by NURUL SUHAIDI / Pic by BLOOMBERG

CRYPTO panellists and industry experts predict bitcoin to bottom out at US$13,676 on average in 2022 before ending the year at US$25,473 (RM113,024), according to the latest survey by Finder Report.

Morpher CEO Martin Froehler thought that bitcoin would sink to US$12,000 before recovering to US$40,000 by the end of the year.

He believed that it is reasonable to expect more big projects to fail in the next couple of months.

“The retail sentiment is at historic lows due to global economic uncertainty and inflation.

“Highly leveraged miners, who just had to digest the China exodus, will capitulate and increase the downside pressure even more. We will see even lower bitcoin prices,” he said in a statement today.

Bitcoin’s downturn is reflective of the broader market, with 77% of panellists describing the situation officially as a “crypto winter”, with the global interest rate hikes as the biggest driver.

Meanwhile, 68% of the panellists said it is caused by Terra Luna’s collapse, tightening of balance sheets by central banks (47%) and rising inflation (40%).

On when it will last, 29% think the market will recover this year, while 46% say it will last until 2023 and 24% say it will last until 2024 or even later.

University of Brighton senior lecturer Paul Levy opined that the crypto winter will last until the second half of 2023 with bitcoin ending this year at US$15,000.

“Bitcoin will likely bounce back in 2023 which may actually lead to inflated expectations and further instability.

“Much, of course, depends on world events such as the war in Ukraine and its own ongoing impact on global confidence,” he said.

Nonetheless, despite the depreciation of bitcoin value, local cryptocurrency platforms such as Luno continue to expand and see a pickup in users although not as significant as last year’s peak and with slightly lower daily trade now.

Overall, Luno Malaysia country manager Aaron Tang implied that the market crashing is an alarming situation for investors for months to come and any course of action by the US Federal Reserve will make a new shift.

“Some investors do take advantage of the current market and buy crypto when the price has crashed while some choose to sell their crypto simultaneously,” he said.

As such, Tang reminded investors to view this uncertainty as part of the investment risk similar to the other assets and traditional investment although it can be worse, as he noted crypto can hold most asset risk at this spectrum.

The survey noted that the panel’s average price predictions for Bitcoin have dropped dramatically this year.

In April, they expected Bitcoin to be worth US$65,185 by year-end, hence the average prediction has dropped by 61%.

Even so, based on the survey, 42% still hold onto crypto in terms of its store value.

Digital Capital Management MD Ben Ritchie, in agreeing that Bitcoin is a store of value, said it is possible the worth to be US$200,000 by 2025 and US$400,000 by 2030.

“Bitcoin can be used as an inflation hedge but on a much longer time scale than gold or other asset classes,” he said.

Meanwhile, ByteTree chief investment officer Charles Morris opined that bitcoin is a risky asset but thought it will be worth US$250,000 by 2030.

“Bitcoin is almost a pure risk asset, almost opposite to gold which is long-term risk-free,” he added.

A handful of panellists including University of Sussex professor of finance Carol Alexander thought bitcoin’s value will eventually shrink.

“Unlike many other established crypto assets, bitcoin is purely speculative. It has no utility value for the development of Web 3.0,” she said.