch failed and there were some problems, whereupon the prices of Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies also dropped, according to Sandra Schuffelen from Handelsblatt.
Ethereum would benefit from a strong bitcoin
With bitcoin targeting $175,000 in the medium to long term, the second largest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, should be able to follow along in parallel to a value of $26,000 to $35,000, according to the Standard Chartered team. That would currently correspond to about a tenfold increase in the Ethereum price. Furthermore, the experts highlight the transition to Ethereum 2.0 as the move from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake has obvious environmental benefits. The excessive energy required for mining would be eliminated, which could make the cryptocurrency even more popular with investors in the future. The process is expected to be converted in the first half of 2022, Geoffrey Kendrick said. But Ethereum should not be equated with bitcoin despite everything, he said, as regulatory concerns about the two cyberdevices differ, for example.
Future prospects for the crypto market
Speaking to Financial News, Kendrick added that Standard Chartered, as a bank, is also becoming more open to cryptocurrencies. He added that this is how many other banks around the world are doing it. He himself hopes that crypto-assets will play a bigger role in the future and that banks themselves will start trading, as the interest from customers is already there. The gap between traditional finance and the digital world is getting smaller by the day, he said. The expert is sure that many countries in the world will be completely cashless in 10-20 years, from which Bitcoin, Ethereum and Co would benefit.
Curious, investors will also follow the next week the developments on the crypto market. Whether Standard Chartered is right with its price target and whether the most popular cyber currencies will soon reach new highs remains to be seen.