By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 16th, 2024
Though some optimists still hope for the bright future for cryptos, Ethereum co-founder believes that we won’t see 1000x Growth again.
While a lot of experts are arguing about potential ways of development of the crypto market, trying to forecasts the coins’ prices, some of them believe that the best days for cryptocurrencies have already gone.
Giving an interview at the Ethereum Industry Summit conference in Hong Kong, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, said:
“The blockchain space is getting to the point where there’s a ceiling in sight. If you talk to the average educated person at this point, they probably have heard of blockchain at least once. There isn’t an opportunity for yet another 1,000-times growth in anything in the space anymore.”
According to Buterin, last year, people’s awareness on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology was growing rapidly and achieved its highest level in December, while major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash were traded for their record prices and showed 10 to 300-fold returns.
Ethereum co-founder said that the development of the cryptocurrency market during its first six or seven years of existence was greatly attributed to the efforts of the blockchain community to achieve wider adoption. But now the issue of adoption has ceased to be a priority.
It is believed that, in the upcoming years, the industry will implement another strategy that won’t be focused on promotion and attracting new participants to the market. This new strategy will be aimed at enhancing the usability and facilitating the access to decentralized systems. Buterin believes that for the community real applications of real economic activity will be much more valuable than just interested people.
Though Buterin’s opinion is highly appreciated in the crypto community, some other experts have an opposite opinion. As for example, Jehan Chu who is a managing partner at Kenetic Capital, blockchain investment and advisory company, stated that there is still a chance for cryptocurrencies to grow. According to him, “there are deep reservoirs of value just waiting for the right trigger”.
As for ETH, it has lost over 85% from January when it was traded for its highest price in the current year. At the press time, it is traded for $197.34 as it is informed by CoinMarkerCap. ETH is widely applied for carrying out transactions on dApps that are built on the Ethereum network.
Despite their leading positions even such major cryptocurrencies as BTC and ETH are significantly influenced by various external factors. For example, these cryptos experienced another wave of decline after the news that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is going to postpone its plans to launch a crypto trading desk.
Commenting these changes in prices, Buterin stated that he is not certain about his opinion about institutional trading of cryptocurrencies. “Ultimately if all that cryptocurrency is, is this thing that millionaires keep buying and selling to each other, then what have we really accomplished?”, he said.
It is predicted that ETH may loss even more and fall down to the level of $155. Nevertheless, its current price still reflects a 2,000% advance if compared with the sum that it was traded for in the end of 2016.