From Wednesday, January 5 to the present, Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a tight range of $45,000-$52,000, with relatively low volume in recent days.
According to CoinMarketCap, BTC price is currently trading near the bottom of that range at $46,425, up 0.3% over 24 hours and down 2.73% from last week.
1 day BTC price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Bitcoin's total market capitalization is $877 billion, with a market share of 39.3%.
Interestingly, renowned crypto trading analyst Michaël van de Poppe highlighted the $48,000 region as a key resistance level to be overcome. Van de Poppe asserts:
“The scenario remains the same, but we may have hit a bottom for Bitcoin. The thing to note is that the liquidity hasn't been brought below the bottom."
BTC/USDT chart. Source: Michael van de Poppe
Elsewhere, the founder of crypto lending company Nexo, Antoni Trenchev is one of a number of industry experts predicting that Bitcoin will hit the 6-digit mark this year. The $100,000 price target is the level many experts predicted the “king of coins” would reach by the end of 2021. However, this prediction was incorrect and has now become the implementation target for 2022.
“Every time investors in the community take Bitcoin lightly, the hottest coin in the world performs significantly better. This happened in 2020 when BTC increased by almost 1,000% and on top of that the 'king of coins' increased by 63% [in 2021]. I am quite bullish on Bitcoin. I think it will hit $100K this year, maybe mid-year.”
Trenchev believes that Bitcoin will surpass $100,000 by mid-2022 for two reasons:
“We see adoption still happening in institutions as they quietly build their coffers with Bitcoin. Also, when it comes to the broader topic of macroeconomics and inflation, in my opinion, at the moment this is very good for cryptocurrencies, dubbed the inflation hedge. development and gold 2.0.”
Indeed, the momentum has continued from 2021, when we see increased interest from institutional and retail investors. For example, on Monday, former First Lady Melania Trump celebrated Bitcoin's 1st anniversary. Melania Trump is about to introduce a non-fungible token (NFT) platform on the Solana blockchain. It is possible that the former First Lady's abrupt post about Bitcoin was an advertising ploy to draw attention to her NFT platform.
In recent days, the value of Ethereum has dropped below the $4,000 threshold, which is a milestone that Ether has managed to maintain for a long time. This cryptocurrency has increased by more than 1% in value at press time.
Meanwhile, the total capitalization of the crypto market is $2.23 trillion, up 0.3% from the previous day.
Cryptocurrency market cap 1-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
In the last 24 hours, the volume recorded $86.12 billion, down 20.39% from the previous day. DeFi is currently $15.23 billion, representing 17.69% of the total 24-hour volume in the crypto market, while the volume of all stablecoins is now $67.23 billion, representing 78.07%.
Last week, Coinbase product manager Surojit Chatterjee made 10 predictions about what will happen in the crypto industry in 2022. The predictions cover a wide range of crypto topics. , related to ETH scalability, zero-knowledge proof technology, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), and the metaverse.
Non-fungible tokens “will become the next evolution of the digital identity and passport for users of the metaverse,” the executive described, adding:
“User-generated metaverses will be the future of social networking and begin to threaten the centralized, ad-driven versions of social networks today.”
Chatterjee added:
“Brands will begin to actively participate in the metaverse and the NFT. NFTs and metaverses will become the new Instagram for brands.”
Furthermore, the director continued to mention:
“Web2 companies will wake up and will try to get into Web3… and the metaverse in 2022. However, many of them are capable of creating centralized and closed network versions of the metaverse.”
Regarding regulated DeFi and “the emergence of on-chain KYC,” the Coinbase product manager explained that “many DeFi protocols will include regulation and will create user pools.” Separate KYC.” Chatterjee commented:
“Institutions will play a much larger role in participating in DeFi [...] The growth of regulated DeFi and on-chain KYC validation will help institutions gain trust in DeFi.”
The Coinbase CEO further predicts that “Defi Insurance will emerge,” noting that “to protect users from attacks, viable insurance protocols secure user funds against viruses.” security breach will launch in 2022.”
The predictions also include Ethereum's scalability. The executive director said:
“Eth scalability will improve, but newer L1 chains will see significant growth. As we welcome the next hundred million users to crypto and Web3, scalability challenges for ETH are likely to increase.”
