Fred Wilson's 2019 outlook – Crypto will enter new bullish wave after seeing bottom
Venture capital investor, Fred Wilson starts the new year by posting his prediction on what’s going to happen in 2019 on his website.
His prediction covers many aspects from politics, global economy, stock market, tech business, including cryptocurrency, quoting what he said, “Any set of predictions for 2019 from me on this blog would not be complete without some thoughts on crypto.”
He started by predicting the fall of President Trump due to the reaction of the House towards the report of Robert Muller about his illegal activities.
The “Washington drama” somehow will impact the US economy severely, starting with the capital markets to interest rates, which results in a weaker economy.
That said, the man behind various Web 2.0 investment, such as Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Kickstarter and MongoDB is convinced that the crisis will not be experienced by the startup/tech economy.
Wilson believes the macro trend will not impact the startup/tech economy as it’s driven first and foremost by technical and creative innovation.
As for the crypto industry, he said, “I think we are in the process of finding the bottom on the large, liquid, and lasting crypto-tokens. But I think that process could take much of 2019 to play out.”
Furthermore, he added, “I expect we will see some bullish runs, followed by selling pressures taking us back to retest the lows. I think this bottoming out process will end sometime in 2019 and we will slowly enter a new bullish phase in crypto.”
Wilson thinks the next bullish phase is triggered by the fulfilment of promises of some projects from 2017, such as Filecoin and the Algorand project.
He also mentioned his expectation to see a number of “next gen” smart contract platforms that will challenge Ethereum, followed by Ethereum’s defending its leadership through a number of important system improvements.
Aside from that, the Union Square Ventures co-founder expects to see a wider adoption of cryptocurrency, particularly in developing countries through stablecoins, NFT/cryptoassets/cryptogaming, and earn/spending opportunities.
Having such bullish predictions towards crypto industry, Wilson stated that he still has some concerns about it, particularly related to the actions of “misguided regulators” that will “harm” high quality projects.
Moreover, the dark side of crypto, such as scams, failed projects, and losing investments will still exist in 2019, which he said, they could be “a drag on the sector.”
However, he also mentioned that it’s always the case with new emerging technology that allows anyone to set up shop and get going.
“Permissionless innovation produces the greatest gains over time but also comes with the inevitable bad actors and actions,” he said.
“Do I sound pessimistic? I suspect I do, but I am not. I am incredibly optimistic… It is going to be a doozy,” he closed his 2019 prediction.
02 JAN, 2019 | UPDATED: 02 JAN, 2019 BY FIFI ARISANDI
David