Crypto assets have plummeted in 2022, losing more than $1 trillion in market value as investors flee the risk assets. While this trend slightly continues, crypto players are beginning to lose confidence, and others leaving the market and refocusing on a different venture.

Experts say many of the over 19,000 digital coins and blockchain platforms in existence today will disappear and fall out soon. 

In an interview monitored by TechEconomy, Bertrand Perez, CEO of the Web3 Foundation, told CNBC that one of the effects of what the world has seen last week with the Terra issue is – “we’re at the stage where basically there are far too many blockchains out there, too many tokens. And that’s confusing users. And that’s also bringing some risks for the users. 

“Like at the beginning of the internet, you were having lots of dotcom companies and lots of them were scams and were not bringing any value, and all that got cleared. And now we have very useful and legit companies.”

Experts are concerned that the number of digital coins is just too much when compared to the number of fiat currencies which is around 180. Coins such as Bitcoin, and Ethereum will continue to exist while many of the junk coins die a natural death. 

Digital coins like Shiba Inu which appears to be recovering from the market crash are not out of the woods yet. There are still many threats surrounding this coin that could turn it into the next Luna.

“Things are not looking good for the meme coin Shiba Inu, with our panel expecting it to be worth US$0.000018750 by the end of 2022.

This would mark a 7.6% drop in its value from its current price of US$0.00002029,” Analytics Insight said in its latest price prediction report, originally published on May 10.

The report further said that its group of 36 experts expected Shiba Inu’s value to “plummet” and close at US$0.000002500 in 2025 and US$0.000000325 by 2030-end.

To be sure, Finder’s values don’t predict if the token can see a surge in-between, which means that short-term traders may still make profits as it falls to zero.

According to crypto experts, Shiba Inu is almost in the same category as Luna.

They are projects that have not been built on a solid product. They have no real use cases. The biggest challenge for the Shiba Inu project is the lack of usability. This is because Shiba Inu started as a meme currency and built its huge market cap based on hype and not on a real product.

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No cryptocurrency investor will forget in a hurry how the market tumbled on Monday, May 9, 2022. Out of over 10,000 digital currencies in the world, major coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc., lost over $1 trillion in value, TechEconomy gathered from Binance, the largest crypto-exchange platform, on Monday. 

Cryptocurrencies, which are still very much in their early stages, are volatile with no intrinsic value and are primarily driven based on market speculation and narratives. The overall market including stocks noticed the high correlation between Bitcoin prices and the general equities markets.

Bitcoin, which is known to be the leading digital currency, started Monday on a weak note, trading at $30,900, down nearly 19% over the last week. This is Bitcoin’s lowest point since July 2021.

Some of the cryptocurrencies that dipped include: COIN -19%, MSTR -25%, BTC -12.5% (since Friday close), ETH -14% (same), LUNA -35% (same). This is the same fate the commodity market suffered. Stocks such as Nasdaq -4%, TLT +1%, Gold -2%, Oil -7%, NatGas -12%, URA -8%, Soyb -2%, VNQ -4%, ARKK -10% all recorded massive dip within the same period.

“The S&P 500 and NASDAQ have had the largest correlations to Bitcoin with 0.88% and 0.91%, respectively. A correlation of one means that they move equally one to the other,” says Armando Aguilar, head of alternative strategies and research for Ledn, a digital asset savings and credit platform. 

“The S&P 500 and NASDAQ have had the largest correlations to Bitcoin with 0.88% and 0.91%, respectively. A correlation of one means that they move equally one to the other.”

In a market analysis obtained by TechEconomy, Edward Moya, senior market analyst at foreign-exchange brokerage Oanda, noted that institutional investors are paying close attention to bitcoin as many who got in last year are now losing money on their investment,”

“If the USD 30,000 level breaks, that could trigger a flash crash environment if several whales unload.”

Preparing For Unforeseen Circumstances 

Surviving in the crypto market requires investors and traders to have tested and proven strategies while being proactive at the same time. When big companies like Facebook, Google, or Microsoft make positive or negative announcements that affect the crypto market, it shouldn’t be ignored. 

Recall that Google had banned cryptocurrency advertising on its platform, which is expected to kick off in June. Some market watchers have attributed this to one of the reasons a massive dip was recorded in the market. 

Scott Spencer, Google’s director of sustainable ads, said the ban was necessary to protect consumers from being scammed: “We don’t have a crystal ball to know where the future is going to go with cryptocurrencies, but we’ve seen enough consumer harm or potential for consumer harm that it’s an area that we want to approach with extreme caution.”

Clearly, nobody knows what exactly the future of cryptocurrency holds. However, caution must be applied while trading the market. Caution implies knowing when to buy when to sell, and understanding market trends, indicators, and technical analysis. 

Chris Ani, one of Nigeria’s cryptocurrency evangelists, in a free webinar observed by TechEconomy hinted that the market was expected to nosedive. 

He reiterated that knowledge will always remain the most critical asset in the crypto market. Ani noted on the sidelines that many Nigerians are always bent on making the money from the market without having the requisite knowledge to understand the trends, intricacies, and technicalities of the market. 

Market Optimism – Will Major Coins Like Bitcoin Rise Again?

Will this be the beginning of the end? Many market watchers and investors will be pondering. What happens anytime there is a dip in the crypto market in developing countries like Nigeria, especially from anti-crypto crusaders, is – there will be too much negative narrative. 

One thing all experts across various industries have agreed on is that investing in digital currencies is highly speculative and no one should invest money they cannot afford to lose. 

Stefan Hofrichter, head of global economics and strategy at Allianz, said the media hype surrounding crypto will continue for some time, but he’s still convinced it’ll all come crashing down.

In a lengthy blog post, Hofrichter said bitcoin mania exhibits all the classic signs of a bubble that’s about to burst. 

“It appears to us that bitcoin mania is a textbook-like bubble – and one that is probably just about to burst. As a currency and asset class, bitcoin has potentially fatal flaws – which is why we believe it’s a matter of when, not if, the bitcoin bubble will pop. Its trajectory resembles a textbook case of a financial-market bubble, and it is lacking several key qualities that would qualify it as a currency. “

The good thing about a bitcoin bubble bursting, says Hofrichter, is that it won’t have much effect on the “real world” because it’s still a relatively small asset class 

“Bitcoin’s demise would have few spillover effects on the ‘real world,’ since the market for this cryptocurrency is still quite small in size,” Hofrichter reasoned. “As a result, we believe that the risks to financial stability stemming from bitcoin are negligible – at least as off holds.

The post <strong>Investors In Panic As Crypto Market Loses Over $1 Trillion [Experts’ Insights]</strong> appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Finder’s panel of fintech and cryptocurrency specialists believe ETH will peak at $6,872 on average in 2022 — about $2,000 more than its previous ATH of roughly $4,900 — before dropping to $5,783 by the end of the year.

Technologist and futurist at Thomson Reuters, Joseph Raczynski, gave one of the most bullish projections for ETH’s end-of-year value expecting it to reach $8,000, with “the Merge” playing a large role in its spike. 

“The Merge, an upgrade to Ethereum, should happen this summer. This could have an explosive effect on the token. People have been waiting for this for years. It should be far more secure, 99% more energy-efficient, and deflationary. If that isn’t the trifecta of potential, as a leading blockchain, I don’t know what would be.”

He’s not alone in his view, with 35% of panelists saying ETH’s deflationary mechanism will have the strongest positive impact on price following the Merge. 

Meanwhile, 29% say ETH’s low energy consumption will have the strongest impact on price, and 16% ETH’s higher transactions per second. 

Asher Tan CoinJar CEO is also bullish on ETH’s forecast, expecting the coin to peak at $8,500 this year before skyrocketing to $35,000 by 2030. 

He’s also part of the 31% of panelists who think ETH will experience a supply shock if no new newly minted Ether enters circulation between the Merge and Shanghai Upgrade. 

“The Merge is one of the biggest and most important events in crypto’s history – and one with the capacity to deliver an almighty supply shock to the system,” Tan said. 

However, global cryptocurrency editor at Finder, Keegan Francis, says Ethereum is in a very uncertain place and thinks Ethereum will close 2022 at $5,000 and be worth $10,000 by 2030.

“Until Ethereum upgrades its systems and fulfills its promises to scale, I do not have long term confidence in the network. That being said, I still think people will buy the token out of hype/promise/potential. I don’t think ETH will be the #2 asset forever though.”

Boston Trading Co CFO Jeremy Britton agrees and expects SOL, MATIC, and others to eventually surpass ETH. 

Professor of Finance at the University of Sussex, Carol Alexander, is bullish on ETH’s short term future, but expects ETH to be worth virtually nothing by the end of the decade. 

“ETH will be more important as De-Fi grows, but eventually by the end of this decade will go the same way as all traditional blockchain native tokens as the new Internet of things technology develops – think IOTA tangle,” she said. 

Overall 61% say it’s time to buy ETH, 32% say it’s time to hold, and just 6% say it’s time to sell. 

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