The Digital Currency Group (DCG), a company founded and led by Barry Silbert, held an investor day in Palo Alto, California, where companies could demo their products to investors in the Bitcoin and blockchain space.
DCG is the firm responsible for the Bitcoin Investment Trust, which started trading on the OTCQX back in May under the ticker “GBTC.”
During the event, Silbert gave a presentation where he laid out his predictions for bitcoin in 2016:
TOP TEN PREDICTIONS FOR 2016
- Bitcoin as a currency/store of value re-emerges as theme
- When price starts to increase, flywheel effect begins…
- Wall Street begins to trade bitcoin
- Cross border payments/remittance using bitcoin becomes competitive
- Growth in Brazil, China & Middle East
- Slow progress around private blockchains for financial markets
- Industry consolidation and shake out continues
- Non-financial use cases of blockchain ledger explode
- Banks begin to service digital currency companies
- Bitcoin price on 12/31/16 = higher
Silbert expressed significant optimism related to the price of bitcoin.
“Bitcoin price will be higher,” Silbert said.
At the Inside Bitcoin’s conference in New York City in April, he made a similar claim when he offered one of two outcomes: Either the price would be $0 or it would be significantly more than it was at the time. “It won’t be $230,” he said in April.
His predictions were focused around three main points. First, as the currency/store of value theme re-emerged, the price would start to increase, which would result in the flywheel effect. As a wheel turns, it can easily gain more momentum, resulting in further turning. The fear of missing out propagates an ever-increasing price, which partially contributed to the previous bubble.