Analysts’ Share Their Views Of What’s in Store for Crypto in 2022

• Analysts have given their opinions on the path crypto will take in 2022, including Bitcoin price action and regulations.
• Red flags have been raised on NFTs, financial middlemen, and regulatory non-compliant projects.

This year, crypto markets have seen massive growth, and now that it’s end-year, analysts are giving their opinions of what 2022 could hold for the industry.

For one, many of these analysts expected a Bitcoin (BTC) price achievement of $100,000 or more by the end-year, including renowned analyst PlanB. At the moment though, this seems unlikely, with BTC trading at around $50,000. However, these commenters still harbor hope that such a feat could be attained or even surpassed this coming year.

Related: PlanB not concerned about Bitcoin’s short-term price expects $100,000 to $1 million in the long term

One of them is crypto analysts and pseudonymous Twitter user ‘DecodeJar.’ For a conservative projection, he gives the crypto king a price target of $190,000 and $250,000 for an extreme projection. These are based on Elliot Wave extensions and Fibonacci retracement levels.

“Projections of future price and time are only a guide, but combining this range with other indicators as we get closer, can allow for a clean exit near the top. I favor the more conservative end of the scale ~$190,000,” DecodeJar adds.

Expect tighter crypto regulation in 2022

As for the fate of the crypto industry in 2022, David Lifchitz of ExoAlpha thinks “crypto will still be around in 2022” since “governments won’t ban them.” He adds;

They want to regulate them to keep cryptos on a tight leash vs. fiat currencies and also see them as a source of taxable income to replenish their coffers,

Additionally, with the growth and evolution of the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector, banks and insurance companies will be forced to adapt to remain competitive. Meanwhile, “middle-man businesses are more at risk as they are made redundant by DeFi.”

Nevertheless, the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) space, according to Lifchitz, has “room for a parabolic price boom, then a bust,” just like the mid-1998 Dot.com era. The frenzy associated with these digital collectibles drives concerns of its use in money laundering, he notes.

Related: Australian developer offers all NFTs on Solana and Ethereum for free to show the absurdity of NFTs

Then there is the Metaverse – a virtual space supported by crypto and decentralized tech. Lifchitz thinks that while it resembles scenes from the movie Ready Player One “where people take refuge into a virtual world since their real world is terrible,” our world is still “years away from that.”

More in the way of adoption

Generally, Loukas Lagoudis of ARK36 crypto hedge fund “firmly believes that the overall bullish trend for the crypto market will continue in 2022.” This, he says, will be driven by “the sustained adoption of digital assets by institutional investors and their further integration into the legacy financial systems.” This is especially so since institutional investors have this year favored “digital assets over gold as a reserve asset.” Also contributing are the aspects of rising inflation and declining bond yields.

Jean-Marc Bonnefous, also from ExoAlpha thinks the trend shows a rise in favor of “blockchains that focus on performance, dApp development and that are somewhat more centralized.” This is contrary to previous trends where more attention was given to projects that “focused on security, store of value and that are more decentralized like BTC and even Ether.”

Basically, the market seems to go for business agility and cost-efficiency rather than blockchain purity, a big change from the past years. This winning relative value trade is likely to continue into next year.