Crypto industry leaders including Kraken, Avalanche, Anchorage Digital, and more shared their thoughts on the future of digital assets with The Block, covering everything from spot Bitcoin ETFs to stablecoins, real-world assets, NFTs, and regulation.
Let’s see what 2024 will look like.
Bivu Das, Managing Director, Kraken UK
Kraken UK managing director Bivu Das said the cryptocurrency industry is likely to take another “big leap” towards mass adoption in 2024, especially within the UK.
Das said he thinks the overall market will remain optimistic through the first quarter of 2024, beyond near-term expectations for the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States. “This is because there are significant milestones on the horizon for two of the largest cryptocurrency assets. By market cap, including Bitcoin’s next halving and Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade,” he said.
In the UK, ahead of the Treasury’s latest policy statement of its intention to introduce cryptocurrency asset regulation next year, Das expects the UK to be “notably closer” to becoming a global cryptocurrency hub by the end of 2024.
According to Das, regulatory clarity means UK-based companies will no longer be at a disadvantage compared to those providing services overseas. “We are seeing significant growth in institutional trading volume within the UK market as more products and services come to market that meet the needs and expectations of institutional investors,” he said.
“This is complemented by the government’s Digital Securities Sandbox, which will fast-track the adoption of crypto-asset technologies in traditional markets, and the Asset Management Taskforce’s recent work outlining its vision for the tokenization of investment funds,” Das added.
Ava Labs President John Wu
John Wu, president of Avalanche developer Ava Labs, sees 2024 as the year when stablecoin product market relevance is established, with stablecoin payment volume exceeding Visa’s annual transaction volume for the first time.
Wu is one of many in the industry who expects a spot Bitcoin ETF to be approved, predicting a 50% increase in Bitcoin’s market cap over the next year as a result.
Elsewhere in the cryptocurrency space, Wu expects web3 games to become the first mainstream hits, with groundbreaking games garnering a nine-figure user base and attracting established game developers to join the sector. He also expects a resurgence as NFTs gain new utility beyond collectibles. “Real-world applications, such as customer engagement strategies, will demonstrate more obvious use cases, such as loyalty programs,” he said.
Finally, Wu expects AI to make web3 more secure and vice versa. “Large language models are ideal for examining smart contracts and other sensitive code to ensure attacks are stopped before they start. DeFi hacks and smart contract abuse will become rare,” he added.
Gnosis co-founder Dr. Friederike Ernst
According to Gnosis co-founder Dr. Friederike Ernst, “2024 will be the year in which the web3 ecosystem will either face the challenge of providing a more user-friendly experience or remain a niche market for another year.”
“If Ethereum and other trust-neutral blockchains are to become a global payments layer, they need to make the applications running on them available to a much wider audience,” he said. “Now is the time to translate the very wealth of research and proof-of-concept work we have accomplished over the past few years into real UX improvements in live products.”
Advances in account abstraction technology mean seed phrases could become historic practice for most people by 2024, Ernst added. “The idea that the security of your assets means having 12 words that can never be lost and no one else can access is outdated and has, to a large extent, hindered progress in real user adoption,” he said.
Concordium co-founder Lars Seier Christensen
Concordium co-founder Lars Seier Christensen was less optimistic about the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF and a Bitcoin halving event leading to a new bull market in 2024.
“It’s all a little too ‘textbook’ for my taste: halving, ETF approval, and the new bull market. Typically, in traditional financial markets, these types of scenarios are not necessarily predictable because experienced participants can predict potential developments that are not obvious,” he said. “But perhaps because the cryptocurrency market is immature, things will go as everyone expects. But I would be very careful. “I think we’re going to have some surprising deviations from the generally predicted paths.”
Christensen was more positive about the adoption of blockchain-based stablecoins and real-world assets over the next year. “I think stablecoins are currently the most important use case for blockchain and will eventually be replaced or expanded by more general RWA tokenization,” he said. “At this stage, stablecoins have a lot of implications for transfers, payments and finality. For this reason, 2024 will see greater acceptance of both private solutions and new public sector experiments.”
Christensen also argued that trusted identity solutions on blockchain are becoming essential, especially with the rise of deepfakes and identity theft.
VeChain CEO Sunny Lu
VeChain CEO Sunny Lu also did not think the Bitcoin halving would have much of an impact, but spot Bitcoin ETF approval and market regulation are much more important over the next year.
“The attention of the entire cryptocurrency market is focused on the progress of the Bitcoin spot ETF, which I believe could be the biggest milestone in the history of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,” Lu said. “ETFs will open the door for the world’s largest institutional investors to enter the cryptocurrency market.”
According to Lu, major regulatory advancements stemming from cases such as Europe’s Markets in Cryptocurrency Assets Regulation (MiCA) will pave the way for mass adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the real world.
Diogo Mónica, co-founder of Anchorage Digital
Diogo Mónica, co-founder of Anchorage Digital, said cryptocurrencies are at the beginning of an institutional-led bull market heading into 2024, with institutions becoming the driving force of the cycle for the first time.
Mónica expects a wider range of institutional players to enter the cryptocurrency ecosystem in the future, including asset managers, hedge funds and RIAs.
“Increasing institutional participation means that reforming market structures is of utmost importance,” Mónica said. “Applying traditional market structure standards, such as separation of custody and exchange functions, to cryptocurrencies was once ideal,” she said. Now this is a prerequisite for the future of the ecosystem.”
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