Inglorious collapse
With banks and social media platforms banning the cryptocurrency, it does appear that bitcoin has overstayed its welcome.
Stammers thinks this is all heading “toward an inglorious collapse”.
“The whole cryptocurrency thing was, and is, built on sand,” he adds. “A few people who mined at the beginning may have made their fortunes. In fairness, some of those jumped on the bandwagon – even if they didn’t really know what they were buying.
“There is no underlying valuation methodology for it so its not an investment. It’s a bet. Speculation pure and simple – and some will get very rich while others get very poor.”
Robertson adds that while innovation in financial services is to be welcomed, “this is an incredibly dangerous area for the initiated as well as the unwise”.
“It is not a mainstream investment opportunity for many and the potential for loss through fraud, market manipulation, heist etc, just make it incredibly dangerous,” he says.
Demand will skyrocket
However, despite all the alarm bells and cryptocurrencies tanking over the last month, Nigel Green, chief executive officer of deVere Group believes that demand for them will “sky rocket” in the next 12 months.
In light of his predictions, deVere Group launched deVere Crypto, a cryptocurrency app which allows users to store, transfer and exchange currently three major cryptocurrencies, namely bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin. The firm said it expects to add more cryptocurrencies.
Green said: “Bitcoin – the world’s highest profile and largest by market-cap cryptocurrency – slumped by 30% last week. There’s increasing scrutiny of the market by governments around the world, plus enhanced regulation. Therefore, it is perhaps unsurprising that some have questioned the timing of the official launch of deVere Crypto.
“However, demand for cryptocurrencies is set to sky rocket in 2018 as more people get to know about them and use them, and as the interest of governments and businesses, and more regulation, demonstrate how the market is maturing and becoming ever-more mainstream.”
Green continued that while bitcoin will remain “highly volatile” over the next year and face pressure from rivals, “when it recovers from its current position”, the cryptocurrency could surge by 50 to 60%, “as many will jump in for fear of missing out for a second time”.
