Civic CEO Vinnie Lingham, speaking at Chain Reaction in Johannesburg, noted that his faith in the long-term prospects of the cryptocurrency has not been shaken, but the market is waiting for a new Bitcoin bubble.
The event, organized by the Lockchain Entrepreneurs Club of South Africa (BECSA), became a platform for discussing blockchain technology and the state of the cryptocurrency industry as a whole.
According to Lingham, despite the ten-year age of blockchain technology, it is still at the beginning of its development. First of all, we need to solve the problem of blockchain scalability in order to compete at the proper level with traditional payment systems like Visa. This is what will make it possible to widely use cryptocurrencies as a means of payment and move away from the speculative market, which today dominates the purpose of cryptocurrencies.
In addition, in his opinion, excessive commercialization of startups harms the crypto industry. Blockchain startup teams should be passionate about their projects, not about the amount of expected profit.
Lingham believes that when it comes to the price of Bitcoin and other crypto assets, it is the increased interest from investors that is leading to a jump in the price and an increase in the number of ICOs being placed, as was the case last year. According to Lingham, such demand creates a huge amount of supply, but with a delay. If in 2017 there was a shortage of offers in the ICO market, then the current year has provided more opportunities for ICOs, but less consumer interest and demand for such offers.
Overall, Lingham supports the long-term outlook for the cryptocurrency market and predicts that investor greed will trigger another bubble. That's the nature of humans, they don't want to learn from their mistakes, and it's likely that the price of Bitcoin will break through $20,000 again and then begin a new "bubble burst" cycle back to $100.
During his time in the crypto industry, the head of Civic has seen several bearish cycles in the cryptocurrency market, which always led to "consolidation and entry into high-quality coins, like Bitcoin."
Lingham said it would be better if Bitcoin had a slower, more steady growth, avoiding public attention until its infrastructure stabilizes.
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