The CEO of U.K.-based NEX Group Plc has said that he sees bitcoin reaching $20,000, but that at some point it is going to go a ‘long way back down.’
Michael Spencer, the CEO of the electronic and post-trading business, said of the digital currency in an interview with Bloomberg that ‘you’ve got no idea if it’s going to double before it halves.’
He said:
But between now and then, who knows, it could hit $20,000 pretty damn quickly.
His price estimation comes at a time when bitcoin recently hit $11,000 for the first time, pushing it further into the mainstream. With increasing interest from Wall Street and heightened trading from Asian investors, the cryptocurrency has been enjoying an upward surge in value of late.
As a result, Mike Novogratz, billionaire trader and hedge fund manager, is of the opinion that it could ‘easily‘ reach $40,000 by 2018; however, he claims that it won’t be a smooth ride. The former Fortress manager also made an earlier price prediction that the cryptocurrency would hit $10,000 by the end of 2017. Additionally, he is of the opinion that the combined crypto market will reach $2 trillion next year, a revision from his earlier $1 trillion target.
Spencer is reported as saying in July that he may introduce NEX trading platforms for digital currencies. Interestingly, he said that he prefers ripple and ethereum to bitcoin, and that its vulnerability to hacking ‘makes it complex.’
Yet, he adds that while bitcoin has broad momentum, ‘there are flashing signals that this is perhaps not the time to be piling in as everyone else is,’ he said.
Instead, he’s more interested in the potential that the blockchain can present and its use cases in various services.
At the time of publishing, the total market cap of all the digital currencies is valued at $279 billion, a drop from a recent record high of $338.5 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. Bitcoin has suffered a 16 percent drop in value over the past 24 hours and is currently trading at $9,423, pushing its market cap down to $157.4 billion. A massive selloff and volatile trading has seen market prices declining, which also coincided with a service outage yesterday at Coinbase, one of the largest digital currency exchanges.