Geopolitical issues, including the heightening Ukraine-Russia tensions, will drive Bitcoin’s increasing mass adoption and higher values this year – despite a 5% drop in the last 24 hours.
The prediction from Nigel Green of deVere Group, the CEO of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory, asset management and fintech organisations, comes as more than 100,000 Russian troops mass on the border with Ukraine and global leaders try diplomatic efforts to avoid war between the two countries.
He comments: “Serious geopolitical risks in recent weeks are demonstrating real life use cases for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in extremely volatile times.
“Research shows that Bitcoin donations are flooding into Ukrainian non-governmental organisations and volunteer groups. The crowdfunding activities are, say experts, being used to equip the Ukrainian army with military and medical supplies.
“Meanwhile, Ukraine’s adversary, Russia, is planning to regulate cryptocurrencies, with crypto legislation, including tax standards, expected as soon as next week.
“Both these rivals know that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies can circumnavigate traditional financial institutions that might block transactions as in crypto there’s no central authority that can block payments.”
He continues: “Elsewhere, we’ve recently seen the advantage of raising funds in cryptocurrencies is that it’s a lot harder to confiscate them.
“In what many have argued is down to political over-reach, a decision was made by GoFundMe this week to remove the donation campaign for the Canada ‘Freedom Convoy’ trucker protest from its site and return the millions of dollars back to the donors.
“But, in response, crypto enthusiasts set up a crowdfunding campaign on the platform Tallycoin as an alternative way to raise money for the protestors.”
Yet despite these high-profile examples of use cases, Bitcoin has dropped in value by 5% in the last 24 hours. Why?
“This was triggered by a wider risk-off sentiment that also impacted many areas of global stock markets.
“Stock markets, like the crypto market, never move in a straight line, there are always peaks and troughs. Yet history teaches us that the long-term trajectories are predictable for both: they go up.”
On Wall Street on Friday, The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.4%, the broad-based S&P 500 fell 1.9%, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 2.8%.
Nigel Green concludes: “Bitcoin is widely regarded as a valuable store of value and medium of exchange.
“But geopolitical issues this week have tested its other core values of being a viable decentralised, tamper-proof, unconfiscatable monetary system.
“These real life use cases will further increase Bitcoin’s mass adoption and lead to higher prices this year.”
