Market participants, including traders, investors and regulators, have been watching cryptocurrencies getting more and more popular over the last few years. Some experts say that central banks will start regulating digital currencies at some point in the near future.
According to the analysts working for Pro Finance Service, Bitcoin has already gone up in value by 740% over the past 12 months and by a stunning 1600% over the past 24 months. History shows that sooner or later the governments gain control over everything that the private sector comes up with. Most likely, this is something that the global market of digital currencies will have to face further down the road.
While some experts call Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies a big market bubble, others call them one of the greatest innovations of modern times, with really considerable investment potential. Chances are, people will get used to the technology and let it inside many economic sectors and fields of their lives. However, in this case, Bitcoin may lose most of its value.
NordFX experts report that Bitcoin set another all-time high at $6200 the other day. And even though it’s currently trading well below this area, the market bias still seems to be bullish. Anyways, 1BTC is currently 3 times as expensive as an ounce of gold! Many experts believe that Bitcoin is yet to set new price highs in the coming years.
Governments Will Determine the Future of Cryptocurrencies
While market participants don’t know how to treat Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and are trying to get used to them, the fate of cryptocurrencies is being decided by governments behind the closed doors. They are also trying to figure out the best way to approach digital currencies. Apparently, this is something new to both central banks and politicians. Since the scale of the cryptocurrency market and the pace at which it has been growing so far is really impressive, they have to come up with a well-though-out approach to the market.
Chances are, no government is going to put up with anonymous payment systems that make tax evasion and illegal transactions a piece of cake. In theory, central banks may join the club and start their own cryptocurrencies to make rival to conventional ones like Bitcoin. That’s one of the key reasons why this is definitely going to impact the entire financial world in the future, whether Bitcoin’s peers succeed or fail.
However, it will be rather difficult to question the leadership of Bitcoin, the world’s first and biggest cryptocurrency to date. At the same time, the legal side of the matter, as well as the way international governments treat digital currencies, is still ambiguous. For example, China has banned Bitcoin exchanges to prevent Chinese from evading taxes and withdrawing their capital abroad through Bitcoin and other digital currencies. On the contrary, Japan has legalized Bitcoin. Most probably, Japan is trying to become a fin-tech center.
As for the USA, the U.S. government is said to be trying to follow in Japan’s footsteps when it comes to regulating the sector, but the chances of Washington making the same decision are still rather low. Still, Bitcoin doesn’t have to win each and every battle to win the entire war. The very fact that the world’s third biggest economy (Japan) has approved Bitcoin is a major victory itself.
By the way, the Silicon Valley is rumored to be investing heavily in cryptocurrencies and related technologies. Experts say, it’s all about cyber security. The technologies the digital currencies are based on can really take cyber security to the next level, they say.
At the same time, more and more developers want to oust the U.S. Dollar from the position of the world’s most significant reserve currency and replace it with cryptocurrencies.
On the other hand, there is no reason to expect Bitcoin to replace conventional payment means emitted by central banks. From the standpoint of governments, a limited amount of anonymous transactions may seem acceptable. However, legalizing a big-scale system of anonymous payments is a completely different story.
