The year 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic still hitting hard the world’s economy. Is 2020 going to end as a good year for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency?
To find out, let’s scan the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency with still thee months to go in 2020:
Trouble in China
OKEx, ranked 11th among cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume has suspended cryptocurrency withdrawals on the platform after its Chinese founder was taken away by police.
OKEx founder Xu Mingxing was taken at least a week ago and hasn’t appeared in a work-related social media group recently, according to a person close to the company. It’s not clear what the investigation is about. There have been signs of a renewed crackdown on money-laundering activities on over-the-counter (OTC) trading platforms of cryptocurrencies. — asia.nikkei.com
This is a bit alarming, since the human rights situation in China is not so great so who knows if we still still hear from Xu. Let’s hope authorities report on his whereabouts soon.
Bitcoin Adoption Increases in Turkey
For some good news in 2020, Bitcoin adoption has been increasing in Turkey as the local currency, the Turkish lira, hit another record low — touching 7.95 to the dollar.
People in Turkey are turning to bitcoin as the local currency.
Bitcoin.com
Turkey leads in cryptocurrency adoption in the Middle East. A report by Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis’ Geography of Cryptocurrency, published in September, states:
Turkey is the highest-ranking country in the region on our Global Crypto Adoption Index at 29th overall, and also accounts for the most total transaction volume in the region.
Apple Becomes Cryptocurrency-friendly
While Apple has dismissed news that it was preparing to launch its own cryptocurrency or blockchain platform, it definitely is becoming more Bitcoin-friendly
Apple’s payment and wallet service — Apple Pay — has enabled people to directly purchase cryptocurrencies using their credit and debit card on cryptocurrency trading apps for popular exchange platforms like Binance, KuCoin, Coinbase Pro.
Other Big Tech firms are bridging the gap between the world of traditional finance and the cryptocurrency with their respective payment services: Amazon Pay Facebook Pay, and Google Pay.
COVID-19 Pandemic Gives Boost to Bitcoin in 2020
Due to restrictive economies amid social distancing and travel restrictions, central banks have increased liquidity to “save the world from falling into a deflationary depression has led to a strong recovery in all asset classes,” reports SeekingAlpha.
Even though bitcoin has shown strong co-movement with risky assets such as equities in the past two years, we expect it to decouple in the coming months.
We do expect fundamentals to deteriorate in the coming months (Winter Depression) and the rise in uncertainty amid US elections. Brexit and new national lockdowns could eventually start to weigh on stocks, which will push central banks to act again in order to prevent the whole financial market from collapsing. With the restrictions expected to last up until the summer of 2022 (which we think is a more realistic assumption than the summer of 2021), the loss in the real economy will be absorbed by central banks’ money printing, which will result in more liquidity in the system and therefore higher bitcoin prices.
So hold on to your Bitcoin and weather this storm until 2021 and 2022.
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