5 major events worth looking forward to in the second half of 2019

For the currency investors, 2018 is a disastrous year. After the bull market in 2017 soared, “all in the blockchain” was everywhere, and unfortunately, after hitting a record high in January 2018, the price of the currency quickly fell to a low point, and the price of many coins fell as much as possible. above 95. In the past year, the media has announced that bitcoin has died more than 100 times.

Fortunately, the Bitcoin market began to warm up, many people missed the best boarding time, and they were asking if they would call back. Let's just say, the short-term market is unpredictable. Those who are arrogant and judged how to go tomorrow and next week are all gods, but in the long run, the market trend has begun to become clear, especially in the second half of the year. .

The launch of Bakkt

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Bakkt is one of the most discussed and promising projects in the currency circle. Bakkt wants to do a full range of cryptocurrency platforms. Users can not only trade cryptocurrencies and assets, but also use them for real consumption.

The platform was created by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) parent company Intercontinental Exchange and was created in collaboration with Microsoft and Starbucks, with a number of important organizations and individuals involved. The participation of Starbucks is significant because most of the payments in the US are now done through Starbucks apps, even more than Apple Pay. Bitcoin payments are made by customers through Starbucks Bakkt payment software installed in their stores.

In addition, the canonical trading on a transparent platform and the solutions it provides to traders have caught the attention of many large institutional investors, which could make a dramatic change in the market. Unfortunately, the launch of the platform has been postponed twice because more time is needed to streamline the customer registration process and obtain approval from the US government. However, many authoritative experts in the industry said that this situation will not last long.

Passing the Bitcoin ETF

Although Bakkt is ready to go public, it is still unclear when the first ETFs will be approved. A trading open-ended index fund (ETF) is a so-called “index tracking tool” that tracks the official price of an asset without the owner having to hold real bitcoin, and the investor buys and sells an ETF. It is equivalent to buying and selling the index it tracks, and you can get the benefits that are basically consistent with the index.

ETFs enable investors to easily trade Bitcoin without having Bitcoin . This provides a solution for many investors because they don't want to have some security issues and unnecessary hassles when buying Bitcoin.

It is expected that after the approval of the first ETF, there will be a large influx of institutional investors who have a large amount of money to invest. People often compare it to the first batch of gold ETFs . After the first batch of gold ETFs came out, their prices skyrocketed.

There have been dozens of proposals for ETFs, but they have all been rejected by the US Securities and Exchange Commission because they believe that the market has not been fully regulated and developed. According to the SEC, there is still not enough evidence to prove the size and quantity of the market, and the possibility of manipulation and fraud.

At present, the most likely to succeed is Van Eck's ETF application, which is known for its gold ETF . Unfortunately, the decision on this application has been postponed several times. Due to the lack of practical solutions to combat fraud, many experts expect that the bill will not be approved in 2019. This will be a pity, because the approval of the ETF will happen to be the “approval seal” that many institutional investors are waiting to invest in cryptocurrencies.

Institutional wave

In addition to Bakkt and ETF, there are many other projects that can help institutional funds flood into the currency circle. This is one of the most important advances in terms of market confidence and price impact. Many companies are eager to invest in cryptocurrencies, but they are hesitant because of the lack of proper infrastructure and regulation.

Various ETF-like products have been very active. BinckBank offers bitcoin ETN, the Swiss stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange approved for listing cryptocurrency exchange trading products (ETP) allows investors to hold a basket of various combinations of cryptocurrencies.

In the next few years, the largest companies in the global financial market are also expected to launch a variety of encryption platforms. For example, Fidelity , one of the world's largest asset management companies , will begin offering its services in early 2019, allowing large investors to invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. NASDAQ will also provide bitcoin futures.

Germany's second-largest exchange, the Stuttgart Stock Exchange and ErisX, are also expected to begin offering services this year, enabling institutional investors to trade cryptocurrencies .

Breakthrough on the project

A positive aspect of the plunge in the currency last year was self-purification. Almost all predictions determine that 90-95% of projects will fail. The so-called "death" items, which show at least one of the following characteristics, are marked as "dead": "Abandoned, deceived, dead on the site, no nodes, wallet issues, no social updates, There is a weak feeling or the developer has left the project."

According to the Deadcoins website, more than 1,000 cryptocurrency items have been “dead”.

The bear market is a screening machine, and fraud and junk projects are washed away, which is vital to the industry. Projects that have survived the “survival of the fittest” in the bear market have been working hard to develop the products they promised over the past year. Therefore, it is expected that there will be many technological breakthroughs in the coming year, which of course will have a positive impact on the long-term market.

Regulatory and compliance

The rapid emergence of cryptocurrencies has led the government to lag far behind in regulation. Fraud has and will continue to occur in a variety of ways, and there are still things that need to be banned and punished in daily regular transactions.

This is why some governments have banned such transactions. We urgently need good regulation to make the market more reliable, stable and enable it to realize the true potential of the blockchain. All relevant departments are working hard to establish a set of rules and regulations framework as soon as possible.

For example, the Group of Seven (G7) Financial Action Task Force on Anti-Money Laundering (FATF) will issue guidelines in June this year, and people have high hopes for it. The US government has prepared several proposed frameworks for publication.

At home, we can see that due to the non-compliance of the exchange, many problems, such as the huge risk of over-the-counter trading, are often encountered by investors in my community on over-the-counter trading on the exchange platform. The receipt of black money caused the bank card to be frozen. As long as the exchange is not compliant, these many risks will always accompany us.

to sum up

It can be seen that there are still many major positives in the second half of this year that may be released. Looking around, I have seen positive emotions very clearly among many investors and experts, and I am full of expectations for the future of the currency circle. I wish everyone can realize their wealth aspirations in the currency circle, and at the same time remind everyone that we should never ignore the existence of risks.

Original source: Medium

Compilation: Xiaoyan

Source: Block wave

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