Crypto Research Report Predicts $397K Bitcoin Price by 2030; Lithuania to Launch CBDC This Month; IOTA to Become ‘Fully Decentralized Network’ by 2021

This week (29 June - 4 July) in the Blockchain & Crypto world was another interesting one - a new report from a crypto research group suggests that the price of Bitcoin could approach $400,000 in the next 10 years, with altcoins following its bullish example; IOTA, a major blockchain project designed for the Internet of Things, or IOT, has entered the first phase in its roadmap for upgrading the network to IOTA 2.0; The Bank of Lithuania, or BoL, will launch a pre-sale of its CBDC, dubbed LBCOIN, on July 9. The coin itself will be issued and sold on July 23, and more!

About this and more, in the newest issue of Weekly Blockchain & Crypto Digest. Enjoy!

Crypto Research Report Predicts $397K Bitcoin Price by 2030

A new report from a crypto research group suggests that the price of Bitcoin could approach $400,000 in the next 10 years, with altcoins following its bullish example.

In the June 2020 edition of the Crypto Research Report, researchers predicted the price of Bitcoin and other altcoins — Ether, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Stellar — would get a huge surge before 2025, which may continue for at least five years.  

“We believe that Bitcoin is still at the very start of its adoption curve,” the report states. “The price of $7,200 at the end of 2019 suggests that Bitcoin has penetrated less than 0.44% of its total addressable markets [worth $212 trillion]. If this penetration manages to reach 10%, its non-discounted utility price should reach nearly $400,000.”

That would mean a price increase of more than 4,000% for BTC by 2030, but ETH, LTC and BCH are also looking bullish in this scenario, with surges of roughly 1,600%, 5,000% and 5,400%, respectively. However, XLM would see the largest increase: more than 11,000% from $0.07 to $7.81.

??The ?Liechtenstein-based research group analyzed cryptocurrencies based on their target addressable market, or TAM, a metric used “to estimate a cryptoasset’s implied future price.” According to the report, TAMs for cryptocurrencies include remittance, tax evasion, offshore accounts, store of value, online transactions, micropayments, crypto trading, gaming, online gambling, consumer loans, reserve currency and others.

The report also observed on- and off-chain velocity metrics for altcoins and concluded that the “growth in the number of speculative transactions on exchanges is faster than growth of utility transactions to buy goods and services.”

“On-chain velocity” is a metric measured by transactions on a blockchain, while “off-chain velocity” is determined by trading activity on crypto exchanges. When analyzing Bitcoin, the researchers noted the price of the cryptocurrency and its activity on exchanges both increased at roughly the same time:

“If cryptocurrencies gain adoption for long-term hoarding purposes or for short-term spending on speculation or coffees, the price of crypto assets will go up,” the Crypto Research Report stated. “High velocity on-chain and low velocity off-chain suggests that crypto assets are becoming increasingly used for speculation and not for store of value.”

IOTA Enters First Phase to Become ‘Fully Decentralized Network’ by 2021

IOTA, a major blockchain project designed for the Internet of Things, or IOT, has entered the first phase in its roadmap for upgrading the network to IOTA 2.0.

According to a June 30 blog post, users can now download the new Pollen release in the first fully decentralized IOTA test network.

The release is the first phase in Iota’s IOTA 2.0 transition roadmap, released on June 29. In the roadmap, Iota Foundation laid out three phases to reach the so-called “Coordicide”, an event that will envision the permanent removal of Iota’s Coordinator. Coordinator has been a basic part of IOTA’s network, representing an application run by the IOTA Foundation to digitally confirm valid transactions.

By releasing Pollen, the Iota project marks its first milestone leading up to Coordicide. Dominik Schiener, co-founder of Iota Foundation, outlined that the release is aimed to culminate in a coordinator-less, production-ready network.

Schiener continued:

After years of intensive research, rigorous testing, and tireless efforts by our engineers, we are proud to finally be able to invite everyone to participate in this momentous milestone for the IOTA project. Pollen marks the beginning of the world's first truly decentralized, scalable, and fee-less Distributed Ledger, which has been IOTA's promise since day one.

Lithuania to Launch CBDC This Month — Intended for Collection Purposes, Not Trade

The Bank of Lithuania, or BoL, will launch a pre-sale of its CBDC, dubbed LBCOIN, on July 9. The coin itself will be issued and sold on July 23.

While LBCOIN is technically a CBDC based on the NEM blockchain and issued by the central bank of Lithuania, the financial institution prefers to call it “the world’s first blockchain-based digital collector coin”.

Indeed, LBCOINs will be issued for collectible purposes. This is happening as part of the country’s larger research on blockchain and its capabilities, Pavel Lipnevi?, LBCOIN project manager, commented.

The BoL intends to sell 24,000 LBCOINs. They will come in packs of six at a cost of 99 euros. Each token will feature a portrait of one of the 20 Lithuanian historical figures who signed the country’s declaration of independence in 1918. These individuals are divided into six categories: priests, presidents, diplomats, industrialists, academics, and municipal servants.

Having acquired a token from each of the six categories, collectors will be able to exchange them for a physical silver coin. Unlike the tokens, such silver coins will be considered legal tender and amount to €19.18, although their use as a means of payment “will not be encouraged”.

That experience will help the BoL to continue researching blockchain, Lipnevi? explained:

“LBCOIN helps to gain practical hands-on experience in issuing a (kind of) retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in a real environment – in this case the niche area of numismatics – which will work as a “playground” with controlled risk for the central bank and retail users.”

According to Lipnevi?, the “valuable legal, technological, and cybersecurity issues, among others, have already been encountered and resolved, showing a steep learning curve.”

In a recent interview for Reuters, Marius Jurgilas, board member of the BoL, called LBCOIN “probably the most advanced experimental playground to test different reincarnations of the CBDCs” at a time when financial institutes across the globe are turning to digital currencies.  

Bank of Japan Will Begin Experimenting With a Digital Yen

The Bank of Japan has announced it will begin experimenting with a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, to check its feasibility from a technical perspective.

The BoJ wants to digitize cash, but it remains to be seen if Japan can catch up with China, which has already begun testing its own CBDC. This is the first time the BoJ has revealed it would commence a proof-of-concept process with the digital yen, but the bank is yet to reveal a timetable.

In a report called Technical Hurdles for CBDC, the bank stated it would “check the feasibility of CBDC from technical perspectives, collaborate with other central banks and relevant institutions, and consider introducing a CBDC.”

In February, news emerged that the central banks of Britain, the eurozone, Japan, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland announced a plan to collaborate on researching issuing digital currencies.

In its report, the BoJ considers two major technical hurdles: universal access and resilience. The former refers to providing accessibility to everyone, including those without a smartphone. Surprisingly, according to Nikkei, as of 2018, only 65% of Japanese people have smartphones. The BoJ said, “It is important to develop the CBDC to be available to a variety of users.” 

“Resilience” refers to offline availability when electric power is down. The BoJ emphasized the importance of accessibility in any kind of environment, even in an emergency situation such as an earthquake. 

Coinbase and Circle-Backed Stablecoin USD Coin Breaks $1B Market Cap

USD Coin (USDC), a stablecoin project founded by Coinbase and Circle, has hit a major milestone in market capitalization.

On July 3, 2020, USDC market cap broke the $1 billion threshold for the first time since the stablecoin was launched in October 2018. According to data from Coin360, the coin has seen sharp growth since March 2020.

USDC, the second-largest USD-pegged stablecoin after Tether (USDT), is ranked the 17th largest cryptocurrency by market cap as of press time.

Announcing the news on Thursday, the Centre Consortium — an organization co-founded by Circle and Coinbase — highlighted a number of factors that contributed to USDC’s notable growth. According to Centre, the demand for USDC in 2019 was mainly driven by the progress of the decentralized finance, or DeFi ecosystem.

Centre identifies three major developments that pushed the sharp growth of USDC: the coronavirus-fueled financial crisis, the increased demand for low-cost transfers among businesses worldwide, and the impact of massive growth in the Compound protocol, a major DeFi project. Centre added that it anticipates more growth in 2020:

“We expect USDC to continue growing rapidly throughout 2020 and help fulfill Centre Consortium’s mission of establishing an open standard for money on the internet.”

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