Cryptocurrencies could be due for big gains in 2020, and these altcoins will likely lead the rally
The third big bitcoin (CCC:BTC) ‘halvening” is upon us, and according to our very own Matt McCall — whose Ultimate Crypto portfolio has averaged a jaw-dropping 16% gain in 2020, against a market that’s down 13% year-to-date — that’s a huge reason to be bullish on cryptocurrencies in 2020.
But, before we jump into understanding what that halvening is (also referred to as a “halving”) and which cryptocurrencies to buy for 2020, let’s first understand why cryptocurrencies as a broad asset class have a bright future.
The core purpose of cryptocurrencies is relatively simple: leverage technology to eliminate the middle-man in financial transactions and make buying and selling things less costly and more efficient. Through the blockchain — a decentralized public ledger of transactions that anyone can view, is consistent across the whole network, and is unable to be edited and/or updated unless the whole network agrees with the update — cryptocurrencies are able to conduct and verify financial transactions without needing any central oversight.
That may sound like a mouthful. It’s not. Traditional currencies need big banks to oversee and verify all transactions. Cryptocurrencies do not. This means they’re less costly and more efficient than traditional currencies, because there’s no middle-man to pay and no paperwork to fill out.
Sure, there are risks to cryptocurrencies achieving mainstream adoption and overtaking government-backed currencies. But, lower transaction costs and quicker transactions are large enough value props to warrant there being a bright future for cryptocurrencies (even if they don’t take over the world).
Why the Halvening Is Bullish
Now, let’s take a deeper look at why cryptocurrencies will rise in 2020.
Two key characteristics of bitcoin are limited supply and constrained supply growth.
There are a fixed number of bitcoins in the world (21 million). The bitcoin world started with most of those bitcoins being “locked in the system.” Each time an individual updated bitcoin’s ledger (also called “mining”), the individual would unlock new bitcoins. But to constrain supply growth and retain incentives for mining, the bitcoin system is set up so that every so often, the amount of new bitcoins unlocked for mining a block is halved.
So far, bitcoin has undergone three halvings. After the first halvening in 2012, bitcoin prices rose about 8,000% over the following 12 months. After the second halvening in 2016, bitcoin prices rose about 2,000% over the following 18 months. In both instances, many alternative cryptocurrencies actually rose far more than bitcoin.
In other words, bitcoin halvings have traditionally been exceptionally bullish catalysts for cryptocurrencies. And that makes complete sense. Prices are determined by supply and demand. If supply growth slows, and demand growth doesn’t, then prices should go up.
The third bitcoin halvening happened in May 2020.
The number of bitcoins unlocked for mining one block fell from 12.5 bitcoins, to 6.25 bitcoins. Because of this halving, bitcoin’s supply is expected to rise by just 2.5% in 2020 — an all-time low for the cryptocurrency. It’s expected to rise by less than 2% in 2021.
Concurrently, demand growth should accelerate in 2020, driven by the introduction of more financial derivative products, broader support from central banks and increasing recognition of bitcoin as a digital store of value.
Bigger demand growth plus lower supply growth equals higher cryptocurrency prices. That’s largely why Matt McCall, who has already picked two 70%-plus altcoin winners this year, thinks that the best of the big 2020 cryptocurrency rally is still ahead of us.
With all that in mind, I suggest readers keep a close eye on these seven explosive cryptocurrencies in the coming year:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Zcash (ZEC)
- Ripple (XEC)
- Basic Attention Token (BAT)
- Chainlink (LINK)
- Synthetix Network Token (SNX)
- DxChain Token (DX)
