For the news headlines in the financial sphere mainly hint at a potential Bitcoin appreciation that could push the behemoth to the $80K threshold and the heavyweight Visa receiving increasingly more attention due to its vulnerability in the face of stablecoins, you may want to know more about these two hypothetical scenarios that some pundits place large bets on. Recently, more predictions from pundits, companies, tech developments like ChatGPT, and other tools and entities have focused on Bitcoin and its impressively better performance over the past few weeks. It seems like now’s the time to learn how to purchase Bitcoin and put this knowledge into practice if you’ve been postponing the perfect moment to invest in it.
As you may already know, it succeeded in gaining more than 60% from the beginning of the year, cementing its position as the strongest crypto since its appearance. Furthermore, the crypto space is alive and humming, given all the developments, approvals, events, and other awaited news, keeping the most enthusiastic investors on the edge of their seats.
While Bitcoin is forecast to reach a new ATH positioned at $80,000, Visa, the largest payment processing company worldwide, doesn’t have the odds in its favor if we compare their settlement volumes. More battles are worn in the dynamic crypto sphere, and looking at how deeply external factors like the performances of the giant behemoths in the financial sector are influencing the behavior of cryptocurrency, it’s only logical to seek a rundown of the latest occurrences and predictions making the most sense based on real-world data.
Stablecoins are Coming After Visa and Mastercard
According to a recent analysis from Coinpage, a dedicated news provider monitoring financial markets with a focus on crypto, the global stablecoin market is growing impressively fast at the moment. Soon, it might have an irreversible effect on the settlement industry worldwide, having already exceeded a remarkable threshold of $7 trillion. In comparison, Mastercard and Visa have registered a settlement worth $14 trillion during a more extended period in which they’ve reigned over other payment solution providers.
Other research, such as a recent piece from Cointelegraph, suggests that Visa managed payments worth over $9 trillion in the Q3 of this year, weighing hard between other cohorts together with which they amounted for around 90% of the payments processed worldwide.
At the same time, stablecoins’ trading volume rose astonishingly to 60% of the total amassed by the payment provider, at $5 trillion. If the trend follows suit, stablecoins exceeding Visa might become a matter of “when” instead of “if.”
Financial Services Using Blockchain to Enter The Global Stage
Blockchain-based financial solutions have been gaining traction for a while, given companies’ openness to newness and tech evolution. Circle, the USD stablecoin’s issuer, has indicated that the blockchain infrastructure will soon reach an expansion level where it will become a crucial player in global economic activity, with a preponderance to Latin America. Billions of people and millions of enterprises are looking to the in-development blockchain solutions for payment, saving, and crediting to reduce the gaps in the financial system and improve accessibility and exposure to those existing services. According to the issuer, the transition toward a blockchain-based financial service ecosystem is imminent and approaching with the speed of light.
Given its critical role in this shift, Latin America makes a particular case, having residents provided $562BN in cryptocurrency over 2021-2022. This increase is attributed to the value proposition of extended access, explicitly focusing on the 1.7BN underbanked smartphone owners globally. Out of this fabulous number of individuals lacking access to banking services but owning a mobile device registered two years ago, a considerable portion holds a minimal knowledge base regarding banking.
Blockchain-based financial solutions adopted on a larger scale might disrupt the conventional financial system and change how bureaucracy is perceived.
Optimistic Forecasts Hint At $80,000 For BTC Thanks To The Two’s Quiet Conquest
The same year that the stablecoins industry will jointly amass more wealth than the payment behemoths mentioned above, Bitcoin could inch towards a $80,000 price, according to a senior analyst from Bitwise, a crypto payment processor. A recently uploaded post on the X platform (ex-Twitter) suggests that one of the subsequent year’s primary and most pertinent predictions relates to Bitcoin’s achievement of a new ATH. The highest price registered by the poster child in the crypto world surpassed $61,000. It was recorded in November two years ago, solidifying the hypothesis that November and December are good months for the crypto sector.
Similarly, stablecoins are the subject of numerous other forecasts, being considered to settle a higher volume than the payment system behemoths. The dollar and other digital tokens backed by such assets could transform into some of the best-performing cryptocurrencies. Gold is another asset that stablecoins use as a reference asset. Thus, stablecoins will keep ranking among the safest digital assets for the foreseeable future.
Other Awaited Bitcoin-Related Events Sustain The Enumerated Suppositions
As you may have heard, 2024 marks another milestone for Bitcoin, influencing more than just the miners behind the creation of assets. The miner reward halving scheduled to occur in April of the following year is impatiently awaited by the larger crypto community as many hold high hopes that the results obtained after the last halving event will reoccur.
The last halving event took place in March 2020, and the price of the asset rose to unprecedented levels over the subsequent months. The amount of wealth offered miners for their work in the BTC system drops in half with every similar event, taking place every four years, and maintaining the scarcity and inflationary properties of the asset as the creator of Bitcoin intended.
The upcoming halving is expected to benefit the token’s price, all the more since around that time, the first spot BTC ETF might have already broken into the market.
What About The Postponed Spot BTC ETF Announcement?
Here is probably the main element that encourages the crypto community to believe in a new ATH registered in 2024: the arrival of the first spot BTC ETF. The SEC has been deciding whether to allow companies to issue such investment tools for a while, but now, a positive conclusion seems more probable than ever.
Just as more people were drawn by investments in gold when the first ETF of the kind hit the market, Bitcoin pundits believe the king of crypto will similarly attract more capital. Thus, its value might rise together with its mainstreamness as demand increases and exceeds the supply potential.
As you can see, impactful events are on the radar for the crypto world, so keep an eye on the forthcoming events to find out where each behemoth is headed.
