2018 Will Be A Deciding Year For Bitcoin for Investment

2017 has been a fantastic year for cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors and there is no doubt to it that Bitcoin has remained at the forefront of the crypto mania. Bitcoin remained in news throughout 2017 as the cryptocurrency was subjected to a lot of criticism as well as love and support from its investors.

With time, more and more investors contributed to the Bitcoin journey which forced even institutional investors and big giants from the Wall Street to think seriously. The announcement of Bitcoin futures contracts by the CME Group in the last week of Oct. 2017 provided a launch-pad for Bitcoin as the price skyrocketed by more than 250% in just the last two months.

However, in the past two weeks, there has been a major correction in Bitcoin price which has plunged by more than 30% from its all-time high of $20000, as we can see that extreme volatility has yet again gripped the cryptocurrency market. There have also been increasing signs of caution and alert provided by several professional and financial analysts, as many believe that the crypto market is overvalued and the bubble can burst anytime.

The year of 2018 will be crucial and deciding year to chart the journey of Bitcoin further. With several institutional players scheduled to release their Bitcoin-related investment products, some analysts believe that this will bring a lot of legitimacy and stability to the very volatile nature of Bitcoin.

While recently talking to CNBC, investing legend Roger McNamee said: “With the amount of activity going on around it, there are people willing to invest the kind of dollars it takes to make a thing like bitcoin into a long-term part of the financial market. You’ll have these big swings, up and presumably down, as well. And, you know, wherever that settles out I think will tell us a lot about the role of bitcoin long-term.”

Having shown a lot of confidence in Bitcoin, investors are now looking forward to solving the scalability issues of Bitcoin which has remained a major concern as the investor participation continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. Everyone is eyeing upon the successful implementation of Lightning Network – the second layer solution on Bitcoin network. Lightning Network is expected to be completed by this year end which is said to enable instant and almost free transactions.

Another interesting development proposed for the Bitcoin network is ‘Schnorr Signatures’. This project aims are restructuring signatures in Bitcoin transactions to further reduce the transaction size and fees.

For Bitcoin to continue to remain at the top position, developers need to stay on their toes as other altcoins like Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and others have started to hog the limelight by showing tremendous strength in the past one month. As 2018 unfolds further, things will get more clear with time.