Disclaimer: The reference to the market size in this article might irk some, it is important to note that the report does not refer to Market Cap, but more to the market’s active value.
A new report released by MarketsandMarkets has come to the conclusion that the cryptocurrency market will grow to $1.4 billion by 2024 . It makes clear that the most significant market growth will come from the cryptocurrency hardware market, such as mining hardware, remittances, e-commerce, and more. While the market does possess a much large value currently, one assumes that MarketsandMarkets is referring to genuine, tangible value in transactions, as opposed to any speculative value that the market possesses.
Titled “Cryptocurrency Market by Offering (Hardware: GPU, FPGA, ASIC, & Wallet, and Software), Process (Mining and Transaction), Type, Application (Trading, Remittance, Payment: Peer-to-Peer Payment, Ecommerce, and Retail), and Geography – Global Forecast to 2024,” the report sees the greatest beneficiaries of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) being small and medium enterprises, startups, and entrepreneurs — all of which have already experienced great positive effect from the crypto market.
As for the market drivers, MarketsandMarkets believes that the transparency of distributed ledger technology, high remittances in developing countries, high cost of cross-border remittance, fluctuations in monetary regulations, and growth in venture capital investments have the greatest influence.
That should not come as a surprise, as cross-border payments and hedging against traditional financial assets are some of cryptocurrency’s greatest benefits.
The report does state some challenges, however, such as the lack of regulatory certainty and the technical abstruse nature of cryptocurrencies to the layman. These are issues that are currently being tackled, and with the U.S. SEC and several other global bodies slowly adopting a more innovation-friendly approach, regulation does look like something that will be ameliorated with time.
Making crypto accessible to all, not the tech-savvy, is another large problem — but several projects are working hard to create solutions for this issue.
The report also mentions the scaling problem, and privacy and security. Here too are several projects attempting to provide solutions.
Cryptocurrency to Benefit Developing Economies Most
MarketsandMarkets conducted this study primarily with the intention of forecasting growth for the market by application — such as remittance and online payment — and by region. They project a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.18%.
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology have long been touted as most beneficial to the unbanked populations of the world, to those deprived of financial services because they lack documentation. MarketsandMarkets believe that the greatest opportunity for blockchain technology will be in these regions, which is the likely outcome.
Projects like OmiseGO already have an eye on making cross-border payments cheaper for the vast unbanked population in the Southeast Asian region, while also freeing up funds stored in various e-wallets. The entire platform has the potential to increase liquidity, boost merchant store and e-commerce businesses, and provide access to global markets.
The report may not give seasoned crypto investors anything new to talk about, but it does tell us that there is a tremendous visible change in markets all across the world. As regulatory bodies approve various trading schemes and engage with crypto startups, we are finally seeing the enterprise market open up to a technology that was once reviled and ridiculed.
More and more, it’s looking like 2019 will be a watershed year for blockchain and cryptocurrency.
