Institutions pile in with predictions: Where is the 2024 crypto market headed?
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Institutions pile in with predictions: Where is the 2024 crypto market headed?
Long-silent institutions have begun to release their forecasts for next year, analyzing potential trends from the perspectives of price, market, applications, and regulation.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Tuoluo Finance
A year has passed in the blink of an eye. For the crypto market, although not as dramatic and volatile as last year, after a prolonged bear market lasting most of the year, there has finally been a bottoming-out rebound by year-end.
From an external perspective, tightening macroeconomic expectations have finally begun to ease, and upcoming rate cut speculation is stirring market sentiment. On the regulatory front, despite multiple major exchanges being sued by the SEC this year, the frenzy around spot ETFs remains unstoppable, with their price-supporting effects becoming evident—bolstering industry confidence in next year’s market. Internally, Bitcoin's halving event is arriving as scheduled, bringing bullish speculation ever closer.
It is clear that whether driven externally or through internal growth, 2024 appears poised to outperform 2023.
In response, long-silent institutions are now陆续 releasing their forecasts for next year, analyzing potential trends across price, markets, applications, and regulation.
01 ETFs and Price
VanEck: Over $2.4 billion is expected to flow into newly approved U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in Q1 2024, driving up Bitcoin’s price. Despite possible significant volatility, Bitcoin is unlikely to fall below $30,000 during Q1 2024.
We believe Bitcoin will reach an all-time high on November 9. If Bitcoin hits $100,000 by December, we predict Satoshi Nakamoto will be named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
Bitwise: Bitcoin outperformed all major asset classes in 2023, rising 128%, compared to 21% for the S&P 500, 12% for gold, and 2% for bonds. We expect this trend to continue into 2024, with Bitcoin surpassing $80,000 and setting a new record high.
Gemini: Within one year of spot Bitcoin ETF approval, Bitcoin’s price will rise by 123%. Based on historical relationships between gold holdings and returns, increased Bitcoin ownership following approval could drive significant price movements.
Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity Investments’ Global Macro Director: If the real yield on U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) remains at 2.5%, Bitcoin could reach $41,553 by 2025. If real yields drop to the -2% level seen in 2021, Bitcoin could surge by as much as 175%, reaching $96,210.
Matrixport: By January 2024, we expect the SEC to approve Bitcoin ETFs, with trading commencing in February or March. Our end-of-2023 target of $45,000, set on February 3, 2023, seemed ambitious then—Bitcoin was trading at $22,500—but now, as prices approach $40,000, it appears achievable.
Standard Chartered: The crypto spring has arrived. We forecast Bitcoin rising to $50,000 by end-2023, and have upgraded our end-2024 price target from $100,000 (predicted in April) to $120,000.
02 On the Halving
VanEck: The fourth Bitcoin halving will occur in April 2024, without a major fork. With new coin issuance halved, unprofitable miners will exit, ceding market share to those with low-cost electricity. Nevertheless, due to significantly improved balance sheets among publicly listed miners—who now control a record percentage (~25%) of global hash power—public markets will remain largely unaffected. After a brief consolidation period (a few days to weeks), during which the market absorbs additional selling pressure from exiting miners, Bitcoin will rise above $48,000—the neckline level of the head-and-shoulders pattern completed in April 2022. Overall, miner performance may lag pre-halving levels, but low-cost miners like CLSK and RIOT will stand out. Post-halving, we expect at least one publicly traded mining company to achieve tenfold growth by end-2024.
JPMorgan: Driven by the EIP-4844 upgrade and proto-danksharding, Ethereum will outperform Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in 2024. From a Bitcoin perspective, given that the current price-to-production-cost ratio is about 2x, the anticipated impact of the 2024 halving has already been largely priced in. Caution remains warranted for the broader crypto market over the coming year.
03 Market Outlook
VanEck: Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) will capture a record share of spot trading volume. Meanwhile, account-abstraction wallets enabling automated key payments will drive greater user activity on-chain and self-custody. As Bitcoin and Ethereum’s dominance may decline post-halving, long-tail assets are likely to see more pronounced growth, favoring DEXs actively listing new tokens.
Following its over $4 billion settlement with U.S. regulators, Binance will lose its position as the top centralized exchange by trading volume. OKX, Bybit, Coinbase, and Bitget will emerge as well-funded competitors vying for the top spot.
Solana will rank among the top three blockchains by market cap, total value locked (TVL), and active users. A surge of asset management firms filing for filings indicates Solana will enter the spot ETF race. As Solana’s market share grows, we believe Pyth Network—the Solana-based price oracle—will surpass Chainlink in Total Value Secured (TVS).
Bitwise: Over $100 million will be staked on prediction markets, making them a new large-scale application for crypto. Regarding Ethereum, users paid approximately $2.3 billion in fees to use the network in 2023. We expect this figure to at least double in 2024, positioning Ethereum as one of the fastest-growing large tech platforms globally.
Wall Street forecasts Coinbase revenue growing 9% year-on-year, from $2.8 billion to $3.1 billion. However, this outlook is overly conservative—we believe Coinbase’s revenue will double and exceed Wall Street expectations by at least tenfold.
Matrixport: Stablecoin issuer Circle may go public in April; while news of FTX’s rebranding might be announced in December 2023, we expect the relaunched exchange to begin operations in May or June 2024 and reclaim a top-three exchange ranking within 12 months.
04 On Applications
A16z: An increasing number of well-known brands are launching digital assets for mainstream consumers via NFTs. Entering 2024, the conditions are ripe for NFTs to become a standard form of digital brand assets.
Decentralized blockchains serve as a counterbalance to centralized AI. Currently, AI models (e.g., ChatGPT) can only be trained and operated by a handful of tech giants due to the immense computational power and training data required—prohibitive for smaller players. But through crypto, multi-party, global, permissionless markets can be created where anyone can contribute computing power or datasets to the network and get compensated. Leveraging this long tail of resources will lower AI costs and increase accessibility.
VanEck: At least one blockchain game will surpass one million daily active users, demonstrating the potential of on-chain gaming. As speculators return to crypto and flock to top NFT collections on Ethereum, enhanced crypto games, and new products in the Bitcoin ecosystem, monthly NFT trading volume will hit a record high.
Bitwise: RWA (Real World Assets) will spark a new wave—under pressure from Wall Street, JPMorgan will tokenize funds and bring them on-chain.
As AI advances, semi-autonomous AI assistants capable of performing specific tasks will emerge and begin adopting cryptocurrency as a medium for online payments.
NFTs will be used by globally beloved artist Taylor Swift to engage fans. Data shows Taylor Swift became Spotify’s most-streamed artist in 2023 with over 26 billion streams, and Spotify is exploring the use of specific NFTs as concert tickets.
Survey of founders or CEOs from 30 companies backed by CoinFund: The predicted ranking of fastest-growing sectors in 2024 is: 1) Web3 x AI; 2) ZK; 3) DeFi and consumer apps; 4) Gaming, Layer2s, and wallets; 5) RWA; 6) NFTs; 7) DePin; and services linking users from Web2 to Web3.
05 Stablecoin Takeoff?
Bitwise: Stablecoins represent one of crypto’s killer applications. Over the past four years, the market has grown from zero to $137 billion. As of Q3 2023, Visa processed over $9 trillion in payments, while stablecoin transaction volume exceeded $5 trillion. Given this trajectory, we anticipate even greater transaction volume and utility for stablecoins in 2024.
VanEck: The total value of stablecoins will reach a record high above $200 billion (currently $128 billion), with USDC replacing USDT as the dominant stablecoin.
06 Modularity and SNARKs
A16z: The rise of modular tech stacks—open-source and modular architectures unlock permissionless innovation, allow participants to specialize, and foster greater competition. As developers and security experts widely adopt tools inspired by formal methods, we can expect the next generation of smart contract protocols to be more robust and less vulnerable to costly hacks.
SNARKs will go mainstream, enabling cryptographically verifiable receipts for computational workloads generated by untrusted "provers" in a tamper-proof way. Previously, generating such receipts cost 10^9 times more than the original computation; recent progress has reduced this to around 10^6. Thus, SNARKs become feasible when the initial computing provider can absorb a 10^6 overhead and clients cannot re-execute or store the original data.
07 On Regulation
Ji Kim, General Counsel and Global Policy Head at the Digital Asset Council of Industry (CCI): One of the bigger stories in 2024 will be jurisdictions competing to become leading hubs for digital assets and the future financial system. Last year, we saw growing bipartisan support in Congress for establishing a regulatory framework to promote responsible crypto innovation. Overall, while the U.S. may be a few steps behind, global progress is underway—and it's increasingly a matter of when, not if, the U.S. will advance proactive crypto policy. Given the SEC’s ongoing judicial setbacks, the limitations of enforcement-driven regulation will become ever clearer over time.
Gillian Lynch, EU Head at Gemini: While views on crypto and blockchain technology remain divided, most agree the industry needs a regulatory framework centered on customer protection, balanced with clear and consistent rulebooks that ultimately foster innovation.
Stuart Alderoty, Chief Legal Officer at Ripple: The SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple is expected to conclude in 2024, but the SEC’s strategy of regulating via litigation will likely continue targeting other prominent industry figures. Courts will remain the final line of defense against SEC overreach, and the SEC may suffer defeats on key issues. Congress will reach a general consensus on crypto regulation but will struggle to determine the optimal approach.
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