- Nearly 70% Americans felt that Bitcoin will hit its ATH over the next five years.
- 2/3 of the respondents felt that Bitcoin’s scarcity could drive prices in the future.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, while celebrating the win in the hotly contested legal battle against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), didn’t mince his words and went on to call the watchdog as a “bully”, according to a recent Bloomberg article.
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The acrimony, though, might not be just restricted to Garlinghouse. U.S. financial regulators have been receiving a lot of flak from crypto market participants with many calling recent actions as a coordinated attempt to stem the growth of digital assets.
Crypto activities under scrutiny in the U.S.
SEC initiated legal action against the two biggest trading platforms in the sphere, Binance and Coinbase, for alleged violations of U.S. securities law. Apart from this, other entities like crypto exchange Kraken and stablecoin Binance USD [BUSD] have been on the receiving end of regulatory pushbacks in 2023.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) activities, emerging as a hot sector in the Web3 realm, have also come under the radar of SEC. Last week, the U.S. senate proposed a bill that will bring DeFi under the purview of anti-money laundering and economic sanctions compliance requirements.
The market, as expected, has responded negatively to these developments, with top asset values instantly turning red. Investors fear that the economic environment will become increasingly hostile for cryptos and blockchain-based services in the U.S., the global epicenter of the industry at the time of writing.
But despite the pessimism, the general public in America still finds faith in the long-term prospects of cryptocurrencies.
The ‘crypto dream’ is alive
According to a recent survey performed by CryptoVantage, nearly 70% Americans felt that Bitcoin [BTC] would return to its all-time high (ATH) of $69,000 over the next five years.
The survey exclusively polled citizens who have traded in cryptocurrencies before, with the intention to analyze factors which lead to crypto investments.
Source: CryptoVantage
Surprisingly, there were a handful of enthusiasts, about 23%, who believed that the king coin will hit the ATH in 2023 itself. While the optimism was noteworthy, it looked far-fetched given the momentum of the market.
However, the respondents were not just betting big on BTC. Ethereum [ETH], the second-largest coin by marketcap, was picked up as the crypto with the highest possibility of surpassing BTC in the next bull run. About 46% of the people felt so.
Is Bitcoin’s halving event on people’s mind?
The survey also delved into the public’s understanding of the factors which would ultimately dictate crypto price movements.
A substantial 2/3 of the respondents chose “supply and demand” as the primary reason influencing market fluctuations. Considering that the all-important BTC halving event is less than a year away, the expectation holds value.
BTC’s supply is hard-capped at 21 million and the coin is steadily moving towards scarcity. The quadrennial halving cuts miners’ block rewards in half and lowers the number of tokens in circulation. Historically, these occurrences have preceded bull markets.
The halving in July 2016 was followed by a 3x rise in BTC’s value over the next 12 months. Similarly, the last halving in May 2o20 saw the king coin explode by 500% in the following year.
Source: CoinMarketCap
Global macroeconomic trends including inflation and U.S. monetary policy, was highlighted as another major factor influencing crypto prices.
We have already seen how countries battling hyperinflation like Turkey have taken refuge in cryptos, more specifically stablecoins. And with a strong possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve pausing its cycle of interest rate cuts amidst cooling inflation means investments into risky assets might soon rise.
Source: CryptoVantage
However, the consequences of regulatory policies were also on people’s mind. About 36% of the people surveyed felt that regulatory and policy decisions would impact crypto market moves in a big way.
Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24
Let’s check what AI has to say
The sample size taken for the survey, about 1,000 people, could be very well debated. But at the same time, it gives perspective on Americans’ awareness about trends and their faith in virtual assets.
Just to add a tinge of AI to things, we threw a question to ChatGPT regarding the trends developing in U.S. in the face of growing regulatory scrutiny.
The bot, in its usual politically correct state, said that while some may be enchanted with Bitcoin’s safe haven narrative and continue to stick, others might adapt to comply with regulations.
Source: ChatGPT
