Over the past few months, analysts have begun to fear that the worst is yet to come for the Bitcoin market. This fear and apathy should come as no surprise, especially considering that the cryptocurrency has already tanked 50% in the past six months, tanking as bulls expected the asset to “moon.”
Despite this, top industry investors are keeping their heads held up high, going as far as to suggest that the price of Bitcoin is likely to surpass $20,000 in 2020. $20k in 2020 has a nice ring to it, after all.
Blockchain Capital just released its 2019 annual report. In it, the prominent venture capital firm — investor in Coinbase, Abra, Ripple, Messari, and an array of other top industry companies — revealed that it expects for Bitcoin to “blow past” its $20,000 all-time high sometime next year.
It isn’t only Blockchain Capital that is expecting for Bitcoin to mount higher in the coming months, especially in 2020 in general. In fact, the fund’s assertion lines up with the opinions of two prominent investment fund managers in the crypto industry: Travis Kling, current CIO of Ikigai Asset Management and former Point 72 portfolio manager, and Mike Novogratz of Galaxy Digital.
Both of these prominent Bitcoin analysts have asserted in recent interviews that they believe that the leading cryptocurrency will top $20,000 and hit a new all-time high by late-2020/early-2021.
Per previous reports from NewsBTC, Mike Novogratz, a former Goldman Sachs partner, said on CNN earlier this year that he expects BTC to hit $20,000 by early-2021 at the latest. Travis Kling echoed this, telling Yahoo Finance viewers that by early-2021, BTC islikely to have surmounted its previous all-time high and established a new one.
Why Will Bitcoin Top $20,000? Well, why do these top investors think that this will take place?
The reasons vary, so here are a few.
Institutional involvement: In August, Novogratz said that institutional involvement will help push the price of the leading cryptocurrency higher after a consolidation between $8,500 and $14,000. The Galaxy Digital CEO’s long-held thesis is that institutions, coupled with solution providers like Bakkt, will bring a mass influx of capital into Bitcoin markets that were not seen before.
Positive macro backdrop: Novogratz also thinks that trends in the macroeconomy will support Bitcoin. He specifically cited negative interest rates, geopolitical unrest, and mistrust in centralized systems.
Halving: Next year, Bitcoin will see its block reward reduction, known as a halving. This will see the number of BTC issued per block be cut in half, acting as a negative supply shock to the market. Previous halvings have catalyzed bull runs in the past.
Lightning: Pundits like Tim Draper say that the adoption of Lightning Network and other Bitcoin-related applications will dramatically increase the value proposition of BTC, thus increasing its value due to higher demand.
LIGHTNING NETWORK NOW HOUSES OVER 3,000 BITCOIN The Bitcoin second-layer network now holds over 3,000 BTC in its more than 77,000 payment channels.
The Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s layer 2 scaling solution for fast and cheap bitcoin payments, now houses over 3,000 BTC in its more than 77,000 channels, according to data from TXStats.com. The network’s bitcoin capacity has more than doubled since June when it crossed the 1,500 BTC milestone.
Fueled by a growing awareness after El Salvador enacted the Bitcoin legal tender law, Lightning has been seeing a steep increase in activity in terms of channel number and bitcoin capacity. The number of BTC being held in Lightning channels has nearly tripled since the beginning of the year.
Lightning is a decentralized scaling solution built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain — hence the “layer 2” or “second-layer” naming — thereby making small and frequent transactions economically viable for users. The power of the Lightning Network lies in its ability to abide by the same rules as Bitcoin transactions while making payments cheap and quick.
A Lightning channel is created with a multisignature address in the network in which the two parties each hold a key, requiring both keys for moving funds. This scheme enables the two users in the channel to transact while preventing one user from stealing funds from the other.
Although improvements need to be made, Lightning is a powerful technology that enables Bitcoin to scale, debunking common but fallacious arguments from mainstream media. More importantly, Lightning makes it economically viable for human rights activists and citizens of developing countries to transact value daily in the best form of money humanity has ever known — bitcoin.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
