Bitcoin price predictions

This is not investment advice, but just my personal opinion!

After China made it even harder for Bitcoin exchanges to do business the price dropped significantly today. Lots of people who don’t follow Bitcoin on a daily basis are probably afraid that this is the beginning of the end, but I completely disagree with that. This blog post gives some background on what I see happening in the market right now and where I think Bitcoin prices will go.

The past couple of days I was in New York City for the Bitcoin conference there (see here for coverage on Coindesk, day 1, day 2). It was a very different conference from the ones that I attended in Las Vegas (Dec. 2013) and Miami (Jan. 2014), because the audience were mainly people from the financial world and lawyers.

Bitcoin is growing up quickly and not everybody likes that. The Bitcoin pioneers love the cryptocurrency because they do not like the financial system and want a (semi-) anonymous currency. However, the recent months have shown that the financial system is slowly getting interested in Bitcoin and governments are starting to regulate it. That is something the early adaptors are not too happy with, but which is probably unstoppable.

A few pioneers who were at the conference were clearly not amused with what was said on stage in most of the panels and keynotes, and in a way I felt a bit sad for them. They truly believe in freedom without regulations, and they had not expected that Bitcoin would develop in the direction of a regulated asset. At least they probably got rich from the coins they mined or bought when prices were still at much lower levels.

I think regulations are a good thing if Bitcoin wants to become a global currency or a new asset class. At the Miami conference I already mentioned on stage that I think regulations are necessary in order to make Bitcoin big. Without it venture capitalists will be hesitant to invest in it and the financial institutions won’t touch it. I therefore think it’s positive that there is some more clarity on how Bitcoin will be treated and taxed by financial authorities. The downside is of course that people will need to pay taxes on their Bitcoin (capital gains tax), at least in the US.

Now that initial regulations are in place I think a new era of Bitcoin has started. The past 4 months have seen a gradual decline in Bitcoin prices, mainly due to the potential ban of Bitcoin in China, but also due to the non-stop flow of negative news about Bitcoin. A lot of the early entrepreneurs turned out to be frauds, crooks or criminals, and even some of the newer ones seem to be doing the same thing (unfortunately the CEO of the Cyprus Bitcoin bank NEO BEE seems to be the next example).