VanEck, managing approximately 80 billion dollars in assets, shared its 15 striking predictions for cryptocurrencies for the year 2024. The company anticipates that Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins will be positively impacted in terms of price, network activity, and adoption rates, foreseeing that new records will be set with the approval of the first spot Bitcoin ETF in the US.
VanEck predicts that the Bitcoin block reward halving in April 2024 will cause a minimal market shake-up and foresees that the price of BTC will reach an all-time high in the fourth quarter of the year. Additionally, it suggests that political events following the US presidential elections and regulatory changes could also contribute to Bitcoin’s price reaching record highs.
The firm anticipates that the adoption of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and new user-friendly staking tools for Bitcoin Staking will increase the use of the Bitcoin blockchain for money transfers. It also mentions that Ethereum is expected to outperform Bitcoin in 2024, with the EIP-4844 update allowing the Ethereum network to largely capture the Total Value Locked (TVL) and transaction volume on Layer 2 EVM Ethereum.
VanEck forecasts that the value of the stablecoin market will surpass 200 billion dollars in 2024, reaching an all-time high. At the same time, it believes that USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest stablecoin in the market, will regain and significantly increase its lost market share.
For crypto exchanges, VanEck predicts that Binance will lose its leadership position to competitors like OKX, Bybit, Coinbase, and Bitget. Moreover, the firm expects that decentralized crypto exchanges will reach record levels of market share in spot trading due to the increase in acceptance of on-chain trading and self-custody, facilitated by fast blockchains and wallets that enable automated transactions.
In its 2024 cryptocurrency predictions, VanEck particularly focuses on four altcoins: Immutable X (IMX), Helium (HNT), Solana (SOL), Pyth Network (PYTH), Chainlink (LINK), and Uniswap (UNI). It predicts that these altcoins will lead to a significant increase in market value and widespread adoption, as well as potentially reaching record levels in total value due to the growth in TVL of DeFi and increasing ETF interest.