At the beginning of 2018, the situation on the crypto-currency market is not encouraging. Most assets lost almost half of their value in the first few weeks. Despite this, analysts are convinced that in the 2018 year in the long term, the situation for crypto currency will be very optimistic. Bitcoin is especially promising.
Bitcoin Scalability Improvements
In all the crypto-currencies, there was a significant decline during the first seven weeks of 2018. Despite the fact that this week Bitcoin showed a good momentum, by the weekend it again retreated. On the Internet, many people started talking about the bubble bursting. Nevertheless, there are many good reasons why we have excellent prospects.
Especially when it comes to Bitcoin. With the advent of new scaling solutions in the ecosystem, great progress will be made. So SegWit protocol is now included by default in the Bitcoin Core purse, which became more convenient for the network as a whole. The adoption speed has improved significantly, which significantly increases the chances of success of the Lightning Network. And although at the moment there is no official release date for the Lightning Network yet, it's a very successful application in the test network.
Recall that it is the scalability of the network caused an increase in the cost of transactions. At some point, the Bitcoin transaction cost more than 20 dollars. This is far from ideal, but the problem was actively solved. With SegWit and LN, large fees should eventually come to naught. But only time will tell if it works as people expect it to. Moreover, adding smart contracts to Bitcoin through Rootstock is something that can be expected in the near future, and this will undoubtedly give a new impetus.
Other crypto-currencies and ICO
However, crypto-currencies are more than just Bitcoin. Adoption of regulation throughout the industry will bring positive changes. If the industry is regulated, it is "checked" in the eyes of the general public. At the moment, we see that dozens of countries are engaged in the regulation of Bitcoin and other currencies. At this point, it seems, further regulation will help legitimize crypto-currencies and digital tokens moving forward.
Most people expected that institutional investors will have a big impact on crypto-currencies, via Bitcoin futures. So far, the initial interest in such futures has been rather limited. Despite the fact that the volume is gaining momentum, it remains to be seen whether institutional investors are really interested in crypto-currencies.
And last but not least: the elephant in the room is the ICO industry. For many people, it may seem that the ICO influences the drop in the Crypto-currency. But when the SEC will fight illegal projects, the situation will improve. All this comes down to more legitimate offers of coins in the future, and to which companies will use this model.
Author: Yevgeny Yakubenko, AnalystFreedman Club Crypto News
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