The crypto industry’s face-slapping scene at the end of 2020: Whose market forecast was the most accurate last year?

This article is from cryptobriefing, original author: Conor Maloney

Odaily Planet Daily Translator | Moni

2020 will soon be over. For the cryptocurrency industry, this year can be described as ups and downs. The price of Bitcoin fell to the $3,000 range on "Black Thursday" on March 12 at the beginning of the year, and broke through $20,000 for the first time in history on December 16. The market has never seen such a large fluctuation, which also caught many people in the industry by surprise.

Back in late 2019, many cryptocurrency and blockchain industry “bigwigs” made predictions about the market and price trends in 2020. Now, a year later, which of these predictions were right? Which were wrong? Which were complete illusions?

Next, let’s review previous market predictions for cryptocurrencies in 2020 and see who holds the “crystal ball”.

1. Bram Cohen, Chia/BitTorrent

When predicting the direction of the cryptocurrency industry in 2019, BitTorrent./Chia founder Bram Cohen was very simple and straightforward. He only predicted one thing:

“Tether will become the third largest cryptocurrency by market cap.”

His prediction was spot on! Although Tether currently ranks fourth in the global cryptocurrency market cap ranking, it did climb to third place earlier this year, and judging by the current market trend, Tether seems very likely to return to third place.

Prediction score: Pass

2. Katherine Wu, Notation Capital

Katherine Wu, an investor at Notation Capital, was very bullish on the cryptocurrency market when she predicted last year:

“2020 will be a better year for the cryptocurrency industry to break out, and we’ll see more human-centric cryptocurrency trading interface designs.”

It is safe to say that with the release of products such as Status and PayPal's integration of cryptocurrency transactions, users are paying more and more attention to user interface design. In the past year, the cryptocurrency industry has indeed become more user-friendly. According to Katherine Wu's prediction in 2019, many non-crypto native designers may need to build products on decentralized Web alternatives, so they need better tools, and the relevant market demand has increased.

Predicted score: Pass

3. Ari Nazir, Neural Capital

Ari Nazir, managing partner of Neural Capital, said at the end of last year:

“Exchange tokens will become the strongest performing non-vaporware investment in the crypto space. Specifically, FTX will gain market share in the current exchange space and see its volume surge to become a top 5 crypto exchange by volume.”

It now appears that the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX has indeed performed well in the market in 2020, but at the time of writing, the exchange is ranked 28th in spot market trading volume and 6th in cryptocurrency derivatives trading volume. So, Ari Nazir's predictions were all wrong.

Prediction: Failure

4. Jacob Horne, Coinbase

Jacob Horne, product manager at Coinbase, also made some predictions about the market in 2019, some of which were quite accurate. He said:

“If 2018 was the year of stablecoins and 2019 was the year of DeFi, then I think 2020 will be the year of ‘crypto banks’ building consumer and institutional grade products.”

So, what about 2020? According to the latest guidance from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), national banks and federal savings associations can now hold reserves for stablecoin issuers. Specifically, stablecoin issuers can place assets in reserve accounts at national banks to ensure that the issuer has sufficient assets to support the stablecoin in the presence of a custodial wallet. For the reasons stated above, the OCC concluded that a national bank may hold such stablecoin "reserves" as a service to bank customers. So, Jacob Horne's prediction in this regard is accurate.

In addition, Jacob Horne also accurately estimated that the supply of stablecoin USDC will exceed $1 billion (it has exceeded $3 billion at the time of writing this article). However, Jacob Horne's predictions are not always accurate. For example, he estimated in 2019 that there will be 10,000 decentralized autonomous organizations in the cryptocurrency market, but currently only about 88 are active. However, he said that at least one decentralized autonomous organization will have an asset management value of more than $10 million.

Predicted results: Half and half

5. Joey Krug, Pantera Capital

Joey Krug’s prediction for the cryptocurrency market last year was: “By the end of 2020, people will be betting more than $2 million per week on Augur.”

But when it came to November 2020, Joey Krug spoke at a cryptocurrency briefing and said: "In the past few days, the daily trading volume on the Augur market has been approximately more than $1 million." Therefore, Joey Krug's words seemed to set the tone for his predictions in 2019.

Predicted result: Barely qualified

6. Charlie Noyes, Paradigm

Paradigm Venture Partner Charles Noyes predicted in 2019 that at least one decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) would be subject to a hostile takeover, and he also predicted that "by the end of 2020, at least one decentralized autonomous organization will be taken over by voters with clearly malicious collusion for a profit of more than $1 million."

Fortunately for the DAO community, this has not happened, at least so far.

Prediction: Failure

7. Nic Carter, Castle Island Ventures

When it comes to predicting the cryptocurrency market, Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures made a lot of statements in 2019, but all of his predictions were correct! What events did Nic Carter predict? They include:

1. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance will withdraw from Malta;

2. By 2020, stablecoins pegged to fiat currencies will face “considerable regulatory scrutiny”;

3. The SEC will win its lawsuit against Kik, but the incident will not lead to "dozens of similar tokens being delisted or liquidated", of course, the Kin token was also spared;

4. A mainstream cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S. market will launch a proof of reserve agreement for users, but it is unlikely to be passed soon.

Predicted score: Pass

8. Dani Grant, Union Square Ventures

Union Square Ventures analyst Dani Grant predicted last year that "someone will build and launch a breakthrough crypto consumer product." But getting there can be a little tricky - Dani Grant's advice is that the product should be "fun, social, and game-like." While we haven't seen such a product emerge yet, PayPal's announcement of integrated cryptocurrency trading is definitely a breakthrough "crypto consumer product."

Furthermore, Dani Grant also stated that with the launch of networks such as Polkadot, it will “attract a large number of people currently developing on Ethereum, and will also inspire an active ecosystem of developer tools and entirely new applications,” a prediction that is undoubtedly correct.

Dani Grant also made a "reliable" prediction that Bitcoin will still be the largest cryptocurrency by market value in 2020. Well, it can be said that Dani Grant has a complete grasp of what is going to happen in 2020.

Predicted score: Pass

9. The Winklevoss brothers

The founder of cryptocurrency exchange Gemini insists that the block reward halving will not affect Bitcoin pricing, so the event will definitely lead to a bull run.

Sure, 2020 was a bull run, but the problem is that the block reward halving likely didn’t play a big role in Bitcoin’s price action.

The Winklevoss brothers made a few other predictions last year, including:

1. NFTs (also known as “nifties”) will become one of the most exciting areas in crypto and bring new excitement to mainstream use cases;

2. Opportunities for unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges will gradually shrink globally, while for licensed cryptocurrency exchanges, business will continue to grow;

3. China will launch its own stablecoin, which will be a boon to the entire cryptocurrency industry and even beneficial to decentralized cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

While the overall market performance has not been as impressive, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have indeed attracted people's interest. However, China has not yet completed the initial trial period of the digital yuan, and the official launch date has not yet been determined (it may be more than a year), so the Winklevoss brothers' predictions are not the best.

Predicted results: Half and half

10. Su Zhu, Three Arrow Capital

Su Zhu of Three Arrow Capital made two predictions that now seem quite shocking:

1. Bitcoin will break its historical record sometime in 2020.

2. With the addition of Bitcoin to decentralized finance (DeFi), coupled with the increasing average transaction fees on the network, Bitcoin transactions on sidechains (such as Ethereum, Liquid, etc.) will gain greater traction. "

However, some of Su Zhu’s predictions were not accurate, for example: Bitcoin options trading volume will increase "10x to 100x as CME and Bakkt’s options products bring substantial institutional interest and liquidity." This prediction did not come true in 2020 and may not be realized until 2021.

Predicted results: Half and half

11. Johnny Dilley, Mempool Partners

Johnny Dilley, founder of Mempool Partners, predicts that by 2020, “everyone is ignoring the Bitcoin block reward halving time, but before the block reward halving, more people may enter the market, stimulating increased volatility in the cryptocurrency market.”

Of course, this prediction did not come to pass. While the Bitcoin block reward halving attracted a lot of attention in the months and weeks leading up to the event, the price of Bitcoin remained flat during the halving and in the months that followed.

Prediction: Failure

Ending 2020 and looking forward to 2021

Predicting various outcomes for the chaotic industry of cryptocurrency is often a folly, and those on this list who have been accurate deserve close attention as we usher in a new year. So now the question is: do you dare to make a bolder, more ambitious 2021 cryptocurrency market prediction?

Don’t forget, in the world of cryptocurrency, anything is possible!