Crypto Transactional Volume Predicted to Rise Above US$1 Trillion by the End of 2017

The prediction came from The Future of Blockchain: Key Vertical Opportunities & Deployment Strategies 2017-2022, a report from Juniper Research.

In the first half of 2017, the crypto market volume exceeded US$325 billion. If the report’s prediction is correct, the market volume will have multiplied itself 15 times over the previous year.

Three cryptocurrencies are responsible for much of the growth that the cryptocurrency world has seen in the last year–Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. 

Bitcoin has multiplied from roughly US$1000 at the beginning of the year to its current valuation of about US$4300. Litecoin has seen a huge surge in price from US$4.50 at the beginning of the year to around US$70 at the time of writing. Juniper’s report that Litecoin will exceed US$100 billion in volume by the end of this year.

Then of course, there’s Ethereum, whose astronomical surge is largely responsible for the unprecedented amount of attention that the cryptocurrency world has received this year. Starting the year at just US$8, Ethereum has hovered around US$300 for the past few weeks, close to its all-time high.

Altcoins Also Contribute to Market Growth

Along with incredible surges in the more well-known cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, the creation of altcoins is happening at a completely unprecedented rate. While there are so many coins that are essentially “born-to-die”, pump-and-dump schemes that are designed to make insiders rich and fill investors with false hope, there are others that have been highly successful, and with good reason.

Bitcoin Cash and Ripple are two “altcoins” that have been making waves in the crypto world. Bitcoin Cash, which was created as the result of a dispute over a software upgrade in the Bitcoin community, currently has a market cap of roughly US$9.5 billion. Its tokens, currently valued at around US$570, have bounced between US$200 and US$800.

Ripple’s market cap is currently valued at about US$8 billion. Its token value has risen from US$0.006 at the beginning of this year to US$0.21–small figures, but a startling 35-times increase.

Uncertain Future for Bitcoin?

However, the report’s author, Dr. Windsor Holden, is not completely optimistic. Holden is wary of the disagreements in the Bitcoin community between core developers and miners, writing that “there is no resolution in sight to the continuing and fundamental disagreement” between the two groups.

Holden remarks that this rift “could lead to uncertainty about Bitcoin’s future and downward pressure on its valuation.”However, the last time there was a large disagreement in the Bitcoin community, Bitcoin Cash was born–many Bitcoin holders rejoiced at the “free money” that they received.

The disagreement comes over what purpose Bitcoin should fulfill. Originally, it was created as a form of “digital cash”–something that existed purely as a way to anonymously transact online. Overtime, Bitcoin has become more of a settlement layer; that is, its blockchain is increasingly used as a platform for building other cryptocurrencies and decentralized applications.

Digital Payments Becoming More Important

In a separate report, Juniper also predicts that the digital payments market as a whole–including services offered by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and similar companies–will surpass the US$5 trillion mark by the year 2020. The report cites “evolutionary strategies” used by the companies as the reason for the growth.

One thing is clear–digital payments and transactional systems are becoming more important to the financial world at large. While traditional, centralized companies and decentralized blockchain-based transactional systems currently co-exist without much interaction, it will be interesting to see how these two fintech factions compete and collaborate in the coming years.